Lady Thief: A Scarlet Novel Part 17

The prince laughed. "I will, Mother."

"Really?" she asked. "You are a prince, and you are so undone by the actions of one small girl that you will punish her severely? Richard would have been too busy to notice, much less make a spectacle of such a small crime."

The prince rolled his eyes. "Fine, Mother. I won't hurt her."

She nodded and stepped toward the door, and my blood rushed fast and cooling like summer rain. My breath came again.

The door shut and I looked to the prince, who hadn't unlashed me from the chair.

He were studying me close, looking at me in a way I didn't much like.

"Let me see her broken hand," the prince said, and Gisbourne looked at him.

"My lord?" he asked.

"Let me see her hand," the prince repeated, and Gisbourne took my hand, unwrapping the bandages, tearing it off where he needed. Gisbourne showed it to him and stretched it out painful. I screwed my eyes shut, desperate not to make a noise.

"Mother's right," he said. "Taking the whole hand would be too noticeable." He chuckled. "How many times has she run from you, Gisbourne?"

He hesitated.

"Gisbourne?" Prince John asked.

"Too many," Gisbourne said.

"Yes, but twice she made promises, yes? Once to be trothed to you, and then to be your wife, and she ran from you." Prince John said it like it were a delicious secret, something he loved. "Two fingers, then."

Prince John went and got the knife, and my heart ran fast and slipshod in my chest. He went to the fire and put it in the low, hot part of the flames and my feet sc.r.a.ped on the ground, trying to find a foothold to push, to kick, to fight.

I didn't move an inch.

Breath rus.h.i.+ng faster, I looked to Gisbourne, but he wouldn't look at me. I jerked at my bonds until my skin tore and bled, and Gisbourne clamped his hands down on me.

I knew Rob were out in the courtyard below the window. I knew if I cried out he'd hear me, and he'd know, and he'd fight and he'd hurt to try and help me when he couldn't.

The prince turned toward me, holding the knife, hot and glowing dull. "I can't stop you," I told him, trying to keep the tremble from my voice at how fast my breath were coming. He smiled at me. "But I swear, if you do this, I will visit this back upon you tenfold. Christ may well have turned the other cheek, but I won't. Remember this act, because you'll be cursing it for a d.a.m.n long time to come. I will make you pay for what you do, your Highness."

"Rruff," he barked at me. "Your pup has quite the mouth on her, Gisbourne. Hold her hand flat."

"Not her ring finger," Gisbourne said harsh and low as the prince gripped the two smallest of my fingers. "That ring will stay in place."

The prince chuckled and moved to my pointing and middle finger, and I shuddered.

With one last look out the window, I shut my eyes again and curled my lips over my teeth.

Water washed down my face, but I never once cried out. It were some sort of judgment from G.o.d, for I felt every cut and crack as they did it, but when it were done, and Prince John pressed a knife hot from the fire to sear the wound shut, only then did my world go black.

Chapter Seventeen.

I watched the fire die, shaking with cold and pain in the chair, the lot of which made me feel thin like worn-out rags, like wind would pa.s.s through me and not notice me there.

Gisbourne hadn't moved in the bed. I didn't much think he were asleep, for something still crackled in the air like he were watching me.

I wanted to push open the shutters and let the cold in and wait for the sun to risea"it couldn't be much longera"but I couldn't move. I could bare think. Words and notions crossed my mind like whispers.

Robin were to compete.

Th.o.r.esby.

Sacrosanct.

Eleanor.

They'd never let Rob win.

This last bit made me shut my eyes against it every time. He were the best archer in England, I fair thought, and it were an archery contest. They wouldn't never let him compete without a way to keep him from winning.

I couldn't turn my thoughts to my hand.

I hadn't changed clothes from the day before. Gisbourne must have dragged me here after I pa.s.sed out; I had woken up in the bed in the middle of the night. I woke to pain, brutal and awful, and I cried out before I knew better of it. Gisbourne were awake, watching me in the bed beside me, and he just stayed there as I struggled to get up, staggered like a drunk, and collapsed into the chair. He didn't say a word.

Tears stopped and started and I weren't much aware of either part. I crushed my head into my knees and struggled to think of anything that were light and lovely and safe. I tried to think of the first kiss Rob had ever given to me, at the edge of Nottingham when everything felt, for a moment, like glittering light and sun.

