Jennifer Roberson - [Robin Hood 02] (9 page)

He was as startled to find her piling out of the courtyard and nearly into his horse, with Hal riding Joan’s behind her leading a riderless gray. She wanted to question his disheveled appearance and the circumstances; clearly, he wanted to question her haste. But both of them instead were somewhat occupied with sorting out various equally startled horses, who snorted and sashayed and cast white-rimmed, wary eyes upon one another as they bared large teeth in potent promise. Charlemagne, completely out of temper, kicked at Marian’s horse, which promptly protested with a ringing squeal and high-flung head, and Hal’s horse, borrowed from Joan, took an instant dislike to the one Robin rode. It was only after they had all spent long minutes wrestling with discommoded horses, averting an equine war by the narrowest of margins, that anyone was able to complete a civil sentence.

“You’re all over mud,” Marian managed at last.

Robin, scowling, leaned forward to smack the flat of an admonishing palm down across his borrowed mount’s head. “Where are you going in such haste?”

“Stop it!” Marian muttered to her own fractious mount, before the gelding might begin hostilities anew. “Looking for you,” she answered when she could. “Charlemagne came in—”

“Thank God!” Robin said fervently, looking the big gray over with avid eyes. “I feared he might be taken by someone else.”

“—and I was worried,” she finished dryly. Then, with a bland expression, thinking of Hal’s observation, she inquired: “Did he throw you?”

It provoked, as she meant it to. “He did not throw me, nor did I fall,” Robin explained with precision. “It was a trap.”

“What
trap?”

“Adam Bell,” he answered. “And the others.”

“Adam?” She was startled. Robin and Bell had parted in amity years before. “Why would they set a trap for you?”

“Not for me specifically. For anyone. It happened to be me.” Robin peeled away a smear of mud on his chin, still studying the mud-splattered gray Hal ponied. “I suspect they would have stolen him, had he not taken himself away.”

Marian had no time for the horse Robin so valued. Her concern was for his rider. “Did they hurt you?”

Robin shrugged out of the loose, unpinned cloak, hoisted a leg across the saddle, and jumped down. “They
robbed
me,” he elucidated, pulling the mud-weighted cloak from the saddle. “Of my pride, if nothing else. Much—” He turned to the young man, handing him the reins of the borrowed horse. In that moment he had no attention for anyone else, speaking clearly and with a glint in hazel eyes. “Take him into Nottingham. To the castle; you can get in safely?” Much nodded, eyes alight, and Robin smiled broadly. “Make your way to the stables and put him with the sheriff’s personal mounts.”

Marian was astonished. “Is that
deLacey’s
horse?”

“No. He belongs to the poor fool I stole him from.” Robin slapped the horse on the rump as Much set out for the Nottingham road, smiling. Marian knew that look; he plotted something. Something to do with the borrowed horse, that would plague deLacey.

She refused to be put off from her line of inquiry. “You stole the horse? I thought you said Charlemagne was stolen.”

“Charlemagne broke loose, or he
would
have been stolen—although perhaps they would have given him back in light of the news.” Robin shrugged. “Once Adam and the others let me go—”

“After
they robbed you.”

He nodded, flinging the cloak across one shoulder. “I was on foot, and needed a horse badly, so . . .” He shrugged, much as a little boy who is helpless to justify proscribed actions.

“Robin.” Marian, sighing inwardly, climbed down out of her own saddle and turned to fall in beside him, even as Hal, leading Charlemagne, brought up the rear with a bemused expression on his face. She thought of Huntington then, thought of telling Robin his father was ill, but something within her shied away from it. Not yet. Later. Let him be put at ease first, let him bathe, eat, sleep; she could tell from the way he moved he was in some pain. For now she would speak of other things. “I understand not
wishing
to walk a muddy track, but why did you need a horse so badly you saw fit to steal one?”

“Because of you,” Robin said.

“Me!”

And he added, as the others joined them, “Because of them.”

“Why us?” Will Scarlet demanded. “What’s you stealing a horse got to do with any of us?”

