Robin: Lady of Legend (The Classic Adventures of the Girl Who Became Robin Hood) (2 page)

Not that there is much there to look at
, she thought.

“You are doing very well,” Will reassured her as he led her through the gentle dance. It was the only respite she was to have all evening.

When the song ended, Robin saw an unfamiliar man with squinty eyes catch her gaze; he started towards her.

“Stay with me, please,” she begged her cousin.

Will had seen the man too, and his eyes were full of pity. “I cannot,” he said. He sounded truly regretful. “I promised your sister the next dance.”

“Marian will understand,” Robin said, but she let him go.

“Lady Robin,” a deep voice breathed behind her, and she reluctantly turned around to face the speaker.

He was taller than most men—almost as tall as she was—with a broad build and thick shoulders. His face was strong, with high cheekbones and a cloven chin. He was not young, but neither was he old. She might have found him handsome, if not for his eyes. They were small and black, with a sharp gleam that made the hairs on the back of her neck start to prickle. Robin had to fight down the urge to flee from that lupine stare.

Stop it!
she scolded herself for her unreasoned reaction.
You do not even know him.

“Lady Robin,” the man repeated, grinning slightly.

“Sir—?” she began, casting around her mind for an identity.

“Phillip. Just Phillip.”

Robin raised a skeptical eyebrow. Her father never invited commoners to his feasts. Nevertheless, she returned his smile politely.

“Shall we?” he asked, extending his hand. His palm as he took hers was clammy.

The music was another estampie. Robin wished it were a ductia or a jig—some such dance that did not require her to stand so near her partner.

She moved to step away; he closed the gap between them.

The crowd jostled behind her. He pulled her closer. His breath was hot and smelled strongly of Brown October. She tried to step away, but his arms trapped her. The wolf-gleam was back in his eyes. “What do you think you are doing?” she hissed, surprising herself with the anger in her voice. Strangely, her ire seemed to please him.

“This,” he smirked, and without further warning, kissed her squarely on the mouth.

Robin’s eyes went wide, but for a moment she was too stunned to react. His lips, loose and wet, suffocated any protest. Gathering her senses, Robin tried to pull away, but the man held her tightly against his body. In desperation, she reached out and snatched at his hair, pulling his head back with a snap.

Phillip let her go, his face contorting with fury. For a moment, she thought he would strike her. Then a change spread over his features and to Robin’s astonishment, the fury in his eyes altered to a sort of cunning humor. She followed his gaze over her shoulder and saw her father watching them from across the room, an amused smile on his face. It was the last straw. Her cheeks crimson with humiliation and rage, Robin fled the room as calmly as she could, holding her head up high so as not to reveal her distress. Though she did not look back, she knew that Phillip was laughing.

* * * * *

Darah did not permit Robin to rage in her room for long. Indeed, Robin had barely slammed the heavy door shut when it burst open again and the matron strode inside.

“Return to the feast at once,” she commanded fiercely. “Your absence insults your guests.”

“Their
presence
insults
me!
” Robin shot back.

“What a ridiculous notion. Stop acting like a child and return to the feast, I demand it.”

Indignation and hurt flared within Robin, yet it was clear she would get no sympathy from Darah regarding Phillip’s assault. And indeed, why would she, when her own father so blatantly approved of his actions? In a voice so heated it could have tempered steel, Robin announced: “I do not give one twit what you or anyone else demands, I
refuse
to set foot amongst that crowd of drunken, debauched lords again!”

Five minutes later, two lackeys deposited a struggling Robin into the servant’s passage just outside the Hall. The instant her feet touched the ground, she grew quiet. The screen separating the passage from the Hall was very thin, and a scene here would just mean further shame. Straightening her gown and ignoring the stares of the kitchen cooks, she stalked resentfully back into the Hall.

A young lord espied her entrance and promptly headed in her direction, his hand outstretched to ask for a dance. Robin glowered at him and he checked himself abruptly, gazing at her in confusion. When she intensified her scowl, he decided not to dance with her after all, and turned away.

