My hands curled to fists—I left my damn knives in the chambers. Which were probably a blessing, considering what notions ran through my head just then.
“Lady Leaford,” Isabel called, not turning her head to me. She did crook a finger, though, and I took that as a summons. I stepped on the swatter’s foot as I went and stood beside Isabel.
“Your Highness,” I murmured.
“You shall be our guide,” she said. “Come. This is your city, is it not? I wish to see it.”
“It isn’t truly,” I denied, careful to say it straight.
“But you know it well. Don’t be difficult. Show me,” she said, meeting my eyes and still keeping her nose up. She weren’t hard to look at, that were sure. Her skin were pale and her eyes brown and dark lashed; she were a fair English rose.
My mouth went tight. “Yes, your Highness.”
We walked side by side down through the castle to the gate. I couldn’t help but watch her dress drag through the dirt and mud and snow. Course that happened to most common folk too, but they tried to avoid it. The princess’s dress were meant for it, and yet it might see a washing or two before the thing was cast aside. It were a miserable practice to flaunt to those that were oft born and buried in the same clothes.
The guards opened the gate, and like the skirt collecting dirt, two guards followed behind us as we went out.
I counted in my head. I were used to moving fast and quick—it didn’t help to be a still target when you were a thief—and these ladies were slower than changing seasons. I took a step and counted, then took another.
“So,” Isabel said to me, “you must tell me how you know Eleanor.”
My mouth opened to question it when I realized who she were thinking of. “Of Aquitaine? You mean the queen?”
“Queen Mother,” she corrected. “Yes, of course.”
I made a fair unladylike sound that one of the women jumped at. “I never met her before yesterday.” I shrugged. “Well, she near run me down in a carriage the day before.”
“My dear, you are not well skilled at such games. You see, I know there is something between you two. Eleanor of Aquitaine approves of no one and she’s publicly lauded you. Beyond that, she requested to sit next to you at the joust.”
My fingers pressed light to the bruises on my face. “I fair think she only defended me, not approved overmuch,” I said. “And I can’t speak to the rest. If Eleanor has some sort of interest in me, I don’t know of it.”
She waved her hand. “Fine. Keep your secrets; I’ll discover them in time anyway.” She sniffed, raising her chin. “It was curious that my husband and I didn’t see you with Guy while he’s been at court,” Isabel said, her voice fair quiet, like she wanted it to be kept secret.
“Not so curious,” I said with a shrug.
“No? A dutiful wife should always travel with her husband.”
Were this where he got the notion? “I’m not the most dutiful of wives.”
She looked at me and her eyes caught on the bruises. “No,” she said, “but you are lucky. Guy is a fine gentleman.”
I frowned at her, but caught the disbelieving words that were like to fly out of my mouth. Like it or not, I told him I’d behave and I never liked to cross out a promise. “You must know him … better than most.”
She smiled. Beautiful girls shouldn’t smile half as much as they do; it weren’t nearly fair to the rest of us. “I do; I’ve known him since I was a child. He was always such a kind friend.”
My mouth twisted up to keep words in. Kind? Kind? “I watched him kill a child without any cause,” I said, my voice quiet and low, the proper words not hard to find when my blood ran hot. “An innocent child. Such a man can never be called kind.”
Her shoulders went back and her chin went up higher. “You may be married to him, but you don’t know him. And you have no right to judge. You glorify that thief Robin Hood, but he’s killed as well. You, a lady, I can well imagine has killed. A despicable thing. And yet, you don’t even pause to consider what a man Guy was before you ran from him, before he scoured the earth to hunt you down. You created his cruelty.”
“No,” I said, vicious and fast. “He had a black pall on his soul before ever I met him. I could feel it from the first. And Rob and I never harmed a living thing for profit or sport. You know nothing of this.”
“Scarlet!” someone yelled, and I turned. It were Ben Clarke, the oldest of Mistress Clarke’s three boys and Will’s older brother. He were tall and long, like someone had stretched him before his body knew to do it. He were standing before a stall in the beginning of the market lane, with armor plates and such.