Robin’s expression, as he slid an arm around Marian’s waist, was bleak. “The king is dead,” he said, “and even now a messenger is on his way to carry word of it to the Sheriff of Nottingham.” He looked at each of them. “None of you is safe.”

With Marian’s help, Robin stripped slowly out of mud-caked clothing in the tiny chamber serving as a bathhouse. As his battered back came into view, she drew in an audible breath of empathy, which he appreciated—
everything
hurt!—then spoiled it by murmuring of carelessness, stupidity, and a man’s stubborn pride.

Somewhat aggrievedly, he asked, “Why are you blaming me? I didn’t do this to myself!”

One well-placed palm pushed him toward the oak half-cask Joan and others had laboriously filled with steaming water. “You were far more concerned with the welfare of your horse and how Much should leave a
stolen
horse in the sheriff’s own stables.” Marian poked his spine as he dawdled, and he winced. “You left with Mercardier, bound for France—get in, Robin—but your horse, apparently disinclined to go, came back without you. Do you have any idea what thoughts went through my mind . . . and will you please get in
before
the water turns cold?”

“I never have any idea what thoughts go through your mind.” He climbed into the cask gingerly, hissing as bruised flesh recoiled from heated water.

“I was concerned.”

Robin gripped the cask rim. “So was I.”

Her tone was somewhat testy. “What had
you
to worry about?”

“My reception . . .” He twitched as cool fingers investigated a particularly sore abrasion. “Here,” he finished. “Marian—”

“Sit,” she commanded. “Mother of God, Robin, what did this to you?”

“A tree.”

“A
tree?”

“It is somewhat chastening,” he confessed, sinking down onto the bathing stool, “for a king’s knight to be defeated by vegetation.” And then he went very still, recalling that the king who had knighted him was no longer alive.

After a moment Marian bent and encircled his neck from behind with both slim arms. Her chin rested gently atop his mud-weighted hair. “I am so sorry.”

He closed his eyes. The arms around his neck were comforting, familiar, beloved. Strands of her hair stuck to his damp skin. He smelled her welcome scent, felt her breath in his own hair.

“I know you loved him,” she said quietly. “All England loved him. But England has loved kings before, and shall again.”

“Perhaps not the next one,” he said grimly, thinking of what he had said to the others in the hall, how he had explained that new kings were not always committed to supporting what dead kings commanded. Thinking, too, of Much’s abruptly bloodless features, of Scarlet’s crude curses, Little John’s furrowed brow, Tuck’s distraught silence—and Alan’s ironic smirk—he said, “They will do better at Locksley.”

Marian unwound her arms, taking up the ladle so she might pour water over his sore shoulders. “If they will go,” she agreed.

“They must. You know the sheriff will come here.”

She did know, and said as much as she emptied the ladle.

He shivered beneath the water. “Can you do without them?”

“I did without them before they came.” She took up a ball of soap and gently began to lather his shoulders. “And did without you, as well.”

He smiled, recognizing the banter that masked her worry. “Marian—”

“Later,” she said. “Close your eyes, forget everything but that the warmth of the water can soak the ache from your bones, and let me tend you.”

He had dreamed of this as he stole the horse from the merchant. He had recalled this as he shared a campsite with Mercardier. He thanked God for this as he closed his eyes, forgot everything but that she was with him, and let her tend him.

 

Alan found Marian in the kitchen the next morning. He had for once left his lute elsewhere and was unencumbered save for the mane of golden curls tumbling across doublet-clad shoulders. Surprised by his appearance, she left off directing Cook in the preparation of Robin’s favorite breakfast, which she wanted him to eat before she sent him to his father. Unexpectedly, Alan did not tease, nor seek to charm out of habit as he leaned against the wall in casual negligence, arms crossed. But she sensed a subtle tension in him.

“What is it?” she asked.

“ ’Tis no hardship for me,” he told her matter-of-factly. “I am a minstrel—my life is upon the road, and music buys me a meal most nights and a roof over my head. I can move on from here today, if necessary, and may well do it.”

Marian frowned in perplexion.

Alan shrugged. “But the others are not so fortunate.”

She studied his face, trying to read it. She could not; Alan had learned years before how to present a bland mask to the world. Testing his intent, she said, “He has offered all of you shelter at Locksley.”

