Colette Gale - Bound by Honor

Already a tall, imposing man, he appeared even more forbidding on the massive horse, with his wide shoulders, hawk nose, and unrelieved dark clothing. Though the standard of Nottingham was embroidered along the edges of his tunic, those colors were muted: dark blue and green on black, with only a smattering of burgundy in the design.

He looked directly at her as she laughed, and Marian felt her gaiety quelled. Would he come over to her, publicly claiming her as he’d done last night?

Will’s actions last evening in the great hall had not been commented on by any of her companions, and although it was likely a futile wish, she hoped that none of them had been able to see who it was that the sheriff had backed up against the wall. Many of them had been facing the high table or the center of the hall, where the jongleurs were still playing, and his large body may well have blocked sight of her own . . . from everyone except the prince.

Marian turned away from Will’s gaze, which had lingered heavily. She pushed aside the awareness of what they’d shared last evening, and slammed her heels into the sides of her horse, ready to leave the thoughts-and him-behind.

She took off after the hunters who barreled through the woods, fast and furious, following the hounds as they ran down their prey. When the boar was sighted, shouts and cries rose from the men, who’d followed more closely than the ladies-for ’twas only a fool who came too close to the murderous red-eyed beasts without a spear to thrust home. Ladies did not have the strength to drive one through the tough brindle of the fast and furious boar.

As the men charged off, the women rode along together at a less frantic, yet still exhilarating, pace that allowed them the opportunity to gossip and chat. The tiny Alys rode next to Marian, who on her other side found Lady Joanna, who seemed to be particularly smug this day.

“And he wrapped this around my wrist and tugged me into a dark corner,” Joanna said, waving what appeared to be a scrap of green ribbon.

“Were you not frightened?” asked Lady Pauletta, who’d pulled her mare up closer to the group to admire the ribbon.

“Nay, indeed, for he was so witty and charming. And of course I knew that I could call for help if I must, for Lord Burle had just left my side. But I had no need for that.” Joanna looked across Alys’s horse at Marian. “Did you find Robin Hood frightening when he accosted your wagons, Lady Marian?”

“A bit disconcerting,” she replied, “but not terribly frightening.” Robin had been in Ludlow Keep last night? What on earth had possessed him to be so bold?

“He was in the keep?” Alys said, echoing Marian’s thoughts. “How foolish of the man to be wandering about the very place his enemies sleep.”

“I did not realize how brave he is,” Joanna said, fairly crooning at her ribbon. “Brave and kind.”

“Brave and kind?” Alys scoffed. “Foolish is a better word, aye, Marian?”

“But he did not kiss you, and leave you with his favor, did he?” Joanna said, fluttering said favor in the breeze. “He is a beautiful kisser. I vow you would change your mind if he did so.”

“You say the man is kind?” Marian asked. “By kissing you in the corner?”

“Nay, of course not,” Lady Pauletta said. “You must have heard the tales of how he helps the villagers-poor sots that they are. They consider him some sort of hero for delivering chickens and goats, and once even spreading a bit of coin among them.”

“The goods he purchases with the money he steals from the king,” Alys said drily. “An outlaw indeed.”

“But he does not keep it for himself,” protested Joanna. “He uses it for the good of the poor. And he is wickedly handsome, is he not, Marian? Or did he wear his famous hood when he met you?”

The others looked at Marian. Oh, indeed, Robin of the Hood was wickedly handsome, and charming . . . and a delightful kisser. And bold and brave and foolish all at once. To risk himself by sneaking into the keep when the sheriff could catch sight of him at any moment . . .

Marian realized her companions expected a response. “He is not hard on the eyes,” she conceded.

“Ware!” came a sudden shout, followed by frenzied crashing in the bushes.

The women looked up to see swaying and shuddering deep in the brush, and in an instant saw that they were in the path of the hunt.

Marian gathered up her reins, wheeling her horse to the side and away, kicking it into a gallop. The other women scattered as the cries of the hounds became louder and more frantic, and the bellows of the men echoed through the forest as they bore down on the very place they’d been riding.

Smiling with delight, Marian bent low over her mount’s neck as they tore through the wood, safely away from the path of the boar and deeper into the shadows. She ducked and dodged as the branches raced past and over her, and buried her face into the soft coat of her horse when they came too close. By the time she turned to see if the others had followed, the sounds of the pursuit had waned into the distance. She was breathing heavily from exertion and excitement, her heart pounding. She straightened in the saddle and realized the veil had been torn from her head during the pell-mell ride, and that half the arrows had fallen from her quiver.

