Laura Strickland - The Guardians of Sherwood Trilogy (4 page)

“Do your work swiftly, Lin.”

“I will. But move out of my light. How can I see what I am doing?”

Fal stepped to the door and left Linnet in possession of the cramped space. She could still hear him breathing.

She dropped to her knees beside the prisoner and opened her bundle. Determinedly, she avoided looking into the man’s eyes.

“Let us see that shoulder first,” she murmured. Already, fresh blood soaked the rent fabric there; last night’s bandages had bled through. Were this man not so young and strong, Martin Scarlet might well end up cheated of his opportunity for torture.

The prisoner said nothing but tensed himself when she pulled off the soaked bandages and examined the wound. If anything, it looked worse than last night.

After several moments’ silent struggle, he suddenly asked, “Who is that man with the scarred face?”

Linnet’s hands froze momentarily. Leaning forward to tend him, she found herself very nearly in his arms. Their eyes met and, abruptly, the feeling sprang up between them again, vital and real.

No
, she thought to herself even as her spirit cried within her and her breath caught in her throat.
No, and again no
.

“He is our headman,” she replied softly, as her fingers resumed their work. “You need not know his name.”

A tight smile curled his lips. Fine lips they were, now surrounded by a growth of golden-brown beard. Linnet focused on them because she dared not lose herself in those eyes. “Need not know the name of the man who means to kill me?”

“He will not do that. I told you last night.”

“I heard what you said, but I have also seen the look in his eyes.”

“No speaking.” Fal leaned in the door. “You will not talk to her.”

“Get out of my light, Fal.”

Falcon’s golden head disappeared. Abruptly, there came another interruption as Falcon protested and was shoved out of the way. A small figure erupted into the shelter: Lark, with her eyes wild and her hair loose and flying.

“So he survives,” she cried, her eyes all over the prisoner even as Falcon pushed in behind, “our noble prize, valuable beyond measure.”

Falcon asked, “What are you talking about?”

Lark turned to look into his eyes. “One of the soldiers your father has been busy questioning all night has broken—babbled like a frightened child.” She glared at the man who had gone so still beneath Linnet’s hands. “It seems this fine buck is nephew to the Sheriff of Nottingham, and will surely bring us the highest price we have ever taken in ransom.”

Chapter Five

“Surely they will not kill him now,” Lark said with barely-disguised enjoyment, “much as Martin may wish to. He will be used roughly, no question, but returned to his accursed uncle in more or less one piece.” She cast a look at her sister, who busied herself at the hearth. “I will confess, I looked forward to seeing his pretty head on a pike.”

Linnet shuddered. It seemed she had been in a state of constant upheaval since learning the identity of the injured captive. Had he been a Norman soldier or even some other noble’s son, the situation would have been bad enough. But the hated Sheriff Robert de Vavasour’s blood kin? He might as well be the devil incarnate.

Damn his handsome gray eyes.

She said with asperity, “You should not gloat. His head on a pike, indeed—that is a man of whom you speak.”

“No, Lin, it is a stinking Norman of which I speak. Never deceive yourself. Have you forgotten the things his uncle has done? Burned the cottage of a dying woman for a few pence taxes, for theft taken the hand of a poor widow with young babes to feed, imprisoned Derek Sawyer in that vile pit called a dungeon in Nottingham, and his wife left to grieve with a dead child?”

“I have forgotten none of that,” Linnet said bitterly. “But I am not certain the proper answer to hate is more hate.”

“You have grown soft in doing your healing. You have lost your warrior’s heart.”

Linnet turned from the hearth and leveled a look at her sister. “And you have lost your womanly compassion.”

Lark, who lounged on the floor, held up both hands. “Do I look like I ever abounded with womanly compassion?”

Linnet had to admit she did not. Lark might have been one of the lads who ran about Oakham, her hair once more braided and confined beneath a leather cap, her clothing a smaller version of what Fal commonly wore. She looked all warrior.

Lark’s mood changed with the swiftness of lightning. “Fal certainly does not think there is anything womanly about me.”

“Back to that, are we?” Linnet asked, caught by the change of subject. “What can you expect when you dress like a woodcutter’s son and go about with the men, drinking and swearing? There is that gown of yours, tucked away in the chest. I have said I will dress your hair for you. You do have lovely hair when it is combed out.”

