Lion Heart (27 page)

“Kissing doesn't count as hunting,” Will Clarke said. We turned to him, and he were frowning serious.

“Exactly,” I said, trying not to grin as I pushed Rob off.

“Rob!” Much yelled. “Scar! Try setting a good example, please?”

Will were still in front of me. “Why don't you and your brothers go with Missy, Will?”

He turned to Missy and his face turned redder than the ribbons I liked. “Fine,” he grunted.

The peat and wood were loaded up on carts to be taken to market, but the meat were sold off to butchers in the neighboring towns who could resell it on their own. The hunters all ended a bit early, and the little ones took some of the meat back to the castle. Rob and I took the rest to sell, getting back to the castle as everyone were eating, tired but looking less frightened than they had in a long while.

It felt like sun finally breaking through storm clouds.

Rob went back to his room with a glare toward David, and I took Much (Bess insisted, since she still needed to rest and couldn't help) and Missy Morgan aside and asked them to come with me to the forest.

David strode over to us, frowning. “What's going on?” he asked.

“There's going to be a wedding,” Missy crowed.

“A
secret
wedding, Missy,” Much reminded her gentle.

She blushed and blinked her eyes slow at him. “Sorry.”

“A wedding, my lady?” David demanded. “The queen—”

“Won't know,” I told him. “Now if you're my knight, I need you to help.”

He frowned again. “As you wish, my lady. But surely this is women's work.”

I frowned too. “Perhaps, I just . . . I don't know many women. Fondly, at least.”

“I can take care of that,” Missy told me, smiling.

“Remember it's
secret
,” Much and I said at once.

She laughed. “I know. Let's go to the forest, then!” she said.

We did. Before we were done the first night, Missy also got Ellie and Mariel, Bess's two barmaid friends from the inn, to help out. Though Ellie gave me a bit of
a saucy wink, she never made fun of the things I didn't know as she started to order us all about.

We hunted one more day, and then didn't hunt the next. The butchers round Nottingham wouldn't be able to buy more meat so soon, and we let the littler ones hunt small animals to feed the workers. Rob went to help with the tree folk, and I went to cut peat with the women and children.

Down in the mud and muck my knife kept slipping from the weak grip of my half hand and I gave up, hacking at it with the full hand only. I had spent so long in the stillness of prison, I'd forgotten just how much I needed this hand for. I'd forgotten just what Prince John had taken away from me.

It were late in the hazy warm of the afternoon when we heard a crack and a boom. The women all lifted their heads and turned like a pack of gulls, and I sprang up and ran for the sound.

Much and a whole group of workers got there 'bout the time I did, called over by yelling men. Everyone were hollering, throwing their hands about, and pointing at one another, gathered round a downed tree that had taken two others in its path, and from what I could see, landed on at least three men.

“Rob?” I cried. “Rob!” I hated the girlish shriek there were in my voice, but I couldn't help it none as I scrabbled round the trunk, looking for him.

“Scar,” he said, hands catching my shoulders as I turned.

Relief choked me as I hugged him overtight, clinging to him. “Christ and his Saints, Rob,” I breathed into him.

He kissed me quick, and we broke apart, looking at the damage. Two men were close together and the third were farther down. “Cut the trees,” he ordered. He started barking men's names and indicated the three sections to cut so that the trunks would be small enough to lift. “Much!” he said, pointing to the men. Much nodded and moved quick, overseeing the cuts the axes were aiming for.

The men were crying out with every hack of the ax, and I turned to the gathering women and young folk. “Rocks,” I said, pointing. “And the logs they've already cut. Wedge them next to the men so the weight's off a bit,” I told them, grabbing an armful of wood myself. We built up little walls on either side of the pinned men, pushing and heaving till it pressed the trunk up, ever so little.

My heart kept pounding hard right up till it were late at night and the last man came free. The first two had broken their arms, I reckoned, but he were the worst. He could bare stand.

“Here,” I said, and looped his arm round my neck, hugging close to him and holding him up. I held him tight and he groaned, slipping from my arms.

I yelped as he fell to the ground, and Rob and the others tried to haul him back up. He resisted, and coughed once. A gush of blood came from his mouth. I dropped to my knees and the other men stepped back a bit. Trembling, I rearranged myself around him and knelt by his head, laying his head gentle on my knees. I wiped the blood from his mouth, dashing the red on my legs and wiping his mouth again.

His name were Thomas Percy, and he were so young. Bare twenty-and-two, only a few months older than Rob. He were handsome—all the Percys were, their hair like corn silk and their eyes so soft and brown they looked like a puppy's. “Rob. Robin?” he said, and his voice were thick, caught up in his throat and wet.

