Sounds of someone arguing broke the veil of unconsciousness.
Grumbling, Lacey threw her arm over her face, desperate to stay asleep, chasing the last few thoughts of her dream. It had been interesting. She had been someone else. Someone searching for something, and if she could just go back to sleep, she might be able to find it.
"Come on, Belle," someone was whispering. "Wake up now. Show them you're more than some fainting maiden."
Memories fluttered into her conscious mind, reminding her where she was, what had happened, what was going to happen. She shuddered at them, holding her arms closer to her chest, curling in on herself to avoid it all. Still, she felt someone's eyes on the back of her neck, felt it in the way her hair stood on end, bristling. It accompanied the throbbing pain just under the crown of her head. "I didn't faint," Lacey corrected groggily, fingers going to the sore spot where the club had collided with her skull. She rolled onto her side, away from the speaker. "Now, shut up and let me go back to sleep."
A masculine laugh, short and sweet, rang out ever so briefly before Lacey felt someone's foot pressing into her back. "Now, now, none of that."
"Excuse me," Lacey growled, twisting her head over her shoulder to peer at the unwelcome nagger. "If I'm to be a prisoner, I can do whatever the hell I- Robin?"
Rolling over quickly, Lacey used her knees to launch herself at the sitting figure beside her. The man grunted as she fell on top of him, laughing as she clung to his shoulders. "There, now," he whispered into her hair. "It's alright, you're safe now."
Pressing back away from him, Lacey frowned at him in the semidarkness. "Don't be stupid," she told him. "We're anything but safe. We're prisoners of that fucking lunatic for christ's sake."
Robin blinked in bafflement. "For a lady, you speak like a sailor; has anyone ever told you that?"
"I'm not from around here," Lacey sighed, releasing him to sit back on her knees before him. He moved his arms from her back, and she heard the clinking of his chains against the stone floor. His feet were shackled too, the chain disappearing into the shadows where the walls met in the corner. She lifted a hand to his face, ghosting over the deep cut on his forehead and the purpling bruise surrounding his left eye. "They did a number on you, didn't they?" she murmured. "God, Marian must be in a state."
"She knows the way of it," Robin said easily. If Lacey had not been so close to him, she may not have noticed the way his voice faltered ever so slightly at his own lie. "She'll be fine."
"Yeah, if they don't find out she's the one who's been helping you," Lacey agreed. "Lucky for us, we've got a scapegoat." Robin lifted his right eyebrow, blood encrusted from the gash on his head. "I'm already in jail," Lacey said with a shrug of her shoulders. "What are they going to do? Arrest me again?"
"More likely to behead you," Robin corrected. "Traitor of the crown and all that."
"What is it with you people and kings?" Lacey grumbled. The dungeons around them smelled of mold and filth, a slightly sweet smell of decay making it all the more pungent. Her arms and legs were free of shackles, but she did not feel any better for it. She let her fingers roam the rough edges of the floor, finding stones and hay scattered underneath her.
She checked her pockets, hoping that the shard of glass or splinter of wood from the attic would still be there. It appeared that the guards were as thorough as they were ruthless, her pockets were empty. Beside her, Robin sat, quietly amused as she watched her pat down her pockets. "Your trial is today," she told him after a moment. "The Sheriff bragged about it to Lady Tremaine."
Robin did not wince or groan, but nodded thoughtfully. "I assumed as much," he said calmly. "Prisoners such as myself are rarely left to rot. Waste of a spectacle."
Outside, they heard a guard call from down the hall, and a riotous laughter following as booted footsteps passed just by their door. Lacey and Robin fell silent. Although they were the only prisoners in this dungeon, they remained lightly guarded. It seemed the Sheriff did not want his two prizes to be bothered.
"Well," Robin said, listening as the last footstep fell away. "Since they brought you in, they've upped the guard to three. Makes things a bit trickier, I suppose."
