Lady of Sherwood Read online

  Books by Jennifer Roberson

  LADY OF THE FOREST

  LADY OF SHERWOOD

  LADY OF THE GLEN

  Published by Kensington Publishing Corp.

  Lady of Sherwood

  JENNIFER ROBERSON

  KENSINGTON BOOKS

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Books by Jennifer Roberson

  Title Page

  Dedication

  FRANCE - April, 1199

  Prologue

  ENGLAND - April, 1199

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Forty-Three

  Forty-Four

  Forty-Five

  Forty-Six

  Epilogue

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Copyright Page

  In memory of my grandfather,

  SAMUEL JEROME HARDY

  April 23, 1902–December 30, 1997

  Gentleman, scholar, and true lover of books,

  and my mother

  SHERA HARDY ROBERSON

  March 5, 1928–April 9, 1999

  Any success I enjoy is a reflection of her.

  Lithe and listen, gentlemen,

  That be of free-born blood:

  I shall tell you of a good yeoman,

  His name was Robin Hood.

  —from A Little Geste of Robin Hood

  and his Meyne

  (ca. 1400s)

  FRANCE

  April, 1199

  Prologue

  The devil lay dying in France.

  Ah, but no. Not he.

  “My lord,” someone said quietly. “My lord king.”

  The devil was king. Or was it the king was a devil?

  “My lord king.”

  They called him so many things. The man with the heart of a lion. Malik Ric. Son of Eleanor, son of Henry. Eldest surviving son of all named the Devil’s Brood, for temperament that, in a hound, might be beaten out, or drowned.

  Unless that hound be bred for war.

  Dying.

  Richard, King of England by the grace of God; Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, Count of Anjou.

  Dying.

  “My lord—”

  How could it be that he could die?

  “My lord.”

  And then a second voice, less quietly; and with markedly less patience: “He cannot hear you. He hears nothing now. Give him peace.”

  But peace required a man, a warrior, unafraid of others, unafraid of the enemy; unafraid, for that matter, of God, whom he served so well on Crusade in the lands of the Infidel.

  But death? No. Not he.

  “My lord king.”

  Almost, he laughed. That first voice, so polite, undaunted by the other more querulous tone, would not recede. There was an answer it demanded, for all it was soft.

  “Who?” the voice asked. “Who shall be king?”

  Were he his father, he could have spoken any one of three names. And so his father had, at one time or another: three sons were left after the deaths of two others, a triptych of male heirs from which he must choose one: Richard, Geoffrey, or John. Henry had, in the end, selected the one most fit for keeping the kingdom whole: Richard, the warrior-prince. Who, as sovereign, attempted to perform the service most desired by the Church: to retrieve lost Jerusalem from the Infidel.

  But Henry’s surviving eldest, as prince or king, sired no sons of his own. On no woman, be she his lawful wife, or whore. He had never intended to let it go so far; but then, he never intended to die, either. Oh, someday; it came to them all. But the greatest warrior in Christendom was not so old that he could not survive three decades more, or more even than that. Surely in so much time he could get a son on a woman.

  But time ran out, as did a man’s seed. And his he had spent in flesh other than his queen’s. In flesh other than a woman’s. And so he had no sons.

  Who then could be king?

  “My lord?”

  Geoffrey, his next oldest brother, was dead. John, his youngest brother, lived. But so did Geoffrey’s son survive: Arthur, Duke of Brittany. And there were those in England, those in this tent, who argued it should be Arthur. Not John. Not Lackland. Not Softsword, reckoned unfit. Arthur.

  He stirred, and wished he had not. The wound had putrefied; now poison ate his flesh. The man with the heart of the lion was brought down by the sting of a bee: a single bolt loosed from a crossbow in a paltry, pettish defiance, nearly spent in its flight, had nonetheless made a target of his royal shoulder. Insignificance, claimed the king, brushing away the others who would see him to a physician. He had treated it so, insignificantly; had mocked it even as he saluted the crossbowman’s impertinence—and now the wound killed him.

  “My lord king.”

  They would say those words to another. It was to him they looked now, this moment, to tell them who it should be.

  There was a time men said the old king had too many sons, despite the necessity. Tumultuous, brilliant sons, each in his own way gifted; and each as incapable of being ruled by a father who was king, a mother who was queen, brilliant and brutal sovereigns who set them at one another whenever they were not, as children, united against both parents.

  But this man, this king, this devil who lay dying, had sired no sons at all. And so the choice lay now between a brother others hated, and the boy-duke in Brittany.

  “My lord, we beseech you—”

  “God’s Rump,” he muttered. “You will hag-ride me to death.”

  It struck them all into silence, into immobility; they had believed him beyond the sense to form words, let alone a sentence. And a sentence of less decorum than a priest might prefer in the presence of death.

  He smelled the ordure of that priest, called the odor of sanctity; he smelled the stink of his own wastes, the foulness of the flesh that ate itself inside out, sapping away his strength as he had sapped the walls of Acre. Acre had fallen at last, and now so would he.

