Colette Gale - Bound by Honor

The sheriff too appeared ill, but he did not bend to empty his belly as the others. Marian assumed it was because he had ceased eating the tainted meat after her gentle warning.

Thus it was with great relief that, moments later, Marian watched a weakened John, doubled over in pain, being escorted from the hall by two of his men. From what Alys had told her about the decoction made from the herb called broom, the illness would soon manifest itself from both the upper and nether regions of the prince . . . and others.

“What have you done?” Will asked fiercely, grabbing Marian’s arm and yanking her away from the crowd, toward a corner of the hall. The sheen of sweat had grown on his forehead, and now dampened his cheeks. “You have committed treason!”

“Nay,” she hissed back, pulling away. “No one will die. ’Tis only a brief illness, just enough . . .” Her voice caught. “Just enough to keep him at bay for a night. Will . . .” She looked up at him, even about to reach for him, when he pulled back. This response, after her confused and varied feelings today, sparked a bit of anger. “At the least, your Alys tells me it will not cause but a day’s worth of illness.”

“Alys?”

“Aye. Alys.” Marian glared up at Will, fully aware of the damp wall behind her and his looming person in front of her. The bitterness of vomit lingered in the back of her mouth and she swallowed hard.

Just then, his face changed, and he spun away, heaving the contents of his belly into the corner. Braced against the wall by his splayed fingers, he lifted his face to shoot her a furious look as he swiped the back of a hand across his mouth. “Get you from me, madwoman,” he whispered. “And pray that John does not learn of your perfidy.”

Marian stepped aside, still watching him, and then turned and fled when he spun back to the corner, his body convulsed by the illness. For the first time, she wondered if Alys could be trusted. What if she hadn’t known what she was doing?

What if she’d given her poison for the prince?

What if she’d poisoned Will?

Marian hurried from the hall and made her way up the stairs to her chamber. Ethelberga, for a wonder, was there . . . although she was not alone.

“Get up!” Marian ordered, rushing past the two figures writhing on the maid’s pallet and into her chamber. She’d told them to wait for her here, not to attempt to add to the world’s population. Ethelberga’s companion was one of the steward’s sons. He would also be able to lead Marian to the dungeon gaol.

By the time Ethelberga extricated herself from the young man, Marian had yanked off her vomit-splattered overgown and was unlacing the side of her tight-fitting bliaud.

The maid rushed to her side and quickly helped divest her of the undergown and her sagging hose as her mistress drank watered wine to wash the bitter bile from her mouth. Moments later, Marian was dressed again, this time in a simple kirtle. She’d cleansed her face and hands with violet water. In the loose-fitting gown, tied only with a leather girdle and new hose beneath it, she felt more comfortable. And she thought the less-formal attire would make her less noticeable as well.

Ethelberga hid any impatience she might have had to return to her evening’s engagement, and worked through Marian’s braids to loosen the intricate coiffure. Once she had, she gathered Marian’s locks at the nape of her neck, twisted the mass of hair, and tied it into a large loose knot, leaving the rest to hang down her mistress’s back.

“I will take your wrap,” Marian said, speaking of an old fox-lined cloak of dark blue that she’d given her maid some time ago. It had a deep hood and would serve to hide her face well. “If anyone should ask for me, I am ill and cannot rise from my bed. Do not allow anyone to enter.”

Marian then piled a good amount of pillows and clothes under the blankets of her bed so that if anyone should defy her maid, or peer through the horse-eye peephole on his way to the garderobe, he would believe she slept there.

She made Ethelberga’s lover peer out into the passageway first to ensure that no one was about. No one was, which was not surprising, as some of the women were likely still emptying their bellies in the hall, and the others were certainly hovering around them, offering assistance.

The garderobes would be busy this night.

Marian hurried silently through the passage behind her guide, and down the stairs that led to the hall. More than a few diners remained in the great chamber, and the serfs bustled about clearing away the remnants of the meal. Her guide took her past them to the back stairwell leading to the dungeon, and showed her the dark passage.

“Shall I go wi’ ye, my lady?” he asked.

“Nay,” Marian told him. “I will carry this torch. You must return to Ethelberga and entertain her.” She gave him a silver coin, and when he hurried off, she turned to the darkness that yawned before her.

Down, down, down she’d go.

