THE OUTLAW AND THE LADY

Lady Rosamund Blackmere had been raised to understand that noblewomen did not climb out of windows, did not carry knives beneath their skirts, did not know how to loose an arrow accurately enough to split an apple at forty paces, and most certainly did not rob His Majesty’s tax collectors on moonless roads before disappearing into the forest with a sack of stolen coin over one shoulder. Unfortunately for His Majesty’s tax collectors, Lady Rosamund had never been particularly gifted at behaving like a noblewoman. By daylight she lived at Blackmere Hall beneath the watchful portraits of twelve generations of respectable ancestors, received tedious visitors in the blue drawing room, listened politely whenever her elderly steward explained that another village family had been unable to pay the crown levy, and wore gowns sufficiently expensive to convince everyone that the daughter of the late Lord Blackmere had no concerns more serious than which ribbons might accompany her to the next royal banquet. By night she exchanged silk for leather, pinned her dark hair beneath a hood, rode through a concealed gate behind the ruined chapel, and became the woman whom the crown’s officers had begun calling the Fox of Briarwood. They had chosen the name because nobody knew who she was. Rosamund preferred it because foxes generally escaped traps. Her companions were waiting beside the forest road when she arrived one cold autumn evening, with Agnes crouched behind a fallen oak holding her bow across her knees, Tessa lying comfortably in the grass as though ambushing armed men were merely another form of afternoon recreation, and Brigid checking the edge of a short sword that she insisted had once belonged to a pirate queen although nobody believed her. “You are late,” Agnes whispered. “I had dinner with the bishop.” Tessa turned her head and stared at her through the darkness. “You robbed the bishop again?” “I did not rob him, because he came to my house, ate half a pheasant, drank an extraordinary quantity of my father’s wine, complained that the poor lacked gratitude, and then left without contributing so much as a copper toward feeding them, which technically means the bishop robbed me.” Brigid grinned. “I like her reasoning.” “You like any reasoning that ends with somebody losing money.” “That is not true, because I also enjoy reasoning that ends with somebody losing trousers.” Agnes closed her eyes. “Could we perhaps concentrate on the tax wagon before Brigid begins describing last winter again?” Hoofbeats sounded beyond the trees. Rosamund raised one gloved hand, and the women became still as four mounted guards appeared around the bend, followed by a heavy wagon carrying ironbound chests collected from villages that had already surrendered grain, livestock, and sometimes wedding jewelry simply to satisfy another increase imposed by men who had never missed a meal. Rosamund stepped into the road. The lead guard hauled his horse backward. “What in God’s name—” Four arrows struck the road around his horse before he finished speaking. Rosamund folded her arms beneath her cloak. “Good evening, gentlemen, and before we begin the tedious part where you inform me that robbing the crown is punishable by hanging, allow me to save us considerable time by assuring you that I have heard the speech before.” The captain drew his sword. “Fox.” “I prefer Lady Fox when we have not been properly introduced.” “You will hang.” “Yes, that was the part I mentioned.” Behind him, two guards suddenly discovered Brigid standing beside their wagon with her sword resting pleasantly across one shoulder. “Now,” Rosamund continued, “you may defend money collected from farmers whose children are eating boiled nettles, in which case several of you will probably acquire interesting scars, or you may ride back to the castle and explain that Briarwood Forest remains an exceptionally dangerous place for dishonest men.” The captain stared at her. “You think yourself a hero.” “No, because heroes tend to get statues, while I would much rather have dinner.” Twenty minutes later the guards were walking their horses toward the eastern road while Tessa sat atop one of the captured tax chests counting coins. “Three hundred silver crowns, fourteen gold sovereigns, six rings, two necklaces, and something I sincerely hope was not somebody’s grandfather’s teeth.” Brigid peered inside. “Those are pearls.” “Then somebody had a remarkably wealthy grandfather.” Rosamund knelt beside the chest. “The coins from Millbrook return to Millbrook, the jewelry goes to anyone who can identify it, and we keep enough silver for supplies.” Tessa sighed. “One day, Rosamund, I would like us to commit a crime from which we personally benefit.” “We have benefited