BETRAYERS GAME - Preview - CH. 2 - The Silent Thistle Retreat

When the first church bells rang from the chapel in the village, the knights began to rise. Robin ignored their heavy footfalls and inebriated groans to sleep further. His valet crept in not long thereafter and began to pack his belongings quietly around him. When the scrawny fellow attempted to drag the fully packed trunk across the floor, Robin called for a stronger attendant to help instead. They carried the trunk out into the castle lawn and onto the waiting cart. It was already half filled with long linen covered cylinders and two crates bound with leather straps.

“What is all this?”

Eleanor arrived with another pair of Peveril guards. She peeked into the cart then stepped aside to allow them to load her cedar chest. She thanked them and addressed Robin's query.  

“Looks like the carpets and rushmats, then perhaps the dishes and dried food in the crates.”

“Oh thank heavens, that must mean we are not coming back to this rock.”

Eleanor hummed thoughtfully in agreement, checking the brass locks on her chest.; “Pa seems to think you’d have more pause, what with your fondness for the shepherdess.”

“Without all this,” said Robin, nodding to the cart. “I can make it here in one night. Besides, Marian knows that I must come and go. That’s how it’s always been.”

“Always? How long have you been with her?”

“Now and again since we were 14, maybe. What?”

Eleanor had raised her eyebrows as she led them down the hill towards the stalleymaster.

“Nothing, I think that your commitment speaks well for you, but you’ll want a wife. Won’t you?”

He shrugged. King Richard kept a lively court. Robin never wanted for a woman’s attention whether in Normandy or the High Peaks. His mother warned him against an ambitious marriage for as the youngest son he would be better served to send himself away to priesthood. She never expected the barony to fall to him. The stablehands wrangled the veritable herd of fresh faced horses waiting to be hitched or taken by their knight. Eleanor and Robin were directed down the sloping castle lawn to three saddled and ready stallions waiting near the east gate.  He recognized his favorite peppered pony immediately and on the back of the dark bay horse next to it was his father’s large saddle with its alabaster capped horn. 

“So he is coming then?” said Robin.

“Seems like it.”

“He could have taken the offer to stay behind, you know? I cannot remember a time when they didn’t resolve to send us away, often alone.”

His sister patted the nuzzle of her liver chestnut horse thoughtfully. Robin freed both their reins and continued ranting; “At least mother could always be found in Nottingham. We barely ever saw him! Why does he feel like he can act in our collective interest now?”

“Perhaps he just wants to try,” she said, hoisting herself effortlessly into her saddle at pace with Robin. “Even Ione said he used to be different.”

Their lost brother’s names lingered in her word choice as their horses stamped the ground below. She often avoided speaking of them directly, but William and Gideon used to insist that something had changed when Eleanor was born. Lord Roger had been a doting father to them, but what comfort was that to ignored children. The trumpet blared from the turrets and they turned to see John and his knights at the top of castle hill. They were a far less humble group now in red and black chevron surcoats, and, in the case of the prince, an ermine shoulder mantle. Eager steeds passed into their master’s hands.

Behind Robin and Eleanor the gate creaked open. Prince John readied to ride and cantered towards them. He spoke out, adjusting his volume as he drew near, taking deep breaths of the mist.

“Ah, this is a crisp English morning. Rest well? Ready for the journey ahead?”

“What contingency if we aren’t?” asked Robin.

“None of course, but I can send arrangements ahead of us as is my gracious way,” he said, putting his bejeweled hand to his chest.

“I’m uninterested in owing you a favor.”

“Very well, and what about you, my Lady Eleanor? A new gown, perhaps?”

“No, thank you,” she replied, remaining expertly obscured by the brim of her riding cap.

“Pitiable. I can’t imagine you’ve had access to French seamstresses here and your skillful stitchwork will only get you so far. The ride is long enough, you may change your mind. The time for grief is over, now we must embrace our future.”

He ceased trying to catch her eyeline and kicked his steed. In a cloud of dust, he and the knights galloped out the gates and past the village. Eleanor looked up to watch them go, but Robin could not read her expression. He wondered what Prince John had to say when he followed her out of the hall the previous evening. Only long enough to have spoken a few words, but still they had been alone. Robin found it strange. 

