Colette Gale - Bound by Honor

“ ’ Tis Robin Hood! Capture him!” cried the prince.

Marian caught herself before she showed any reaction. Revealing her true identity or her allegiance to an outlaw would do no good to anyone and most certainly bring great harm to herself and Robin.

Will’s horse stamped and whuffed next to her as she watched the activity. She realized she had her fingernails curling sharply into her palms. The shadows at the forest’s edge were not clear, and she couldn’t see what was happening as Will and his mount leapt away, pounding toward the wood.

Robin. Please be safe!

Moments later, Will and three of his men rode triumphantly back into the field. Ahead of them, they pushed a figure that stumbled as the three men on horse and two on foot herded him forward. Ropes trailed from his body, causing him to trip and giving him little range of movement for his arms and legs.

The roar of the crowd seemed muted-or mayhap it was Marian who felt dull fear settle over her. They’d caught him at last. She moved closer to the stands, edging along so that she could be near enough to attract Robin’s eye. Let him know that she would do all she could to help him.

As she watched, Will and his men brought the man forward roughly, moving rapidly toward the stand where Prince John awaited them. He looked down, smoothing his sleek beard and mustache eagerly as the prisoner stumbled and fell in front of him.

As he drew nearer, Marian saw that Robin was wrapped up in some sort of netlike covering. It appeared he’d become entangled in it, trapped like a wild animal. The crowd roared and hissed as Will’s man pulled the prisoner to his feet. From where she stood in front of the spectator stands, she caught a glimpse of his face.

It wasn’t Robin.

Marian knew that straightaway. The man looked like him. . . . He did indeed resemble Robin Hood with dark blond hair and a beard and mustache, but it was not Robin of Locksley who stood there before the prince.

She glanced up at Prince John, eyes wide, and saw that the triumph had not leaked from his face. The prince did not recognize that his man was not the outlaw!

“What a great day for Nottinghamshire!” John crowed. “We have taken into custody the bandit known as Robin Hood!”

Marian glanced at Will, ready for him to announce the mistake . . . but he sat stiffly on his horse, facing the prince, and gave no indication that they’d captured the wrong man. He said or did naught to disabuse John of his misunderstanding, and certainly made no move to look in her direction.

Did this have something to do with them speaking in the wood? But why? And how could it?

Before she could think on this turn of events any further, the horns sounded again and she heard the crowd roar with approval. Everyone was looking at her, and Lord Beghely beckoned for her to come forward. As the sheriff’s men took the hapless prisoner-who was the poor man?-off toward the keep, where he would be thrown into gaol, Marian stepped reluctantly forward to receive her prize. As Lord Beghely presented her with the golden arrow, Prince John, in an obviously jovial mood now that his trap had been sprung, beckoned her to come even closer.

She tried to look down in a stance of humility, fully aware of Will’s steady eyes on her. But because Prince John sat so high above her in the stands, their respective positions already put her in a position of obeisance, and when he spoke to her, she had no choice but to lift her face a bit in order to hear him. But she tried to appear shy, keeping her face trained at the festooned stand in front of her.

“Tesh of Thane’s Green,” John said in a booming voice. “Do you not look on the eyes of your benefactor, and thank him for his generous prize? Do you have no gratitude for your liege?”

Marian caught herself just before she fell into a curtsy and instead moved into a smooth bow. On the way up, she adjusted her cap so that it tipped forward onto her brow. She hoped it would obscure her face a bit more from the height at which John looked down at her.

But when she looked up at last, their eyes met. The prince stared at her for a moment, a long moment, and then the flash of recognition washed over his face. Marian braced herself and sensed Will moving closer behind her.

Why was it so important that he not recognize her, now that the contest was over and Robin was caught? Her only reason for wearing the disguise was to make the prince and the sheriff believe that she might be the outlaw, in order to allow him a chance to escape. Not only had he done so, but clearly it was with no help from her. All she had done was win the match. Despite Will’s obvious concern, she could fathom no reason to conceal her true identity from the prince now that it was all over.

And perhaps she was right not to worry. Other than a glimmer of amusement in his dark eyes and the hint of a smile beneath his beard, John gave no indication that he knew who she was. “Very well, then, Tesh of Thane’s Green,” he boomed, looking around expansively at the audience. “You are now proclaimed the greatest longbowman in the county, and you have taken possession of the golden arrow! All proclaim fiat! Fiat!”

