Lady Marian

Chapter 10

If only some miserable old woman had caught me in conversation with a minstrel—on the highest floor of the tower, gasping for breath with my gown rumpled, the fell plans that had been made for me would have been easily foiled. I would have been sold off to some squire in the next shire, a faint and distant memory to my father, the sheriff, and my aunt the Queen Mother.

Fortune does not spin her wheels in our favour so often. Besides, Robin could never be a faint and distant memory to me. I smoothed the crumpled satin and faced Alan, my voice as cold as Sir Guy's executioners.

"What help could you seek from me, Alan-a-Dale?"

Alan looked away. "It has been said, my lady, and I mean you no impropriety or disrespect, only, it has been said..."

"Would you say what has been said already?" My chest tightened. I knew what would follow. Someone wanted Robin Hood.

"My lady, they say that you are still acquainted with Lord Huntingdon, and it is his assistance I require."

"Is that what they say then, that I run into the woods with Robin Hood?"

"It is a personal matter, my lady. When I saw you today in the queen's chambers, I thought you might speak to Lord Huntingdon on my behalf."

I shifted my weight, stepping back from the casement window lest some eagle-eyed pauper see me. "You are incorrect, minstrel. I have not seen or heard from Lord Huntingdon since the day he became an outlaw." I turned to face the casement.

"Excuse me, Lady Marian, but I do believe that is a falsehood."

"Are you calling me a liar?" I squared my shoulders and strode towards the staircase. Alan blocked my path, holding his lute before him like a shield.

"I am not new to this castle, Lady Marian. I was minstrel to the late Lord Huntingdon before this sheriff." Alan spat the words. "I expected to play one day at your marriage celebration to Lord Huntingdon. So, pray, my lady, do not tell me that you have not seen or heard from him, because I have seen you two together. I have played while you have danced. I have pretended blindness when I have walked past you in dark corridors. And if you loved him half as much as I love my Lucy, then I know that not a fortnight would go by without you finding some way to be together right under your father's nose."

Lucy. The gossips' prattling earlier had reviled her marriage to some old knight. I leaned against the stone wall and crossed my arms.

"You want Robin to prevent her marriage."

"Then you have heard the news. Yes, that it one way of saying it, Lady Marian. I would like Lord Huntingdon to prevent it."

"Why do you need Robin? Can you not run away together, be married in Hauersegg?"

"It is not so easy. Certainly, you know that yourself." Alan's tone was softer, extinguishing at the end like a note plucked from his lute. Aye, I knew very well that an elopement was easier said than done. Both Alan and Lucy and Robin and I seemed to be near the breaking point beneath Fortune's wheel.

"Harold has not let Lucy leave the house since he arranged her marriage," Alan said.

"Tell me she is not kept under lock and key?" I could scarcely imagine a minstrel's dwelling resembling a fortress in any respect.

Alan shifted his weight from turn-shoe to turn-shoe, their pointed toes approaching a sad state of disrepair.

"In truth, my lady, I threatened Harold. I told him that if he would not respect my prior betrothal to Lucy, I would take her by force. He told Sir Christobel, and she has been taken to his manor, with her mother, to stay until the marriage day."