Jennifer Roberson - [Robin Hood 02] (43 page)

Then Gisbourne was before Robin, seizing the shackles and chains from the sheriff’s hands. His dark eyes were avid with malice. “Hold him,” Gisbourne said sharply, then with great precision and ceremony set the heavy iron shackles around each wrist and locked them into place. The key was returned to deLacey.

Robin, feeling the weight, the pressure, the finality, was grateful he wore leather bracers. They would protect his flesh.

“And lo, how the knight is fallen,” deLacey remarked dryly. “Crusader, is it? Coeur de Lion’s well-loved man? But also, as I recall, captive of the Saracen for a year or more. A man who did not die properly in battle serving his king, but a man who
yielded
to the enemy. A man whose weapons were taken from him. A man who was imprisoned by the Infidel, and yet survived.” He paused. “Tell me, what did you have to do for them in order to buy your life?”

He had learned among the Saracens how to hold his silence. How to offer nothing to those who would demand it. How to lose himself inside his head. Even when his captor took the knife away and released his throat, albeit only to sink a fist deep into hair and lock his head into place, Robin said nothing.

The Saracens had been dangerously devious in their punishments. Normans such as deLacey were simply brutal.

Brutality he could survive.

DeLacey smiled. “You father should see this, I think.” He turned toward the bed, toward the man buried in covers. “My lord? My lord earl?”

Had he any breath left to lose, the outrage would have taken it away. Robin stared in disbelief as the sheriff approached the bed. Soldiers moved away, expressions indifferent. There was no noise at all from the corridor.

Ralph, he thought, was unconscious. Or possibly dead.

Clever, clever trap. But he had time. His disposition was not in deLacey’s hands. It was for the king to say. John would have to be told; it would require days for a messenger to find him, possibly days for John to receive him. And time for John to make his decision; Robin could hope the king remembered Locksley as the Earl of Huntington’s son. Days for the messenger to return with the king’s answer. Time for him to think, time for Marian and the others to contrive a plan.

But “accidents” did occur, especially to prisoners.

“My lord earl, I beg you to waken. There is something you should see.”

Robin had learned to go away inside himself when he was prey, and prisoner. But this was his father deLacey dallied with. An old, ill, dying man.
“Leave him,”
he ordered, as if on the battlefield.

It resulted in a fist tightened in his hair, a head held stiffly motionless, and amusement from deLacey. “But I understood from Ralph you and your father were often at odds. Stubborn men, he called you. Why should you care what this man sees? It was he who bought Ravenskeep away from Marian. He who cast you out. He who is responsible for your straights.”

Robin held his silence.

DeLacey turned back to the bed. “My lord earl. There is something you should see.” He leaned over the bed, put a hand on a shoulder buried in mounds of bedrobe. “Do look, my lord.”

Breath hissed between Robin’s clenched teeth and stiff lips.
“Leave
him!”

“No,” deLacey answered sharply, and grasped the earl by both shoulders. “Wake up, my lord, and witness the downfall of your son.”

Still on his knees, Robin surged upward, chains ringing, locked shackles clanking. But the man who held him slammed him down again, once more locking a forearm around his throat. Robin raised his chained arms, thrusting them up into the air as if he might grasp for his captor, but Gisbourne was there, Gisbourne who held an iron poker. Gisbourne who planted it deep in Robin’s abdomen.

Breath whooshed out on a throttled and involuntary outcry. He could not breathe, could not
breathe,
just hung there with an arm around his throat, body spasming against the outrage of the absence of air.

“Nicely done,” deLacey observed. “Good my lord, do look!”

Robin, fighting merely to recapture breath, saw nothing. But he heard the rasp of a voice ruined by coughing, a querulous and broken demand for Ralph’s attendance.

“Do look at your son, my lord,” deLacey urged. “It may be the last chance you have to see him. I am quite certain the king shall wish him executed.”

Gone inward, wholly consumed with thawing frozen lungs, Robin saw nothing. But he heard the voice, heard the effort made to question, to understand. And then the thin-voiced, breathless question. “What are you doing to my son?”

“Ah, but you told me yourself you had no son. This is merely an outlaw, my lord. A man who steals from others. A man destined to hang.”

Breath was coming back in unpredictable increments. When at last Robin forced his abdomen to expand so that air could get through, he began to see again. And saw his father, fighting to sit upright, to peel back the covers, to exit the bed, his mouth drawn back in a rictus of effort.

“Leave him,” the earl said, in a weak echo of Robin’s own order.

“I think not,” deLacey replied. “He is dungeon-bound, this man, to await the king’s pleasure. Be certain I shall acquaint the king with the fact of your disinheritance as well as the exploits of this man: how he stole a prisoner from me, stole horses, delayed a royal messenger, robbed innocent people. In fact, he stole the tax shipment only yesterday; it was our good fortune that we got it back again.”

