Read Jennifer Roberson - [Robin Hood 01] for Free Online Page B

died because he took my place at Richard’s side.”
    “Your place,” she said. Then, with quiet directness, because she could not help herself, “Why were you not in it?”
    Self-contempt was unmistakable. “Because a Saracen warlord had already captured me.”
    She saw it clearly, paraded before her mind’s eye. “And so my father took your place. To protect his king. To keep the Lionheart safe.” Grief briefly spasmed in her face; she suppressed it with effort, knowing instinctively this man would despise helplessness, or what he perceived as a woman’s weakness. “And did he not do so, my lord? Did he not protect his king? The Lionheart yet lives.”
    “In prison,” he said grimly. “In Henry’s German fortress.”
    Anger blazed forth. “At least he lives! My father is dead a year!”
    A muscle twitched in his jaw. He offered her no answer.
    Marian drew breath, trying to steady her voice. She had expected something other than anger, the quiet but powerful anger: this was an earl’s son. No doubt he had expected something else also, accustomed to deference. But she was already begun. “If he died at Richard’s feet, with you already captured, how did you know to write?”
    “He had asked me that morning. We shared a cup of wine.” The scar writhed briefly. “Whether he knew, I cannot say. It is thought some men know the hour of their death ... all I can tell you is he asked me, on my honor, to write you should he die.”
    The old pain was new again, exquisite in resoluteness. She could not help but murmur, “This is the worst yet.”
    “No,” he answered tightly. “I saw him die. In my place, he died ... while Saladin made me watch.”
    “Saladin.” She stared. “The Saracen himself?”
    “Salah al-Din. Salah al-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub.” The name, abruptly, was foreign, more foreign, with a different pronunciation; an alien phraseology she realized was, to him, proper and correct, and all too familiar. Not slurred and run together, as English tongues said it. As she herself had, not knowing any better.
    Salah al-Din. Saladin himself, the Lionheart’s devoted foe.
    The jaw muscle twitched again, as if Locksley himself heard the difference echoing in a chamber very far from the Holy Land. He raked a hand through his hair. “Helmless, I am not easily missed. Richard kept me by his side—” He cut himself off, then continued. “The Saracens learned very quickly to look for me if they wanted Richard. Richard was the target. Richard was the goal. Once we knew it, I protested”—again the scar writhed—“but Richard would not hear of it. I was his banner ...” Locksley’s tone was ugly. “They took me, then killed your father as he tried to fill the hole.”
    It occurred to her somewhat laggardly that men in the throes of great guilt often lie about their actions. She did not doubt her father died as Locksley told her. She did not even doubt the truth of his explanation. What she doubted was that no matter what he said, the son of an earl would hardly take the time to write to a knight’s daughter. Particularly if, as he said, he was taken prisoner.
    Marian cleared her throat, purposefully smoothing heavy skirt folds to hide the trembling of anger in her fingers. “If you were captured just prior to my father’s death, how were you able to write?”
    Eyes narrowed. “I did not write at once. It had to wait, as did my ransom ... I wrote when I was free.”
    “How long ago?”
    He shrugged. “Eight months, perhaps nine.”
    “Eight months! You have been free that long, yet only now come home?”
    The jagged scar whitened. “I went to the Holy Land on Crusade. I swore oaths, Lady Marian.... Regardless of the circumstances, I do not easily forswear myself. I stayed as long as Richard needed me—” Abruptly, he altered the sentence. “When my service was completed, I set sail for England.”
    She drew breath, seeking strength and self-control, and recaptured courtesy. “So,” she said