“Right here, Tom,” Rob said, kneeling. Emma Percy, Tom's little sister, gave a yell and came over to him, sitting on Tom's other side. She grabbed his hand, crying a terrible fuss.

“Rob,” Tom said again. “I'm so sorry. I didn't mean—I was trying to help.”

It sounded young and pitiful to my ears, and I stroked his hair back as tears slicked down on my cheeks. Rob clapped Tom's hand in both of his and nodded solemn to Tom. “You did well, Tom. You did very well.”

“Tom,
no
,” Emma said. “No!”

He touched her cheek, but there were a bit of his blood on his fingers and it smeared over her face. “You'll be all right, Emma. Connor will take care of you. He loves you, Emma.”

She gripped his chest, crying hysterically and tugging him as if she'd keep his soul from flying out. “No, Tom,” she said, over and over.

Tom coughed again and spat out blood, but more caught in his throat, shining at me in the dim light from the torches someone'd lit. “I'm sorry I won't be there, Emma. To give you to him. You'll do it, Rob,” he said, looking solemn at Robin. “You'll give her away?”

Rob nodded, and I saw water in his eyes, not falling down, like it were his will alone that kept it in.

“There, Em,” Tom said, but it were more a gurgle now, quieter too. “You won't be alone.”

She wailed and clutched him, but I felt it, the moment when his eyes lost their light and his body went still and slack. I felt tears leaking into the seam of my mouth, and I kept petting his head, like if I never took my hands off him he wouldn't have died.

But then the monks came, and villagers came with a cart, and they took him away. And soon everyone else went away, and it were just me and Rob in the forest still, with blood on our hands. He were in front of me, and then he were pulling me up. “Come on, love,” he said to me soft.

I clung to him, and tears started coming out faster. Not moving more, I sagged against him, and he clutched me tight, letting me cry on him like I weren't much used to doing. I weren't used to tears being a thing I could share with anyone, but there in the woods with death still lurking round us, I wanted to give them to Rob.

“We can't win, Rob,” I whispered after a bit. “We can't never win. All of these people—they look to us for hope and help and all we do is get them killed.”

“Yes,” he grunted. “And how many more would die if we weren't here?”

I shuddered, and he gripped me tighter.

“John died,” he breathed in my ear. “But it wasn't our fault. He was innocent, and the prince killed him. His death isn't our fault. It's our banner. Our cause. Our reason to fight, always.” His head nuzzled against me. “And yes,” he whispered. “He's also the reason I want to give up every damn day. I miss him, Scar. I miss my brother.”

Rob shattered me. I broke into a million tiny pieces, crying in his arms like I never cried my whole life. I cried for John, who hadn't gotten near enough of my tears. And I looked around the forest and wondered if it would always be like this, tired and broken beyond all putting back together. Every day we lived, and every day it felt like we had a little less to live for.

We went back to the castle, a place it were dangerous and easy to start calling home, and Rob drew me aside, holding my hand.

“Stay with me tonight,” he asked. “I don't want . . . after today, I just want you in my arms. Any way you'll have me.”

I thought about how I loved sleeping against him, wrapped into his heartbeat like I could be tucked into his heart, and I shut my eyes against the temptation. In the dark behind my eyelids, I thought again of when I got to the tree and didn't see him, and had thought for a moment that he were dead. Dead and gone from me forever.

Opening my eyes, I shook my head. “I know,” I said. “But David will have a fit, and soon enough, we will be married.”

“When?” he whispered. “I know we should finish raising the tax, but Scarlet, if we're going to do it—”

“Eleanor will be here in a few weeks' time,” I told him. “Maybe sooner. And we should wait for her blessing.”

He sighed. “You're so adamant about
not
acting like a noblewoman, it's a little strange you care so much about her blessing.”

I wanted to tell him. But I wanted to surprise him more than I wanted to tell him. Especially after a day that were so awful, I wanted there to be something
wonderful left. More than anything, I wanted to give him this gift.

“Soon, love,” I told him. “Good night.”

He watched me go, and I went outside and into the forest.

The next days were awful. We were all slow moving, slow from all the work our desperate, scarred hearts had pulled from our bodies the day the tree fell. I ached everywhere, and more than that, there were a sadness that had drifted down onto us like a mist. Cutting peat we were all quiet, digging our hands into the cold, hard earth, and we stumbled home at night without much to say about it. Missy, for her part, had told more and more people about the secret wedding, and I couldn't even fault her. It were clear on the faces of those that knew, shoring them up like holy water.