Juliana Garnett (37 page)

Tré was not surprised. Devious John, who would grasp at anything to assuage his anger.

“Your eminence!” A body of men stepped forward, earning the king’s glare and the archbishop’s interest. “We are prepared to swear that Sir Gervaise Gaudet did attack first, on the steps of this hall, and that Lord Devaux was forced to defend himself.”

The archbishop turned to John. “I believe that is proof enough for you, sire.”

Disbelief, anger, defeat crossed the king’s face. He sank into the high-backed chair behind the table, shook his head. “I am beset.”

Tré sucked in a sharp breath, suppressed rising exultation.
Too soon … elusive victory can vanish before my eyes.

Even when the chains were removed, he did not give way to relief. He waited; watched the faces spread about the hall, kept his back to the stone column behind him. One hand hovered at his side, palm itching for the hilt of a sword. He would feel better with a weapon in his hand, to die fighting like a man instead of at the king’s pleasure.

Illusionary freedom, wavering just beyond his grasp, a promise and denial all in the same breath.

He saw Little John, a head above everyone else, golden hair streaked with gray. Surprise struck first, then instant concern. If Little John was there, then where was the lady Jane?

Jerked from immobility, he left the column by the dais and moved into the crowd, ignored Oxton’s outstretched hand that would delay him, shoved past barons who’d come to his aid.

“John of Hathersage,” he said quietly, and Little John turned. The dour expression more familiar to Tré was gone; a strange jubilance lit the outlaw’s face.

“Aye, my lord Devaux?”

“Where is my lady?”

Deadly quiet penetrated the giant’s elation as sharply as the dagger at his side. His smile faded.

“The lady is safe, or I would not be here.” Soft dignity, a calm answer.

Tré believed him. “Where is she?”

A faint smile curled Little John’s mouth, eyes a proud glitter. “When last I saw her, she stood with an arrow held to Norman throats. It was your lady who opened the gates for the archbishop.”

Shock mingled with misgivings; he blew out the breath that expanded his lungs, shifted the dagger. “And you left her there alone?”

“Nay, my lord Devaux, I left her in the best of hands. I assure ye, she has not come to harm.”

Mystery shrouded his reply, but impatience to see Jane spurred Tré more than curiosity for the explanation. “If she has come to no harm, why then is she not in the hall?”

“She awaits ye in The Bell, far removed from king and hall. For reasons of her own.” John nodded sagely. “She will tell ye what ye want to know soon enough, my lord.”

Adrift in a sea of conversation that he did not want to join, Tré nodded curtly. No man tried to stop him as he left the hall, nor was he accosted when he left the castle. It was dusk, earlier now near autumn.

Church bells rang Vespers. Market Square was less crowded; the carcass of a horse blocked an alley, and he went
around it, stepping over other malodorous refuse from a tanner’s stall.

The Bell crouched over a narrow street, half-timbered and sagging at one end. He swung open the door, stepped into a small common room with low beams and plastered walls that were originally white. It grew quiet as he stood there, men turning to look at him, voices dropping away. He understood. Blood still stained his shirt, caked his wrists where the manacles had rubbed.

“I search for a lady,” he said into the charged gloom, and none moved or answered.

Then a bench scraped on the wood floor, a soft familiar voice came to him through the gloom: “Let me lend my aid, sir. I am good at finding ladies.”

He did not smile; he could not find the energy or the heart. Not even when Jane paused in front of him, hands on her hips—her best swagger wasted. She wore a hooded jerkin and hosen; a bow slung over one shoulder, arrows jaunty in a quiver at her side.

He curved a hand behind her neck, pulled her to him, kissed her with a grimness born of desperation. A soft sigh of surprise filled his mouth; he swallowed it, deepened the kiss until the cold emptiness inside him was eased. At last he could breathe again; still holding her, he pressed his mouth against the top of her head, nuzzled wool.

Then he released her, glanced up; men stared at them with wide eyes and open mouths that bespoke astonishment at such a display. One man regarded them with a faint smile, different from the rest, his gaze one of wary approval.

Jane snared Tré’s attention again with a gentle nudge, a step back to look up at him. “Shall we go home, sir?”

“Yea, I am ready.” He inhaled the fragrance of mint. “I am ready to spend the rest of my life with you. You have my heart, now and always. But you must know that.”

Soft laughter, then: “I have known that for a while, my handsome lord. It just took you overlong to learn it.”

“There are those,” came a comment from the light-haired stranger regarding them with indulgent amusement, “who take more convincing than others.”

Tré’s eyes narrowed. A temper already scoured from too-ready danger rose swiftly. With a hand on the hilt of his sword, he said bluntly, “It is no concern of yours, sir.”

“Is it not?” Languid regard centered on him, seasoned with laughter behind blue eyes that looked strangely familiar. “Do not be too certain of that, my lord Devaux.”

Before he could respond, Jane put a hand on his arm, fingers curling urgently around muscles taut with strain. “My lord, do allow me to present to you a well-loved prodigal son, returned as if from the grave. A hero lately come home.”

The man rose from the bench, careless grace, tall and faintly smiling. “You flatter me, little Jaie. ‘Prodigal’ suits far better than ‘hero.’ Were I heroic, I would have arrived in time to lend my arms to hold at bay the Normans at the gate. Alas, you stole my glory with your own feat—a worthy prodigy, I vow, more skilled than I remember the girl I once knew.”

“I was a child then. Now I am a woman.”

“So I see.” Blue eyes flicked to Tré, measured him with an assessing gaze. “A woman for only a worthy man.”

