Laura Strickland - The Guardians of Sherwood Trilogy (3 page)

“We could torture it from him.” The suggestion came, shockingly, from a woman, a rawboned creature with a ravaged face. “No more than he deserves, Martin.”

So—his captor’s name was Martin, was it? Gareth tucked that information away in his mind for future contemplation. And he appeared to be headman of this pest hole.

“Nay, we cannot do that, not half,” Martin replied, “else we would have nothing with which to bargain. I do not doubt this delicate flower would wilt under strong questioning. Whoever he is, I do believe de Vavasour will pay to get him back.” The man smiled a terrible smile. “Whole, more or less.”

“Takes a lot to kill a man,” speculated a fellow from the far side of the human fence that now surrounded Gareth. “I dare say we could hack him apart bit by bit without killing him.”

“I dare say. Put your knife away, Micah.” For the last speaker had drawn a wicked blade. “We cannot so indulge ourselves, yet.”

“Let me take one of his pretty Norman ears to send de Vavasour. A little bloodletting will do him good.”

“He is already bleeding freely,” the headman pointed out. “That wound to the shoulder does not look good, nor the one to his leg. He fought well,” the man added grudgingly, “for a piece of shite.”

He leaned down and once more virtually spat into Gareth’s face, “Aye, that rankles, does it not? I suppose you are a fine champion among your own kind. Much good that does you against the likes of us.”

Gareth was spared the need to answer by the appearance of a lad who pushed his way through those gathered to stare at him. Gareth’s eyes narrowed abruptly. Nay, no lad this but a woman clad in a lad’s clothing. Tiny, she was, with a head of wild, dark-brown hair tangled with burrs and a golden yellow gaze as dangerous as a raised weapon.

She looked like she wanted to flay him alive, and he would not put it past her.

What manner of folk were these that inhabited the fringes of Sherwood, who dressed their women as men and gave their children the spectacle of torture for amusement?

Before he could decide, a second woman appeared. This one wore the proper clothing of a peasant, a plain brown dress covered with a rough, tan smock. Tall, willowy and lovely, she carried a bundle in her hands.

She paused when she sighted him as if she had run into a wall, and her eyes met his with the force of a blow.

“By the Green Man’s horns,” she breathed. “Thank all goodness you have not killed him yet.”

****

“This will hurt,” the woman told Gareth, and he caught his breath. Each time she had told him so, it had proved true, and he believed her now. He braced himself for more pain and told himself he was nowhere near the end of his endurance. Was he not a proven knight? Had he not endured broken bones before, been tossed in the lists and taken many a hard fall?

Aye, but then he had only needed to get to his feet and weather his injuries. He had not been surrounded by a pack of carrion ravens.

True, he found himself, now, alone inside a dim hut with this woman. But he knew the scavengers still lurked outside—he could hear at least two men just beyond the door, no doubt guarding it, and talking to one another. The other noise outside had not abated. Folk seemed excited by the proposed spectacle of his death.

But would they provide him this care only to kill him? The woman—Linnet, he had heard someone call her—had skill in her hands, quick and gentle. Already she had set his broken arm and now worked over the ugly wound at his shoulder, which brought her very close to him, indeed. She poured some vile-smelling liquid into the wound, and he caught his breath sharply.

She had not lied: it hurt.

“That will help keep the poisoning from setting in,” she said with brief asperity.

“Does it matter? They wish only to kill me, that crowd out there. They will never send me to Nottingham, even should a ransom be paid.” He stole another look into her face. Nothing like he had imagined a Saxon peasant, she was entirely surprising. Aye, some of their women were bonny and reputedly lustful, with bountiful yellow locks and still more bountiful bosoms. None of that fit this woman at all.

Her face floated above him, a pure, almost perfect oval. Most of her dark brown hair lay gathered under a head covering, but her brows soared like two dark wings over eyes so beautiful and unusual he scarcely dared look into them. Fringed by the longest lashes he had ever seen, they appeared liquid dark, bottomless and wild. In truth, she felt wild withal, despite her neat clothing, a foreign creature not meant for this place. Yet her hands remained kind and calm, her face serene—an intriguing contrast.

