Mark of the Black Arrow (44 page)

He began to twitch, and he noticed Marian reaching toward her legs, a strange look on her face. A moment later the cardinal gasped, and Alan rolled up a sleeve to inspect his arm.

It was a ruse!
Robin thought desperately. The heat grew until he felt as if he was on fire. Then there was a final blinding burst…

…and it was gone. With a start he realized that he felt good. Better than he could remember having felt in a long time.

“My legs.” Marian lifted her skirts up ever so slightly. “I had scars, but now they’re gone.”

“The same with my arm,” Alan muttered.

The cardinal nodded, his eyes wide. That was when Robin realized his ribs weren’t hurting. He moved his hand there, expecting to feel the raw wound. Only smooth skin met his touch.

*  *  *

They all had been healed, Marian realized, of everything except for a chevron-shaped scar on Robin’s shoulder. That was the only one remaining between the four of them.

It is a miracle
, she thought, afraid even to say it.

“I think the elixir works, praise the Lord,” the cardinal said.

“Now to get it to the people,” she said.

“I’ll tell the monks to gather as many buckets of water as quickly as they can. Marian, you work here. Alan and I will split up the town, and go to the ones who could not make the journey,” Cardinal Francis said.

Robin was already in motion, grabbing the bucket and moving toward the stable.

“I need to take some to Longstride Manor,” he said.

“Will is here. Chastity brought him and a couple of others. I’ll see that he gets the elixir first,” she promised.

“And then Friar Tuck.”

W
ill couldn’t remember ever being so grateful to see anyone in his life as he was to see Marian.

“Did it work?” he whispered.

“Drink this,” she ordered, shoving a small cup at him.

With a shaking hand he grasped it and did as she said. Moments later he could feel heat flaring through his body. His first reaction was fear, but then his mind began to clear, and he could breathe easier.

After a few more seconds he struggled to a sitting position. All around him he saw monks administering water to other victims of the pox. And all around him people began to sit up, their skin clearing of the red marks.

“It’s a miracle,” he breathed. “Praise Jesu and all the saints.” Everywhere around him people lifted their voices, proclaiming the same.

*  *  *

He was dying. Friar Tuck knew it as sure as he knew anything in the world. He had been drifting in and out of consciousness for a while. When he woke again, he was still in the cardinal’s office, but his mentor wasn’t there.

Bishop Montoya, on the other hand, was. Tuck felt his lip curling as he wished he could do something about the man before he died.

As if sensing that he was awake, the man moved closer, confronting him, eyes gleaming with an unholy light.

“Your sins have found you out,” he declared, his voice shaking with excitement. “It was only a matter of time.”

Friar Tuck blinked at him. “What are you talking about?”

“I knew there was something about you, even before you dared to lay a hand on me,” he said, his voice almost a hiss. “You have no respect for authority. It’s been you who has been working to undermine our new king, you who has been plotting to steal the tax money and keep it for yourself.”

Friar Tuck gawked in amazement.

“That money belongs to the people,” he blurted out. He was instantly angry with himself, for he knew it might be taken as an admission of guilt.

“No! It belongs to the rightful ruler of this land,” the bishop said, practically pouncing on his words.

“While the king is away, the people and all things that belong to him must be safeguarded.” Tuck shook his head, and the pain made him regret it instantly. He needed to make better arguments, but he could barely string words together to form a sentence. He could hardly think at all through the raging fever.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said finally. “I’m dying.” At least he could rob the bishop of his final victory.

“Oh, but it does matter,” the cursed man answered. “You see, I know everything. You talked a lot while you were delirious. I know all about your allies.”

“I have no allies,” Friar Tuck bluffed, fear rolling through him.

“Ah, but you do. The cardinal, Longstride, that minstrel, Will Scarlet, and even the harlot.”

Tuck stared at him in horror. He had to stop the bishop from speaking about what he knew.

“You can’t—” he began.