She must see this prisoner, this purported Robin Hood, and, if he was somehow an innocent pawn in a game of the prince and sheriff, find a way to help free him. She must act quickly, while the prince and the sheriff were ill, for she wanted no witnesses to her task.

Her torch cast flickering lights and eerie shadows that followed her down the long, curving stairwell. The walls gleamed damp with sweat and lichen, and the scent of rat droppings and stale air filled her nose. She’d pulled the hood so far up over her face that she had to turn her head to look to the side, and the wrap’s hem draped silently down the steps behind her.

At the bottom, she was met with a gray stone wall and two choices of direction. The steward’s son had told her he believed that the new prisoner was held in the last chamber to the right, so Marian turned that way. Her torch exposed a long, dark passage with barred doors along one side.

The sounds of little scrabbling paws, the drip-drop of water, and the stench of death and darkness consumed her. Marian continued on, gripping the torch, determined to get this over with as quickly as possible. She wasn’t certain how she’d release the man once she found him, but she’d figure that out when the time was right.

At the end of the passage, she found the fourth and final chamber did indeed hold the man who’d been taken off the archery field today, the one who’d been snared in some sort of rope trap in the wood. The one who was supposed to be Robin Hood. She identified him in the low light as the new prisoner because he was the only one of the inmates who looked up and appeared to be aware of his surroundings, and because she recognized his clothing.

When she paused at his imprisoning bars, casting the light more fully between them, he pulled to his feet and limped toward her. At this close range, she immediately recognized him, and despite the iron studs between them, she stepped back in surprise. The prisoner was one of the desperate men who’d attacked her the day of the boar hunt, when Robin had come to her rescue.

Will told her he and his men had found some of the outlaws in that band. . . . Either this man was one of those who’d been captured before, or he had been caught today. Either way, he was no innocent man or unfortunate villein used as a scapegoat.

He growled at her, rattling the bars, but she turned away, heart skipping with relief and alarm. The clanging iron studs echoed like a fury in the silence, sending uncomfortable jitters up her spine. Could anyone abovestairs hear it? Would the noise call a guard or man-at-arms down to investigate?

And then, as if a signal to the other inmates, the ratcheting, rocking noise drew them from their stupors to rock their own gates of iron. Soon the dim, damp passage was filled with the horrible sounds, the desperate bids for release and freedom, exuding anger and despair.

Head ducked, hood falling forward, she rushed back toward the stairs, using the torch to light her way as her heart pounded. Just as she reached the stairwell, she found her path blocked by a pair of large black boots standing in a shallow puddle at its base. Marian’s heart thudded and at first she didn’t look up, afraid that she would be recognized and John would learn that she was not ill at all this night. She would have slipped past him-or tried to do so-but his words stopped her.

“Have you thus assured yourself he belongs in captivity?” Will’s voice lashed out, low but nevertheless rising above the clamoring that filled her ears.

Marian looked up, her torch held so that the light illuminated his visage from below. His eyes were in shadow, and his dark, whiskered jaw and mouth fully alight.

That mouth was pressed in the firm line, an expression that had become so familiar to her, that disparaging, annoyed, tightly controlled look. As the cacophony reverberated around them, he grabbed her arm and began to tow her up the stairs. She managed to grab her hems in one hand to keep from tripping, while the other still held the torch.

“Will,” she said, speaking the first thing that popped into her mind. “You aren’t ill?”

“Not any longer. I give no gratitude to you for that good fortune.” He stopped on one of the wider triangular steps at a curve in the stairs, leaving the metallic clamoring below as nothing more than a distant echo. With a sharp movement, he shoved the hood from her head, leaving her without a place to hide. “You thought I’d imprisoned an innocent man.”

Marian felt the rough stone against her, its chill seeping through the sleeve of her light kirtle. She still brandished the torch, lifting it higher now between them, casting his face in better light. “What else would I think?” she returned. “A man who would burn the homes of poor villagers would not hesitate to incarcerate a man simply because it pleased him to do so. Would he?”

“Nay, he would not.” He stared down at her, eyes dark and fathomless, and Marian felt something shift . . . as if the world had fractured, and then righted itself, but in a slightly different way. Her chest felt tight and she found it difficult to swallow.

“Will,” she began, but he cut her off.

“If John learns what you’ve done, your punishment won’t be confined to his chambers and his bed. Do you not understand that?”

