Juliana Garnett by The Baron Read Free Book Online Page B

held vertically, while her right hand drew back the string and arrow until knuckles and goose-feathers grazed the angle of her jaw. An instant’s pause before her fingers snapped free, then arrow left string in a sizzling hiss. It was a smooth motion with an imperceptible pause—tension released the moment the arrow was free. Five more followed swiftly, a shower of deadly ash to join the cloth-yard arrows being fired so quickly that there was scarce a pause in the loud humming until the monks were ringed by a prickly barrier.
    “Leave the coffers and go in peace,” came the demand from dense foliage—Will’s voice, harsh and determined. “No harm will come to you.”
    Shadowed faces, skittish horses, and a flurry of brown-robed Normans milled in the newly barricaded road. Low debate was quickly followed by the unfastening of straps that held the coffer atop one of the horses; the sound of the chest landing in the middle of the rutted track was brittle and weighted.
    “It is all we have.” The voice was muffled by his cowl. “Do you steal from the church?”
    Laughter, then: “Why not? Even the king steals from the church. And I have no patience with fat and gluttonous monks when my own belly gripes.” Another arrow flew, singing into the grassy verge along the road. “Be on your way. The tithe has been paid for this day, Brother Monk.”
    Lowering the longbow, Jane expelled breath from her lungs in a disbelieving gust. The tax men turned their mounts in haste, spurring toward Edwinstowe. It had been far easier than she had dreamed. No fierce Norman resistance, and now the coffer lay abandoned. A veritable fortune, if Will was right; taxes from Welbeck Abbey and villages along the way to Nottingham, wrung from citizens already bled dry. Their return would be welcome.
    She leaned against the misshapen arch of oak hollow and observed the road, empty of all save bristling arrows and Norman silver. In the silence a raven beat heavy wings and settled atop the stark horn of an oak that had been blasted by lightning. A shadow separated from the density and became distinct as Will Scarlett moved from the trees onto the road.
    Caution marked his step, the bow held loosely in front of him, an arrow nocked for swift use. Nothing stirred, not even echoes from fleeing Normans. Will knelt beside the coffer. A heavy lock dangled from an iron clasp, clunking against wood and studded leather. He rattled it, cursed, and called for Little John.
    “Lend thy great strength, ere we spend all day here.”
    “Bring it with us,” Little John said, emerging from the wood to stand beside Will. “It can be opened later.”
    Will shot him a frown. “It is too clumsy and heavy to carry with us, and will be too obvious. We brought hemp sacks to bear the coin more easily. Can you not open this accurst strongbox?”
    “Aye, move thy arse from my way, and I will see it done so we may be swiftly gone.” As Will complied, John lay aside his bow and quarterstaff to kneel in the road. Iron and wood stoutly resisted even his impressive strength; his muscles strained and his face grew red with effort as he sought to pry open the hinges that held it fast shut.
    Jane remained at a distance, while men she recognized came from the wood to lend their advice and might. A faint smile plied her lips. Alan’s girth had thickened with the years, but he was still a comely man. Clym of the Clough knelt beside Little John, nudging aside William l’Cloudisely in his impatience to open the coffer.
    Familiar companions; reminders of childhood days spent with Robin: trodding greenwood paths in her uncle’s shadow, eager for his company despite her mother’s despair at her rebellious daughter’s bent for adventure, rather than mundane lessons that more befitted the only daughter of a Saxon knight.
    Indulging reminiscence, she came lately to the sight of riders approaching. A ringing shout and the Normans were upon them, swords flashing death and vengeance in