Juliana Garnett (7 page)

“Aye, move thy arse from my way, and I will see it done so we may be swiftly gone.” As Will complied, John lay aside his bow and quarterstaff to kneel in the road. Iron and wood stoutly resisted even his impressive strength; his muscles strained and his face grew red with effort as he sought to pry open the hinges that held it fast shut.

Jane remained at a distance, while men she recognized came from the wood to lend their advice and might. A faint smile plied her lips. Alan’s girth had thickened with the years, but he was still a comely man. Clym of the Clough knelt beside Little John, nudging aside William l’Cloudisely in his impatience to open the coffer.

Familiar companions; reminders of childhood days spent with Robin: trodding greenwood paths in her uncle’s shadow, eager for his company despite her mother’s despair at her rebellious daughter’s bent for adventure, rather than mundane lessons that more befitted the only daughter of a Saxon knight.

Indulging reminiscence, she came lately to the sight of riders approaching. A ringing shout and the Normans were upon them, swords flashing death and vengeance in the gloom beneath the tangled trees. No mere four monks now, but a contingent of soldiers in full armor. Norman crossbows twanged with bolts quickly spent and useless. Peril lay more in the weight of horse and rider skilled in dealing mortal blows; lethal blades and hooves expertly cleaved a path among the scattering outlaws.

It was quickly done; some few escaped into the trees, while others were brought to heel with savage efficiency. Four lay motionless; crumpled green and pooling crimson in the road.

When it began, Jane had instinctively melded into the dark obscurity of the Cockpen Oak. Heart hammering and mouth dry as fuller’s earth, she watched in horror. Fingers clutched futilely at a bow no longer practical. Save two, her arrows lay broken and splintered under iron-shod hooves.

A Norman horse danced, blurred black against green held
in check by a mailed hand. She recognized first the steed, then the rider, and foreboding turned her blood to ice: Tré Devaux. Not in Canterbury, nor even Nottingham, but here on the Edwinstowe Road to visit defeat upon their hopes.

Disaster
.…

5
 

“Bind them.” Still mounted, Tré regarded the bloodied men standing in the road impassively. Eager, agitated from the fray, his destrier sidled onto the grassy verge until curbed by a patient hand. Defiance stared back at him from the men being shackled. He smiled.

Deliberate Saxon English, mocking: “Let them walk to Nottingham. The sight will give the good citizens of the shire ample time to ponder the wisdom of outlawry.”

One of them—a giant of a man with fair, shoulder-length hair—regarded him with baleful eyes. “The good citizens of the shire have had ample time to ponder Norman thievery. Be ware, lest ye meet them in Sherwood glades not yet infested with pet curs who heed the call of coin instead of honor.”

“Honor? Strange word on the lips of a man so recently engaged in plunder. Heed thy own advice, Saxon.”

It was enough to silence the brigand; blue eyes flashed chagrin, and the bearded jaw clenched. He radiated fettered power, evidenced by the quarterstaff splintered against a Norman helmet, shattering more than the wood. A broken pate was not the only injury inflicted on his men. Several of them bore smashed noses and snapped bones, surprising in that the struggle had been brief and overwhelmingly in Norman favor.

Most had fled or died; only these men had stayed behind, unyielding in the face of inevitable defeat. Three live outlaws, four dead—a good day’s work.

Guy moved close, his mount fractious. “Shall we give chase to the rest?”

“Futile, in this wood. They have gone to ground like weasels. By this time, they are halfway to Cuckney.”

“A village named for the king, I trow, as John makes it a habit to cuckold husbands.”

The jest eased Tré’s mood. In the distance a mutter of thunder promised more rain. As he nudged his mount toward a large tree across the road, he said over one shoulder, “They still hold a Horn Fair each October in honor of the king and the cuckolds.”

Guy’s laughter followed him. He dismounted beneath the spreading branches of the most massive tree he had yet seen, a leafy giant more worthy of the title than yon outlaw.

It would be a lengthy journey back when his bladder was full. There was much yet to do. His return from Canterbury was too recent for him to have tended to duties neglected in futile service to his king.

John
. A blight on humanity. If nature had done its task properly, the king would have been stillborn.

He stepped to one side of the tree, lifted the edge of his tunic to unfasten the cords of his chausses. Boots sank into forest debris: leaves and twigs too swollen with damp to snap beneath his feet.

Relief from the pressure of his bladder was attended by pattering on leaves beyond the toes of his boots.

Two months had passed in Nottinghamshire, months of constant harrying and attendance to the king’s demands for men and monies, resources torn from citizens already burdened by taxes and winter’s depredations. Yet he was sworn to it. He had as little choice as they, though it would not be believed.

A slight sound to one side distracted him; he looked up from the business at hand to feel the cold press of steel against his bare throat. Instinct urged instant retaliation, but common sense intervened. He wore no mail coif, having donned the
garb of a monk. His leather hauberk fit from neck to knee, hardly protection against a bodkin arrowhead in the throat.

Heedless of the danger and silent command, his bladder continued to empty.

Soft, faintly mocking, a hoarse demand issued from the shadowed depths of a hood: “Whilst I have no wish to disturb you, my lord sheriff, I must ask that you release my men.”

He cleared his throat; steel moved with the spasm, then nudged a little harder so that his reply was constricted into a single, “No.”

Harder now, steel against flesh. From one corner of his eye, he glimpsed hood and shadow. Beyond the arrow’s length, deadly promise: “You
will
, ere you sport a new hole in your throat.”

