Maid Marian (8 page)

B
UT
I
WAS PROVEN WRONG.
Before another half hour had passed, Robin Hood returned to my place bearing a wooden bowl of roast pork and venison. He sat down beside me and, not knowing what hunger I felt in my belly, lowered the bowl and sought instead to speak.

“Lady Marian, I was impertinent, and we have quarreled. I am sorry. I would not wish to make ill words with any guest.”

I, for a moment, forgot the bowl.

“And I am sorry for what I said, for I can see it caused you pain. What you said was true, my eyes are bad, and it is a failing of my race. The Saxons, indeed, are noble at heart, which the Normans may not prove to be.”

“Nay, you need not apologize for speaking in defense of your own clan. You ought to do it. But I say in all honesty that my words regarding the strength of your eyesight were meant in jest only. They are fair eyes, whatever their flaws.”

Fair eyes!

“I have a fault of being too serious,” I said, plucking at the grass. “Another time, if I may be allowed another time, I will be less quick to anger, I promise you.”

“And I, as tribute, will give homage to one of your Norman saints. Saint Lucy, I believe, may be one of your favorites?”

I gave a start, my brow frowned, but then I saw his jest and laughed, for he had caught me in my promise far faster than I had ever expected. Saint Lucy, indeed! As patron saint of eyes and eyesight, Saint Lucy was a bold choice.

A
T LAST WE SHARED
a bowl of supper, and I daresay this woodland meal was one of the best I had ever eaten. Perhaps my hunger made all food taste like nectar, or perhaps the king’s deer are more tender than most. Whatever the cause, I was well pleased and sampled everything with my highest compliments.

When we had finished, and men had brought round fat skins of ale and Gascon wine, Robin Hood turned his face to me, though ’twas now so dark I could scarcely see it.

“Lady Marian, you wished before to speak with me in a serious way, and I turned things into jesting. If you will agree to tell me now, I will promise to hold my tongue and listen through.”

I smiled in the dark, for angry though he was able to make me, he also had a winning way, and I was hard pressed not to be pleased with him.

“I have a difficulty, Robin Hood, and I had hoped that you might help me. A letter shall pass along your roads from Queen Eleanor to Lady Pernelle of Sencaster. I wish to see the contents of it, for I believe it holds information relating to my own future fate.”

“Surely you are not in trouble, Lady Marian? Not destined for the rack or dungeon? ’Twould be a shame when I’ve men here who would gladly die for a night in your bed.”

I flushed again, pink as a rosebud. Some unbidden voice taunted that, should Robin Hood die for such a price, the world would be much the loser. But then I drew myself together and looked at him imploringly, for I longed to make him serious, if only for one instant.

“Nay, no trouble, if that’s the sort you mean. But I believe I shall soon be wed, for as a vassal of King Richard, the queen may marry me to any man she deems worthy. I would fain have knowledge of it before the fact, if I can manage to do so.”

“Marry! This is the sort of trouble which plagues young ladies? I had thought you all wished to marry.”

I struggled to speak with a calmness of heart. “I might perhaps desire to marry if I loved the man or even thought him worthy, but the queen shall sell me to one with money or one with influence, regardless of character. I, you see, have been once wed and am already widowed, and from the marriage contract of a widow the king shall gain a payment of silver in addition to the gratitude from the husband.”

“Now come, you think so highly of yourself as that? To believe your husband would love the king for having gained you for his wife?”

I fought against exasperation. “’Tis not I that will make him grateful, but I come with lands, left me by my parents. The man who weds me will gain those lands and with it taxes and revenue, and for this he would be grateful. The queen sees all this and will choose a man with wealth enough to pay the king in silver. But she will also choose a man whose loyalty is somewhat lagging, for a marriage gift can boost allegiance one-hundred-fold.”

“Ahh,” he said, his voice soft at last, “this is the state you find yourself in. I had not known how it was for ladies to be sold off so.” He was quiet for a moment, then spoke again. “But is there no chance you shall love this fellow? Perhaps all might be well in the end.”

“Nay,” I said firmly. “I will not love him. I believe I shall never give my heart to any man, for once it is given, I lose all dominion over it. ’Tis better to be a slave by circumstance than to serve blindly through a cloud of love.”

“Is that so?” he asked, plainly surprised, for his eyes snapped like an April sky. “It pains me to hear that no man will tempt you, for we’ve pretty faces enough in our band to please the most particular lasses. But if wedded life seems a bondslavery to you, I would scarce push you to it. We’ve a number of liberated bondsmen here, one that sold for fifty marks at Dublin Bay, and I hear from them that the serving life is not one to relish.”

