Robin: Lady of Legend (The Classic Adventures of the Girl Who Became Robin Hood) (3 page)

“Oh, Robin,” Marian burst out. “I am sorry! I feel just awful for you.”

“If you are trying to cheer me up, you are doing a miserable job,” Robin muttered, but she sat up to face her sister at last.

Marian did indeed look wretched, her pretty face twisted in sympathy for her sister.

“It will be all right,” Robin said, indicating with a pat that Marian could sit down beside her on the bed. “I will think of something.”

“Well, there is nothing to be done, is there?” Marian asked pragmatically as she sank onto the coverlet. “The contract has been signed.”

“Not by me.”

Marian took a deep breath. “I would not want to marry him myself,” she confessed, looking slightly shocked at her own daring, as though she had just spoken a great blasphemy.

Robin laughed without mirth. “Well, you shan’t have to, shall you?”

“Is he
really
as bad as people say?” Marian asked quietly.

“Worse, probably.”

Her sister shuddered.

All at once, Robin felt guilty. Marian was only fourteen, what could she know? Then again, most noblewomen were married by that age; Robin supposed she should be thankful that Lord Locksley’s self-centered preoccupation had spared them the inevitable nuptials for so long. It occurred to her that having already arranged one marriage, Lord Locksley might decide to marry her sister off as well, and possibly to someone far worse than Phillip Darniel. (
Not
, Robin thought privately,
that there is likely to be anyone worse.
) No wonder Marian looked stricken.

“It will be all right,” Robin repeated, wrapping her arms around her sister’s slender shoulders. Her words were as much for Marian’s comfort as for her own.

Their comfort was short-lived, however—Darah walked in.

“Ah, Robin!” she said brightly, interrupting the scene of intimate commiseration. “Your father wishes to discuss with you the comportment for the betrothal ceremony.”

Robin ignored her.

“Now, Robin!”

“You had better go,” Marian whispered, pulling out of Robin’s embrace.

“If I were a boy,” Robin protested angrily, rising to her feet, “no one would try to make me marry someone I did not wish to wed.” That was not true, of course—at least, not when it came to lords—but Robin did not care. A boy could forgo his inheritance and apprentice himself to a trade, or hire himself out as a soldier if he did not like his potential mate. What options were there for a girl?

“You are not a boy,” Darah told her bluntly, prodding Robin towards the door. Robin barely noticed. Her father’s words and Darah’s assertion formed a discordant duet in her head:
You are not a boy. You are not a boy
.

No,
she thought.
But I could be
.

“Thank you, Marian,” Robin called to her sister as Darah shoved her into the hall, her mind already conceiving a plan. “I feel much better now.”

* * * * *

The betrothal ceremony took place three days later.

It was held in front of the manor, so that the peasants who lived on Lord Locksley’s land could witness the rite without having to enter the house. Will Gamwell thought it was foolish to make them come at all—the ceremony was, after all, little more than a formality, since Lord Locksley and Phillip Darniel had signed the marriage contract several days before. Nevertheless, it was customary for the intended couple to publicly exchange oaths of fidelity, and to state aloud the financial recompense should either of them break the engagement. Will supposed Lord Locksley wanted his people to observe this promise from their soon-to-be lord, never mind the inconvenience.

Will tugged at his scarlet collar and looked around again for his cousin, but failed to espy either Robin or her sister. His uncle, however, he could clearly see standing on the steps leading up to the Hall, talking quietly with the friar. Next to him stood Phillip Darniel, looking resplendent in a rich purple tunic and black hose. It did not seem right to Will that so horrible a man should appear so royally confident and calm. As for Lord Locksley—did he not realize the type of man he was consigning his daughter to?

Since the day Will had arrived at the manor thirteen years ago—an eight-year old boy reeling from the loss of his parents and uncertain of his welcome in a household that had recently suffered a loss of its own—Robin had been his constant companion. The two of them had been as light and shadow, inseparable. Even when Will began his training to be a woodward—one of Lord Locksley’s private foresters—Robin had been there beside him, insisting that she be taught as well. Now it was another she would have to follow, another whose words would be her law and master. That the Sheriff would be that man was almost unbearable.