For a moment, Robin felt ashamed of herself, but she was too angry to let the feeling last for long.
Darah may have made me come back, but I will
not
dance again,
she promised herself, glaring at the assembly from her perch against the wall.
I care not how many lords I insult.

She noted bitterly that Phillip was now sitting with her father on the dais, talking to him with great enthusiasm. As she watched, he seized a shank of chicken from a passing servitor’s tray and began to gnaw at it as he spoke, sending bits of flesh flying.

Robin shuddered and looked away.

At least the other guests seem to be tiring
, she observed with relief.
Soon all of this will be over.
But even though several lords had begun to drift into wine-dazed stupors where they sat, not one of them made to leave, nor would they until her father gave the traditional birthday toast.

Robin did not have to wait long, though she endured each delayed minute with rising impatience. Finally, Lord Locksley rose to his feet; grabbing an empty goblet, he banged its base loudly against the oaken table.

It took several tries before enough of the assembly noticed and fell quiet to make projected speech worthwhile. When he had their attention, her father raised his cup in salutation. His words as he spoke were only slightly slurred.

“Good evening, good evening my fine friends. No finer in all of Nottinghamshire!”

A roar of agreement met his statement.

“Thank you for coming to help celebrate the eighteenth birthday of my eldest daughter. She has grown up nicely, has she not? If she were a horse, she would bring me a fine profit—she has as many hands to her height as she has years to her credit!”

Laughter broke out across the room. Robin flushed from her corner. Why now that he had chosen to distinguish her, did he feel the need to embarrass her? It was better to be ignored.

Lord Locksley’s mood turned sober. “However, she is not a horse. She is a young woman who has grown up almost without my noticing—certainly without my help. It is not fitting that a young woman should dwell with her father forever. Indeed, some of you have indicated that I have postponed this day for far too long.

“I cannot claim that the house will be quieter with her gone, for she has rarely seen fit to stay within its walls. But it certainly will be different. Happy birthday, Robin. I give you now the greatest gift a woman can hope to receive.”

He paused for a moment to catch his breath. Robin clenched her hands until they turned white, almost ill with foreboding.

“Lords and ladies, it is my pleasure to announce the engagement of my daughter Robin of Locksley to Phillip Darniel, the Sheriff of Nottingham.”

Robin froze in horror as Darniel rose to stand next to her father, and the room burst into delighted applause.

CHAPTER 2

PLIGHTED

“HOW COULD YOU not tell me!”

Robin’s enraged exclamation startled her father, who had been gazing into the solar fire in deep contemplation while his manservant laid out his nightclothes. Both men turned to stare at the furious girl.

Robin felt herself flush, but she held her ground. She had dashed upstairs as soon as the last of her well-wishers would permit, determined to have a word with her father. Now the anger and fear she had suppressed at his announcement surged forth unchecked: “Did you think I would welcome a surprise like that?—it was no gift! You should have told me!”

Lord Locksley considered Robin for a long moment, and at last gave his servant a small nod of dismissal. Only after the man had left did he address his daughter.

“I will forgive your intrusion this once because I can see that you are upset. I did not reveal my plan to you, Robin, because I did not want to raise your hopes in case the Sheriff refused to have you; he made it a condition of the match to meet you first. I was worried that he would not want a bride taller than himself, but fortunately, he was willing to overlook that fact.”

“Fortunately!”

“Yes, quite; though I
did
refrain from mentioning your affinity for the longbow, knowing you will of course renounce such a childhood fixation once you are married.”

“Father—!” Robin nearly shouted, but then stopped and bit back the words she had been going to say. It would not do to lose her temper again. She must stay calm, and make her father see reason.

“Father,” she began anew, “surely this match cannot meet with your approval? I may not have met the Sheriff before tonight, but I have heard of him. He is a cruel man who cheats his subjects mercilessly.”

Her father shrugged. “You should know better than to heed peasant talk.”

Rather than argue the point, Robin hastily switched tactics. “Furthermore, he has a daughter nearly as old as I am.”

Sir Robert of Locksley waved his hand through the air, as though to brush away her concerns. “A man may grow weary of widowerhood no matter how old his children are. I have contemplated taking another wife myself.”

