Lady Thief: A Scarlet Novel Part 2

"You're not coming back before nightfall, are you?"

Lifting a shoulder, I saw John behind me. "I'll be back, John."

He met my eyes, dark and heavy. "Don't hurry."

I nodded, swallowing though it hurt my swollen throat. I went out the door and off for the castle, stealing myself some precious time to be alone and think.

Chapter Three.

Even if the forest had turned, cold and dark were two things that still had love for me, and by the time I made my purposeful slow way to Nottingham Castle, both had fallen around me like a cloak.

The snow made climbing the castle wall a bit harder; sometimes the rocks were slick where I couldn't tell, and my hands slipped and tore from the rocks, red and raw and sore. I didn't mind it mucha"it seemed the one thing that were still simple, that if I went slow and steady I'd still get what I were after. Like much of the winter in Nottinghams.h.i.+re, it had tricks up its sleeve, but it weren't beyond my reach. On the wall, in the wind, high above the earth, I still knew myself and what I were meant for.

Cresting the wall, I felt the cold wind rush over me like a victory song. I sat there for a moment, surveying the three baileys at once. Three stacked, fortified courtyards; each one led to a better-guarded, higher part of the castle, surrounded by nothing but the sheer rock wall meant to keep armies out. The upper bailey were dark and quiet cold; it hadn't been much used these long months. After the day when life flipped on its ears, when the lads and I set explosions to crumble the Great Hall and the sheriff died and I earned myself a s.h.i.+ny reminder of my bond with Gisbourne, the castle had been empty. More than half of the middle bailey had been impa.s.sable from the wall what Much and John brought down, and the bailiff, the only person left to run the castle, moved his quarters to the lowermost bailey.

Then the knights had come. More than a month past, the knights had trotted up from London on the orders of the prince, to rebuild the castle under the charge of the bailiff, a man who didn't much want to hurt anyone. The knights took men from the towns to do the work, and food and drink besides to feed themselves; they were allowed to do whatever they pleased until the wall were finished and a new sheriff were appointed.

And so they occupied the low bailey, filling one set of barracks with their ranks and the other barracks with the men of the county. Including most of the men of Edwinstowe and Worksop.

I went to the food store on the lower bailey. I'd found it some months before, and despite the heavy lock on the front of it, I could sneak in through the high windows that weren't never guarded. Jumping and catching the sill, I hauled myself up and dropped inside.

It were a lick warmer than outside; the kitchens were near, and the heat from the fires kept the place a touch more livable. Wooden shelves stacked high to the ceiling were sagging with the weight of the fat of the landa"grains of every sort, drying meat hung in great lines, stores of wine and oil and ale along with b.u.t.ter and eggs. They kept the milk in the kitchens day by day, but I sometimes managed to nick some of that as well.

Stealing through, I collected some flour, oats, dried meat, and meal, padding my s.h.i.+rt and thin coat with them.

The front door to the food cellar were locked, but there were a little back stair that connected up to the kitchens. I took it, twisting to the side to make it up the narrow steps. I slowed down, my steps turning careful near the door. There were a light s.h.i.+ning on beneath the bottom edge of the door, and I heard voices, seeping through with the warm heat from the other side.

Tripping the latch, I eased the door open slow. In the crack I could see two cooks, bent over a flour-strewn table, pounding dough.

"Soon enough we will," one said, pound-pound-pound. She were tall and red cheeked and thin, a proper opposite to the one across from her, round and short with small eyes that never left her task.

The other laughed. "Not never soon enough!" she said. She tossed a lump of dough onto a pile.

"With any luck the prince'll bring his own cooks with him, and we won't be much use."

"Hush with that talk," the second said. "I need this coin."

"If the new sheriff is anything like the last, I won't need the coin that bad," the first said. Pound-pound-pound. Pound-pound-pound.

"There ain't no new sheriff yet, they said. Said the prince is coming to pick one."

"Well, don't that sound like a merry picnic," the first said, and they both had a laugh. Then she pointed farther than I could see. "Over there," she said.

The second cook went over to whatever she were pointing at, and as the first raised her fist to pound-pound-pound, I pushed open the door and ran past them, nothing but a shadow in the corner of her eye.

The kitchens were connected to the soldier's hall with a narrow walk, but I didn't want to go in there. There were a big fire in there, and knights were almost always lumped around it, talking and drinking and trying to charm extra food from the cooks.

Going back out into the cold were welcome and oversharp both. The night were clear and worth more than a single s.h.i.+ver.

I went round the soldier's hall to the first set of barracks, finding a window and sidling close. Propping my foot on a stone in the wall I jumped, grabbing the bars and hauling up to peer in.

The bit of light that were streaming in from the moon behind me were eaten up by the fire in the room, red and glowing and catching on s.h.i.+ning armor and velvet cloaks.

I let the bars go. Wrong barracks.

Going over to the next one, I did it again and looked inside. No fire and nothing much s.h.i.+ning.

My arms burned but I held tight, scuffling my feet up the wall till I were all tucked in the window.

"Scar?" I heard.

I twisted a little so I weren't between the moon and the men, and the light came through the window. "G.o.dfrey?" I asked.

He nodded, standing on his cot to come closer to me.

"How you lot faring?" I asked soft.

"Not well," he said. "Tired and hungry. A few men are sick."

"What sort of sick?" I asked. I pulled out the little packages, the dried meat and oats. They couldn't do much with the flour and meal; I'd save that for the town. I slipped it through the bars.

"Coughing mostly. Martin Dyer's been casting up his accounts for days."

Men were drifting toward the window, taking the food as others opened it and parceled it out. "What news?" called one man. "What of our families?"

"Everyone's well," I a.s.sured them. "We've been taking care of them. Food's a mite scarce but ain't no one starving, no one's hurt. How close are you to finis.h.i.+ng the work?"

