Jennifer Roberson - [Robin Hood 02] (38 page)

“Well?” the sheriff asked. “Does it meet with your approval?”

“I am not a horse,” the mercenary declaimed, “to know if the wagon is loaded properly or not.”

DeLacey wondered if ever the man said a word that could not be construed as criticism, or failed to imply the question he answered was foolish. “Oh, the loading has been handled properly.” He walked around the wagon, tugging at the canvas covering the chests, checking ropes and knots. “I inquire as to whether you approve of my escort arrangement.”

Two soldiers sat on the wagon seat. A dozen others ranged on horseback in the bailey, waiting for departure. Only two men meant to accompany the shipment were not yet mounted: Mercardier himself, and Philip de la Barre.

“It appears suitable,” the mercenary answered. “Though I am not convinced you need to dispatch quite so many men. It becomes obvious, my lord.”

“It
is
obvious,” deLacey agreed. “It is what it is, Mercardier: every coin in taxes collected from the shire so far this session. Were outlaws to steal it, we would all of us be most discommoded.” In fact, many of them would likely be dismissed from their service, including himself. Discommoded, he felt, lent the moment a touch of understatement.

“You are expecting an attempt?” Mercardier inquired.

DeLacey permitted himself a brief and genuine laugh. “You ask that after what occurred yesterday?”

“They rescued a boy,” the mercenary said. “I am not convinced they would attempt to steal taxes.”

“Is there anything you
are
convinced of?” But the question was purely rhetorical; deLacey continued without waiting for a reply. “Perhaps I have attached too many men to the duty. But I had rather be certain the shipment arrived where and when it is intended. Better to be a careful fool than a poor one.” He paused. “Or a dead one.”

Mercardier studied him a long moment from beneath heavy dark brows. Then he seemed to arrive at a conclusion, for he turned away from the sheriff to signal for his mount. A horseboy brought the animal forward, even as the castellan asked for his. Within moments the wagon was surrounded by armed and armored soldiers.

Two on the wagon seat. Fourteen to ride alongside. Any outlaws who attempted to take the taxes would face certain defeat.

Mercardier, now helmed, looked down upon deLacey from his huge horse. “Lord Sheriff,” he said, “I thank you for your hospitality. Be certain I shall tell the king of your assistance and thoughtfulness.”

A pretty speech. DeLacey repressed the impulse to ask if that truly were Mercardier behind the helm. “I serve the king in all things.”

“Indeed.” Which sounded altogether like Mercardier again.

DeLacey caught the eye of his castellan. “Philip,” he said, “guard this wagon with your life.”

The young man inclined his head. “Of course, my lord. It is my honor.”

“
Allez, allez,
” Mercardier said impatiently, and signaled the wagon forward.

DeLacey watched the taxes roll out of the inner bailey into the outer. When the gate was shut, he turned and ran back up the stairs.

With a stab of mild surprise, he realized he was humming.

Marian, clean again, clad as a woman again, reacquainted herself with Ravenskeep. This time she saw it through eyes grown cynical, eyes that understood the motivations of men, not merely the eyes of a girl grown to womanhood, the eyes of a chatelaine. There yet remained damage from the sheriff’s men, but Joan and the others had taken care to repair and put back what they could. Somewhat battered, but still her hall. Still her home.

But empty of those men she had come to care for.

She felt herself divided, become two people. One had the ordering of the manor, was busily sorting through what they had and what was needed, counting bags of flour, how much salt was left; did the roof require new shingles yet again; how many lambs had been born, and which old ewes should be slaughtered. The other person, the other Marian, was not beneath a roof at all, but out among the trees with a longbow in her hand and bird calls echoing.

He would come home again. They all would.

When deLacey was no longer sheriff.

But deLacey had been sheriff for as long as she could remember. He had begun in Old King Henry’s time, before her birth; continued through King Richard’s ten-year reign, twice buying his office; and now served John. She could not speak for his habits when Henry was king—she had been too young to know of such things—but he and her father had been friends. He had certainly been kind to her as a child. Nor would Sir Hugh FitzWalter, before the battle that killed him, have told Sir Robert of Locksley should anything happen to him, his daughter was to consider a marriage with William deLacey—unless he believed deLacey would treat her well.

Perhaps once he might have. The sheriff had been a decent man, she knew, a man her father respected. But no one could apply that description to William deLacey now. Surely her father would abhor what he had become, would never suggest his daughter consider his suit.

When had it happened, then, and
what
had happened that caused a man to change so significantly?