enormously.” “How?” “We have character.” “I cannot buy boots with character.” “You bought boots last week.” “Yes, and consequently I require money.” That was how the women of Briarwood lived, laughing around hidden fires while royal patrols searched roads they no longer used, sleeping beneath canvas shelters when the weather permitted and inside the ruins of an abandoned hunting lodge when it did not, appearing from the trees whenever another wagon carried away more than a village could afford to lose. Yet stealing taxes could only accomplish so much, because King Aldren’s ministers simply sent more collectors, and when Rosamund learned that the royal treasury expected another enormous payment from Briarwood County before winter, even she realized that returning stolen coins had become rather like emptying a flooding ship with a wineglass. “We need money,” Agnes said one evening as rain rattled against the hunting lodge roof. Brigid stared dramatically toward Tessa. “Finally, somebody understands me.” “More money than tax wagons carry, because the villages need grain, several bridges require repairs, and the crown has doubled the levy again.” Rosamund stood beside the fire studying a map. “There is money traveling through Briarwood tomorrow.” Tessa immediately sat upright. “How much?” “A fortune.” Brigid smiled. “I already approve.” “It belongs to Count Everard of Westerly.” Agnes frowned. “The king’s favorite parasite?” “The very same, although apparently he prefers Royal Counselor for Agricultural Revenue, which sounds considerably more respectable than Man Who Taxes Turnips.” Rosamund placed one finger upon the map. “Everard’s daughter is traveling from Westerly Castle to the capital tomorrow morning, accompanied by twelve guards, because she is to marry Lord Garrick Thorne next month.” Silence settled around the table. Tessa slowly lowered the apple she had been eating. “You intend to rob the daughter?” “I intend to borrow her.” Agnes stared at Rosamund. “People are not usually borrowed.” “They are when one intends to return them.” Brigid leaned forward delightedly. “You are talking about kidnapping.” “I prefer compulsory forest hospitality.” “You intend to kidnap Count Everard’s daughter,” Agnes repeated. “For ransom.” “How much?” Rosamund named the amount. Tessa dropped her apple. Even Brigid stopped smiling. Agnes finally said, “That is an absurd amount of money.” “Everard can afford it.” “How do you know?” “Because half the farmers in Westerly cannot.” The plan was dangerous enough that Rosamund reconsidered it twice before sunrise and once more when she saw the countess’s carriage approaching through the narrow woodland pass, gleaming blue and gold beneath a mounted escort while rainwater splashed beneath polished wheels. Agnes’s arrows frightened the leading horses without touching them, Tessa felled a tree behind the convoy, Brigid appeared from the rocks waving her sword with enough enthusiasm to suggest that she had been waiting her entire life for this particular moment, and Rosamund swung down from an overhanging branch onto the driver’s bench before anyone understood where she had come from. The guards fought briefly, discovered that arrows were being aimed at hats rather than hearts, and eventually surrendered when Rosamund politely explained that surrendering allowed everyone to keep approximately the same number of bodily openings with which they had begun the morning. Then she opened the carriage door. Countess Cecily Everard was seated inside wearing an emerald traveling gown, cream gloves, and an expression of such profound irritation that Rosamund initially assumed the young woman was outraged at being kidnapped. Cecily looked past her toward the captured guards. “Are they alive?” “Entirely.” “All of them?” “Yes.” Cecily exhaled. “Thank God.” Rosamund extended a hand. “My lady, I regret the inconvenience, but I am afraid you are coming with us.” The countess examined the offered hand. “You are kidnapping me?” “I am.” “For ransom?” “Yes.” Cecily considered this for several seconds. “How far away is your camp?” Rosamund hesitated. “Perhaps two miles.” “Do you have breakfast there?” “Usually.” “Wonderful.” Cecily placed her gloved hand into Rosamund’s. “Take me immediately.” Rosamund did not move. “You understand that this is a kidnapping.” “I understood you the first time.” “You appear unusually enthusiastic.” “My father is sending me to marry Garrick Thorne, who smells of lavender water, speaks about breeding horses during dinner, and once informed me that wives should concern themselves primarily with embroidery and childbirth, so unless you intend to drag me directly to an altar where another intolerable man is waiting, you have already improved my morning considerably.” Rosamund looked