Tax shipment? Robin’s glance went sharply to deLacey.

“My lord earl, you are well rid of this man. You need no part of your memory, your proud name, tainted by this man. We shall remove him from your sight.”

At a signal Robin’s captor heaved him to his feet. Soldiers closed in around him. Hands were on him. He was pushed and prodded from the chamber, knees and abdomen protesting the abuse they had suffered.

He would have protested none of it, having learned never to give satisfaction that way. But his father . . . Robin wrenched away, half turned, caught a glimpse of the gray face, the gasping mouth, and then was heaved bodily from the room. He nearly tripped over a man lying on the floor: Ralph. He saw no blood. But that meant nothing.

In the chamber, the earl was attempting to give orders. William deLacey laughed, then appeared in the doorway. At his nod, Robin was dragged away.

Behind him, the earl’s trembling voice called weakly for Ralph.

 

Huntington swam up from the depths, clutched at covers, pushed them aside. The room had emptied. He was alone.

“Ralph?”

Distantly he heard the sound of mailed men tramping away, descending stairs.

“Ralph?”

DeLacey was here. DeLacey had his son. DeLacey had Robert. Meant to
execute
Robert.

He would permit no such thing.

“Ralph!”

The earl pulled his legs out from under the covers. His body was slowed, but his mind continued to work. He could not permit deLacey to shame his name, to shame his house. There was a way . . . he had nothing drafted yet.

“He is my heir,” he rasped. “All of my land . . . all of my wealth . . .
he shall be Huntington”—
Where was Ralph? It wanted Ralph. Ralph would write the documents.

Robert would be heir, Robert would be earl, Robert would be too powerful for small men such as deLacey to plot against. Sheriffs did not dare to conspire against earls.

“Ralph . . .” He won free of the bed at last. The robe straggled from his frail shoulders, slipped down to his elbows.
I shall have the document written . . . he shall be my heir . . . I will have the world back the way it was . . .

But the world did not wait on such men as were dying. The world moved on, ruthless and cruel, bearing no empathy even for men who were fathers, men who were earls, recanting of their whims.

“—let him marry the girl—”

But the world would not wait, would not even pause.

But Ralph did not answer. Only Death.

Marian was very nearly done braiding her hair into one tight plait when Alan announced they should move camp. That prompted rude comments from Will Scarlet, and questions from Tuck and Little John.

“Besides,” Little John said, “Robin will look for us here.”

“Robin likely won’t be back tonight,” Alan pointed out. “If his father’s that ill, he’ll stay.”

“Unless the earl throws him out again,” Scarlet muttered.

“And he’d find us anyway,” the minstrel went on. “This is one of the reasons we’ve got our bird calls worked out, so we can find one another.”

“I
heard none,” Marian put in acerbically. “I rode very quietly, and very carefully, and no one made any bird calls at all. It wasn’t until I imitated a duck that anyone bothered to find me, and that took Much.” She sent an approving glance at the boy. “But perhaps Alan is right. Didn’t you say you brought prisoners here yesterday?”

“Guests,” Little John clarified. “And we did that, aye. We gave them food and drink, made them pay a toll, and sent them on their way.”

“Then they would know how to find you again,” she observed, amused by the description.

Scarlet grunted. “Not likely to. They want that lad in Brittany to be king, and Robin says we’re helping.”

“That’s where some of the money is going,” Tuck explained.

“The one was most unhappy,” Alan said. “But ‘tisn’t a bad plan, anyway, to move frequently. ’Twill make it harder for the sheriff to find us.”

Marian tied off her braid, then bent down and began to gather up belongings. “I think we should go. It will be dark in two hours. Best to move now, while we can see.”

“And go where?” Scarlet asked.

Alan was picking up blankets. “Deeper into the forest. Well away from the road, so we can lay a larger fire. I’ve a taste for the king’s venison tonight.”

“That’s poaching!” Tuck cried. “They can cut off our hands for that!”

Little John cast him an amused glance. “Before or after they hang us?”

Much grabbed up his bow and quiver. “I’ll go.”

“You?” Scarlet demanded.

“His hands are better than yours, Will,” Alan pointed out. “And his eyes are younger, too.” He shot a glance at Much. “All right, lad, but see to it you bring us home a deer big enough to feed all of us.”

“Bring back two,” Little John suggested. “I’ll eat one all by myself.”

Grinning, Much darted off into the forest.

“Think he can?” Scarlet asked.

“I do.” Marian had seen the boy shoot. “And now, Will, if you please—get your rump off that blanket and give us a hand.”

“Oh-
ho!”
Scarlet grinned. “I see we’re still the high lady despite the lad’s clothing!”

“Marian,” Tuck offered archly, “would be a lady anywhere.”