In her own experience she knew men who had changed, had
been
changed, because of circumstances. Will Scarlet, formerly Scathlocke, had come home to his peasant’s hovel one day to find his wife so badly violated by Norman soldiers that she died of it, bleeding to death in his arms. He had sought the men and killed four of them before he was captured. Grief and the need for revenge had changed him into a murderer, had left him bitter and angry and violent. He had found a measure of peace at Ravenskeep in the past five years, but there was a part of him none of them knew, that he kept locked away. A part of him wholly unpredictable, and equally dangerous.

And Robin himself, for that matter. She had known him slightly in her youth, had worshipped him in burgeoning womanhood, but he had gone away to war. Like Will he had killed, but in the name of his God and his king, in the name of Jerusalem, not in revenge or in grief. Yet he had been altered by the war despite its righteousness, and captivity had changed him even more. There were nights when he woke her crying out, striking out; nights when he woke her by leaving the bed entirely, and when she sought him she found him downstairs by the fire, eyes transfixed by memories and waking visions he would not share.

But these men had reason. A wife, violated by men and weapons until she died. A soldier imprisoned a year by the enemy after months of brutal battles. What had William deLacey encountered that had altered him? That would cause him to plot to trick her into a sham ceremony to force a genuine marriage; to name her a witch with manufactured evidence and coerced witnesses; to set his men to tearing apart her hall; to strike her name from the tax rolls so that he might claim her manor and turn her out of it?

But she was no longer a child, no longer innocent. She understood the things that some men needed. Craved.

Power. Ambition. Politics.

Not offenses of the body, the ravages of emotions, but desires of the mind.

William deLacey could never be a king who was born of such things as power, ambition, and politics, whose royal parents wed and conceived children solely for the sake of holding or gaining realms. He could never be a lord born to wealth and privilege, only a man appointed to office by the king, finding identity in it, defining himself by power, and the ambition for more. A man utterly dependent on the king’s whim; and John was notorious for the fickleness of his whims.

Politics.

John had wanted England when his brother ruled it in absentia. DeLacey’s little kingdom, the shire of Nottingham, was therefore threatened. He had judged John most likely to be the victor, and thus took his part. But John had lost the battle for the throne when Richard came home from captivity, ransomed by nobles and poor alike through auxilliary tax collections. DeLacey had then bought back the office Richard might have stripped from him; the warrior-king needed money to continue his battles, and he was not averse to allowing men to remain in office if they would pay for it. But now Richard was dead,John was king, and deLacey, King of Nottinghamshire, once again was firmly in John’s camp.

Power. Ambition. Politics.

Marian, in the midst of the buttery counting how many crocks remained whole, and full, spread her left palm and looked at the cautery scar. It had caused her to miss her shot, to kill the sheriff’s horse when she had meant only to warn, to contain the man. But it was done; she had committed herself. She, too, had changed: had made herself an outlaw in the name of a justice deLacey refused to condone. The only reason she was here while Robin and the others hid in Sherwood, intending to steal money so her taxes might be paid, so the poor might be fed, so Arthur of Brittany might be aided to the throne and they could be pardoned again, was because no one knew she had been there in Nottingham, helping to rescue Much.

One moment, one birth or death, could alter the world.

A wife’s murder changed Will Scarlet. War and captivity changed Robin. The Lord High Sheriff of Nottingham changed Hugh FitzWalter’s daughter.

Marian closed her hand on the scar. Aloud she said, “He sowed the crop five years ago, after my father’s death. Let him reap it now, and know the blame for his own.”

She left the buttery then, left the counting of crocks undone. She went upstairs to the room under the eaves she shared—
had
shared—with Robin, and began to pack warm clothes and necessaries into a bundle. She would tell Joan what else was needed, and Hal as well. She would tell them also that possibly, if necessary, she might take up residence in Sherwood for a time until all was settled.

When a life could be changed of a moment, it was best to be prepared.

They had moved their little encampment from near Ravenskeep to a small clearing between Huntington and Nottingham, covering supplies with brush and deadfall leaves. Robin, perched upon a tree stump in desultory conversation about which bird calls would mean what, and how they might deploy themselves depending on circumstances—they had done this very thing when stealing the tax shipment five years before—glanced up sharply as an owl hooted from nearby. Within moments the owl resolved itself into Much slipping out of the trees into the tiny clearing cradled by fallen trees.

He squatted. “Lords.”

“You’re certain?” Robin asked.

“Fine horses.
Fine
clothes.” Much nodded. “Lords.”

“How many?” Scarlet asked. “And what kind of escort?”

Much spread three fingers.

“The escort,” Alan urged.

“Three lords,” the boy insisted.

Scarlet shook his head. “Lords don’t ride unescorted, do they?”

