Lady Marian

Chapter 34

I did not know what time it was. The moon was not yet high above me, but the doors of all the houses and shops were closed and locked. The few windows were all shuttered, giving the thatched homes the appearance of sleeping dwarves in the wake of the giant castle. Peering out from behind a cobbler's shop, I looked about me for signs of the sheriff's guards. There were none.

Prompted by the deserted streets, I began running as fast as I could towards the castle. The air felt like ice in my lungs. I slowed my pace, pausing in a doorway to catch my breath. I looked up to see the stars shining in the night sky high above me. Which of those belonged to me and which to Robin, I wondered—and how crossed had they become? I rested my hand on my belly and willed myself forward.

In the forest I could move as silently as any stag, working my way from tree to tree until I had found my prey, whether it be man or beast. Now the town felt unfamiliar as I dodged from shadow to shadow on the winding street. I was the prey, caught between low thatched huts and narrow streets as exposed to me as a meadow to the doe.

The spire of Saint Mary's Church looked down on me. Crossing the road in front of the churchyard would be the greatest challenge. If Sir Guy had any guards posted through the town, it would be at this intersection.

I peered around an alehouse, peculiarly quiet at this hour, down the street. All seemed to be at rest. Taking a deep breath, I dashed across the paving stones and into the cemetery nestled into the churchyard. Pausing behind a gravestone, I listened again for the sound of guards. The wind shook a bare oak tree, causing its skeleton like shadow to tremble on the snowy ground around me. A shiver coursed through me as I picked my way from gravestone to gravestone, making myself no more than another shadow in the moonlight.

Around the corner of Market Street came the clanking of armour I had dreaded. Gasping, I dropped in front of a large gravestone, pressing myself into the snow and against the icy headstone. I willed that lying in the middle of the cemetery, with so many stones around me, the guards would pass by. It would take a brave man to tarry here, indeed. The trees skeleton shadows waved in the wind, as if nature herself was attempting to alert the soldiers to my presence.

The men crossed in front of the church, in double file with their swords gleaming in the moonlight and their battle axes pointed to the stars. My eyes followed them as they walked in formation, around in front of Saint Mary's, and along the route back to Nottingham Castle. I blinked in relief, pulling myself up from the freezing ground. As I did, my eyes fell on the gravestone that had provided me shelter.

Lady Héloise Fitzwalter and Son. Dead in the year of our Lord eleven hundred and ninety-one. The rest of her epitaph was obliterated by a frosty layer of snow and ice.

Shivering in the snow, I scraped away the frozen layers on my mother's gravestone with the hilt of my dagger.

"I'm frightened, Maman," I whispered.

The wind shook the oak tree again, sending shadows skittering across the snow and headstones. A cloud passed in front of the moon, leaving me squinting the darkness. I turned and leaned my back against the gravestone, laying my head over my knees.

"Robin came back, and we were married, Maman. We're going to have a child soon. You would have been so happy. It would have been a comfort to you to have one daughter settled so close, as you had always wished." I wiped away an errant tear running down my face. "It is better you are not here. You thought I did not know the truth, but I did. You tried very hard to hide it. Father is a cruel man, and now he is going to kill Robin."