Jennifer Roberson - [Robin Hood 02] (24 page)

Ralph, the earl’s steward, was in the corridor as deLacey arrived. Before the man could offer up the protest his shock delayed, the sheriff unlatched the door, shoved it open so widely and so firmly that it crashed against the wall, and marched straight in.

He stopped short even as the soldiers came in to flank him, because instead of one earl he confronted four.

William deLacey, silently, began to swear.

Gisbourne, not so silently, began his determined explanation of his misfortune and declaimed in loud, ringing tones the identity of the man who had stolen his horse.

In view of the exalted company bearing witness to this declamation, all the sheriff could do was think,
Not now, Gisbourne.

Huntington, sitting stiffly in his high-backed chair, listened to the explanation and accusation without comment. There were no shocked gasps from him, no angry denials, no contempt. He merely listened, mouth crimped small and tight.

When Gisbourne was done, the earl looked directly at deLacey and said, “My son has been with me all this day.”

“No, my lord!” Gisbourne cried. “He stole my horse but a matter of hours ago!”

The silence was deafening. And into it came the slightest sound of metal on metal: eight soldiers stood flanking the sheriff, prepared to aid in the arrest of the Earl of Huntington’s son. And now he could not use them.

DeLacey flicked a glance at the others in the chamber. He knew them. Had met them. Had done their bidding five years before, when they had been robbed upon the road. The earls of Alnwick, Hereford, and Essex, three of the most powerful men in England. Geoffrey de Mandeville had been King Richard’s Justiciar, had participated in Richard’s coronation. His honor could not be impugned.

And yet he, as did the others, met now, once again, with the Earl of Huntington. Because, the sheriff knew, John was king. They were Arthur of Brittany’s men, certainly. And they would offer no support to a man whose office and authority was held at John’s behest.

Lastly, deLacey looked at the fifth man who stood apart from the others, not sitting with them as if in discussion or agreement, merely present. He once again wore fine clothing befitting an earl’s heir and the natural confidence of a man born to rank and privilege, of a knight honed in battle, of a king’s confidant. Of the Lionheart’s friend.

His hair was damp, combed back somewhat severely from a face so often masked by apartness, by an inner ironic amusement. The architecture of the face was clearly visible instead of softened by shadow, by hair, made stark by a resolution, by a stillness deLacey equated with a man sworn to himself, to the dictates of his conscience no matter what the odds. He recalled seeing that face, that man, that resolution on a wagon bound for Lincoln, stealing money after a flurry of arrows had struck down every soldier. This was not a weak man, in spirit or commitment. He lacked the overwhelming hugeness of Little John, the bulk and power of Mercardier, but there was skill in him, and danger, and the promise, if cause were given, of violence.

“My lord,” deLacey said to the earl, though he looked nowhere save at Locksley, “I am arresting your son.”

Huntington inquired, almost idly, “Are you?”

Now he did look at the earl.

“Are you?” Huntington repeated in the same cool tone. “Do you name me a liar?”

“Not you, my lord, but—”

“Then I say again: my son was with me all the day.”

He had brought soldiers for this. They waited for the order.

Geoffrey de Mandeville, earl of Essex, asked very quietly, “Shall you accuse each of us of lying?”

Eustace de Vesci, eyes alight with quiet mirth, hitched his shoulders in a slight shrug. “He was here all the day.”

Henry Bohun merely looked at deLacey and nodded once.

The room held too much power, too much nobility. It festered like a wound, and would not bleed itself free of contagion unless he himself lanced it, which he would not, dared not do. William deLacey knew the stories of one hundred Gisbournes, no matter how heartfelt, no matter how true, would not win acknowledgment and aquiescence from these men. Not when the scope of their goals was the welfare of a realm and the service of a king.

One earl he would risk. But not four. Not together. John himself would not risk that, not at a time when he needed such men as this in the infancy of his sovereignty, and would disavow such precipitous action even if deLacey believed he might manage it.

Gisbourne glared at Locksley. “You stole it. A knight’s horse, stolen by another knight. You
stole
it.”

DeLacey saw and seized the opening. “Search the stables,” he ordered his men. “If the horse is found, well . . .” He smiled kindly at Huntington, setting the barb. “Then I can only assume you are mistaken, and your son was not with you quite
all
the day.”

