Everything I Do: a Robin Hood romance (Rosa Fitzwalter Book 1) (28 page)

She heard the rest of his words in a daze. There was no point arguing with him now, he wouldn’t listen to her. The rest of the day passed without her realizing it. She wanted to say goodbye to everyone, even to the large oak tree, she wanted to ask for one last lesson in archery, she wanted to do a million little last things. But she couldn’t even speak. All she felt was numb.

The day was gone before she had time to blink once, it seemed. The night came and the men settled down to sleep on damp grass.

Robin had the strange impulse to bang his head against a sharp rock, but he kept himself together by repeating again and again that this was the right thing to do.

When he woke the next day, the day of Rosa’s departure, she was nowhere to be found. Her pallet hadn’t been slept in, and nothing was taken except the bow Little John had made for her. No arrows were missing, however, which was strange.

No horse was missing either, and Robin was confident that they would find her soon, since she had apparently left on foot.

They searched for a fortnight and found nothing, except for her bow, which lay at the foot of a tree near the northern fringe of the forest. After that, they kept on looking for her body, but a month passed and they had combed the forest from one end to another. They even came close to being discovered by the Sheriff’s men once or twice, so desperate and determined was Robin in his search that he was entirely careless of his safety, and was becoming even more reckless with every day that passed.

But still they found nothing.

On the last day of the month, Robin knelt on the cold, hard ground and wept.

He vowed then and there to search every little village and town, and not to stop until he found her. There was little hope -if any- that he’d find her alive, but he would not admit defeat until he was absolutely certain of it.

And if she was indeed dead, he would avenge her.

CHAPTER
11

THE CASTLE

Rosa Fitzwalter, homeless and on the run, was alive. But barely.

She had been nearly spent when she finally made her way out of the forest. A kind woman, whose husband owned a tavern in the nearby village, happened to pass by and see her, lying there at the edge of the road, shivering with fever and trembling with exhaustion and hunger. Though she herself was a poor mother of six, the woman took pity on the dying girl and took her home, whereupon after nursing her for nearly a week, she let her work in the tavern as a serving maid, in exchange for board and food.

The patrons’ dirty, grabbing hands and foul looks, however, soon became too much for Rosa to bear, and in scarcely more than two weeks’ time, she decided she was well enough to try and put some more distance between herself and the northern border of Sherwood Forest.

“I feel for you, Maggie,” the woman told Rosa, addressing her by that name, for it was the one she had given her upon waking up, “I feel for you as for my own daughter. I can't bear to see you go.”

“Don't fret, mother," Rosa told her, “I'll manage.”

She was dressed in a simple brown dress in the manner of every country-maid, her boyish clothes clean and mended after her ordeal, concealed in a basket under her elbow. The dress the good tavern-keeper’s wife had generously given her was several sizes too big for her, still she was grateful for its warmth and its disguise, which she had completed by parting her hair neatly in the middle of her forehead and plaiting it in two long braids.

The luxury of a warm bed and clean water had moved her to tears in the first days after her rescue, and indeed it would take a long time to forget the long days and nights she had spent in hiding, feverish and hungry.

“I've been too much of a burden to you already,” she said to the woman kindly. “I will beg of you one thing, however.”

The woman opened her eyes wide and listened with interest. She was no fool, no matter how poor and uneducated she might be, and she had seen with a glance that this was no ordinary peasant girl whom some misfortune had chased from her home. She asked no questions, yet looked upon ‘Maggie’ with some amount of awe.

“If you hear of Robin Hood passing through these parts…” Rosa began, but was immediately interrupted.

“Robin Hood, the outlaw,” the woman said, her voice lowering in awe, “he was at my door not a fortnight hence.”

Rosa went white.

“And that wasn’t the only time I saw him recently, let me tell you,” the woman went on. “He’d come before that, two days after you came to live with us, I think it was. I didn’t believe him at first, for he was so gaunt-looking and pale, he didn’t look like no robber, but more of a beggar. But then he ordered a blond-haired youth to come into my home, and he spread on my table a basket filled with bread and cheese and meat, can you believe it? It was out of this bounty that I fed you, girl, for I had scarcely food enough for my own boys back then. Anyway, he asked me if I had seen a girl, or a slender lad, or anyone lost and wanderin’ around here. I said to him, nay.”

“Why… why did you say that, mother?” Rosa asked, her lips trembling.

The old woman shrugged.

“I reckoned you didn’t want anyone findin’ you, even if it was the prince of the poor,” she answered. “Did I do wrong?”

Rosa bent down and hugged her fiercely.

“You did right, and thank you,” she said, her eyes tearing up. “But now that I’m leaving, if… if
he
happens to grace your doorstep with his presence again,” Rosa went on, “you are to tell him you did a kindness to one of his men once for which you haven't been reimbursed in full. Say you never learned his true name, for he was in hiding, but that you saved his life. He'll give you your reward as I cannot.”

With these words, Rosa embraced her again, wiped her cheeks and left, the woman, speechless, watching her as she made her way on foot to the next village.

