Everything I Do: a Robin Hood romance (Rosa Fitzwalter Book 1) (43 page)

The Sheriff spat in his face.

“Ts ts ts,” Robin said.

“It was that bitch, wasn’t it?” the Sheriff said.

Robin’s fingers stilled. “What did you say?” he asked, dangerously.

“She’s the only one who knows the way of the secret passage. Well, I wish you joy of her. She’s like her mother, you know. Whores, the lot of them!”

Before anyone else had time to react, Robin slapped him hard across the face.

The sound echoed through the stone walls, and Julian made a small, disapproving noise in the back of his throat.

The Sheriff chuckled, blood running down his nose.

“Oh you may not want to hear it, lover boy, but she’ll be your undoing,” he said. “She’ll do my work for me. She’s nothing but a useless, dirty bitch. Her own mother cast her off, that’s how useless she is, and I hated the sight of her since the very moment I saw her. Surely I was cursed to have a creature like her as a daught…”

His words were cut out by a bloodcurdling scream.

“Robin!” Julian glanced around in panic. “What are you doing? Do you want to bring the entire castle guard down on our ears?”

Robin turned frenzied eyes to him. His knife-holding hand was steady. So far it had only nicked the Sheriff’s throat a bit, and had done no actual damage yet. “I will kill him,” he said with deadly calm.

Loud clanging steps were echoing on the stairs.

“Master,” Rosa whispered.

At once, Robin’s eyes softened, his murderous haze clearing in a second.

He reached a hand out to her, the blood draining from his face at the sight of her fear. “I’m sorry,” he said to her in a low voice and then he bent to fasten the Sheriff’s gag quickly. As he was pulling it tighter with one last swift movement, he bent close to his ear.

“Everything I do,” he whispered fiercely, “is for her.”

He stepped away and headed for the fireplace, ready to climb down, but he stopped short at what he saw from the corner of his eye.

Rosa had stripped the cap from her head, and her fiery hair was cascading down her back. With trembling steps she approached her father and knelt down beside him, so that her eyes were the same level as his mocking, cold ones.

“Father,” she whispered, and Robin’s heart shattered within him. “Father please forgive me for disappointing you,” she said. “You are the only father I’ve ever known… I’ve ever loved.”

The Sheriff made a sharp jerking movement, as though he was spitting at her from within his gag. Rosa was still kneeling before him, shaking in her too-large men’s boots, silent, pleading, pale.

With a violent curse, Julian swooped down and picked her up in his arms. Then, the guards’ voices drawing nearer, he and Robin ran to the trap door on the wall.

…

The next few hours at the camp were busy, the men running about, trying to tend to and find accommodation for the newcomers. There was no question yet of any of them returning to their homes, children and wives, but they’d spend the next few days at the camp, safe enough.

Robin was rushing back and forth, trying to organize everyone so that they might all get a bit of sleep before dawn, when he spotted Rosa seated on the ground, holding the hand of a young lad, a stable boy by the looks of him, and wiping the blood off of his brow, which was marred by an ugly lash wound.

Her shoulders were shaking uncontrollably, and silent tears were rolling abundantly down her cheeks, blurring her vision, but still her nimble fingers worked efficiently. Next to her, a low-burning torch was bathing her cheeks in a warm orange glow and sending a narrow line of smoke up to the starry skies, as though it was a night like any other.

Robin pressed his eyelids shut for a brief second, unable to bear the sight of her beauty in the midst of such pain. With a sharp intake of breath, he threw himself on the ground beside Rosa, and took her trembling fingers in his, enveloping her in his strong arms.

“Father Tuck will tend to him now,” he told her softly, “come with me.”

He helped her rise to her feet and slid a supportive arm around her waist as they walked slowly towards that same stream where he had first discovered she was a woman, and not the boy ‘Stuart’ who had come to him in the forest.

“Sit down.”

They sat side by side at the bank of the silvery river, the darkness covering them like a blanket. Her crying still hadn’t stopped and hard, silent sobs were racking her body as she fought to draw breath.

“I would do anything to take away your pain,” Robin murmured after watching her for several minutes. A fat tear rolled down her cheek and Robin caught it with a sigh, gently caressing her skin with a long finger.

“Forgive me…” she began to say, but he stayed her. “I thank you that you did not kill my father,” she added in a moment and he chuckled darkly and without mirth. “I know you wanted to annihilate him…” she said with a sad smile.

Robin took her in his arms and pressed her to him tightly.

“My little wife,” he murmured, bending low to reach her ear. She smiled up at him a watery smile, and, encouraged, he went on. “You will never want for anything from now on, my rose, I swear it.”

“I already have all I need,” she replied, laying her head on his shoulder. He placed a protective hand against the back of her head, supporting her there.

“One more day,” he whispered. “I burn in anticipation…”

And then he leaned in and his lips were on hers. He slid them open and explored the sweetness of her kiss, as the tears slowly halted to a stop on her cheeks. He moaned softly as she breathed against his lips, and pressed the kiss further, until they were both out of breath. Then, suddenly, a scream erupted from somewhere behind them.

“My boy! My boy!”

They jumped up and ran towards it.

Martha, Rosa’s former servant, had just come to, bloodied and beaten, only to discover that her five-year-old son was nowhere to be found in Robin Hood’s camp. She kept screaming, and running this way and that, frantic, so that no one around her could concentrate and think. Robin pulled Julian and Little John aside.

“I’m going back. Alone. Every one of you is needed here,” he said. Little John started to protest, but Robin lifted a hand to stop him. “Don’t let Rosa know,” he added, “she’s had enough of pain and worry for tonight.”

“Rob, let me come along, I beg you,” John said, going after him, his eyes pleading with his chief’s.