Before he could finish, Montoya moved abruptly over to the door of the study. He threw it open and Friar Tuck could hear people outside. They were singing… something had happened. The bishop turned then, a twisted snarl on his face.

“Perhaps they will save you, just in time for you to be hanged.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

The bishop just smiled and slipped quickly out of the room. All Tuck could do was pound the floor weakly and choke in impotence.

“
D
o you feel that?” Prince John asked. It was as if an invisible ripple ran through the air as magic shimmered, then broke apart.

The curse was broken. He blinked in astonishment. He had no idea how it could have happened, or who could have done it. The power that had flowed to him from so many deaths, so many
sacrifices
, suddenly stopped. Where before he had felt so invigorated, now he felt terrible, weak.

He let out a long groan.

“This cannot be,” he said. “My plan, the execution… it was
perfection
.”

“Shut up, you fool,” the Sheriff growled. “I feel it far more acutely than you ever could.” His face was twisted in an inhuman snarl.

“Yet how can it be?” John responded, hating the whine in his own voice. “There is no one with the skill to oppose us. And worse, we still haven’t found—”

“What part of ‘shut up’ did you fail to understand?” the man in black snapped, and he reached for the prince, who shrank back into the throne. But the Sheriff stopped himself, and stood as if it took all of his strength to control himself.

“You will live,” he snarled. “If you say another word about your ‘perfect plan,’ you will die by my hand, the final victim of the pox.” With that he began to pace.

Rapid footsteps sounded on stone.

“Your Majesty,” the newcomer said loudly, causing the Sheriff to utter a low growl and turn. “I bring news…”

*  *  *

The house seemed empty when he arrived. Robin had ridden the horse as fast as he could while still managing to balance the precious bucket of water and not lose any.

He raced upstairs to his mother’s bedroom, thinking to find her there. The room was darkened. He stepped forward, and an invisible hand threw him back. Some of the precious water splashed up on his chest and he cursed as he steadied the bucket while trying to regain his balance.

He blinked in shock. His mother had not lied. All those years ago she really had warded the door against him. How could she have managed magic such as that?

He’d never know, unless he found her quickly. He ran to each of his sisters’ rooms, but they, too, were empty. When he saw the emptiness, felt it in his soul, he made it outside and started toward the road.

He knew where they would be.

*  *  *

The tears felt strange on Old Soldier’s face. The last time he’d cried he’d been a younger man. Anasai had left him while in childbirth, taking the little bairn with her. Then the tears had run off the sides of his cheeks and dripped from his jaw.

Now they lost their way, running along the creases and the seams of his face, tickling through wrinkles and lodging in the coarse gray hair that covered his chin. Beside him Little John bawled like a fool, his grief—like everything about him—swelling into the space and looming over everything.

The hole was dug, deep enough to keep them down, wide enough to lay them side by side. Nearby some of the women were wrapping the girls in sheets before he and Little John would lower them in.

He looked over the heads of the others gathered there, each of them sad in their own way. Some for what they’d lost, some for what they thought they’d lost.

A dark figure stepped from the house and onto the road, moving toward them with quick steps.

*  *  *

Robin could taste his own fear as he moved toward the others. He saw the two shroud-wrapped bodies, both too small to be adults.

Becca and Ruth. His chest squeezed at his heart as he fought his own panic and grief. Maybe it wasn’t too late. He pushed the grieving women aside, and fell to his knees, dragging one of his sisters onto his lap. It was Ruth. Tears ran as his fingers dug the cloth from her face and pried apart her ashen lips. They felt like wax. He scooped out a handful of water, dripping it into her mouth. It sat there, spilling from the sides as her head lolled against his chest. Nothing changed, no magic healing.

He held her tight and cried until they pulled him away.

*  *  *

There was a footstep. He looked up and saw his mother. She was dressed in white, but hers was not a shroud like his sisters now wore. Her skin was clear, healthy. He stood slowly.

“They told me you had the pox.”

“I did,” she said, with a serene smile.

How could she be smiling when her daughters were dead? It was beyond his comprehension.

“What happened?”