“For which Tuck is grateful—he is a generous, trusting soul and would do well anywhere—but what of the others?”

“What
of
them?” Marian was exasperated; she could not divine his point. “They have been offered a home, Robin’s home, as I offered all of you mine five years ago.”

His expression was serious, the bright blue eyes quiet but oddly anticipatory. “The sheriff is no fool. If they are not here, he will go there.”

“What would you have us do?” she asked. “All of you are family now. Should we put you out and lock our doors behind you because England has a new king? Because the sheriff will use it as an excuse?”

“He will.”

“I know it,” Marian said. “As you do; you know best of all what is in William deLacey’s mind.”

Alan’s expressive mouth twitched wryly. “Because I was in more than his daughter’s mind?”

“What would you have us do?” she repeated, ignoring the crudity; Alan of the Dales enjoyed provoking shock. “Send you to London? To France?” She shook her head. “With King Richard dead, there is no Crusade, and thus no room for you all to become anonymous soldiers in a large army, or minstrels, or friars, lost among your brethren.” Marian spread her hands. “What else may we do save what we have done?”

“Send us,” Alan said, “into outlawry.”

She was stunned.

“Much is a thief,” the minstrel declared plainly. “He has remained so despite his place here with you, cutting the occasional purse in Nottingham, no matter how often you told him it was wrong.” Marian’s face grew warm; she knew it for the truth. “He is a simpleton,” Alan continued, “doing what he knows best. Sending him to Locksley village will not alter his habits.”

“Why are you telling me this?” she asked, giving up; perhaps annoyance might win a direct answer. “Is it merely to put me out of sorts, or is there a purpose in it?”

Alan’s gaze was level. “Five years ago it was a simple thing to offer all of us shelter. We were pardoned, and none of us—save for Much, who doesn’t understand—of a mind to be outlaws beyond what we became so briefly in the name of King Richard’s ransom. But now . . .” The minstrel shook his head, stirring hair against shoulders. “We will be
un
pardoned, exactly as you fear, and sheltering men who would be hanged, maimed, or imprisoned is not the same.”

Marian understood at last what Alan was doing: providing opportunity, a chance for disengagement, because of them all, only she and Robin
had
opportunity. “No,” she said simply. “We will not turn our backs.”

A flicker in his eyes acknowledged she had found him out. “He is an earl’s son. And you a knight’s daughter.”

“An earl’s son who has, as you yourself just admitted, stolen from the king, and who has repudiated his father.” Inwardly she winced; that repudiation might well soon be altered. “As for me, I may not have stolen the money, but there are other reasons for the sheriff to treat me unkindly. Turning our backs on those we consider family would gain us nothing.”

Alan’s brilliant smile was abrupt as he adorned himself once again with the persona of charm and insouciance. “Ah, well, it shall make a lovely ballad . . . how a Crusader knight and his lady fair gave succor to lowly outlaws.”

Marian sighed. “The world is not a song, Alan.”

“The world
is,”
he rebutted. “And ’tis my task to find the words and music for it.”

“Alan. She stopped him as he reached the door, touching his arm briefly. “Alan, there are things such as beliefs, convictions—and people—worth the risk.”

His infectious grin was wide and warm. “And ballads,” he said, too brightly,“well worth the making and singing despite royal resprisal.”

 

There was—nothingness. No thought, no feeling, no impetus to react. Merely nothingness, as if the words had no bearing on his life. And yet Robin knew they should. Knew once perhaps they had, and might yet again. Someday.

But for now: nothing. And no appetite as he sat at table, attempting to eat what she had presented him.

Marian sat on the other side of the table. “I am sorry.”

She had said that several times during the past three days. Sorry the king was dying. Sorry for his worry. Sorry the king was dead, and for his grief. Sorry now that his father was ill.

But am I?
he wondered.

“I’ve ordered a horse for you.” Marian’s brief smile was slight. “Charlemagne, unless you believe him too taxed by his adventures of yesterday.”

“No,” he murmured, and wondered if he referred to his horse’s condition or denied his father’s illness.

