Jennifer Roberson - [Robin Hood 02] (11 page)

Much was taller now than she, though she thought it likely he weighed less. His growth had come quickly, too quickly for grace; and that had always been Much’s gift. He was all pimples and knees and elbows and spindly bones, and would remain so until his body became reacquainted with itself; though, from the look of him, there existed the possibility that physical symmetry might not reoccur until the next century.

Marian eyed him, marking a tangible if subtle anxiety, but knew better than to ask him directly what was on his mind. Much was far more likely to answer that sort of question when she asked an entirely different kind on a completely separate topic. But then, so were most of the men she knew.

As she worked on a notably woody cane, Marian took care to keep accusation or irony from her tone. “Did you put the stolen horse in the sheriff’s stable?”

Much nodded.

But tactics failed as her normal nature reasserted itself. “Foolishness,” she murmured, thinking an ax might be better for this particular cane.

“Robin said.”

“I know Robin said. But Robin, much as I love him, isn’t always right.” She caught a glimpse of disbelief on the pimpled face. “Well, he isn’t! I realize he’s your hero, but—”

“Lionheart,” Much said; his tone implied nothing more was required to make
his
opinion known.

Marian sighed. “I suppose in his way he is a little like the Lionheart. But even the king can be a fool occasionally, and let pride defeat him.” She felt the wrench within her heart; England’s hero-king was gone. “You might have been caught, Much—”

“No.”

“
Yes.
You were caught once, were you not?—and right in front of me!”

His face reddened with shame. He recalled it as well as she: their first introduction in Nottingham, as the sheriff caught the simpleton boy attempting to steal his own purse. Much had nearly lost a hand for it; and still might, if deLacey had cause to catch him again. Or if the pardon were revoked.

But she knew his shame was not inspired by his thievery. It was because he had been caught, and right in front of her.

She gave up temporarily on the one defiant cane and turned to others less inclined to defeat her efforts, dropping them to the pile at her feet. A new tactic occurred. “If
Robin
told you not to steal, would you stop?”

“Didn’t steal,” he declared. “Horse already was stolen.”

Marian grimaced; in point of fact, he was correct. “Setting aside that horse for the moment, what about the purses you cut in Nottingham?—and don’t lie, Much. I know you still do it.”

He refused to meet her eyes. Instead, he gazed very hard at the pile of discarded canes from under a swathe of lank hair.

“I know you stole for the king,” Marian said patiently. “For the Lionheart, when he was imprisoned in Germany. So did Robin and the others when they took the tax money. But that time is past, Much. There is no need for such. You have a home with us.”

“Not now,” he muttered.

She stopped cutting roses. “What do you mean?”

His mouth was mutinous. “Locksley.”

Now Marian understood. “I know, Much . . . but it isn’t safe here. Not now. Not until we know what the sheriff might do. You are all of you better off away from Ravenskeep.”

Much glared at her. “Home.”

It was, she knew, the ultimate compliment, that he cared so much about Ravenskeep and the others. They had become a family. “It need not be forever,” she told him. “Perhaps only a few weeks. But it is the only choice, for now. You will be safe there.”

“
Here.”

Marian shook her head. “Everyone is going. Will, Tuck, Little John—even Alan, if he chooses to stay awhile.”

“Robin?”

Inwardly she flinched. “Robin will undoubtedly spend time at Locksley. It is his manor, his village.”

His eyes were fixed on hers. “Marian comes?”

She sighed. “Marian stays.”

“Marian comes!”

“I will visit,” she said. “But Ravenskeep is my home, my responsibility. I cannot simply leave it.”

He mimicked her slyly: “Only a few weeks.”

Marian attacked the enemy cane again with renewed determination. “I will visit,” she repeated “But I must
live
here.”

Much considered that. “Robin there. Marian here.” He scowled. “Not family in two places.”

No, it was not family with Robin there and Marian here, and she did not know how to explain to him precisely how she would manage, because she was not certain she could. She had been completely honest with Robin in saying she had done well enough without the others, even without him—but that had been before she had fallen irretrievably in love with him.