The instant I heard his reply, I regretted my words, for life in Sencaster, no matter how grim, could hold no comparison with true slavery. And yet the brisk air of this Greenwood tree made me feel that to take up my former fate with a peaceful heart, to foster the whims of parents-in-law and a willful husband, would be impossible.

“And so you wish me,” Robin continued, “to send my men to intercept the queen’s letter? With the intent that you may see which man she sends you off to marry? How, may I ask, will that alter your fate, Lady Marian? For it seems to me you cannot avoid the wedding day, whether you know the bridegroom’s name or not.”

“Yes, you may be right. But I feel that I must attempt something, and nothing can be thought of until I know what the queen has decided. It is, perhaps, a fool’s errand, but I must try whatever I may, and so I beg for help.”

He was silent again, and I supposed he must be thinking of the risk to his men in attempting such a thing. I spoke hastily.

“I understand you may not feel this small campaign worth the risk to yourself and to your men, and for that reason I have brought with me one hundred marks in silver as payment. Perhaps this may make the letter more worth the taking.”

Here he was again silent, and I remained silent also. I had told him all, given every incentive I had, and could do no more than wait. When at last he spoke a strange emotion played upon his face.

“Are you telling me, Lady Marian, that you and your mistress Annie came into this wood on purpose to seek me? That my men did not catch a noble lady unawares on the Nottingham path, but that you meant all the while to be caught? This is pretty! What a joke on my men who thought they had snared themselves a fancy bird!”

“’Twas deceitful and wrong to do it, I suppose, but it is true.”

“Oh, nay, say naught of deceit and wrong. We are bandits here, remember? Nay, indeed, say no more of that. ’Tis charming to think that you sought me out, and in exchange I will fetch your letter. Know you what day it passes through Sherwood?”

“The post was to leave London town yesterday, on Friday. I know it stops in other shires, but I had heard it would pass to Sencaster on Sunday or on Monday, if all went well.”

“And if all has gone well, my men and I shall cause such a nuisance that these letters will not arrive as scheduled. The poor men of the post. I do pity them at times.”

“Indeed? I would have thought an outlaw’s heart would be hardened against pity by necessity.”

“Perhaps I am not the wisest of outlaws. But no more of that.” He grinned and looked to me, then away. “It sounds to me, Lady Marian, as though you have but recently acquired the fine Saxon tongue. How has that been your plight? Most of the nobles in this shire speak Saxon better than their Norman French.”

This was a blow. I had so hoped that my speech did not sound odd to him, so proud to be carrying my own side of our conversation. But of course his ear would hear my accent just as any sheep would recognize the wolf dressed in sheep’s clothing.

“I was raised in Warwick Castle where the only language spoken was French. I did not even know a Saxon tongue existed until I was thirteen. Annie has taught me all I know.”

“You have known each other long?”

“She was my nurse from infancy, the only parent and one true friend I have ever had.”

Again we two fell silent, then Robin Hood called for Allan a Dale and his harp, for he wished us all to hear a song. In another moment the young man came forth, accompanied by a pretty maiden and, placing himself near the fire, began to strum a tune. His melody was long with many verses, and I became restless during it, but I saw that it was the custom of the place to remain silent during a song, and so I stayed quiet also. Had this been the court in London, all conversation would have continued. But harps and songs were common there and perhaps less valued because of it.

At the end of the song most of the men left their places to look for sleep, and Robin Hood became again the dutiful host.

“For a night’s sleep we can offer two choices. The Blue Boar is a splendid inn not two miles off, and a group of my men would lead you there if you wished a roof and fire and bed. But if you feel less particular, Allan a Dale and his bride, Ellen, will give you a place in their bower, just there on the edge of the field.”

I felt unsure, for I did not wish to travel two miles before finding a bed for the night, but neither did I wish to intrude on the bower of a newly wed couple. But as I pondered, Ellen came forward to bid us stay in such warm tones that I accepted. ’Twould be no intrusion, she promised me, for a curtain was hung across half the room, and so Annie and I should have a space to ourselves.

I collected Annie, and we traipsed behind Ellen, making our way carefully in the dark. In her tiny house of rough timbers and twigs, a reed wick was burning in a pot of oil, providing just light enough for bedtime. Ellen found deerskins to cover the floor and thick woolen pallets to soften the bed, before slipping away to leave us alone. We both lay down, still cloaked and clothed, and I, exhausted from my trials, felt nothing more than warmth and comfort until the first rays of dawn crept in through the chinking.

Chapter Eight

I
ROSE IN THE CLEAR AIR
without waking Annie and slipped out to the robber camp, stretching my limbs as I went. There I was surprised to see that most of the band had already risen and sat breakfasting on brown loaves and water. The number of men astounded me, for here I saw three times as many as I had counted the night before. Where did they sleep? How did they manage a band of such size, all outlawed, all wanted, in the midst of the king’s forest? Robin Hood, I thought, had time to do much more than jest, for it was he who made an easy life for all these men. I looked at them, at their scarred faces, and thought how much they must love him for it.

