The Last Arrow RH3 (46 page)

"I will stay here, be it all the same to ye, my lord," the old man muttered, "to save my poor head the trouble o' falling so far."

Robin looked askance at Littlejohn, who translated and pointed to the dead doe.

"Indeed," Robin said. "A fine, fat deer you have brought down this day, and you see before you hungry men who would gladly buy whatever meat you could spare." The old man cowered further, his belly almost rubbing he ground. "Take it all, yer worship, I need none o' it. ley eat my turnips, ye see. I try to drive them off, I swear it to ye, worship, I do, but they keep coming back. This one, only meant to scare off with my arrow, in truth I did, for I could not shoot my own foot if I rested the broadhead on it first. I like the deer, truly I do. But they eat my turnips, an' without my turnips, my family would starve an' this small plot o' land, poor as it is, would be taken away from me." "Is this your freehold, then?" Littlejohn asked. "Aye, worship. As it was my father's an' his father's before him."

"Then surely you have the right to kill any animal that trespasses upon it, especially if they have come to eat your turnips."

Griffyn, who had by then dismounted as well, came forward. "Not if that land is surrounded by royal forest," he aid quietly in French, for the benefit of his companions, d again in Saxon English for the old man. "And not if at forest is full of wardens and verderers who earn an extra bezant for every hand they chop off a man who was only trying to keep his family from starving ... or his turnips from being eaten."

A watery brown eye peered up from beneath the folds of inkles and gawped. "Ye speak like a son o' the land. Has the king turned the children against us now?" Griffyn smiled grimly. "Not in this lifetime, Father. We are only travelers seeking to make our way as peacefully through the forest as possible. My giant friend here was not trying to trick you; his belly speaks only the truth when it needs filling."

The old man seemed to inspect them closely for the first time. While they wore mail hauberks and chausses and carried their weapons and shields in plain sight to discourage too close a scrutiny, their tunics were plain, without cresting or colors, and their shields had been draped in gray bunting, in the fashion practiced by those knights returning from pilgrimage. Brenna wore her hair bound in a tight coil and stuffed beneath an oversized cap. She wore no mail but, like the two squires, was protected by a short leather byrnie and a well-padded surcoat that camouflaged any hint of her sex.

"Ye're not the king's men?"

Griffyn shook his head.

"Ye're not wardens?"

He shook his head again.

"Not wringers?"

"Only hungry travelers who would be willing to pay thee well to share a portion of your venison." Griffyn drew a couple of marks from his belt, possibly the first the old man had laid eyes upon in some time, for he stood, wobbling on weak legs, his gaze fixed on the twinkling silver coins.

"Aye, I need only a portion o' the haunch myself; but ye mout take the whole chine if ye have a belly as big as this"—he glanced at Littlejohn—"to fill."

He licked his lips and his bony hand seemed to stray toward the coins a moment before he controlled the impulse and withdrew it, wiping the palm on the greasy fabric of his tunic. "But I'll take no coin for it. Killing the royal deer would only cost me my hands, but if the wringers came an' found the coins, well ..." He shook his head mournfully.

"It would be the gallows-tree for me an' all my kin, innocent as they may be o' any crime."

It took a moment for the translation to win a reaction from Robin. "Wringers? Who are they?"

"Tax collectors," Griffyn explained with a frown. "Of the worst sort. They travel in packs, like wolves, and concentrate on the poorest farms and farmers, tearing a hut apart board by board and breaking the occupant's head if they even suspect him of hoarding an extra grain of wheat they have not listed in their rents."

Robin flushed, for his father had never condoned brutality or violence when dealing with his tenants, and those tenants, in turn, rarely betrayed his trust by trying to cheat their lord of his due. They were, in fact, happy to keep the storerooms at Chateau d' Amboise bulging. More than once over the past years harsh winters and poor crops had seen the Wolf open his doors to his people, even to sending vagons to neighboring demesnes to purchase grain and meat for those who would have starved otherwise. "It makes little sense to beat, maim, and starve the very men who work the land and provide the rents that keep the manor lord in comfort."