toward Agnes. Agnes shrugged. Brigid whispered, “I like her.” Cecily climbed down from the carriage and surveyed the forest. “Which one of you is the Fox?” Nobody answered. Cecily looked directly at Rosamund. “You are.” “What makes you think so?” “The others keep looking at you whenever they expect instructions, and you are wearing better boots.” Tessa gasped. “I have been saying that for months.” The kidnapping became increasingly difficult to describe as kidnapping once they reached the camp, because Cecily refused to be tied, refused to be locked inside the old hunting lodge, and became offended when Agnes stationed a guard outside the room they had given her. “I am not escaping.” “You are our prisoner.” “I am perfectly aware of that, but escaping would rather defeat the purpose.” Agnes blinked. “What purpose?” “Avoiding my marriage.” “You could simply refuse to marry him.” Cecily laughed so loudly that two birds fled the roof. “My father owns my estate until I marry, Garrick controls it afterward, the king approved the match personally, and if I refuse, I shall be placed somewhere unpleasant until I become sensible, which apparently is the noble word for obedient.” Rosamund had been standing in the doorway listening. “You planned to run away.” Cecily turned toward her. “Tomorrow night, actually, because I had hidden money and clothing at an inn near the western road, although being kidnapped has saved me considerable trouble.” “That money would not last forever.” “I know.” “And what would you have done afterward?” “I had not reached afterward.” “You planned an escape without knowing where you were escaping to?” Cecily lifted one eyebrow. “You planned a kidnapping without discovering whether your hostage wished to be kidnapped, so perhaps neither of us should criticize the other’s planning.” Rosamund tried very hard not to smile. She failed. During the following days, Cecily transformed herself from hostage into inconvenience, then from inconvenience into companion, and finally into something considerably more dangerous to Rosamund’s peace of mind. She complained that the camp’s bitter herbal brew tasted suspiciously like boiled bark, learned to repair arrows with Agnes, convinced Tessa to teach her three dishonest card games, discovered that Brigid’s pirate-queen sword had actually belonged to a deceased butcher, and followed Rosamund everywhere with the persistent curiosity of somebody who had spent her life being told not to ask questions. One morning she found Rosamund practicing archery beside a clearing. “You shoot well.” “So I should, because I have been doing it since childhood.” “My father said bows make women’s shoulders unattractive.” Rosamund lowered hers. “Your father seems remarkably interested in preventing women from becoming useful.” “He considers usefulness dangerously close to independence.” Rosamund held out the bow. “Try.” Cecily stared at it. “I have never fired one.” “Then you are about to become dreadful at something new, which is how everyone begins becoming good at it.” Cecily stepped beside her. Rosamund positioned her hands carefully, adjusted her shoulders, then moved behind her to correct the angle of her elbow, at which point she became suddenly and inconveniently aware of the countess’s perfume, the warmth of her body, and the fact that Cecily had stopped paying attention to the target entirely. “You are looking the wrong way,” Rosamund murmured. “So are you.” “I am looking at your elbow.” “You have been looking at my elbow for quite some time.” Rosamund stepped backward. “Loose the arrow.” Cecily released. The arrow flew magnificently past the target and disappeared into a shrub. There was a brief silence. Cecily said, “Did I kill anything?” “Possibly a fern.” “I disliked that fern.” By the fifth day, Count Everard’s answer arrived. He refused the ransom. Not negotiated, not reduced, not delayed, but refused. The messenger carried a letter bearing the count’s seal, declaring that his daughter had dishonored the family by allowing herself to be taken and that Lord Garrick had generously agreed the marriage could proceed if Cecily were recovered quickly and discreetly. Cecily read the letter twice beside the campfire. Then she folded it. “That sounds like Father.” Rosamund watched her carefully. “You expected him to pay.” “I expected him to consider me worth slightly more than embarrassment.” “You are worth considerably more.” Cecily’s eyes lifted. Rosamund immediately wished she could retrieve the words. Instead Cecily smiled faintly. “Careful, Fox, because that almost sounded affectionate.” “It sounded factual.” “Of course.” “Entirely factual.” “Then I am comforted by your commitment to accuracy.” Their eyes remained together somewhat longer than factual accuracy required. The