“Come on, let’s take a ride.”

Robin then jolted his horse off down into the dales without waiting for a response. It didn’t take long for him to hear it in the form of Eleanor in pursuit as he turned at the bottom of the hill to cut through the cliffs under the castle. When they emerged in the dales, he slowed up at a thatched homestead. A shepherd, named Sam, with his dog at his side looked up from his shearing as the nobles appeared. He released the sheep bounding off with the others as he ducked into his home. The dog bolted up to Robin with a playful, familiar tail.

“What are we doing here,” said Eleanor quietly, circling close to him.

“I have to make my farewells.”

“Now?” 

“I can't write to her!” he jabbed back. “And unless you want to share whatever coy business you have with Lackland, I suggest you let me be.”

“We should carry on.” 

Reproachful, she trailed off towards where the sheep were grazing and Marian emerged from within the house with her arms crossed. She whistled to recall her dog from following the noblewoman. There was a steely look on her freckled face. Robin beamed at her scowl. He felt like the same little boy that had run away from Peveril castle in retreat from the severe tutelage of his swordmaster only to come face-to-brandished hay-pick of this straight-browed girl.

“What brings you down, keeper of my own heart?” 

“You’re leaving.”

“Dear maiden, have you not wished for a good knight to come and whisk you away,” he said, loftily in courtly language which he knew she couldn’t understand. “I can show you Arthur’s Round Table.”

“Is this poetry?”

Marian touched the reins and nuzzled her face against the pony. It snuffed gently at her and she melted a little.

“I could take you with me,” he sang back in her dialect. “You are more beautiful than any noblewoman, any princess. And I want to grow old with you.”

“Do the other one,” she said, finally smiling. She looked past him across the field. “That’s your sister, isn’t it?”

“Yes, that’s Eleanor.”

“So then you are leaving?”

He could feel so many of the thoughts behind her eyes, echoes of their last conversation. When he told her about the rumored herald that night, he thought he could be sheriff and it stoked something different in her. Doubts that he did not have the time to quell. He drew from within his stirrup satchel a pouch of marks and angels which he dropped into her hands. She was not impressed but still tucked it discreetly into her apron.

“I am,” he admitted. “But I wanted to bring you this?”

“I’m not a beggar.”

“I only hope to make things easier and I’ll be back.”

“Sure.”

“Marian…”

She was so doubtful and lovely. He could feel the distance between them growing and wanted to bridge it, but Eleanor called him from the pasture. Marian stepped away back towards her homestead.

“It’s not me. I will not be sheriff.”

She looked back at him with surprise but he chose not to wait for her response. It felt bitter just to say it. He rejoined Eleanor and they galloped off once more, over the crest and back towards the village of Castleton. They followed a beaten path next to the cliff-face until they approached the giant breathing mouth of a cavern. The sound of the hooves created a satisfying cacophony as it danced off the stone walls as tall as the grandest cathedrals. It was almost music.

“This place is enormous.”

“Yeah, you know, William brought me here the first time,” said Robin. “He thought I would like the way it echoes.”

He whistled and the sound bounced back at them like a flock of birds. Eleanor’s amazement grew. She was barely a year his elder, if it were not for the lighter coloring he had inherited from their mother, he supposed people would have thought they were twins as children; that is, if they had spent more than a few scattered seasons together. They took turns throwing sounds into the cave, starting very lightheartedly until Robin roared and Eleanor screamed with such force it brought a tear to her eye.

“Excellent!” said Robin. “Do you think I would have made a good sheriff?”

He knew he broached the topic too suddenly for her by the way levity slipped off her face. Had it even occurred to her that he might have wanted or expected it?

“It’s not an easy position… William considered every decision he ever made to the point of exhaustion. It made him old.”

“That isn’t really an answer.”

She took a deep breath.; “Maybe you would have been great, but maybe you would have found it stifling or morally compromising as he often found it or even unbearable like our uncle did. There is reason to be grateful it hasn’t fallen to you.”

“Grateful, right,” said Robin, rolling his eyes and turning away from Eleanor and the cave.