The old man, who must have known more French than had initially let on, smirked at Robin's naivete "Not if at lord is the Earl of Huntington an' his lord is John Lack-land who seeks to take every last morsel o' bread out o' every man's mouth to satisfy the hunger in his own." He straightened and puffed out his chest. "An' ye may stab my art with yer dagger for saying so, if ye will. I'll not beg to ant."

But it was Griffyn who looked suddenly stabbed. "The Earl of Huntington, you say?" "Aye. Though I warrant he calls himself god in his private chambers." "Does he have a name?"

"Aye. Gisbourne. Guy o' Gisbourne. He were awarded the Huntington claim some years back after the old earl's son disappeared—murthured by the king's men, some say, though there are others who swear he'll come back one day o seek his vengeance. If yer horses be as strong as they look, ye've been riding on Gisbourne's land since yester-noon, an' if ye keep riding hard, ye'll not pass out o' it before another three days hence, well ayont the Great Road. Owns a fair piece o' Nottinghamshire, he does, an' lords over it as high sheriff to make his thievery sound like justice. Like as not, he would own all o' Lincoln an' York too if not for the King o' Sherwood." "The King of Sherwood?"

"Aye, a brave man. A hero." The brown eyes blazed a moment. "A bold an' stouthearted lad who showed himself not to be afraid o' the king's men an', by his example, fit spines back into the men who followed his ways an' kept the forests safe for humble fools like me. First thing Gisbourne did when he came to Nottingham was to put his soldiers on the road an' in the forests—looking to purge it o' outlaws, he claimed. Looking for pennies to steal an' women to rape, mores the like. Honest farmers had to hide their grain in tree stumps just to keep their families from starving, an' honest husbands had to hide their wives an' daughters an' sisters in dung heaps to save them being carried away to whore for the guards in Nottingham Castle. Then one day, a troop o' these black-souled monsters were waylaid on their way back through Sherwood. Claimed the devil stopped them, for he were dressed all in black an' wore a hood over his face, as did the dozen or so disciples who sprang out o' the trees an' bushes behint him. Took back the women, they did, an' took back the chickens an' grain an' pennies, then sent the guards on their way well blistered to show the sheriff his thievery would not go unpunished thenceforth. Aye, an' it has not." The old man chuckled.

"Even though Gisbourne threatens to hang every taxman who comes back with his purse empty an' his mouth full o'

pitch an' feathers." He stopped and laughed so hard, he had to slap his knee and stamp his foot. "Paints them in hot pitch, he does, then rolls them in chicken feathers afore he puts them back on the road. More 'n one has been mistaken by the sheriffs own wardens an' shot for the castle kitchens."

"These outlaws must be rich fellows by now," Robin suggested.

"Nay!" The old man sobered and spat with enough vehemence to startle the horses. "They keep not one cutting o'

one copper groat! What they takes, they gives back to those it was stolen from—an' more besides! My own son—"

He stopped and chewed on his tongue, as if he had said too much already, but then he cursed and continued. "He were beaten by the wringers—so bad he lost an eye an' half a foot. When he heard about it, the King o' Sherwood found the wringers an' demonstrated a mort o' Saxon justice. Eye

for an eye, foot for a foot. He gave my Barth more than what was took, as well as the satisfaction o' knowing there are six o' the sheriffs men walking with sticks an' seeing half what they did afore."

"This outlaw king does indeed sound like a stout fellow," Litlejohn agreed. "I trust he will not take offense to our passing through these woods or mistake us for the king's men."

"In fact," Robin said, "we should like to meet him, if you can tell us where he may be found."

The old man looked instantly suspicious, and his gaze went from face to face, studying each with renewed wariness and fear.

"We are not come in search of any reward or bounty," Griffyn assured him.

The turnip farmer wilted again and shook his head sadly. "Would do ye no good even if ye were. Some yellow-livered, fish-pricked swine has already collected it, for he has been locked away in the sheriffs donjons this past month, an' Gisbourne has set the hanging for Saturday next."

"That is"—Littlejohn counted on his fingers—"four days hence. Has no one tried to free him before now? What of these brave men you say follow him?"

"They would follow him to hell if he asked it o' them, but they'll not do the sheriffs work. Nottingham is a fortress.

In the woods, aye, they move like ghosts an' know how to cause a man to melt with fits just by whispering his name.

