Everything I Do: a Robin Hood romance (Rosa Fitzwalter Book 1) (31 page)

It was no use.

The man was clearly not interested in listening to him.

“Wait!” Sir Gavin shouted desperately, trying to quench the hint of hysteria he heard in his own voice.

The giant stopped and turned to look at him with disgust.

“I hear that there is a holy man living here with you,” Sir Gavin said, feeling a bit foolish. “Surely you won’t deny me a prayer.”

“Go to your own parish, I am sure that we do not have the required display of opulence here to suit your tastes.”

“John, you are getting bitter,” a short man that Sir Gavin hadn’t even noticed, admonished quietly. He had been standing in the shadows all this time, silently observing, but now he came forward. “I am Father Tuck,” he said simply to Sir Gavin. “Who would you like me to say a prayer for?”

At this point Sir Gavin was thinking already of whom he could appeal to next, but seeing as it was the Sheriff himself who had attacked his property, he wasn’t sure he had any other option left.

“Lady Rosa Fitzwater,” he said, and his voice came out as a discouraged whisper.

Everything around him seemed to freeze at once.

The tall man, along with the priest held their breath. Then,

“Robin!” the giant shouted at the top of his lungs.

“I heard,” a rough voice said behind him.

…

He would never had imagined this unkempt man to be the prince of outlaws, the man said to be England’s best hope of regaining the rightful King. This man was no prince. He was dirty and hollow-cheeked, as though recovering from a great illness.

However, he had organized his own men as well as Sir Gavin’s within minutes and taken the whole situation so skillfully in hand, that Sir Gavin had prepared reluctantly to trust him.

Now, as they approached the castle in the night, he rode beside him tight-lipped and white-faced, and Sir Gavin was suddenly sure that the rumors about Lady Rosa living in the forest were absolutely true.

“What did you say you heard as you were standing right outside the east gate of your castle?” Robin asked him tensely for the hundredth time.

“Best not to dwell on that,” Sir Gavin replied calmly, as to a child.

“How did you know her, at first?” Robin pressed on. “I thought she might be in hiding.”

“She was. Disguised as a kitchen-maid, I found her. Then she met some trouble at the household she was working at, from what I understand, and ended up half-frozen on my doorstep.”

The outlaw inhaled briefly and his horse faltered.

Sir Gavin stole a sideways glance at him. The man looked ready to be sick.

“I thank you,” Robin said surprisingly as soon as he had caught his breath.

“I did not do it for you,” Sir Gavin answered abruptly. “Anyway, I recognized her because of my friend, Sir Hugh…”

“Oh yes, I forgot, you said so already. And I guess it was you who had the fine and brilliant idea to tell him to alert the Sheriff to her presence.”

At this, Sir Gavin had no ready answer. He had, indeed, foolishly told his friend of his discovery, for Sir Hugh had been in such low spirits that he’d felt sorry for him. Besides, at the time, they were both away from home, so he thought there was no danger of Sir Hugh’s telling the Sheriff -even in foolishness. Apparently, he had been terribly wrong.

“She was…” Robin hesitated. “She was well?” he choked out the last word.

“If by ‘well’ you mean feverish for days, emaciated and in mortal terror of her father finding her, then yes, I think she was extremely well, to put it that way. She was, in fact, so well that after I found her…”

“Enough!” Robin growled.

In a minute, he added, more calmly, “I will thank you to tell me more details later. I find I cannot stomach the pain of it just now. Let us rather focus at the task at hand.”

“By the looks of you, you do not seem to have been able to stomach any food either for some time now,” Sir Gavin observed dryly.

“Not since she left, some three months ago,” Robin replied in the same tone.

The Sheriff himself was not there, after all. There were, however, nearly two score of his men who, having overpowered the guards of the castle and the entire servant staff, were now busy watching and jeering as Rosa was being held for torturing and questions.

Robin and his men got in easily and noiselessly, after having disposed of the men who were placed at the entrances of the castle’s outer and inner gates. Then they climbed the stairs, Robin leading the way as he took the steps five at a time with his long legs, throwing an absent-minded punch here and there, whenever a soldier appeared who would have blocked his way.

He reached the grand hall before anyone else did.

He was standing briefly at the entrance, observing the scene before going in, right outside the common area where most of the men were celebrating their easy victory by raiding Sir Gavin’s collection of spirits, when he heard a loud, mocking voice, screeching in one of the inner rooms behind him.

“We will stay here, my lady,” the voice sneered, “for however long it takes for your memory to be refreshed. The good duke’s kitchens are filled to capacity with food, and my men will not lack entertainment, as long as you are in our midst. So, now, tell me if you please, where I can find the outlaw called Robin of the Hood…”

A harsh sound, like that of leather hitting human flesh broke the laughter of the men.

Then, a scream.

That was all. Robin erupted.

After, everything was a blur in his mind.

All he knew was that he simply took out any man that he found in the way, between himself and the figure hanging upside down from a rope on the ceiling, upside down, dripping with blood, long copper hair trailing down and sweeping the floor. The rest he left to the men who he knew were coming behind him.

He slashed with his sword, he thrust his knife fearlessly, and he knocked with his fists, hardly knowing what he was doing. All he could see was Rosa’s small form suspended from the ceiling, bleeding and awfully still. And all he could think was that she was far, still too far away from him and his heart leapt in his mouth at the sudden horror that he wouldn’t reach her in time.

Finally he was beside her.

He grabbed her by the waist, before reaching up to cut the rope around her ankles gently but effectively, and caught her in one lithe movement as her body fell, before she could hit the floor.