Lark met the suggestions with a bright, golden stare mutinous as that of any child. “You think to make me something I am not. Would you have me win Fal on the basis of a lie?”

“From what you have said, I thought you would win him any way you might.”

Lark linked her fingers together and showed them to Linnet. “The three of us—you, me, and Falcon—our lives are enmeshed like this. From the time of our births we have been meant to form the magical three, with two of us binding in the flesh and one binding to Sherwood itself. That is destined.” Lark hesitated. “No, I have no objection to binding with Sherwood. I will admit, I feel at home there as nowhere else. The trees are my solace. But, sister, I want a real flesh-and-blood man between my legs.”

“Lark!” Linnet exclaimed, shocked despite herself.

Lark’s lips twisted. “Why should I lie about it? It is hard enough deceiving Fal, especially since if he plays stud to anyone it will be you.”

Linnet abandoned her work and sat beside her sister. Softly, she confided, “The truth is, I do not want him.”

Lark’s fierce gaze flew to Linnet’s face. “Are you mad? What more could you want?”

The image of a lean face arose before Linnet’s mind’s eye, shining golden-brown hair and that long, tanned body, gray eyes so clear she swore she could see her future in them. Impossible. Surely the Sheriff would not hesitate to ransom his nephew. He would be gone before she knew it, back to the privileged life he enjoyed, far beyond her ken. Better, far better, to forget about him now, and spare her heart.

****

“Your uncle is Robert de Vavasour, Sheriff of Nottingham, no? And your name is de Vavasour also? Gareth de Vavasour, we have been told.”

Three men, headed by the fellow with the scarred face and merciless eyes, stood over Gareth on his tether. The second was the young man who had accompanied the healer, Linnet, to tend him. The third Gareth had never seen before, but he stank. Even from his place hard against the wall, Gareth smelled the blood on him, and a reek of burning.

Ah, so they had brought their torturer. Gareth hauled on his courage and tried to ignore the way his balls crawled up toward his belly. He swore, whatever they did to him, he would not break. He was a Norman knight, and proven.

“He does not speak,” said the third man, in the leather apron stained with gore. Was he a blacksmith when he was not hacking apart his betters?

“Aye, but he will,” said Scarface with some satisfaction.

“Where are the men who were seized along with me?” Gareth asked. His voice sounded hoarse. He had been afforded one cup of water in all the time he had been held, and his mouth felt dry, his tongue thick.

“One is dead. The other has given us all the information we need.”

“What do you want from me, then?”

“A token,” said Scarface. “Something of yours to send to your uncle, that he will recognize.”

Despair flooded Gareth’s heart. He strove mightily to keep it from showing. “You may as well kill me now,” he said.

Scarface kicked him. The blow, aimed at Gareth’s ribs, pulled at muscles already drawn unbearably by his bonds. He received the punishment silently and glared into his captor’s eyes.

Scarface grinned one of the most terrible smiles Gareth had ever seen. “Be of good cheer,” he said. “The bastard de Vavasour, being your blood kin, will want you back. You will not enjoy our hospitality long.”

Gareth’s thoughts flew, seeking some way to use this to his advantage, finding none. Grudgingly he said, “My uncle barely knows me.”

“Eh?” the torturer ejected.

“We have not met since I was four years old. I was raised in Leeds and fostered in York for my training. I was on my way now to take up service with my uncle when you interrupted my journey.” His first station, and it came to this. Humiliation burned in him. All those years sweating and training, proving himself a worthy champion, and it availed him nothing.

“A fine lie, that, to save yourself,” said Scarface disdainfully.

“I ask to be spared nothing. It is no lie.”

“Send the uncle an ear,” said the torturer. He drew a stained blade from his apron and fingered it contemplatively. “Or an eye.”

Still Gareth strove to show this pack of dogs no fear.

The younger man spoke for the first time. “They took his weapons from him, Pa, when he was hauled in. He had a knife with a distinctive crest. Perhaps de Vavasour will know that.”

Ah, so the Saxon buck with the wild hair was Scarface’s son. Gareth eyed him as he might any opponent, sure he could take the fellow in a fair fight. Of course, that was not likely, given he was tethered and had a broken arm.