The earl, trembling with outrage and increasing frailty, thrust himself to his feet. “You shall do no such thing!”

The voice was quiet. “Let him,” Locksley said. “Let him search every stall, every paddock, every dovecote, kitchen, and midden, if it pleases him to do so. Let him search my very bedchamber—or even yours, my lord father.”

By that, deLacey knew defeat. There was no horse to find.

“Where did you leave him?” Gisbourne demanded of Locksley. “What did you do with—”

The sheriff cut him off with a quick slashing gesture. He wasted no more breath on the earl or his son, made no threats or promises. He simply turned on his heel and marched from the room. With him came his soldiers, deprived of their duty even as he, once again, was deprived of his pride.

“My lord,” Gisbourne said as he followed him through the hall, “what shall we do?”

“Go home,” deLacey said sharply.

“But—”

“We go
home,
Gisbourne. We’ve lost this battle. For now. For today.” In the bailey he retrieved his horse’s reins. “But not for good.”

The Earl of Huntington stared hard at his son as the door thumped closed behind the last of the sheriff’s men. “Do not lie to
me,
Robert. Is it true you stole this horse?”

The answering smile was crooked. “Gisbourne may be a fool, but in this case he is a truthful fool.”

“Why ever would you steal his horse?”

“Because
mine
was stolen, and I required one. Immediately. I needed to reach Locksley before the sheriff did, or as soon thereafter as possible.”

The earl glared. “What does it matter that the sheriff is in Locksley?”

Robert wandered to a chair and collapsed upon it. His hair, nearly dry, loosened from its combing to fall against his shoulders. “It matters when he intends to arrest my friends.”

Huntington scoffed. “Those peasants.” He sat down again, clutching the arms of the chair as he lowered himself. “The horse is not here?”

A tilt of the head indicated direction. “I left him in a copse of trees on the hill behind.”

“You
knew
deLacey would come?”

“I suspected he might.”

“So,” de Vesci observed with no little amount of irony, “you not only consort with outlaws, but you are yourself one.”

“Nonsense!” Huntington snapped, rapping a fist on the chair arm.

“And have been,” Robert confirmed easily, “when circumstances require it.”

“Robert!”

His son was neither repentant nor reluctant to confess. “I have stolen coin for my king’s ransom. I have stolen horses when haste was required. I have even stolen baubles and chains of office from the men in this chamber.”

The others started, exchanging sharp glances. Henry Bohun, astounded, murmured, “That was
you?
”

“It was; the moment, which is too complicated to explain just now, required it. But so did Richard’s ransom.” He smiled briefly at their nonplussed expressions, then continued speaking to his father. “You may certainly name me outlaw and be perfectly truthful. But what I have done was done for good reasons, and is no more reprehensible than what all of you discuss here in this chamber. I have broken laws. I will break others, I do not doubt. But when you ask me to join you, when you invite me to support a conspiracy to remove John from the throne, you also invite me to commit treason.”

The earl shifted in his chair. “Robert—”

“Tell me, my lord father, why I should accept your rebuke for my actions when what you advocate—and attempt to involve me in—might cost me my head?”

Geoffrey de Mandeville said quietly, “You risked your life on Crusade.”

“That was war.”

“So is this,” de Vesci stated. “Perhaps not fought with swords and the invocations of priests before battle is joined, but it is war nonetheless. And this time we fight not for God, not for Jerusalem, not for Richard’s kingly might, but for England herself. Because John will surely destroy her.”

“We cannot be certain of that.”

“Good God, Robert, how can you say such a thing?” Huntington demanded. “You know what manner of man John is. He is mad! When thwarted he throws himself into the rushes and foams at the mouth, like a diseased dog. And how many times did he attempt to overthrow King Henry, his own father? He conspired with Philip of France to keep his brother imprisoned in Germany! This is the man you wish to hold England?”

“Richard was none too kind a man, when the temper was on him,” Robert replied quietly, face gone still. “I watched as he ordered nearly three thousand Saracens killed
after
we had won the city. Kings do what kings believe they must.”

“As do we,” Bohun said. “We are committed, Robert. You may join us, or not, but we shall go forward.”

“And if there is another way?”

