Outlaw, page 7
part #1 of Robyn Hood Series
Robyn took her place, her body quivered with fury, disquiet, and dismay. There was no way any arrow she shot could get any closer to the peg than the one cleaved through its centre.
The winning arrow protruded from the wood, taunting her with the impossibility of victory.
The audience had already celebrated their winner. The arena was filled with the cheerful muttering and conversation of a crowd already satisfied with the ending of their spectacle and no longer interested in watching the irrelevant epilogue unfold.
“Quiet!” The Master of Ceremonies was at least respectful of her and she nodded to him in thanks. But his request made little difference and the chattering continued unabated.
Robyn readied her arrow.
Nocking it to the string, she drew it up and...
Snap.
Disaster. The arrow flopped in her hand, and Robyn stared down at the bow in quiet shock.
The string hadn’t just come loose... it had broken in two. Her bow was useless.
She heard a sharp laugh from behind and turned to see Theobald almost doubled over, his cheeks now as red as his angry lips. He was catching the attention of the crowd and Robyn finally began to gain their interest. No longer a mere formality to be ignored, she was now the centre of attention as they howled with hysterical glee.
It was over.
What was she to do? Her heart sank to her feet and she glanced at the taunting victory arrow cleaved through the peg. Should she just throw her arrow and be done with it?
Feeling a thousand times smaller, and heavier than she had ever been in her life Robyn turned to walk shamefully from the arena.
“Wait.” A figure in blue was running towards her, breathless and holding out a bow.
“Edward?” she gasped.
“Take this,” he thrust the fine yew bow into her hands and turned to the Master of Ceremonies. “The lad can use my bow, can he not?”
The official and the Master exchanged whispers for a moment, and the audience was filled with a rustling and excited chatter; they had thought the day’s entertainment over and now they were being treated to a whole new drama playing out before them.
But the pair of officials couldn’t reach an agreement and instead the Master of Ceremonies turned back to the Sheriff sitting up on the high stands. “We request your benevolent judgement, Sire.”
The Master of Ceremonies bowed with a flourish towards William de Wendenal and, to Robyn’s surprise, the Sheriff appeared to be in some conflict with the woman by his side. As they waited, every single person in the castle grounds seemed to hold their breath along with Robyn.
But then the Sheriff stood and announced in a clear but rough-hewn voice, “The Captain of the Popinjay may use the offered bow!”
The crowd went wild: there were cheers from the stands, thumping of feet, whistles, and shouts. Everyone was now excited to witness this final shot of the tournament. But Robyn was surprised to notice that the woman she presumed was the Sheriff’s wife stormed away from her seat.
Edward landed a thick, hearty slap to her shoulder that nearly bowled her over. “Good luck, Robyn.” He looked down at her and her stomach twisted as she realised he knew. Then he winked. “I mean, Master Hood,” he muttered before backing off and dashing from the arena, a last wave at the crowd that adored him before he disappeared into it.
Her heart swelled. He had known and he did not care. She had beaten him and he nodded to her in respect. Robyn was so used to her father being an exception to the rule she had almost forgotten that there were other men who were decent, too.
She would make this shot for him. She would take this shot for both of them.
For the first time in the tournament, Robyn played the crowd. They knew she was facing defeat but when she raised her new bow, they cheered her on heartily and she felt as though she had grown to a hundred feet tall. She grinned, glancing back to the scowling Theobald before taking her place once again.
The bow was solid, strong, and supple. She tested the string; it was firmer than her own and she would need more strength to draw it fully back. But with the audience cheering her on and a fire reignited in her heart, she felt she had the strength to draw any bow a thousand times and still have strength enough to lift the earth up to the sky.
The world went silent as she turned, arrow nocked, to stare down Theobald’s victory arrow. There was nothing else in the heavens or the earth but that target and the bow drawn in her hands. Robyn of Loxley held her breath and the world stilled.
She released.
After a whoosh and a thud, the crowd exploded.
It took her a moment to realise what she had done. To see the image before her and comprehend its meaning.
But the proof was right there.
Sticking out of the ground.
Theobald had cleaved the peg in two.
But Robyn had cleaved his arrow.
Like an absurd, feathered lily, Robyn’s arrow rose from the centre, with half a split arrow either side and half a cleaved peg either side of that.
She had won.
She had made an impossible shot and a rain of whistles, cheers, and thunderous applause poured down upon her from the stands as she stood dumbfounded by her own skill.
She laughed. It was impossible, but it had been done. The officials ran to inspect the target but it was clear they could only confirm the result and Robyn, flabbergasted and euphoric, turned to the crowd to raise her arms in triumph.
But she felt a familiar presence and smelled the too close whiff of sweetness and sweat. “I suppose you think you are clever, boy.” The words were a softly whispered threat. Theobald grasped her hand and grinned. For all the world he was congratulating her with enthusiasm, but the bone-crushing squeeze and the menace of his looming strength told her otherwise.
Robyn was giddy with delight. She was buoyed with the confidence of unexpected victory and she felt reckless after Edward’s recognition. “I’m no boy.”
Theobald laughed; he threw his head back as if the joke were the best his ears had ever welcomed, and he had to force his words out through gasps of mirth. “Well... you certainly aren’t... a man!”
