Deep in the Forest (9/?)

[charlottemay.livejournal.com]

Title: Deep in the Forest (9/?)
Author: Charlotte May
Email:charlottemay43@hotmail.com
Rating: PG13
Pairing: Dom/Billy, Orlando/Elijah, Karl/Miranda
Disclaimer: Not mine, never will be. I intend no disrespect to Dominic Monaghan, Billy Boyd or anyone else mentioned in this story.
Warning: AU
Feedback: Always welcome!
Summary: There are some very familiar faces running round Sherwood Forest. Yes, folks, it’s a LOTRPS Robin Hood story! Do I really need to point out that it’s an AU? ;-)

Author’s notes: Sorry for the delay in posting this part. RL got in the way for a while.

The description of Elijah’s dungeon is based on the Prison Tower at Conwy Castle in North Wales.

Thanks to canciona for the beta.

Part One - Part Two - Part Three - Part Four - Part Five - Part Six - Part Seven - Part Eight

Cross-posted to monaboyd, fellow_shippers and my lj.



Deep in the Forest

Part nine – in which Miranda has An Idea and Sean has Bad News.

Karl watched the beautiful woman. So like his darling Miranda – a slim waist, long blonde hair, soft fleece, cute curly horns… The epitome of sheepy perfection.

A sheep? No! He sat bolt upright in bed, sweating profusely. One day he’d get his own back on Lord Bean for planting such perverted ideas in his mind.

He flopped back onto the pillows and stared at the ceiling. The grey light of dawn was just beginning to illuminate his room; he guessed it had to be about five o’clock in the morning. Not quite time to get up yet, and he knew he’d not go back to sleep easily, so he let his thoughts drift to Miranda. He needed to find some way of stopping her planned marriage to Orlando. Miranda had said she was going to see Lord Bean to have it out with him, but Karl didn’t hold out much hope that she’d succeed in getting her own way this time. Even with tears.

His thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door. Who on earth could it be at this hour? “Come in,” he shouted, pushing himself up to a sitting position.

To his surprise, Miranda rushed into the room and slammed the door behind her. “Karl!” she gasped. “You’ve got to do something!”

Taking in her low cut dress, her beautiful flushed complexion and her eager expression, Karl could think of quite a few somethings he’d like to do, but restrained himself. “What’s the matter, love?” he asked, making sure the covers were tucked round him properly. As usual, he was sleeping naked and Miranda’s arrival had had an instant effect on a particular part of his anatomy.

“It’s Daddy! He’s gone mad.”

Tell me something I don’t know, thought Karl, bitterly. “What’s he done now?”

“He wants to hang that cute guy that Orlando… um… you know.” She blushed and waved her hand vaguely in the air.

“Elijah, the miller’s son?”

“Yes, though he told me his name was Sam.”

He frowned, and decided to leave asking where she’d met a criminal for another time. “He is a wanted man, Miranda,” he said patiently.

She pouted. “But he’s nice. And he’s a friend of Orlando’s.”

Karl shook his head and changed the subject. “Did you tell him you didn’t want to marry Orlando?”

“Yes, but he wouldn’t listen to me.” Miranda frowned and sat down abruptly on his bed. “I can’t marry Orlando. I want to marry you!” She sighed deeply and frowned. “You’ve got to do something, Karl.”

“Such as?” Much as he loved Miranda, Karl really couldn’t see what he could do that wouldn’t involve him suffering the same fate as the Duke of Mansfield or Elijah, the miller’s son.

Miranda’s face suddenly lit up. “I know! Let’s go to the forest and get the outlaws to help us! They hate Daddy.”

Karl felt his mouth drop open in shock. Yes, she had finally, totally and completely lost the plot. It had to be hereditary… she was taking after her father. Perhaps not marrying her would be the wisest course of action.

“Please, Karl.” She shuffled closer to him along the bed until they were almost touching. He swallowed hard and closed his eyes. He could smell her perfume; feel her breath caressing his face. “Please.” Soft lips brushed his; he felt a fingertip trace a delicate pattern on his bare chest. He sucked in a sharp breath and swallowed hard. He couldn’t – no matter how much he wanted to – not here, not now. “Please take me to the forest,” she whispered.

Take you? Oh God yes, I’ll take you, he thought, then shook himself and opened his eyes. He smiled weakly at Miranda, trying to get his rampaging hormones back under control.

She was waiting for his answer, her eyes pleading with him. Karl found it difficult to deny Miranda anything when she was like this, but he tried to stop and think logically about what she had suggested. In actual fact, her idea wasn’t as stupid as it first sounded. She was right about the outlaws hating the Sheriff and they were an organised bunch. Dominic of Locksley and his men had led him a merry dance for longer than he cared to remember. If they agreed to help – and as one of their own was about to be hanged, he couldn’t see them refusing – it might actually work. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more he liked it. This could be his chance to marry Miranda and get rid of the Sheriff. He took a decision. “Okay, give me a few minutes to get dressed. We need to get going before the castle gets busy and somebody spots what we’re doing.”

=======

“Take two men and go to Welbeck. Tell Sir Ian and the Duke of Portland what’s happened.” Dom’s voice was sharp as he barked out his orders to Little Liv. “Wait for a reply. I want to know what they’re going to do.”

Little Liv nodded, and after beckoning two of the outlaws, trotted across the encampment to the horses. Billy watched them leave, his heart constricting in his chest. A few minutes before, he’d been lying with Dom and had never felt so warm, fuzzy and content. Then Friar Astin had come back, tired, dirty and distraught, and told them the horrific news that Elijah was going to be hanged in two days’ time.

