Robin Hood (12 page)

Robin kept a wary eye on the line of trees, and glanced back at the others periodically to see that they were keeping watch, too. Little John rode at the rear, holding his stave across his legs and checking the road behind them now and again. This was good land, their ride thus far had been uneventful, but none of them had any doubt that Godfrey's men would be coming for them.

They stopped with the sun still up so that they would have time to set up camp before darkness fell. While Allan and Little John gathered wood for a fire, Robin and Will wandered deeper into the forest to hunt for their supper. They returned just as the first stars appeared in the sky, carrying a brace of rabbits. Little John grinned at the sight, and took it upon himself to prepare the meat, making it clear that he didn't trust Robin or Will to do so without ruining their meal.

Naturally, Will took offense and insisted that he and John cook the rabbits together. For his part, Robin had other matters to which he needed to attend.

As the last light of the twilight sky gave way to the bright glow of their fire, Allan pulled out his lute and began to play. Will and John skinned the rabbits. And Robin, his back to the others, pulled out a different sort of loot: the spoils from the forest road in
France. They had gathered the coins and jewels of the dead hastily before riding on to the coast. Now, Robin took it upon himself to divide what they had found as evenly as he could into four piles.

Allan began to sing.

“By Christ!” Scarlet said, glancing over at his friend. “Can you not sing a happy tune? We've made England with our hides and gold intact.” He turned back to the rabbit he was skinning. “Sing a foot stomper about adventure and daring and courage, and how handsome I look in armor.”

“What about a song called ‘By the Grace of God Go I’?” Robin said, without looking up from his work.

Little John shook his head, a grin on his face. “No. Sing something about a woman. A large woman.”

Allan laughed at that and began to play something new, a song they had learned in France from some of the other soldiers. It was a somewhat less pious piece than the first one Allan had played, concerned as it was with the generous assets of a serving girl. Little John laughed out loud and began to sing along, as did Will.

Robin distributed the last of their riches and
covered the piles with his cloak before turning to the others.

“I'm done,” he announced.

Immediately, Allan stopped playing and they all turned their attention to Robin. He lifted his cloak from the piles and the other three gathered closer, gazing at the loot, eyes wide, mouths open.

“The money is divided,” Robin said. “And so should we be.”

“Where will you go?” Will asked.

“I think there is something we owe for such good fortune. I mean to give it back, Will.”

“How so?” Little John asked.

Robin's hand moved to the hilt of Loxley's weapon. “The sword,” he said. “Its inscription entices something in my memory. Maybe it is just a trick of my imagination. I don't know.” He took a breath, knowing how the others would react to what he had in mind. “I intend to deliver it to its rightful owner, to fulfill the request of his dying son. To repay good luck with bad grace is to invite darkness.”

John regarded him for several moments, firelight shining in his dark eyes. “Well,” he said at last. “I'll go with you.”

Allan gave a decisive nod. “And I, Robin.”

“Yes,” Will said.

But Robin shook his head. “No. Tonight is our last in company. Tomorrow we must go our own way. Pack up your share. We eat and sleep. Will, you have the first watch.”

Will and Allan both looked like they might argue further, but Little John stopped them with a sharp look and a shake of his head. He turned his attention back to the rabbits, and after a few moments, Will did the
same. Allan took up his lute again, but he didn't sing, and the tune that he played was slow and somber.

They cooked and ate their meal in silence, and bedded down soon after. A chilling mist had risen in the wood and Robin pulled his blanket up around his neck, positioning himself as close to the fire as he dared.

The forest seemed unusually still this night. As he lay huddled in his blanket Robin heard no owls, no wolves; only the occasional pop of the fire and the slow settling of the coals. Robin knew that he had been right in what he said. After their escapes from the stocks, the others would be safer on their own rather than together. Godfrey wanted him. But he couldn't help thinking that the road to Nottingham would seem longer without his companions.

He stared at the dying flames and he waited for sleep to take him.

R
OBIN WASN'T CERTAIN
what had awakened him. Something off in the deep of the wood, perhaps. He had heard a nightjar close by, and then had noticed snoring. Will's snoring. Some watchman. He looked up through the branches to see if he could spot that bird, but there was nothing there.

Cursing Will's carelessness under his breath, he sat up and rubbed a hand over his face. The moon had risen, and that cold mist lingered around the camp. Will had not only neglected the watch, he'd also neglected the fire. It was damn cold.

