Laura Strickland - The Guardians of Sherwood Trilogy (21 page)

He sprang to his feet and glared at her. In that moment he looked so like his father, Linnet experienced a rush of dismay. “You gave yourself to that stinking, high-born piece of shite? For god’s sake, Lin, why? You knew you were meant to be mine—you were always and ever meant to be mine!”

“Hush, Fal, please!” Folk all around turned their heads, searching through the gathered darkness for the source of the disturbance. Linnet stumbled to her feet also and reached for Falcon, but he drew away from her.

“Nay, do not touch me with those hands that have touched him. I do not believe it, Lin! Yours is the purest heart I know. I would have wagered my life on your honor. How could you betray me with the enemy to all we are?”

“He is not—”

“His kind killed my mother and Thrush—killed my father! Have you forgotten so quickly the people you said you loved?”

“I have forgotten nothing.”

“He has made misery for countless others, he steals the bread from the mouths of dying children. Look around you! He steals the roofs from over our heads.”

“Not he, Fal. His kind, aye, but not—”

Falcon went suddenly still with a quiet so intense it silenced Linnet. The darkness quivered before he said, “He
is
his blood. You, of all people, should know that. We are all what our blood makes us. I ask you again”—pain filled his voice—“how you could do such a thing.”

“I had to follow my heart.”

“Your heart, is it? I thought your heart a true thing, worthy of my worship. I set it high above me. I would have loved you lifelong. Now I cannot bear to look at you!”

“What goes on here? What is all this shouting?” Lark stood suddenly beside them, materialized out of the darkness.

Falcon rounded on her. “Ask your sister. Or do you know already? Has she told you what she has done?”

“No, what?”

“Given herself to the accursed Norman, lain down for him like one of his harlots or the women his kind seize from our villages, only to rape and ravish. She has taken the greatest prize Sherwood had to offer and thrown it at his feet.”

“Never!” Linnet felt Lark’s gaze sear her even through the dark. “Say this is not true.”

“She just told it to me.”

“How?” Lark demanded of Linnet. “When?”

Again, Falcon answered for Linnet. “In Sherwood, no less—on that holy ground.”

“Lin, is this true?”

“I love him,” Linnet said helplessly.

Lark struck out so swiftly, Linnet never saw the blow. It took her in the face and rocked her where she stood. Vicious words, and the hate that accompanied them, followed after. “Love? By the Green Man’s heart, you must have forgot the meaning of love—for it is sacrifice. You selfish, loathsome wench!”

“Lark—” Linnet cried, but Lark turned from her and put her arms around Falcon. “She is naught to us, Fal—naught.”

Falcon, desperate, spat at her, “She is everything to us—a third of the triad and all we must be.” Wild-eyed even in the dark, he rounded on Linnet. “I cannot raise my hand to you, Lin, not ever. But I will repay that Norman cur in full for all he has stolen from me. I swear by the Green Man himself, I shall see Gareth de Vavasour dead.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“I hope you are proud of yourself. You have shattered the triad before it was fairly formed, and now Falcon has gone off to his death.”

Linnet whirled in the face of Lark’s angry words, and alarm once more speared through her. All the night long she had lain sleepless, replaying the scene with Falcon, beleaguered by regret. Surely there must have been a better way to tell him the truth. Yet she had always tried to be honest with him, and she loved and respected him enough to grant him that, even in this.

Now, in the first light of morning, her sister flew at her again, eyes wide and her small body rigid with anger.

“What?”

“Falcon. He has gone to Nottingham—alone—with the intention of killing de Vavasour.”

All the breath left Linnet in a rush. “He would not be so foolish.” Even as she spoke she scanned the open area that used to be the village of Oakham, searching for one wild, fair head. People arose, women lit their fires and children wailed for attention, but she did not see Falcon.

“He is angry. More than that, he is hurt. I spent all the night while you slept peacefully striving to talk him out of it. When I dozed off, he left me.” Disconcertingly, Lark’s eyes filled with tears. “He left me.”

“I did not sleep quietly—” Linnet began to protest.

