The Outlaws of Sherwood (42 page)

“Were you not?” said Cecily with some irony.

“You are still a lord's child,” said Little John, “and my family has been free for less than a generation; and my first act was to lose our holding.”

“But—” Cecily began; but Little John put out his hand, and at the touch of his fingers she fell silent, and she shivered as she had shivered on the morning they went to the fair. Little John said, puzzled, “Are you cold?”

“No,” she said. “I want to put my arms around you and hold you so hard you scream for mercy, and I have only one arm to do it with.”

“Ah,” said Little John, and came to her, and stooped, and kissed her; and her one good hand reached up to pull down on the nape of his neck.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

It was Robin himself who came to find them a little while later with the message that the king's command had come—already. The two of them stiffened and fell apart as the future presented itself to them again after only a few minutes' happiness. It's not fair, said a little voice in the back of Cecily's mind; they might have let us have one night. But another little voice said: You have had many nights. You are luckier than you deserve. The first little voice said unkindly: What would you have done with your night anyway? He cannot touch your left side and you cannot touch his right. The second voice said, Come to that, where there's a will there's a way.

Cecily pulled her clean tunic as straight as she could over her bandaged shoulder, and Little John gave his leg one last hard scratch.

“You look like you are expecting nothing less than the gibbet,” said Robin dryly; Little John looked down at him. Robin was carrying a lit torch; its approaching glow had given them some warning that their warm darkness was about to be invaded.

“So do you,” said Little John. Robin smiled; and went first to lead the way.

Robin and Rafe carried Marian again; Tuck brought up the rear. There were only the twelve of them together, plus Tuck himself and Brown-eyes. Brown-eyes had so disdained any contact with the castle dogs that he had been permitted to stay with his master. Tuck curled his fingers in the dog's ruff, not from any sense that he could prevent Brown-eyes from doing anything he might choose to do by physical strength, but just for the comfort of his being there. Brown-eyes, like most of the rest of them, still limped; but also like the rest of them—Tuck thought—he looked a formidable enemy. Brown-eyes had only to bare his teeth to prove his potential dangerousness; something else clung around the human outlaws, something that Tuck, who had become a hermit to get away from such things, could almost smell hanging in the air.

No one wore anything that might be considered a weapon; even the short daggers they cut their meat with had been left behind. Alan and Marjorie held hands; Little John and Cecily walked side by side. When the torchlight fell briefly on Cecily's face, Tuck was saddened by the look he saw there. For all our words we aren't expecting much, are we? he thought.

There was a roar of noise and a dazzle of light when they crossed the courtyard and the squire who had brought them—one of Sir Richard's, who looked as anxious for them as they felt for themselves—pushed the heavy doors open. Men in Sir Richard's and the sheriff's and the king's liveries stood inside; and beyond that was the Great Hall where their fate awaited them. Perhaps it was the unfamiliarity of the noise, and the knowledge that they would have to stand alone in that great bright room and be stared at by many strangers' eyes, but that fate in prospect felt as merciless as the falling edge of Guy of Gisbourne's sword. Cecily wanted her knife in her boot-top just for companionship. As they paused on the doorstep she took a deep breath and tried to settle herself as for combat, or for being knocked down by another tricky blow from Little John that he hadn't taught her yet.

Marian stood, a little shakily, on her own feet; Robin offered her his arm. She was dressed as an outlaw; they all wore the dark leather and rough wool they were accustomed to, though all of them (particularly Much) were cleaner than customary. They had not discussed what they should wear to face the king—with the considerable stores of Sir Richard's wardrobes at their disposal, they might have chosen almost anything. But what they were all wearing when they trailed in to Marian's chamber to stare at their supper and find it hard to eat was their old garb, patched extensively from Sir Richard's goods, but their own old clothes nonetheless.

Tuck's gaze lingered on each in turn. It was hard to remember his first sight of some of them: of Will Scarlet, who had become Will Brown and Green; of Little John, almost as tall as one of the friar's gateway oaks; of Cecily, who had been Cecil then; of Robin, wary and half-hostile even as he came to ask the friar a favour. Robin caught Tuck's eye and said, “Now is your opportunity to ask for a new roof for your chapel.”