At last his bladder emptied.
Of all the positions and places to be in
.…

Freer now, he focused on the bowman’s voice. The words were couched in gentle Saxon English, not the rougher tongue of peasants and outlaws. Soft tones. A Saxon youth of good family, perhaps, flushed with outrage against anything Norman.

Evenly: “Put down the bow, young master. Go quietly, and I will not offer hindrance or pursuit.”

It was reasonable to expect his suggestion would be accepted; two dozen Norman soldiers and an accomplished knight were within fifty feet. Review of the situation would demand an intelligent concession, even from a Saxon youth.

Unbelievably, the bodkin dug more firmly into his skin until he felt it tear; warmth oozed down his neck. His jaw set. The youth was beyond his grasp. No man was swift enough to halt a loosed arrow.

“Call to them. Tell them to free the outlaws.” Steady, insistent, oddly familiar, the voice from the hood drifted on the air currents between them. “I have nothing to lose by slaying you should you refuse.”

It was true. Blood had been drawn. He had no intention now of allowing this insolent bowman to escape. Silent, immobile, he weighed his options. Flight from an arrow was impossible; it would transfix him before he could do more than turn. He had seen men pierced through heavy metal armor and
leather, with no more resistance than wet bread. English bowmen were legendary for their effectiveness.

Even against mounted Norman knights.

“I expected better from a well-spoken Englishman,” he said to gain time. He gauged distance and reach, plotted a swift turn and swerve to one side.…

A reminding nudge of the arrow. “I am not responsible for what you expected, my lord sheriff.”

Coupled with the tone, recognition exploded in his brain.
It cannot be
.…

Yet the phrase was the same, well remembered these last two months, as was every word she had uttered his first night in Nottingham. But it was impossible. A knight’s daughter—a Norman baron’s widow—swathed in Lincoln green and determination, holding an arrow to his throat.

Then, irrationally:
I still have her mantle
.…

Carefully, he released fistfuls of wool so that his tunic covered groin and opened chausses. The bodkin prodded a bit harder.

“Time flies, my lord sheriff. As swift as an arrow.”

A pointed reminder. The irony did not escape him. He decided then. Behind him he could hear Guy and the others, no doubt too involved in their own thoughts of victory and the promise of food and ale at journey’s end to take notice that he had not yet rejoined them. If they glanced up, they would see the grazing destrier that blocked their view of him and his unexpected companion.

“Slacken the pressure so that I might call out,” he said, and felt hesitation in the hooded figure. He knew she wondered if she could trust him. He could have told her she could not.

But he remained silent, and when at last she eased back slightly, he called to Guy, “Release the outlaws.”

A sound of astonishment answered him, rife with disbelieving protest. “Did I hear you right?”

Like the crack of a whip: “You heard me give the order to release the outlaws. Do it without delay.”

There was no debating that tone. It was one of command, learned from his father and a hundred other men used to power. It earned instant obedience, as he expected it to.

He waited. Aware of her beyond the arrow, he noticed now what he had been too chagrined to notice before: a faint teasing scent of mint drifting on the damp wind. It was familiar, too; marked in winter months when clothing and bodies reeked for want of washing. She had worn it then, a light fragrance that permeated her mantle as well. The garment hung on a pole in his private chambers, meant to be returned but the errand delayed in his pursuit of the king’s business.

Perhaps it was time to return it.

Motionless, silent, he was aware of the freed outlaws in the road, their amazed laughter, then louder hoots when it was discerned that he had been accosted when emptying his bladder. No doubt it would be all over Nottinghamshire ere night fell that the sheriff pissed away his chance to hang the outlaws.

A twig snapped underfoot, surprisingly dry in the moist forest, and the bodkin left his throat. He did not move. He had no intention of trying to halt her flight.

Then they were gone, vanishing back into the greenwood whence they had come like so many shadows. Guy strode to him as he was retying the cords of his chausses.

“Merciful God, you must have good reason for letting them go free!”

Dryly: “Yes, I prefer only one hole in my throat.”

An impatient hand waved the remark away as trivial. “We had them by the ballocks.”

Hitching up the waist of his chausses, Tré said, “I was in a fairly similar situation. It was not to my liking.”

Some of Guy’s fury abated, and an unwilling grin widened his mouth. “This tale will be repeated, I fear.”

“I am certain of it.” He walked to his destrier, ran a light hand over the sleek hide, then mounted. “We may turn that to our advantage.”

“Ah.” Guy looked up at him with sudden comprehension. “I see. Before a sennight passes, all of Nottingham will know their names. The outlaws will not be able to resist letting it be known who escaped—or who held you at arrow’s point.”

“Perhaps.” He nodded. “We may learn the names of the giant and the others, but I do not think we will hear the name of the boldest outlaw bandied about.”

“No?” Guy followed as Tré nudged the stallion into a walk. “A modest fellow, is he. Unusual for an outlaw. They seem to prefer boasting of feats only imagined.” He reached for his destrier and took up the reins. “I wager you are wrong. That outlaw will brag of his deed over the length and breadth of England ere long.”

It was most unlikely.

As they started down the road back to Edwinstowe it began to rain, a downpour that turned the already muddy track into an impassable mire. Miserable, wet to the skin despite mail and tunics, the bedraggled Normans rode in disconsolate silence with their wounded and the coffer used as outlaws’ bait.

Rain dripped from the visor of Guy’s helmet. His eyes were a pale gleam behind the noseguard. “How do you intend to catch the outlaws again?”

“I think,” Tré said softly, “that I shall let them come to us.”

“A surrender?”

“Of sorts.” He flexed his fingers to ease the throbbing ache in his hand, ignoring the rain streaming down his face. “First, we must return a lady’s mantle.”

6