“Fiat! Fiat!” the crowd roared.

And then John leaned forward, speaking for Marian’s ears only. “Congratulations, Lady Marian. That was well played. I wish to extend my personal felicitations to you this evening in my chamber.” He glanced at Will, a smile playing beneath his well-trimmed beard. “Alone.”

CHAPTER 14

“Alys,” Marian hissed, pressing into the mudded walls of the alewife’s house to conceal herself.

The delicate woman paused as she crossed the bailey, looking toward Marian where she hid in the shadows. “Aye? Who calls me?”

“ ’ Tis I, Marian.” She kept her voice low, and tugged the cap from her head so that Alys could see her bright red hair in the drizzling rain. “I must speak to you.”

Moments after the archery contest had ended, the misty sprinkles had become a full-fledged rainstorm. The spectators had all dispersed quickly, ready to change out of their damp, chilled clothing. Marian had hurried off as quickly as possible, anxious to be away from the prince’s dark eyes as well as to make her own plans for the evening. Joining John in his chamber . . . alone . . . was not something she wished to do.

The very thought made her stomach pitch and flutter in an unpleasant manner. She thought she might vomit at the thought of being John’s plaything.

And that was what had given her an idea that had prompted her to wait in the bailey in order to catch Alys’s attention.

“What do you, going about dressed like . . . ?” Alys’s voice trailed off as she caught sight of Marian’s disguise. “That was you? The winner?”

“Aye.” Marian could not smother a smile of pride. Will might not care that she’d won, and Robin seemed to be full of the sulks over it, but at the least Alys’s expression was one of beaming admiration. She’d rather celebrate with Alys than the prince.

“You bested Robin Hood in the contest?”

“Aye!” Marian replied, aware that her pride was showing overmuch. She softened her grin to a mere smile and tried to remind herself of humility.

“I cannot believe he was very pleased with that at all,” Alys added, linking her arm through Marian’s. She’d obviously taken seriously her friend’s request to speak, for she began to direct them once again to the herbary. “And now he is captured and sits in the prince’s gaol. ’Tis a ripe meal to serve up to a fool such as he. He should have stayed in the wood.”

Marian bit her tongue to keep from telling Alys the truth, but then she looked at the woman and saw that she was looking back at her . . . with a meaningful expression on her face. Did Alys know that the man who’d been captured was not Robin Hood? Did she know, or merely suspect? And since the woman bore no love for the outlaw, would she cry the truth to John? Or Will?

She would worry about that later. For now, she was in need of Alys’s assistance. The door to the herbary opened easily and the two women slipped in. The small building was empty, and as Alys stoked the fire and lifted a switch to light candles from it, Marian moved to close the shutters of the single window. Though it was raining, and everyone hurried to the warmth inside, one could not be too careful of eavesdroppers.

Just as she reached the window, she caught sight of Will striding quickly and purposefully across the bailey. Mud flew from his boots, and his dark hair was plastered to his jaw and temples. The shadow of the day’s growth of a beard darkened his face, giving him a more threatening appearance than usual. He was coming from the stables, no doubt on his way to check on the false Robin Hood in the dungeons.

“Nottingham,” Alys breathed, having moved to peer over Marian’s shoulder when she paused at the window. “He is a fine sight, if a fearsome one.”

Unable to disagree, Marian quickly closed the wooden shutters before Will noticed them gawking at him.

Why was she gawking at the man? She despised what he’d done to his people-his rigidity with the law and cruelty to them. Regardless of what had passed between her and Will, whatever was really going on between him and Robin, she could not put his sins out of her mind. He was no better than John. Aside of that, he’d clearly not found her charade amusing today, and he must be quite furious that Robin Hood had escaped his trap yet again.

Yet again.

Marian frowned. Robin had escaped Will yet again. It seemed as though the outlaw had naught but good fortune, and the sheriff naught but bad. Yet, Will was the last man she’d call a fool, and Robin could ofttimes be one himself. After all, why would the outlaw continue to sneak into the keep? Or speak to the sheriff in the forest? She wondered again whether he’d been merely taunting him from the tree-tops, or whether they had been talking. But if they had been talking, why hadn’t Will made a move to capture him? Was there some other reason?

She turned from the window and saw that Alys was looking toward the small pallet in the back of the herbary. When she realized Marian had noticed, Alys raised her gaze, her cheeks lightly flushed.

“Do you recall when I told you that I’d made a sleeping draught for a man?”