“If you want a particular answer you’re going to have to tell me what it is before you get so disappointed that I haven’t read your mind.”

“Would you have wanted it?”

“What?” she said, incredulous.

“It wouldn’t have been impossible. Lincoln has a woman sheriff. Did you ever think it could have been you?”

“Never,” she laughed.

Robin huffed as they mounted back on their horses. Their mother had prioritized Eleanor’s stately education, it kept her near Nottingham and the rest of the family far longer than the shuffle of his own childhood from guardian to guardian in every corner of the kingdom. Gideon would be with him sometimes and that made him feel closer than anyone else in the family, but when he joined Henry the Young King’s rebellion, it put the two of them at odds. Then, Gideon joined his fellow knights of the crossed ankle. Robin had not even been invited home for his burial, only visiting a year later after the rest of the family had returned to their own homes and courts. They left him to face it all alone. He wanted to believe Eleanor, but he was envious and a year of droll reminiscing had not brought them any closer. 

Their traveling train wound down through the main road of the village when Robin and Eleanor rejoined their father. The bells and banners were enough to draw most of the residents out to the street or window. The handmaiden was walking along collecting flowers, ribbons, and other oddities from the village girls for their very own princess. Robin clicked his tongue haughtily as Eleanor coveted some lacy trinket from an aproned lass of no more than ten.

“Such amiable tokens,” said Robin. “Where are the boys to send me off with a horn of ale or a hand pie?”

“If you’re so starved for attention,” said Eleanor. “You’ll find Nottingham court is the perfect place for an eligible man to forget his heartbreak.”

“And you know all about heartbreak, don’t you, sister?”

“I know how to avoid it.”

Robin tipped his hat to several villagers, including Much, another companion he made to avoid practicing swordwork. As if by design, the crooked-nosed, button-faced lad met Eleanor’s gaze and fell over himself to disappear into the bakery. Much was a loyal friend, but simple. He thought he could flirt with a noblewoman without consequences because she was kind to him, but Robin had advised him rightly to snuff things quickly. He thought he would find amusement in Eleanor’s reaction, but she had been just as secretive with her feelings as ever.

“Or deliver it upon a poor baker?” he said cooly, but it turned his sister’s eyes to daggers all the same. “Sorry, sorry, today is an odd day and I am incorrigible. What would you do in my place?”

“Be engaged by Michaelmas.”

With that, she took off, cutting down a side road with her private guard breaking off instinctively after her. Robin had been the one to cloak their conversation with irony, so he was left to parse out whether or not Eleanor had been truly advisory with her comment.

Southward they marched for many hours. They carried through pastures of sheep and goats, orchards, and fields alight with sprouts of their upcoming bounty. They passed by an orchard marked with fine walls, ten stones tall and decorative tiling on the top. The sweet pear’s blooms were dripping away in the warmer weather, filling the air with the smell of petals wilting into the soft soil. 

Instead of thinking of the skin at the crook of Marian’s neck, he tried to remember which holding he would find if he followed the wall. Dry tomes and maps which never held his interest for long and the drone of his eldest brother’s voice. Finally he mentally located the Lordly Orchard House, a cottage of oaken logs rented by the harvest master, flying the agricultural banners of the Peveril House; cerulean with three bushels of grain. He knew that they would soon be to their resting point for the day.

Over the next glen a lonely tower beckoned them forward to an eel catching village and shallow river crossing called Birchen Edge. An old man, the captain of this keep, greeted them at the doors with his entire ranks. A meager eight, four archers, four pikeman, all dressed in faded livery. Their regiment was dwarfed by the dozens of Peveril Flag Guards and attendants in tow with the nobles.

“Please be presented to your well kept and guarded tower at Birchen Edge, Lords Peveril, our Lady, Eleanor Peveril.”

The captain bellowed as if his volume would make up for lack of trumpet, horn, or drum, but all it did was inform Robin of how deep in the barrel he had been prior to their arrival. He didn’t know if it were this or the whole day riding, but being a collective ‘lords’, while his sister received the unearned veneration of ‘our lady’, irritated him. He ignored the itching inadequacies and shut himself into one of the dank bedchambers to sleep, tossing only his quiver, bow, and boots aside.