problem became worse three nights later when scouts reported that Garrick had persuaded the king to send soldiers into Briarwood, not merely to recover Cecily but to destroy the outlaw band permanently. “We cannot stay,” Agnes said. “We cannot keep running either,” Rosamund replied, spreading maps across the table. Cecily leaned over them. “Then stop running.” Rosamund glanced up. “That advice would be more useful accompanied by an alternative.” “Westerly Castle.” Everyone stared at her. Cecily tapped the map. “My father keeps records of every payment collected throughout the county, including payments never reported to the royal treasury, because he has been stealing from the crown while pretending to collect for it.” Rosamund straightened. “You know this?” “I know where he keeps the ledgers.” Tessa’s eyes widened. “You are magnificent.” “They are inside a locked cabinet behind the tapestry in his private office, although entering the castle unnoticed would require someone familiar with its passages.” Cecily smiled. Brigid slowly smiled with her. Agnes muttered, “I dislike both of those smiles.” Two evenings later Lady Rosamund Blackmere arrived at Westerly Castle dressed in crimson silk as herself, invited to a banquet celebrating Cecily’s supposedly imminent rescue, while Agnes entered through the kitchens disguised as a vegetable seller, Tessa wore the livery of a visiting noble household, Brigid somehow obtained the clothing of a royal guard without explaining precisely how, and Cecily returned to her childhood home hidden inside a laundry wagon beneath enough tablecloths to furnish three weddings. Rosamund danced once with a minor lord, smiled politely at Count Everard, listened while Garrick Thorne complained loudly about the incompetence of forest patrols, and eventually excused herself on the pretense of requiring fresh air. She found Cecily waiting inside a servants’ passage. “You look ridiculous,” Cecily whispered. Rosamund glanced at her gown. “This cost forty sovereigns.” “That makes it expensive ridiculous.” “You are wearing a laundry maid’s dress.” “Yes, and I look exceptional.” Rosamund smiled. “You do.” The amusement vanished from Cecily’s expression, replaced by something softer. “Do not say things like that while we are committing treason.” “Why?” “Because I am trying to concentrate.” They moved through hidden corridors Cecily had explored as a child, slipped behind the tapestry in Everard’s office, and found the cabinet exactly where she had promised. Rosamund opened it with tools Tessa had given her. Inside were twelve ledgers. Cecily pulled one free. “There.” Rosamund read several entries. The theft was enormous. Everard had inflated royal levies, collected the difference, confiscated properties from families unable to pay, and transferred the land quietly into companies he controlled. “This could destroy him.” “That was the idea.” Footsteps sounded outside. Cecily froze. Garrick’s voice came through the door. Rosamund seized the ledgers, grabbed Cecily’s hand, and pulled her toward the servants’ passage just as the office door opened behind them. “Stop!” They ran. The castle erupted around them as bells began ringing, guards rushed through corridors, Brigid shouted something enthusiastically inappropriate from the courtyard, and Agnes’s arrows extinguished lanterns while Tessa opened the western gate. Rosamund and Cecily reached the battlements with the guards scarcely a corridor behind them, and instead of looking toward the black river far below, Rosamund hurried to one of the crenellations where a thick rope had already been looped around the stone by Brigid earlier that evening. Cecily stared at the rope, then at the ledgers in Rosamund’s arms. “You planned this?” “I planned several things, although I admit most of them involved considerably fewer soldiers.” Rosamund dropped to one knee, wrapped the ledgers tightly inside a leather carrying cloth, secured the bundle with the rope, and leaned over the wall until she could see Tessa and Brigid waiting on a narrow lower ledge where an old maintenance stair disappeared into the darkness. “Catch!” “That is several years of tax fraud you are dangling over my head,” Tessa called softly from below. “Then try not to drop it.” Rosamund lowered the bundle while Cecily kept watch on the archway behind them, and when Brigid finally caught the precious evidence and pulled it safely onto the ledge, Rosamund immediately began fastening the second rope around Cecily’s waist. Cecily looked over the wall, then back at her. “You cannot possibly expect me to climb down there in this dress.” “I expected you to be wearing servant’s clothes.” “I was, until somebody decided we should attend a banquet first.” “That somebody was me.” “Exactly.” The first guards