“Neither did you come to him, argue with him, make him promises.” Two tears trailed down Lark’s cheeks. So rare was it for Linnet to see her sister weep, it caused emotion to clutch at her heart. “Say or do whatever you must to keep him from going. He would not stay for me—not for me!”

“Nor would he have for me,” Linnet put in, distress flooding her. How could Falcon have been so heedless as to go haring off into danger alone? He knew what he meant to Oakham, to the triad.

Aye, just as she, Linnet, had known how important she was to Falcon and Lark before she lay down with Gareth de Vavasour in the forest.

“Stand there as you will,” Lark sneered. “I mean to act.”

“How? What—”

“I am taking a band of men and going after him. If you had one loyal bone in your body, you would come.”

“If he gets himself captured—”

“If he gets himself captured, I will move heaven and the earth itself and slay every Norman bastard in Nottingham so to free him! I barely know you, Linnet. Where is the sister with whom I grew? Where the daughter our parents raised? How could you so much as touch that stinking swine when you could have had Falcon?”

“Gareth de Vavasour is not what you think. He is a man of honor.”

“Ha!” Lark spat. “There is no such thing, as bespeaks a Norman. He must have stolen your wits as well as your maidenhead. Stay you here—I do not need you with me to save Falcon.”

“Wait.” Linnet seized her sister’s arm. Lark shrank from her, the action as stinging as a blow. Lark—closest in the world to her, flesh of her flesh—stared at her with a stranger’s eyes and flinched from contact.

“Lark, please try and understand. I never intended to love Gareth de Vavasour. It came upon me from nowhere, like a blessing. Can we choose where our hearts decide to bestow themselves? You, who love Falcon, should understand.”

Lark lifted her chin a notch. “Falcon Scarlet is fine and just, and worthy of regard. And I would have held all my love for him locked in my heart. I would never have acted on it because I knew the triad—the welfare of our people—must come first. I would have sacrificed him to you—you, Linnet! I would have watched him wed you and bed you, and give you his beautiful children. All because it was what he and Sherwood chose. And what do you do? Throw it all away like it is naught, so you can rut in the forest like a Norman whore.”

Linnet fought down her own anger, a rare thing but now rising wildly. “It is not like that, Lark, it is not just a thing of the flesh. Gareth and I have formed a deep connection. We are even able to share thoughts between our minds, just as Ma and Pa do.”

“How can you? Do not ever speak of them in the same breath as that cur!” Lark raked Linnet with wild eyes. “I do not know you. You are no longer my sister.” She turned to leave, her small body stiff with indignation.

“Wait,” Linnet said again. “I will come with you, if you think it will do any good.”

“It may make a difference to Fal,” Lark spat in return. “So aye, I bid you come, and I suppose I shall just have to bear your company.”

****

My love, are you there?

Linnet formed the words and sent them forth through the stillness of the morning, telling herself they did not constitute a betrayal. The party from Sherwood, of which she made the fifth member, moved almost silently. Around them, birds flitted and the light strengthened. She could feel her sister’s anger and resolve, and her desire for secrecy. Was it wrong to tell Gareth they were on their way?

My love.
His reply came like a thread of music afloat through the trees and, despite her despair, gladdened Linnet’s heart.
Are you safe?

A strange thing for him to ask—or perhaps not, if he could sense her emotions and the furor that possessed her.

Ah, and how much to tell him? Linnet picked through her thoughts almost delicately, unable to decide.

She trusted Gareth; she had since the moment she first lay in his arms. Yet trusting him with her life was one thing; trusting him with Falcon’s another.

Linnet, love?
His voice came to her more strongly, as if his concern sharpened it. Linnet lifted her eyes to the trees overhead and the light sifting down. Would they share this ability—the same her parents possessed—were Gareth unworthy of her trust?

I need your help. We are in some difficulty.

Immediately his emotions flooded her, all protective concern. Walking just ahead of her, Lark twitched as if she felt the backlash of his awareness.

Tell me what I may do.

Falcon has learned what took place between us in Sherwood. He is on his way to Nottingham, after your blood. I follow with Lark and a band of our men. I need to protect Fal at any cost.

And had she just done? Or had she condemned him? She trusted Gareth—aye, she did—but no sooner had the words been thought than doubt nibbled at her.

