Jennifer Roberson - [Robin Hood 02] (20 page)

There was quill and inkpot nearby. The sheriff uncapped the ink, swirled it briefly to mix the pigment, then dipped the quill into it. When he was satisfied the nib carried enough ink but not so much as to sputter and spoil the parchment, he bent over the list and ran a meticulous line through the name he had sought. Then another, then another, until the inked bar upon the parchment made the name beneath it indecipherable.

DeLacey sanded the parchment, capped the pot, set the quill aside, rerolled the parchment and returned it to its case. That done, he spent a great deal of time going through the casket containing receipts. At last he found the one he wanted, read it, tore it to pieces, and crumpled the shreds into the palm of his hand. Satisfied, he locked the door and climbed the stairs in no haste, rehearsing in his mind the explanation and order he would give to Sir Guy of Gisbourne at first light.

Robin drank ale stolen from a shipment on its way to Nottingham from Lincoln. Robin ate venison that had been poached from the forest, and could cost a man a hand. Robin listened to stories of daring and outrageous robberies, none of which he believed. Robin complained his wrists were tied too tightly; they laughed and tightened the knots, then tied his ankles as well. Robin described each and every one of them in terms most explicitly offensive, save he did it in Arabic and none of them understood. They laughed, drank ale, ate venison, told tales embellished with equally distributed blame and insults, drank more ale, and eventually, as the quarter-moon slid behind clouds, slept. Robin did not.

In the ashen dampness before dawn he slid fingers inside his boot, withdrew the slender knife, and sliced his ankles free. He placed the hilt between his knees with the blade upright, squeezed to keep it there, then cut through the wrist bindings. He reflected wryly that if they caught him, he would explain he merely needed very badly to relieve himself, which was perfectly true.

Sherwood was their home. But he, a solitary and fanciful boy who enjoyed creeping through shadows pretending he was anything but what he was, had grown up on the hem of Sherwood’s skirts at Huntington Hall, before his father razed it. He had fought a war in a harsh and foreign land, killed men, been wounded, made ill by recurrent fevers, knighted, wounded again, captured, imprisoned, beaten, ransomed by the king himself, and beaten again by Normans purportedly his fellow knights of courtesy and conscience. He was not alien to darkness, to the forest, to fighting, to killing, to pain, to patience, determination and ruthlessness, nor to the need for stealth.

The fire had burned down to a scattering of jewellike ruddy coals within a ring of stones. The clearing still smelled of roasted venison, spilled ale, and unbathed men who had feasted well. With great care Robin rose, gripping the knife. He waited, lest the shifting of his clothing waken them, but the outlaws slept on. The knots had been secure—even now loops remained around ankles and wrists—but Adam Bell had not searched him further, had not counted on live steel.

He closed his eyes, turned his head slightly, and let the night take him. The coals were banished. When he opened his eyes again the blackness had definition.

One step. Two.

He waited.

One step. Two.

He paused.

Someone beside the fire shifted, muttered in his sleep, flopped over. Robin stood perfectly still and eased his grip on the hilt, twisting his torso slightly toward the clearing. But when there was no alarm given, he eased back again, released pent breath, and ventured another step.

One more.

Two.

He was in the trees.

A twig beneath his right boot snapped. A limb briefly snagged his sleeve. He froze.

Nothing.

One step. Two.

His senses told him a tree was beside him. Carefully Robin bent, then crouched. An outstretched left hand examined the ground. He felt grass, and fallen leaves. Mostly dirt. A few twigs. With exquisite care he found and picked up each twig, then set it aside. When his searching hand told him no more twigs remained and most of the leaves were cleared from a specific area, he let his knees down. Cold ground met them, but no leaves crackled, no twigs broke.

He pressed one hand against the ground, steadied himself, then very slowly rotated into a turn. The tree was now behind him. Robin sat down. He waited. There was no sound of discovery, no noise of pursuit.

Still gripping the knife, he leaned against the tree and prepared to wait for first light, when he could see again.

 

Marian, having broken her fast at dawn after a night of little sleep because of Robin’s absence, was engaged in more repairs to the kitchen when Hal came in and said Sir Guy of Gisbourne had come to see her. Surprised, she got to her feet and wiped her grimy right hand on her apron, taking care with her left. It was still immensely sore, still bandaged but healing.

