“Nottingham,” Alys breathed, having moved to peer over Marian’s shoulder when she paused at the window. “He is a fine sight, if a fearsome one.”
Unable to disagree, Marian quickly closed the wooden shutters before Will noticed them gawking at him.
Why was she gawking at the man? She despised what he’d done to his people-his rigidity with the law and cruelty to them. Regardless of what had passed between her and Will, whatever was really going on between him and Robin, she could not put his sins out of her mind. He was no better than John. Aside of that, he’d clearly not found her charade amusing today, and he must be quite furious that Robin Hood had escaped his trap yet again.
Yet again.
Marian frowned. Robin had escaped Will yet again. It seemed as though the outlaw had naught but good fortune, and the sheriff naught but bad. Yet, Will was the last man she’d call a fool, and Robin could ofttimes be one himself. After all, why would the outlaw continue to sneak into the keep? Or speak to the sheriff in the forest? She wondered again whether he’d been merely taunting him from the tree-tops, or whether they had been talking. But if they had been talking, why hadn’t Will made a move to capture him? Was there some other reason?
She turned from the window and saw that Alys was looking toward the small pallet in the back of the herbary. When she realized Marian had noticed, Alys raised her gaze, her cheeks lightly flushed.
“Do you recall when I told you that I’d made a sleeping draught for a man?”
“Aye, of course.” Marian nodded.
“ ’ Twas Nottingham.” Alys hesitated, then continued. “I came upon him in the chapel, well in the early hours of the morrow.”
“Nottingham?” Marian would have been no more surprised if she’d said she found John therein. “In the chapel?”
“Aye. I know that he is no favorite of yours, or of anyone’s, but . . . I must talk plainly to you.”
“You already know you can trust me, Alys. You say you found him in the chapel, in the early morn?”
“ ’ Twas more of night than morn,” Alys said. “I woke early and thought to visit the chapel for prayer . . . yet I found him there on his knees. He was none too pleased to see me, and he looked like death.”
Marian sat on a stool and waited for her friend to continue. Her stomach had begun to twist and flutter, and she wasn’t certain why.
“I have seen him thus-dark, angry, in pain-on two other occasions, and I was certain he had some illness. But he insisted he did not. However, I could see his weariness and I pressed him to allow me to make him a sleeping draught. I swear, I feared he would shatter into ugly pieces if he did not have a care.”
“He took the draught?” Marian could not imagine Will acquiescing to anything he did not wish to do-especially to urgings from this delicate sprite of a woman.
“Aye . . . I brought him here, and he agreed to rest.” She looked past Marian into the smaller room, where the bed sat. “I kissed him.”
Marian’s mouth went dry and her stomach fell like a stone. She could not reply.
Alys turned to look at her, and Marian saw the remorse in her eyes.
“He did not hurt you,” Marian exclaimed in disbelief.
“Nay! Of course he did not,” Alys replied. “He would not. Marian, I know he is hard and mean, but I do not think ill of him. I have cared for many people, I have this skill with the medicinals . . . and I am used to understanding people. I knew he would not hurt me. I wanted merely to . . . relieve him. To ease whatever it is that has wormed inside him and causes him to be so angry and dark.”
“You . . .” Marian found she could not speak.
Alys and Will?
“He did not touch me.” Alys had begun to pace the small space, curling and uncurling her fingers. “And I left.”
Absurdly relieved, Marian said, “You were very kind to him.”
“I do not think many are.”
Marian looked at her, wondering, faltering for a moment. “He is the sheriff; he must keep order in the county,” Alys said. “He has no choice but to uphold the law.”
“Aye, but he does not have to burn the village,” Marian replied flatly. “And he could look the other way or find some manner of leniency when a woman is terrorized by her betrothed.”
“And he could allow the outlaw Robin Hood to run free and rob from the nobles?” Alys said, her voice bitter. “Nay, Nottingham must capture that bandit. Oh, aye . . . he already has. Has he not?” The arch tone in her voice told Marian that Alys was indeed aware that Robin Hood was not the prisoner who’d been presented to the prince. She wondered briefly on the fact that Alys seemed to be the only other person besides herself-and Will-who’d noticed.
“But if he caught Robin, he would hang! And Robin Hood . . . he has tried to do only good,” Marian argued.
Alys looked at her. “But he is a thief.” Her voice held only rebuke.
“But a good-hearted one, Alys. Not for his personal gain. He shares with the poor-the villeins who lose their homes because of Nottingham. If not for him, they would starve. And if Robin had not intervened, that woman would have been hung.”
“I did hear of that.” Alys appeared to sober. “But what is Nottingham to do? He must uphold the law. He is consigned to do so. Even if he sees the strain on his people.”
“And thus is the importance of Robin Hood’s actions. He can act where Nottingham cannot.”
Freezing, the two women looked at each other. Marian saw the comprehension flare in Alys’s eyes at the same time she realized what she’d said. And what it could mean.
“Is it possible . . . ?” Alys trailed off. She shook her head. “Nay, of course not.”
But Marian was thinking the same thing. And she was remembering the times Will had come upon her and Robin in the woods . . . and in her chamber. The sheriff had made no real move to capture the outlaw.
And Robin had said, with great confidence, that he would not be caught. On more than one occasion.
Of course, the two men had known each other long ago.
Had Will not wanted a witness to their meeting in the wood? Was that why he’d been so angry at Marian’s presence-he’d feared she’d seen something she should not have?
Had it been more than happenstance that they’d come upon each other?
And, most damning of all . . . that Robin Hood had once again miraculously escaped from the sheriff and that a false prisoner had been presented to the prince as the outlaw himself. In truth, how could such a thing be accomplished without Will’s help?
“ ’ Tis absurd,” Marian said, though her voice was filled with wonder, and a smile tickled the corner of her mouth. The possibility was . . . fascinating. She looked at Alys. “If we listen and watch carefully, mayhap we’ll know for certain.” But . . . the prickling of her skin, the lifting of the hair over the backs of her arms, told her that they had to be right. “And the queen will soon arrive as well.”
Alys nodded. “Aye. I received a message this morn confirming it. She is on the move, though the prince doesn’t know to expect her.”
A weight seemed to lift from Alys’s shoulders, and her troubled blue eyes grew lighter. Then they darkened. “But, still, outlaw or no, sanctioned or nay, Robin Hood still cannot be trusted.”
“I am not so certain of that,” Marian said, her mind still working frantically. “Mayhap . . .” But she could not risk putting her suspicions into words quite yet.
And she did know that she now had more need of Alys’s assistance for her plans this night. “I wanted to talk to you because I am in need of your help once again.”
“The sleeping draught did not work?”
Marian’s lips twitched. Suddenly . . . suddenly, she felt so much lighter. “I believe I will need something stronger than a sleeping potion for this night,” she replied. “Something that will bring a man to his knees as he begs for mercy. And not in a pleasant manner.”