How could she doubt the man who possessed her heart?

Gareth fell silent, which added to Linnet’s uncertainty. She had begun to panic before he asked,
What road does he take out of Sherwood?

Should she tell? Belated caution made her back off a step.
Why?

Because he is known here in Nottingham. Our guards have instructions to watch for him. If he comes anywhere near the castle he will be seized.

We follow now in an effort to catch him, but he is one man, and moving swiftly.

Tell me how he comes and I will ride out to meet him, try and reason with him, keep him from tossing his life away.

There is no reasoning with him. He is angry.

If it is a confrontation he wants, I will give it to him away from Nottingham. Where?

Lark glanced over her shoulder and flayed Linnet with her golden gaze. Lark felt something of this exchange; her suspicions were all up and warring. How best to protect Falcon? Lark might not believe it, but that was Linnet’s first concern.

She hesitated one moment longer and then drew a breath.
The forest path just east of the York road. It is the quickest way, and what he must take.

That leads to the clearing near Ravenshead, does it not? I will hurry and await him there.

My love, he is armed with his sword as well as his rage.

I will come similarly armed.

Ah, by the Green Man’s horns, what had she done? Gareth de Vavasour was a proven champion. Fully healed by her mother’s magic, he could well prove an opponent Falcon could not best. Better, perhaps, to let Fal take his chances searching out, in Nottingham, a man he might not find. Had she spared him capture? Or condemned him?

Gareth, my love, I need him. I need him alive
. Over the green distance, she received no reply.

Chapter Thirty

“Nephew, hold up a moment.”

Gareth paused on his way to the stables and spun in mid stride to see his uncle approaching across the courtyard. No one could ever say Robert de Vavasour did not perform his duties assiduously. Many men might lie abed until the sun was well up, but Nottingham’s sheriff had arisen in time to catch Gareth hurrying off in answer to Linnet’s summons.

“My lord.” He planted a bland look on his face. Bad luck indeed, being intercepted before he could even leave Nottingham proper.

“Where are you bound, so early?” Was the suspicion in Robert’s eyes sharper than usual, or did Gareth only imagine so?

“I thought to ride out, my lord.”

“Now? Do the young men not await you for drilling?”

Gareth’s mind raced. “Aye, my lord, but they are still at their breakfasts. I meant to ride out betimes and catch your night patrol before they seek their beds—one of them is said to be a doughty man with the sword, and I hoped to persuade him to meet me in the Lammas competition.”

Robert’s gaze sharpened. “Could that not wait?”

“It could, Uncle, but I confess I am eager to put on as fine a show as possible for you, especially should the King be in attendance.” Gareth allowed himself a tight smile. “I have had few takers, as yet, willing to meet me.”

“That is because your reputation as a swordsman grows. You begin to earn a name for yourself, as should be, given your name is de Vavasour. Very well, Nephew, go snare your man and do what you can to stage a fine spectacle. Only make certain you win this competition. Do not embarrass me.”

Gareth inclined his head. “Aye, Uncle. I had further thought of marking all those who do summon the courage to face me and forming of them an elite band to put pressure on the peasants, perhaps even venture into Sherwood, if need be.”

“An assassin squad, eh? I like the idea. Aye, you go about your recruiting as you will and choose your men carefully. Meanwhile, I will continue with my own methods of persuasion.”

“My lord?”

“You think I mean to sit still whilst Henry holds me responsible for those lost taxes? Nay, lad, Monteith has his orders. There will be a right reign of terror until those Saxon dogs turn over what belongs to me.”

Gareth, flooded with sudden alarm, nevertheless strove to meet his uncle’s gaze with a steady stare. “Aye, my lord.”

Robert lowered his voice. “You are not the only one, Nephew, capable of scheming.”

****

“Halt you right there!” Gareth bellowed the command as soon as he saw Falcon Scarlet enter the clearing. “Do you come looking for me?”

Scarlet skidded to a stop so quickly it was almost comical, and Gareth stepped out from behind the shelter of the trees, where he had concealed his mount. Falcon greeted him with a stare of astonishment—to his mind, there must be no way Gareth could have anticipated his arrival here, or his intent—and reached immediately for his sword.