She laughed, appreciating the defense. But amusement died away. Alan was right; Robin likely would under the circumstances stay the night in Huntington. But until he was back, she would worry regardless. “Tomorrow,” she murmured, tying up her bundle, “midmorning. If he’s not back by then, I’ll go to Huntington myself.”

 

Amazement, deLacey decided, best summed up the reaction of the populace. They could not believe what they witnessed: the son of an earl, though dressed like a yeoman, wrists shackled with iron, being made to walk steadily through the streets of Nottingham, striking a fair pace lest he be jerked off his feet and dragged behind the horse. The sheriff had briefly considered taking him in through the city a shorter way, but decided it was best to let the people see him. They knew Robert of Locksley, now Robin Hood, had engineered the rescue of the cutpurse on Market Day; let them comprehend what such actions reaped.
Even the son of an earl
was subject to the sheriff’s justice, and the king’s pleasure.

At the moment, however, it was all deLacey’s pleasure.

He rode calmly at the head of the phalanx of mounted guards. Robin was at the rear, save for the two men riding behind him: Philip de le Barre and Guy of Gisbourne. Their task was to see to it no one approached the prisoner. DeLacey supposed an archer might take them all easily enough, but he was certain none in Nottingham at this moment would attempt it. The trap had been too well constructed, too secretive. None of Locksley’s men knew he was taken. And the sheriff had no intention of bringing him out into Market Square for punishment. He would remain in the castle until King John sent word how he wished the execution to proceed; and, unlike with the boy, this time it would be handled in private, behind the castle walls.

Unless, of course, the king desired Locksley be sent to London, where he might be beheaded at Tower Green. Though deLacey rather hoped he would hang, because death took longer at the end of a rope unless the neck was broken; and the sheriff would bribe the hangman to botch the drop.

Smiling, deLacey turned in the saddle, looking over a shoulder. There he was, Sir Robert of Locksley, Crusader knight, king’s hero, tied to a horse by virtue of a rope connected to his chains. He walked steadily with no sign of a limp, but deLacey did not doubt it took effort; de la Barre had struck him a hard blow behind the knees. Yet nothing in his expression divulged his thoughts.

The loose fair hair shielded some of his face, but deLacey, riding in front, could see him clearly. Pale gold stubble defined jaw and cheekbones, pointing up the aristocratic cast of his features. Hazel eyes were quietly fixed on the horse before him, judging the pace, marking if the animal might trip or shy, either of which could prove disastrous for him. His mouth was set in a grim line, but there was no fear in his face. Only a calm mask that deLacey had witnessed five years before, when Locksley was just returned from captivity. He had been strange then, withdrawn and mostly mute, given, when he spoke, to unpredictability in temperament and conversation. The years since had aged him—what boyishness had been left after war and captivity was now gone—but it merely underscored a certain ruthless competency in his features.

A bad enemy, deLacey did not doubt. But now merely a prisoner, and incapable of troubling the sheriff ever again.

Through Market Square among shocked stares, whispers, murmurings, and the occasional shout. If Locksley were aware of them, he gave no notice. The castle gates stood open. DeLacey rode through, lifting a hand to the men who stood at attention, amidst the ringing clop of iron-shod hooves against cobblestones. Through the outer bailey and into the inner, to stop before the entrance . . . there he gave the order for the prisoner to be loosed from the horse. The rope was undone. The men, dismounting, fell into place around Locksley. DeLacey stepped off his own horse, gave the reins to the waiting boy, and led the procession into the hall.

Mercardier, seated at the table for an early supper, glanced up in mild interest, meat-knife in one hand. But that turned to startlement as he looked upon the procession, marking the men and their prisoner. He thrust himself to his feet even as his meat-knife clattered against the hardwood table. For the first time the mercenary was unmasked; his expression was a mingling of shock and, as that passed, speculation.

DeLacey unhelmed and passed it to a servant who came forward to aid him. He slipped the mail coif to his shoulders and peeled off his gloves, handing them over even as he walked, smiling faintly at Mercardier. He could not have asked for a better tableau.

“You see,” he said calmly, “we have caught the man responsible for stealing the taxes. The man who proved himself more able in robbery than you in defense, despite the king’s trust. Perhaps that is why you have never liked Locksley; might he be better than you in all things? Is that it, Captain?” He paused. “Did the Lionheart love him better?”

But Mercardier had donned the mask again. One hand rested lightly against the table. His dark, opaque eyes followed the guard contingent without expression as the prisoner was led the length of the hall.

“Perhaps you can visit,” the sheriff commented. “Just now Robin Hood must inspect his private lodgings, but I believe it will be possible for him to receive you tomorrow.”

Mercardier flicked a glance at deLacey. With a slight jerk of his lips—was that truly a smile?—he sat down again and returned to his meal.

Inwardly deLacey laughed. Oh, indeed. He could not have dreamed a better moment.

