Bluebeard and the Outlaw by Tara Grayce
Chapter 6
I was torn. I had saved the duke’s life, yet I still planned to kill him. That wasn’t a comfortable place to be in, especially as I played the lady of the castle and saw to the care of the villagers while they waited for the rain to stop and the flood to recede.
No matter his actions in saving the dog, I had to stay focused. One day, he was going to try to kill me, and I couldn’t afford to hesitate when the time came to kill him first. I might be a woman drawn to danger, but risking my heart was one danger from which even I fled.
* * *
As the early dawn sunlight filtered through the windows behind me, I shuffled through the papers on the duke’s desk. There were calculations on how bad the harvest would be due to both the drought and the past week of flooding, estimations of how much food would have to be imported to feed the village and castle folk, how much importing that food would cost, and how much the king intended to tax the people to cover this.
All very interesting, but not what I was looking for. After extensive exploration of the castle, I had finally found a hallway of what appeared to be vaults in the lower levels of the castle under the tower with the magical creature mounts and the secretive door. The vaults too had the lingering sense of fae magic, just like the small door.
But the area was so well guarded and patrolled that I hadn’t had a chance to pick the locks and sneak into the rooms. Unless I had a distraction to draw away the guards, I wasn’t getting into those vaults.
The duke’s desk sat with its back to a bank of four windows, shining plenty of early morning light onto the papers before me now that the rain had finally stopped. Bookshelves covered the wall to my left from floor to ceiling while the door to the room was set across from the desk.
To my right, the second half of the room was more casual with a large fireplace, several cushioned chairs, and a sideboard that held brandy and glasses.
I growled and tapped the papers into the neat stacks they had been in originally. Nothing to tell me how much wealth was hidden in those vaults. Nor any information on what kind of magical fae booby-traps the duke might have laid for anyone trying to steal his riches. I had been married to him for a week, and I had little to show for it.
Footsteps and voices came from the hall outside the study. I froze, my breath catching as the duke’s deep tones rumbled through the closed door.
Blast. He normally spent the mornings drilling with his guards and patrolling the forest. He shouldn’t be here.
I didn’t have time to waste wondering why he was there. The important thing was that he was headed for his study, and I needed to hide.
I glanced under the desk, then quickly dismissed it. If the duke came around this side of the desk, he would see me in a heartbeat.
The bookshelves provided no shelter. I didn’t have time to climb out the window.
The sideboard crouched along the center of the wall to my right, leaving a shadowed corner between it and the wall. One of the cushioned chairs from the fireplace was set only a foot in front of that corner, leaving a space where I could crouch. I had chosen a deep gray dress since I had been planning to snoop, and it would thankfully blend into the stones of the wall.
It wasn’t the best hiding place. If the duke walked over to that sideboard for a glass of brandy, then I would be spotted.
I had no other choice.
As the doorknob rattled, I raced across the room, the wool carpet muffling the boots I was wearing beneath my dress, and I flung myself over the chair arm and dropped into the corner. I curled into the corner as the door swung open.
I pressed my face against the back of the chair where my pale face and hair would be hidden. While it was tempting to peek out, I resisted the urge. If I could see them, then they could see me if they looked in my direction. At this point, movement on my part would draw their notice.
The door clicked shut, then muffled sounds of boots on the carpet stalked across the room. The chair I had vacated creaked, and I hoped the leather had cooled to the point that the new occupant couldn’t tell someone else had recently been there.
Another chair gave the groan of shifting wood and leather as another person sat across from the desk. Then, Sheriff Reinhault’s tenor pierced the tense silence. “You should give me free rein. Your king is not pleased at your recent failure to protect the tax shipment. This summons to his court might be the king’s attempt to find a way to remove you as duke.”
They were talking about that last heist I had pulled off before marrying the duke. In the week and a half since then, word of that theft must have reached the king and now his answering summons had been sent back to the duke to take him to task in person for his failures.
I probably shouldn’t feel so gleeful at the thought of the duke squirming before the king.
“He won’t. He can’t.” Duke Guy’s deep voice had a firmness to it. Almost a warning. Why? Did he think he could threaten the king to prevent his removal?
He did have a point. The king might want to replace the duke, but even he might not have that power. No matter how much Duke Guy might be reviled by his fellow dukes, barons, and lords throughout the kingdom, they would band together to protect him and his position if the king tried to remove him. The other lords wouldn’t want to give the king the power to remove any of them at will.
