Jennifer Roberson - [Robin Hood 01] (20 page)

Absently he marked someone behind him shouting above the din—“Make way for the Watch”—but he was unconcerned with the warning. It wasn’t until a pike was thrust against one shoulder, knocking him roughly aside, that he realized the Watch was indeed coming through, no matter who stood in its way. The crowd, parting raggedly, muttered of high-handed Norman justice meted out all too rapidly when poor Englishmen were involved.

Someone steadied and set him on his feet again, patting him on the back and murmuring something unrepeatable about Norman tyrants. He watched the pike-wielders go, broad-backed Norman soldiers in the sheriff’s blue livery, and for the first time wondered what England had become while he fought in the Holy Land. Two years without a king could bring about much change. He had left a different realm.

Or come home a different man.
That, too, was a new thought: that he, not England, had changed so markedly. That he had
been
changed, regardless of his desires.
Richard would not be so blind to the needs of his people.

But Richard was not in England. Nor likely to
be
in England, were his ransom not paid in full.

Locksley clutched impotently at the pouch of coin he had won as his archery prize. Little now was left. But it didn’t matter, he knew. Even a purseful of silver marks would not go very far against the hundreds of thousands required.

And the people who needed Richard the most could ill afford to pay so much as a silver penny.

 

“It’s Much,” someone muttered. And another, murmuring: “—boy’s simple, can’t the sheriff see?” And “Only a
boy,”
said a third.

Then the most telling of all: “Better the sheriff’s purse than a peasant’s empty one.”

Marian heard them all. She knew the sheriff did. But looking into his eyes, at the expression of conviction, she knew nothing more could be used to change his mind.

But I have to try, regardless.
“Let me have him,” she said. “I’ll take him back to the mill.”

“So he can run off again?” DeLacey shook his head. “Marian, I honor your compassion—but this boy is a
thief.”

Desperation made her angry. “And did
you
steal nothing when you were a boy?”

“Eggs from a hen,” he retorted. “Never a man’s purse, and it still on his belt!”

The crowd’s tongue grew louder. The mood was clearly sullen, fraught with increasing tension. Marian realized she had, by her intransigence, placed the sheriff in a highly precarious position. Better she had tried another tack, but now it was too late. He was angry enough to act.
And I am angry enough to stop him, if I can find the means.
“My lord—”

“Sheriff.” A thick, deep voice. “Sheriff, let him go. He’s naught but a boy. You’ve scared him roundly enough—near broke his arm, I think— now let him be. Let him think on his good fortune. I’ll wager ’tis the last time he sets fingers to a purse.”

Marian turned, as they all did. Thrusting his way through the crowd was the largest man she had ever seen. Her father in armor was huge; this man was bigger yet.

He was red of hair and bare of chest, wet with glistening sweat. Even his features were oversized, in accordance with his frame. He had pale, prominent blue eyes; a crooked, imposing nose; and a wide slash of mouth partially hidden by a ruddy beard. The loose woolen hosen he wore were knotted at his hips and cross-gartered nearly to the knees. Enough fabric, Marian reflected, to clothe two women her size.

“Wager what?” William deLacey was clearly contemptuous, she saw, and as clearly impatient. He wanted the boy taken off away from the crowd, where his sentence would not be questioned. “Will you put up your hand as stakes?”

The freckled giant grinned. “I doubt your swords are sharp enough to hack through one of these!” The wrist he thrust into the air was sheathed in knotted muscle. The thickness of bone was enough to silence the crowd, contemplating the picture he had painted before them all.

“An ax,” the sheriff retorted. “An ax would do very well.”

The giant shook his head, flinging damp hair back from his face. “I’m made of iron, my lord—I’d blunt the steel of the ax!”

It brought a laugh from the crowd. Marian, staring up at the huge man, felt the tension fade. The giant had altered the confrontation from promised violence into anticipation of what the next moment might bring.

“Who are you?” DeLacey demanded.

“John Naylor, my lord. Of Hathersage. Shepherd by trade. Wrestler at the fairs.”

Marian stared at him.
He must be the largest man in the whole of England.

“Wrestler,” the sheriff muttered, as if the occupation were the lowest on the earth.

“Called Little John, my lord.” The giant grinned, undeterred by the contempt. “ ’Tis a jest, I’m told.”

DeLacey was amused. “Indeed,” he replied. “Little or large, it makes no difference to me. The boy is a thief—”

“He’s a
boy
,” the giant declared stolidly. “Lock him up a night or two, to let him think about it, but don’t cut off a hand, my lord. He may be bound to lose it, if he learns naught of this, but let him lose it a man, when he understands it better.”

