The agreement

Chapter 3

Emma stared into the afternoon gloom, her vision fixed on the darkened outline of Sherwood Forest against the sky. She had been pacing the castle battlements for hours, trying to think, trying to organise the myriad of thoughts that swam through her tired brain. After only two months of living at Nottingham the axe had fallen. Vaisey, her uncle, had found her a husband.

She could tell something was up the moment the servant had brought his summons. There had been no love lost between them at their initial meeting and familiarity had breed contempt on both sides. She hated him because he was rude, cruel and arrogant and he disliked her because she refused to be a biddable simpering girl.

Standing in his chamber, the smug expression on his face had confirmed her worse suspicions. The Sheriff lounged cat-like on a chair, a goblet of wine held loosely in one hand, a rumpled letter in the other.

"I have some good news for you niece" he drawled "I have found you a husband"

Emma first felt shock and then had to suppress the overwhelming urge to scream incoherently at him. She forced down her rage and inquired in hard tones who her lucky bridegroom was to be.

"Sir Percy Worthington" Vaisey was obviously waiting for some kind of gratifying response, but Emma was speechless; The name meant nothing to her.

"He dined with us last week, short, balding..." the sheriff tapped the letter against the chair arm in irritation. Surely she must remember him? Percy had drooled at the sight of her and when Vaisey had suggested that there was a chance that a match could be made he had almost melted to the floor in delight. Of course, Robert mused, he wasn't quite the catch or social connection he had been hoping for, but he did owe him rather a lot of money and a few big favours.

Emma searched her memory. There had been many guests to dine over the last few weeks. Mostly cohorts of her uncle; sly, ambitious men with stained clothing and an odour of dissolution.

The saving grace of these social occasions was Emma's discovery that Sir Guy of Gisborne held the Sheriff's friends in as much contempt as she did.

Thinking back to that night jogged her memory, there had two men there that night, drinking and whispering with Robert. Percy must be the man that Guy referred to as "The Frog" because of his protuberant eyes and slimy appearance.

"My Lord, I must protest!" she cried.

Robert smirked. "I personally think you should be flattered by the proposal. His last wife died last year and he needs someone to look after his three children and provide for his." he paused to add emphasis "other needs".

Emma repressed a shudder and stared at him with cold fury.

"Never"

She spun around and stalked out of the room, almost running straight into the large chain-mailed chest of Guy.

She looked up into his face, and was shocked by the look of confusion and concern in his dark eyes. Emma felt her grip over her emotions begin to slip. Unheeded tears welled up and she choked out an apology and ran off down the hall, heading for the battlements that she had been pacing across ever since.

There must be some way out of this predicament, she thought. There was no way she was going to give up her youth, her body and her lands to that overgrown toad of a man. Emma racked her brains; maybe she could kill him? Perhaps she could fake some horrible disease, madness even, to put him off? No, she cursed, it would never work; he might even find her more attractive. She pulled absent mindedly at the hem of her sleeve. God, it was hopeless. Appealing to Vaisey's better nature would never work. He didn't have one. Maybe Guy could help? She dismissed that thought immediately, they may be friends of a sort, but he had no power to alter her uncle's plans and her fate would be no concern of his.

As darkness fell around her she heard sounds of activity far below her, the metallic ring of weapons and the snorting of horses. Sir Guy and about twenty of his men of arms were preparing to make a night time visit to a small village in the shadow of Sherwood Forest. He had heard rumours that a local outlaw, Robin Hood, and his men were camped there while one of their friends was ill. Of course, these rumours in the past had always failed to be true and Guy and the Sheriff had been involved in cat and mouse hunt for the outlaw for years. Guy, though, seemed determined to catch the wolf's head and had detailed both his hatred for Robin and his plans for his demise to Emma during the long evenings. Emma had noticed, however that he had never mentioned Marion.

Emma had never met a criminal before, and while the idea of a noble turned wolf's head was intriguing, she had given Robin little thought. For all her pretension of feeling outside her class, she had had little to do with the peasant classes except occasionally when they had come to either pay tribute or seek justice from her father's court. The servants she had grown up with were from serf families, of course, but she had never gone to their homes or experienced their way of life. She viewed Saxons with faint suspicion, she supposed, and certainly had no reason to feel sympathy for those who flouted the King's law. After all, it was men like Robin Hood that made the forests unsafe for any person of her class to travel through. Many had been attacked and although Robin Hood had never killed any of his victims he had robbed them of all their wealth and scared them half to death.

"Of course!" she cried, startling a crow perched nearby. It was obvious, although unlikely. The answer to her prayers was Robin Hood.

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