Lion Heart (15 page)

I heard someone moving behind me. A hand
touched my back and I jumped. It caught my shirt and drew it up to my neck, leaving it to hang loose in front of me, leaving my bits covered in a small act of mercy.

There were low murmurs and noises. I weren't sure if it were from my scars—there were a long, ragged one left by Gisbourne's sword, from my shoulder spanning down half my back. There were others besides that I hadn't seen in years but still felt tight when I twisted this way or that. Scars never left, even when you couldn't see them. Maybe they were just making noise for a woman's naked back. A noblewoman, at that.

Which never felt more like a lie than when I were kneeling in the dirt. I looked down, and saw thicker clumps of dirt, dark and wet. Blood, I imagined. Other people's blood.

“Do it, D'Oyly!” Prince John yelled.

Nothing happened.

“No, my lord Prince.”

“I will remove you from your station,” I heard Prince John growl, low, meant for D'Oyly alone.

“You don't have the power to do that, my lord Prince,” D'Oyly whispered, but he didn't sound near as brave as his words.

“Michaelson!” Prince John roared, and I heard chain mail rattle forward.

“My lord Prince,” he said.

“Lash her.”

There were a long pause.

“Do it!” Prince John screamed.

“I cannot strike a noblewoman,” the knight said.

He called for another man, and I shut my eyes. I couldn't hear the exchange, but I heard Prince John scream, “Give it to me, then!” he roared.

I turned. David launched forward, but one of Prince John's knights held him off and David set about fighting him. Prince John took the whip from where it lay in the dirt, and he came toward me.

I stood.

“Kneel!” he screamed. “Or I will kill all of them!”

“I will sacrifice anything to protect these people from your pain,” I told him, fierce and loud. “But if you swing that whip, it's not for the people. It's so you can hurt
me
. I am not where you get to vent your childish anger. I am not weak, and I am not broken, and I will not be hurt by you. I am Lady Huntingdon. I am King Richard's daughter, and I am lionhearted too. Get out of here and leave these people alone.”

There were no sound but wind, snapping cloaks and clothing out, pushing my hair off my shoulders. I felt like an avenging angel; I felt like the arm of God.

And I watched as, with hate in his eyes, Prince John left the city of Oxford.

CHAPTER

The knights followed Prince John, and Lord D'Oyly asked us to come to his castle. Tired from the road and still bleeding from the lash at my neck, I agreed, and sent David out to fetch Allan.

We'd bare made it into the castle when seven horses galloped up and Essex threw himself off his horse. He saw me and stopped, straightening. “My lady Huntingdon,” he said, looking fair relieved. “We must get you out of Oxford.”

Lord D'Oyly and I looked at each other, and I frowned at Essex. “My lord, what are you talking about?”

“Prince John is on his way here. He sent word to the queen mother that he was coming down after her attack, and her intelligence has him very close to Oxford. She fears for your safety, my lady.”

“Your attention and haste are very much appreciated,” I told him, bowing my head. “But unnecessary. Prince John has come and gone, and unfortunately he is very aware I'm alive now.”

He straightened with a frown. “You're not harmed?”

Lord D'Oyly gave a ragged sigh. “It's a rather long tale, my lord, if you would like to join us inside.”

I turned a little, and Essex said, “You've been cut. The prince did this to you?”

D'Oyly flushed, and I said quick, “Come inside. I'll explain everything.”

Oxford Castle were large, and old, but not rich. There were none of the trappings of excess that I'd expected, which I suppose weren't strange—D'Oyly were just a lord, and even if Oxford were rich, it were his only holding.

Unlike me. The Huntingdon holdings spanned all of Nottinghamshire and beyond. Nottingham Castle. Belvoir Castle. Haddon Hall. There were a grand old keep in Locksley called Huntingdon House.

Where Rob had grown up, naturally. I loved him, and I had the one thing that could make his happiness complete—the title he'd been denied so long ago.

Lord D'Oyly led us to a hall, small for such a thing, and called for food. He brought a woman to tend to my wound, and she drew me to a corner, for my
modesty or some such thing.

Half of Oxfordshire had just seen my scarred back. I didn't reckon I had much left to defend.

I could hear the murmurs of D'Oyly telling Essex what had happened, and once Essex looked back at me, his sharp, angry stare pointed straight at me.

He turned away a moment later.

When the woman were done with her task, I thanked her and went back to the others. I sat in a chair, and leaning back made all my muscles ache.

“Are you well, my lady?” asked D'Oyly.

“You hurt your vassals,” I told him.

His jaw went tight and muscled. “Rarely. But if necessary, if it will protect more people in the end, yes. On the scale that Prince John wanted me to—no.”

“And yet you didn't tell him no.”

He looked at me. “I didn't realize I could. Until you.”