Husbands died, making widows of their wives. Lovers died, or left. She had managed alone since her father’s death. But she could not envision, now, living without Robin.

The stubborn cane at last succumbed to her knife when she least expected it. But Marian, watching in a detached sense of shock as blood gushed from her gashed palm, was certain no physical wound could hurt as much as the wound left behind by a person’s death or departure.

Robin wandered out onto the sentry-walk skirting the curtain wall of the castle. It was necessary to get
out
of the huge hall,
out
of the heavy stone chambers; his spirit was not made to be housed within the gloom, but to soar with the sun. He wondered how much of that had to do with the imprisonment he had endured in the Holy Land. He would have thought he’d had his fill of the sun on Crusade, where men in armor collapsed from the heat of it. But England boasted a much gentler sun, where gray days pervaded, and men need not wince beneath a nearly physical oppression.

He smiled at a quick-striking memory: Once, giving way to whimsy just before supper, he had told Marian that riding to war in the Holy Land had gained him tremendous sympathy for the haunch of meat searing over the kitchen fire, and perhaps they ought not eat it after all. But she merely said she was very hungry, thank you, and would not let
his
overrefined sensibilities deflect her from her goal, which was to fill her mouth and belly with succulent boar, and the Saracen sun be damned. Her view had appalled Brother Tuck—it was unlike Marian to swear—but amused everyone else once they got over the surprise.

Robin grinned, then stopped to lean against the wall, hooking elbows over its rim. Just now the day was not gray, but blue; the rain at last had gone, the ground was drying, and his skin reveled in the pre-spring light. It occurred to him that he was very, very lucky. There was Marian, with whom he would be content anywhere in the world, even among, he believed, the Saracen; there were
two
halls he felt comfortable in, one of which was his; there was enough money to live. And in the spirit of comradeship, the kind forged in war and shared danger, there existed bonds with men whom others might name worthless, but he counted as friends.

There even seemed to be a wholly unexpected chance he and his father might yet understand one another, or at least find a degree of respect for one another’s opinions and inclinations.

And that was miracle in itself, that he could even consider a peace between them. For more than two decades they had been at war. He was not the kind of son the earl wanted, but for years it hadn’t mattered. There were older brothers, an old
est
brother who would be earl in his father’s place. Young Robert—Robin, to his mother—was but a third son, and insignificant. He did not matter. And so his mother had had the tending of him, encouraging flights of fancy. The earl, well satisfied with his two oldest sons, did not interfere. Young Robin had known him only as a cold, austere, and overly precise man who was to be called at all times under any circumstances
my lord Father,
and who was to be obeyed without question. Without even an inkling of a question.

Robin had rebelled. Frequently.

His father punished him, of course. His brothers took pleasure in it: the youngest of them, their mother’s favored child, was out of favor with their father. Alice, Countess Huntington, had despaired, urging him to do as his father wished; and yet she had also given her son the freedom to let him dream his dreams in private, in his head, where his father could not find him, nor his brothers.

And then his brothers and mother had died. First Henry, the middle son, of a fever that swept the countryside one summer. Then William, the oldest, the heir, who fell from his horse a year later and cracked open his skull. His mother, bearing a late child two years after that, had bled too heavily of it. Neither she nor the girl survived.

And then there was only Robin.

And now there was only Robin.

Without conscious thought he blurted, “He is dying.” And
knew,
abruptly and with all the certainty of his soul, that it wasn’t borrowed trouble, it wasn’t a flight of fancy.

Merely truth.

He had said it to Marian: one moment, and the world changed.

The king was dead. The earl was dying.

Because there was only Robin.

An earl without issue, or an earl with a living, legitimate, but disinherited son, surrendered his lands, title, and wealth to the Crown on his death. The Earl of Huntington, who had worked so hard to keep John from becoming king when Richard was imprisoned, would never countenance John gaining his lands.

Robin felt the stone beneath his hands. It was cold. It was dead. It was not anything he aspired to, nor would have built, particularly at the cost of razing Huntington Hall, which he had loved. But his father had razed the hall, his father had built the castle, and now his ether required a son to inherit all of it.