“Some do,” Robin said thoughtfully, “when they are meeting in secret.”

Little John, sitting cross-legged on the ground, looked at him sharply. “Meeting with who? What for?”

“Meeting with my father.” Robin rubbed idly at the roughening stubble along his jaw. “To plot the overthrow of a king.”

“ ’Tis treason!” Tuck cried.

Robin agreed. “They could lose their heads for it. Just as we could be hanged for outlawry.” A wry smile twisted his mouth. “What a fine family tradition
that
would be for the earls of Huntington: one executed for treason, the other hanged for thievery.”

“You mean for us to rob men meeting with your father?” Alan asked, startled.

“Best to rob men with money.”

Little John was puzzled. “Yes, but—if they mean to overthrow King John, then we are on the same side.”

Robin said gently, “Outlaws have no sides.”

“Coming soon,” Much reminded.

“Well, then.” Robin stood up, brushed debris from his hosen. “Shall we put to the test the methods we’ve just discussed?”

“Now?” Scarlet demanded.

“Indeed, now. ‘Coming soon,’ Much says.”

Tuck was alarmed. “What do you mean to do?”

“Invite them for ale and a bite of bread,” Robin explained. “And then they can ransom their freedom by giving us their coin.”

Little John was patently unconvinced. “And what if they go to the sheriff?”

“I believe they will not,” Robin said mildly.

Now Scarlet was unconvinced. “How can you say that? How can you know?”

“Because they invited me to join them,” Robin explained, “when it was thought I should be heir to my father’s title. To risk my head as they risked theirs. When peers of the realm undertake treason, they rarely complain to a sheriff of minor matters such as outlaws along the road. Particularly to a sheriff who supports the very king they mean to replace.”

“
Coming,
” Much said urgently.

Robin picked up his bow, hooked the quiver over one shoulder. “Do as I described, and it should fall out properly. Tuck, remain here . . . uncover the food and ale and set a ‘table,’ if you would. We’ll have guests for a midday meal.”

He sent himself and the others into the trees along the road, hoping they would do as asked, as he had explained. It was not so different from what they had done to rescue Much: one stopped men on horseback with the threat of arrows from cover, then told them what to do. If they could not see who stopped them, how many there were, and where they hid, they were far less likely to protest. Everyone in England knew the power and accuracy of a longbow. And anyone in Nottingham the day before had witnessed or heard of how arrows had been used to control the sheriff.

Robin reflected a reputation might be useful. Certainly it had benefitted the Crusaders: every man of all nations knew the Lionheart’s reputation for brilliance in the field and personal ability, his gift for inspiring men, not to mention his cheerful but unflagging ruthlessness. Even Saladin had respected Richard. Such things as reputations could be employed as tools themselves.

But he rather thought a reputation would take care of itself, if they robbed enough people.

The lords approached, coming into view from around a tight curve. They were indeed the men Robin anticipated: the earls of Alnwick, Hereford, and Essex. A few quiet but scattered bird calls told him the others were in place. Grinning, Robin pulled up his hood, settled it in place, then stepped out onto the road.

“Hold,” he commanded.

Then he raised his hand, and the arrows flew.

The lords, as expected, reined in sharply as the shafts stood up from the ground in a rough semicircle.

Robin raised his voice. “Swords, if you please.”

Eustace de Vesci, well in character as his face grew red, blustered immediately. “Who are you? What is the meaning of this?”

“A robbery,” Robin replied. “Swords, if you please.” He did not alter his accent, his voice, or his phraseology as he had five years before in a similar confrontation. The times were different now, the cause, and his committment.

“By God!” de Vesci cried. “Again?
Again?
I cannot but think the road to Nottingham has become a den of thieves!”

“Bad luck,” Robin observed gravely. “My lords, if you please—your swords. Now.”

Bohun already had his sword unsheathed, dangling from gloved fingers. De Mandeville was eyeing Robin with something akin to speculation, though nothing of his person bespoke a reluctance to follow orders. He, too, unsheathed his sword. “Eustace,” he said mildly, “this man is not alone. He did not shoot five arrows at once, did he?”

Robin grinned. “I shot none of them.”

De Vesci jerked his sword from his sheath and tossed it down before his horse. Bohun and de Mandeville followed suit.

“Much,” Robin said.

The boy darted out into the roadway, collected the weapons deftly, and disappeared on the other side of the road.

“Dismount,” Robin suggested. “Come six steps toward me.”

De Vesci was horrified. “Do you mean to take our
horses?
”

This time Henry Bohun was less willing to follow orders. “We’ll just toss down our purses and ride on, shall we? There is no need to leave us afoot.”