He glared at her. She glared back from angry eyes between strands of raven hair. Meggie’s had been fair.
No. No more Meggie.
“Time to get your pretty skirts wet,” he growled at her, and stepped out into the stream as the woman slipped and slid behind him.
His thoughts went back to the sheriff. Fair trial, indeed. Scarlet had known from the start, from the instant he’d been captured, they’d no more treat him fairly than give him the Lionheart’s crown.
Or Richard’s brother’s throat, that he would crush in his bare hands.
The woman went down behind him, crying out against the gag. He tottered himself a moment on stream-worn, unseen rocks, then steadied himself. Somehow he’d dropped the braid.
She realized it even as he did, and she scrambled up clumsily in clothing drenched to her waist. She staggered, braced legs awkwardly against the current, then lurched away from him.
Cursing, Scarlet lunged. The footing was poor, and painful; rocks rolled beneath his feet even as he snagged her braid. He jerked her back with a snarl, wrapping her soaked hair around his fist.
She was down again, sprawling in the stream. She spat against the gag, furious and desperate words he couldn’t understand. Calling him names, again.
Scarlet grinned. “Mite bedraggled, are you? Not so fine anymore ...” He dragged her up, steadied her, then took the final three strides to the other side of the stream. Sopping wet, she was, and her skirts ran heavy with water, like Meggie’s in the rain.
Not now,
he raged.
It wasn’t fair. He tried very hard not to think of her, not to remember what she said, or how she’d meant to be brave, trying so desperately not to cry from the pain and the shame. But they’d damaged her too much, in mind as well as body. There’d been little left to do save dig her a shallow grave.
And make her a promise to kill the Norman beasts who had, in their sport, killed Margaret Scathlocke.
Locksley followed the track. It was narrow and barely discernable, little more than an animal trail. It was unlikely that Scarlet would use even this primitive track, preferring to hide himself, but for his pursuer this was a faster, quieter way.
He was aware of a rising urgency. Sherwood was legendary as an impassible tract of sprawling woodland, save for one or two roads and a handful of forester tracks. That other tracks existed, he and others knew, but those they left to the brigands who lived among the foliage no better than field warren. It was possible that in the vast woodland he could lose Will Scathlocke, and Marian as well. If he went the wrong way, or if they turned back on him . . .
Desperation pricked his conscience. He wanted it not to happen. He wanted very much not to lose FitzWalter’s daughter as he had lost FitzWalter himself.
I will do what I can do
... But what if it wasn’t enough? Locksley clenched his teeth.
Have I been so wretched a man that God would punish me more?
It was entirely possible. God could be capricious.
“Insh’Allah,”
Locksley muttered, forgetting his English again.
It was worse. Not better.
Worse.
What have I done,
Marian wondered,
for God to punish me so?
Her mouth was cut and bleeding. Her bloodless hands were numb. The remaining slipper was in the stream, and her stockings had worn through. Bare and bruised of feet, battered in body and spirit, she wanted nothing more than to simply
stop moving
so that she could recover her breath. So that she could wring out her skirts, before their sodden, clinging weight tripped her and broke her neck.
The anger had died. It had come back, briefly, at the stream, when she had believed she might escape. But he had caught her, and the anger died away, replaced with a deliberate calmness she recognized from before, when she’d been carried over his shoulder all swaddled in Eleanor deLacey’s crimson mantle.
The foliage beside them rustled. A huge body crashed through, shredding vines and flowered creepers. From the tangle of broken foliage a tousled red head appeared, followed by a hand that clamped down on Scarlet’s shoulder.
“Let her go!”
a deep voice boomed. “You’ve no cause to hurt a woman!”
Twenty-Four
Much knelt by the edge of the swollen stream in the shadows of Sherwood Forest, staring fixedly at the footprints. One set was smudged with every step, almost indistinguishable as human, but Much looked very closely and saw the faint but regularly spaced impressions of poorly woven cloth pressed into mud, indicative of the rags a man might wrap around decaying shoes. Will Scarlet, he knew: the man all set to hang, till he’d stolen Marian.