 

It was, Robin supposed, a humiliating spectacle, the procession through Nottingham. But he went deep inside himself, detaching himself from the world. His body was aware it moved—his knees ached, for instance, and his abdomen was sore—but felt little beyond the repetition of step after step after step. His mind marked the movements of the horse, watching for a misstep, but even that was done from a distance. His awareness was a kernel within the flesh, warding itself against the predations of pride, of shame, of mortification. He had survived the Saracens. Had withstood the beating meted out by Norman soldiers ostensibly his compatriots. This, too, he would endure.

Onward through the castle gates . . . through the baileys, where the rope was removed and his arms could drop down again, still heavy with iron but no longer stretched taut and subject to the motion of the horse. Still he built walls around his senses, distancing himself from the stares of the sheriff’s men and servants. It was not until they entered the hall and he heard the scrape of a bench against the floor, the clatter of a knife, did he take note of anything beyond what was required to go where he was taken. And then he saw Mercardier, and detachment shredded.

Especially when deLacey asked, “ ‘Did the Lionheart love him better?’ ”

There was more. But he burned with anger. It took all he had to meet Mercardier’s eyes without giving away his emotions. And those eyes were as usual shielded behind a barrier even Robin had never been able to penetrate with the irony and edged witticisms that pierced so many men. It had been learned in the years with his father, though kept internal. As a soldier on Crusade, among the king’s favorites, he said what he wished, albeit not in obvious ways, and made enemies for it. It had amused Richard. Mercardier abhorred it.

There were many, Robin knew, who would relish this moment.

But the moment passed. DeLacey had him taken down into the dungeon. There the sheriff himself peeled back an iron grate, and motioned to the others.

A ladder was brought. But before it was put in place, before Locksley had so much as a glimpse of the pit below, a hand was planted in his spine and he was shoved forward over the lip.

He fell, twisting in midair, landing on hip and shoulder, braced hands pushing against the floor as he rolled to take some of the weight. There was straw beneath him, and soil beneath that. Above him, the grate was dropped down. He heard the sound of the bolt shot home, the heavy click of a lock. There was no light save what crept down through the cross-hatched iron. He pushed up to one knee, determined not to let deLacey see him lying on the floor, and stared upward. He could make out nothing but colors, shapes, and movement through the iron lattice.

He expected the sheriff to offer a comment. But nothing was said. The torches were carried away. Footsteps receded, ascended stairs. In the distance a door thumped closed. He was left in darkness and the squalor of the pit.

Robin released a hissing breath. Now he felt the aches, smelled the tang of nervous perspiration, knew the tremor of humiliation inside. But there was more to think about, even as he rolled his shoulders in an attempt to loosen overtensed muscles. There was his father, dead or dying. He had wanted nothing more than to confront the man about his acquisition of Ravenskeep, but in the moment of discovery, of seeing him so drawn and frail within the massive tester bed, anger had dispersed beneath the onslaught of shock. And then there had been no time for anything as he was attacked from behind.

Now there was time. Plenty of time. To see again in his mind’s eye the man who had sired him and always regretted it, grown ancient but no less selfish and autocratic; and to know he was dying even as the sheriff acquainted him with his son’s latest failings. To see again Ralph’s desperation, to hear the steward’s pleading for him to come home to Huntington. But Huntington Castle had never been his home. His home, Huntington Hall, had been razed years before.

He was not his father’s heir. That had been made clear. But the task of having the earl’s body, upon his death, interred within the Huntington crypt was likely his to do.

Except, ironically, it was now entirely possible that the son might die before the father.

Robin closed his eyes a moment, composing himself, then peered upward. Somewhere above a torch yet burned; the faintest trace of wan light made its way into the pit, though it illuminated no more than a dim patch upon the floor. Everything else was blackness.

He began to kick over the straw, digging through the loose scattering on top to the crusted layers below, down to time- and filth-packed earth. It was foul in the pit, rank with the stench of ordure and travail. There was likely a slops bucket somewhere, but from the pungent sting of urine issuing from one area he believed an inhabitant prior to himself had forgone that small token of civilization. He overturned the straw not to uncover things best left hidden for want of exercise or curiosity, but because he did not wish to sit in or, if he managed it, to sleep in waste and vermin nests.

When he had groomed one area as well as possible, kicking loose straw back over old, he sat down and leaned carefully against the wall. He assimilated the chill of raw stone until he could stand it without his flesh jumping, then drew up his knees and began to knead the undersides with his hands, shackles clanking, trying to bleed away the knots and tenderness.

He would endure captivity. He had before.

 

Much indeed brought back a deer, albeit small, and only one. Nonetheless it was more than enough for those who had not tasted its like before. Such meat was not permitted anyone lacking a writ of
vert and venison—
official permission from the king to kill and consume royal deer—and thus the peasantry, unless they turned to poaching, were denied the privilege reserved for select noblemen such as the Earl of Huntington.