“What way?” de Vesci demanded curtly. “Shall we
ask
him, do you think, to treat England gently?” The bluff man shook his head in vigorous denial. “He bleeds her for coin, in the name of vanity.”

“So did Richard, in the name of Crusade.”

De Mandeville, who had known the Lionheart better than all in the chamber save one, frowned. “You were in his confidence, Robert. How can you betray his memory so?”

“Because my memory is untainted by hero worship and misguided zeal,” Robert replied promptly. “Oh, my lords, do believe me in this: I loved the king. I worshipped the king. I killed for my king, and thanked him for it. But he was also a
man,
our Lionheart, one of the Devil’s Brood just as John himself. And Richard was as prone to sins as anyone save a saint.”

Bohun asked, “And you would serve John as you served his brother?”

Without hesitation Robert of Locksley vowed, “I will serve no man ever as I served the Lionheart, in battle or in peace. Certainly not John.”

De Vesci leaned forward intently. “Then join us. Serve
us
in the name of Richard.”

But Robert shook his head. “You don’t need me.”

Huntington felt the first glimmer of alarm. He had believed his son won. “Of course we need you.”

The fine brows arched in delicate irony. “Why?”

“Because we are the heart of this realm,” the earl declared. “Without us, John cannot rule. United, we shall overcome him. Divided, we shall fail.”

With precise and measured emphasis, Robert declared, “But you don’t need
me.”

No one answered. No one stirred. No one looked at their host, only at his son.

Huntington saw it for the first time in the faces of the others. They wanted Robert. They needed Robert. They required the Earl of Huntington, with his inherent power and wealth. But Robert was the man they desired to
be
the earl.

It struck him like a blow.
They believe I am dying.

He looked at them, read it in the careful blankness of the expressions, in the quietude of their bodies and the determination not to look at him lest they reveal their thoughts.

Men died. No matter how titled, no matter how wealthy, no matter how powerful. And when such men as he were involved in vital matters, men as could alter the future of a realm, continuation and stability were requisites.

From him, neither was certain. He was old. He was ill. Requisites no longer applied.

But even in Robert there was no promise of continuation, of stability. He threatened to turn outlaw as the moment dictated. He threatened to wed a woman who could bear no children. He threatened to spurn a heritage other men might kill for. He had promised to be, and was, a son not even a father might command. Only a king, and that king was dead.

Huntington chafed, infuriated by infirmity. He needed
time.
Time to live. Time to retrain Robert, like a recalcitrant but valuable horse. Or time to train that horse’s promising colt.

He needed time to die.

Huntington looked away from the men he called his friends to the man they wished to call fellow conspirator in the preservation of a realm. For the first time in his life he permitted his son to see the truth of his fear: that he might die alone, a man with no son to inherit the legacy he had worked long and hard to protect so that his life would count for something. “Join us,” he said hoarsely. “Robert . . . please.”

 

Marian, strained eyes aching with fatigue, allowed the parchment to roll itself up. She pressed fingers against both sockets and gently rubbed. “It won’t be here,” she said in weary frustration. “I know it. He has struck it off. Or has had the pertinent roll redrafted.”

The mercenary’s harsh voice rasped in the cell. “Then why search?”

She removed her hands and glared at him. “Because he is lying. Because I must. Because if I don’t search, if I overlook any possibility, he will win.”

The bisected eyebrow quirked. “Is it winning and losing that counts in the matter of taxes?”

Marian’s throaty burst of laughter was rich with contempt. “Winning and losing counts in everything, Captain. Before God,
you
can ask such a thing? You fight for coin!”

“I am paid whether I win or lose.”

“Precisely,” she agreed. “You have no ‘side,’ and also no conception of what I confront.” She studied his face, marking the hard, unkind bones, so very different from the finer architecture of Robin’s features. “Have you land, Mercardier? A home? A wife? Children?”

His dark, pocked face was schooled to blankness. “None of those things.”

Her own tone hardened. “Then you cannot comprehend what it is to have something you treasure threatened by another.”

“Including my life, madame?”

She shook her head, examining his imposing person, his indefatigable posture. “I doubt your life is in danger, Mercardier. Ever.”

He remained expressionless. Mute.