“Aye, of course.” Marian nodded.

“ ’ Twas Nottingham.” Alys hesitated, then continued. “I came upon him in the chapel, well in the early hours of the morrow.”

“Nottingham?” Marian would have been no more surprised if she’d said she found John therein. “In the chapel?”

“Aye. I know that he is no favorite of yours, or of anyone’s, but . . . I must talk plainly to you.”

“You already know you can trust me, Alys. You say you found him in the chapel, in the early morn?”

“ ’ Twas more of night than morn,” Alys said. “I woke early and thought to visit the chapel for prayer . . . yet I found him there on his knees. He was none too pleased to see me, and he looked like death.”

Marian sat on a stool and waited for her friend to continue. Her stomach had begun to twist and flutter, and she wasn’t certain why.

“I have seen him thus-dark, angry, in pain-on two other occasions, and I was certain he had some illness. But he insisted he did not. However, I could see his weariness and I pressed him to allow me to make him a sleeping draught. I swear, I feared he would shatter into ugly pieces if he did not have a care.”

“He took the draught?” Marian could not imagine Will acquiescing to anything he did not wish to do-especially to urgings from this delicate sprite of a woman.

“Aye . . . I brought him here, and he agreed to rest.” She looked past Marian into the smaller room, where the bed sat. “I kissed him.”

Marian’s mouth went dry and her stomach fell like a stone. She could not reply.

Alys turned to look at her, and Marian saw the remorse in her eyes.

“He did not hurt you,” Marian exclaimed in disbelief.

“Nay! Of course he did not,” Alys replied. “He would not. Marian, I know he is hard and mean, but I do not think ill of him. I have cared for many people, I have this skill with the medicinals . . . and I am used to understanding people. I knew he would not hurt me. I wanted merely to . . . relieve him. To ease whatever it is that has wormed inside him and causes him to be so angry and dark.”

“You . . .” Marian found she could not speak.

Alys and Will?

“He did not touch me.” Alys had begun to pace the small space, curling and uncurling her fingers. “And I left.”

Absurdly relieved, Marian said, “You were very kind to him.”

“I do not think many are.”

Marian looked at her, wondering, faltering for a moment. “He is the sheriff; he must keep order in the county,” Alys said. “He has no choice but to uphold the law.”

“Aye, but he does not have to burn the village,” Marian replied flatly. “And he could look the other way or find some manner of leniency when a woman is terrorized by her betrothed.”

“And he could allow the outlaw Robin Hood to run free and rob from the nobles?” Alys said, her voice bitter. “Nay, Nottingham must capture that bandit. Oh, aye . . . he already has. Has he not?” The arch tone in her voice told Marian that Alys was indeed aware that Robin Hood was not the prisoner who’d been presented to the prince. She wondered briefly on the fact that Alys seemed to be the only other person besides herself-and Will-who’d noticed.

“But if he caught Robin, he would hang! And Robin Hood . . . he has tried to do only good,” Marian argued.

Alys looked at her. “But he is a thief.” Her voice held only rebuke.

“But a good-hearted one, Alys. Not for his personal gain. He shares with the poor-the villeins who lose their homes because of Nottingham. If not for him, they would starve. And if Robin had not intervened, that woman would have been hung.”

“I did hear of that.” Alys appeared to sober. “But what is Nottingham to do? He must uphold the law. He is consigned to do so. Even if he sees the strain on his people.”

“And thus is the importance of Robin Hood’s actions. He can act where Nottingham cannot.”

Freezing, the two women looked at each other. Marian saw the comprehension flare in Alys’s eyes at the same time she realized what she’d said. And what it could mean.

“Is it possible . . . ?” Alys trailed off. She shook her head. “Nay, of course not.”

But Marian was thinking the same thing. And she was remembering the times Will had come upon her and Robin in the woods . . . and in her chamber. The sheriff had made no real move to capture the outlaw.

And Robin had said, with great confidence, that he would not be caught. On more than one occasion.

Of course, the two men had known each other long ago.

Had Will not wanted a witness to their meeting in the wood? Was that why he’d been so angry at Marian’s presence-he’d feared she’d seen something she should not have?

Had it been more than happenstance that they’d come upon each other?

And, most damning of all . . . that Robin Hood had once again miraculously escaped from the sheriff and that a false prisoner had been presented to the prince as the outlaw himself. In truth, how could such a thing be accomplished without Will’s help?