Robyn Hood: Fight For Freedom (2 page)

I wandered around the castle, occasionally sucking in air between my clenched teeth. (My mus
cles were still plagued by pain). After learning my way around the castle I moved into action.

First I relieved several
pompous lords of their excess change, snagging a nice bag of gold. I then explored the keep and snuck into several ladies’ rooms when they were absent. I stole a few dresses, but I mostly took into account what kind of dresses they were wearing. 

I took my pilfered goods
into my room where I altered—simplifying mostly, it’s faster to remove than add on—the dresses with a needle and thread that I had slipped off a palace seamstress. When I was finished the only thing that could have possibly reminded the previous owners of their dress was the color.  (I may be a peasant, but I’m rather handy with a needle.) The entire time I did my best to keep my jaw intact and my eyes from popping out of my head. Although I handled many riches I had seen very little of what they could buy. Everything from the beautiful silk dresses to the polished wood furniture astounded me. 

I left the castle in the afternoon
and bought a couple of plain, simple dresses from a tailor’s shop. I took them back to my room where I added several flourishes and fancy stitching with more stolen thread from the seamstress. I was done by late evening and I stepped back to admire my work. Although my dresses wouldn’t be the most fancy or eye catching clothes in the castle, they would be simple and appropriate. Besides, I didn’t want to catch eyes, I wanted to blend in.

I grinned at my handiwork, the only reason I was able to alter these clothes was because all of my Merr
y Men were incapable of sewing—except for Robert, an ex tailor—so I was forced to do most of the camp sewing. It was Robert who had taught me the pretty stitching.

I quickly changed into a lavender colored dress, praising
myself for altering the dress so it fit me. I was starved since I hadn’t eaten all day and a little irritable as the muscle cramps in my back crept up my spine. I was just about to open my door to leave and eat so I could hurry back to my room and warm my back against the fire, when there was a knock. 

I pulled o
pen the door to reveal George. “Good evening Lady Mary,” he greeted me with a smile.

“Good evening Master Comwell,” I smiled
.

“Oh, just call me George,” h
e said with a grin before he craned his neck. “I see your men have come by,” he said as he eyed the many dresses that were thrown across my bed. 

“Yes,” I said with a smile. “But tell me
, please, George. Are the kitchens still open?” I asked, thinking I would make something for myself.

“Are you
joking? The feast hasn’t even reached its’ full height yet!” he laughed as he grabbed my arm and pulled me down the hallway. 

George navigated through twisting passages, several flights
of stairs, and numerous doors. We paused when we came to the feasting chamber, a huge room that was merrily lit with roaring fires and torches fastened to the wall. Musicians sat in one corner of the room, playing their chosen instruments, and everyone was roaring and laughing. 

Prince John was seated on a gaudy, plushy chair at the head of the room,
the fat sheriff on his right.

I was thankful George towed me around like a dog on a leash. I had to work hard to keep from gawking at all of the elegance and riches.

George escorted me to a table of younger, gentle bred men and woman. “Lady Mary, may I introduce you to Lord Maxine, Lord Edward, and Lady Elizabeth,” George said, going down the row. “Gentlemen, and lady, this is Lady Mary Gamwell,” George pleasantly said before plopping me into an open seat between the two lords.

A quick calculation said I was in the right spot. The lords and ladies were most likely
second or third children of country earls. Marian’s schooling kicked in, logically pointing out that they were seated in the back of the room, together, and their clothes were clean and pretty but not impressive. I had seen Marian tear across the countryside on Nearly Dead in more ornamental clothing than what they wore tonight.

I was in the exact position that I wanted to be in, distant yet lordly, but not so royal that I would be expected to act with perfect manners and absolute femininity. If I made a mistake this trio wouldn’t be very likely to notice, much less care.

As I gleefully made these conclusions I automatically spoke. “Good evening,” I smiled, nodding at the lords and lady as George pushed my chair in for me. “It is a pleasure to meet you.”

Lady Elizabeth softly smiled and spoke in an equally soft, whispery voice. “Good evening Lady Mary.”

She, unlike Marian, must have been taught to mind her manners.

“Where do you come from, Lady Mary?” Lord Maxine, a dashing man
with a playful grin, asked.

I had to mentally shake myself to draw my attention away from the stuffed peacock that was carried past me on a platter and back to my dinner companions.

“Most recently? London,” I chattered, my brain quickly filling in the gaps of my story. Making up a disguise on the fly was nerve wracking, but it wasn’t like I hadn’t done it before. I may have been one of the weakest out of the Merry Men, but I was always the best actor. “I travel a lot,” I said, starting to grow distracted by player who was in the process of swallowing fire. (
Fire!
)

“Really?” Lord Edward asked, his left eyebr
ow popping up in surprise. “Your parents allow you to?”

Clearly I had made a mistake.

I took my mind off the fire eater and thought back to Marian’s stories, weaving together a reasonable explanation for traveling. “Well, it’s not like I see a lot of new places,” I reasoned. “I’m constantly passed between four manors. One belongs to my mother’s relations, one my father’s, one manor is a brother’s, and the last castle I stay at is that of a dear friend’s.” I supplied.

“Oh, I see,” Lord Edward said, accepting my lies. Nobility did leave often to go visit each other. Marian’s trip to Queen Eleanor’s court was a perfect example of that.

“Are you the one who owns that devil of a horse that arrived this morning?” Lord Maxine asked with another grin.

“Yes,” I calmly replied, taking a sip of my wine
(I was drinking
wine
!) after nibbling at the positively delicious roasted boar. “Has news of him spread so far already?”

“He
is quite infamous, but no. I only heard of him because he took a chunk out of my Winther’s hide,” Lord Maxine said.