But a castle with a full garrison? Few o' the foresters ever held a sword afore fie put one into their hands."

Dag, whose common sense was often the victim of his impulse and passion, looked at his brothers. "We have swords, and know well how to use them."

"Day an' night," the old man said, "we have prayed for another brave man to step forward and don the lincoln hood with enough boldness an' courage to rescue him."

"You see before you the bravest man in all of England,

France, and Normandy," Richard declared. "His name is Robin W—"

"—of Locksley," Griffyn interjected hastily. "His name is Robin of Locksley and he would need to know a great deal more about this outlaw king before he would commit his sword to the fight."

"Locksley?" The brown eyes watered under the folded wrinkles of a frown as they peered intently at Robin's face—a face that was turned to look askance at Griffyn.

"Locksley!" The old man's brown eyes bulged out of their creases, and he fell onto his knees again, grasping Robin's gloved hand and pressing it over his head as if he was seeking a benediction. "The bard was right! Ye did not die by the king's sword! Ye did come back ... and ye've brought Albion with ye!"

This time Robin glared at Griffyn, who only shrugged and murmured, "I thought it might as well be a good Saxon name that takes credit for any prayers we might answer between here and Nottingham."

"Yours, of course?"

Griffyn smiled. "You invited me along for the adventure, did you not?"

"Not four thousand marks' worth."

"An extravagant gesture and a risky diversion, I grant you, but look upon it this way: When Gisbourne hears the real Earl of Huntington is back in Nottingham, how much attention do you think he will pay to a small abbey at Kirklees?"

Robin frowned and looked down at the old farmer's bowed head. "And who the devil is Albion?"

"Not who. What. It is a sword, reputed to have been carried by the Saxon king, Alfred the Great, when he prevented the Danes from conquering all of England."

Robin glanced at the huge serpentine blade strapped to Griffyn's side. "And now I suppose you are going to tell me

...?"

Griffyn followed Robin's gaze and laughed. "It belonged my great-grandfather, aye, but the only legend attached It has to do with the Prince of Darkness." "A legend that may be somewhat tarnished now due to to a ... untimely tumble from the saddle."

Griffyn looked up and saw the question hovering unspoken behind the statement, but a faint smile was the only answer he gave as he turned and walked over to the horses. Robin stared thoughtfully after him, then helped the wobbly old farmer back to his feet.

"Come, old man. Share your fire along with your venison d tell us more about this bold King of Sherwood."

Brenna was appalled and almost too angry to wait until after nightfall when the others were asleep and an opportunity arose to steal a private moment's conversation with Griffyn Renaud.

"Are you mad? Are you completely insane?" she demanded.

The accused, who had been sitting by the side of the small brook that coursed its way past the turnip farmer's freehold, glanced over his shoulder at the sound of her voice.

"And a pleasant good evening to you too," he replied.

"Tell me one thing pleasant about it."

"Well." He looked up at the night sky. "The rain has stopped and the moon is out. For another, the river is sweet and cool, the forest so quiet you can hear the leaves breathing."

Brenna took a moment to look grudgingly around, not even aware of the moonlight until he mentioned it. As for the stream—did he expect it to be hot and bitter? In truth, she found the silence more oppressive than comforting. The trees were taller than those in the forests around Amboise and most had thick vines twined around the trunks to distort their appearance. They wore their foliage up high, while below, their bases were veiled in an opaque, knee-deep layer of mist that undulated like a pool of white cream with every movement. The farmer's cottage, a hut of mud and wattle, was set like a hazy jewel well back in the moist darkness of the woods. And try as she might, the only breathing she could hear was her own, dry and angry and too fast for rational thought. Those same moments Brenna used to contemplate her surroundings, Griffyn used to steel himself against her lymphlike appearance in the moonlight. The farmer's wife, discovering a woman in their midst, had insisted she take of all of her sodden clothes and lay them out in front of a blazing fire to dry. She had replaced them with a plain tunic of coarse, cream-colored wool, shapeless and inches too short, then boiled enough hot water to allow Brenna to ash the sea salt out of her hair and restore it to its natural golden resplendence. The result, illuminated by the intense streamers of blue-white moonlight, made her look like a druid goddess come to scold him for daring to have human oughts.