Lacey stood, making her way to the door. A small bolt hole was slid shut, so there was no way to see out into the hallway beyond it. Turning, she saw the windows, high slits in the wall, almost ten feet-
Twisting towards her companion with a grin, Lacey had the beginning ideas of a plan. "How tall are you?" she asked Robin.
Just tall enough it seemed. Standing on his shoulders and ignoring his well-meaning jokes about her being light as a feather, Lacey grasped the twin bars of the window, pulling herself up slightly to see outside. They were not in the castle proper, but she recognized the courtyard from the east. She and Ella had run through it just the night before, heading towards the forest gate. She whispered that down to Robin.
"And what's happening out there?" he asked, barely winded from her standing on top of him.
Lacey bit her lip, wiggling her stiff shoulders from sleeping on floors these past few nights, and tried to concentrate. The sun was high in the sky, at least late afternoon judging by the sweat stains on a few of the workers milling about. One stood just feet away from them, taking a break by leaning against his ax.
"They're building something," Lacey told Robin.
"A gallows?"
Lacey shook her head, before remembering he couldn't see her from down there. "No," she said. "More like… setting up for something or other."
There was bales of hay lying here and there, all stacked in the distance. She watched as someone leaned against one, quickly straightening it as it shifted somewhat to the left. Puzzled, she turned to peer out towards the right, when she saw the painters busy at work on their knees. Round objects covered in animal skins lay before them, red, blue, and yellow circles being added to the skins by hand.
"It's an archery range!" Lacey declared, bending down to whisper to Robin. "They're getting ready to host an archery contest!" She stilled, moving back to stare out the window, confusion on her brow. "Why the hell are they doing that?"
Robin laughed, bending down. Lacey slipped gently off his shoulders, peering back up at the window. "They hope to capture a thief," Robin said, moving back to the center of the room. His chains clinked behind him, like snakes following after their master.
"You're already captured," Lacey pointed out, joining him. She sat down on the floor, crisscrossed legs mirroring Robin's. "Bit wasteful, isn't it?"
He smiled, his dimples disappearing under his high cheekbones as his thin lips slashed into a devil-may-care grin. "Yes, but the Sheriff can't resist showing off," he told her, tweaking a stray curl that had escaped her pins. "He's going to make a game out of it. Defeat me in front of a crowd, and then preside over my execution."
Lacey sighed, flopping backwards so her arms were behind her head as she stared up at the windows along the wall. Robin joined her, she heard the chains slinking and chiming against each other as he settled. "Tell me, Robin," Lacey said in hopes of keeping the fear abated. "How does one become a bandit?"
"Someone comes to your home and takes everything you've ever known and loved," Robin answered smoothly. "You learn quickly how to take when someone shows you how."
"The war?" Lacey figured, crossing a foot over her ankle. The hairs of her leg rubbed against each other where her drawers ended, just past her knee. She remembered the feel of smooth legs in a sundress in the summer and wondered if it would be worth it to demand the Imp to provide her a razor of some sort. Some men in this world were clean shaven, surely razors existed. She felt the prickling of hair in her armpits, long enough to probably braid by now and shuddered. She missed waxings, manicures and pedicures and a good facial. God, she missed spas.
Ignorant of her musings, Robin was continuing on. "The Invasion," Robin corrected gently. "The Third Lands had always been a part of the First Kingdom. We just had tribes instead of realms, chiefs instead of princes, and freedom instead of kneeling. That changed when the pale men came."
"And you followed them back to their lands," Lacey continued, snapping out of her own thoughts on personal grooming. "Guerilla warfare on their turf?"
"I have no idea what you just said," Robin said in amusement. "I simply take from the rich, and give to the poor. They have enough here not to miss it. Besides, my people are starving in the lands beyond the castles."
"Explains why you were in the forest hiding," Lacey said, remembering how the Merry Men had faded into sight from the trees. "And Ella? How does she fit into all this?"
"Our Friar Tuck used to be a religious man from this kingdom. He came to the fronts to give last rights to the men, but when he saw how we were treated… he changed sides. Became an outlaw.