“No, I won’t risk it,” Robin insisted in a low voice. “A few days ago the Sheriff’s men were at our doorstep, and even now, as we speak, they might be on our heels, having followed us from the castle. You’ll stay, all of you.”

“Damn you, man,” Little John cried in exasperation.

“Quite,” Robin said and turned to mount his horse.

Suddenly his second-in-command grabbed him in a fierce hug. Robin gripped his arm, his lips curving in a slow smile.

“I’ll wait up for you,” John said.

“Don’t,” Robin replied. “You need your rest, my brave friend. I won’t be long.”

And he was gone.

He found the passage without any trouble and marched fearlessly up to the Sheriff’s room, sword at the ready.

The Sheriff of Nottingham was standing in the middle of his bedchamber, smiling an ugly smile of victory, his rotten teeth yellow in the candlelight. Around him guards in metal mail were positioned in every open space against the walls. And in his arms he was holding the boy, his little head flopping back, his thin legs dangling above the floor.

“You
would
come back for him,” the Sheriff said, his eyes twinkling in malice. “And alone. Who said Robin Hood had more brains than guts? Seems he is in lack of either.”

Deep, violent rage erupted in Robin’s heart, not because of the Sheriff’s words, but at the sight of the boy’s white lips, for at a glance he could see the child was dead.

He raised his sword and charged, just as the Sheriff’s guards unsheathed their own weapons, mirroring his movement. It was the Sheriff himself however who stopped their violent attack by lifting a chubby hand to stop them.

“Do not touch him,” he said with dangerous calm as he flung the boy’s body from him unceremoniously. “Only stand round us and watch as I kill the outlaw.”

Robin said nothing. A mere second later the heavy clanging of metal filled the room.

The space was not wide and consequentially there was limited legwork involved in the duel, which played to the fat Sheriff’s advantage, since he was slow to move. He had however much training and superior strength, and before long Robin was sweating and jumping away from his heavy sword.

The Sheriff laughed aloud when he managed to get past Robin’s defense and slash his left arm, the one holding the sword, but his laughter was cut short when a ribbon of blood appeared on his own cheek, put there deftly by Robin’s thinner weapon. He gritted his teeth and his eyes spewed hatred as he thrust his sword violently in the direction of Robin’s heart.

Robin feinted to the left just in time, and parried steadily to regain his footing, since the Sheriff had almost cornered him to the narrow window hole. The guards watched immobile as they had been ordered to do, drinking in their master’s hour of triumph as Robin cursed himself for having come alone in a fit of bravery and stupidity.

He kept turning his mind back to the way the Sheriff had spoken to his daughter but a few hours ago, fueling his own anger, if only to keep himself from dropping from sheer exhaustion. He could not lie to himself. He had pounced upon the opportunity to draw the Sheriff’s blood exactly for that reason, but now he could see how criminally rash he had been.

Why hadn’t he let Little John follow him? And why hadn’t he told Rosa of his intentions? She would certainly have talked some sense into his stubborn head. And now he found himself in the position of having to be killed and abandon his men and her to the mercy of a ruthless and kingless country. Or worse. Kill the father of the woman he loved.

In a moment, however, before he had even time to complete the thought, the dilemma was taken from his hands.

The Sheriff dove once again for his heart. Sweat was running down his immense forehead and his mouth was dripping with fury and saliva. Robin saw the steel coming sharply at him, and, pure instinct taking over, he stepped abruptly aside, bending his knees and raising his sword.

Immediately he heard a muffled thump, and felt an impossible weight twisting his left arm. Before he knew what was happening, the Sheriff had stumbled and fallen on his outstretched sword.

Robin heard the sickening sound of his blade driving cleanly through the Sheriff’s chest and, one terror-ridden second later, the man lay on the floor, slain. His guards moved like lightning, restraining Robin, forcing the sword out of his stunned hands, and clasping his wrists in iron chains, while the Sheriff lay there taking his last breath, gurgling with blood.

“She always loved you,” Robin shouted at him as he was being dragged from the room. “To the last! Take that to your grave.”

“Bloody whor-…” the Sheriff gasped, and expired.

Frantic with worry, Little John went into the town early next dawn to see what had become of Robin. And that was when he heard the news.

His chief was kept at the deepest dungeon under Hugh DeHavenger’s orders until his ordination as the new Sheriff of Nottingham. He would surely hang in no more than three days’ time.

…

Rosa was calm throughout all the shouting and panic the news brought in the camp. She quietly took Little John, Will Scarlet and her brother aside, her cheeks deathly pale but her eyes dry.

“All we need is a plan,” she told them. “A good, solid plan. It’s been done before.”

“It never was the chief in the dungeon,” Little John said despondently.

Julian wiped his eyes secretly; Rosa tapped her foot impatiently.

“Cease your mumbling!” she cried. “We are his only hope. And it doesn’t look as though we’re a very high hope right now, I must say.”

John and Julian had the grace to look ashamed of themselves.

“You will dress as priests,” Rosa said in a sudden flash of inspiration. “Aren’t all criminals allowed a last confession before going to the noose?”

Her voice broke as she pronounced the word ‘noose’, but she was herself again in a moment.

“How did it happen anyway? Why… how was he caught?” Will asked, his voice hoarse and Julian immediately caught his eye and lifted his eyebrows in a forbidding gesture. But it was too late.

“He killed my father,” Rosa said in a dead voice.

“My lady,” Scarlet whispered humbly, his voice trembling with awe. “He did… and still you wish to save him? You truly are as near a saint as any woman I have ever met…”

Rosa stopped him with a desperate gesture.

“I will allow my heart to break only after he is free,” was all she said. Then she slipped her shaking hand in the crook of his proffered elbow and let him proceed her into the gathering of sad and frightened men.