“Perhaps he can’t. But he can send his soldiers to occupy your castle while leaving you as a powerless figurehead.” Sheriff Reinhault’s voice lowered, though it was still audible from my crouched position behind the chair. “That is something I can’t allow.”
“No, I suppose you can’t.” Duke Guy heaved a weary sigh, and I could almost see him rubbing his temples as he seemed wont to do. “Then what do you suggest I do? This outlaw has been a thorn in my side for years. That isn’t going to change by the time I face the king. Are you sure he isn’t a fae? He seems to make use of the faerie circles with impunity.”
I let myself smirk, since I was fully hidden behind the chair. No, not a fae. Just a woman well-trained in the faerie paths by her forester parents.
“I do not believe he is fae. But his use of the circles is curious.” Sheriff Reinhault trailed off, as if thinking. “Perhaps you need a success to present to the king. If you delay your departure by a few days, you can take the time to trap the Hood.”
“The king will not be pleased if I delay in answering his summons.” The duke’s deepening tone revealed that even someone infamous still feared the king.
“If you fail, then, yes, the king will have yet one more thing for which to call you to account.” Sheriff Reinhault’s voice smoothed into an even richer tenor. “But if you can succeed in capturing the Hood, then you will arrive at the king’s castle in triumph instead of disgrace.”
Duke Guy gave a long sigh, as if giving in beneath the sheriff’s pressure. “It would not be too unusual, given the coming harvest, that I would delay a few days to make sure all was progressing well before I reported to the king. But our plan to capture the Hood must succeed, otherwise my situation with the king will be dire.”
“Of course.” Sheriff Reinhault’s chair squeaked, as if he was leaning forward. “Then we will have to set a trap from which this outlaw can’t escape. We must lure him out of his forest and his faerie circles.”
“Get him out of his home territory into ours.” Duke Guy’s tone turned thoughtful. “Perhaps an archery tournament, held here in the castle courtyard.”
“Do you think the outlaw would dare step foot in the castle, no matter the prize we offer?” I could almost picture Sheriff Reinhault shaking his head, his long blond queue brushing across his shoulders. “Perhaps the village would be better? It is more neutral.”
“Oh, he would dare. The Hood loves a good challenge too much to resist.” Duke Guy’s voice held a trace of a growl. “Besides, the villagers love the outlaw far too well. They would readily hide him from our men, should we try to apprehend him there. The love of the people is one of the weapons he uses so easily against us.”
I resisted the urge to shift. It was uncomfortable, hearing the duke read me so well.
No, not me. My persona as the Hood. It was part of the disguise I had built over the years, using parts of my personality to build a legend rather than a real person.
Still, the duke was right. This was a challenge the Hood wouldn’t turn down. As the duke and the sheriff discussed the details of their trap, my heart beat harder with the anticipation of the thrill. What an adventure it would be, winning the contest right under the nose of the duke!
Surely I could pull it off. After all, he thought he was taking the Hood out of his home in the forest onto the foreign territory of the castle.
But since my marriage to the duke, this castle was my home territory as much as the forest. I had more weapons and advantages than the duke realized.
* * *
At supper,I struggled to pretend to be surprised as the duke described the upcoming archery contest while we were slurping our soup course. Sheriff Reinhault wasn’t there, leaving just the two of us at the head of the long table. My plate had been set to the duke’s left, as was usual after my stunt on my first day here.
“It sounds like it will be a fun reprieve for the village after the flooding.” I kept my tone neutral as I stirred what remained of my soup. The villagers had just returned to the town, and they were in the process of rebuilding the bridge.
If I hadn’t known that the archery contest was a trap for the Hood, I would question why the duke was using his resources on an archery contest rather than on rebuilding efforts.
“Yes.” The duke’s flat tone didn’t seem to agree with me, exactly. It was almost like he didn’t approve of wasting time and energy on his own archery contest. “That is why I would like you to help organize it.”
I struggled to hold back my grin. He was making it just too easy, asking for my help to plan the trap for myself. I should have realized that he might ask, given that I was now the lady of Gysborn. In the past week, I had stepped into that role as we cared for the villagers taking shelter here at the castle while we all waited for the rain to cease and the flooding to dissipate.