Marian took up the rolled parchment, smoothed its edges, pushed it back into the case and found another, uncapping it to slide out its contents. “He threatens me, does my lord sheriff. He has before, in small, quiet ways, but never was there anything of value he could take. Certainly not my pride, and my reputation was ruined long ago. But now there
is
something of value he may take. He has found the weapon, Captain. And be certain he will use it.”

“So you said before. I invited you to explain. You have not yet begun.”

She clutched the uncased parchment, hearing its crackle of protest against the tightness of her fingers. “Explain to you what lies between William deLacey and me that brings us to this war?”

“The whole of it, madame. You see, I have never known a man to declare war on a woman, nor a woman”—his gesture encompassed the cell—“so willing to take the field herself.”

She looked into his cruel face, into the opaque eyes, and knew what he had not said. “You believe I am lying.”

Mercardier did not reply.

She put a snap into her voice, as akin to command as she could. “Do you not?”

The faintest narrowing of his eyes indicated he recognized what she did. “Madame,” he said in his accented voice, “he is the lord high sheriff of Nottingham. You are but a woman.”

“ ‘But a woman,’ ” she echoed.

“And a woman others name whore.”

Marian muttered a harsh, succinct phrase she had learned from Robin, who had been more than a little chagrined when she demanded a translation. It was an utterly vile vulgarity, couched in the Saracen language.

But she had forgotten Mercardier knew it as well.

“And with a viper’s tongue in her head,” he added.

“Woman’s weapon, yes? So you said in the hall.”

The mercenary crossed heavy arms across his mailed chest. The Crusader’s cross high on his shoulder rippled as he moved. “Tell me the tale, madame. Convince me that what you claim is true: the lord high sheriff of Nottingham, charged with the welfare of the king’s own shire, has joined battle with a woman.”

Marian turned abruptly and swept the parchments and scroll cases tumbling from the table onto the floor. When it was clear she swung back and, despite the encumbrances of chemise, hitched herself up onto the tabletop. Perched there gracelessly, uncaring of propriety or decorum, she stabbed a rigid, commanding hand at the single chair. “Then perhaps you had best sit down, Sir Mercenary. This tale requires time. Even a man such as you may find it . . .” She swept a pointed glance around the cell. “Taxing.”

Mercardier’s level brows flew up beneath a ragged lock of near-black hair, then came down again. With no hint of amusement, he said, “I served as the Lionheart’s personal bodyguard, madame. I am accustomed to standing.”

She let him have that victory, but offered another pass in the lists. “And do you expect to find my tale
entertaining?
”

“I do not, madame. Locksley will tell you I find nothing entertaining.”

Marian pondered that a moment. She thought perhaps he matched irony with irony. But she did not know him, and could not be certain.

And so she told him what had begun it all, this war between a man and a woman, between a lord high sheriff and a dead knight’s daughter; explained with laudable brevity but also a clipped intensity why William deLacey’s stance that Marian FitzWalter had not paid her taxes was merely the latest weapon he had found to levy against them all: knight’s daughter, earl’s son—and five men now sought without respite despite the Lionheart’s pardon of them.

 

Robin knew they would come. He had seen it in their eyes, the careful examination of his words, tone, and intent. But he had expected all three to descend upon him, not merely one strolling casually up the path.

And they had chosen well.

He sat in idle reflection upon a bench within the walled kitchen gardens. He had emptied his mind of such things as earls and kings and countries, thinking instead of sons, of daughters, and the legacies of fathers looking along the years from infancy to the child’s adulthood. When the shadow fell across the pathway before his feet, he nodded acknowledgment but did not look up.

The Earl of Essex said, “I helped crown Richard.”

Inwardly, Robin winced.

“I helped Richard protect the laws of this land.”

He made no reply.

“I helped raise the ransom to buy him back from German Henry—though I do confess I did not realize that a certain knight-turned-outlaw would increase my contribution.” The faint dryness of the tone brought Robin’s head up. He looked into Geoffrey de Mandeville’s aging but still handsome face, into blue eyes fading but still capable of weighing a man’s worth. “And I joined with other men to plan a way to prevent John from stealing his brother’s throne while Richard was imprisoned.”

“Richard was still king,” Robin said quietly. “But now he is dead, John is king, and what you plan is treason.”

“If we lose.”

Robin looked at him more sharply. “That is twice I have heard such said. Does no one believe in the moral issue of right and wrong? Does only the winning count?”