DeLacey’s tone was cold. “And will you stand proxy for him?”

Transfixed, Marian decided she was wrong. He wasn’t the largest man in the whole of England.
More like in the whole world.
His thighs, in sagging hosen, were the size of young tree trunks.

The good-natured raillery faded from the giant’s face. “Aye,” he snapped, “I’ll stand proxy. But not the way you’d like. My hand is my own—unless a man can win it from me.” John Naylor grinned. “Have a man out, my lord. Any man; I care naught who it be. I’ll give you
three
men, even . . . if any of them beat me, the hand is yours to hack off.”

“Why?” DeLacey asked. “What is this boy to you?”

The giant shook his head. “Naught to me, my lord . . . but a lamb caught by a wolf.”

Marian studied his hands, then his face. His conviction awed her.
He could do it . . . he could win. He could save Much’s hand.
“Do it,” she murmured quietly. “My lord, accept his wager.”

She could see the sharpness of deLacey’s glance from the corner of her eye. “Will you not argue that it is a travesty? That the loss of a hand, regardless of whose hand, renders me barbaric?”

Marian met his gaze.
Now is my chance. I can’t let him win this time.
Steadily she said, “Much stands no chance. He is a lamb, my lord—and you, I daresay, the wolf.”

She saw it in his eyes: comprehension, and recoil. It
mattered
to him, she realized, what she thought of his actions.

The realization blossomed slowly within her mind.
At last, I have a weapon.

Much remembered Marian. She had been a part of his life for as long as he could recall. Where she came from he didn’t know, merely that she was
there,
one day, at the mill, all wet and slimy with weeds. Young, then; younger than now. Younger than
he
was, now. His father had brought her home, once he’d pulled her out of the millpond.

Images, no more. Fleeting recollections. A soaked, soggy girl undeterred by her state, speaking compellingly of the nixies who lived in the water.

Dimly, Much recalled, his mother had muttered a prayer against bewitched children, but not against him this time. This time, against
her.
It bonded them in that moment, though she could not see it; what
he
saw, between them, he did not recognize.

Much remembered her well. Marian, she’d said. And his father knew who she was. His father had sent his brother off to find
her
father.

Now she stood beside him, one proprietary hand upon his bony shoulder even as a soldier held his arms, while a bearded, red-haired giant and the Sheriff of Nottingham made a pact between them.

She was no longer a girl. He was no longer a child.

How had it come about?

Marian?
he asked. But Marian didn’t hear.

 

DeLacey weighed the crowd and knew it better than it knew itself. He had been sheriff too long to blind himself to hatred; to deafen himself to insults no matter how quietly muttered. No man, in his office, would be popular. It was exacting service, meting out discipline against miscreants, thieves, and poachers, but he had not bought the office to become popular with peasants. They would not be content no matter who held his office, nor what the man did in his stead.

No one could question the boy’s crime. He had been caught in the act, caught gripping the knife with which he sliced purse thongs. Punishment was required. But the boy was one of
theirs;
Marian had, by protesting so vocally, given them leave to do the same, if less vehemently. Had deLacey simply dragged the boy off to the stocks and lopped off his hand on the spot, no one would have dared question him. It was well known that thieves and poachers lost offending extremities.

But Marian was neither peasant nor Norman. She was one of them, English-born and bred, the daughter of an honorable knight killed in the Crusade. And if she felt moved to protest, so could they feel moved.

He had intended, in the face of growing hostility, to have the boy taken to the castle, where discipline could be applied. But now the giant had come forward, too large to overlook, too flamboyant to ignore. The big shepherd had, deLacey realized, assumed control of the situation. If the sheriff were to salvage any portion of self-respect, any portion of control, he would have to reassume it by means that on the surface appeased the waiting crowd.

They are stupid as sheep, and as easily misled.
The trick was, he knew, to give them what they wanted. Then alter the rules to win the game for himself.

The crowd was expectant. To his left, the boy—
Much?
—stood slackly with a soldier’s hands upon him, brown eyes dull, dirty brown hair hanging lankly. To deLacey’s right waited Marian, ablaze in borrowed crimson. The circlet binding her brow glinted in a bright spring sun.

A peregrine,
he reflected,
poised to stoop and strike me down.
Fleetingly, he smiled, giving her her due. And then he turned to the giant. “One man,” he declared. “Defeated, the boy goes free.” The giant merely waited, wide hands sprawled on hips. “But if my man
wins,
the boy—and your hand—is mine.”