He pulled his hand free to wipe the tears from his eyes, and Robyn took that moment to lay a blow upon his self-conceit that would hit him harder than any strike ever could. She pulled down her scarf and smiled as he staggered back. “Nor a man, either.”
She heard the words ‘cheat’ and ‘fix’, she heard ‘rematch’, ‘false arrows’, and ‘deceit’, but to his credit, the Master of Ceremonies hurried through his administrative duties with aplomb as Theobald de Lacy stormed from the arena and out of sight.
Her arm was raised as the Master shouted to the crowd. “The winner of the Nottingham Fayre, with twenty-five points, and the victory of the Archery Tournament is, Captain of the Popinjay: Robyn Hood!”
She fought the urge to correct her name as the crowd cheered their victor, she wondered how many of them could see her clearly enough to know, to understand who she was and what she had achieved.
Robyn had won. She was no longer hiding behind her scarf, and she was about to claim the silver that would save her home and change the lives of all those she loved.
Everything she had wanted was in her grasp.
But as she stared around at the arena searching for the face she knew would not be there, she realised with a sinking heart: not everything.
Chapter Eleven
A Stolen Prize
Maud charged into the Sheriff’s study like a storm thundering into bay. “What in hell happened out there?”
The Sheriff looked up from his papers. Although the fayre had recorded a profit, there was a large shortfall in their promise to Prince John, which was now walking home in the overstuffed purse of a young maiden. William stared at his wife. It was often dangerous to make suggestions when she was as agitated as this. But he couldn’t help himself. “You should have stayed to watch, my dear, it was remarkably entertaining.”
She paced. Her hands curled into tight fists swinging this way and that as if in her mind she was caught in the vortex of a tavern brawl. “None of this should have happened! I told you!” She swirled around to him, pointing with ferocity. “I told you not to let that boy take that shot! Who was that creature? That hooded vagrant? How could you let it take our money? The Prince’s money?”
William opened his mouth to explain but she quickly moved on.
“Those accursed officials! They should never have moved in against Theobald.” She paced around the room as if every piece of furniture was in need of reproach and must be witness to her wrath. “My boy hit that target first, he should have walked from that arena with the silver in his hand! That demon-cursed leper ought never to have taken the shot! Let alone a shot with a borrowed bow! That clod, Colswain! What was he thinking? Rushing into the arena like that! How dare he alter the game, after the fact? And you!” Maud turned back to him, her face reddened in fury. “You! What were you thinking? We had it! We had it in our very hands!”
She held up her empty palms to him, like a beggar in the street. As if she were poor, bereft, and merely an innocent victim of the dangerous game she herself had incited.
William realised that for once she was waiting to hear his answer. Although he suspected it was only so she had an opportunity to cast more blame. “Of course, I had to allow the child to use the bow, Theobald is your nephew–”
“Our nephew!” she snapped.
“Either way, such an obvious act of favouritism would not go well. Did you not construct this entire charade to avoid accusations of nepotism?”
“How dare you blame me for this?”
“I cast no blame–” But it was no good, he had started her off again.
“You should have called a rematch!” She leaned over the desk, yelling into his face. “You are the Sheriff, you can demand they enforce the rules you create.”
He tried to remain calm, if for no other reason than he knew it infuriated her. “And how should I have presented my case to the judges? Or the crowd? Hmmm? My nephew did not win; therefore, I demand a rematch? How do you imagine they would have reacted?”
She banged the table. “You have piss for blood!”
He laughed, but that was a mistake.
“You think this amusing, husband? You think our debt to the Prince is laughable? You think that his men riding to us from York and stripping us of your title is merely a comedy played out for our amusement? You think being taken prisoner and cast out of this pathetic little English island is a joke?”
“None of these predictions of yours will come to fruition: we will simply have to find another way to raise the funds, we still have your taxes–”
“It is the principle of the thing! You should wring the neck of that damned Master of Ceremonies, string him up on charges of... of–”
“Of what, my dear? He did his duty, I cannot start stringing up whomsoever stands in my way.”
“I fail to see why not, William: you have the authority to string up whosoever you see fit.”
He opened his mouth to respond but at that moment there was a flash of red as Theobald burst through the door, his face as scarlet as his breeches.
“And you!” Maud rounded on him and the boy’s anger instantly turned to defensiveness. “What happened out there?” She slapped him against his chest. “Where was your perfect score? Were you so distracted by that regurgitated pigswill, Colswain, that you stood by and let some homeless vagrant steal your prize!?”
“I did get a perfect score, Aunt, I cannot prevent that boy from splitting an arrow after the fact! Perhaps it is you I ought to blame!”
“Maid,” William corrected but neither listened.
“Me! How dare you!”
William smiled: he always enjoyed it when these two argued; his spoiled nephew was possibly the only one who came close to being a match for his spoiled wife. He wondered: if he’d known what a harridan she’d become, would he still have taken her as a wife? It had been such a temptingly large dowry and he had been so dazzled by her beauty... Yet what an easy life he might have had.
But he knew, at heart, he’d likely marry her still. More fool him.