“Here they come,” someone said. Will turned his head and saw the women’s train materialize from around the gabled east corner of the manor. As soon as his gaze locked on Robin, he frowned. There was something peculiar about her. It could not be the dress; it was the same one she had worn at the party. Neither was it the expression on her face; her visage was blank, and she looked to neither side as she walked. It was her whole demeanor, he realized—the way her shoulders stooped forward just a little; the way she took small, measured steps, not the long strides he was accustomed to seeing. Everything about her bespoke one thing: resignation.

Will felt as though someone had punched him in the gut. Where was the fiery girl he had grown up with? It could not be this subdued creature climbing the stairs—it could not be!

He knew that Robin had fought with her father over the match—by George, he had gone and confronted the man himself! She abhorred this union as much as he did; surely she could not have given up?

Yet it appeared that she had. Will was too far away to hear what was being said, but if he expected his cousin to put her foot down, to throw the contract in the Sheriff’s face or to refuse to say her vows, he was sorely disappointed. The ceremony was over almost before it began, and Robin and her father disappeared into the Hall. A purple-clad servant who had been holding the Sheriff’s horse throughout the ritual now brought it forth, and the Sheriff mounted his steed and rode off towards Nottingham without a backwards glance.

Muttering about the brevity of the ceremony, the crowd began to disperse. Rather than following his family into the house, Will ambled down the path that led to the garden, brooding over what he had witnessed.

Clearly, Robin did not intend to make a public defiance . . . unless she was waiting until the actual wedding? If so, she had better rethink her intention; Lord Locksley would consign her to a convent if she embarrassed him like that. Will needed to talk with her, to find out what she was planning. Surely the two of them together could come up with some scheme, some hope . . . .

Robin’s face flashed once more through Will’s mind, her look of abject surrender filling him with a bleak despair that he hastily shoved aside.

He could not—would not—believe what that look had told him: that Robin of Locksley had given up.

CHAPTER 3

FLIGHT

ROBIN AWOKE SUDDENLY and silently. She lay still in her bed for a moment, listening intently. Outside her window, the summer wind whistled softly. A few wakeful crickets tried to tune their wings to the same pitch as the breeze, with limited success. In the distance, a hound bayed. No noise emanated from inside the stone house.

Assured that everyone was asleep, Robin pushed back her covers and rolled out of bed, her motions silky and fluid so as not to disturb her sister. She need not have worried: Marian did not even twitch.

Yet another difference between us
, Robin mused as she got down on her hands and knees and felt around under the bed.
Marian is a sound sleeper.

After a moment’s groping in the dark, her fingers discovered the bundle she had secreted there, and she pulled it out. The sack contained some food and wine, her steel and flint, a swathe of cloth, and a few jewels and coins. It also held Will’s spare forester outfit, which she had ignobly filched and then pled ignorance to when he had complained it was missing.

Robin contemplated the attire for a long moment. The law forbade a woman to dress above her class, or below it for that matter, so she could only imagine what the consequence would be if she were discovered to be wearing men’s clothing. Yet that danger was nothing compared to the perils a woman faced by traveling alone. And Robin’s plan called for her to travel far. For safety’s sake and to keep from being identified, she would have to take on the guise of a man.

Soundlessly, she slipped off her shift; taking out the swathe of cloth from the sack, she used it to bind her chest flat. It took several attempts before Robin puzzled out how to fold the cloth so it would not fall apart or bulge awkwardly. The binding hurt; she had not expected that.

Next she pulled on Will’s tunic and the woolen hose traditionally worn by men. The boots she put on were her own. Finally, she belted the diminished bundle to her waist.

Though she was completely dressed, she felt strangely naked, her attire too light after a lifetime of being encased by weighty gowns. To step out into the world like this seemed . . . indecent. Shaking off the unexpected sensation, Robin hastened to plait her long hair and stuff the braid down her collar.

