An Indecent Betrothal [Book One of the Lady Heloise Adventures]

Chapter Two

Disclaimer: Robin Hood based off the BBC re-edition. All canon characters were made by them and not me. Heloise and Robert are mine though so back off... :P

Nottingham Castle

As the wind howled and night settled over Nottingham, the feast of St Catherine began. As the month was November (or Blood Month as the peasants knew it), the feast was largely made up of meat that was not to be salted for the winter.

At the high table, Lady Heloise, as the honoured guest, had been seated next to the Sheriff. She refused his offer of yet more wine having already consumed far more than she normally would. Her head spinning slightly and ears ringing with the din of the countless musicians, she excused herself briefly to attend the privy. In her absence, Sir Guy moved his chair closer to the Sheriff and leaned over to whisper in his ear.

“FitzHenry is still asleep, my lord, but we have a guard posted on his door for when he awakens.”

“I’ve changed my mind, Gisbourne,” the Sheriff hissed, leaning forward to retrieve a leg of pork. He placed the leg to his lips and used his teeth to rip into the sweet meat. “Keep him free to wander the castle. After all, the storm is sure to last a few days. Even then, the roads will not be safe to travel on for a further week. Let’s treat our guests honourably in the hope that they’ll come to trust us.” His hawk eyes caught the reappearance of the Lady Heloise as she returned hesitantly to the Great Hall. Her face washed and her hair styled under a silver circlet and veil, she looked radiant this evening.

“You did a good job, Marian,” the Sheriff turned away from his scowling lieutenant and focused instead on the brunette noble woman sitting next to Guy. With her heart-shaped face, blue eyes and curvaceous body, she was perhaps more beautiful than the thin whelp currently walking towards the high table, but the Sheriff hated the Lady Marian with a passion. He had no idea where her loyalties stood apart from the loyalty she held for her father, Sir Edward of Knighton, the former Sheriff. The decrepit fool of a man had been too ill to join the small feast and was residing in his chambers upstairs with a maid to tend to his needs.

“Thank you, my lord,” Marian replied, her eyes meeting the Sheriff’s in a determined gaze. Another reason to hate her, the Sheriff thought, she was too forward for a woman. If he had been her father, he thought cruelly, he would have had her whipped for even daring to breathe the wrong way in his presence. “Her ladyship was smaller than me in stature so I tracked down my old dresses from my childhood.” Her addition of the word “childhood” had been no mistake. She had noticed the way the Sheriff had been looking at Heloise all evening. Like a leg of pork waiting to be consumed.

“It would be natural for you to have to find your old dresses for Lady Heloise,” the Sheriff barked in reply as his page boy hurried forward to move the chair for Heloise. “It only reminds us of how you’ve let yourself go over the last few years.” Marian flushed an ugly shade of red and sent an angry glance in the direction of Sir Guy who merely scowled some more and poured himself more wine.

Heloise herself planned to avoid joining in with the conversation. She chewed a chop of pork miserably, her dinner knife cutting the pork into smaller and smaller pieces until there was almost nothing left. Every time the doors opened and the trumpets sounded, she looked up hopefully, expecting to see her brother swaggering into the hall with an ever-present grin on his face. Instead further courses arrived and she continued to think in silence, ignoring the leers coming from the direction of the lord Sheriff.

It wasn’t much of a feast in honest. It wasn’t much of a high table. A high table was something to separate the high ranks and established guests from the rank and file. When the rank and file consisted of four off-duty guards and a dozen musicians playing out of tune, the high table was not much needed.