Robin Hood (27 page)

Will sang on.

Robin had his arm around Marion's waist, and her arm was around his. Her eyes shone bright with the flames, and her color was high. A smile touched her lips as she met his gaze. He smiled in return. Her eyes held his for another beat of Tuck's drum and then she looked away self-consciously. Robin felt others watching them. They were supposed to be husband and wife, and just then he felt very much like they were. Did Marion as well? Was it too soon for her?

She leaned closer to him, her body moving in concert with his, her hair close enough that he could smell rosemary and lavender. She looked up into his eyes again, then lowered her gaze, smiling still, moving her head closer to his neck.

Robin leaned in once more, inhaling, hoping to catch the scent of her hair again. As he did, though, he spotted something in the distance, near to the edge of Sherwood.

At first he thought it another trick of the light. The glow of the bonfire barely reached that far. His sight was keen; he doubted that many others would have noticed. Will perhaps, and Allan. But they were busy with their music.

Marion noticed the line of his gaze and shot him a questioning look. Still he watched the fields nearest the wood. It seemed that a deer had stepped out from the trees. But it wasn't a deer. Other animals followed. A badger, a wolf, a bear, a fox. And still more came. A line of them. Loop and his boys had come
forth from the wood. They didn't approach the fire, but remained where they were, watching.

M
ARSHAL SLID THROUGH
the crowd unnoticed, his cloak concealing his mail and tabard, his head covered. The people around him were having too good a time to take notice of a stranger, and he did nothing to draw attention to himself. He skirted the edge of the firelight and moved deliberately, making certain that he didn't appear to be in too great a hurry.

He spotted Sir Walter from a good distance. His friend sat near the bonfire, a smile lighting his face, a finger bouncing on his thigh in time to the music. Even from far away, he looked old; several years had passed since Marshal last saw him, and they had taken their toll on the man. Then again, William knew that time had left its mark on him, too. If Walter could have seen him, he surely would have told William as much.

Marshal walked a wide circle around the townspeople and their cooking fires and came at last to where Sir Walter sat. Stepping out of the flickering shadows behind his friend, he looked around to make certain he wasn't seen, and then sat beside the man.

The old man's finger stopped bouncing.

“
Agni Leones Fient,
” Walter said in a low voice. The lambs will become lions.

Marshal looked at him in amazement, a smile spreading over his face. “How did you know it was me?”

Walter grinned. From up close, in the warm glow of the blaze, he looked more himself than Marshal had imagined from far off. There was no denying that the lines in his face were deeper, or that his hair was now shot through with silver. But he sat straight-backed, and his eyes, though sightless, were still lively. And clearly his mind remained sharp.

“Who else would sit beside me uninvited?” he said. “Like a friend from the old days?” He reached for Marshal's arm, found it, and gave it a quick squeeze. “How are you, William?”

He placed a hand on Sir Walter's shoulder. “Well,” he said. “And troubled.”

One of the townspeople called a greeting to Sir Walter and he raised a hand acknowledging it. “And what brings you?” he asked, still speaking quietly.

“I am riding on to Barnsdale tonight.” Marshal looked around once more, and when next he spoke, it was in a whisper. “I never thought to give myself such importance, Walter, but I am all that stands between the king and disaster for England.”

Walter nodded at this. “I've heard something of the barons' anger against the Crown's tax collectors.”

“Well,” Marshal said, “anger has turned to actions. They assemble to march against the king.”

“You think you can persuade the barons to turn back?” Walter asked.

“Turn back?” William shook his head. “No! To join King John against a French invasion.” He leaned closer, eyeing his friend intently. “Help me, Walter. You have the barons' respect. I have been too long in the palace.”

“And you speak for the king.”

Marshal heard disapproval in Sir Walter's tone.

“I do,” he said. “Civil war will bring no one liberty.”

Walter turned his face toward William's. “I cannot go with you. I cannot speak for this king.”

In the days that had passed since Marshal had resolved to stop here in Nottingham and speak with his old friend, it had never once occurred to him that Walter might refuse him. They had marched together, fought together, dreamed together of building a better England, a freer England. King John was far from the ideal ruler;
no one knew that better than he. But better a poor leader than a realm divided by civil war and conquered by Philip Augustus.

“He's the only king we have,” Marshal said, pleading with his friend.

A small smile lit the old man's face. “But not the only hope!” he whispered.

William didn't bother to mask his surprise.

Sir Walter went on, speaking as earnestly as they had long ago, when freedom and the possibility of a better England had seemed more than mere fantasy. “In the time of the stonemason, we had a vision of justice. Not king's justice, but justice for all. I believe that moment has returned to us.”

“Explain,” William said, eager to hear more and desperate to believe him.

Walter held up a hand. “Wait,” he said. “Wait for my daughter.”