  Too soon. Not enough time. There were things left to be done. But he would do none of them. Jerusalem, gone. France, in Philip’s control.

  “My lord king.” The voice tried yet again. “If you would be so kind as to consider the circumstances—”

  He twitched a minatory royal finger; the voice broke off at once.

  If he would be so kind as to consider the circumstances. By Christ’s holy name, he had created the circumstances! And he was certain they said it behind his back, and perhaps just beyond the tent-flap. No doubt even his mother would damn him for failing his duties. For leaving her with John.

  It would have to be John she supported, surely; Eleanor would give over nothing to the Bretons, w
ho controlled her politically naive grandson in the name of his dead father. Not Eleanor of Aquitaine, who cherished politics the way merchants coveted coin.

  “My lord.”

  At him again. Well, he could not fault them; the line of succession was not so straightly drawn as one might wish, to keep a kingdom whole.

  He drew breath. They stilled, awaiting his decision.

  “Mercardier,” he expelled; it was nothing they expected.

  They stirred, murmuring among themselves. But he had named a name, and they summoned the man who bore it.

  Rustling: someone drew aside the tent-flap. He heard the quiet word spoken, and then the creak of leather, the scrape and chime of fittings as the mercenary entered. He was armed, of course, even in the presence of his king; Mercardier was bodyguard as much as hired sword. But even he had not been proof against that indolent crossbow bolt, slicing down from the walls of Châlus. Behind which, it was claimed, treasure lay hidden, treasure that had brought Christendom’s greatest warrior at once to lay claim, who always needed money.

  The mercenary was, like his liege, a large man. He bore the marks of his employment in the seams of his face, the notch in his nose, the line in an eyebrow where once dark hair had grown, bisected now by a scar.

  “Mercardier.” Difficult now to speak.

  The mercenary then did the service he offered no man save his king, and God. He knelt.

  “Are they here?” the king asked.

  “No, my lord.” Mercardier’s French-accented voice, ruined a decade or more before by shouting through the din of battle, rasped unevenly in the tent. “There has been no time.”

  No time. And less of it now, with the king dying. Yet one should reckon that men would therefore hasten. And it was not so very far from France to England.

  “Have you sent for them, Mercardier? My matched boys?”

  “I have, my lord king. But—” Even Mercardier forebore to say it.

  Time. Running out.

  “I would have—would have Blondel here, to play. And Robin—” He stirred; the bee stung again, poisoning the wound afresh. “I would have my Robin here. He will give me the truth, where no other man will.”

  Unfair, that, to Mercardier, who knew the truth as well as any and divulged it in his face. But Mercardier was a man of few words under any circumstances.

  The rough voice repeated, “They have been sent for, my lord king.”

  No more than that. But Richard understood the brevity of the answer. No one was certain where Blondel had gone, the Lionheart’s favored minstrel; and as for Robin—

  “England,” Richard gasped. “Nottinghamshire. Go there, Mercardier.”

  “They have been sent for, my lord king.”

  “Go there, Mercardier!”

  “But—”

  But. Unsaid was the truth: if Mercardier left, he would not be at his liege’s side as the king expired.

  Harder to speak now. “—trust you,” Richard managed. “I trust you to see it done. Fetch my Robin here, to me.”

  Even as the big mercenary opened his mouth to answer, another man’s voice slid smoothly into the break. “My lord, if you can send for a lute-player and a man retired from your service, surely you can see it clear to name an heir for England.”

  The Lionheart laughed. It was little more than a breathless display of teeth, a gritting and grimace against the pain. Through the haze of fever and weakness he saw Mercardier yet kneeling, massive shoulders weighted down by something other than armor.

  “John,” he said at last, and heard the sharply indrawn breaths. Some were pleased, no doubt. Others perhaps less so, who knew and detested the youngest of Henry’s sons. “John—and Arthur. Geoffrey’s boy.”

  It shocked them all. Even Mercardier blinked. But there was sense in it; surely they could see that. As Henry had sons to pit against one another in a contest designed to see who was strongest, ablest, cleverest, so Richard might do the same with a brother and a nephew.

  Deathbed folly, they believed. He saw it in their eyes. But he was not yet done.

  “England for John,” he said. “Let him be king in name. And if he is strong enough, he will be king in truth.”

  “But—Brittany,” someone said. “Arthur—?”

  “The wherewithal,” Richard said, “to wrest it away from John. My lands. My money. John shall have the kingdom. Arthur, the means to take and keep it.” The king stretched fever-blistered lips in a rictus that was not a smile. “If he dares.”

  There. It was said. Was done. His eyes sharpened. “Mercardier,” he said. “I have set you a task. See it through. Go to England and fetch Robin. I’ll have him serve me once again before John becomes his liege.”

  “Yes, my lord king.” The mercenary rose, bowed, took his leave of the tent and of the dying man in it.

