Marian left them to it and went to the steps to sit by Eleanor. “Hello, sweetling.”
The girl glanced up, then back to the work in her hands. She didn’t say a word but shifted close to Marian, pressed up to her side, and didn’t complain when Marian put her arm around her and squeezed.
“How’ve you gotten on, then? Your brother and sister looking after you, or have you been marking all the trouble they’ve got into?”
Eleanor smiled, her face lighting up, as good as a laugh for her. Marian brushed a strand of sun-lightened hair out of her face.
The old wives round about said that Eleanor was a changeling, a queer unworldly thing, while the real child was stolen away by fae spirits. Punishment for her parents’ wild ways. Or more charitably, the Fair Folk wanted a bit of the legend for themselves and so took their third baby and left something else in her place. Quiet, knowing, haunted. No one ever told the stories in Marian’s hearing, but she knew. And knew they were wrong, even if she was the only one who looked in Eleanor’s eyes and saw her father’s spark there and Marian’s own watchful manner. Eleanor did not speak but she listened, she knew, and she was their own girl.
And would Robin bargain his youngest daughter away if it suited him, even if she couldn’t speak to say yes or no? No, that was where Marian would put her foot down.
If Eleanor didn’t speak, it wasn’t because she was changeling but because her siblings never let anyone get a word in edgewise. They were still at it, across the yard.
Robin scowled. “John, Mary, enough from both of you. There are no more outlaws in Sherwood.”
Mary put in, “But—” then clamped her mouth shut.
Marian frowned; Robin caught her gaze across the courtyard, then looked away.
Perhaps, he should have said. Perhaps there were no more outlaws in Sherwood.
* * *
Something had shifted, gone off-balance. When the lord and lady returned, everything should have gotten back to the way it was. Mary expected some kind of calm to return. But a simmering wrongness lingered. Mother and Father were in the middle of an argument, which must have been going on some time, as unhappy as they both were. They pretended all was well but Mary caught them exchanging scowls.
While her mother was gone, Mary had taken on some of the responsibilities of the lady of the manor. She had made decisions about the cooking and cleaning; she had taken care of Eleanor and made sure she ate and that her clothes were mended. She had held Marian’s keys for her. And now she gave them back and found herself at loose ends. But she didn’t want those keys, that responsibility. She would not inherit this place; John would. His future wife would hold the keys, and what was there for her then? A flattering, horrifying marriage. Or a convent. She had overheard talk about Eleanor taking vows and becoming a nun—a vow of silence would not be so difficult for her, their father had joked, but Marian had glared and said that Eleanor could do whatever she liked and if she wanted to stay at Locksley and get underfoot her whole life, well, John would just have to put up with her. They hadn’t said that about Mary.
Mary was as tall as her mother now, and she hadn’t noticed that before the months they were gone.
That evening, they held something of a feast to celebrate Robin and Marian’s return. They had brought gifts from London, a bit of silk and some spices from the Holy Land, and there were sweets and music. Robin told the story of facing King John and persuading him to the rightness of his cause. He was a good storyteller, expansive, his flattery becoming subtle mockery with a shift in tone. Her father walked a line between deference to the rightful King of England, a title and position he revered, and the old hatred of the man who now held that title.
It was exhausting. She picked at her food, picked at the seam in her kirtle, found herself slouching and tried to sit up straight, and wondered why she bothered.
A few days later, when the travelers had settled back into manor life, there was washing and mending to be done. Mary sat outside with her mother, sister, and some of the other women of the house. She wore a gown today, all proper, her hair neat and braided. And it wasn’t that she minded all this, the baskets of cloth and yarn and chatter of women that sounded like starlings. But she would blink and find herself staring out at the road, hands resting in her lap with tunic and needle, mid-stitch.
Will was putting John through his paces with sword and buckler to see if the boy had practiced while they were gone. Wooden swords clacked as they parried one way, then the other. Will pressed John back, invited John to press him. John had practiced, his blocks and thrusts were surer than they had been at the start of summer. Will grinned and seemed pleased, while John frowned, serious and determined.
Mother was also watching them, her work resting in her lap, unmended. She seemed so very sad, and this made Mary uneasy. Lady Marian was the merriest person she knew, apart from Father.
Mary shook herself awake and tried to be attentive. “What did you like best about the king’s court?” she asked her mother.
“Oh, the news, I think. News from abroad, from across the kingdom.”
“Did you meet the queen?”
“Not really, not so as to mention.” Marian winked and donned a bit of a grin. “Her Majesty mostly wanted a look at your father. But these days, he doesn’t look so very much like the stories say he did. I think she was disappointed.”
“Surely not,” Mary said, astonished.
“Or it may be only that everyone was angry with your father. But no, I mostly stood to the side and watched with the rest of the wives. I’ll tell you a secret, though: the wives have all the good gossip.” A dog barked, ran up to Will and John, who stopped sparring to send it away, laughing. Mary was trying to think of what gossip Marian meant. Nearby, Joan and Beatrice were talking about which chickens were laying best this month and which might be ready for the soup pot.
“Why is Eleanor so much better at spinning than I am?” Mary said. Her sister had diligently spun her entire bundle of wool and started on the next.
“She doesn’t get distracted.”
Her sister seemed hypnotized by the spindle in her hand and the slender, perfectly even yarn twisting around as it emerged from between her small fingers. The stitches Mary had been making in the tunic seemed hideously large and uneven. Her mother would look at them and say, “It’s fine, it’s not like we’ll be showing it to the king.”
Father came around the corner then, dusting off his hands, appearing nothing like the nobleman he was, in a faded tunic, the sleeves rolled up, mended leggings and sweat-stained cap. He’d been looking over the livestock. He paused a moment to watch John and Will. But his smile fell when his gaze came to the women. Mother pointedly did not look back at him at all.
Then he called, “Mary, will you walk with me? Perhaps we can put a few arrows in a target. I fear I’m a bit out of practice.”
This was flatly untrue, and this was odd. She glanced at her mother, who murmured, “Go on. He has something to tell you.”
Even Eleanor looked up then, and Mary’s stomach turned over.
She knotted the stitch she’d just made, broke the thread, put the tunic back in the basket, and went to meet her father.
He was pensive. She had watched for his glad smile or wicked smile and hadn’t seen either one. Now he hardly looked at her as they took the path from the back of the manor, across the grassy stretch to the archery stand. Bales of straw stood at varying distances, with painted cloth pinned to them for targets. There was often someone out here practicing, either the children of the manor or Locksley’s guards and foresters. Robin valued his archers. Today, the field was empty.