The Heirs of Locksley (The Robin Hood Stories 2)

She seemed a quiet young woman, tall and lovely, and those among the spectators who knew her mother agreed that she was very like her, if not as refined. That came from growing up in the northern wilds, away from civilizing influences.

They shot a second set. Lady Mary once again made a tight cluster of arrows. The archery master cleared out half the archers, ordered the targets moved back. The two Locksley siblings remained, along with the surly man with the longbow, Ranulf FitzHugh, who kept glaring at the young lady.

As they lined up, fingers on bowstrings, Ranulf shouted with sudden temper, “You should not be here! It’s an insult!”

Likely, this was meant to make her flinch—the stewards and spectators nearby did. But she didn’t. She let out the tension in her bowstring and stared at him. Just stared, until he looked away.

“Switch places with me, Mary,” John murmured.

“It’s all right,” she replied. “Can’t let a little wind bother me, can I?”

Ranulf shot badly that round. When the archery master culled the field again, he was cut. So was the Locksley boy. He didn’t seem to mind. Only three archers remained.

The king called Lord John to him. The young man knelt at Henry’s feet.

“How does she do it?” Henry asked him.

One might have expected the son of Robin Hood to spin a tale, to say it was magic, their father’s spirit, the hand of God, some mysterious quality that only came from drinking the water of the springs that bubbled up in Sherwood Forest. He said nothing like this.

“Watch, sire. You see, she stands solid. Nothing wavers. When she aims, the aim stays true. She moves the same every time, drawing to exactly the same point on her chin. Her feet never shift. Now see Master Gilbert there. He’s very good, but he isn’t so consistent. He doesn’t hold himself still. His hips swing, his shoulders buckle. He stands a little different each time, so he cannot make his arrows stay true. This might be enough for him to hit a broad target, bring down a stag if there’s no wind. He’s a willow, and Mary is an oak.” John would never admit his pride of Mary to her outright, but he would brag to anyone, outside her hearing.

“I see it,” Henry said, wonderingly. “Have you just revealed to me the secret of Robin Hood’s shooting?”

John chuckled. “The secret is practice, nothing more. Anyone could tell you that.”

“She’s very good.”

Mary had just released her sixth arrow this round, and John held his breath, hoping this one would split one of the others. But no. It merely tore off some of the previous arrow’s fletching. That would annoy her.

“She once said that the sap of Sherwood Forest runs in the marrow of our bones. I think she’s right.”

A few of those there, one or two of the older barons and their attendants, a couple of grizzled foresters who had come away from their northern woodlands, had once watched a different archery contest and couldn’t help but make comparisons. The girl’s father had been flashier, but this one—this one was steadier. If she were a boy, they might wish her for their own guard. Put her on the wall in a siege, no one would get past her.

Ranulf kept calling out, shouting insults that grew harder to ignore. John watched the man closely, and when he picked up a small stone, hefting it as if meaning to throw it, he could no longer keep still.

“I beg your

pardon, sire. I must leave you for a moment.” He didn’t wait for permission, which he should have done if he was being proper, but there wasn’t time. He went over and grabbed Ranulf’s wrist. The man was so startled, the stone dropped from his hand. “Can’t stand to have her win, is that it? Or are you so shamed at being outshot by a woman that you must hurt her?”

“What—”

He ought to call the man out. Draw swords, run him through right here for being churlish and unchivalrous and simply awful. But that would start something John likely couldn’t finish. That would be fighting this man on his own ground.

“Never mind,” John said, and donned a sly grin. “Shame fades in time.” He patted the man’s cheek, just shy of a slap.

“How dare you—” Ranulf batted away John’s arm and swung a punch. John managed to duck and drew back to drive a blow of his own in the man’s belly, but he was grabbed and hauled back. The king’s guards had intervened, two of them holding fast to John, two to Ranulf, keeping them apart. Gathered courtiers watched tensely, maybe even eagerly. John straightened and tried to look as contrite as possible.

“All is well,” he murmured. “I apologize for the outburst.”

Ranulf jerked himself from the guards’ grasps, and the crowd sighed. At a signal from the tall bishop in black, the guards stepped away. John kept a space between them, waiting to see what the other would do next. After a last glare, Ranulf made a quick bow to the king and stormed away.

“Lord John, I see you have your father’s temper,” the bishop in black said, as if that ought to be an insult. His accent was decidedly French.

A second councilor, the one most often seen at the king’s other shoulder, and never far away from the bishop in black, was a shorter, fairer man, with a heavy chain of office draped over his shoulders and unbowed by the weight of it.

He looked the bishop up and down and said, “Our fierce young Englishmen must seem so troublesome to you, my lord bishop.”

The bishop offered a thin, indulgent smile. “Only when they overdrink, as Englishmen are wont.”