Once sufficiently rested, Robin returned promptly to his boots and bow. And crawled up the ladder to the ramparts. Two guards were there overlooking the domain in their protection and conversing merrily of the village’s upcoming celebration of the solstice. Both were archers; one was a marksman, denoted by black cords on his shoulders. Robin lingered in the shadowed attics of the tower, not bothering to announce himself or intrude on their conversation as they passed a horn of ale between them.

“Aye, here he comes,” said the marksman.

“Just as I said,” said his mate.

The figure of a giant man swept out of the wood. From the way he crouched and lumbered down behind fences and hay bales at the outskirts of the village, Robin could tell he was oaken in size but as quick as a mouse.

“Who has business at this hour?” said Robin.

“Lord Peveril!”

Their horn clattered to the ground as they stammered and bowed. Robin was far more concerned with the figure being lost to the shapes and shadows of the village proper, so harkened them back to their post.

“Speak now and tell me who calls to our good village so late in the night?”

“Tis the outlaw called Little John,” said the undecorated archer, finally. 

“If you know for certain,” replied Robin. “Why aren’t we after him?”

“Err… He does all his business in Sherwood, you see,” continued the archer. “And Captain says that so long as it stays that way then he is the Crownwood Regiment’s problem, not ours.”

Robin clapped his bannerman archer on the shoulder; “Is that true?”

“Yes, my lord,” said the marksman.

“So we will leave it for the sheriff of Nottingham to deal with?” said Robin, amused.

“Yes, my lord, that is unless you command-”

“No, no, but enlighten me, why does this villian honor such an agreement?”

“He may not know of it. But he’s here often enough I’d wager it’s his favorite lass he’s visiting,” said the marksman, comfortably. 

“Drink to that!” said Robin.

“Aye, but you shocked the horn right out of our hands. Here, Good Thomas, run and get us a fresh draw,” said the marksman to his mate.

Robin stayed with the guards until they found the bottom of the horn again just after the bells could be heard tolling midnight from an unseen abbey. Only an owl stirred in the darkness as they kept their posts. He felt disappointment when there were no further movements from the hidden outlaw. 

“So in what sort of disorderly house does Little John keep his lady?”

The guards exchanged looks as if this was by far the most sensitive bit of information that they had to disclose, but they parted with it all the same. Since their party planned to be gone by dawn, Robin set out to the village immediately to see if he could cross paths with the outlawed Little John. A welcome reprieve from his boredom.

He followed the directions as relayed and came upon a mossy sloped house with a little clover lawn and a matching stone bench from which two ladies draped in wrinkled gauze waved to him. Robin tipped his bycocket and ducked through the open door.

Inside he found a confining little hall dressed like a tavern, lit by lanterns. Fragrant bushels of lavender and rosehips adorned the posts. Along one side of the room was a small bar with four empty stools and in the other was a pensieve looking lady playing a tune on a lap harp.

“Welcome to the Silent Thistle Retreat, sir archer,” said the strapping barkeep in a Lincoln green apron and bar sleeves. “Can I get you a mead or sweet wine?”

“Mead,” he said, offering the horn he had kept from the guardsmen.

He looked up and around. There were two more ladies peeking around a pillar from the second floor balcony. When Robin caught their eye and smiled. They squealed and darted away into a room beyond, muffled conversation erupted from within of only women’s voices.

“Are there no other customers?”

“Last one was off just before you came in,” said the barkeep, returning Robin’s horn filled to the brim. “And we don’t often see noblemen.”

“Hardly, I am but a knight of the good King Richard the Lionheart!”

The barkeep regarded him skeptically; “Then a fine knight you must be to travel with the Peverils. And to bear such fine engravings in your bow. And wear golden adornments on your cloak.”

“Aye, I suppose I should dress more consciously when I come to such a rough place as this,” said Robin, placing a stack of silver angels neatly on the bar. “I hear there are outlaws about.”

“Outlaws? This is a village of drunkards, eel-fishers and basket weavers.”

