Jennifer Roberson - [Robin Hood 02]

 

 

Published by Kensington Publishing Corp.

KENSINGTON BOOKS

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Table of Contents

In memory of my grandfather,
SAMUEL JEROME HARDY
April 23, 1902–December 30, 1997
Gentleman, scholar, and true lover of books,
and my mother
SHERA HARDY ROBERSON
March 5, 1928–April 9, 1999
Any success I enjoy is a reflection of her.

 

—
from
A Little Geste of Robin Hood
and his Meyne
 (ca. 1400s)

FRANCE

April, 1199

The devil lay dying in France.

Ah, but no. Not he.

“My lord,” someone said quietly. “My lord king.”

The devil was king. Or was it the king was a devil?

“My lord king.”

They called him so many things. The man with the heart of a lion. Malik Ric. Son of Eleanor, son of Henry. Eldest surviving son of all named the Devil’s Brood, for temperament that, in a hound, might be beaten out, or drowned.

Unless that hound be bred for war.

Dying.

Richard, King of England by the grace of God; Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, Count of Anjou.

“My lord—”

How could it be that
he
could die?

“My lord.”

And then a second voice, less quietly; and with markedly less patience: “He cannot hear you. He hears nothing now. Give him peace.”

But peace required a man, a warrior, unafraid of others, unafraid of the enemy; unafraid, for that matter, of God, whom he served so well on Crusade in the lands of the Infidel.

But death? No. Not he.

“My lord king.”

Almost, he laughed. That first voice, so polite, undaunted by the other more querulous tone, would not recede. There was an answer it demanded, for all it was soft.

“Who?” the voice asked. “Who shall be king?”

Were he his father, he could have spoken any one of three names. And so his father
had,
at one time or another: three sons were left after the deaths of two others, a
triptych
of male heirs from which he must choose one: Richard, Geoffrey, or John. Henry had, in the end, selected the one most fit for keeping the kingdom whole: Richard, the warrior-prince. Who, as sovereign, attempted to perform the service most desired by the Church: to retrieve lost Jerusalem from the Infidel.

But Henry’s surviving eldest, as prince or king, sired no sons of his own. On no woman, be she his lawful wife, or whore. He had never intended to let it go so far; but then, he never intended to die, either. Oh, someday; it came to them all. But the greatest warrior in Christendom was not so old that he could not survive three decades more, or more even than that. Surely in so much time he could get a son on a woman.

But time ran out, as did a man’s seed. And his he had spent in flesh other than his queen’s. In flesh other than a woman’s. And so he had no sons.

Who then
could
be king?

“My lord?”

Geoffrey, his next oldest brother, was dead. John, his youngest brother, lived. But so did Geoffrey’s
son
survive: Arthur, Duke of Brittany. And there were those in England, those in this tent, who argued it should be Arthur. Not John. Not Lackland. Not Softsword, reckoned unfit. Arthur.

He stirred, and wished he had not. The wound had putrefied; now poison ate his flesh. The man with the heart of the lion was brought down by the sting of a bee: a single bolt loosed from a crossbow in a paltry, pettish defiance, nearly spent in its flight, had nonetheless made a target of his royal shoulder. Insignificance, claimed the king, brushing away the others who would see him to a physician. He had treated it so, insignificantly; had mocked it even as he saluted the crossbowman’s impertinence—and now the wound killed him.

“My lord king.”

They would say those words to another. It was to him they looked now, this moment, to tell them who it should be.

There was a time men said the old king had too many sons, despite the necessity. Tumultuous, brilliant sons, each in his own way gifted; and each as incapable of being ruled by a father who was king, a mother who was queen, brilliant and brutal sovereigns who set them at one another whenever they were not, as children, united against both parents.

But this man, this king, this devil who lay dying, had sired no sons at all. And so the choice lay now between a brother others hated, and the boy-duke in Brittany.

“My lord, we beseech you—”

“God’s Rump,” he muttered. “You will hag-ride me to death.”

It struck them all into silence, into immobility; they had believed him beyond the sense to form words, let alone a sentence. And a sentence of less decorum than a priest might prefer in the presence of death.

He smelled the ordure of that priest, called the odor of sanctity; he smelled the stink of his own wastes, the foulness of the flesh that ate itself inside out, sapping away his strength as he had sapped the walls of Acre. Acre had fallen at last, and now so would he.

Too soon. Not enough time. There were things left to be done. But he would do none of them. Jerusalem, gone. France, in Philip’s control.

“My lord king.” The voice tried yet again. “If you would be so kind as to consider the circumstances—”

He twitched a minatory royal finger; the voice broke off at once.

