Lady Thief Page 5

  “Sit up a bit,” she told me. “Tuck sent some broth up.”

  I obeyed, though I didn’t much feel like it. She pushed a bowl at me and I reached to grab it when I saw one hand was covered with bandages hard and stiff. “What …” I asked her.

  She shrugged. “Brother from the monastery said you broke your hand.”

  My chest felt like it cracked open. My hand were broken? I couldn’t throw knives. I couldn’t … Christ, I could barely defend myself. My hands shook as I took the bowl from her.

  Ellie leaned back on her hands. “So strange,” she said, staring at me. “Never would have even thought you’re a girl, but now that I know I feel stupid for not seeing it before.”

  I frowned. She were more stupid for hussing her bits at me so often.

  “Robin’s downstairs, you know,” she told me. “Stalking outside like a lion. John won’t let him in.”

  Coughing a bit, I shrugged. “He won’t never, not with Bess in here.”

  Ellie sat up straighter. “You think? Do you reckon he’s serious about her, then? I told her John is just a boy, and a stupid, disloyal one at that.”

  I didn’t throw the soup at her. I felt right proud for that. “You don’t know nothing, Ellie,” I snapped at her. “John is the most loyal. The most protective. He chooses Bess and he’ll love her till he rots. He deserves a family.”

  Now her eyes narrowed. “Have you and John fooled around, then? Living in the woods with all them boys, must be just like everyone says, isn’t it?”

  “Don’t be a fool. I ain’t never done nothing with John. You have.”

  She shrugged. “So?”

  I put the soup down and tossed the blanket off. “I’m going to see Rob,” I told her.

  She didn’t stop me. I went down the stairs and near the door, but I stopped. I went to the window, looking outside.

  He were there. He were pacing, just as she said. Looking fair miserable.

  I didn’t want him to know what he’d done. Sure, he knew, but seeing me were a different thing. The hand were bad, and he’d know just how bad. He’d know what it meant for me. And he couldn’t know.

  Most because, as I watched him, sad and hurting and the kind of alone that I couldn’t be a part of, I knew what I had to do. I knew what I wanted to do. And Rob wouldn’t never rest if he knew I were going to Gisbourne and couldn’t bare throw a knife.

  Rob wouldn’t never forgive himself, neither, if I died.

  I went back from the window and asked Tuck where John were. John came up from around the bar, glaring at the door, where Rob were just beyond. “What?” John asked.

  “Find out what Gisbourne wants,” I said. “And find out when the prince comes.”

  Chapter Six

  Three days later, I hadn’t much moved from the bed Tuck had given me. I’d looked once in a glass, and my face were purple by half. My belly were yellow and black, and my hand had set to aching fierce. From what the girls were saying, Rob were outside most of the time, which were like to mean he ain’t slept. Weren’t nothing good coming from that.

  It were dusk when Much came to me. I were downstairs, hanging back from the windows to watch Rob without him seeing me. He were just sitting now, waiting. Watching.

  Much looked bigger to me, like his bones were growing, and it made me remember how young he were still. He were only half formed, half grown. A few years never seemed like much between us, but he still had changing to do. “John told me,” he said. “What you’re thinking of doing. And I tried to find out what Gisbourne wants—we both did—but we couldn’t. And Rob’s suspicious.”

  “You can’t tell him,” I said. “Even after I go, keep it as long as you can.”

  He nodded. “So you’re going.”

  “Maybe. How long till the prince comes?”

  “He’ll be here tomorrow. They’re releasing the men at the same time so a good crowd will greet the prince.”

  My eyes shut. Weren’t there no luck for me in this world? “I can’t go to him with no way to defend myself, Much. What am I supposed to do with a broke hand?”

  Much frowned. He had such a serious face, so oft full of thoughts, but this were strange on him, like there were something he didn’t understand—which happened rare enough. He’d spent most of the winter tearing through the library of monks’ books that I could bare pick up, never mind understand. “What does your hand have to do with defending yourself?”

