Robyn Hood: Fight For Freedom Read Free

stories, weaving together a reasonable explanation for traveling. “Well, it’s not like I see a lot of new places,” I reasoned. “I’m constantly passed between four manors. One belongs to my mother’s relations, one my father’s, one manor is a brother’s, and the last castle I stay at is that of a dear friend’s.” I supplied.
    “Oh, I see,” Lord Edward said, accepting my lies. Nobility did leave often to go visit each other. Marian’s trip to Queen Eleanor’s court was a perfect example of that.
    “Are you the one who owns that devil of a horse that arrived this morning?” Lord Maxine asked with another grin.
    “Yes,” I calmly replied, taking a sip of my wine (I was drinking wine !) after nibbling at the positively delicious roasted boar. “Has news of him spread so far already?”
    “He is quite infamous, but no. I only heard of him because he took a chunk out of my Winther’s hide,” Lord Maxine said.
    “I’ve seen this horse he refers to. Coal black and rather…,” Lord Edward searched for an appropriate adjective that would properly describe Crafty without offending me.
    “Crafty?” I suggested. “His name is Nightmare.”
    “Aptly named,” Lord Maxine said under his breath.
    “He sounds like he would be too much for a female to handle,” Lady Elizabeth dubiously said.
    “It’s not so much that he’s difficult to control, he is just exceedingly foul tempered. He happens to hate me less than he hates everyone else. We get along quite nicely,” I soothed the genteel lady.
    “He has a nice look to him. Excellent confirmation,” Lord Edward said.
    I didn’t have a hope of understanding what he was talking about. “Um, thank you?”
    “I suppose you wouldn’t know his sire or dame?” Lord Maxine piped in.
    “Lord Maxine,” Lady Elizabeth said in her whispery voice, sounding quite scandalized. “That is not decent dinner talk, much less the way to talk to a lady.”
    “It’s fine , Eliza. We’re cousins,” Lord Maxine explained for my benefit.
    I glanced back and forth between my dinner companions. Edward did not seem terribly bothered by Maxine’s interrogation of my horse, even if Elizabeth was. Maxine seemed too informal to be a proper judge, so I resolved to use Edward as my scale of normalcy.
    “He was given to me by a friend,” I carefully said. “I do not know his pedigree.”
    “Now that’s a shame,” Lord Maxine complained.
    “ Lady Elizabeth, where are you from?” I asked. The easiest way to get away with my masquerade was to engage a different person, drawing the attention off me.
    It worked well, Lady Elizabeth softly chatted through the rest of the meal.
    I was stuck there for a full hour. Saying stuck sounds negative, but by the end of that hour I was ready to start crying in pain. My back muscles were cramping again. The hum of the music and the steady throb of loud voices in the hall crawled into my skull and created the headache of the century. My eyes hurt from staring at everything, and a pin I had slipped in my dress to keep the waist tight had wriggled loose and was stabbing me in the gut. I hurt so much I decided I would leave, never mind if the feast was over yet or not. I actually almost fell to the floor when I tried to stand. I managed to steady myself with some help from Lord Maxine, who automatically reached out and grabbed me.
    “Lady Mary, are you feeling well?” he asked, his voice creased with concern as he stood as well.
    “I am a little tired. I believe it may be best if I turn in for the night,” I said, doing my best to smile in spite of the pain that wracked my body. Thank goodness I was still getting over my sickness. I was hurting less now than I had in previous days.
    “Lady Mary, do you need anything?” George asked, materializing in front of my table.
    “I’m fine, George, thank you,” I smiled , finding it amusing that he, the Sheriff’s apprentice, would be worried about my well being. “I am perhaps more