G.o.dfrey sighed. "Close. They've been working us d.a.m.n hard lately. I think they want it done soon. You know I don't think I'd have been so happy to see half the wall fall if I knew we'd have to rebuild the lot of it through the winter."

I looked up at the full, laughing moon, mocking me from its far safe perch. "I wouldn't never have asked it, if I knew," I agreed. "And these d.a.m.n knights are eating the s.h.i.+re out of house and home and never pay a farthing for it."

"Just keep our girls safe, young Scarlet," Hugh Morgan called to me. "It isn't hardly wise to have knights roaming around who think they own everything without men at home."

"I promise," I said. I did as best I could. I didn't want to tell him that some of his daughters were the sort that fancied marrying a knight and didn't take my advice as much as I'd choose.

With most of the men taking their bit of food, they drifted away from the windows, and G.o.dfrey leaned up closer. "How's Rob?" he asked.

G.o.dfrey Mason had been with us in the caves when the nightmares had started. They weren't as bad then; the forest and fresh air had calmed him, I thought. But it weren't so in the closeness of the monastery.

"He's fine," I said, but the words caught in my mouth like it were mud.

"Any word from Gisbourne?"

We hadn't heard from Gisbourne in months. He'd left an animal for me in the forest, a fox staked out on a tree with a knife through its heart. Then he went to London, far as I knew. "No," I said.

"There's been talk around here," he said. "The maids said Gisbourne's things have been sent up to the castle."

I looked at him. "What?"

"And the prince is coming. Everyone's talking of it."

"I heard. Didn't know that Gisbourne were coming back." I couldn't stop a s.h.i.+ver from running over me like a wave.

His hands slipped from the bars like a creature going back to sea. "I'm glad I could do something, at least."

"Thank you," I told him.

I twisted on the window ledge and jumped down, holding the flour tight to my belly before setting off to the upper bailey. The middle bailey had been so long broken that no one much had been up here, and it were quiet and safe, the way I ain't never known this place to be. The Great Hall were full fixed, the caved-in roof patched over. The residences stood dark and empty, and I went in them slow like phantoms might guard the place.

The sheriff's room, the grandest in the place, were empty, but it were clear the maids had been through here, scrubbing floors and laying fresh rushes, putting up the heavy winter bedclothes and tapestries. Logs were piled beside cold fireplaces, and the whole place were clean and fresh.

Gisbourne's room looked just as it had, like time had frozen with the winter, only there were two large trunks now at the foot of the bed with a fresh stuffed mattress and newly tight bed ropes.

The thief in me wanted to go through his things, look at his treasures like he weren't someone I were so afraid of, but I couldn't. I sat cross-legged on the top of the trunk, as if sitting there and keeping his coffers closed could keep him from coming back.

We were supposed to have time. We'd paid dear, in blood and promises that took my soul with them. We'd tumbled the wall, we'd watched the sheriff diea"it was all supposed to have meant something.

But it weren't better. It well may have been worse.

I twisted the gold band on my finger, hating it anew. My time had run out, and my husband were returning to Nottinghams.h.i.+re.

Chapter Four.

I went to Tuck's, slipping in the back door, hoping for the noise and heat and familiar smell of the lot of the men. But it weren't so; Tuck were alone, wiping down the bar.

"It's late, Scar," he said, offering me up a smile.

As if I needed such reminding. I yawned. "Went to Nottingham," I said.

"Want some soup?"

Ever since months past when one of his pies had made me retch up, all Tuck ever gave me were soup and broth and the occasional stew. I didn't mind; my belly seemed to take it better than slabs of meat or sweets and such. I nodded, and he ducked into the back for a bit.

Right then, John came thundering down the stairs, and Bess were flying after him. "John!" she cried.

"No!" he hollered, flapping an arm like it were a wing. "Leave off, Bess. Just give me a moment's rest from your torture."

She slumped her round hip against the banister. "Really, John. I just need more time."

"Or maybe you don't. Maybe needing more time is all the answer I need."

"That barely makes sense, John," she said. She shook her head and went back up the stairs.

He heaved out a sigh and turned, sat on the stairs, and shoved his big head into his hands. His fingers worked through his hair and he lifted his head.

"Christ," he grunted. "What the h.e.l.l are you doing here, Scarlet?"

I lifted my shoulders, and he pushed off the stairs, coming closer to me. He sat beside me and stared at my neck.

I covered it with my hands. "Mind your business, John."

"Not going back tonight?" he asked.

"Later," I said.

"It's already later," he told me.

Tuck came back out with a big bowl of soup for me, and I set into it while Tuck laughed at John. "Kicked you out, did she?"

John just glowered, but I looked to Tuck. "You mean Bess? What's going on?"

"Mind your business; wasn't that what you said?" John snapped at me.

Tuck's belly rolled with his laughs. "You foolish young things," he said, shaking his head. "So tell me of the menfolk, Scarlet."

I swallowed a mouthful of soup. "They're well enough. A few are taking sick, but they're not ill cared for. Most are just worried and eager to be out. Seems they'll be done soon enough. Wall's almost finished."

"Maybe then the louts they call knights will hightail it back to London," John grumbled.

"Not likely," said Tuck, settling himself into a seat. "They're settled and can live for freea"very tough to shake them off. Not that I'm complaining; they still bring coin to drink here."

"Until they run out of coin and decide the Crown needs your ale," I reminded him.

He shrugged. "That day, I'll mind."

"Any other news?" John asked.

Gisbourne's coming back. I opened my mouth to tell him, but I didn't want to speak the words aloud. "The prince will name a new sheriff when he comes."

John whistled. "That's news."

"Who do you reckon it will be?" Tuck asked. "Has to be a landholder, right?"