“It was a miracle,” she said, her bright eyes shining with the fervor of belief. “An absolute miracle.”

Robin very much doubted it.

*  *  *

The doors of the castle had been thrown wide and left open without attendants.

The bishop’s purple robe dragged the floor as he walked toward the throne room. He would start there and continue to search until he found a servant. He imagined how pleased the king would be to learn the names of the traitors who were stealing the tax shipments. It could only cement their bond, and elevate him further in the monarch’s esteem.

Crossing the threshold he found King John sitting on the edge of the throne. His man, the Sheriff, paced from one side of the dais to the other. They did not look up until he was halfway across the room, moving toward them as fast as he could.

His mind filled with all the rewards the king would bestow upon him.

“Your Majesty!” he cried as the two turned toward him. “I bring news…”

“Hold, man,” the monarch warned. “Bite your tongue.”

Suddenly, violently, the Sheriff stepped in front of the royal, blocking him from view. King John fell silent.

Montoya’s pace stuttered, halting.

“But you should know…”

The Sheriff appeared larger than he had a moment before. He snarled, lips curling over his teeth.

“The pox… the people…” Still the bishop struggled for words. “The Hood…”

“What did you say?” the Sheriff demanded.

Montoya stammered, looking for a clue as to how the Sheriff might want him to answer.

“The pox is broken,” he said. “A cure has been found.”

King John stood, shaking his head and violently waving his hands.

Darkness flashed, and what felt like dust flew across Montoya’s face, coating the wet surface of his eyes. He blinked rapidly, tears bursting from ducts, trying to wash his vision clear. He wiped at them, and it hurt.

The Sheriff was there before him, basalt chestplate nearly touching his nose. Hot breath washed over him, smelling sickly-sweet like carrion.

“
Aegrotatio Egrotatio.
”

Sweat poured out of his skin, soaking the robe he wore as his body began to burn from the inside. Fever struck like lightning, setting his blood to boil. His muscles gave out, dropping him to his knees as his bowels let go.

He knelt in his own filth.

His tongue ballooned, filling his mouth.

The king stepped up beside the Sheriff. He looked down at Montoya as the bishop clawed at his collar, trying to tear it open, to somehow, in some way, make a tiny space for even a sliver of air to find his lungs.

“Well,” the king said, his voice becoming fainter over the pounding of his blood in his veins, “you are nothing if not a creature of your word.”

The Sheriff nodded, little more than a dark shape now as the world blurred out of sight.

“Enough of human agents,” he growled. “It is time for a new plan.”

Montoya fell face first onto the marble floor, and a sore burst on his cheek. Without knowing why, he slowly slipped away into darkness.

*  *  *

Robin heard the horses first. He didn’t see the men until they rode from the side of the house. Five of them—Locksley and four others. The noble held a rolled parchment.

Robin stepped through the door, and stopped at the edge of the porch. They rode slowly toward him, then sat on their horses looking down at him.

He didn’t speak, forcing them to break the silence.

Locksley held up the scroll. A fat clump of wax, royal blue in color, held it together. Though it wasn’t visible from where he stood, he knew it had been pressed with a royal seal.

A humming came to his ear. From the quiver on his shoulder.

He ignored it.

“Do you know what this is?” Locksley said.

“Don’t care.”

“You should,” the noble responded. “The king has awarded Longstride land to my keeping. This makes it official.” He tossed the scroll to Robin. It tumbled through the air, hitting him in the chest and falling to his feet in the dirt.

Pull me out and put me in his throat.

You can do it before any of them can move.

He ignored that, as well.

Locksley spat on the ground. “Read it or not. It’s still binding. This property is mine.”

Robin took a deep breath. Even on this side of the house he could smell the forest. He looked up the road. The people were all just shapes and silhouettes, still huddled around one spot in the consecrated earth.

He looked up at Locksley.

“I’d like to gather my possessions from inside.”

Locksley sneered down at him. “I’ll allow you ten minutes, and only what you can carry.”