Well might I have dwelt on these fellows, for as I walked beneath the Greenwood tree, every eye seemed locked upon me, tracing my form, my figure, my face. Their attention made my movements stiff, and I was grateful when Robin Hood sought me out with a plate of bread, for he looked unperturbed by my presence, as if to have a fine lady in the midst of his camp were as commonplace as bees and honey.

“Your men give me an awkward feeling, good Robin Hood,” I said to him. “They eye me like a cow at market or a pretty bauble they’d like to snatch.”

“Aye,” he answered with a grin, for he seemed to find my complaint amusing. “’Tis the way of menfolk apart from their women. Any one of them would give two marks just for a look beneath your skirts.”

This startled me, and I believe I gasped. My upbringing had been an odd one, sheltered and solitary, and it had not prepared me for such a fellow as Robin Hood. I blushed to my collar, so startled was I by his striking eye and ready smile. But what discomfited me even more was his willingness to give me individual attention, despite the mass of fellows about us. A more reticent man might have turned from me to join his men, but there was nothing reserved in my host; he was all brazen recklessness, as pert and salacious as Eros himself.

“Tell me, Mistress Lucy,” he said with a smirk, as if no mention of my skirts had been made, “did your night in the forest pass away smoothly? Were you not frightened awake by strange sounds in the dark, by the hoot of an owl or the wind in the trees?”

I could see by now that he took pleasure in barbing. Mistress Lucy, indeed. I too, I thought, could play at that game.

“Nay, Sir Robin, no sounds troubled my sleep. But I did have a dream that stays with me still—of a lawman, tired and hungry in the wood, who followed the scent of cooked venison here. Have you no fear of being found out by the king’s men? For if they cannot find you with their eyes, their stomachs would surely lead them here.”

He laughed loud enough for the fish in the river to hear. “Now you’re at it, Lady Lucy. This is the way to behave in Sherwood. Nay, I say, I fear not the hunger of the king’s guard, for they never travel without bread and cheese. They know little of wanting food. But I am glad you were not troubled as you slept—’tis not many a woman who relishes a woodland sleep.”

“When it is a matter of being tired, any bed will seem the softest in the world.”

“Well said.” He began to rise from where we sat. “Today my men and I will attempt to take your mysterious letter. You and Miss Annie may stay here with Ellen and pass the time however you like. Only, I pray you, shoot no arrows at any target while you are here. I would not have any of my men injured by a sharp lead point to the eye.”

I made a pretense of laughing at this, though I laughed far less at his joke than he.

“You have my word on it, Robin Hood. I will not touch a single yew bow while I am here in your wooded camp. But I have been thinking,” I said, lowering my tone. “Regarding this taking of the queen’s letter, do you not think it would be best if the page had no notion which letter it was that your men wanted? What I mean to say is, could your men not seize them all and leave it to me to sort through and find the one meant for Lady Pernelle?”

“Certainly, if that is what you wish.”

“And could the page be kept somewhere, a little far off but quite comfortable, so that once the letter is read through it and its fellows may be returned to him and he sent on his merry way? If we could keep Lady Pernelle from knowing that anyone bore an interest in her letter, it would be far better for me.”

I saw him stiffen at my interference, but I cared little. These were important matters and the handling of this venture was not something to be left to chance.

“I had thought, Miss Lucy,” he replied in a huff, “that we would make a pretense of taking up the page’s purse so that he might suspect nothing more than a standard highway robbery. I trust this meets with your approval?”

“Very much so, I thank you, Robin Hood.”

“Then I leave you here to enjoy the day. Ellen will take you under her wing if you wish to employ yourself in some way.”

He nodded his head in a curt fashion and turned to go, thinking, I’m sure, that this was the first time an arrogant lady had told him his business as an outlaw.

E
LLEN PROVED TO HAVE
a sweet and open temper to match her shining face, and she took Annie and me on as her companions with all the generosity with which she had welcomed us to her bower at night. She was to spend the day picking early berries and fruits from the meadows downstream, and we were pleased to join her. The day was bright, the sun was warm, and Ellen’s mirthful chatter filled our ears and made our walk seem but a trifle.

We soon found that the topic she loved to speak of best was her own recent marriage to Allan a Dale, the quiet minstrel. She told the tale in a piecemeal way that left us both confused at first, listening, as we were, with one ear only.

“Can you imagine how thrilling ’twas to enter the church there with my father and see him standing, awaiting me? My father was not pleased at all—oh no, he was furious!—but I was happy. Nay, my father turned quite red, purple even, for he wished me to marry
him,
you see.” Here she mumbled something we could not hear. “But I just couldn’t, for he was so old! More than sixty if he was a day and walked with a stick all the time. I cared little for his fine horses, I tell you, since having those would mean living a life with that old man and his thumping stick.”