"He knew the Baron Tremaine, told us if we ever had need to go to him for aid. But he had died in the time Tuck had been away to the Free Lands. Instead, we found his daughter, nearly of age with me." Robin paused, chuckling. "She was magnificent. Used a broom to bar the doorway, and threatened Little John with a butcher knife. Wasn't until she saw Tuck that she heard us out."
Lacey laughed. "I would have liked to see that," she whispered back to him. "I've only ever seen her cow under her Stepmother."
When Robin did not respond, she twisted her head to find him staring up at the ceiling with a frown on his handsome face. "Now, Belle," he sighed. "You can't judge a person by the way they survive. I went to the earth, hiding in the leaves and letting my prey come to me. My people would have once chased us from our tribes for such cowardice. Now, we're the only resistance left."
"But what else were you supposed to do?" Lacey asked, propping herself up on her elbow. "You would have been destroyed if you tried to march against the kingdoms."
Robin lifted his bruised eyebrow, and Lacey flushed as her own argument hit home. "Oh, fine," she snapped, wrenching her eyes away. "But she could have left. She could have gotten out of there."
"We needed her," Robin sighed. "If she had left us, we would have starved in the winter months. Her little mice have kept us alive."
Lacey grimaced. "You eat the kitchen mice?" Robin began to laugh, rolling over to face her as big belly laughs shook his muscular frame. Lacey frowned at him, staying on her back, her cheek cold against the floor. "Stop laughing," she grunted. "You look ridiculous."
"Ella's mice are merchants, travelers, and artisans," Robin said, gasping for air. Lacey noticed his eyes, while on her, were focused, probably listening for sounds of someone in the hall. "Ella Tremaine may not be known to the nobility, but she is very much a leader in her community. She feeds the starving, shelters the homeless, and helps those without hope. Did you think she simply sat there in the fireplace for all those years? No, she worked the skin off her bones to make sure her Father's estate stayed strong in the war. All the other estates lost sons and fathers to the war, but the Tremaine estate stayed strong, ruled unseen from the kitchen while the Lady Tremaine squandered the fortune away on clothes and appearances."
"So, the Tremaine estate is powerful?" Lacey asked, sitting upright.
"Most powerful one in the realm at this time I would say," Robin nodded.
"So, that's why the Sheriff wants her," Lacey growled. "He's after more than just a title."
"He what!" Robin exclaimed, bolting to his feet. "Did her Stepmother actually agree to it? She would have to be mad!"
"Lady Tremaine seems to think it's just because Ella's of noble birth," Lacey said, reaching over to clasp Robin's wrist in hers. At the feel of the cold iron in her hand, Lacey glanced down at it, seeing the simple locking mechanism through the shadow between them. "She just wants Ella out of the way so her daughters can inherit the lands."
"No," Robin was saying, glancing over her head at the door. "The Tremaine Estate is practically penniless, but it's very well respected. If the heir is produced, the other Estates of the realm will rally to her. If her husband goes against the King, and she is seen supporting it-"
"Thomas," Lacey groaned. "He must have known. That's why he made the decree."
"Prince Thomas," Robin grinned, "is, my apologies, Belle, a well-intentioned idiot. He has a good heart, but nothing between his ears but what someone whispers into it. If I had to hazard a guess, I would say the prince has no idea who Ella truly is. He's a good man, but not a leader. To be truthful, it's been the very devil to love the woman actually responsible for running the kingdom you're vowed to ruin."
"Marian!" Lacey declared, smacking her forehead. If Thomas was as hopeless as Robin said, it made sense why Marian, poor low-born Marian, had been chosen for leadership in the castle. There could be no one better suited to guide the Prince than the person he trusted most, his best friend since childhood. "We need to get to Marian. She can sort this out. Thomas made a vow to marry his mysterious Lady Ella at the ball last night, we just need him to find her before anyone beats him to the altar."