“What is it that I have done?” Marian asked calmly. Her heartbeat thudded harsh and strong through her body. Her palms dampened, and she felt . . . odd.

“You tainted the meat,” Will said in a low, seething voice.

“There is no proof. And why would the finger point to me? Was I not the one who first complained that the meat was rank? Was I not the first to become ill? Did I not warn the prince?”

Though she’d not thought it possible, Will’s lips tightened even further. Now the only part that showed was white with tension. “If anyone dies, Marian, you know what will happen. Particularly if something befalls the prince.”

Marian resisted the urge to reply that she and much of England would find it no great loss if John were to slip into an early grave, but she did not. “Alys has assured me that no one will die,” she replied. “After all, the draught she pressed upon you did not kill you.” She looked up at him, watching for something in his face. But it remained harsh and unyielding, without that flash of vulnerability and softness she’d seen earlier at the table.

At the memory-the image of his eyes fluttering and the smooth control of his face as he sighed with release-a flush of warmth surprised her, blushing up from her throat. Her belly shifted, deep and low. She wanted to see that in his face again. And she wanted to be the cause of his release.

“Why did you do it?” he demanded, standing as far away from her as the step would allow.

“But you must know why,” she burst out, one hand shifting to reach for him, then falling to her side. “Will.”

He crossed his arms as if to ward her off, to keep the distance between them. “And what of the morrow? And the night after that? And after that? You cannot think to hold him off forever-or do you plan to make your escape into Sherwood? To go to Locksley?”

“Nay,” Marian told him. “I’ll not go to Locksley.” She held his eyes for a beat, a long heartbeat, and then she looked away.

For a moment, she contemplated telling him what Alys had said-that the queen would arrive within the sennight-but she held back. She had suspicions, but she did not yet know for certain where his loyalties lay. “I know ’tis only time until I find myself with John, but if I can delay it for a night or so . . . I shall. I have no desire to submit to him.”

He stepped away at that, down one step, as if she’d shoved him back. “Should I count myself fortunate that you didn’t see fit to poison me as well?”

Marian simply looked at him. Though he stood a level below her now, more than an arm’s length away, she still had to lift her face to see him. The torch’s flames tangled up inside themselves, softening his marble features with wavering light. “Why did you burn those houses, Will? Why did you do it?”

“Why not? Is it no more than is expected of the Sheriff of Nottinghamshire? Senseless cruelty in order to prove my power over those weaker than me?”

“Why did you burn them?”

“They were old and falling down, hardly worth keeping,” he said with a sneer. “I merely helped them get rid of the useless structures.”

“And Robin Hood has already begun to assist them to rebuild.”

“A paragon of virtue, Locksley.”

Marian pursed her lips. She’d seen the cracks in his expression; she’d recognized the quickly obscured pain in his eyes. The backs of her shoulders prickled with awareness. She was close to the truth. “You met with Robin in the woods.”

She didn’t see him draw up and back, for it was the slightest change in his demeanor . . . but she felt it.

“What do you mean?”

“I saw you together. You made no move to capture him. What would John say if he knew this?”

“What are you suggesting, Marian?”

She’d never heard his voice so soft . . . barely a whisper. As if he could only force the words out on a breath.

“You’ve been protecting Robin. And thus he goes behind you, cleaning up the dung you create on the orders of the prince-in exchange for his freedom. Is that it, Will?”

“Marian, you speak treason.” Again, quietly. With a whisper of disbelief. “I am beholden to my liege. Do you not impose such dishonor on me.”

“Your liege, you say. But who is that, the king . . . or the prince?”

“Richard, of course. Always Richard. ’Tis an insult to say otherwise. But John acts in Richard’s name, and I cannot avoid that.”

Marian simply looked at him. His eyes held hers, and the argument, the tension, between them stretched and changed into something deeper.

“Marian . . .” Her name came out on a low whisper, laced with anguish . . . and anger.

Her stomach did a somersault as he reached for her. Not gently, not as his voice would have implied, but roughly. Strong fingers curled into her arms, not painfully, but not easily either. Then one hand moved, plucking the torch from hers. He tossed it down so that it rolled three steps below them, away from the hem of her skirt, resting harmlessly on the stone.

Its weakened flame danced tall shadows and a muted glow up around them as he dragged her against his chest. His fingers bit into the backs of her shoulders as he bowed toward her, his mouth covering hers as she lifted her face to meet it.