“Morning, Ben,” I said with a smile, trying to cool my rushing blood. It were a strange thing, how much the use of my name soothed me.
The ladies behind me were tittering though, and it took me a long moment to remember that in London, the night girls were called scarlets.
“You look awful fine,” Ben said to me with a laugh. “Passing strange, but very fine.”
“Ain’t no way to compliment a lady,” I told him, smacking him up the head with a touch of effort for his height.
Isabel made a noise, and Ben looked past me, losing his color and bowing, then dropping his rear down to kneel. Then he thought better of his knees in the cold mud and sort of crouched.
“Get up, Ben,” I said.
“No,” Isabel corrected. “Good morning, young man. And who might you be?”
“Milady. Ben Clarke, milady. Of the Clarkes. Of Edwinstowe. Milady.”
“Blathering idiot,” I muttered, crossing my arms. Tucking my hand in hurt, though, so the crossing didn’t last long.
“Please rise, Master Clarke,” she said. He did, awkwardly. “And what wares have you brought here?”
“My master’s. He’s a blacksmith in Worksop.”
“Scrawny for a blacksmith,” one lady said. Ben set to blushing and I glared at her.
“Ben’s learning,” I spat back. “He’s a good lad. Been providing for his family for years.”
Isabel held her hand out toward the ladies behind her, and one placed coins in her gloves. “I think my husband should like some new armor, Master Clarke. Please come to the castle when you’re finished for the day to fit him.” She pressed the coins into his hands. “Something to reward you for being such an excellent salesman.”
He bowed clumsily over the coins, looking fair awed and bloodless. “Thank you, your Highness. Milady Highness.”
Isabel nodded and turned away, and Ben threw his arms around me. “Thank you, Scarlet. Thank you so much.”
He let me go quick as he started, and immediately set to closing up his cart, I imagine to run back to his master and give the good news.
Isabel crooked her fingers at me, beckoning me along like a pup. Less than a pup, really. Least you called out for a pup.
I went. Most because in spite of her beauty and terrible sense of men, I liked what she’d done for Ben. “That will mean a great deal for him,” I told her. It were the closest I could come to thanking her for it.
She lifted a shoulder. “My husband’s reputation needs improvement, Lady Marian.” Her eyes met mine sharp. “It may be expensive to buy a loyal sword, but peasant loyalty is bought rather cheap, don’t you think? They will talk of it for years. The kindness of the prince and princess—and when Richard returns, he will hear of it and reinstate John as his heir.”
As much as I wanted to stomp about and tell her the hearts of the people weren’t just open and eager for purchase, I didn’t. I wanted them to have her coin, even if it meant damn little in the end.
She weren’t shy about it neither. At the next booth she told one of the other women that the lady needed to buy new gloves; she told another lady to buy several new combs. On and on she went through the market, spending all our money for us and giving it to the vendors. The guards were piled with the parcels, including a lamb on a tether that the princess thought were the dearest thing.
<
br /> Halfway through the market, people were well aware of the princess. I caught Allan sulking about and he gave me a wink before he lifted a purse from one of the ladies. Vendors were crowding closer, shouting at the princess, begging for her coin. And they weren’t the only ones begging—Nottingham’s hungry had come as well, calling to her. The ladies crowded closer together, but the princess pretended not to hear the voices of the poor.
More guards filled in behind us, pushing the people aside and crushing into the narrow space to put themselves between the ladies and the common folk.
Someone tugged on my coin purse, an inept thief, and I caught him by the throat with my good hand as I whipped round to press my elbow against his chest, keeping my hurt hand away from him. It were a young boy I didn’t know. He couldn’t have been more than ten. Even caught, he stared me down with the fiercest look, and I stared back. He were so young.
He moved, striking like a snake to spit in my face and try to wrench free. I had him tight though, and I shook him. “Stop,” I grunted. “I ain’t trying to hurt you.”