"You'll have to do it,"Robin decided. "When a guard comes in, I can distract him-"
"Forget that," Lacey replied. "It has to be you. I'd blunder my way straight into the nearest guard or get lost in the woods within ten minutes." Pulling a pin from her hair, she plunged it into the lock of Robin's manacles, and twisted. A moment later, an audible click was heard as the locking mechanism sprang free and the manacles fell off Robin's wrists into Lacey's waiting grip.
The long-haired man blinked at her, rubbing at his free wrist as Lacey hurried to repeat her success on his other wrist before kneeling down to free the lock between his feet. A moment later, he stood before her as free as she was.
"How?" he asked, as she pushed the pin back in her hair.
"Summer camp," Lacey said with a grin. "The counselors locked up their alcohol. You could say I learned to liberate it."
"You are a strange and wonderful sort of woman, Belle," Robin Hood declared, shaking his head. "If my heart did not belong to another-"
"God, you better watch that," Lacey grinned at him saucily. "If I didn't like Marian half as well as I do, I wouldn't hesitate to take advantage of being alone with you in a locked room."
It was worth the probable concussion, Lacey decided, to see Robin Hood blush.
In the end, it was surprisingly easy to knock out a guard.
As Lacey buttoned her bodice back up, Robin dragged the unconscious fellow deep into the shadows before he began to undress him. He ignored Laceys' offer to help, despite her reassurances she had seen a naked man before. He was still a little dazed from Lacey's distraction tactic. "He smells like a rotting fish," Robin told her, laying the jailer's clothes out next to him. "God knows the last time he's bathed."
"All yours then," Lacey conceded gracefully. She leaned against the nearest wall, cocking her head as she watched Robin reach for his own vest. Realizing she was watching, Robin turned and raised a single eyebrow at her. "What?" He simply continued to stare back at her, a bemused smile playing at the corner of his thin lips. With one hand, he twisted a finger in a circle and Lacey groaned. "Fine," she said, turning to face the wall. "Spoilsport."
After a few moments, Robin stood dressed and ready. With the keys jangling in his hands, he looked back at the now locked up guard before back to Lacey. "He'll be out cold for a bit," he told her. "But if he wakes up, don't go near him."
"Not going to be a problem," Lacey replied, eyeing the figure slumped over in the corner. "You better get going before they come to get you for the trial."
Robin hesitated at the door. "You'll be all right?"
Lacey grinned at him, punching one shoulder fondly before stepping away from him. "I'll be fine. I can hold my own until the cavalry comes."
Saying their goodbyes, Robin disappeared out the door, locking it behind him. He left the latch open, wavering in the hallway. "Go," Lacey urged him. "Find Marian and then get me the hell out of here." Before he could respond, booted footsteps were heard, tromping down the stairs. Robin tipped the guard's hat at her with his forefinger, winked and then disappeared in the opposite direction.
Lacey swallowed, wrapping her fingers around the edge of the small bolt hole. She had to stand on her tiptoes to see out of it. She had gone nearly thirty years without ever being arrested in the real world, and here she barely managed to go a day before someone felt the need to lock her up. At least in the last dungeon, she hadn't the very real worry of a sadistic rapist holding the key.
As the guards approached, Lacey stepped back from the door. The steps were growing louder, which meant Robin would have little to no head start at this rate. Any second, they'd open the door, realize the figure in the corner was not the famous thief, and she was going to pay the price of their disappointment. She just ardently hoped the guards were more afraid of the Sheriff than she was.
When she heard the scuffle of boots coming to a stop outside the door, Lacey's heart began to beat faster and faster; her breathing strived to match, growing shallow. Reaching behind her, she wrapped a hand around a column, using the cold old stone to support her as the key turned in the lock. Outside, she heard the muffled voice of someone whispering, before they fell abruptly silent.
The door swung open, revealing at least ten figures standing in formation around the doorway. The chief guard, a star on his breast, stood back from the door, bowing to a figure just to the left of the doorway. "Your Excellency," he mumbled abashedly.