“I’ve seen this horse he refers to. Coal black and rather…,” Lord Edward searched for an appropriate adjective that would properly describe Crafty without offending me.

“Crafty?” I suggested. “His name is Nightmare.”

“Aptly named,” Lord Maxine
said under his breath.

“He sounds like he would be too much for a female to handle,” Lady Elizabeth dubiously said.

“It’s not so much that he’s difficult to control, he is just exceedingly foul tempered. He happens to hate me less than he hates everyone else. We get along quite nicely,” I soothed the genteel lady.

“He has a nice look to him. Excellent confirmation,” Lord Edward
said.

I didn’t have a hope of understanding what he was talking about. “Um, thank you?”

“I suppose you wouldn’t know his sire or dame?” Lord Maxine piped in.

“Lord Maxine,” Lady Elizabeth said in her whispery voice, sounding quite scandalized. “That is not decent dinner talk, much less the way to talk
to a lady.”

“It’s fine
, Eliza. We’re cousins,” Lord Maxine explained for my benefit.

I glanced back and forth between my dinner companions. Edward did not seem terribly bothered by Maxine’s interrogation of my horse, even if
Elizabeth was. Maxine seemed too informal to be a proper judge, so I resolved to use Edward as my scale of normalcy.

“He was given to me by a friend,” I carefully said. “I do not know his pedigree.”

“Now that’s a shame,” Lord Maxine complained.

“
Lady Elizabeth, where are you from?” I asked. The easiest way to get away with my masquerade was to engage a different person, drawing the attention off me.

It worked well, Lady Elizabeth softly chatted through the rest of the meal.

I was stuck there for a full hour. Saying stuck sounds negative, but by the end of that hour I was ready to start crying in pain. My back muscles were cramping again. The hum of the music and the steady throb of loud voices in the hall crawled into my skull and created the headache of the century. My eyes hurt from staring at everything, and a pin I had slipped in my dress to keep the waist tight had wriggled loose and was stabbing me in the gut. I hurt so much I decided I would leave, never mind if the feast was over yet or not. I actually almost fell to the floor when I tried to stand. I managed to steady myself with some help from Lord Maxine, who automatically reached out and grabbed me.

“Lady Mary, are you feeling well?” he asked, his voice creased with concern as he stood as well.

“I am a little tired. I believe it may be best if I turn in for the night,” I said, doing my best to smile in spite of the pain that wracked my body. Thank goodness I was still getting over my sickness. I was hurting less now than I had in previous days.

“Lady Mary, do you need anything?” George asked,
materializing in front of my table.

“I’m fine, George, thank you,” I smiled
, finding it amusing that he, the Sheriff’s apprentice, would be worried about my well being. “I am perhaps more weary than I would like to admit. I believe I shall retire to my room.”

“I’ll escort her ladyship back to her room Master George, don’t worry,” Maxine dashingly grinned.

“I’m quite capable of reaching my quarters on my own,” I insisted.

“Thank you, Lord Maxine. She is housed in the same hall as Lady Elizabeth,
” George said, bowing at the young lord before returning to other guests, chatting with them with a pleasant smile.

“This way Lady Mary,” Maxine directed, steering us out of the great hall. I stopped to wave farewell to Edward and Elizabeth.

The musicians plucked and piped on their instruments, and dancing had started. The feast would probably go on hours longer. Hours that I would thankfully not be present for.

I surprised myself by quite easily remembering the way back to my room.

“Are you sure you’ll be tolerable alone, Lady Mary? Do you not have a ladies maid who could assist you?” Maxine asked.

“If I need help I’ll call for one. Thank you Lord Maxine,” I smiled between clenched teeth before I backed into my room, shutting the door in Maxin
e’s fine face.

I immediately barred the door and started ripping off my dress. I changed into a nightgown and huddled in front of the fire, warming my stiff back against the flames. “Should have brought some hose and a tunic or two with me,” I grumbled.

The fire cracked, but besides that my room was quiet. I yawned. “This must be the first time I’ve been alone since Will Stutely christened Little John,” I laughed. “It’s quiet,” I observed after several moments. “Very quiet.”

That night I slept for the first time on a
mattress stuffed with feathers. While it was delightfully soft I had a hard time falling asleep. There were no hooting owls or panting dogs. Crafty did not wickedly snicker in his pen, and Much’s snores weren’t audible. I couldn’t hear my men shift on their guard duty or laugh as they shared a story around the fire.

I missed them.

“It’s a pity,” I whispered to my silent room. “I don’t think they’re missing me.”

Chapter 2

Marian at Nottingham

I spent three relatively care free days in the castle before I began to realize that I could bum off Nottingham Castle for only so long. In those three days I slowly finished
recuperating from my sickness. I was my own jailer, and often slept for hours on end to provide an excuse so I wouldn’t have to attend those wretched banquets. (The food was good, and they were quite entertaining… but after the third night of feasting I was beginning to see why Marian complained of them so.)

“I believe I am almost healed,” I said as I did a handstand, testing out my back. It barely
protested. “This is good. I’ll have to move on soon,” I said, wading through my mess of dresses. “Tis a shame, but I’ll have to leave most of my wardrobe behind. Crafty can’t carry them all, and if I’m traveling on the road it would be wiser to go disguised as a male.”

I walked over to my dressing table, which was now cluttered with hair pins and veils. (I lifted them out of several different rooms in the previous days.)

There was a soft tap on the door, Lady Elizabeth probably. Ever since George stuck me with the trio on that first feast they were my daily companions. I swore underneath my breath. I was dressed in nothing but a nightshirt.

“Yes?” I called through the door.

“Lady Mary it’s me, Elizabeth,” Elizabeth timidly said through the door. “I was about to go down to the castle gardens. Would you care to join me?”