“They will not kill you,” she said softly. “Though it will go better with you if you tell them your name so they can send word to Nottingham.”

Gareth shook his head.

A slight frown marred her smooth brow. “A word of advice—you will tell them, sooner or later. Spare yourself their persuasion.”

“Torture, is it? As might be expected of cowards.”

She withdrew slightly. “If you think those people out there cowards, you know nothing about them.” In defiance of her hard words, her fingers slid over his skin, applying some sort of unguent before pressing a cloth bandage in place.

To Gareth’s surprise, he felt a prick of arousal. This was not the time, the place, nor the woman—beautiful as she might be.

Someone—a man—thrust his head inside the open door of the hut. “All right, Linnet?”

“Aye. I am nearly done.”

Briskly now, her hands moved to the rent at his thigh. Once more he caught his breath, though not against pain this time.

The wound there, he knew, was a grave one—had it landed a bit farther to the left, he might well never lay a woman again. She tore the cloth further asunder, only to find she had exposed more than the wound. She tipped back on her heels, and a lovely, deep color swept her face.

Her eyes met Gareth’s in a look so deep and dark it pierced him to his soul. A wave of feeling rose between them, bright and intense. So powerful was it, for an instant Gareth almost supposed he could sense her thoughts, every whit as entangled as his own.

“Ah,” she said softly. “I will be as quick as I can.”

“Aye,” he said in a voice that sounded strangled. And just as well.

Chapter Four

“I do not want you alone with him again, Linnet. ’Tis not safe, nor proper.”

Linnet raised her gaze to Falcon, who paced the floor of her tiny hut like a caged beast. Morning had come and with it a renewed sense of purpose. The village council had met, led by its headman, Martin Scarlet. And Fal had invaded her cottage with trouble in his eyes.

That was the problem with Fal, Linnet reflected even as she gathered supplies to take to her patient—he was far too perceptive and intelligent to miss much. She knew he had been standing guard at the door and then hovering in the doorway itself yester evening when that exchange took place between herself and their prisoner, and it had raised all his instincts.

Truth be known, it had roused a few of Linnet’s, as well. She could not say exactly what had taken place between her and the young Norman captive. She only knew something had.

“Do not be foolish,” she chided Fal now. “I am a healer. Of course I must tend him.”

Fal shot her a wild look. “Let someone else do it. I do not trust you alone with him.”

“And why, Falcon Scarlet, would you fail to trust me?”

Fal scowled. “Not you—I misspoke. ’Tis him I do not trust.” In the dim interior of the cottage, Fal’s eyes glowed green-blue and nearly feral.

“What harm can he do?”

“Aye, now there is the question. He might easily seize hold of you and wring your neck.”

“But he has a broken arm, as well as two other wounds to hamper him.” He had a beautiful body, as well, and Linnet had seen more of it, last night, than she dared remember. A well-muscled chest sprinkled with light brown hair, smooth, tanned skin, and, below, muscular thighs. Ruthlessly, she pushed from her mind the image of what else lay below, which she had also glimpsed. But her fingers tingled again just thinking on it. The man might be a Norman and poisoned fruit, but he made a potent temptation.

Truth to tell, she had never before been so near one of her detested overlords. She had never gazed into one’s eyes, nor caught his scent. She shivered even now in response.

Fighting the feeling, she spoke to Fal briskly. “I was not alone with him yester e’en. I knew very well you were there in the doorway. Come along with me now, if you will.”

“I will, but Linnet…” Falcon came close and touched her arm. “I do not like this. You know what he is. He does not deserve your care but should be tied to a tree and left to die.”

Linnet looked into Fal’s face and said gravely, “This is not like you.” She knew Falcon Scarlet to his bones. He was not a cruel man but for the most part a light spirit, full of joy. Now she barely recognized the expression in his eyes.

“That bastard and his kind killed my mother and sister and have brought suffering to countless other good folk.”

“Aye but not he, surely.”

“They are all one. Never forget that, Lin—they are all one.”

****

The interior of the hut was small and dim. A shelter for ailing beasts needing to be kept apart from other stock, it had been hastily cleaned out last night, save for some straw, and still contained an aroma of goats. As Linnet stepped in with Fal at her side, she saw the captive had been provided no comforts. He lay on the dirt floor with his good arm tethered to a spike in the wall. Linnet would not see a dog treated so, especially an injured one.