She was unfit for visitors, but with Gisbourne she did not care. She walked out into hall, thinking inhospitable thoughts about the sheriff’s steward, only to stop short, startled, when she discovered him already inside. Apparently he had invited himself in from the courtyard when Hal had gone to fetch her.

Marian had not seen Sir Guy of Gisbourne save from a distance for years. Now, face-to-face again with the short, compact man, she recalled how it was he who had given evidence against her at the travesty of a trial before the Abbot of Croxden, who was, because of William deLacey’s elaborate and false tales and manufactured evidence, more than persuaded to declare her a witch. Gisbourne once had proclaimed his love for her, his undying loyalty; both had been extinguished upon learning she refused to return his feelings, and he had summarily sought to discredit her.

Courtesy therefore was not something she was willing to offer this man. Marian waited, resolutely silent, until splotchy color crept into his saturnine face. He cleared his throat, scowling. “You are to pay your taxes.”

She had harbored no expectations of what his business might be. But this was astonishing. “I did pay my taxes!”

“We have no record of it.”

“I did,” she repeated. When he made no reply, she said, “Gisbourne, I counted out the coin myself and sent Hal to Nottingham.” Marian glanced at the gray-haired servant who nodded vigorously, clearly as taken aback as she.

“We have no record of it.”

“I
paid
them.”

Gisbourne bestowed upon Hal a look so pointed that even a blind man could not misinterpret the meaning.

The servant turned white. “I paid them, Lady Marian! I took the money to Nottingham! I gave it over to the collector in the castle bailey!”

Gisbourne declared, “We have no record of it.”

“Then your record is false,” Marian snapped. “In God’s name, Gisbourne, I paid my taxes!”

“We have examined the Exchequer,” he explained. “We have inspected the tax roll, and the receipts. Your taxes are lacking.”

She felt as if there were no other words in her mouth except four: “I paid the taxes.” Then, more emphatically, “Gisbourne, I
paid
them.”

“We have no record.”

“Look again!”

“We have looked thrice, Lady Marian.”

“Look a
fourth
time, then!”

“The sheriff has sent me to collect the taxes.”

“He has already collected them, Gisbourne.”

“You are to pay me here and now, or forfeit your lands.”

She began to understand this was neither poor jest nor nightmare, nor had she taken momentary leave of her senses and imagined everything. Her bones turned to ice. “Forfeit my lands?”

“If the taxes are not paid.”

Marian looked at Hal, who trembled with shock. She knew him; had known him for more than two decades. He had been her father’s man. She did not doubt he told the truth.

She
did
doubt Gisbourne. Or deLacey. Or both.

“This is a lie,” she said. “This is a ruse.”

“Lady?”

“I paid them. You know I paid them. DeLacey knows I paid them. This is a ruse. This is revenge.” Anger abruptly boiled up into her throat so hot and painful she wanted to spit into his face. “He set his soldiers to destroy everything I cherish within this hall, and now he seeks to take what is left!”

“You are to pay here and now—”

“I can’t pay,” she said, beginning to shake with outrage. Her stomach churned. “I have no money.”

“Then your lands are forfeit.”

“They are
my lands,
Gisbourne!”

“But forfeit, unless you pay your taxes.”

She found it difficult to breathe through the constriction in her throat. She felt as if she might vomit. “He can’t have them. Not my lands. Not Ravenskeep. They were my father’s lands. I inherited them on his death.”

“They were Crown lands, lady, after your father’s death. The Crown held them in trust for you, until you married.” He paused. “You have not married.”

“The king gave them to me outright!”

“That king is dead.”

She had paid the taxes. She had given Robin the last bit of money she had, to ransom Will and Little John and Tuck and Alan and Much. There was not a single coin left in the hall.

“Tell him . . .” Her voice shook. She steadied it with effort. “Tell him I paid the taxes. I paid them this session, and I will pay them next session, and every session after that.”

“Lady,” Gisbourne said, “we have no record.”

“Your record is
wrong.”

“The record is the record.”

“Gisbourne!”

Gisbourne shrugged. “It was the sheriff’s command.”

“And one you were pleased to follow!”

He smiled. “Indeed, lady.”

No money. There was no money. None in all the hall.

“No,” she said.

“Then you are in arrears.”

For the first time in her life she wished she had a sword, that she might open his belly with it. “Tell him I refuse. Tell him the taxes were paid. Tell him I will not permit him to take my lands.”