I forced my tone and posture to remain casual. “I will do my best. A contest sounds like a lovely day. Perhaps we will invite traveling entertainers and put a wide call for archers. We might as well make a festival of it.”
“Whatever you wish.” Duke Guy dipped his spoon into his vegetable soup. “I should tell you, this contest is a trap for the outlaw the Hood.”
I choked on my swallow of soup and coughed. I hadn’t expected the duke to actually confide in me.
His heavy gaze rested on me. “I didn’t mean to distress you. His attack of your traveling party was a traumatic experience for you.”
Oh, right. He assumed I was coughing because I had been traumatized by the Hood’s supposed attack on my way here. I feigned a weak nod as I kept coughing to clear my lungs.
“During the archery contest, if you see the Hood, please point him out to Sheriff Reinhault, one of the guards, or me. We will make sure he never hurts you again.” Duke Guy’s expression turned soft, almost gentle.
I hated it when he turned all caring and compassionate. It made it so much harder to stay focused on killing him when he eventually tried to kill me.
“I’m sure you’ll keep me safe.” I tried to say that with a straight face. Even if I hadn’t been the Hood, the famed outlaw would only rob me. The duke would kill me. Of the two, the duke clearly posed the greater threat. I met the duke’s gaze and tried to appear innocent. “Are you sure the Hood is that much of a threat? Yes, he robbed me. But he claims to be an honorable man who is fighting for the villagers.”
The duke snorted and lounged against the back of his chair. “Don’t tell me that you have bought into that outlaw’s propaganda?”
“Propaganda? Is that what you think it is?” I pushed my soup bowl away and leaned my elbows on the table. I was genuinely curious. I had fought the duke as the Hood for years, yet this was the first time I could sit down and hear his side of that battle.
“Yes, propaganda. That outlaw claims to be honorable, but an honorable man doesn’t skulk in the shadows robbing tax collections and innocent travelers. An honorable man works hard, providing for his family and for others by the work of his hands. He doesn’t steal from the hard work of others.” Duke Guy’s face hardened, his dark eyes turning as flinty as his voice. “He claims to fight for the people, but with every robbery, he makes life worse for them.”
That stabbed me through my core. Surely not. Duke Guy was simply blinded by his own greed and hatred of everything that the Hood fought for. He claimed to respect the hard work of others, but he was the one getting rich by taxing them more than they could pay. He was the one who forced me into this.
I swallowed, but my voice still came out slightly rough. “How so?”
“With every tax shipment that the outlaw takes, the more soldiers the king sends to guard the next one.” Duke Guy’s jaw flexed beneath his thick beard. “And the king won’t provide those soldiers for free. Instead, he raises the taxes on Gysborn to pay for the men he is forced to send.”
No. No, that couldn’t be it at all. Surely I wasn’t making things worse. The villagers loved the Hood too much for me to be making things worse for them.
Besides, I had become the Hood back before the king had started sending soldiers. Duke Guy had already been raising taxes long before the king started doing so.
“And you place that extra tax burden on the poor villagers rather than taking it on yourself?” I couldn’t help the heat in my voice. Perhaps it was dangerous, giving away so much of my passion for this topic. But if I was lucky, the duke would chalk it up to the bonding I had done with the villagers in this past week while they sheltered at the castle.
For the first time since we started this conversation, the duke looked away. “It is not that simple. There is a right and a wrong way to do things, and this outlaw’s way is wrong.”
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Of course it wouldn’t seem that simple to him. Yet, the simple truth was that he was too greedy to use any of his own wealth to pay the taxes. He could condemn me for helping the villagers in the wrong way, but he was certainly not a better man than the Hood.
Didn’t the king realize what he was doing by continually raising the taxes? It was human nature to hold on to wealth. The greedy wouldn’t take those taxes onto themselves but would pass the real cost of the taxes to those below them.
I hardened my resolve. Perhaps he was partially right, and my continued raids were contributing to the problem. A good reason why this needed to be my final heist.
But I wasn’t the source of the problem. Duke Guy was. I had to bring him down once and for all. It didn’t matter if I had seen glimmers of honor such as the way he had sheltered the villagers and his heroics in saving the dog Daisy.
In his heart, he must be cruel. There was no other explanation for the way he had been taxing the villagers so harshly for so long.