appeared beneath the archway. Rosamund tightened the knot. “Go.” Cecily swung one leg over the battlement, looked down once, and immediately looked back up. “I hate you.” “No, you do not.” “That confidence is becoming intolerable.” Cecily disappeared over the wall, Rosamund followed seconds later, and by the time the guards reached the battlements, the ledgers were already safe below and the two women were descending through darkness toward the waiting outlaws. The ledgers reached the royal magistrates three days later through channels Rosamund had quietly prepared months earlier, and because stealing from starving farmers was tolerated far more readily than stealing from the king, Count Everard found himself arrested before winter while Garrick Thorne discovered that his marriage contract had become politically inconvenient. Cecily was free. For the first time in her life, completely free. Rosamund discovered this while sitting beside the forest stream cleaning mud from her boots. Cecily approached carrying a traveling bag. Rosamund looked at it. “So you are leaving.” “I am.” The words hurt more than Rosamund expected. “Where will you go?” “I thought perhaps south.” “There are good roads south.” “So I have heard.” “And warmer winters.” “That would be pleasant.” Rosamund concentrated very intensely upon her boot. “You deserve somewhere safe.” Cecily sat beside her. “I did not say I wanted safe.” “You have your estate now, your own money, and nobody arranging your marriage, which means you could live wherever you please.” “I know.” “You could travel.” “I know.” “You could buy a house.” “Rosamund.” “You could—” Cecily kissed her. It was not hesitant, because Cecily Everard had apparently exhausted her lifetime allowance of hesitation, and when she finally drew away, Rosamund remained sitting beside the stream holding one muddy boot with the stunned expression of a woman whose thoughts had been efficiently removed from her head. Cecily smiled. “I have wanted to do that since you taught me archery.” “You nearly killed a fern.” “I was distracted.” “By what?” “You.” Rosamund placed the boot slowly beside her. “You said you were leaving.” “I am.” Cecily nodded toward the forest path. “To your camp, because Agnes says we are moving again before the soldiers discover the northern trail, and apparently somebody must prevent Tessa from packing six bottles of wine and no blankets.” Rosamund stared at the traveling bag. “You are staying with us?” “With you.” “That life is dangerous.” “I noticed.” “You will sleep on the ground.” “I have done so already.” “You will be chased by soldiers.” “I found that rather exciting.” “You may eventually be hanged.” Cecily considered this. “That part seems less attractive.” Rosamund laughed. Cecily reached for her hand. “And besides, you kidnapped me, Lady Fox, which surely makes you responsible for what happens to me.” “I returned you.” “Very briefly.” “You are impossible.” “So I have been told, although usually by men whose opinions no longer concern me.” By spring the Fox of Briarwood was no longer described in royal notices as a solitary outlaw, because witnesses increasingly spoke of two women appearing together on forest roads, one dark-haired and calm with a bow in her hand, the other wearing a green hood and smiling far too pleasantly while explaining to terrified tax collectors that surrendering their money would be considerably healthier than keeping it. Cecily eventually became an excellent archer. Tessa maintained that she remained a terrible card player. Brigid continued claiming her sword had belonged to a pirate queen despite overwhelming evidence involving the butcher. Agnes complained that the camp had become intolerably romantic. And whenever Rosamund reminded Cecily that she had once been their hostage, Cecily would wrap both arms around her waist, look up with that same wicked smile she had worn inside the carriage on the morning they first met, and remind her that a woman who voluntarily returned to her kidnappers could hardly be considered anybody’s prisoner. Years later, songs would call them thieves, rebels, lovers, traitors, heroes, and half a dozen other things invented by people who had never slept beneath the trees or divided stolen silver among hungry families before sunrise, but none of those songs ever understood the part Rosamund remembered most clearly, which was that she had once stopped a carriage intending to steal a fortune from a powerful man and accidentally opened the door to find something infinitely more troublesome waiting inside. A lady who did not want rescuing. A hostage who refused to leave. And eventually, when the forest paths grew familiar beneath their horses and another royal tax wagon appeared around the bend, the woman riding beside her.