Robin and Marian went first, Robin adapting his pace to hers; the others followed equally slowly. When Robin and Marian reached the dais where the Lionheart sat with Sir Richard at his right hand, they paused, and the others could see Marian gathering her slight strength for an obeisance to the king. But the Lionheart stood up and came forward, startling them; the other outlaws fanned out behind Robin and Marian, and all halted.

“You need not make me any bows,” said the king. “I know of your wounds, and I do not wish to compel any of my subjects to unnecessary pain.” No one said anything. Cecily thought: His English is better than Aubrey's.

The Lionheart stepped down from his dais, as lightly as a boy on holiday stepping outdoors with a sunny summer day beckoning him on. Robin and Marian held their ground, but whether deliberately or because Marian was not sure she could step backward without losing her balance, it was hard to tell. “But I will ask of you something I value most in my subjects.”

The hall fell silent as soon as the king rose. The tumult had subsided when the outlaws passed the threshold, but new excited whispers had run round the room. When the Lionheart's foot touched the floor, the hush became so profound that the scuffling of the dogs among the floor-rushes for scraps sounded loud; and when a hawk, disturbed by the sudden silence, stirred on its post behind its master's chair, the tiny chime of its bells was shocking.

The Lionheart was half a head taller than Robin or Marian, but he did not come so close to them that they must tip their heads back to look at him. He was smiling a little, the smile sitting both easily and uneasily on his long hard face: the face of a man who is a staunch friend but a stauncher enemy. “I ask,” he said, and he did not need to raise his voice for the whole hall to hear him, “for your fealty.”

A good many breaths hissed through teeth; the restless hawk spread its wings and cried out. The king did not appear to notice. He looked into Robin's face; and Robin realised that this man meant what he said. “You, called Robin Hood, outlaw of Sherwood Forest and leader of outlaws, breaker of the king's laws and the king's peace, do you now pledge me, your king, your fealty?” He held out his hands, and Robin placed his between them and spoke in a voice as clear as the king's: “I swear.”

“Marian of Trafford, and sometime outlaw of Sherwood, loyal friend of the outlaw Robin Hood and breaker of your proper obedience to your lord your father, do you now pledge me, your king, your fealty?”

Marian's voice rang out: “I swear.”

“John Little, called Little John, outlaw of Sherwood, do you pledge now your fealty to me your king?”

But Little John looked down upon the king in silence, and did not at once place his hands in the outstretched ones of the Lionheart. “My lord and majesty does not speak all my crimes aloud,” Little John said in his low rumble, so that those sitting at the far end of the hall could not be sure of his words. “Does he still wish my fealty?”

“He does,” said the Lionheart, his outstretched hands steady; whereupon Little John laid his in them, and said, “I swear.”

Cecily was as surprised by the touch of the king's hands as she had been by the colour of his eyes; she would have expected royal flesh to be cold and stiff, more like metal than human skin; instead his hands were warm, and cradled hers almost tenderly. He had stepped close to her, and held his hands lower than he had for the others, that she might not trouble her shoulder. His blue eyes held hers as if he knew her and would remember her; as if he knew exactly from whom he was asking fealty, and that she, Cecily of Norwell, was the specific person who had given it.

When he came at last to Tuck his smile grew a little. Brown-eyes examined him with interest, as if he might be a new sort of thief or blackguard it would prove his duty to chase. “I do not name you outlaw, Friar Tuck, for the friars have long been called to befriend those who are in need of friends when other folk shun them. I think not a few of those standing with you this evening owe their lives to you; and as you choose to stand with these your friends who are outlaws, will you also swear fealty to me?” And Tuck drew his cold fingers out of Brown-eyes' fur to lay them between the king's and say, “I swear.”