* * *
That evening,I dressed in my Hood disguise, including leather gloves, tied the rope to a bedpost, then dropped the end out the window. I walked down the tower wall using the rope, and I reached the ground in less than a minute. After tucking the end of the rope into a shrub growing at the base of the wall where it would be less noticeable should a guard walk by, I set out into the darkness toward the forest.
Once the cool darkness of the Greenwood closed around me, I started whistling as I sauntered between the trees. After days of being locked inside stone walls, always on guard surrounded by my enemies, my muscles relaxed as I strolled through the forest. This was home.
As I neared the hideout spot that was closest to the duke’s castle, an answering whistle came from the darkness ahead a moment before a figure dropped from a tree.
Munch’s voice came from the blackness. “Robin? What are you doing here?”
“I have news to report, so I sneaked out of the castle.” I reached his side, so thankful to see one of my brothers safe and sound that I bumped my shoulder into his hard enough to send him staggering a step. “Are the others all here?”
Munch nodded, his head just a black silhouette against the dark forest. “We’ve been waiting for you to give the signal.”
As hard as it was, spending time in the castle surrounded by the duke, the sheriff, and guards who would gladly arrest me if they knew who I was, it must be worse for my brothers, waiting here in the Greenwood with nothing to do and no way of knowing what was happening.
As I pushed through the dense screen of underbrush, a faint glow filled the forest before I stepped into the orange light of the low-burning fire. My brothers sat on logs around the fire, though they jumped to their feet as I threw back my hood.
“Robin!” Will rushed to me, but it was John who got to me first. He wrapped me in a hug, lifting me off my feet.
I chuckled my loud, booming laugh that I didn’t dare let loose while pretending to be a lady back there at the castle. “Set me down!”
As soon as John placed me back on my feet, Will gripped my shoulders, sweeping his gaze up and down as if searching for injuries. “Are you truly all right? Has he tried to kill you?”
Munch, Marion, Tuck, and Alan all crowded in behind him and John.
“No, not yet. Which has been rather disappointing.” I grimaced and patted the knife at my side. “He mostly avoids me.”
“That’s a good thing.” Will’s grip tightened on my shoulders. “You shouldn’t sound so annoyed by that.”
“Of course, I’m annoyed! It’s making it terribly tricky to wheedle information out of him.” I extracted myself out of Will’s grip, only to be swept up in Alan’s hug instead.
After being passed from Alan to Tuck’s back-pounding and Marion’s awkward I’m-glad-you’re-not-dead half-hug, I finally pulled free. I gestured to the logs around the fire. “But I managed to find out something useful this morning while I was snooping through the duke’s study.”
Munch and Marion sat promptly, and Tuck, Alan, and John started in that direction. But Will lingered, still studying me. “Did you find something in his paperwork?”
“No, his papers were basically useless.” I pushed past Will and swept my cloak out of the way before I lounged on the nearest log. “It was what I overheard when the duke and the sheriff came into the room while I was still in there.”
“What?” Will’s voice rose an octave from behind me. “Did they catch you?”
“Obviously not.” I gestured to the last remaining log. “Come on, Will, sit down and let me talk.”
“Look at her. She’s fine. And she’s got that smirk of hers that says this plan is going to be good.” Alan rolled his eyes. “Now stop dallying so the rest of us can hear it.”
“Good isn’t what I’d call most of her plans.” Will grumbled, but he plopped onto the log, leaned his elbows on his knees, and went silent.
Quickly, I summarized the location of the treasure vaults below the tower and what I had overheard.
Will dropped his head into his hands. “You want to enter, don’t you?”
“Of course.” I pressed a hand over my heart. “Faint hearts never robbed a duke of all his treasure.”
Will just groaned. “Fine, fine. Just please tell me you don’t intend to do this all by yourself.”
“No, this is an adventure for all of my merry men.” I propped a boot on one of the outer stones around the fire, warming my toes as the autumn night turned crisp and cold around us.
Grinning, John gripped his quarterstaff with both hands. “How do we pull this off?”
“Oh, that part is going to be easy.” I leaned my elbows on my knees. “The duke put me in charge of planning it. At least, the archery contest part. He is planning the trap part.”
Will just sighed and shook his head. John slapped his knee, grinning. Munch and Marion both shook with their chuckles while Tuck waggled his ladle at me.
Alan threw back his head and laughed so hard he nearly fell off his log. “Only you, Robin, would be put in charge of planning a trap for yourself.”
I smirked back at all of them. “It’s going to be my greatest performance yet.”