The barkeep smirked. Robin knew he was likely used to haggling with eel catchers and peasants begging for a scrap of attention from his collection. When the barkeep pushed open a panel in the wall behind him several women emerged, including one of the women who had spotted him previously. Robin showed his neck confidently as he spilled further mead into his breadless stomach. 

“You know that is precisely what I thought, but then I watched Little John break from the woods and visit this establishment only hours ago.”

“And d’you suppose you are going to be the one to serve the bailiff’s warrant,” said a thundering voice from the stairwell.

Out clambered a giant, broader than any man he’d ever seen by two palms on each shoulder and taller by a plume. He growled; “Little knight of the longbow.”

“No, you would best me easily in close quarters such as these,” said Robin, laughing. “I was just marveling at the torment you rain upon the Crownwood.”

“What torment! The only trouble I cause keeps my kin from going hungry and you best step outside with me if you think it is just these quarters that assume my victory.”

The ladies had decorated the room with their statuesques forms; standing along a window frame or leaning against a chair, one sat with her companion in her lap, stroking their long coiled red curls. They seemed wholly unconcerned with the escalation but Robin found himself backing away as Little John flexed up to his full height. He grabbed a quarter staff of such frightening magnitude Robin mistook it for a beam of the building itself. 

“Worry not,” said Robin, defensively. “And settle. As I said, only marveling, but I have heard that your bailiff’s warrant may soon be a sheriff’s warrant.”

“Speak your name,” said the barkeep, firmly. “For what is your word without your name behind it.”

“I am Robin Greenleaf,” said Robin. 

A chorus of giggles went around the ladies as his new acquaintances exchanged looks.

“It’s the first name that’s the problem, isn’t it? There’s a hundred Johns and Geoffreys, but only old lady Peveril called one of her babes Robin.”

“Would William have been better suited,” said Robin.

“Exactly,” said the barkeep. “Like I am Will Stathelocke.”

“Since you have clearly pieced it all together, forsooth I am Sir William Robin Peveril, grandson of Williams’ all the way back to the fucking king of Northhumbria.”

“So a Peveril comes to tell us there is to be a new sheriff?” said Little John, rotating his staff slowly in the palm of his hand. “How delightful.”

“Announced tomorrow,” said Robin. “I hear that clearing the wood for the hunts will be a high priority for him.”

“Tomorrow, huh?”

“Peace, John,” murmured Stathelocke.

Robin grinned and craned his neck to the ladies as another fellow entered the cramped bar. The blond seemed uninterested in business and so made her way to the bar, while Stathelocke gestured for the ladies to attend to him. He kept a watchful eye on Robin and the seething outlaw. 

“Perhaps you should have come tomorrow then? You could have something useful for us, like a name.”

“I tend to agree, but Lackland has withheld those details to lure lords to court.”

“Seems dangerous to follow a lure,” said the woman, tracing her fingers along the hem of his shoulder. 

Up close Robin could see that she was boney and underweight with untidy repairs on her faded red dress. If she banished Marian from his mind for a moment, she might find herself with the coin for a new one. He murmured to her; “I don’t fear a turncoat.”

All at once, Little John lunged forward and seized Robin by the scruff of his neck. He didn’t know what had incited it, but there was no time to consider with his face smashed against the bar.

“Is it you?”

He pressed Robin’s skull harder into the bar as he flailed, scraping about, desperately, for anything to break free.

“No, no! It’s not me.”

“John don’t hurt him,” cried the woman, pounding feebly.

“If you are lying, I’ll kill you, you fucking cur. You don’t fear a turncoat?! And I don’t fear the block.”

Robin’s vision began to lighten and his ears rang. With a flick of the giant’s wrist, Robin crashed through one of the tables, sending the ladies to scatter and the prospective patron to make a hasty departure. Robin’s breath was gone from his chest. The blonde woman helped him to his feet and in the swirling, he could see Little John ducking back into the hidden staircase as Will Stathelock wiped up the mess at the bar, unbothered, even entertained by the chaos erupting around him. When Robin felt steady he yanked his arm free, spit blood to the floor, and left with the barman calling after him.

“Greenleaf is what the regiment calls their cloaks, bet you didn’t think any of us simple folks would know that? Did ye? Pompous bastard!”

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