The crowd stared avidly, watching both men. “One man?” the giant—John Naylor—rasped. “You’ll risk it on one man?”

“More would be excessive.” DeLacey smiled coolly. “I’d not have the good citizenry of Nottingham declare me dishonest or opportunistic ... I trust you won’t mind a single opponent?”

The shepherd Naylor, called Little John, grinned, leaned down, and spat. “ ’Tis for you to say. One man, two, or three. Alone, or all at once.”

DeLacey arched a single eloquent brow. A swift glance at the waiting crowd gave him his answer: too many had heard the discussion to question the bloody result when the giant’s hand was cut off. Besides, the sheriff knew they believed his man defeated already, so certain were they of the giant. A worthwhile opponent, yes, and not to be taken lightly—but then neither was William deLacey so easily dismissed.

And yet they had dismissed him, as they dismissed his proxy man.

He glanced at the giant, assessing what others missed in their fascination with Naylor’s size. His bulk was more than impressive, but William deLacey had learned many years before to judge men by other criteria than the size of their bodies. There was the weight of a man’s heart, and the conviction of his soul.

A pity,
the sheriff reflected.
Left whole, he would be worth giving to Prince John.
But deLacey would hold to his word. He was not a two-faced man. “Done,” he said quietly, then turned to a waiting soldier. “Fetch out William Scathlocke.”

 

In the shadows between two steep-pitched buildings, Robert of Locksley counted out the coin left in his purse. Not so very much. Even if each man in Nottingham were to donate a single penny, or so much as a silver mark, the ransom could not be met.

He knew what it was. He had heard his father speak of it. A king’s ransom, the earl called it: one hundred and fifty thousand marks.

But England was impoverished. The man who needed her most had drained her of her money, spending every penny to finance a Crusade.

He stared blindly at the coins glinting against his palm. “Richard,” he murmured, “do you rot in Henry’s dungeon? Or does he treat you like a king?”

Beyond him, in the square, a woman selling pomanders shouted praises of her wares. To ward off sickness, she said. To chase away foul odors.

“A contingency,” he said dryly, “that you did not foresee.”

No. Richard would never foresee ignominious capture and chafing imprisonment, just as he had not foreseen the ramifications of his legendary temper and bombast, when he had argued with Leopold in the Holy Land. So many men lost, and not to the enemy. Philip of France, Leopold of Austria, and others. Disenchanted with the task. Overweary of Lionheart.

Locksley conjured Leopold’s saturnine face before him, recalling Richard’s fury upon hearing the man would leave.
Had you not insulted him, likely he would have stayed. Certainly he would not have captured you, then sold you to German Henry.

But Richard had insulted Leopold. He had insulted many men. He, who was without doubt Christendom’s greatest warrior and most transcendent king, had not the slightest understanding of how to placate other men who shared the blood of royals. To the common man in the dust, Coeur de Lion was a god. To men of equal rank, of equal pedigree, unimpressed by grandiose title, he was an egomaniacal beast intent on winning Jerusalem merely to magnify
his
name, instead of the name of God.

“A misjudgment,” Locksley murmured. “And you pay dearly for it.”

He shut his hand around the coin, feeling the metallic bite of poorly struck edges. His father was a wealthy man who supported his king, but also supported his personal will and conceit. The castle had cost him dear. He had, the earl said, donated to Richard’s cause, but only so much as to leave Huntington unencumbered by choking debt.

“There is Locksley ...” He chewed the inside of his cheek, scowling in deep thought. Locksley was his personal domain,
his
manor and village, bestowed by his father just before he left England to join his king. The village of Locksley, as did every village, paid taxes to its lord.

For two years, the earl had collected in his stead. Perhaps it was time he saw to the coffers into which the taxes were put. Surely there would be
something
he could donate to Richard’s ransom.

Better yet, he could see to doing it now, here in Nottingham. All he need do was visit one of the Jews, who could advance him monies against Locksley revenues.

Done.
He poured what little remained of his archery prize into his purse, tucked now inside his tunic instead of hanging from his belt, and set off to find the street of moneylenders in Nottingham’s Jewish Quarter.

 

William Scathlocke was neither particularly tall nor particularly heavy. Just a
man,
Marian saw in surprise, not unlike any other, and with nothing that set him apart save they had bound and gagged him, weighting wrists and ankles with iron, strapping leather across mouth and chin.