Marian.
Much extended one long finger and touched another print tentatively, gently exploring the shape. Hers, he knew, mixed helter-skelter amidst Scarlet’s rag-blotted prints. Her passing fixed in mud, like an insect in hardening sap.
Much shaped her name mutely. She wore no shoes, nor boots, and her stockings now were nonexistent. The prints she left behind were clearly those of bare feet: small, rounded heels; the fan-spread of the balls; five graduated indentations representative of toes.
His Marian wore no shoes.
Much looked at his own feet, shod in clumsily made but serviceable shoes tied on at the ankles with leather strips.
A princess did not go barefoot.
Marian’s footprints disappeared into the water, as did Will Scarlet’s. Deftly, Much undid the leather knots, tucked the thongs into the shoes, then slid them beneath his tunic. The toes he thrust beneath the drawstring of his hosen. Then he picked his way across the stream, undeterred by its coldness or treacherous footing, and found as he had expected the telltale prints of bare feet on the other bank.
Much nodded. He patted the bulge of unseen shoes hidden beneath his tunic.
He would find her yet. And he would give her his shoes.
Scarlet nearly swallowed his tongue when the giant grabbed him. Then anger replaced astonishment. “Give over!” he cried indignantly, trying unsuccessfully to wrench his shoulder free. “What’s she to you, this whore?”
The giant’s bearded face loomed through leaves and boughs. “A woman,” he growled. “Worth better than you’ve shown her, whore or no.” One hand closed over Scarlet’s wrist and clamped down hard until his fingers spasmed in protest. The braid fell free of his grasp. “I told you to let her go.”
“You fool—” Scarlet writhed in the grip, straining to twist toward the woman. “She’s the sheriffs whore—or maybe the sheriffs daughter ... she’s worth our freedom, you fool!”
“Not a fool, now, am I?” The giant bared big teeth. “Smart enough to track you. D’ye think the sheriff won’t be?”
But Scarlet ignored the question. Frantically he tried to catch the retreating woman with his other hand. “You don’t understand—”
The giant’s laugh rumbled. “I understand well enough.”
Scarlet swore as the woman lurched and stumbled away, well out of his reach, her wrists still tied, her mouth still gagged. Breathing noisily through the wool, she backed hastily away from them both, then turned and bolted into the shadows, ducking the dense foliage.
“No!” Scarlet shouted, his tone throttled by frustration. “By God, you fool, d’ye know what you’ve done?”
The giant grabbed a huge handful of soiled tunic and yanked Scarlet up onto his toes. The beard loomed close. “Who’s the bigger fool—a man who murders others? Or the man who saves a life?”
The tunic, near to throttling him entirely, also cut into Scarlet’s armpits. He thrashed, trying to regain control. “I won’t hurt her—”
The huge man shook him: terrier with a rat. “By God,
I
say you won’t!”
No help for it. He’ll choke the life from me.
Concentrating what little power remained, Will Scarlet brought his free arm up and battered the giant beneath the nose with a doubled fist. Blood broke and spilled freely as the big man roared in outrage.
Scarlet’s captor did not drop his victim to tend his battered nose; instead, he clasped Scarlet more tightly yet, lifted him off his feet entirely, and slammed him into the nearest tree, much as Will himself had tamed the woman before him, but with greater force.
He hung there rigidly, held fast by massive hands. “Wait—”
Blood painted the giant’s mouth, but he paid it no mind. “Your quarrel is with the sheriff. Not with his woman.”
Scarlet tried to breathe through an aching chest. Had the benighted fool cracked any ribs? Or maybe even his spine? “Listen . . .” he gasped hoarsely.
“Listen
to me—”
“You’ll leave the woman be.”
The shout was desperate. “They’ll hang us both, you fool!” Pressure increased. Scarlet clawed ineffectually, aware of the ache spreading down to touch his kidneys. “No—no ...
not
a fool. But listen—” He drew in an unsteady breath and tried to sound as reasonable as a man could while pinned against a tree. “They’ll hang us both.”
The giant spat blood from his mouth. Teeth were smeared pinkish red. “I’ve done nothing to warrant hanging.”