  “Now you’re just making fun,” I told him, standing and drawing closer to the windows as Rob began to pace.

  “No, I’m not,” he said. I looked at him and he kept on frowning. “I think you’re confused.”

  “My hand’s broke, Much,” I snapped, looking away.

  “And you think that’s how you fight,” he said, like light just dawned in his head. “Christ, you think your knives make you what you are?” He came closer and put his hand on my shoulder, but I didn’t turn to him. “You remember when you bought me the kattari?” he asked.

  I shrugged under his hand.

  “Why’d you do that?”

  “Because you were whining and moping all about and complaining that you couldn’t fight.”

  “So what did the kattari change?”

  “Nothing,” I snapped. “I just gave you a weapon that weren’t hard for you to carry.”

  “It changed something. I couldn’t fight without it.”

  I shoved his hand off, glaring at him. “Of course you could! You’ve fought every damn day of your life and the person who doesn’t look at your stump of an arm and know it means you’re a better, stronger, harder fighter than someone with two hands is a damn fool.” He started to smile and I pushed him. “And if you’re trying to say I don’t need my knives to fight, it’s different!”

  “How?”

  My chest felt like it caved in. “Because he will hurt me. Badly. And there won’t be no band. And no Rob. And if he wants to make me every bit the scared, helpless girl, it won’t be hard.” My voice were gone, and the words were bare solid, like dust in the air.

  Much stepped forward, looking into my eyes and I looked down. “Scar,” he said soft. “Scar,” he repeated, until I looked at him. “You learned to use your hands to fight for you. And you learned to trust the band to be at your back. You may have even learned to let Rob save you. But you don’t need a damn one of those things. Your power, your great gift, is that you never give up. When something fails you make a new plan, and another, and another. You never accept defeat. You never give up.”

  “He’ll kill me.”

  “He wants something from you, and I don’t think it’s to kill you.”

  “What if it is?”

  The corner of his mouth twitched up, and I frowned hard before it turned into a full smile. “Then don’t make it easy.”

  I ducked my head.

  “You don’t have to do this, you know,” he told me.

  I stood. My body hurt everywhere, and I hated that Gisbourne would see the proof of this shameful thing between me and Rob. I hated that I were going. I hated that I were going alone, for the first time in years without the band behind me. Without Rob.

  “Find some way to distract Rob.”

  “Scar—” Much said, but he didn’t finish the breath.

  “Keep him whole, Much. Find something in those books of yours to make him better. Please.”

  Much caught my good arm and squeezed awful hard. “Don’t die, Scar. He doesn’t come back from this if you die.”

  That bit, at least, made me smile. “Neither do I. Go on. Make it good so he don’t suspect.”

  Much nodded and let go of me. I hoped it wouldn’t be forever.

  John followed me to the castle. I told him to leave off, but he wouldn’t neither. He helped me climb with my hurt hand, he waited on the wall beside me as I sat there for most of the night, staring at the residences. There weren’t no candles lit by then. We didn’t talk none. Me and John weren’t the sort for that.

  Whe
n light started to rise above the trees, I stood from the wall. “Bye, John,” I said to him.

  Paying no mind to my bruises, he hugged me straight off my feet, then let me go. “We won’t be far. We’ll be here if you need us.”

  That weren’t true. If I needed them, it would be quick and done fast, before they could charge in. I were going, and I were going alone. “I know.”

  He nodded, and just stood there. I went over the wall and into the castle, and he just stood there still. Climbing up to the residences were slow and awful, using one hand to climb up while the other were useless. I sat in Gisbourne’s window with one look left for John. He were still standing there, watching.

  I took a breath and looked into the room. Gisbourne were sleeping, and my fingers twitched for a knife.

  Couldn’t I just kill him right there? While he slept. No mess, just a knife in the throat and he’d wake up in Heaven ’stead of his bed.