She did not know what he had done, to put himself in the sheriffs hands. “Why?” she gasped, seeing the expression in dark, fierce eyes: a brutal, naked fury that they dared to treat him as beast before others who knew the man.

“He killed four men,” the sheriff told her as soldiers dragged Scathlocke across the Market Square even as spectators gave way. Chains chimed on packed dirt. “He murdered four of Prince John’s men, no less; it was why John came here, to see the murderer hanged.” He affected a shrug. “Two of them he stabbed. One he beat to death. The fourth man he bled to death by biting the flesh from his throat.”

Marian recoiled, staring at the prisoner. No doubt deLacey intended to frighten her, or merely cause her to hold the tongue that had, with aid from the giant, brought them to this pass. And in that he succeeded. The sheriffs matter-of-fact yet vivid description sickened her.

“I don’t know him,” she murmured, grateful for that much.

“I believe he’s from a small village near Croxden Abbey.” Another indolent shrug. “Gisbourne attends to such things as names and places. Will Scathlocke is all I know, though the peasants are calling him—” he paused, frowning, “Scarlet?” He stared at the chained man as they brought him forward. “Marian, I insist—you must return to the castle. I will have one of the soldiers escort you.”

Marian glanced at Much, held by a liveried Norman. The boy’s expression was one of dull hopelessness. Clearly he did not understand the agreement between sheriff and giant. All he knew was his hand was to be cut off.
If he even knows that much.
“No,” she said firmly. “No, I will stay. Or else send Much back with me.”

DeLacey glanced down at her. “I think it best he watch. His fate will be decided—do you not think he should see?”

She gazed up at him, marking the tautness of his mouth, the network of fine lines etched into the flesh near his eyes. Silver flecked his wiry brown hair. He was twenty years and more older than she. His knowledge of people was far greater than her own, but she could not agree with him.

“My lord.” One of the soldiers spoke. “The murderer, my lord.”

He was close, so close, Will Scarlet. Marian could smell him. The stink of the dungeon wrapped him in its shroud.
Just a man.
Not as tall as the sheriff, who gave two or three inches to Robert of Locksley, the tallest man she knew save her father—and the giant. This man was merely a man. Peasant. Villein. Not of the ruling class. No different at all from any of the people gathering to watch. Near-black in eyes and hair, swarthy of skin—though some of that might be dirt—clad in the tattered remnants of what had been tunic and baggy hosen. His feet below the shackles were wrapped in leather and rags.

Marian stared at him as deLacey raised his voice. This man had killed four others. This man had murdered soldiers. She thought there should be something in his face and eyes that marked him for what he was, something that indicated he was beyond humanity, a man capable of killing four others, and soldiers to boot.

But she could see little enough. The leather gag across mouth and chin hid the bottom portion of his face, and distorted the rest. All she could see was a crooked nose, knobbed over the bridge; stubble-etched cheekbones, bruised and scabbed; a pair of near-black eyes, empty of all emotion save a vicious hatred and an incandescent fury.

“Behold!” the sheriff shouted. “William Scathlocke, murderer, known to you as Scarlet. He has been sentenced to hang for the deaths of four men, their lives torn from them in a brutality known only to beasts.”

William Scathlocke could say nothing for the gag, make neither protest nor comment, but his eyes were free of restraint. Marian, in that moment, saw the man who had killed four others. Reflected in grief and rage, Scathlocke’s guilt was plain.

The sheriff, unheeding, went on. “But let it be also known that this day he is afforded an opportunity to resurrect his future . . . all he need do, to live, is defeat the giant.”

Scathlocke made noise against the leather bound over mouth and chin. The sound of that noise was transmuted by gag into the bleat of an animal.

“John Naylor, of Hathersage, called ‘Little’ John—” the sheriff smiled faintly and allowed them the snickers, “has agreed to stand proxy for the boy, Much, a cutpurse, who dared lay hands on my own purse. Let it be known that the giant assumes the boy’s guilt, discharged only by victory.”

Little John, the giant, bobbed his head in agreement. Spectators murmured.

“Let it be known also that should the giant be defeated, his right hand will be cut off. But should the giant win, the boy shall go free.”

It was a popular ruling, by the murmuring of the crowd. A fair chance, it said, bobbing heads in agreement. The boy would be spared. No one, Marian knew, believed the giant could be defeated. And what did it matter? The opponent was a murderer. His loss would be as nothing.

Marian chanced a glance at Will Scarlet. Dark eyes glared balefully, full of frustration and futility, and a wild, kindling anger. He stared directly at her. “What of him?” she blurted. “What is promised this man?”