“You have? But . . . . Wait a moment, that is not the issue here!” Robin cried, losing her tenuous hold on her temper.

Her father’s heavy fist slammed against the chimney. “Why are you so resistant, Robin? I thought you would be pleased. Darniel may not be a lord, but he is rich—”

“At the expense of his taxpayers!”

“—and he is fast becoming a very powerful man. You cannot hope for a better alliance.”

“Then why does he want to marry me? Surely a man with such . . . such
attributes
can have his pick of any woman. There are plenty of lords with richer estates and prettier daughters than I.”

“The Sheriff craves a connection with the king,” Sir Robert patiently explained. “We are his cousins, after all. And while it is true that you are much plainer than your sister, you are the eldest daughter and custom dictates that you must marry first.”

Unaware of the insult he had just paid, he continued: “Robin, I am not a fool—I know exactly why the Sheriff desires this union. But he has promised to treat you well, and I expect he will hold to that promise, which is all any woman can ask.”

“Are girls to be bartered away then like nags at market day, for naught more than the promise of good treatment? You lied when you said I was not a horse; I am nothing to you but a filly you can sell, never mind the character of the buyer—”

“Enough!” Lord Locksley’s face was purple with rage. In spite of herself, Robin took a step back. “Enough. I see now how remiss I have been, letting you run around for years like a wild boar, and permitting you to take up the bowman’s art. Darah warned me that such negligence would have repercussions. You seem to think you are a man, with a man’s right to choose his fate and to speak his mind. You are not a man, not even a boy. You are nothing but a girl, and it is high time you faced that fact. If it takes a husband breaking you to him to teach you your place in the world, so be it.”

Stunned, Robin made one last plea for clemency. “Please, Father . . .”

His words thundered through the room. “The contract has been signed! In one month’s time, you will marry the Sheriff of Nottingham.”

Tears of bitterness welled in Robin’s eyes, scalding her like fire. With the last vestige of pride she possessed, she turned on her heels and strode away before her father could see them fall.

* * * * *

Robin refused to come out of her room the next day, or the day after that. On the third day, they sent Marian to talk with her.

Robin had been lying on her bed, wondering morosely if there was any chance Phillip Darniel would die of consumption before their wedding night, when Marian’s soft knock broke through the gloom of her self-pity. She looked up to see her sister hovering just outside the doorway, her hands clasped in front of her and her eyes fixed on the stone floor, as though afraid Robin would send her away if she met her gaze. Marian’s meekness irritated her sister, but then Marian had never been one to rebel against the expectations of others—that had been Robin’s purview.

Father is right
, she thought without bitterness, breaking off her scrutiny and flopping over onto her back.
Marian is the beauty of the family.
With long brown hair, solemn blue eyes, and a petite yet womanly figure, Marian at fourteen was already more lovely than Robin could ever hope to be. In contrast, Robin’s hair was flaxen and thin, her frame lean and tall; even the hue of her eyes was different. No one seeing them together for the first time would suspect the two girls of being sisters.

“Darah sent me,” Marian began hesitantly, taking a tentative step into the room. “She thought you would rather see me than her.”

Well, Darah is on the mark there.

Taking Robin’s silence as permission to continue, Marian went on: “She wanted me to tell you how lucky you are, marrying the Sheriff. She says she never thought anyone would want you at all. She says—”

“Are you going to keep repeating what Darah said?” Robin demanded testily. “Because if you are, you can get out. Now.”

Marian swallowed hard and fell silent.

“Maybe . . . maybe he will not be so bad,” she ventured at last. “He is rather handsome, even if he is old.”

“Are looks all that matter to you?” Robin asked in disgust. “I have heard enough stories from people I trust to know that in spite of his beauty, the Sheriff is a beast, not a man: stories of friends arrested without reason, of cracked ribs and cracked pates for nothing more than a misconstrued glance. He cares not if people are too poor to pay his taxes—in fact, he
rejoices
when they cannot pay, because then he can evict them from their land and seize it for himself. How do you think he got to be so rich?”