A moment later, a slight figure replaced the larger guard. Slightly taller than Lacey, he barely came up to the guard's chin, but he filled the doorway. His face was in shadow, the torch light behind him overpowering the weak sun spots that pock-marked the dungeon. Lacey cleared her throat, and in her best flippant tone addressed the newcomer. "Afraid my cellmate is sleeping," she told the group. "You'll have to come back when he wakes up."
"Silence," the head guard warned her, leveling a finger at her. The figure beside him, lifted a hand and instead it was the guard who fell silent.
"No need for that," the smaller man commented in a low, smooth baritone. "Tell me, Hedberg, how is it that the lady has been imprisoned with a male prisoner?"
"He's due for execution this afternoon," someone piped up from the back with a high-pitched giggle. "Thought he deserved a little something to look at before the noose!"
The front figure turned, and Lacey caught a flash of silver as the torchlight touched his head. The guard who had spoken hunched his shoulders, growing nervous as the figure regarded him.
"I see," the man in charge said quietly. "Was this your idea then?"
"Sheriff wanted her well looked after, Your Excellency," the unfortunate guard croaked. "Which means-"
"I do not need you to explain the man's depravities," the slight man interrupted.
"Begging your pardon, Your Excellency," Hedburg offered tentatively. "We put her with Robin Hood, because he's known to be a thief with honor. He's locked up in chains, nice and tight. But he wouldn't presume to touch a lady."
"No," Lacey cut in. "Believe me I tried."
This caught the attention of His Excellency Whoever He Was. He turned back to her, remaining just in the shadows so she still could not make out much more than the fine cut of his clothes. He wore an immaculately cut suit, less militaristic than the one Thomas has worn; his had long coattails over straight trousers.
"Amusing," he replied. His tone was dry enough to indicate it was anything but. "Perhaps you would like to stay here then? Try your luck again when he wakes?"
"No need for that," Lacey said, crossing her arms as she leaned back against the column. "He's a dead man walking according to that fellow." A guard elbowed the one who had spoken earlier. He winced, glaring at his companion before letting his gaze fall back to the floor. "Oh," Lacey said with a grin. "Was I not supposed to know that?"
"Regardless," the man in charge said. "My visit has nothing to do with the so-called prince of thieves."
"Oh?" Lacey asked, tilting her chin at him, waiting for him to say more. Men talked. They loved to hear their own voices, their own opinions repeated back to them. Lacey knew this. Hell, that's how she had gotten to where she was in her career. Just sit back and let them talk, worked every time.
But to her surprise, the man did not reply. He simply crossed his arms, stared back at her and waited. She narrowed her eyes, glaring back as silence began to fill the room. Every second she spent distracting them was more time for Robin to escape. After a minute, the guards began to fidget, some darting looks between the two of them in open-mouthed astonishment.
"Your Excellency," Hedburg hedged, but the man simply shook his head, effectively silencing him.
Lacey, intent on her goal, still began to grow annoyed. This worked. This always worked. Taking a step forward, craning her neck to get a better look at the man in shadow, she prodded him. "Did you come here for anything in particular?" she asked him. "Or just to stare?"
He did not laugh but he nodded. "If you would be so kind as to come with me?"
Lacey did not move. "And why would I do that?" she demanded. A few guards shot her murderous looks, while others looked stunned. She ignored them.
Hedburg on the other hand growled, "How dare you speak to a Royal Ambassador like that, you little maggot!" He advanced into the dungeon with his hand raised high. Lacey took a step to meet him, tilting her face up to meet the blow.
She did not see stars. Just a white hot flash of light, and the sound of someone gasping echoing in her ears as pain blossomed not only on her cheek but across the base of her skull. Clutching her cheek, Lacey lifted her head to stare back up at the mammoth man. "I am getting sick of being concussed," she seethed up at him, feeling tears prickling her eyes. She raised her own hand up, hating the way it trembled ever so slightly. "If you raise your hand to me again, you had better kill me or I swear…."
