Robin Hood (7 page)

Robert raised his head and looked up into the face of a young English soldier. The lad was staring down at the king. Someone had noticed after all. He looked to be barely more than a child. When had these soldiers become so terribly young? He tore his gaze away from Richard's face and looked at Loxley, a question in his pale eyes.

Loxley nodded.

“The king is dead,” the lad whispered. And then more loudly, so that others could hear, “The king is dead!”

R
OBIN
AND THE
others could see the battle unfolding from the stocks. They heard the great roar from the English army when the gates fell, and they watched as men swarmed the castle. Despite being held in the blocks, Robin was glad. As bad as things stood right now, they would have been far worse had the siege failed.

He was surprised when he saw Jimoen running back toward them, and even more so when he saw how pale the lad looked. Were those tears in his eyes?

“The king is dead!” the young man said, halting in front of them, out of breath and clearly frightened.

Robin felt as if he had been kicked in the gut. Richard had become less than he was; all that happened in Acra and on the long journey back from Palestine had diminished him. But still, he was their king, the leader of every English soldier on this field.
Robin looked at Will, Allan, and Little John, and saw his shock mirrored in their faces. They were all looking at him, waiting to see what he would do.

“Then knock the peg out, Jimoen,” he said, facing the lad again. “We make our own fate now.”

Jimoen unlocked the the stocks, starting with Robin's. One by one, he freed the others. The fighting continued by the castle walls on the hill above them. There had been no pronouncement about Richard; there had been no pause in the battle.

“I'll come with you,” Little John said, retrieving his stave and pack.

Scarlet shook his head. “No, you're not. We don't take strays.”

“Hold on, Will,” Robin said, raising a hand to the welt on his forehead. “The more the merrier. The road could be dangerous. He might be useful.”

Will scowled. “A useful Scotsman? Not possible.”

“More probable than a useful Welshman,” Allan said, grinning.

“You are welcome to join us,” Robin told Little John. “You'll have to put up with these two though.”

“Thanks,” John said with a smile. “No problem. The wee orange one is quite amusing.”

“Where are we going?” Jimoen asked.

Robin shouldered his pack. “To the coast. To a boat. Before five thousand desperate soldiers descend and the price for passage across the channel multiplies a hundredfold.”

The others began to gather their things, but Will hesitated, glancing back toward the castle and the rest of the English army.

“What about our wages?” he asked. “They haven't paid us in a month.”

Robin laughed bitterly. “You think it was tough getting wages when he was alive, try getting paid by a dead king. Collect your gear as quick as you can.”

They made for the forest, and had no trouble leaving. The pickets had moved forward to join the fighting, leaving no one to guard the stocks or the edge of the camp. Soon they had stepped into the shadows of Broceliande and were heading toward the coast. Robin took the lead, and Little John walked at the rear, glancing back occasionally to make sure they weren't followed.

For the first hour or more, Robin pushed them hard, eschewing rests and setting a brisk pace. He didn't think anyone would come after them, but he wasn't taking any chances. At last though, as the sun reached its zenith over the trees, and the still air in the wood grew warm, Robin called for a stop by a small, sparkling stream.

Will, Allan, and Jimoen immediately removed their packs and began to rearrange their belongings. John walked down to the stream and splashed some water on his face. Robin took off his armor and fit it into his pack among his other things. When the others were ready, Robin shouldered his pack once more.

“Right,” he said. “Let's get moving.”

M
arion rode slowly through Sherwood Forest, steering her bay among the trees. She wore a brown bodice over her riding dress, but still the air was starting to grow cool, and she was eager to return to Peper Harrow and a warm fire. She'd had a successful hunt; the brace of pheasants hanging from her saddle would easily feed Walter and her, and Old Tom besides.

If she made it home. Suddenly she had the feeling that she was being watched, hunted. She slowed the bay and began to reach for her bow, which hung beside the pheasants.

Before she could nock an arrow, though, a figure dropped down from a tree, landing just in front of her. She started and gasped. But her fear was short-lived. The creature before her appeared at first glance to be a wild animal of some sort. It wore fur, and landed deftly on the path. But while it held a
sharpened wooden lance that it pointed at her heart, it didn't look to be very threatening. Or very big, for that matter.

Marion heard a footfall behind her. Glancing over her shoulder she saw that a second … animal-thing had stepped onto the road behind her.

“Forfeit what ye have!” the first animal demanded. “Victuals, coin, clothing, or your life!”

She would have laughed had she not been so annoyed. Rather than give the creature anything, she reached out, grabbed the lance, and yanked it out of the creature's hands. The animal, who clearly hadn't expected this, scampered back away from her. And as it did, its animal mask slipped down, revealing a young boy. After a moment, Marion realized that she recognized him.