Gisbourne reached into his sleeve and withdrew a folded parchment. He released it, let it fall to the floor. “So be it, Lady Marian. But if the taxes are not paid within a fortnight, soldiers shall be sent to escort you out of the hall.” He paused. “And you will not be permitted to return.”

“My
hall, Gisbourne!
My
lands! Tell him that.”

DeLacey’s steward laughed. “Tell him yourself, whore. I am his servant, not yours.”

Shocked into silence, she watched Gisbourne turn on his heel and stride out of the hall. When he was gone, when the hall was silent again, empty of orders and denials, of threats and sworn certainties, Marian stared blindly at the folded parchment lying at her feet.

“I paid,” she said blankly. “Hal—I
paid.”

“Lady, so did I.”

She focused on him then, saw his face then, noted the stricken expression. He was as frightened as she. Ravenskeep was her home, but it was his as well.

Marian held out her hands. They shook as if she were palsied. She still felt ill. She swallowed once, then again, and felt the lump go down. She clenched her hands into her apron, ignoring the pain in her left.

In arrears, the sheriff said. Lands forfeit, the sheriff said.

Whore, Gisbourne called her.

Every mark, every silver penny, had gone to ransom the others.

She had paid the taxes. She had counted them herself. Locksley was Robin’s to tend: she tended Ravenskeep. She had
paid
the taxes.

But the sheriff was the sheriff. It was his duty to collect taxes from the shire each session, from every manor, estate, village, and hamlet, to do the accounting, to write amounts and names on the rolls, to sort through the receipts, to enforce the laws of the land with regard to payment and forfeiture.

Anger, she knew, was better than terror, or she would be utterly helpless.

“Hal,” she said quietly, “saddle me a horse.”

“Lady?”

The trembling began to diminish. She focused only on the task. “I am going to Nottingham. I am going to the sheriff. The sheriff and I have something to discuss.”

 

Not long after dawn, Adam Bell and his men awoke to discover their prisoner missing. Robin, crouched low in foliage, did not move except to tense
for
movement. There was shouting, swearing, accusations made, then Adam snapped at them all that they were wasting time; he could not have gotten far; he was a stranger in their forest and knew nothing of its secrets; and they had best catch him soon or lose the sweetest ransom they might ever hope for, unless they, like German Henry, captured themselves a king.

Robin purposely had decided against trying for the horse. While a mount would have carried him to safety more quickly, finding the horse in the dark would have resulted in too much noise. Trying to find him
now
would give away his presence instantly. Better to depend on his feet, slower but far more quiet, than risk discovery in the name of speed. And, for all he knew, the horse had been taken elsewhere by one of Adam’s men.

He watched as each outlaw, cursing, gathered up weapons. Cloudisley, Clym of the Clough, and Wat One-Hand went, respectively, north, south, and east. It was sheer bad luck that Adam Bell, former yeoman and the one Robin least wanted to face because of his skill with a longbow, came west, directly toward his hiding place.

Inwardly he cursed and slipped the knife back into his boot. Adam Bell was on him, though he did not yet know Robin was there. Before he could discover it for himself, Robin thrust himself up from the ground and surged at the outlaw.

He caught Bell around the hips and threw him down flat on his back. Robin scrambled upright, sat on the outlaw’s belly, saw the shock in the light-brown eyes, and smashed his right fist into the stubbled jaw. Then he was on his feet. Quickly he set one boot against the longbow’s belly, grasped one end, and pulled upright against his bootsole with all his might. A sliced string would render the bow temporarily unusable, but Bell likely had another string; better he concentrate on disabling the bow instead.

When it cracked like a broken leg, Robin dropped the broken half and ran. Behind him, Adam Bell, dazed but conscious, shouted hoarsely for aid.

Limbs snatched at Robin, snagged his clothing; vines snared his ankles, dropped him more than once. He scrambled up, spitting out leaves and soil, and ran again, leaping downed trees, beating back branches, pelting his way through hip-high fern, bushes, and other foliage. Behind him he heard more shouts. He heard the thrum of a loosed arrow, the tattered hiss of torn leaves giving way; felt the kiss of its passing as it thudded into a tree beside him. Robin dodged aside, dove through fern, scrambled up again, ran again. An arrow loosed from an English longbow could punch through mail. At this short distance it would likely be driven clear through his body. The only way of defeating one was to avoid it. An archer needed a clear line of sight to take proper aim, and he refused to give any of them that.