It twisted dark, and all I could see were flames flickering into demons and frost stealing over to freeze the world, and Rob withering and dying like crops in winter.

Moments and decades pa.s.sed all at once till the sun rose and Gisbourne rose with it. His eyes were dark and his face worn as he stared at me.

"I didn't intend for this," he said. That were all, and then he turned to his manservant and readied for the melee.

I wouldn't let Mary touch me when she came. Pain were spreading through me like a spider's web and I didn't want to move, much less to change and dress. Gisbourne told her to just bring me a heavy cloak, and she obeyed.

It took me several moments to stand on my feet, but I weren't never going to miss this day.

Gisbourne strode off to the fields, and I followed slow behind, pulling myself tighter with every step.

I would get to the tourney grounds.

I would sit there and stare at the prince.

I wouldn't never be defeated by such a coward.

I would cheer for Rob with my heart and soul.

My whole body were shaking by the time I made it outside, and the cold rushed around me like a bear hug. It made it easier to breathe, to think beyond the pain, and I loved it.

Even walking toward the grounds, I could see what difference a day had made. The place were overrun, packed with common folk everywhere you could look. Children were hoisted on shoulders and people pressed together in a crush, wedged together to get a glimpse of the people's champion.

Guards appeared to escort me into the n.o.bles' dais. One reached out to cup my elbow and help me along the path, and I wondered how rough I looked. My hand, still tucked safe in the sling, weren't bleeding through; save for any sign of it that showed on my face, no one should be able to tell what had pa.s.sed, and I were glad for it.

It were the first time I wanted to hide their cruelty. I didn't want them to use me to hurt Rob; I didn't want him for one moment to take my pain and make it his. And I hated that in so doing, it seemed like I were ashamed they'd done it.

I slid into a chair, feeling more like the was.h.i.+ng run over a washboard than a whole girl. A trumpet sounded and the contestants were led into the arenaa"it had been rearranged from the day before into one wide s.p.a.ce, the grounds for the melee, a mock battle where all the men fought in chaotic hand-to-hand combat.

A mock battle they were placing Rob dead in the center of.

Robin were one of the last to enter, and the whole place broke open with cheers and noise and sound. He were tired, that were fair clear, his face shadowed and dark. He walked cross the arena and his eyes set to searching the n.o.bles.

He were looking for me.

His eyes moved past me, then roved back, his face folding into a frown, looking me over like a mother searching her cub for scratches. I met his eyes and smiled at him, but it felt weak and sad on my mouth.

His eyebrows wove together like knitting and he looked more worried 'stead of less.

The prince stood and spoke, but I didn't hear it. I weren't sure if it were the wind and where he stood that carried his voice off, or if it were the awful pounding in my hand that rang back through my skull what made it hard to hear. Didn't matter none; I knew he were saying something about fight, fight, fight, someone will win when you are all mock dead.

The fight didn't start just then. The players vanished from the field like smoke, and I shut my eyes for a moment, trying to breathe as pain rushed over me in a wave. Time dipped and swung, and I weren't sure how long they'd been shut when someone called to me and touched my arm.

It were close enough to my hand that it felt like a knife, not a finger, and I fought back a howl as I turned to the source.

Eleanor's blue eyes, made fierce and cool by the white, white skin around them, stared at me from her seat beside me.

"What did he do to you?" she said soft. She blinked, and it felt like whatever tether had bound us in her eyes were broke. My eyes slipped back and her next question sounded far off. "Marian, what happened?"

I heard her voice, murmured to her ladies near her, and soon I opened my eyes into leaping fire.

For a breath, I thought I were back at the monastery and the pain had come from Rob, but then the threads of reality braided back together and I saw a brazier fire had been brought on the dais before us, the guards banking the coals to lower the flames. Were I too cold? Were that what were wrong?

"Marian," she said quiet, only to me, and her hand slipped along mine, fis.h.i.+ng into the sling. I hissed; it felt like it were a hundred times too big, too sore, too everything.

She saw the red starting to bloom on the bandage, and she fixed my cloak to lay over it. I twisted as my blood pulsed double-hard in my hand.

"Hush," she said to me, and her hands were gentle on me. "You are strong, Marian. You are well and strong."

Something cold fell on the bandage and I wrenched at the weight, but didn't yell. I tried to look past the fire to the field, to Rob, to see if he noticed, but I couldn't see past the flames.