The man looming over her seemed to think this a fine idea. His hand went to his side where a club hung and Lacey watched him defiantly. She had a concussion before, barely two months ago. If he moved to strike her, all it would take was a well-placed knee to bring him down before he could.
"Hedburg!"
"Your Excellency?" the giant growled, not moving a muscle.
"Are you familiar with the punishments for striking a superior?" the figure asked coolly. Lacey still could not see him from behind Hedburg, but the larger man's eyes twitched away from hers.
"I am, Your Excellency," he grunted, eying Lacey's hand where it hung between them in threat. "Losing a hand, isn't it?"
"Indeed. And you have just struck a princess of royal blood."
Lacey felt her breath abandon her. Stepping out from behind a now frozen Hedburg, she approached the figure in the doorway. If he believed her to be a princess, he was no friend of the Sheriff's.
"Who are you?" she asked him. "Did Marian send you?"
"Princess Belle, I do hate to repeat myself. Seeing as the dungeons lack the proper accommodations for a lady of your station, I will ask again only once. Are you ready to leave?"
"As soon as you tell me who you are," Lacey replied. In the corner, a slight movement alerted her to the fact that the fake Robin was beginning to wake up. Torn between buying Robin more time and getting the hell out of dodge, Lacey still couldn't help feeling just a trifle defiant. She hated when men didn't do what they were supposed to after all.
"Your Excellency," someone from the side of the door whispered. "We should be heading back to the castle soon."
Ignoring this, the man did not waver nor did Lacey. Finally, with a bow, he sank before Lacey, a courtly gesture that he held as she stared down at him. After a moment, he straightened. She was close enough now to see his dark brown eyes, lined with crow's feet and set in a sharp angular face.
"I have many titles. My current one being ambassador," the man replied, staring at her with a sharp twist of his thin lips. "However, for all intents and purposes, Your Royal Highness may call me whatever she likes."
"I would like a name," Lacey demanded curtly, growing tired of his power play. "Or should I just call you my hero?"
"That'll do fine, I think," he replied drolly. Lacey opened her mouth to respond when she noticed the man beside the Ambassador growing nervous, toying with his lace cuffs as he shifted his weight from one side to the other.
"I think your lapdog has to pee," Lacey said, nodding in his direction. The ambassador turned, raising an eyebrow at his companion who flushed at the attention.
"My apologies," he muttered. "But we were expected back at the castle over an hour ago, Ambassador Gold."
The Ambassador sighed even as Lacey smiled like a cat who had gotten the canary. "Gold, hmm?" she purred. "See, that wasn't so hard."
Pushing past him, she moved into freedom until her back was to the entire party. Exhaling blissfully, she let her eyes fall shut for a brief moment of relief before she turned back to find them all watching her.
"Well, shall we?"
Gold nodded, before joining her. He offered his arm which she took as they began their way up the stairs. Lacey kept her eyes open, looking into every nook and cranny, just in case she found herself back here sooner rather than later. As if aware of her reasons, Gold tightened his grip on her arm ever so slightly. "No need for that," he mumbled just loud enough for her to hear, but so their entourage could not. "You won't be returning."
"So sure?" Lacey replied.
He only grinned. "Of many, many things."
Okay, I want to thank you all for being so PATIENT. I know a lot of readers have been staring at the screen going- Okay but where is the IMP? And I'm sorry that this arc took longer than I had meant for it to but I hope now you see I've been building up for this huge reveal.
We're going to wrap up here in the First Kingdom in the next couple of chapters but thank you for sticking with this story, and these characters, and all the inbetween. I'm very grateful and I've learned a lot from your feedback. I had written up to Chapter 31 but I have some great ideas now to move forward and I hope you stay with me as I explore this new dynamic between these two.
I've had this idea since I started the Gate and I'm thrilled beyond words to finally get here. I hope you love it. I hope you were surprised and I hope you're excited to see what happens next.
