Everything I Do: a Robin Hood romance (Rosa Fitzwalter Book 1) (42 page)

“I know, my precious girl, I know” he said, smiling and crying at the same time. “So, yes? You will marry me?” he searched her eyes for the answer.

She nodded, hiding her face in his chest. All her hesitations had melted away when she’d seen the look on his face: he was her home, and she his.

“Don’t cry,” he said softly. “I will do my damnedest to make you happy, I swear.”

She laughed through her tears and he pulled away in order to look into her eyes.

“One week from today,” he said, his tone determined. “I’ll go speak to father Tuck.”

He got up, but Rosa was still holding his hand, so he knelt again. He looked into her eyes, drinking in her beautiful smile and laughed. It felt so good to be able to smile after all this despair and pain. It felt so good to have a reason to laugh.

“You know if I were to kiss you now I wouldn’t be able to stop,” he said, the corners of his eyes wrinkling with tenderness.

“Will you stay with me until I fall asleep?” she asked, her eyelids drooping

He nodded yes, unable to speak, silent tears of happiness running down his cheeks.

He only left her side when dawn was approaching.

Julian was a little surprised when Robin ran to him, without warning, and enveloped him in a painfully enthusiastic hug.

“We’re going to be brothers,” he informed him breathlessly, “surely I am dreaming. Surely this is too much happiness.”

CHAPTER
16

THE RAIN

Rosa was recuperating quickly, urged on by happiness and the promise of her approaching wedding. Robin was busier than ever, determined to build a small home for the two of them, aided by an enthusiastic bevy of men, eager for once to do something for their chief.

The week trudged on, slower and faster at the same time than expected.

And then, it happened.

Merely five days had passed out of the promised week when one day, as Rosa, still a bit weak, was sitting in the early sunshine daydreaming, Will Scarlet came running into the camp, carrying in his arms an unconscious woman, a wild look in his eyes.

By the next morning, everything had changed.

The news reached far and wide; the whole of Nottingham was ablaze with it. People whispered amongst themselves, shocked, scared, some exhilarated. High lords sat round tables calling for their secretaries and grand retinues from all over the kingdom started the long journey to Nottingham.

For the news was this: the Sheriff of Nottingham, the great tax collector, the oppressor, the law enforcer, was dead.

Fallen at the hand of the notorious outlaw, known as Robin of the Hood.

The news spread like wildfire. Robin Hood’s brutality in killing the Sheriff of Nottingham was, of course, grossly exaggerated with every telling of the murder, as well as his well-thought out plans for revenge, but still the news itself was true enough.

There had been no brutality in truth, except for the brutality of fate, that threw Robin into such unexpected circumstances as to have to actually defend himself in a duel against the Sheriff. And this is how it happened.

It all began the previous day: a crisp, clear dawn was painting the sky pink, when the quiet Sherwood leaves were suddenly stirred by a shrill, frightened cry that echoed through the morning calm. The cry had come from the dried lips of an old woman, who was running in panic, stooped and bloodied, hardly watching where she was going.

Will Scarlet and Gilbert, who were keeping watch nearby, caught her just before she collapsed on the dirt and brought her to their chief. It was simple as that at first, and, although this was not an everyday occurrence in the forest, it was common enough for poor, downtrodden villagers to appear at their camp, looking for protection, that Robin and Little John took it in stride, waiting until the good granny could wake up and tell them where the trouble was.

Robin furrowed his eyebrows thinking that the woman might have escaped a savage visit from the tax-collectors and wondered how far her village was and how soon he and his men could get there. It turned out, however, that the threat she was running from had been of a completely different nature.

Rosa insisted on tending to the old woman’s wounds herself, and went to sit by the small pallet where Scarlet had hastily deposited her. No sooner had she glimpsed the woman’s wrinkled face and the dirty gray curls beneath her cheap, worn scarf, however, than her face went completely white and she fell with a soft cry to her knees beside her.

Robin pressed his lips together, for it caused him physical pain to bear witness to her distress.

“Agatha,” Rosa whispered.

“You know her?” he asked quietly, laying his hand on her hair.

She simply nodded and lifted anguished eyes to him.

“She… she’s a cook at the castle. Robin, he’s killed them all,” she said, her shoulders shaking with sobs.

“All?” he prompted, kneeling carefully next to her. She began to stroke the rough, livered hand of the old woman with hers, and Robin saw that her fingers were shaking. He drew in a sharp breath.

“He must have. My servants, as well as the kitchen maids,” Rosa replied. “And the stable hands… Everyone who helped me escape back then when he was keeping me in the dungeon, torturing…” she couldn’t speak any more, and Robin drew her fiercely to him, fighting with his own anger.

“Listen to me,” he said in a hoarse voice. “Listen. He did not kill them all, he can’t have. He let this one escape to come to me, and he knows we’ll have to go rescue them. And when we do, he’ll be waiting for me. They’re not dead.”

His dark eyes were boring into hers with intensity, and her hand came to her mouth.

“It’s a trap,” she whispered.

Robin nodded, squeezing her hand in his.

There was no need to even deliberate about whether they should go or not. There was no reason to talk about it with his men.  He’d go, trap or no trap. He would go rescue them. All they had to find now was a way to possibly survive as well.