“If you had not insisted I go first in the final then perhaps I could have split that boy’s arrow.”
“Maid’s,” the sheriff repeated, knowing full well that neither was listening to him.
“If only it had been a fight to the death,” Maud hissed, “there are a few necks I should like to wring myself, starting with that obstinate boy’s.”
“Maid’s.”
“What are you wittering about, William?”
He tried not to look up at them; instead, he sat back in his chair inspecting his papers and replied in a slow, laconic drawl, as if what he said mattered very little. “It was a young woman, not a boy.”
Theobald stared at the ground while Maud turned such a bright shade of magenta he wouldn’t have been surprised should her head have burst into flames upon her shoulders.
“Don’t be absurd.” She hissed each word like a burst of steam breaking free from the lid of a boiling stewpot.
“Absurdity is not one of my strengths.” William shrugged his shoulders matter-of-factly, gathered up his papers, and looked directly at the sheepish Theobald. “You were there when she removed her scarf, were you not?” He peered at the boy, who adamantly refused to meet his gaze. “There was some talk that she was as Robert Fitzwarren’s eldest. He has two sons, you know, and yet it was the daughter whom he chose to pass his own name to.” He shook his head. “Saxons. Now, there is a lesson in absurdity for you, Maud.”
“I saw nothing of the kind,” Theobald sulked. “Besides, a maid can’t draw a bow, she wouldn’t have the strength.”
“There, see, Theo knows. It was a boy, and it was a boy who owes us two hundred silver.”
“You cannot mean to take the prize back?” William stood; he couldn’t have his position ruled by these two, a she-wolf and her unlicked cub: his office would be stripped in a matter of weeks. He had to make a stand. “That prize was won in a fair tournament,” he held up a hand to halt their interruption, “in front of several hundred witnesses, for St Peter’s sake!”
“’Twas not a fair tournament,” Theobald snarled.
“I know that!” William snapped. “Every dispensation was made to give your skill the advantage and yet here we are, are we not? You played a foolish and dangerous game and you lost. The pair of you.”
“Those officials,” Maud argued, “they were all damned wrong, and besides!” Maud’s eyes lit up. “Women cannot enter the event! She cheated her way in!”
“It wasn’t a maid!” Theobald whined.
“You can’t have it both ways, Maud,” William sighed. “Either she was a maiden or she was a lad.”
“I know what I saw, William.” She thrust her finger towards his chest. “That disguise may have fooled you, but I saw right through it and I say that maid cheated her way into the tournament!”
“You weren’t even there when she pulled off her scarf!” Theobald argued.
“Ha!” Maud turned her finger to him. “So I was right! We have her, see, she hid her face in a mask, she knew she was cheating, she must return the prize!” She threw up her hands in delight like a knight winning a joust.
But William sighed and sat back down, picking up one of the papers in his pile and waving it around. “I’ve just read through the rules: there is no rule explicitly preventing a woman from entering.”
“What?!” Maud was furious, and she snatched the papers from William’s hand. “There damned well ought to be!”
“There has never needed to be.” William leaned back in his chair and weaved his fingers together, waiting to see what the two would come up with next.
“Exactly,” Theobald folded his arms in satisfaction, “because a maiden would not be capable of competing.”
“Oh, do shut up, Theo.” Maud was pacing, holding the parchment of rules and rubbing her temples. She paused suddenly. “Did you say Fitzwarren?”
“Yes, from over at old Loxley Manor. That ‘Colswain clod’ recognised her.”
“But that is on the other side of Mansfield, is it not? Through Sherwood?”
“It is...” William shifted in his seat: he didn’t always like that mad glint in Maud’s eye, it often meant trouble. “What is your thinking, Woman?”
“I’ve heard rumours that there are bandits and outlaws living in those woods: is that not true?”
William growled in displeasure. “Only a few old foresters and woodsmen pardoned by King Richard. But most of them were convicted for nothing more than stealing firewood, Maud: they are not the bandits of your imaginings.”
“Oh, William, cease your bleating: once a criminal, always a criminal.”
“What’s your thinking, Aunt?” The boy’s eyes had the same glint as Maud’s and no one could have ever doubted that the two were of the same blood.
She smiled and placed a hand upon his shoulder. “Fetch up a horse, child, and gather some of your boys. It seems our little hooded friend is not going to make it home to Loxley after all.”
Chapter Twelve
Noble Bandits
Robyn clutched her bulging purse of silver.
It was the size of two large fists and the weight felt good hanging from her belt. Every so often she would pull open the top and peer inside, staring at the glint of the precious metal catching the light of the dappled sun. Her leather belt dug into her flesh with the weight of it, but she was delighted. There was almost enough coin to pay their tax outright, with a few old jewels or perhaps the sale of one of the older horses: they wouldn’t have to worry about being turfed out of Loxley Manor.
She grinned as she remembered the faces of the crowd when she had removed her scarf: it had taken a while for the people to realise. First, a ripple had started with Edward Colswain and his friends, and then finally the whole crowd had joined in with the cheering. They were happy for her, and her heart had swelled with pride as she’d stepped forward and claimed her prize from the Sheriff of Nottingham himself.