“Oh!” someone cried behind me. I let him go to turn and see, and the princess had her arms up. There were a girl clinging to her skirts, round the same age as the boy, and I wondered if they were partners. Or siblings. Which I reckoned were much the same thing.
A guard rushed forward at the same time I did, only he raised his sheathed sword to hit the young girl back with his hilt. The angle were such that I couldn’t get full between them, but I pulled the girl back and by instinct blocked with my other hand. Which were broke.
I fell back and choked on a yell, holding the girl to me still as stars shot through my eyes.
It were a bit of a mess then. The guard tried to help me and several of the vendors what knew me hurried forward to help. I stood and kept the girl close in the crush of people, trying to wave them away. The princess were talking to the guards it seemed, and slowly eyes went back to her, and despite all the people around I weren’t the focus.
“Are you all right?” I felt a body press close to mine like the crowd pushing too close, the whisper right into my ear, the brim of Rob’s hood skidding over my cheek.
“Get her out of here,” I said to him, pushing the girl against him. She looked up at me, eyes wide. “I think she has a brother. Feed them.” I pushed Gisbourne’s coin into his hand, and his lips pressed my cold cheek, setting the whole thing to flames.
“The shadows aren’t the same without you, love,” he murmured soft.
Then he were gone, and the girl were gone with him, and the crush of people, like they had been there just to hide Rob, started to fade.
Isabel were staring at me like she had seen the whole thing, like I were betraying Gisbourne, like all the power of her beauty were meant for hating me.
My hand had started to bleed again from the blow, and as we were shepherded back to the castle by guards, one of the ladies fussed over it so until I finally agreed to let a runner go for the monks. It would be a fair long while before the runner made it out there and the monks made it back, and I prayed the ladies wouldn’t be clucking near so much. As soon as I agreed, though, the ladies ceased to bother me, and Isabel went out to watch the joust. I headed for Gisbourne’s chambers and stopped at a window, looking out over the grounds. They were far enough that they looked like toys, knights on runners set to lance each other.
I couldn’t see the royals under their tent, but I wondered if Eleanor were there. What had Isabel meant, making so much of her interest in me? She had been kind, but I didn’t know enough to reckon if it were a special thing.
What other notice would she have of me? Unless she had a softness for half-wild girls with a penchant for thieving. She had been her own brand of wild when she were young—she fought wars! Incited her children to rebellion! Taught her sons how to be kings and married her daughters to some of the most powerful monarchs in Europe.
I shook my head and went back to the room. Without Gisbourne there, it were quiet and calm, and I locked the door and took the chance to lay on the bed for once. It were a fair fine thing, and before I knew better, I were fast asleep.
I woke to a pounding on the door. Startling awake, I stood from the bed and frowned at it like it had betrayed me. Going quick to the door, I opened it to see Brother Ignatius and a figure a bit taller than him in a hood. It were too short to be Rob, too slight to be John—
“Much?” I asked.
He pushed me gentle-like into the room, dashing the hood off. “Hush,” he said. “Still an outlaw, you know, even if I’m not the most recognizable one.”
“He insisted,” Brother Ignatius said, bringing me to the heavy, carved chairs. He were one of the older monks, but by far the best at healing arts. He unwrapped my hand and I hissed as the cloth tore free from the blood and muck that weren’t quite skin. Much were bent over my chair, peering over my shoulder to glare down at it.
“Hmm,” Much said.
“You see,” Ignatius said, extending a finger over the cut on my knuckles and looking to Much. “It isn’t so much the cut, but the worry that the bones aren’t setting straight. And won’t be able to.” He turned his gaze to me. “My lady, you seem to so treasure your hands and yet you are impeding their healing.”
I grit my teeth as he pressed the bones. “I ain’t meaning to.”
“Aren’t,” Much said. “Come on, Scar, you have to try harder to speak right.”