The sound of a triumphant horn in the distance signaled that the boar had been brought down. Marian turned her horse, starting back toward the others. She hadn’t gone far when suddenly a figure dropped from the tree, landing on the ground in front of her.

Half-expecting to see Robin, at first Marian wasn’t alarmed. But when she saw the size of the burly man, and the threatening stance he took in front of her, she reared back in her saddle, pulling on the reins again. Then another soft thud sounded behind her, and then another on either side.

Twisting in her seat, she turned to look, hoping to see Robin . . . but none of the men were familiar to her. Nor did they seem at all friendly or good-natured. In unkempt clothing and with grimy faces, they didn’t even appear to be members of Robin’s band-for yesterday the bandits who’d accompanied him had been as well clothed and clean as he.

“Co’mere, fine leuedy,” said the first man in deep, guttural English. “Wha’ ha’ ye fer our greed’ hands?” He lunged for her horse’s bridle, and Marian screamed, yanking frantically at the reins. The horse reared up and it was all she could do to clutch at her mane and pray that the saddle straps did not give way, and she did not lose her seat.

Hands pawed at her as the men moved closer to the dancing, skittish horse. The largest of them tossed a cloth over her mare’s head, covering her eyes, and immediately the horse began to settle.

Marian screamed again, belatedly remembering her bow. Struggling to hold on with only one hand and her leg curled around the pommel of her saddle, she managed to reach around and pull one of her few remaining arrows from the quiver. Stabbing at the hands reaching for her, she hauled on the reins.

Suddenly a whistle sounded through the air, and she head the faint whiz of an arrow shooting past her. One of the men near her froze, then dropped to the ground as another arrow, and then another, found their marks.

With cries of anguish, Marian’s attackers fell or ran away as Robin Hood leapt down from the branches above.

“Marian, are you hurt?” he asked as several other men emerged from the shadows. At first, she tensed, wondering whether they were his companions or other attackers. But when Robin did not turn from his concern for her, she knew they were his companions.

“I am not hurt, only startled and a bit frightened,” she replied, realizing she was shaking-yet still clutching the arrow she’d been using as a weapon. It had been a very near thing, and the revelation that those men could easily have taken her off into the deep woods, and . . . well, it did not bear thinking about.

“What were you doing so far from the hunting party?” Robin chided, looking up at her from the ground. He’d taken the reins of her horse and looped them into his hand. His eyes danced brightly and his sensual mouth curved in a mischievous smile.

Marian had her breathing under control now, and saw that Robin’s men had melted back into the forest, taking the wounded bandits with them. “The boar was coming, and we ran to get out of its way. I didn’t realize how far I’d gone.”

That was a bald lie, for Marian was honest enough with herself to admit that she’d allowed her horse to run far and long, away from the hunters, in hopes of this very thing happening: that Robin would find her. And from the expression on his face, he suspected the same.

Of course, she did not expect that she would have been set upon by a different group of outlaws in the same forest, as odd as that might be. If there hadn’t been some very real arrows shot, and some definite cries of pain and the smell of blood, Marian might even have suspected that Robin had arranged the episode so that he would have the chance to appear to rescue her.

But she didn’t care. She’d wanted to see him, wanted not only to talk with him about how she might be able to help him evade the sheriff . . . but also to kiss him again.

“You could have been hurt, or worse,” Robin said. This time, there was a note of seriousness in his voice. Before she could respond, he pulled her down from the saddle. “There are outlaws that roam these woods,” he added, his voice low in her ear as she half fell against him.

“How was I to know that there was another group of bandits besides your own merry men?” she replied tartly, pulling away to stand on her own. He stood very close and was looking down at her with a particular light in his eyes.

“My merry men, as you call them, are not so desperate as those men who accosted you this day,” he said, again being serious. “These were men who have nothing to lose, and may even go so far as to harm a noblewoman in the stead of ransoming her. They have lost their homes and the lands they’ve farmed for Ludlow for generations. They hate the prince and his agent, the sheriff . . . and all the gentry equally.”