Only one last thing to do. From the bundle at her waist, Robin drew out a forester’s hood. The hood was designed to cover her shoulders like a very short cape, and it had a cowl that could be pulled up over her head. As Robin put it on, she discovered that it also possessed a liripipe—a length of fabric in the back that she could wrap around her neck for warmth; it would also help to hide her face and keep the hood from slipping down.

Her disguise was complete. It was time to go.

Robin eased opened the bedroom door and prepared to step outside . . . but a surge of conscience brought her to a halt. She teetered for a moment, indecisive, and then swiftly made her way back to the bed that she had shared with her sister for as long as she could remember.

“Farewell, Marian,” Robin whispered, kissing her sister lightly on the cheek. Marian stirred, but did not wake. “I love you.”

Then with three long strides, she was out the door.

Robin’s plan was simple: to put as much distance between herself and the Sheriff of Nottingham as possible.

She had timed her escape to perfection. The moonlight tonight was bright, and would allow her to travel far while reducing her risk of ambush. While it did increase the chance that someone might spot her leaving, she doubted that anyone would be awake to see—with only a week left until the wedding, everyone at Locksley Manor was too exhausted to do anything at night but sleep.

Everyone except for her.

She had chosen her escape route with care. Leaving through the kitchen was impossible—Darah always locked the servants’ entrance to keep them from sneaking in and stealing silver or food. Likewise, the door to the Hall would be locked, and a guard stationed just inside it. Nor were there any windows on the first floor through which she could escape, but Robin did not need them.

Once, when she was ten, Darah had locked her in the buttery as punishment for a harmless prank involving a new dress and scissors. Robin had spent one minute pouting, and then begun to investigate her temporary abode. She had followed the buttery staircase down to the beer cellar, and discovered that the cellar was just the first in a series of subterranean storage chambers. During the Manor’s more prosperous days, they had been filled with beer casks and candles. Now the rooms were filled with spider webs and fallen masonry, the thick layers of dust disturbed only by rat imprints. It had clearly been many years since another human had ventured there.

Seized with an exuberant curiosity, Robin had snatched a rushlight from its nip and set about exploring this neglected territory. Her enthusiasm soon waned, however, when she had nothing to show for her trouble except dirty hands and mussed clothes. Only in the last chamber did she find something of interest—a broken staircase and a small trapdoor at the top that, after much exertion and several showers of dirt, had opened out onto the floor of an old guard hut. Why it was there she had never found out, because she had never told anyone she had discovered it—except for Will, of course. She told Will everything.

Well
, Robin mentally amended, feeling the pain of the correction,
almost everything.
She had not told him she was planning to run away. He alone had seemed to suspect that she did not intend to calmly acquiesce to this marriage, and she had not dared to confide in him and risk his trying to stop her. She had evaded his suspicions as well as she could, primarily by evading him. Robin wished she could have said farewell.

Heat filled her eyes at the thought of leaving her dearest friend, but Robin ignored the sensation, creeping down the newel staircase and into the screens passage that separated the kitchen from the Hall.

Tentatively, she peeked into the foyer. A guard sat upon a stool by the main door, his head nodding gently against his chest. The door to the buttery lay within his line of sight, but if she were very quiet, she would not disturb him.

Robin focused on edging open the door as silently as possible; she was so intent on this that she did not notice the guard suddenly start awake, nor see his keen eyes flash in her direction.

At last, the door opened, and Robin let out the breath she had not realized she had been holding. Hastily, she glanced at the guard, but his sleep seemed sound. For a moment, Robin allowed herself to look past him, filling her sight with the home that was home no more. Then taking a deep breath, she squared her shoulders and disappeared into the buttery.

The guard waited one minute, then another, before rising from his languor and following Robin into the dark.

* * * * *

Robin emerged from the old guard shack covered in dirt and with a few bumps and bruises she did not have before, but on the whole very pleased with her escape.