 

Will Scarlet, coming in from the stable, changed his course when he saw her. “What have you done?”

Marian, who believed it obvious, paused in the courtyard and turned her palm toward him.

His brows shot up. He stepped close and took her hand into his own, noting the bloodstained skirts. “Christ, were you gutting a stirk?”

Dryly, she said, “Cutting roses.”

He glanced up sharply from her hand, judging her expression. She knew he suspected she was attempting to blame him by mentioning the roses. She wasn’t, but it hurt nothing to let Will think so. Or at least to debate the issue inside his thick skull.

He scowled and swore beneath his breath; unlike Little John, who swore and then apologized if she were present, Scarlet was indifferent to her maidenly sensibilities.

Marian smiled wryly.
Except I am no maiden.

“You’re bleeding all over the cobbles,” he accused, having some governance over the manor’s appearance; Scarlet was the closest thing to a steward Ravenskeep had. “You’d best come inside where this can be tended.”

“Yes,” she agreed mildly, closing the hand up tight. “I was bound for the hall.”

“Well, come on, then.” He took the knife from her other hand and gave it to Much. “Here. Be useful, boy.” He clamped thick fingers around her wrist.

She gasped and stiffened. “That
hurts,
Will!”

“ ’Tis supposed to,” he retorted, unrepentant. “Best to keep the blood
in
your body, aye? Come along.”

“There is no need to drag me . . .” And indeed he did drag, leading her swiftly to the hall as Much followed along behind in possession of the knife that had done the deed.

“It might want stitching,” Scarlet declared.

“But
you
won’t do it!” Marian blurted in alarm.

He cast her a sulfurous, sidelong look. “D’ye think I can’t?”

“Oh, I think you can . . . but do I want you to?”

He grunted. “Better than bleeding to death.”

“When was the last time you stitched a sherte? Or hemmed a chemise? —ouch! Or embroidered cambric? Or—”

“Never
mind
all that,” he said brusquely, interrupting. “ ’Tis different stitching flesh.”

“Yes,” she agreed breathlessly as he practically hurled her up the steps toward the open door. “That was my point.”

“But if you’re set against my stitching, I
could
just slap a red-hot knife blade against it. Cautery’ll work.”

Marian winced as she caught a toe crossing the threshold and nearly tripped. “I am not certain one is preferable to the other.”

“Spider webs,” he announced. “Mud, grass, spider webs, all mixed together. ’Tis good for wounds.”

“Will, could you loosen your grip—”

“And let you bleed more?”

“—a little?” she finished. But she reflected he was right; the bleeding had stopped. Then again, her hand felt so numb from the pressure of his fingers she wasn’t certain she would notice if it hadn’t.

“Joan!” Scarlet bellowed. Marian winced. “Kitchens,” he said succinctly, and dragged her there down the length of the hall. He cast her a quick, sidelong glance. “Or maybe the barn.”

“Don’t you dare liken me to a cow, Will Scarlet!”

“Pig,” he countered. “You were bleeding like one.”

She opened her mouth to protest, then realized he meant none of the crude tone. Once, he might have; once he would have left her to bleed. They had met under less than ideal circumstances: Will Scathlock, called Scarlet, had kidnapped her from the Nottingham Fair and hauled her away like a side of beef into Sherwood Forest. He had, by doing so, single-handedly ruined her reputation. But he had also set into motion events that led to a rescue by Sir Robert of Locksley.

Marian supposed one day she should thank Will for that.

“Joan!” he shouted again, as Cook and her helpers gathered around to express varying degrees of shock, concern, and dramatic suggestions as to how to stop the bleeding, save her hand, save her arm, and save her life.

“I’m not going to
die,”
she snapped.

“Might,” Scarlet said, and turned to mutter at Much as Joan arrived to inspect the wounded hand.

“Oh, lady!” she cried. “How did you do this?”

Marian shot a pointed glance at Will. “Practicing castration.”

He bared his teeth at her, but the flesh at his eyes tautened enough for her to know the blow had landed. Then he was muttering at Much again, but she lost interest in that as she attempted to pry his fingers from her wrist.

He let go. Blood gushed anew from her palm.