“Thomas Cooper! Is that you?”

Chagrined, the boy swallowed and gave a reluctant nod. She remembered that the boy's father had marched to war years ago, and his mother died soon after. There had been others like him, war orphans all. They hadn't been seen in ages.

“For two years you've been gone,” she said.

He nodded again, and as he did, he broke into a hacking cough.

Looking at him more closely, Marion saw that his skin had a grayish cast to it. He had rings under his eyes and his face had a pinched look. She wondered when he'd last had a proper meal.

Eyeing the second boy, Marion realized that she recognized him, too. A moment later he fell into a coughing fit of his own. Was this where all the town's boys had gone? Were they creatures of the wood now, barely alive and scrounging for food? If so, they were
fortunate to have survived this long. From the looks of them, they wouldn't make it through another season.

R
OBERT
L
OXLEY
RODE
northward through the wood, with King Richard's riderless white charger galloping beside him. He had twelve knights with him, flanking him in twin columns, the hooves of their mounts rumbling like thunder on the forest floor. The king's horse carried a pannier that contained Richard's crown. The Lionheart would not be making the journey home to England, but his helm would. It had fallen to Loxley to inform the queen consort that her son was dead.

As they rounded a bend in the road, Loxley heard a sharp sound. Several. Axe blows. Before he could rein his mount to a halt or shout a warning to his men, two enormous tree trunks, as wide around as the battering ram that shattered the castle gates, fell onto the road in front of them.

One of his lead riders was crushed. The two men riding at the rear of the columns were knocked flying off their horses and sprawled onto the forest floor, their chests smashed in. Loxley managed to rein his mount to a halt, as did the other knights. He looked about frantically, taking in what had happened, looking for the likeliest escape route. But before he could so much as bark an order to his men, a dozen archers emerged from behind trees and began to loose their arrows.

As if from nowhere, riders bore down on them, lances leveled.

Loxley reached for his sword, even as he ducked under another volley of arrows. He barely managed to get his weapon free before a lance took him in the gut, knocking him off his horse and to the ground.
His sword landed beside him, its point sticking in the earth.

All around him his knights fell, pierced by arrows or run through with lances. Several more attackers rushed forward with pikes to finish the fallen. A few of Loxley's men raised hands weakly to ward off the killing blows. Others didn't move at all. Six more horsemen appeared on the road, galloping in from the far end, opposite the direction from which Loxley had come. Most of them wore what appeared to be French cavalry uniforms. But it was the man in front who drew Loxley's eye. He wore chain mail and over it a black tabard that bore a brightly colored insignia Loxley had never seen before. He might well have been a French nobleman.

His head was shaved, his eyes deep set, so that they appeared shadowed and dark. He was lean and lithe, and he rode with skill. When he halted and dismounted a few feet short of the first tree trunk, he did so with a swordman's grace. He regarded the scene coolly. The man who had ridden in beside him didn't appear to be a common soldier, either. He looked over the dead and dying while wearing a faint smile.

“
Trouvez-le!
” the leader called to the other men. Find him!

The attackers began to examine each of the dead, flipping over those who had fallen face down and pulling off helmets to get better looks at their faces. The leader stepped over the dead, pausing occasionally to use the flat of his sword to turn a dead face so that he might see its features more clearly.

“
Richard? Richard, où êtes-vous?
” Richard, where are you?

Loxley groaned, drawing the man's gaze. The
stranger sauntered over to where the knight lay. The lance was still in Loxley's gut, and now the leader leaned on it. Agony. Loxley felt as though his body was being ripped in half.

“
Où est Richard Coeur-de-Lion?
” the man asked in a silky voice. Where is Richard the Lionheart?

Still holding the end of the lance, the man walked a slow circle around Loxley, twisting the weapon in the knight's stomach. Loxley howled in pain, writhing against the wood.

“Tell me, sir,” the man said, his English perfect, devoid of any accent. “Where is the king?”

“Dead,” Loxley rasped. “This morning. A crossbow bolt.”

The leader looked over at the man who had ridden in with him, his surprise obvious. The leader of the attackers gave the lance one last vicious turn, ripping another scream of torment from Loxley.

“I don't believe you,” the man said.

Loxley could barely raise his hand to point. “There is Richard's crown—on his horse. We bring it to London, with the news.”

The man looked at the white charger. Releasing the lance, he stepped to one of the dead knights and looked down at him. With his sword, he moved the man's arm, which bore a black band for the fallen king.

He looked up at his companion and laughed.

“We are on a fool's errand. To assassinate a king who is already dead.” He turned to his pikemen. “Bring me the crown.”