Marshal frowned. He had known Robert, of course, the old knight's son. But a daughter … ? He looked around at the faces dancing past him in the shifting golden light of the fire, and soon spotted one woman who was not laughing or celebrating with the others. She was watching him and Walter, eyeing the old man protectively, and him with obvious distrust.

She was an attractive woman—long dark hair, high cheekbones, a full, sensuous mouth, intelligent eyes. She gazed their way for another moment and then started in their direction.

“Sir Walter,” she said as she drew near.

Walter turned his face up to hers, his expression untroubled. “This is my old friend William Marshal,” he told her. Looking at Marshal, he added, “Lady Marion Loxley, my son's wife.”

Marshal nodded to her, though he had trouble holding her gaze. He had met her husband not long ago, and had found himself wondering if the man was who he truly claimed to be.

“My lady,” he said, “I was glad to see Sir Robert when he disembarked in London.”

“I think you know better, Marshal,” Sir Walter said. The old man turned back to Marion. “Please find him, Marion. Sir William, I know, would like to meet Robin Longstride again.”

Marshal's mouth fell open. He wouldn't have been more surprised if his old friend had said that he had the King of France here in Nottingham waiting to meet him. Memories flooded his mind. Of Barnsdale, of the magnificent cross, of the stonemason Longstride, of his tragic bloody death at the hands of Henry's soldiers. And of a boy with long limbs and brown hair, who was forced to watch his father die and was then spirited away to France. Marshal had loved the father, and had grown fond of the lad, but he had never thought that he would see him again. They had left him with farming folk in Normandy knowing that he would be safe there. But when they went back for him, intending to tell him of his father and see to his education, they had been shocked to find him gone. A legacy lost.

He remembered as well that the Loxley he met on the dock in London had seemed oddly familiar, though at the time he hadn't known why. He wouldn't have guessed this in a thousand years.

Once more he began searching the faces around him and soon spotted Loxley—Longstride—speaking with the musicians and a broad-shouldered man who seemed to have taken it upon himself to provide every man and woman in the village with ale. He saw Marion join the
man, and then the two of them moved off into the shadows, where he lost track of them.

The music went on, growing louder and more raucous by the moment. More wood was thrown on the fire, more food carried out into the field. The celebration showed no sign of ending before dawn. Through it all, Sir Walter sat with a joyful look on his weathered face.

As he watched the townspeople dance, William felt a light tap on his shoulder. Turning, he saw that Lady Marion had returned. She beckoned to him silently. Marshal stood and followed her a short way to where Longstride stood alone, watching the villagers.

“This is Robin Longstride,” Marion said, keeping her voice down so that no one else would hear. She looked at Longstride. “William Marshal.”

Looking into the younger man's face, Marshal took a breath. Knowing now who this man was, he saw the resemblance to the stonemason he had known all those years ago. The keen blue eyes, the square face, the strong profile. How could he have missed it back in London?

“We have met before,” Marshal said, his voice barely more than a whisper.

Longstride stared back into his eyes. Marshal could see that he remembered, that whatever he had forgotten in the intervening years was coming back to him.

“I know,” Robin said.

They continued to look at each other, each giving in to memory. After a few moments, Marshal offered a hand. Longstride gripped it and laid his other hand over their two. Marshal did the same, and they stood thus for some time, while Marion looked on.

R
OBIN AND
W
ILLIAM
Marshal had sat down together apart from the others. Marion had gone to
sit with Sir Walter, and the rest were too happy with the music and dancing and honey mead to notice the two men.

Sir Walter had told Robin a little bit about his father and his past, but Marshal knew so much more. Or at least he was willing to tell Robin more. He shared his own memories of the stonemason—of Thomas Long stride— and of the things he had talked about: freedom and justice, the rights of people to make their way in the world as they saw fit. He talked as well about that terrible day when the king's men killed Robin's father. His recollections weren't much different from what Robin had recently recalled, but oddly Robin found some comfort in that. None of it was easy for Robin to hear. Yet, even as his emotions churned, leaving him more out of sorts than he could remember being, he felt pieces of his life sliding into place in ways that made sense for the first time.

“How old was I?” he asked.

“Hobbyhorse age,” Marshal said. “Old enough to walk astride a horse's head on a stick; young enough to make believe you had a horse!”

Robin smiled at that. Even this he could remember. Talking to Marshal had opened his mind to a flood of images. And though there was a thin line between swimming in these memories and drowning in them, for now at least Robin managed to stay afloat.

“Sir Walter and I returned from the Holy Land to fetch you home,” Marshal told him, his expression sobering. “But you had gone. We had lost Thomas Longstride's son! That was a wound which never healed.”

The look on Marshal's face said different, though. The wound was healing now.