Cook exclaimed about the resultant state of her floors, then clapped both hands over her mouth as she realized Marian might not appreciate such tactlessness; Marian herself, meanwhile, was somewhat astonished by the amount of blood running through her fingers.

Joan promptly tore off her apron and wrapped cloth around the hand. Scarlet wore a look of triumph.

“Very well,” Marian muttered.

“Oh, best to let it bleed now,” he said lightly, nearly snickering. “Wash the choler from your spirits. ’Tis a bit tainted by bad temper.”

She scowled at him. He grinned back.

“Spider webs,” Joan said succintly, then jerked her head toward one of the spit-boys. “Take Tom to the barn and look.”To one of the girls, she said, “Go and fetch my sewing basket. I’l need a needle and the strongest thread we have.”

Marian said, “Stool—?”

“Oh, good Christ.” Will heaved a sigh. “You’ll not swoon on us, will you?”

“Of course not,” she shot back. “No more than you would if I used
you
for embroidery practice!”

Joan was horrified. “You’ll not have
him
do it!”

Scarlet was instantly affronted. “I know how!”

“And you might know how to hem a sherte as well,” Joan said, undeterred by his glowering expression, “but that doesn’t mean the hem will be straight when ’tis finished!”

Much inspected Marian’s hand, marking the line of the deep cut where it sliced crosswise athwart her lifeline. “Crooked anyhow.”

Marian wobbled.

“Stool!” Scarlet bellowed. “Sweet Jesus, but it’s a swooner!”

“I am no such thing. It is merely that all of you are standing so close—” But the stool arrived, the spider webs arrived, and Joan’s sewing basket, and no one paid the least attention to her protest. Will simply shoved her down on the stool, then held up a belaying hand to the others as he bent over the wounded palm. The bleeding had slowed again, but only because his other hand remained clamped around her wrist.

He peered at her hand, then nodded at Joan as if to indicate she should set about stitching. “Much,” he said lightly, “
—now.”

Joan shrieked as Much, one hand wrapped in a thick wad of borrowed apron, pressed the red-hot blade of the knife against Marian’s palm.

She shot to her feet so fast the stool fell over entirely. But its services were no longer required; Scarlet had his revenge.

“See?” he announced, as the world grayed out around her. “Women always swoon.”

 

William deLacey offered the royal messenger—Gerard, he said—courteous welcome, apologized for his steward’s misunderstanding, invited him to drink good wine, invited him to be seated. But Gerard declined wine and chair and simply said, with no little urgency: “Lord Sheriff, it is my duty to give you the news that the king has died in France.”

There it was. Confirmation.

Coeur de Lion. Dead.

DeLacey promptly expressed the expected shock by thrusting himself from his chair even as he cried out a stricken denial. Gerard assured him the news was true. After a moment, when he judged it time to recover his powers of speech, the sheriff collapsed into his chair and slumped there, murmuring a prayer for the soul of Richard’s poor widowed queen, Berengaria, and also for England as well, now sadly lacking her warrior-king.

Such sentiments addressed, deLacey next applied himself to conjuring an appropriate tone of loss and bewilderment. “But what shall we do? How shall the realm continue?” He paused sharply, as if he had only just now realized there was more to learn. “But the king has no son!”

Gerard’s mouth tightened fractionally. “No, Lord Sheriff.”

“Forgive my indelicacy . . .” He waited for indication he might continue; when it came, he asked, “Was the king alert enough before he died to name an heir?”

And so Gerard explained matters, such as he knew them. By the time he had finished, deLacey had no better idea of what faced him than he had before. But he conveyed nothing of his irritation to the messenger, merely thanked him for his sad news and gave him good wishes for his continued journey.

Whereupon Gerard, hesitating, spoke of outlaws.

“Outlaws!” DeLacey was genuinely surprised; royal messengers had always been sacrosanct. “They attacked you?”

“They did not precisely attack,” Gerard explained, at pains to be precise. “Rather, they detained me.”

“
Detained
you?”

“Then sent me on my way.” The messenger’s expression was troubled. “It struck me as a jest, Lord Sheriff.”