He crouched on the dirty floor and cradled her in his arms, wiping the trail of blood that was running down her lower lip, completely oblivious to a sword coming for his neck from behind.

“Rob!” one of his men shouted in warning, but before he could turn, the guard fell with an arrow in his heart. Robin nodded to the man who had sent the arrow -he saw it was Julian- and turned his attention back to Rosa.

It was not long before she awoke, right as the clamor of the battle around them was beginning to subside, for she was not seriously wounded, although weak from blood loss and pain.

She opened large eyes that met his and his breath caught in his throat and he tried to swallow his fear down.

“No,” was the first thing she told him, and then she closed her eyes against the pain and leaned back. He moved his arm to cushion her head and brushed his fingers against the bruises on her cheeks.

“No, what?” he whispered, his heart breaking within him.

“No, I do not want to leave you, I don’t want to leave the forest.”

For a minute he panicked, for he thought her mind was wandering.

“That’s what I should have said,” she went on, “instead of running away from you like this, thinking you didn’t want me.” She coughed weakly, trying to breathe past the pain, and then went on in a small voice. “Although maybe truly you didn’t want me anymore; after all you said so that last night… Maybe you’d truly tired of me. I’m sorry.”

“You -
you
are sorry?” Robin sputtered, incredulous.

She tried to raise herself to take a better look at his face, but she fell back, wincing at the pain.

“Have you been ill?” she asked him abruptly, gazing anxiously into his dark-rimmed eyes, “I don’t remember your cheekbones being quite so pronounced in your face before”, she murmured, and then her voice faded and she fainted again.

“She lives?” a voice asked, panting, right above Robin’s shoulder.

It was Sir Gavin, disheveled from the fight, leaning down to look at Rosa.

“You are bleeding at the arm,” Robin told him.

“So are you,” he replied, sheathing his bloodied sword. “And at the leg too, for that matter.”

“She lives,” Robin said softly. “She is bleeding heavily however, so, if it’s safe, we’d better get her out of here, tend to her wounds.”

“I don’t think…” Sir Gavin frowned.

“Yes?”

“Is it possible that we could manage to conceal all this… this massacre from the Sheriff?” Sir Gavin inclined his head to the prone form of Rosa. “I don’t think it would be safe to move her from this house yet. But if he should take it to his head to attack again…?”

“We all know he is one to nurse his failures for at least two months at a time, like an indulged child,” Robin said as he got up with Rosa in his arms. “I will stay, however,” he added.

“That may not be necessary…”

“I beg of you to let me stay,” he insisted.

“The great Robin Hood begging me?” Sir Gavin raised a delicate eyebrow in mockery. “What an honor.”

“I am not great. Not anymore, nor was I ever. What was great in my life lies wounded in my arms, lost to me forever.”

Sir Gavin’s brow furrowed.

“You just said, man, that she was in no great danger,” he hissed at Robin.

“Oh, she will get well, I think,” Robin replied, “if she is cared for properly. She’s stronger than she looks. But I bet she won’t want to lay eyes on me again ever.”

“You underestimate her, my friend,” Sir Gavin said quietly.

“And speaking of friends,” Robin said as he began to climb the stairs with Rosa in his arms, trying not to jostle her very much, “see if you can get that miserable friend of yours, Sir Hugh, to work in our favor for once. He might be willing to lie to the Sheriff for her sake, if not for his own. Excepting of course that he did all this out of malice instead of stupidity, as I suppose.”

Sir Gavin nodded gravely and shouted for one of the frightened servants to show Robin the way to the upstairs bedchamber. 

Robin sent his men back to the forest as soon as dawn broke, and he settled himself down to stay at Rosa’s side as she slept.

He needed to think.

All this time he had spent looking for Rosa and mourning her loss, he hadn’t yet come to a clear understanding of his own behavior, or of his motives for pushing her away.

A memory came to him as he was sitting beside her bed at the early hours of the second night after her rescue. During the day Rosa had woken briefly, but she had said little, only looking around with wild, frightened eyes, the shock of what had happened finally catching up with her. Now she slept fitfully, the only thing that somewhat calmed her being his presence near her and his touch on her arm whenever  she moaned softly in her sleep.

Robin had watched helpless, able to do nothing more than murmur that she was safe and that all was well over and over. Then thankfully she’d drifted off to an uneasy sleep again, right after the painful process of spreading salve to the ugly scars the whip had left on her back and arms was over.

Now it was only him and the moonlight.

And memories.

…

This one was from the early days Rosa had spent in the camp, right after Julian had joined them. The rainy season had been upon them, he remembered, and he’d been experimenting with building a small wooden tree house tangled within the sturdier branches of the central oak tree, so that Rosa could sleep up there when it rained, instead of the muddy floor of her small cabin on the ground. It would also afford her privacy, and him a better way of keeping a discreet eye on her at all times.

Besides, he had seen the ease with which she climbed on and off even the highest of branches, and it appeared to him completely effortless on her part, so he thought it wouldn’t inconvenience her to sleep high on a tree, nor would she consider the idea an insult, like some high-stepping lady might.

So he built it, and showed it to her, and she adored it, although it was barely more than a cave dug inside the wide trunk of the tree. She had began spending nights in it even when it didn’t rain, and had thanked him so profusely for ‘his kindness to her’ that he had began to feel uncomfortable.

All until that night.

Robin shut his eyes as the pain of the memory washed all over him again.

How could I not have known?
he thought for a millionth time.
And yet, how could I
have
known? This is not a thing a man thinks of naturally. Or is it? If I had grown up normally, with a mother and sisters, around me, could I have seen the signs more easily? Could I have spared her?
Still he could not answer these questions, but they tortured him.