“Bring it,” Scarface snapped and the younger man hurried off.

“I need the privy,” Gareth stated. He had already pissed in the corner, but now another need became pressing. He was cursed if he would beg, but had these brutes no common decency?

Scarface tossed his head. “Bring him a bucket, Tim—he shall enjoy our finest accommodation. Never let it be said we offer fewer comforts than are afforded in the dungeons at Nottingham Castle.”

The torturer went out.

Scarface took a step forward and seized Gareth by the hair. “So, my fine cock, it is just the two of us alone, and no one watching.” He hauled Gareth’s head back cruelly and drew his own knife. In a vicious movement he laid it not to Gareth’s throat but the corner of his left eye.

“I could do it, you know—pluck your pretty eyes from your head, easy as spitting. Then how would you ride to the lists again? ’Tis what you are, is it not? A Norman knight—as vile a creature as ever trod the blessed soil of Sherwood.”

Gareth said nothing. He scarcely dared breathe.

“It is your kind killed my wife—may the Green Man rest her sweet soul—and my young daughter whose life had barely begun. It is your kind slew the very justice of England, and who ruin everything they touch. Do you think a day of reckoning will not come? Do you think it cannot come for you now?”

Gareth shuddered, an involuntary movement. “Go ahead and do it,” he said against his better judgment. He did not want to die and he did not want to live blind. But defiance was his only weapon.

He felt the point of the knife bite into the corner of his eye. In one vicious movement, Scarface dragged it downward, scoring a line on Gareth’s cheek. Still holding Gareth’s hair, the man grinned.

“How does that feel, eh?” He gestured with the knife. “I know well how it feels. Who do you think gave me these?”

He waved the knife at his own scarred face. He looked so terrible at that moment—so like a demon—Gareth found it hard to believe he had ever possessed a wife or daughter.

But as if to emphasize the truth of it, the tall, fair-haired young man reentered the shed carrying Gareth’s own dagger.

His quick eyes moved from his father’s face to Gareth’s, down which now ran a thin line of blood.

“Pa? I have the knife. It bears some sort of crest. Surely de Vavasour will recognize it.”

Scarface let go of Gareth’s hair and turned to his son. One of his brown thumbs rubbed across the insignia of Gareth’s house.

“I have seen this symbol before.” He asked Gareth, “What is it?”

Gareth, fighting down waves of rage, loathing and—were he truthful—the aftermath of powerful fear, said nothing.

“Answer me. Or must I cut you again?”

“Do as you will,” Gareth replied.

“Pa, it was on the bridle of his horse, this same sign. And I think I have seen it on de Vavasour’s banners when he rides out.”

“Aye, to be sure—I remember now. We shall send this to de Vavasour, let him know we hold his fine pup of a nephew.”

He swung round and looked Gareth in the eye. “It seems you will not die after all, Champion—at least not today.”

Chapter Six

“I hear word has been sent to Nottingham. You will be released soon.” Linnet spoke the words softly as she stepped once more into the tiny shed. Twice this day had she asked Martin Scarlet for permission to tend the prisoner. Twice had he refused until now, as night gathered, he had bidden her to fetch her supplies and go.

“I suppose we cannot let him die before we get full value out of him,” he said in a hard tone, and eyed her sternly. “Be sure and not go in there alone.”

“I will take Falcon.”

But Fal was nowhere to be found, and Lark, still restless and apparently bored, volunteered to come. She stood in the doorway behind Linnet now, her knife in hand, and wrinkled her nose.

“Stinks in here. Smells of Norman swine.”

In truth, it stank of the bucket that had been provided for the captive’s needs. He had been forced to use it and, due to his tether and the size of the place, could not get far from it.

Linnet could barely see him in the deepening gloom. He stirred when she stepped closer to him, but he did not speak.

“Lark, get this out of here.” Linnet snatched the bucket by its handle and thrust it at her sister, who recoiled.

“I am no servant to any Norman.”

“Just empty it, pray. And bring a light.”

Lark grunted and went. Linnet and the Norman were alone save for the guard outside, and the quiet gloom.

“How do you feel?” she asked.

“I have rarely been better.” His voice sounded thin, worn with strain and probably pain, as well. Linnet told herself not to feel sympathetic. He was, after all, her enemy.