“They won’t see it that way.”
“They will when I tell them.”
“You’re a
peasant,”
Scarlet hissed. “That’s all the excuse they’ll need.”
The grip slackened, but only slightly. “The sheriff knows who I am. John Naylor, called Little John. Shepherd, not woman-stealer!”
“John Naylor . . .” Scarlet gasped. “Listen to me, now. I don’t want to harm the woman. I just want to
sell
the woman.”
“Sell her!”
“For my freedom. For
our
freedom.” Scarlet twitched in the grasp. “Put me down, and I’ll tell you how it will be.”
“Tell me now. As you are.” Pale blue eyes were steady. “I like to hear a liar dance his way around the truth.”
The woman was gone, Scarlet knew. If he didn’t find her soon . . . “She’ll die,” he said flatly. “Outlaws live in Sherwood. They’ll find her, and they’ll kill her.”
Pale eyes flickered.
“She’ll die,” Scarlet repeated. “I only wanted to sell her. They’ll want to do worse than that.”
Free.
Marian crashed through dense foliage, cursing inwardly the helplessness of a woman bound and gagged, thrashing her way clumsily past soaked, heavy skirts that fouled every step.
Free.
Her bare feet kicked at shift and kirtle, scraping bruised toes against wet fabric, then digging beyond the ashy scattering of dead leaves to the cool soil beneath.
Free.
Her weight fell more heavily into her shoulders and breasts because her hands were tied behind her back. She tripped, staggered, stubbed a toe against a stone, caught the slackening weave of her braid on one twisted bough, and nearly put out an eye on another. Angrily she ducked, tearing her hair free, and stumbled into another tree, banging her shoulder against the trunk before she stopped short and leaned, breathing noisily through the gag.
Marian sagged slightly, winded and exhausted. One knee ached abominably whenever she put weight on it. The soles of her feet hurt, and one ankle bone twinged as she rolled the foot to test for damage.
But she was
free
.
Free, was she? To do what? To go where? The wool at wrists and mouth made it impossible even to call for help, if there were help to be had.
The cut corners of her mouth hurt. Marian tucked her chin toward her chest, trying to take the pressure off the strip of wool tied so tightly around her head. She thought briefly of attempting to snag the back of the gag on a tree limb, then working it off, but dismissed it as unfeasible. Likely she’d catch naught but hair, and yank it free of her scalp.
She peered into the shadows.
Where am I?
The hems of her shift and kirtle, water- and mud-weighted, had come loose from stitches set in by a maidservant’s skilled hand. A step forward now would result in a foot planted on fabric, rooting her to the spot; annoyed, Marian kicked out violently and felt the cold wet slither of shift against her ankle, clinging stickily. She shook the foot free and twisted back the way she had come.
What do I do now?
She hadn’t gone far. She could hear voices, male voices, muffled and indistinct, but harsh with tension. It was the murderer, she knew, and the giant who had freed her.
Marian frowned. Why would the giant take pains to set her free, then enter into conversation with the man who’d stolen her? Why not simply bind him, gag him, and call out that she could approach without fear of recapture?
Marian cast a sharp glance around the immediate area, then quietly edged her way to a vine and bracken-choked fallen tree. Awkwardly she hunkered down behind the massive trunk, kicking aside her wet skirts.
Stay here, for now
. . .
don’t assume anything, yet.
She craned her head back and peered up through towering trees to the limb-scraped sky overhead.
How long
—
?
The sky was blue, for the moment, and full of brilliant sunlight. But within a few hours the world would be swallowed by night.
Marian painfully gulped an unsteady breath through the gag, then blew it out noisily. She tried to ignore the twinge of fear in her belly.
I’ll find my own tracks, and follow them back out. It shouldn’t be difficult.
But the fear inside increased.
Much breathed through his mouth as he paused in the midst of a step, listening raptly. When the seasons changed his head felt stuffed with rags most of the time, sometimes making the inside of his forehead ache dully, and he couldn’t breathe as well through his nose as he could at other times.