I sighed. “I didn't change anything about the tax, my lord. Or about Prince John's right to collect it from you as your overlord.”

His shoulders rolled back a bit, and even sitting, he looked taller. “It changed something for me, my lady.”

My mouth fell into a hard line. “Good.”

Essex watched me, and looked brief at D'Oyly, and said nothing.

By nightfall, David returned, without Allan in tow.

“He's
gone
,” he told me.

“You can't find him. That's not the same thing,” I assured him. “It isn't as if he's left the city.” I frowned. “Is it? You two fought over something in Glastonbury, yes?”

Color rose on his face. “Nothing relevant, my lady.”

I shook my head. He could keep his secrets; I never much enjoyed when people tried to pry mine away.

“Very well,” I said. “I want to leave at dawn, so let's go look for him.”

David nodded, and it weren't long before I were back in men's clothing, covered over in black wool and leather, slipping out of the castle and into the night.

“I searched every street,” David said as we went to the town. “The only reason he wouldn't return is if he's hurt. I can't
find
him—” he growled, stopping short.

I frowned at him. “He would limp home to great display if he were hurt. He'd live on just to let everyone fawn over him.” I shook my head. “No, if Allan's not back, he's got a purpose. And we won't find him in a street.” I nodded down a dark alley and started off.

David were a moment or two behind me, hissing my name. He caught up quick, walking behind me, casting me deeper into shadow as we moved deeper into the city.

I saw warm light up ahead, and heard music even from far down the lane. We came upon the place, a break in the stone wall with a little worn wooden door.
People were jumping and laughing in circles, dancing to the music pouring from a few instruments in the corner.

The door were low enough to see over, and I didn't open it. I tucked my hat lower, looking round, feeling something tight in my chest. There were a ring of children in the center of all the dancers, doing a poor job of playing along and hopping to the right tune. I looked at the musicians—I knew Allan played a few instruments, but I didn't have a lick of an idea what they were.

There were three men and two women—one only half of a woman, bare more than twelve I reckoned—and none of them were Allan, bright and noisy and noticeable.

Just as I nodded to David to move on, the music stopped, one instrument at a time until something with strings played by the youngest one were the last thing playing and she stopped, embarrassed. The dancers all stopped slow, rippling out from one woman standing a few feet from the gate, staring at me.

I turned away, ducking from their attention. The last thing I wanted to do were ruin their fun.

“My—my lady, isn't it?” the woman said before I'd full gone.

Pausing on the street, I didn't turn back.

“I was next,” she said soft. Everything else were quiet,
so I heard it.

Turning back, I looked at her. Three children in different sizes—and like enough to the young one with the strings that I reckoned she were hers too—crowded near her skirts. Her mouth twisted down like she were 'bout to cry. I remembered her, kneeling in the street, like a thing. Like she weren't a person, a mother, a wife. Like all there were to know about her were crimes that weren't her fault.

“Come,” she told me. She came forward, opening the door and holding her hand out. “You must come in. What's making you run these streets?” she asked.

I stepped forward, coming closer slow and halting. “My friend,” I said. “I'm looking for my friend.”

She took my hand. Hers were rough and worn, a good kind of a hand. A hand that had worked its whole life. “Who's this friend?” she said. She nodded toward the others. “We know everyone in Oxford. We'll find him for you.”

She brought me to a bench in the corner of the small courtyard and I sat.

“Allan a Dale,” David said for me. “He's a—well, he's many things, but I think minstrel is the most of them. Favors a red hat.”

“I know Allan,” a boy round my own age piped up. “Saw him not long 'go neither.”

She pointed to the door. “Fetch him, would you?”

He nodded and dashed out the door, two of his lanky fellows following behind.

“Now come,” my new friend said. “You need your strength. I can't send you off again without a full meal and a good song.” She waved her hands like a wizard at the others, and they went to do her bidding.

Her daughter started to play again, alone for a start. Her strings made sweet notes that were made just for this moment, a breath of joy in a lifetime of hardship. The others joined in, and the sound grew full and round.

They brought me a trencher of meat and bread with a hunk of butter and hot, roasted potatoes. I started to eat slow, and she chattered while I did, telling me about her family, six children in all. She introduced them all to me, except for Emily, the one playing, and Roger, one of the boys that had run off to fetch Allan. She told me about their life—her husband were a dyer and she helped him and made a bit more on the side with washing, and Emily could get some work playing here and again. They usually made it by, but the taxes cut too deep. It were too much and they didn't have the money.

“Lordship's not usually so bad,” she told me soft. “We were petitioning him for something—more time, less money, something. And that prince came in right
when we were doing it. He had his guards catch us all, and the next morning, there we were. The prince didn't even come to watch his handiwork.”