He started up when they entered but could not move far, the tether being cruelly short. In the morning light that streamed in through the door, he looked wan, his fine clothing sullied and torn. But his gaze met Fal’s like a raised weapon and only moved to Linnet’s face after.

What fine eyes they were—steady and bright, set under level brows, and of a color pale as clear water, a true gray. His hair spilled, mussed, across his brow, golden brown, straight, and shining with health.

Aye, and a privileged life he had no doubt led, Linnet reminded herself. No hungry days for him, and no pinched nights in winter, listening to children cry from want. As Fal said, she needed to remember what he was.

She glanced at Fal, for she could feel the hate streaming from him. He had drawn his knife and looked ready to defend her to the death. Her lips curved wryly
. Foolish men.

She went forward and set her bundle on the floor, appraising her patient as she did. He might wish to appear undaunted and fearless, yet she saw the lines of pain in his face and the way he coddled his broken arm against his chest. It had been brutal to tether him. With his left arm broken and that deep wound to his right shoulder, the strain must be nearly unbearable.

“Cut him loose,” she told Fal.

“I will not. Tend him where he lies.”

“Impossible. I need to change the dressing on that shoulder. No doubt being bound so has torn the wound open.”

“Leave him lie, I say. It is no more than he deserves.”

Someone came pushing in behind Falcon and blotted out the light, a tall, looming presence: Martin Scarlet.

He spoke in an ugly tone. “I cannot but agree with you, lad, but unfortunately he is too valuable to die, shite as he may be.” Fal’s father spat and the spittle landed beside the captive’s knee. “Besides, he has a long day of torture ahead of him, and I would see him fortified.”

The prisoner never flinched. If anything, his silvery eyes gleamed brighter in defiance.

“What is the sense in me tending him if you mean only to hack him apart again?” Linnet asked. She knew what happened to Norman captives. She had grown up amid what Martin Scarlet and her parents called a forest war, fought continuously. Despite repeated requests and demands for the rights Linnet’s people felt they were due, the Normans kept the peasantry down through a combination of brutality and want. The Saxon folk fought back in any way they could, and there was very little mercy on either side.

She had seen Norman captives questioned before—soldiers, traveling members of the clergy, even nobles seized on the road. She had witnessed the work of this man now standing beside her. Martin Scarlet’s hate tended to be checked only by his cunning.

Many a terrible thing could happen to this young man before he found his way back to his own kind, so long as he remained alive.

It turned Linnet sick inside. Deliberately, she turned her gaze away from those wide, gray eyes.

“What of the men who were with me?” the prisoner asked in his clear, steady voice. “Have you murdered them all?”

Martin Scarlet gave a tight smile, a terrible thing on his scarred face. “Not all. We spent the night questioning them, two of those who survived the raid in the forest.”

The prisoner drew an audible breath but said nothing.

“One of them,” Martin said deliberately, “is almost ready to speak. He does not endure agony well.”

Emotion flickered in the gray eyes—anger and perhaps disdain. He must have heard the screams last night, Linnet reflected. They had kept her awake.

“Think on it,” Martin told him shortly. “Or pray, if you feel so inclined. He may yet speak and spare you your own ordeal.”

The prisoner reared back his head. “Cowards. Pagans, speaking of prayer. Have you no decency?”

“Decency?” Martin repeated the word. “Shall I show it to you?” Deliberately, he delivered a blow to the captive’s face that swayed him. “All the decency has been bled from us by your kind.” He turned burning eyes on Linnet. “Tend him, lass. Be certain he does not die on us beforetimes.”

Martin pushed past his son to the door. “Stay with them, Fal, and make sure he does not so much as look at her wrong.”

The prisoner stared after him, livid weals springing forth on his cheek and blood welling at the corner of his mouth.

Linnet looked at Falcon. “Cut him loose. I must see to that wound.”

Fal hesitated. Then, brandishing his knife, he stepped forward and cut through the tether that bound the captive to the wall.

The Norman made an involuntary sound as his injured arm dropped and pulled on his rent shoulder. He turned white as milk.