  Well, it ain’t like I make such decisions, but in truth, I doubted he were meant for Heaven.

  But I still wanted to be. And that meant I couldn’t honestly kill him while he slept.

  I dropped one leg inside the window and left it there. That were as far into the room as I were willing to go. I let my boot scrape along the rough stone, making a soft bit of noise, and it were enough. Gisbourne pulled awake, brandishing a short sword from under his pillow.

  Heave-chested and wild eyed, he found me in the room, his mouth twisted in a snarl. He swore, putting the sword down. “Marian,” he grunted. “You came.”

  “Why do you want me here, Gisbourne?” I asked. My heart were hammering but I wouldn’t move none. “Tell me or I’m leaving.”

  “No you’re not,” he said, lying back without a care for me. “You want that annulment. You’d never have come otherwise. So shut up and be still and I’ll tell you if I feel like it.”

  I pulled my leg back up, and I drew the shutter closed behind me but I didn’t move. I just sat there, in the window, wondering what I had done.

  My heart were thrumming like someone were playing it on strings. I didn’t sleep, just took in as much as I could about the chamber. It looked the same as it had before: big chairs by the fire, the two trunks, a bed. A big bed. Gisbourne were sprawled out in it, and it were like watching a bear. It weren’t something I’d step close to, but if it were sleeping there weren’t no harm in looking.

  He looked broader than I remembered. His hair were shaggy in sleep and his big back were bare and muscled over. He were built like John, all bumps and lumps and trenches in between. He were strong. Stronger than me.

  It were full sunlight before he moved, and then only when a manservant came into the room. He looked at me and went over to Gisbourne, calling his name until Gisbourne woke with a growl like a beast.

  “My lord, the prince will be arriving soon. You must dress.”

  “Fine. Eadric, find a lady to dress my wife as well.”

  “Wife, my lord?” he asked.

  Gisbourne sat up. “The thing that looks like vermin in the window.”

  Eadric looked at me, and scowling at him didn’t make him stop. “Yes, my lord,” he said, leaving.

  Gisbourne dragged himself up, standing naked before me. My cheeks set to blushing but I stared at him and he stared at me with a frown. “Christ,” he muttered finally. He dragged on a pair of hose and an undertunic with a grimace, striding over to me.

  My hands went to shakes and I balled the good one into a fist to make it stop.

  He reached for me, but I ducked under his arm.

  Grabbing my shirt, he whipped me against the wall. “Be. Still,” he growled.

  I tried to knee him in the bits but he blocked me, using most of his big body to push me back against the wall. He pushed his arm against my pipes and I whipped my head around and some God-awful sound that were fair close to a whimper came out my mouth.

  “Jesus Christ!” he roared in my face. “Stop moving!”

  I stopped. I were shaking hard and hating every footstep that brought me here.

  He looked at my bruises, it seemed, then let me go. My blood were moving too fast, making me shiver and shake, and I slunk away from him. “Who hit you?”

  I spat a curse at him.

  “You damn well better speak right when we’re around other people,” he snapped at me. “It’s bad enough that you have the hair of a boy. The bruises, however, I can’t say I mind.”

  Eadric and a young woman came back into the room without so much as a knock. I had forgotten this bit of noble life—there weren’t never a moment to yourself, never a moment alone.

  Which, considering my husband were like to kill me, maybe it weren’t such a hardship.

  The servants threw open the trunks, and my cheeks filled with blood. One of his godforsaken trunks was full of women’s clothing. For me.

  He’d known I would come to him.

  The lady’s maid had a pot of white and a brush with her, but when she went to paint my face, Gisbourne looked up from where Eadric was dressing him proper. “No,” he called. “Don’t paint her.”

  “My lord, the bruises—”

  “Do not make him repeat himself, Mary,” said Eadric.