He got up, grabbed a thick bough from the wood pile, and threw it onto the fire. Sparks flared, twisting upward into the darkness …

And illuminating the faces of six men standing in
a circle around Robin and the others. Startled, Robin shouted a warning, then leaped back just in time to avoid a sword blade as it whistled past his face.

Robin drew his sword just in time to block the man's next assault, their blades meeting with a loud clash. He heard the others shouting as well, heard swords drawn and the
whoosh
of Little John's stave as it carved through the night air. But he kept his eyes fixed on the man in front of him.

The man attacked again, their swords meeting once more and the two of them coming face to face. The man's gaze flicked toward something behind Robin and to the right. Robin pushed the man away, swung his sword back in a tight, quick arc, plunging it into the chest of a cutthroat who had snuck up behind him, and then pulled it free so that he could meet the next assault from the first attacker.

The man's eyes widened slightly and he backed away, giving Robin an opportunity to check quickly on his friends.

Little John was swinging his stave so fast that it was a humming blur in the moonlight. He hit one man in the ribs, the bones popping like the campfire, and then hit another in the skull. This man dropped to the ground and lay utterly still; Robin thought it likely that he was dead before he hit the forest floor.

Will and Allan fought back to back, their swords dancing and ringing against those of their foes. In moments, they had dispatched both men.

Before long, only the first swordsman and one last cutthroat remained standing. The men shared a look and then bounded away from the camp and through the wood like startled deer. Robin ran after them, his sword still in hand. He heard a bow thrum and saw
an arrow bury itself in a tree just beside the first man. The men kept running, but Robin closed the distance quickly. The cutthroat looked back at him, fear in his eyes. Just as he did, he tripped a line Robin hadn't seen. Robin heard something that sounded like a tree falling. Leaves flew into the air and a crude gate of sharpened wooden spikes snapped up from where it had lain hidden on the ground.

A hunter's trap. The cutthroat couldn't stop in time. He ran into the gate at full speed, impaling his chest on the spikes with a sharp, liquid grunt, and then hanging from them like a string puppet.

Robin, with Will right behind him, continued on after the swordsman, but they soon lost sight of him among the trees. Robin slowed then stopped. Will halted next to him.

Robin spat another curse, and then he and Will walked back to the cutthroat. Robin would have liked to question the man, but just as they reached him, he gave one last gasp and was still, blood dripping down the spikes and trickling from his mouth.

Allan and Little John had stopped next to the man, too.

“Careful where you step,” John said, admiring the trap.

Robin stared off through the trees, hoping against hope to catch a glimpse of the man he had been chasing. “One of them got away. He was on the road in France where Loxley died.”

“They work for John?” Allan asked.

“No, not John,” Robin said. “I saw his face at the dock when he realized that Richard was dead. He was more surprised than anybody.”

Will looked from Little John to Robin. “Who else would benefit from Richard's death?”

“The French would benefit from Richard's death,” Robin said. “No leader. No army. They can walk in.”

“Robin, it can't be the French,” Will said.

“Why's that, Will?”

Will had been staring at the ground, as if still thinking it through. But now he looked Robin in the eye. “The one you shot in the face,” he said. “He's English.”

He was right, of course; Robin was annoyed he hadn't realized this himself.

But that was beside the point. If the assassins weren't working for John, and they weren't agents of the French, who was he working for?

Robin and Little John shared a glance, the big man looking every bit as troubled as Robin felt.

D
aylight poured into the throne room of the White Tower through high arched windows, flooding the chamber. John sat upon his throne, resplendent in a robe of embroidered blue velvet, toying with an emerald necklace, and wearing the golden crown of England's kings. His mother, Eleanor, stood to the king's left, eschewing the throne beside him, and looking austere in a simple blue gown and white wimple. William Marshal stood before the throne dais looking every bit the warrior in his armor, his sword hanging from his belt, the white in his mane of hair illuminated by the sun, accenting his age. To the king's right sat Princess Isabella, looking lovely in a satin dress that shone like pearls. She said nothing, but watched the others with a wary eye.

Godfrey chose to do the same, at least for the moment. He stood in a shadowed recess to the side of the thrones where he could see and hear everything,
but where the others were less likely to take notice of him. For now he would play the role of spider, and allow Eleanor and William to buzz around the king's head, harrying him. He was sure it wouldn't be long before they managed to get themselves tangled in John's pride and stubbornness and uncertainty. When they did, Godfrey would be ready.