“Perhaps I should have told you yesterday, when you first came home. But you were so muddy and tired, and when I saw the bruises . . .” She let the implication stand proxy for the words.

For five years his life had been what he had made it since breaking with the earl. Peace such as he had never anticipated, living at Ravenskeep with frequent trips to Locksley to oversee his holdings. A quiet life livened only by such things as a fox amidst the henhouse, a wolf stalking the lambs, the festivals of spring and Nottingham’s fairs, occasional intercourse with taverns, though never with tavern bawds. After the perils and brutalities of the Crusade, after cruel captivity, after seeing his king won free from his own kind of captivity in a foreign king’s court, Robin had welcomed the quietude others might name tedium.

Now Richard was dead, John would likely be king, the sheriff would come hunting outlaws—and his father was ill.

“One moment,” he said.

“One moment?” she echoed.

“One moment, and the world is never the same.” He stood up then over the remains of his breakfast, pushing the bench away from the heavy trestle table set in the center of the modest hall. She rose as well, rounding the table to set his tunic aright. “If for nothing else, I should see if Gerard has arrived at last.”

It baffled her. “Gerard?”

“Tell the others,” he said, fixed on the task. “Tell them to go now. I will ride straight to Huntington by the Nottingham road—it is faster, and I may be able to delay the sheriff should he have heard the news and set out—but the others had best take themselves into Sherwood at once, then make their way to Locksley.” His tone and manner were briskly casual, yet clearly in command; his mind worked swiftly, envisioning potential problems and creating resolutions. “By now such things as pardons may bear no weight until a new king is named, and he will hardly concern himself immediately with what Nottingham’s sheriff does.”

She understood him then. He saw the shift of color in her face from milk-and-roses to corpse-candle white, the puckering of her brow; felt the tension in her hands as they rested on his chest.

“I trust you,” he said. “And so do they.”

Marian nodded mutely. Robin kissed her, and left her.

 

The earl felt he should be angry. Possibly even outraged. The woman dared to meddle in his life, dared to suggest an agreement made between them, as if she were an equal; dared to promise it was solely within her purview to deliver the son to his father, or to lure him away forever from title, heritage, legacy. Even from blood, and power.

But the earl was not angry. Offended, yes, entirely so—but not outraged. He recognized realities and the necessities of life, those within his own life as well as in hers. Robert had inexplicably chosen to estrange himself from his father and everything the earl represented. For all Huntington believed his son a fool to do so, a romantic idealist shaped too much by his mother’s soft hand and softer mind, he knew there was a measure of himself in the boy. Were they not similar in the tenacious stubbornness that made forgiveness of one another impossible, Robert perhaps would have come back years before.

Perhaps. And yet forgiveness was not possible. But cooperation, given the right circumstances, indisputably was.

Huntington considered the facts. His son loved an unsuitable woman. The earl had himself
wed
an unsuitable woman—in temperament, though not in wealth and blood—but he had had the good sense not to love her. He understood the value of such comportment, the power won from self-control. His son never had.

“All of them dead,” he said aloud, recalling other sons. “All of them save for Robert. The last—and the least.”

But all he had. Now.

There was a measure of compensation, a degree of relief, and an inchoate sense of righteousness: the woman Robert bedded out of wedlock could not conceive. There were no bastards of her, nor would be. But there might be grandchildren yet, and a grandson more suited than his recalcitrant father to hold the title, to command the wealth, the lands, the castle. It required merely that Robert be made to see his duty, to marry a
suitable
woman capable of giving him children. Sons, preferably.

But to convince or perhaps seduce Robert to such duties required careful voyaging. No enticement had served to keep the earl’s son with him, and Huntington doubted that any offered since, had any
been
offered, would have retrieved his heir.

With a curious flash of insight, Huntington admitted that just as no enticement existed that might induce
him
to repudiate his title and the honors of it—certainly not a woman!—there was every possibility, difficult as it was to comprehend, that Robert believed his stance equally valid. A man committed to principles in place of political realities was unpredictable in the ordering of convictions, the disposition of his commitments. Such a man could never be properly used as a weapon in the war, because he refused duty, rejected responsibility, in the name of selfishness.