  Mary bobbed and set to dressing me instead. First she pulled off my clothing, taking my knives from me one by one, and I felt blushes burn over my whole skin as Gisbourne kept his eyes on me. I shook and felt water in my eyes, but I just glared back at him. She put the long linen dress over my head, then the first kirtle, a heavy tunic that spread to the ground. She put a second one over it, heavier still and lined in fur, that only went to my knees. Then she tugged tight sleeves up over the linen to match the first kirtle, tying them to the tunic.

  She clucked over my hair before deciding on a velvet band and gold net that covered my whole head and hair besides. Gisbourne smirked at me, and it were all I could do not to tear it all off and stomp it in the fire.

  “Come along, love,” he sneered, offering his hand to me.

  I walked past his hand without so much as a glance his way.

  He lashed out, grabbing my neck like a dog and dragging me backward, fingers biting hard into my skin and making me twist. “You will observe proper etiquette, Marian. You haven’t forgotten it, I trust?”

  This time I managed to get him in the bits, and he howled and dropped me. “You want me to be some proper thing, you take your damn hands off me,” I snapped at him.

  He straightened with a snarl and took my good hand, squeezing tight and leading me out of the room.

  Sometime after I had latched the shutters in Gisbourne’s chambers up, it had started to snow. It were something of a blessing, truth be told, because the world weren’t near as cold when it were snowing. The servants brought us heavy cloaks lined full with fur, and as little as I liked any of this, I found myself snuggling deep into the cloak. It were uncommon warm and soft and felt like the first thing in months what were kind to me.

  We didn’t have far to go. The upper bailey were full of nobles in bright, expensive things, all assembled and waiting for their prince. Most were lords and ladies from the royal court, I reckoned, for none had shown their faces round Nottingham before.

  The castle weren’t the same, neither. It were clean and tidy, and if there were some of the wall unfinished still, I couldn’t see from where I stood. Pine garlands and streamers of cloth were decorating the place, swinging in the breeze to catch the notice of a prince.

  The snow were blowing right for my mug, and I kept blinking and sneezing against it.

  Gisbourne squeezed my arm overhard. “Be still, you animal,” he growled.

  I tore my arm away from him.

  There were knights that came up the bailey first, causing an awful ruckus with their banners and their armor and their swords clattering around. They parted, and this were a set of two huge snow-white destriers, draped with silks and royal emblems. A man and a woman sat on top of them, and they stood, letting their horses hoof about while more kni
ghts came behind them and the “common folk” flooded in last. They were the men from the wall, women from the kitchens, all the castle workers—a captive, adoring crowd.

  The bailiff stepped forward, made small by the prince’s display. He said words of greeting to him that I couldn’t hear, and then he turned to the people and shouted, “Lords, ladies, and all those assembled, I give you Princess Isabel and Prince John of England!”

  People cheered and clapped for him. I didn’t. I weren’t the cheering sort. The people weren’t cheering for him in truth, they were just yelling to have something to yell for.

  And then the big horse shifted again, and I saw across the space to where people had parted and someone stepped to the front of the crowd.

  Rob. It were Rob, and he were staring at me.

  “My dear people,” the prince shouted, with much more effect than the bailiff had. “I have learned of the grievous wrongs done to you by my former representative, the sheriff of Nottingham. It shall not stand. I have come here to rectify the situation and personally ensure that the man I choose this time is the best for my interests, but most of all, for my people. For you!” he shouted, raising his arms.

  The people cheered back at him. He were young, a few years past twenty at best. Younger than I thought of a prince. I knew that he were more than ten years younger than King Richard, but seeing him were strange. You heard so much about a body in legend and stories and song, it were odd to see him true.

  He lowered his arms, and the people lowered their cries. “So I shall judge this, fairly by all accounts, and have a contest to ensure the fitness of your lord. In two days time, a tournament shall begin. There shall be three parts—first, a joust, to prove to you his valor. Second, the melee and contest of swords, to prove to you his strength. Finally, there shall be the crowning event—an archery contest, to prove his most sound wisdom, his keen eye, and his superior judgment. To the winner of this final event shall the title fall.”