…

The good mother woke a few minutes after sundown. Now, having said what had transpired, she lay in a mat made of leaves and pines while sipping father Tuck’s healing broth, and the men, a few paces away, consulted around the fire about their best plan of attack.

The Sheriff was not keeping the maids and serfs in the dungeons, Agatha had said. They were in his own private rooms, on the highest floor of the castle, held for questioning, starved and beaten, but very much alive, because he wanted to be sure that Robin Hood would come directly to him to get them.

“We’ll fly in through the windows like arrows,” Will Scarlet suggested with enthusiasm, albeit a bit uncertainly.

Rosa sighed and got up from her place next to Agatha’s pallet to stand in the men’s midst.

“I’ll take you there,” she said softly but resolutely.

“No,” Robin said immediately, and turned away.

“I know of an underground passage that leads from this very part of the forest to the Sheriff’s own chambers,” Rosa said calmly. “At least, I think I can remember it, if it hasn’t been blocked by debris and rainwater over the years.”

“No,” Robin said again, not looking at her.

“Perhaps,” Little John cleared his voice, looking at his chief, “perhaps, fair lady Rosa, you could instruct us how to… er… find and cross this underground path.”

“I would if it were possible,” Rosa answered him, “but I cannot describe its location to you. I haven’t crossed it in ages, you see, I didn’t even use it when I first came into the forest, since it descends directly from my f-father’s chambers…” Her voice faltered a bit, but she continued on with a brave smile. “I can only find it by touch, remembering my lonely childhood before I knew to fear him, when I was wandering the castle at sleepless nights with no light or company.”

Silence fell for a breath. Then,

“No,” Robin insisted in a broken voice.

“Very well,” Rosa answered him, her voice quiet, almost laughing. “Then you should ‘fly like arrows’ in a window three stories high, directly above the moat, which is fifteen yards wide.” With that she turned to leave, but not before sharing a sparkling wink with Little John.

Robin’s hand shot out to catch her elbow as she was leaving. He still didn’t look at her.

“You should all know,” he said to his men, his eyes glowing, “that if anything,
anything
should happen to her…” He stopped and swallowed, “you will lose me as well.”

Julian had been silent all this time.

“She’ll dress as Stuart,” he said now, stepping forward, his eyes taking in the death-grip Robin had on his sister’s arm. “She’ll be safe enough, chief. We’ll all guard you both with our lives.”

It had all gone perfectly well.

Rosa, dressed in green like all the rest, and with a cap drawn low in front of her face and concealing her hair, led them through a passage narrow, dark and wet with mould, beginning from the roots of a wide oak. She had calculated the time they arrived to be right after the Sheriff’s generous repast, so Robin’s men had silently climbed upwards to reach a secret panel behind the fireplace, and caught him dozing in front of the fire.

Within minutes his two guards were overpowered by Little John and Gilbert, not a noise disturbing the Sheriff’s snores, and he himself woke up a few moments later, tightly bound up against his own bed.

“What devil is this…?” he started saying, his red-rimmed eyes flashing in anger, for he was not gagged yet.

He stopped short however as soon as he felt the tip of Robin’s knife pressing sharply against his bulging throat.

“Hush now, good Sheriff,” Robin said, laughing good-naturedly as his men fanned about him round the room. “We are all your friends, are we not? Or else you should be lying in a puddle of your own blood by now. Tell me, if you so please, where you keep my lady Rosa’s maids and serfs, and we can leave you to your rest.”

The Sheriff ‘humph’ed and struggled against his binds. Robin, however, did not remove his knife from the man’s throat, so the knife prickled him. A small trickle of blood began to roll down his neck. The rest of Robin’s men, emerging one by one from the panel behind the wall, surrounded them silently.

“You… you cut me!” the Sheriff said, incredulous.

“Is it possible,” Robin exclaimed, “is it possible, my good and clever man, that you have not taken us seriously?” With that, his good humor gone, Robin lifted his knife and brought it down to the Sheriff’s gut.

“No!” the Sheriff squealed, like a frightened rabbit, “no! Please have mercy! The lowlifes you’re interested in are all in the next room, second to the right, alive and well. My guards have the keys. Please…” he was nearly sobbing.

Robin’s heart ached within him, for he knew the slight figure behind him, concealed by Julian’s tall form, was Rosa, witnessing her father’s humiliation. It was as though he could feel her pain palpable in the room, seeing her father’s cowardice through her very eyes, but he couldn’t risk even looking in her direction. He nodded slightly to Little John, and all of his men but himself, Julian and Rosa, filed out of the room to free the servants.

Soon enough, a pitiful procession of sixteen people passed in front of the tied-up Sheriff, emaciated, bleeding, despairing and supported by Robin’s men. The men did not stop until they had led every one of them out to the passage and then they went on, slowly making their way underground, then on to the camp. Robin and Julian would stay behind to delay the Sheriff’s discovery until the last possible moment, and it had been agreed that Rosa would be safest with them as well.

The three of them stood like that, silent, for a long time, until Robin and Julian exchanged a look that meant it was time to go.

“You did not win this time either, old man,” Robin said in the Sheriff’s ear, as he leaned down to tie a cloth firmly around his mouth. “When will you learn? You never
will
win! You’re on the side of the devil, and we have Holy God on ours!”