When the bow Little John had helped her build had grown too heavy for her weary hands, back in the forest, she had hid it at her root of a tree, hoping Robin would find it and know she had reached this point alive and well.

Now, however, she wasn’t in so much of a hurry. She took her time and picked a large village run through by a small, narrow river, where she felt she would be better hidden among the many who lived there. She asked for work at the large country manor, where they hired her as a scullery maid, after a somewhat nerve-wracking cross-examination. It was well into the new year when she at last settled into the life of a servant, considering herself safe at last.

Candlemas was fast approaching and they were preparing a grand feast in the manor for the entire village to attend. Rosa kept busy, working her fingers to the bone and sleeping little, her heart still bleeding inside her, for she couldn’t forget Robin Hood’s brilliant eyes no matter what she did.

Then one day she began to notice that she had attracted the attention of the eldest son of the family, a stocky man approaching twenty years of age, with oily hair and dirty fingernails. She tried to escape his leery smiles and cunning schemes to pull her in the stables as best she could, but she began to fear that her new-found stability would be short-lived after all.

It turned out, however, that the opulent feast, when it finally took place, and with great success too, was followed by the announcement of that same eldest son’s betrothal, which Rosa hoped meant a respite from his advances, and which resulted in his marriage to a sweet country girl a few days hence.

The day after the wedding, Rosa started from the kitchen with two empty buckets. She had a spring in her step as she walked to the well, merrily swinging her hands, for, although she did not relish the thought of walking all the way back with two heavy buckets full of water across her neck, this was the first day in a long time that she felt free. No hands were waiting to grope her in every corner, no crude lips to be pressed against hers in spite of her struggling, no dirty fingers to slide in the top of her dress. Master James was now in a home of his own, with a woman who was his wife to grope to his heart's contend.

Rosa reached the well and laid down her buckets. She had just began to unwind the thick cord, when she became suddenly and painfully aware that her arms were full of bruises from his pinches and his powerful grip while she had been struggling to escape his embraces minutes before his wedding. The cord swung abruptly from her fingers and she gasped in pain as she gripped the edge of the well fighting against a sudden faintness brought on by the pain.

In an instant, she felt a gentle, strong hand on her back, supporting her, and the cord was being lifted from her limp hands. She turned around, surprised, and was met with a pair of silver-blue eyes, looking into hers with kindness and concern. She took a step back. The stranger, a tall, athletic man not above five and forty years of age, with greying temples, dressed in elegant, expensive-looking attire, took his hands away, as though he was afraid he had taken too much of a liberty.

“Forgive me,” he said, in a deep, cultured voice. He had a slender face and a strong jaw, and his lips were pressed together in a thin line. “I thought you were in need of assistance.”

“Thank you,” Rosa replied regaining her composure.

She realized now why he had seemed slightly familiar at first. She had seen him before, at this exact spot, standing across from the well atop his chestnut horse, his long hair caught in a ponytail, billowing in the strong winter wind. He didn't live in the village, but was almost daily there on business. It was whispered that he was incandescently rich and something of a recluse, even though up close he appeared to be a bit less formidable than he looked from afar. She didn’t know anything else about him, neither his name nor where he lived, but she had never before felt the need to.

His icy gaze had somewhat unsettled Rosa, as she passed by him on her way to and from the well, his stare boring into her back as she filled her buckets with water. Now, however, looking into his eyes from a mere five inches away, she was struck by their beauty. They appeared haunted by some secret grief and it seemed to her they shone with anger and bitterness.

She turned back to her task, wincing as her sore muscles sent a sharp pain at the abrupt movement, but he raised a slender hand to stop her.

“Please, allow me,” he said kindly, as though he knew he was addressing a lady and was afraid he might offend her.

His white fingers seemed only to be accustomed to writing poetry and playing the lyre, but he attached the first bucket to the cord and filled it with water to the top with exceptional ease, and then the second.

Then he picked them up in one fluid movement and simply stood there, watching her, waiting to be told in which direction he was to take them. Rosa couldn't believe her eyes. She moved to take the buckets from him, but he simply started walking away, in the wrong direction, and there was nothing she could do but point him in the other way and walk behind him in silence.

He followed her on foot, his horse waiting patiently for him to come back in the middle of the cobblestone square, its tether thrown hastily on the ground when he had dismounted it.

They reached the manor and Rosa hurried ahead to stand before the door. She wasn't about to let him walk inside the courtyard carrying her buckets. His brow furrowed as he halted before her, whether from annoyance or because that was how he generally looked, Rosa had no idea. Around them, a light sprinkle of snow had begun to fall.

“Thank you, sir,” Rosa said, wondering how long he was going to stand there. “You are most kind,” she added, before thinking, as she tried to do these days, that she should talk like a scullery maid and not as the daughter of the Sheriff of Nottingham.

“Your name,” he said abruptly.

“Mary, my lord,” Rosa gave a name different than the one she was currently using, narrowing her eyes in annoyance at his rudeness.