He shut one hand over the bulge of shoes, clutching them tightly through the threadbare warding of his tunic. They were still there.
His breathing stilled. He waited, stricken into immobility.
Sound.
Where was—? Ah. Ahead. To the side, a little. Men’s voices. Quarreling. A deep, rumbling voice and a lighter, more urgent tone. He heard none of the words, merely the sound and the nuances: urgency, desperation. The fraying of self-control. Much knew all of those things.
Marian. And shoes.
Mutely, with a meticulous wariness, Much crept toward the voices.
Little John tightened his doubled-up fistfuls of Will Scarlet’s tunic beneath the man’s jaw as he pressed him against the tree. “No more of such nonsense, now. I’ve not heard such blather ever in my life.”
Scarlet hung there slackly. Steadily, he said, “It’s true. All of it. Every bit of it.”
Little John shook his head. Blood still flowed sluggishly from the nose Scarlet had battered, but he ignored it for the moment. “No.”
Bleak, dark eyes stared back. The flesh beneath one twitched. “I may be a murderer, but why would I lie to you? You could choke me to death right now.”
Little John allowed more of his weight to threaten tunic and throat. “Aye, so I could.”
Scarlet’s eyes were steady, curiously opaque. His tone was empty of passion. “Do it, then. Save
them
the pleasure.”
Little John glared. Doubt niggled at him mercilessly, even as he tried to push it away.
“They won’t thank you for it,” Scarlet told him. “You’re a Saxon dog. I’m a Saxon dog. No pleasure in it for Normans if the Saxons kill each other.”
Little John bared gritted teeth, then with an exclamation of disgust mixed with frustration, he unknotted his hands from the tunic and let Scarlet go. Pressing the sleeve of his soiled tunic against his bleeding nose, he spoke through the fabric. “Doesn’t matter now, does it? She’s gone.”
Scarlet slowly unpinned himself from the tree, watching Little John closely. “She wouldn’t be hard to catch.” He pulled at the rucked-up tunic, tugging it back into place. “You know them, John Naylor. All of them. Meet a single man, and you know them all. Norman pigs, every one.”
Little John offered no answer.
The murderer was relentless. “How many times have they mocked you? How many times have they used you? Beat you? Made you kneel in filth and slime, bowing your head and pulling at your forelock?” Scarlet yanked at his own hair, mocking the subservient gesture. “How many times has any Norman pig allowed you even to speak? To say a single word of protest, or offer explanation, or stand up to them as a man?” The saturnine face twisted malignantly. “To them,
we’re
the pigs! We’re naught but beasts, to be used at pleasure, to work the land until it’s barren, like an old woman, then give over the last bit of grain to them so
our
families starve in the winter!”
Little John stared balefully at the blood-spotted sleeve, avoiding the man’s eyes.
He’s twisting me all around.
“Think about it!” Scarlet snapped. “Aye, I killed four Normans ... four Norman beasts who saw a Saxon woman and—” He stopped short, convulsed, rubbing one grimy hand across an even grimier face. For a moment Little John thought he would break. He was mad, they said. But Scarlet did not break. And when he spoke again, he had mastered self-control. “What are
you
to them but a brute to be collared and yoked, naught but an English ox, to be set to the Norman plow?”
Little John gritted his teeth, fastening upon the overriding thing that had driven him to interfere in the first place.
“She’s
naught but a woman—”
Scarlet spat the single word as if it were an epithet. “Norman.”
Little John lost his temper. “And what is the difference? You speak of Norman beasts and a Saxon woman—what is
this,
then?”
Scarlet allowed the bellow to subside, then answered quietly. “She’s the coin to buy our way free.” The tone thickened almost imperceptibly. “No matter what they tell you, I’m not a madman. I had a woman, a good woman . . . I’d not harm even a Norman one, but to save myself.”
Slowly, Little John shook his head. “I’m a shepherd. Not an outlaw.”
Dull color mottled Will Scarlet’s face. Something simmered near the surface, lending a tightness to his tone. “He’ll have us killed for this. If we let her go, they’ll hunt us down and kill us.”