Everything I Do: a Robin Hood romance (Rosa Fitzwalter Book 1) (18 page)

She nodded, her eyes starting to fill with tears. He wiped them tenderly.

“Don’t do that,” he said laughing softly in his happiness, “you know how I hate it when you cry.”

“Thank you, master,” she said.

“Won’t you call me Robin, like you did before?” he couldn’t resist asking.

“Master?” she appeared confused and he wondered whether he should press her further.

“Call me Robin, do,” he urged.

“You don’t want to be my master, then?” she asked, her tears flowing more earnestly now.

He bent over her, hating himself for upsetting her.

“It’s alright,” he said over and over again, until she quieted down. “I will be your master, yes, you can call me master.”

There was silence for a moment, as he was gathering the courage to speak again.

“Can you ever forgive me?” he dared to ask. “Would you at least try? I will do anything to make you forget that day. I was so scared; I wanted to believe you, I truly did. But my men, I couldn’t risk putting them in danger.”

He shook his head, shutting his eyes.

“And I should have believed you,” he went on, “you had served me -you’d served us all- so well before, with such courage, such devotion… I’ve been such a fool!”

He felt the brush of her fingertips against his cheek and opened his eyes.

“Master, I know why you couldn’t believe me; I really shouldn’t have lied to you.”

“No, no. The fault was not yours, my la- Rosa,” he corrected himself. “I made a mistake, a really grave one that nearly cost you your life. I will never forgive myself for that, and I honestly don’t know how you could either.”

“Oh, but I do forgive you,” she said quickly, her eyes searching his face anxiously. “If that is what you want, that is. I really can’t see of what use my forgiveness would be to you, but if that’s what you want, you surely have it and with all my heart.”

“I do want it,” Robin replied, blinking his suddenly moist eyes. “It is of the greatest value to me,
you
are of the greatest…”

He looked at her and her eyelids were drooping in exhaustion.

“You must rest now,” he said reluctantly. “You -you don’t feel ill, do you?”

“Stay,” she said as before and sleep overtook her.

He held her hand and all was well with the world again.

…

Rosa adjusted to life in the forest with great ease. Before long, she had sufficiently recovered to be given regular daily tasks, small ones at first, for Robin tended to be overprotective of her, even though he could see it made her feel uncomfortable in the company of so many hard-working men. They had accepted her surprisingly well however, and Robin had dismissed the friar’s words as old man’s foolishness.

He kept thinking that he would find a safer and more accommodating place for her as soon as she was fully recovered, and maybe it was this temporary nature of her stay in the forest that kept the balances amongst his men, but he simply couldn’t make up his mind to part with the girl. One day she looked too pale to him and another too happy and he couldn’t find it in his heart to talk to her about her departure.

The truth of it was, he was loath to let her go and as the days progressed her company and advice were becoming more and more indispensable to him.

He wasn’t surprised at all that she never complained and still managed to keep her person as well as the camp clean as it had never been before. The men seemed quite impressed about it as well, and she rose in their esteem every time she handed out clean shirts and mended cloaks. She cooked well, too, and if Robin had thought previously that Tuck’s skills bore no improvement, he surely had changed his mind now.

He reasoned to himself, amid all this new madness that had possessed him, that he couldn’t remove her from the forest, not now that his men were beginning to feel pampered and cared for -some of them for the first time in their lives- for they would sorely miss the luxuries her presence afforded them.

And so, consoled by this thought, he kept her on, well into autumn.

…

More than two months passed and soon, as the weather turned chilly, Rosa started to go out with Robin’s small party, at first only for hunting, but then for raiding and holding-ups too, always dressed as a boy and standing at the back for better protection, of course, for he would hear of nothing more daring.

She put up with it however with good grace, even though she would rather have taken a more active part, because her other choice would be to stay back at the camp and miss all the fun. The men were wary of her presence in the beginning, but soon they became accustomed to it, and since she neither slowed them down nor hampered their work, and they enjoyed the sight of a lovely face among them, they shrugged off her presence and learned to like it too. She had some sword fighting skills, and even though they were by far inferior to theirs, it helped them accept her more readily.

Thus it came about that one day Rosa, dressed like Stuart, was walking through the forest in the company of Little John -the only man Robin entrusted her to apart from himself. Robin didn’t enjoy being away from her, but he didn’t want to smother her either. His fears and anxieties would have to find a way to abate themselves, for he would not do anything to make the forest an unpleasant place for her.

So Rosa and Little John were walking together silently among the shadows laying traps for small animals, when Little John heard a suspicious sound coming from his left. He deemed it safer to tell her to wait for him and went to investigate by himself. Rosa waited obediently behind a bush, when she heard hurried steps.

She leaned forward so as to have a better view of the road, but she didn’t have time to see much.

In a second she heard a desperate yelp, and then silence.

Overcome with curiosity and concern, she stepped carefully out of her hiding place.

She didn’t expect to see a man a few yards ahead of her in the dirt road. He appeared young, only a few years older than Robin, and his blond curls were gleaming angelically in the sun. He was lean-built, muscular and tall, as far as she could tell, and a string of profanities was pouring from his mouth.

There was nothing exceptional in his appearance, and yet as soon as she clapped eyes on him Rosa gasped, her lips parting in a silent exclamation.

For he was hanging upside down from a tree, dangling from his left ankle, which was caught in one of Little John’s fox traps.