  The Lionheart released a pent breath that did not, despite his efforts, drown out the drone of the priest. God’s Holy Arse, but it will be good to see Robin again!

  ENGLAND

  April, 1199

  One

  The hall lacked the amenities and luxuries of royal palaces, of castles built by nobles, but it was a solid and comfortable manor house nonetheless. Its mistress was diligent in her quest to keep it clean and neat, and warm. Even on days such as this, when hours of drizzling rain turned stone silver-slick and dyed dark all the wood.

  The aromas of fresh bread, roasted pork, and the pungency of new cheese masked the mustiness of damp walls and rushes. Spring, nearing, was invoked with religious fervor, but the nights were yet cold. Ovens heated for baking, and fires laid in for roasting lent warmth to the hall, though just now it was mostly empty despite the comfort it offered to chilled bones and empty bellies. Only one person was seated at the table, but she did not eat.

  The whispering of servants gathered near a screened corner of the hall died away. They watched the woman at the table, and waited. Expectantly.

  Perfect silence, at first. And a meticulous, overstudied stillness.

  Then she began to fill it.

  Simple tapping: one finger against the expanse of trestle table in the center of the hall. The brief pressure of fingertip, the faint splintery scrape of fingernail. But what began in seeming idleness—tap . . . tap—took on the attributes of command: no one in the hall was unaware of the sound, nor of what it portended.

  Except the man, the men, who should be present and were not; whose absence prompted the expectancy among the servants as well as the tapping itself. She was mistress of the manor, but not necessarily of her temper when pressed beyond patience. Not since Sir Robert, styling himself Locksley in place of Huntington, had become something akin to master of the manor.

  Akin, but not master in truth; Ravenskeep was hers, and had been since her father’s death. Since King Richard had been magnanimous enough, upon his brief return to England following his captivity and ransoming five years before, to declare her able to govern her own life, rather than being suffocatingly governed by the Crown in such things as the management of her lands, the dictates of her heart, and the disposition of her hand.

  —tap—tap—tap—

  Offering suggestive accompaniment, her stomach abruptly growled.

  —tap—tap—

  —SLAP—As the palm of her hand came down. And the thrashing of chairlegs shoved through rushes to scrape against stone floor as the mistress of the manor rose abruptly.

  Dust motes rose from disturbed rushes. Marian of Ravenskeep turned to the serving woman standing nearest. “Is it possible,” she began with infinite and dangerous clarity, “for a man who has fought for his king and his God in the land of the Infidel to have absolutely no awareness of time?”

  Joan knew better than to smile. “But he isn’t alone, Lady Marian. There are—” She paused.—“Distractions.” Four of them, in truth: Little John, Will Scarlet, Much, and Brother Tuck.

  “They are none of them blind,” Marian declared, “to not notice the sun has set!” Even on such a day
as had lacked it, mostly.

  “Well,” Joan conceded, “no. Unless . .” And she stopped, closing her mouth tightly.

  “Unless.” Testily, her mistress took it up. “Unless they have gotten themselves so drunk in some Nottingham tavern that they are become blind.”

  “But they may well be just outside the gates,” Joan said. “Or even outside the very door.”

  Marian flung out an arm, stabbing the air with a rigid hand. “That very door?” Her arm dropped. “Well then, shall we see?”

  Joan held her silence as Marian marched the length of the table, the length of the hall, and unlatched the door. She jerked it open, letting in the post-sunset murk of a rainy day now drying, and illumination from freshly lighted torches smoking in damp sconces and cressets, all of which underscored the emptiness of the door and the courtyard beyond. The gate beyond the courtyard was closed, and seemingly neither Hal nor Sim was being hailed to open it.

  Marian turned: her stiff spine and upright stance mimicked a guardsman’s pike. “Not outside the door,” she said with precise enunciation, even as her breath became visible on the air, “nor, apparently, just outside the gate.” She shivered, wrapped her fur-lined leather overdress more tightly around her wool chemise. “Just inside the tavern, I should venture.”

  “Well,” Joan said, “you could begin eating without them.” She paused. “You have before.”

  “But he promised.” Temper transmuted itself into less perilous exasperation; this was not the first time supper had cooled before the mouths and bellies arrived, but one in an endless litany. It was not always taverns that delayed them, but other vastly important activities such as seeing whose arrow could strike the bull’s-eye closest and most often, or whose wrestling had improved enough to give Little John, once called the Hathersage Giant, more of a challenge. If such could be said of a man who won every time. “He stood right there”—a poking finger indicated the appropriate spot just inside the door—“and promised he would be home. By sunset.” She cast a despairing glance at the table, filled with meat pies, wheels of cheese, platters piled with pork, loaves of bread, tankards of ale. “We have spent most of the day preparing this meal. I have spent at least half of it praying my bread would not fall.” Then another expression crossed her face, one of startled realization. “Do you suppose they knew I was going to cook?”