Realization struck even before Jane said, “I present to you my uncle, Robert of Locksley, the Earl of Huntington.”

Locksley’s brow lifted; light hair gleamed. Time and travail marked his face with lines, but he moved like a young man still. Bright blue eyes regarded him steadily, creased with laughter when Tré said softly,
“Robin Hood.”

IV
 
 
BARNSDALE IN SHERWOOD FOREST HUNTINGTON CASTLE
DECEMBER 20, 1213

29
 

Portions of Huntington Castle lay skeletal and ruined; empty windows like vacant eye sockets gazed at the encroaching forest, walls garbed in vines and creepers wore a leafy mantle of olive against drab shadows.

“The king restored Clipstone Palace with my stone,” the earl said in disgust as he gestured at what had once been elegant castle and grounds.

Jane nodded. A painful return after so many years, this visit to happier times where memories lurked in dark crevices and remnants of oak wainscoting. Roofless, open to sky and forest creatures, Huntington showed little evidence of the grand fortress it had once been.

More painful was the bleak light in Robin’s eyes as he stood with wind-whipped mantle to view what was left. Hope vanished now, in stark realization of what was lost.

“Will you rebuild, Robin?” she asked at last, a gentle nudge from reverie that brought his gaze to her with a faint smile and hitch of one shoulder.

“I have not enough coin left to build even a cow shed.”

“What of the king’s promise to repay damages to those barons he has wronged? Will that not be enough to rebuild Huntington?”

“Yea, but agreement has been delayed. There have been two more meetings since All Saints’ Day.” A hesitation, a shake of his head, then a long sigh blew frost into the air. “I have entered a petition. Until a settlement can be reached, the interdict will not be raised. England is yet without sanction of God at King John’s whim.”

Wind whipped hair that was still a rich gold, if streaked here and there with gray—familiar to her and yet strange, after all these years, a young girl’s memory distorted by time. He was a man, after all, driven by his own demons to fame and folly. Noble, gallant, flawed, as were all mortal men; she admired him now more than she had then, recognizing his generosity of spirit that had risked all without a qualm.

She put a hand on his arm. “There will always be a place for you at Ravenshed. My mother would have wanted you there.”

“Ah, sweet Clorinda.” He nodded. “I think of her oft still, and the times we had in Sherwood.” A grin squared the corners of his mouth. “Did she ever tell you of the time we hid from the sheriff in the Cockpen Oak? He rode right past us. Clorinda put an arrow into the casket of taxes to warn him we watched, and sent his horse down the road with Hugh Bardulf clinging to the neck like a thistle.…”

“My
mother
shot an arrow at him?”

Robin’s brow rose, faint streaks of gray in the arch. “Yea, she did. Did Alan never sing of those days, little Jaie? Of beautiful Clorinda, a better archer than most men—and some said, equal to Robin Hood himself.”

“No. Never.” Jane stared at him. Memories teased, of angry protest at teaching her only daughter to shoot a bow, of Robin’s laughing persistence. “No one told me.”

“Ah, well. After she met your father, she wanted only to please him, to put it all behind her. Clorinda wanted it forgotten that she wore jerkin and hose, that she was outlawed with the rest of us. Yet I thought someone would have told you of it by now.” He eyed her for a moment; kind eyes, generous heart, truth offered up as a gift at last. “You have her skill, Jaie, and her strong heart. She was never faint-hearted when she wanted something. Neither are you.”

It was a reminder.

Tré was gone again, returned north to Brayeton, leaving her behind in Robin’s secure custody. Long nights stretched endlessly as she fretted; he went to reclaim his lands and title, but would he return to reclaim her?

She sucked in a sharp breath that smelled of snow. An idle hand picked at crusted liverwort carpeting a tumbled stone; it crumbled beneath her hand.

Robin’s gaze did not waver. “It grows late. Dena will fret if we do not return before dark, and Marian will be irritated that we have been gone so long.”

Silent fears, unvoiced and uncertain, gnawed at her peace of mind. Anything could happen. The king’s enmity had been incurred, and there was always Pell Ewing, Earl of Welburn—who was responsible for the death of Aimée. If Tré sought vengeance, it could unravel into disaster. At the least, he could be deseisined again—at the worst, slain.

As if reading her dark thoughts, Robin said gently, “He is not a foolish man, Jaie. The king waits like one of his hawks for the least mistake. Devaux knows this. He will not risk all now for the sake of revenge.”

“It eats at him, Robin.”

“Yea, as it ate at me while I languished in an Arab prison those many years. Vengeance, hatred, rage: futile emotions. Destructive to the man that nurtures them rather than releases them. Freedom comes with the abandonment of empty convictions.”

He turned, swept an arm out to encompass the ruins of Huntington Castle. “It is gone, yet I do not weep. I can rebuild dreams of other than stone, and be the richer man for it. An earl or an outlaw, it makes little difference to me, Jaie. I have what no man can take away now, hard learned these past years—serenity. It will stand me in good stead whether in the midst of battle or in the quiet greenwood.”

When she did not reply, he came close, tucked her chin in his palm to lift her face to his. “Have faith in him.”

Have faith in him.… Yea, so I do have faith in Tré, but not in the king or fate.

They left Barnsdale to ride north through the quiet forest reaches. Gray light closed in, drab stretches of umber and dun anonymous in winter’s peace. Goosedale and then Longdale were swiftly behind them.

Ravenshed waited, familiar lights welcome beacons on the walls. Chilled from the ride, dusted now with snow, Jane dismounted in the courtyard, greeted Fiskin with a nod and proffered reins.