I was well occupied with enjoying the day, the sun on my back and our pleasant walk, and really did not care if I heard Ellen’s story or not. But as she spoke I began to feel compelled to make some sense of her words even against my own inclination. And so, with a sigh, I sought to clarify.

“What old man was that?”

“Oh, Sir Simon of Trent, to be sure.”

I ventured a guess.

“And he is the man your father wished you to wed?”

“Aye, he had fairly set his heart upon it, upon me being wed to a lord and all and made into a true lady. But so old, he was! And frail! And there at the church—I had my best gown on, you know, and an early rose twisted in my hair ever so nicely. And there at the church stood Allan and Robin Hood and Friar Tuck and everyone—and the old priest, he was there as well. And Robin Hood, ever bold as he is, he started jesting with the bishop till his face went all white, quite a sight beside my father and his red cheeks.”

Here Ellen broke off into giggles, and again I felt compelled to stop her.

“A bishop was there as well?”

“Aye, the lord bishop of Heresford and with him came the prior of Emmet, his own self. They both of them came to observe the wedding, since Sir Simon was a lord and all with, oh, ever so many lands and estates.” Again she mumbled something we could not discern. “And he said to me, ‘Maid Ellen, do you wish to marry this old Sir Simon of Trent or your own Allan a Dale?’ And of course I said Allan, for who would not?”

“Your father asked this question of you?”

“Nay!” she fairly squealed. “Robin Hood said it! He was tricking them all, you see, and Sir Simon fairly skipped away, hobbling on his stick as fast as he could go.”

I looked at Annie and saw that we both felt this would not do. Here was a new tale of Robin Hood, being told us firsthand, and we could not comprehend two stalks out of the whole sheaf. I reached for Ellen and caught her hand.

“Sweet Ellen, pray tell, what was the state of things before you reached the church?”

“Well, I was in my best gown, a blue woolen one with a little ribbon, and a new rose tucked into—”

“Yes, I’m sure you were a rose yourself. But what of your father and Sir Simon? Were you to marry the old lord?”

“Aye, that was what my father wished, for he wanted to see me made a lady with proper—”

“Yes, and you came to the church with the lord, your father, the bishop, and the prior?”

“Aye, and the bishop was so splendidly dressed! And his horses—though they were a little slow, the one was a nice white milky color—but they were so lovely with bells and ribbons and all.”

“And at the church, you met with Robin Hood and a band of his men?”

“So we did, so we did! Such a surprise. I gasped aloud, I know I did. There they were, Friar Tuck all dressed for church, and Little John with his sword pulled out. ‘A shame on you, Sir Simon,’ so said Robin, ‘for wedding a girl against her will. How can ye do it, knowing full well that she loves another?’ ’Twas a great shock to Sir Simon, yes indeed. He looked at the sword and at Little John and could not hobble off fast enough, nay, not fast enough, stick and all.”

It took half the morning to draw the tale cleanly from her, and much of her gown and the rose in her hair had to be endured before we could understand it. But at last the scene in the church came clear, how Ellen arrived with her father’s party of smug nobles to find Robin Hood placed in opposition with his green-clad Saxon force. Robin Hood scared the old groom away and placed the young couple together, to have one wedding in place of the other.

Little John had called out the banns there in the church, Robin paid Ellen’s father one hundred marks in return for his blessing on the union, and the youths were wed. Ellen’s happiness, as she told it, knew no bounds, though they might have reached the heights of ecstasy when Robin Hood convinced the bishop to give her his chain of beaten gold as a wedding present.

Convinced
seemed a word often used in connection with Robin Hood, and I wondered with what level of force he bent the world to his own desires. But straight upon the heels of that thought, I imagined him away in pursuit of my letter and realized that I cared not how much force he used, just so he gained that one bit of parchment. Such hypocrisy shamed me, and I resolved not to question Robin Hood and his methods so long as I stood to gain from them.

T
HAT NIGHT THE BAND
returned empty-handed, for, as Robin Hood supposed, the page had his orders not to ride on a Sunday and had kept himself in some cozy inn. Again fresh meat was roasted over open fires near the Greenwood tree, and again Robin Hood found a place beside me, pausing in his continual motion. For he, I noticed, was rarely still. He checked the fires, he checked the meat. He jested briefly with Friar Tuck, examined the fishnets in the river, paused to advise David of Doncaster on the proper waxing of his bowstring. As I watched the crowd, his green hood appeared first here, then there, tracing its way through the groups of men as if they were nothing more than saplings that he could bend apart to pass by.