The Lionheart turned away, moving quickly now, as if the ritual of fealty had given him new energy. He remounted the dais, where he stood looking out across the hall. His expression was the one he had worn when he first rode across the bridge and under Sir Richard's portcullis; he smiled, but he looked as if he did not greatly like what he saw. And for the first time since the king's banner had snapped out flat in the wind that afternoon, Cecily felt a real hope rise up in her heart; for he had looked more kindly upon the outlaws of Sherwood when he asked for their fealty.

The king said to Sir Richard, “I want a small chamber where my newly reinstated vassals and I may speak of their duties.”

Sir Richard rose that he might himself lead them. Several of the king's men seated at the high table stood to follow, and the king nodded to them. The sheriff of Nottingham sat at the bottom of that table and stared before him, blankly, like a blind man; as the outlaws followed Sir Richard and the king, Cecily looked into the sheriff's face. It was grey, as grey as Marian's had been when Cecily had caught her in her arms on the day of the fair.

Sir Richard led them to his own private chamber: the room where Robin, not yet of the Hood, had sold him his last arrow as a free man, before the fatal meeting with Tom Moody on the way to another Nottingham Fair, a year and a half ago. Sir Richard stood aside at the door, to let the king and his guests go in alone, but the king gestured that he should join them. The lord of Mapperley looked surprised, and hesitated near his own door, like a servant expecting to be sent on some unnecessary errand, just to make him go away.

Some of the king's servants appeared with chairs from the dining hall; Marian subsided into one immediately, but while the king indicated they might all sit down, none of the rest of Robin's folk chose to do so. Even Much dug his crutches hard under his arms and stayed upright. The king's men all sat—carefully at a little distance from the outlaws, where they had been at pains to instruct the servants to place chairs—but the king himself did not, choosing to prowl up and down the room, between his courtiers and the outlaws; and both sides wondered what was to happen.

The last servant left, closing the door behind him, and the gracious room was suddenly a prison. The hope Cecily had felt a few minutes before was too stubborn to die at once, but it felt itself beset.

The king said without preamble: “You are now mine, to do with as I choose; and what I tell you, you must obey.” No one said anything; one or two of the king's men looked relieved. “I might have you ordered hung out on Sir Richard's gibbet at dawn and it should be done; if for no other reason than that you are only twelve and I am king, and those around you would do my bidding.” He looked at the outlaws, catching everyone's eyes in turn. “I might at least hang those two of you with the blood of king's men on your hands: Robin Hood and John Little.”

The silence stretched out, like a midwinter night, cold and hard. The Lionheart stopped his pacing, and stood with his hand on Sir Richard's desk. “I will not have outlawry running over this country while I am doing Christian business in the south. It is not enough that you have now sworn to me; you must be disposed of somehow—disposed of in such a manner that you will not be tempted to take up your old ways in the green and roofless halls of Sherwood. Your deaths are one such way of certain disposal.” Silence fell again; the king picked up a leather pen-holder and examined it as if it were a doubtful peace-offering from a treacherous knight.

“But I have other plans.” He set the pen-holder down. They all stared stoically at him. “The sheriff of Nottingham is a fool and a lout; and a cruel and greedy fool and lout. Him I am tempted to hang as I am not tempted to hang this company. I think I will not. I am not yet sure, but I think I will not. I have already given my Regent my opinion of his Regency, that he has not found time from his other pleasures to attend to the matter of the sheriff of Nottingham long since. Perhaps I spare your sheriff because I do not trust the strength of Sir Richard's gibbet, which is old and long unused. Perhaps I. spare you because I do not know of a gibbet long enough for twelve at once and would not humble your loyalty to each other by hanging you separately.

“You are doughty fighters and I have need of such. I would have your services as soldiers when I go south again, which shall be as soon as I can raise the money.… I go from here to my tax assessors.” His smile turned wry. “You will be guests of my court, with the rest of my army, till we set sail. It will be some little while; you will have the time to heal and grow fit.

“And for the breaking of the king's laws,” he said softly, “this shall be punishment enough, for I see you love England very much: that it will be years before you see her again.” He did not say,
if ever
, yet the outlaws heard the words nonetheless. “I will not let any of you go who can still march and fight till the Holy Land is freed.