The cold sank through the cloth and began to ease the pain, and I were only just aware of myself. My chest were heaving like iron bellows and I were half out of my chair. I straightened, raising my head up to look out on the field.

The melee were on in full. Most were mounted; I reckoned that losing your horse were probably the first round of elimination. I saw Gisbourne, all in black on his huge white destrier, slas.h.i.+ng with his broadsword. He looked like a demon.

Rob were half swallowed. He were on a farm horse, a head and hands shorter than the rest of them, but he were charging through more men than Gisbourne. And every hit he made were followed by cheers like an echo.

Watching him made everything hurt less. He were handsome beyond measure, his face carved stone and living all at once. His body moved with a grace that made me admire every bit of the fighter in him. He were trained for this, the act and practice of war; built for it, honed by it.

And haunted by it.

Part of me cheered with every strike of his sword; part of me mourned.

The main battle line broke as victors like Robin, Gisbourne, and more crossed through to the other side where the infantry would have lain in wait if it were a battle in true. Their horses galloped free and were wheeled back by their riders, ready to clash again.

A great horn sounded, and the horses slowed, halting and turning toward the ends of the arena.

The first round were done.

n.o.bles stood from their chairs quick, drawing close to the huge braziers as servants hurried to fill wine gla.s.ses and offer food, like a moving banquet set in the snow.

Eleanor waved her fingers and her ladies drifted in front of us, blocking out everyone else with carefully turned backs and angled bodies. She handed me a cup of wine and I drank it fast, eager to put off the s.h.i.+vers and pain both.

"Your husband did this, or my son?" she asked.

There were dregs of something in the wine and I spat it out, not caring a whit if I looked like an ill-mannered heathen. "You really thought he'd let me go?" I asked her. I looked to her, to her face like white stone and her eyes of cold water, and I stared down the great Eleanor of Aquitaine. "You left him full of fury and me lashed to a chair. If you didn't know how that would end, you didn't want to know."

She looked away from me, and the white cliff of her throat worked. "This was not what I wanted," she whispered. "Not for you."

"You let him do it."

Her eyes shut and her fist opened, like she were letting a secret out into the air. "No. He must grow; he must be a stronger leader and he cannot do that if I do not give him the trust to make the best decisions for his people. I must not be his puppeteer."

"He deserves no trust."

Her eyes opened and looked to the back of his chair, ahead of us on the dais. "He will. He must."

I were tempted to lift my hand, but I didn't dare. I couldn't feel much of anything of it now, and I weren't ready for the pain to start again. "Why bother for me?" I asked her. "Why bother about any of this for me?" Isabel's words drifted back to mea"what interest did Eleanor have in me that I didn't know?

She looked to me, warm and sad now. "You've had a difficult journey, Marian. I feel for you, very keenly. And I don't like to see any woman harmed."

My gaze ran back to the empty mock battlefield. She may care for my harm, but few others did. And they cared for Rob's life even less. How many n.o.ble sons had been sent to war? And for each of those, how many tens of common sons? Live or die, their lives were nothing more than this battle: a game.

"Can I see him?" I asked her. My voice bare croaked out; it were a strange thing. For all the times I spoke when I shouldn't, when it came to speaking words that my whole heart were bound up in, it were a difficult thing.

"Not yet. Perhaps after the second round; there should be a longer break then."

She clicked her fingers and one of the ladies turned. Eleanor ordered for more snow to fill the cloth on my hand, and I shut my eyes and waited for the tournament to continue.

It weren't long before the next round; this time all the remaining compet.i.torsa"roughly ten in alla"were on foot, and for the close combat, the weapons had been replaced with blunted versions, scattered around the outside of the arena. They were all cl.u.s.tered in the center, shoulder to shoulder, their backs to one another, s.h.i.+elds touching like a chain to keep them in.

The horn sounded, and everyone ran for the weaponsa"except Rob, who immediately swiped his leg down to take out the compet.i.tor on his right. Not near expecting it, the man launched into the air like a hound trying for a sc.r.a.p and Rob stood straight, the sole person still while all others raced for the weapons.

He retreated back to the center, and my heart beat fast as he watched them all. They chose weapons and turned to him, and the grounds held a breath.

Gisbourne turned and swung his heavy, blunted broadsword at the compet.i.tor nearest him, and the man howled as the rest of the fighters leapt into action.