If he would be so kind as to consider the circumstances. By Christ’s holy name, he had
created
the circumstances! And he was certain they said it behind his back, and perhaps just beyond the tent-flap. No doubt even his mother would damn him for failing his duties. For leaving her with John.

It would have to be John she supported, surely; Eleanor would give over nothing to the Bretons, who controlled her politically naive grandson in the name of his dead father. Not Eleanor of Aquitaine, who cherished politics the way merchants coveted coin.

“My lord.”

At him again. Well, he could not fault them; the line of succession was not so straightly drawn as one might wish, to keep a kingdom whole.

He drew breath. They stilled, awaiting his decision.

“Mercardier,” he expelled; it was nothing they expected.

They stirred, murmuring among themselves. But he had named a name, and they summoned the man who bore it.

Rustling: someone drew aside the tent-flap. He heard the quiet word spoken, and then the creak of leather, the scrape and chime of fittings as the mercenary entered. He was armed, of course, even in the presence of his king; Mercardier was bodyguard as much as hired sword. But even he had not been proof against that indolent crossbow bolt, slicing down from the walls of Châlus. Behind which, it was claimed, treasure lay hidden, treasure that had brought Christendom’s greatest warrior at once to lay claim, who always needed money.

The mercenary was, like his liege, a large man. He bore the marks of his employment in the seams of his face, the notch in his nose, the line in an eyebrow where once dark hair had grown, bisected now by a scar.

“Mercardier.” Difficult now to speak.

The mercenary then did the service he offered no man save his king, and God. He knelt.

“Are they here?” the king asked.

“No, my lord.” Mercardier’s French-accented voice, ruined a decade or more before by shouting through the din of battle, rasped unevenly in the tent. “There has been no time.”

No time. And less of it now, with the king dying. Yet one should reckon that men would therefore hasten. And it was not so very far from France to England.

“Have you sent for them, Mercardier? My matched boys?”

“I have, my lord king. But—” Even Mercardier forebore to say it.

Time. Running out.

“I would have—would have Blondel here, to play. And Robin—” He stirred; the bee stung again, poisoning the wound afresh. “I would have my Robin here. He will give me the truth, where no other man will.”

Unfair, that, to Mercardier, who knew the truth as well as any and divulged it in his face. But Mercardier was a man of few words under any circumstances.

The rough voice repeated, “They have been sent for, my lord king.”

No more than that. But Richard understood the brevity of the answer. No one was certain where Blondel had gone, the Lionheart’s favored minstrel; and as for Robin—

“England,” Richard gasped. “Nottinghamshire. Go there, Mercardier.”

“They have been sent for, my lord king.”

“Go
there, Mercardier!”

“But—”

But. Unsaid was the truth: if Mercardier left, he would not be at his liege’s side as the king expired.

Harder to speak now. “—trust you,” Richard managed. “I trust you to see it done. Fetch my Robin here, to me.”

Even as the big mercenary opened his mouth to answer, another man’s voice slid smoothly into the break. “My lord, if you can send for a lute-player and a man retired from your service, surely you can see it clear to name an heir for England.”

The Lionheart laughed. It was little more than a breathless display of teeth, a gritting and grimace against the pain. Through the haze of fever and weakness he saw Mercardier yet kneeling, massive shoulders weighted down by something other than armor.

“John,” he said at last, and heard the sharply indrawn breaths. Some were pleased, no doubt. Others perhaps less so, who knew and detested the youngest of Henry’s sons. “John—
and
Arthur. Geoffrey’s boy.”

It shocked them all. Even Mercardier blinked. But there was sense in it; surely they could see that. As Henry had sons to pit against one another in a contest designed to see who was strongest, ablest, cleverest, so Richard might do the same with a brother and a nephew.

Deathbed folly, they believed. He saw it in their eyes. But he was not yet done.

“England for John,” he said. “Let him be king in name. And if he is strong enough, he will be king in truth.”

“But—Brittany,” someone said. “Arthur—?”

“The wherewithal,” Richard said, “to wrest it away from John. My lands. My money. John shall have the kingdom. Arthur, the means to take and keep it.” The king stretched fever-blistered lips in a rictus that was not a smile. “If he dares.”

There. It was said. Was done. His eyes sharpened. “Mercardier,” he said. “I have set you a task. See it through. Go to England and fetch Robin. I’ll have him serve me once again before John becomes his liege.”

“Yes, my lord king.” The mercenary rose, bowed, took his leave of the tent and of the dying man in it.

The Lionheart released a pent breath that did not, despite his efforts, drown out the drone of the priest.
God’s Holy Arse, but it will be good to see Robin again!