Now he closed his fingers around her hand and tugged her away from the small clearing created by the altercation. The horse followed docilely behind Robin, who still held on to the reins.

“They’ve lost their homes? Because of the king’s taxes, and the sheriff?” Marian knew that Robin spoke the truth and he was not exaggerating the role he’d played in saving her. There had been an empty, feral light in the eyes of the man who had first grabbed her, as if he, indeed, did not have anything to lose.

“The sheriff has collected the taxes, aye, of course, and that has left many of the people of this shire homeless and without position. Some of them are more desperate than others, for they also have resorted to stealing or murder for gain.”

“You and your men,” she asked, looking up at him, “do you murder?”

“Nay, Marian, what do you take me for?” Robin asked. “I may be an outlaw, a landless lord, but I still have my honor. That I shall never lose. And when Richard returns, all will be set to right.” He paused, but did not release her hand as he looped the horse’s reins tightly around a sapling. “And that which I st-borrow from the wealthy. What I take is no more than what John takes off the top of the king’s coffers for his own trunks-none of which is accounted for to Richard. I keep only that which I need to live upon-and in the wood, ’tis very little-and the rest is shared among the villagers, Marian. I am an outlaw, but I steal to live.”

She believed him, believed that while he enjoyed the adventure and the daring, he also meant his gains to help others.

“Where are we going?” she asked as he began pushing through the brush and she realized just how far they’d gone into the wood.

He looked back down at her, his good humor showing once more. “The sheriff will soon be on your trail-for your scream echoed through the wood and likely woke the bats and owls from their sound sleep. ’Twas only good fortune that my men and I were near enough to arrive first.”

“Good fortune, or sly planning?” Marian asked, ducking under a low-hanging branch. She did not care that sticks and leaves clung to her sagging braids, or that the train of her riding gown-which was extra long in order to create a fashionable image while spread over the rump of her horse-dragged through the dirt. She was with Robin. Her heart pounded in anticipation and her lips curved in a teasing smile as she glanced up at him.

“Most definitely sly planning,” he confessed with a grin. “Did you not know I wished to see you again?”

“I could not have guessed it, knowing that you have spread your favors among the other ladies. Joanna could not have been prouder if the green ribbon you gave her had come from the king himself.” She realized she was still carrying her arrow, which was tipped with blood from the hands of her attacker, and she paused to wipe it clean on a mossy tree.

Robin snorted in a derisive fashion. “The king would no sooner gift a lady with his favor than I would grant mine to the Sheriff of Nottinghamshire.”

Marian had heard tales of King Richard’s disinterest in women-an anomaly, considering the lusty blood from both father and mother that flowed in his veins. Whether he suffered from a different affliction, and preferred men-as some believed-or whether he was merely too busy making war to care about the fair sex, no one was certain. At any rate, he had recently espoused Princess Berengaria of Navarre in a hasty wedding, and by all accounts had consummated the marriage.

Slipping the clean arrow back into her quiver, Marian chided, “But you were sneaking through the halls of Ludlow Keep! Robin, how foolish of you.”

At that moment, he stopped and spun her sharply about. The quiver slipped to the edge of her shoulder. Marian felt the solid trunk of a tree behind her, and the rough bark under her hands, pressing into the back of her head as he crowded close to her.

“I wanted to see you, Marian,” he said. “I was well aware of my risk.” He gripped her arm as his other hand moved toward her head, and she felt her sagging hair loosen even further. “I hoped to see you last eve, to ensure that you returned to the keep safely.”

“You know I was safe with the sheriff. With Will.” There . . . she’d said it-reminded him that they both knew the sheriff from their childhoods.

Yet he avoided acknowledgment of that fact. “Being with the sheriff does not mean that you are safe,” Robin said, leaning closer to her as he moved his hand from her hair. His leg slid between hers, his knee bowing into the heavy folds of her gown as his hands slid up and along her shoulders. “He is greatly feared, and with good reason. Tell me, now: what is between you two? I saw him leaving your chamber last night.”

Marian would have drawn herself up in indignation and surprise upon learning that he had spied on her, but he was pressing her so close against the tree, lining his body up against hers, that she had nowhere to go.

She found it difficult to keep her mind clear and her thoughts focused when he did so, for, in truth, Marian was feeling more than a mild response to his hard body. If only ’twere Robin who had claimed her in the hall last night.