His clothes were worn, but made of an expensive fabric that belied his foul, peasant tongue. He kept throwing his limbs about in an effort to free himself, but only succeeded in securing the knots of the trap more firmly around his leg.

Rosa felt laughter bubbling in her chest, and clapped her hand against her mouth so as not to be heard. The trapped man’s struggles continued however, and she couldn’t contain herself any longer. She stepped further away from the bushes cautiously and stood facing the dangling man’s back.

“Hey there!” she shouted after waiting silently for a few minutes.

He tried to turn around, but he only managed to make himself rotate in wild circles that sent her doubling over in peals of laughter.

“Will you stop that?” he said, vehemence dripping from his voice.

“Will
you
stop that?” Rosa said, in her roughest accent. “You’re making me laugh and my sides hurt.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry to have upset you, you tiny little yelp,” the man said sarcastically.

“So, do you want me to help you or not?” Rosa asked, enjoying herself immensely.

“I want you to leave me in peace,” the trapped man shouted.

“Alright then,” Rosa shrugged in feigned indifference. “But I doubt you will have much peace up there, not unless you let me help you.”

“Just go away, you annoying little dwarf!”

Rosa started to walk away slowly, when she heard him speak again.

“Uh… would step over here a minute?” he asked, his voice timid and reluctant, scarcely resembling his previous rude tones.

“What now?” Rosa asked in good humor.

“Just wondering… how do you think you will free me, being smaller than my thumb yourself?”

“There’s no need to be mean,” she said and waved a short but thick dagger with a heavy hilt at him instead of another reply.

He looked on questioningly.

“I would be surprised if you could lift it as far as your face, let alone above your head,” he said mockingly.

“Do you or do you not need me to cut the rope?”

“I do
not
!”

“That’s what I thought,” Rosa said beginning to get annoyed at last.

She grabbed hold of a low branch and hoisted herself up the tree with ease, crawling across its higher, horizontal branches and coming to rest just above his foot. She lifted her knife.

“No, wait, be careful, I will fall on my-”

With a swift movement of her wrist she had cut the knot that bound him. He fell on the ground, landing on his head with a thump and a loud groan.

“Did you say something?” she asked sweetly from above.

The man just lay there, cursing.

In a moment, Rosa saw Little John’s broad shoulders appear from among the thick leaves, his step slow and sure, his gaze anxiously scouring the place for her.

“What happened here?” he asked in his booming voice.

The man on the ground stopped his cursing and lifted his head to stare at the giant who was walking menacingly towards him. He began painstakingly to pick himself up.

“You can have all my money and you’re welcome to it,” he said to Little John and Rosa noted that his accent was pure, his manner of speech more like that of a gentleman than a peasant now that he wasn’t cursing and he bore himself with dignity before the huge outlaw, in spite of his disheveled state.

“I was told that the brave outlaw Robin Hood was the king of this forest,” he went on scornfully, as he tried to brush the dirt from his clothes. “I see that is not the case.”

“Now wait a minute…” Little John appeared both astonished and amazed by the stranger’s words. “Did you say king?”

He looked upon the man with sudden awe, and Rosa decided she had better climb down before he did something stupid, like bow before the stranger.

She jumped silently on the ground and made a sign to Little John not to let on that he had seen her. He, however, appeared absolutely mesmerized by the young man. Rosa glanced quickly around. She couldn’t see or hear a horse, so she concluded that he had been on foot. Now that was strange. What could a man with such genteel speech and clothes be doing walking through the Greenwood forest? Fallen aristocracy perhaps?

“Take your fee, thief,” the man said again, appearing to be in a hurry to leave, “and let me go in peace.”

He put his hand in his pocket and took out three silver coins, his lips curving in a smirk. He threw them at Little John’s feet with a gesture full of contempt, but John didn’t make a move to take them.

“Hold it!” he said, beginning to sound a bit like his usual self.

The man sighed in exasperation.

“Well?” he asked.

“You tell me what your business is in this forest before you take another step.”

“Or what?”

“See this?” Little John waved his favorite sturdy stick in front of his face. “It will land on your ribs.”

Surprisingly, the stranger laughed.

“Spare me your threats,” he said. “My entire fortune in the whole world is at your feet. You are welcome to try to search me if you don’t believe me, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Take that little skinny lad of yours, who seems to be cowering on the top of that tree for fear, and enjoy your ill-begotten coins.”

Rosa stepped silently as a cat until she was standing right behind him. She was starting to feel a little tired, for she had not regained her strength back completely yet, but she would die before she showed it. With a quick, sudden move, she had him by the neck, her knife poised against his throat.

“You really should learn to be more grateful to the skinny lad who freed you,” she whispered against his ear.

He was completely still beneath her grip, and she knew by this that he was trained in combat, and wouldn’t act foolishly, but only with great precision, so that he could overpower them both.

“All right, all right,” the man said, raising his hands in mock surrender. “You found me out. I had this great idea of taking a walk in the forest in broad daylight. I know it was the stupidest thing to do, but there you have it. Can I go now, seeing as I have paid my toll and everything?”

Rosa fought down the overwhelming desire to slash his cheek with her knife, if only to stop his mocking words, but she held her peace. Dark spots were beginning to dance before her eyes, but she set her teeth in determination and shook her head to clear her vision.

“Not so fast, my boy,” Little John said, laughing in spite of himself as he approached the man and grabbed him by the shoulder, almost lifting him off the ground with his great strength. “First I need to know what business you have taking Robin’s name on your lips. And I would answer than sooner rather than later, if I were you.”