That made my heart thud heavy and I looked down at my hand.
“That’s why they keep hurting you,” he plowed on. “Isn’t it?”
“No,” I snapped, not looking up at him. “They keep hurting me because they like to hurt people. Same as the old sheriff. It ain’t nothing I’ve done wrong.”
He eased off my shoulder, coming round front. He crouched in front of me, his stump near to my wounded hand. “Scar, that isn’t what I meant. I just thought that you started talking like this for a purpose, didn’t you? You must have, being noble to start with. But why don’t you adapt back? Change again and prove them all wrong.”
Ignatius set to wrapping my hand again and I turned into my shoulder ’gainst the pain. “It isn’t that easy,” I hissed after a moment that stung at my eyes. “And I don’t see why I should. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want this.”
“Scar,” he said soft. “Didn’t you see how the people looked at you today? Same way they look at Rob. You are nobility and they all know it. If you want, you can live up to that. Embrace that. Use that.”
I thought of Isabel and Prince John, and damned Gisbourne. “I never want to live up to that. I never want to be part of that, Much. That’s why I ran away in the first place.”
“Was it?” he asked.
I lifted my shoulder, hindered by the Brother tugging on my hand. “Somewhat. I knew I weren’t never going to be the lady my mother wanted me for. I knew I didn’t want to marry Gisbourne. And that were enough to make me run.”
“You can’t run now,” he reminded me soft.
“I can always run,” I growled at him. “But running won’t never change that these are my people. Running won’t give me an annulment and let me be with Rob, proper and right.”
“Then fight,” he told me. He grinned at me, slow and bright like the sun, holding my hurt hand gently as the Brother tied it off. “And try and use your words.”
Chapter Fourteen
The Brother gave me a cloth sling to keep my arm tucked away, and I fidgeted with it on the way to supper.
“Will you stop that,” Gisbourne grunted.
“The damn monk tied me up,” I grumbled back. “I can bare move my arm.”
“I believe that’s the point.”
“I don’t like it.”
“That doesn’t really matter, does it?” Gisbourne snarled. “Be still.”
I frowned.
“I won the joust, since you’re so concerned.”
Were I meant to have been outside, watching him get his prize? “What did y
ou win?” I asked.
“A gold figurine of a jousting knight.”
“Fitting.”
“Quite. I’ve had it melted down.”
I snorted. “So much for symbols of glory and the like.”
“I won’t need symbols when I’m sheriff. I’ll need money, and a lot of it.”
My belly twisted up at the reminder. It weren’t the archery tournament yet, but what had I been doing to see that he would lose? Not much. Mooning after Rob, without any hope for a replacement in the contest.
The smell broke my thoughts, long before we turned into the hall. The halls were filled with scents of food, like fat roasting, and something sweeter too. We turned into the Great Hall, and I saw the cause of it.
Three great spits had been built over giant copper bowls of fire in the center of the hall, three giant pigs skewered on the spits and pages slowly turning their round, heavy bodies over the fire, basting them with honey that dripped onto the flames. They must have been doing it all day.
Around the spits were huge tables filled with lavish foodstuffs. There were woven breads several feet long, geese that were in their full feathered glory but still and clear dead—one even had a tiny crown on his head. I had no idea how they could do such a thing, or if it were even meant for eating—the creature looked like it were about to leap into flight, but it never flinched.
There were pies with such decorated crusts, slathered and buttered and baked brown, and I could only guess what were in them. The tables were studded with finery, velvets, and gems, like even the furniture needed jewelry.
I frowned, and my stomach turned. There weren’t enough people here to eat a third of this food.
We took our seats, and the prince and princess entered. All the men stood for them, and the ladies just looked solemnly to them. Prince John helped Isabel to sit, and then took the wine glass that were already filled and waiting for his touch. He held it aloft.
“To Guy of Gisbourne, Lord of Leaford,” Prince John bellowed out. “Our brave champion this day and the guest of honor for our feast this night!”