“Never mind.” How was it she was the most nervous of them all? It wasn’t like she’d have to actually speak to the king. Even Eleanor seemed settled, holding on to Mary’s arm and glancing around with wide, interested eyes.
A herald called names. Lords approached and knelt before the king. Oaths were exchanged. Each meeting took only a minute or so. John ought to be remembering the names, as he realized he could not recall a single one he’d heard in the last ten minutes. Lady Marian would say he should mark each one and learn what he could about them, in case he needed the information later. Their mother was much better at court politics than all the rest of them put together; she should be the one here—
And then there was only one name before theirs. He squared his shoulders. This would be simple; all would be well. “Here we are. He’ll hardly notice us and this will all be over.”
“Are you well?” Mary asked their sister, who let go of her hand and clutched her skirt, standing up straight and proper. Her lips were locked in a tight line but she nodded. All these crowds, all these strangers, she must hate this, but she was being very brave. John tried to smile encouragingly but she was focused on the way ahead and did not see him.
Then it was their turn. “Lord John of Locksley, with Lady Mary and Lady Eleanor,” the herald announced.
The three siblings stood before King Henry.
His chair was too large for him, and he gripped the ends of the arms as if he expected it to tip over. He sat rigidly, with determination. How this must be trying his patience. At his age, John had only wanted to ride and shoot and practice swordplay. Did King Henry ever do anything but sit in chairs and look serious?
“My liege,” John said, and knelt at the place on the carpet that was scuffed from dozens of other knees. Behind him, he sensed Mary and Eleanor curtseying so deeply, they nearly touched the floor—they had spent the morning practicing. He had been paying enough attention to know what would follow: one of the bishops would tell him what he was swearing to, loyalty and tribute and all the rest. John would swear, the king would promise to follow the law and protect his servants, and then it would be over.
Instead, a young voice interrupted.
“Lord John of Locksley?” The king leaned forward in the great chair, curious, demanding.
The hall fell silent. Everyone was staring at him. Absolutely everyone. John’s heartbeat seemed very loud all of the sudden.
“Yes, Your Grace,” he said, making his voice clear. His French had an accent that was out of place in this court. He was so obviously English.
“Your father is Robin of Locksley?” King Henry asked. Several of his councilors murmured among themselves and looked discomfited. They remembered that name well.
“Yes, Your Grace.” He rather thought he knew what came next. The question was always the same.
“Do you know archery?” Suddenly Henry was very much a boy, not a king.
John smiled. He couldn’t not. This was familiar ground. He spoke to the boy, not the king. “I do. My father taught me.”
Henry’s eyes lit up. Much murmuring gossip among the courtiers answered this, as he knew it would. Everyone knew the stories about his father.
The king had a boyish smile to go with the smooth face and bright eyes. “We should like to see you shoot sometime.”
John was surprised to note that he also spoke French with an English accent.
“At your pleasure. But . . .” He glanced behind him. His sister would not thank him for this, even if he only spoke the truth. “I do not shoot so well as my sister, Lady Mary. Of all of us, she truly inherited my father’s gift.”
“A lady archer!” Henry exclaimed. “Is it true?”
Now all eyes were on Mary, and he could almost see her repressing the urge to throttle him, instead donning her most polite manners. She couldn’t be surprised that John threw her forward like this . . .
“My brother flatters me, Your Grace,” she said properly, elegantly. “But yes, I do shoot.”
“You will show us, yes?”
“At your pleasure, Your Grace,” she answered. Oh, John would catch hell from her later.
King Henry had bent the ear of the nearest councilor to him, a middle-aged bishop in a black coat, with dark eyes and a glaring manner. The councilor nodded, then King Henry did.
He announced, “We will hold an archery contest. A simple affair, all in fun, on the tournament grounds. Tomorrow. We will see you there, and anyone of our court who wishes to test themselves against you, and see who is the best.”
“Of course, Your Grace,” Mary said, curtseying even lower somehow. King Henry grinned happily.
“Sire, the oaths,” one of the other bishops put in. They had almost forgotten the business at hand. So, oaths of fealty were exchanged, and finally a steward gestured the three of them away.
They left the royal chamber and emerged in the hall outside, where the swarm of courtiers and attendants and hangers-on gathered, with much drinking and eating and talking and watching and scheming, and it was all just noise. Mary stopped and looked heavenward. Eleanor stood between them, grinning. She approved, at least.
“Aren’t you going to yell at me?” John asked. “Tell me that was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done, to draw the king’s attention like that—”
Mary started walking again. “On the contrary, I think Mother and Father will be most impressed at how you found a way to curry favor. I’m rather impressed myself.”
Well, that hadn’t been the reason at all; he’d only wanted to see if the boy would smile—“Then you don’t mind me throwing you into this?”
“I don’t mind shooting before the king. But the way everyone stared at me like I’m some kind of . . . a trained dancing bear!”
“People like dancing bears,” he offered.
“John!”
“We can’t escape Father’s reputation. We might as well use it, yes?”
“Well, then, if we’re going to shoot in a contest tomorrow, we’d best hurry home and check our bows.”
At least she’d stopped searching the crowd for William de Ros.
* * *
Once, four years earlier, Mary made an impossible shot, at dusk, in the forest, a hundred paces away from a line-thin target using a bad bow and worse arrow, her nose bleeding from where their kidnapper had struck her. She made the shot, just to spite the brute.
She had only gotten better since. But practicing archery was usually what she did to avoid people, not put herself in the center of the entire kingdom’s attention. She decided she might as well make a spectacle of it, so when it came time to dress for the match, she wore a kirtle of Lincoln green.
“Well,” her mother said when she saw. “You’ll leave them no doubt whose child you are.”
“I have given up arguing over it,” she answered. “And if William de Ros is there, best he know what he’ll be getting right up front.”
“Perhaps you should stop worrying so much about William de Ros.”
“Truly, I’m no longer sure he exists.”
“Oh, Mary. Have patience.”
The travelers who had come to Westminster for the coronation filled all the inns and manors and beds in town, so many of those there to pay homage spilled out into encampments in the countryside. It seemed a second town had sprung up, the companies of dozens of England’s knights and lords clustered in tents and pavilions, carts and wagons. The baron of Locksley camped apart from the others, near a sparse woodland of undersized alders, closest thing to a forest for miles around but it would have to do.