The Friar was inconsolable, blaming the whole sorry mess on himself. Dom had tried to persuade him that he was wrong, that the Sheriff was the one to blame, but he wouldn’t listen. Astin wanted to go back to Nottingham immediately and try to save Elijah. Dom had flatly refused, which had surprised Billy. “No,” Dom had said, his voice icily calm, “We wait for word from Welbeck before we move. We can’t do this on our own… not this time.”

The Friar nodded and slumped down by the fire, his head in his hands. Billy went over to him. “Dom will think of something,” he said, patting Astin gently on the back.

“I doubt it,” muttered the Friar, wiping his tear-stained face with his sleeve. “Elijah’s in the dungeon at the bottom of the prison tower, in one of the most well defended part of the castle. And I saw the number of guards the Sheriff was posting around the place when Viggo smuggled me out. We’ll need an army to rescue Elijah.”

=======

Elijah nursed his throbbing ankle and watched the rat as it scuttled along the floor, scavenging for food. Could it have been condemned to death like he was? He idly wondered what it had done wrong to deserve its incarceration. He shuddered. What was he thinking? That way lies madness, he thought. Trying to pull himself together, he reasoned that, after all, he wasn’t dead yet. There had to be something he could do…

He glanced up at the door. There was no way he was going to get out of there without help. It was positioned at least four feet up the wall – a little fact the guards had neglected to mention before they’d pushed him through it – with no steps on the inside. He’d landed awkwardly on the dungeon floor and knew he was lucky to have only sprained his ankle. He could quite easily have broken it.

He’d found a trap door in the floor leading to a room below ground level, but judging by the noises emanating from the darkness when he heaved it open, it was a place for the people the Sheriff really didn’t like. Shaking with fear, he’d dropped the trapdoor pretty quickly, the loud noise echoing round the bare walls. There was no way he was going down there. He got the feeling no-one ever came out.

The only other possibility was the window. Elijah peered up at it, shielding his eyes from the morning sunshine streaming through. It was tall and narrow, and even higher up the wall than the door. Even if he could find something to stand on, which in a room furnished entirely with dirty straw looked about as likely as the rat offering to take a message to Orlando, the window was only about six inches wide… and even he wasn’t that thin.

He slumped against the wall and tried to think. As far as he could see, he’d have to wait until someone else got him out of the dungeon and then hope he got an opportunity to escape. He prayed Friar Astin had got away. If there was any justice in the world, he would have done. The Friar was a good man, and seemed to have some weird misguided compulsion to look after Elijah. He didn’t deserve to suffer for what Elijah had done. And as he wasn’t in the dungeon with him, Elijah decided there was a pretty good chance he’d got away. He hoped that was the case. Elijah felt guilty enough as it was for screwing up his chance to go and get help for Orlando, without having the Friar on his conscience as well.

Orlando. Elijah allowed himself a small smile. Well, at least he was alive… and in no danger of being executed. He wondered if his lover could be happy with Miranda. Perhaps in time Orlando would forget about him and be happy.

Glancing round the grim dungeon again, Elijah’s optimism vanished like the morning mist. A wave of nausea washed over him. He didn’t want to die yet; he was only twenty-three. A tear rolled down his cheek. Elijah had never felt so frightened and alone.

=====

Billy watched Dom pacing up and down in front of his tent. The expression on his face was grim; his jaw clenched, his forehead creased into a frown and Billy thought he could see a muscle twitching under his eye. They hadn’t spoken since Friar Astin had come back to camp. Dom was giving off such strong ‘leave me alone’ signals, Billy hadn’t dared approach him.

It seemed hours since Little Liv and her companions had left, and there was still no sign of their return. The rest of the outlaws were unnaturally quiet, creeping around and talking in whispers. Friar Astin had shut himself in his tent to pray for Elijah. Billy was at a complete loss what to do. Taking a deep breath, he stood up, with the intention of making his way over to Dom, when a commotion distracted him. Finally! Liv was back!

Then he saw the people entering the encampment and realised he was wrong. A man and a woman, both expensively dressed, were being pushed along by a couple of the outlaws. Two extremely well-bred horses were being led behind them. “We found these two in the forest,” one of the outlaws said to Dom.

“Now is not the time for taking from the rich and giving to the poor,” snapped Dom, without looking round. “We have more important things to think about.”

“Let go of me!” shouted the woman to the outlaw holding her arm. “Don’t you know who I am?”

“Miranda, love, calm down,” murmured her companion, soothingly.

Miranda? Billy suddenly found himself paying more attention to the couple. Could it be…?

“Karl of Gisborne. To what do we owe the pleasure?” Dom had turned to face the visitors and his voice was icy as he approached them. Billy watched in fascination at the hatred burning in his eyes. Dom obviously knew this man. “Have you come to gloat about your prisoner?”

The dark haired man, Gisborne, shook his head. “No, we’ve… er…” Shifting nervously from one foot to the other, he looked everywhere except at Dom. Billy wondered why.

“We want you to help us get Sam… no, sorry, Elijah, and Orlando out of the castle,” Miranda interrupted, smiling at Dom sweetly.

“What?” Taken completely off-guard, Dom seemed to be as baffled by this as Billy was. Why would the Sheriff’s daughter and a man who, by Dom’s reaction to him, must work for Lord Bean, want their help? It had to be an elaborate trap.

Miranda was the only one who seemed completely unfazed by all this. “Karl and I want to get married.” She put her hand protectively on her fiancé’s arm. “But Daddy wants me to marry Orlando.” She frowned. “And I think Elijah, the miller’s son, is cute. He shouldn’t be hanged just because Daddy doesn’t like him.”

Billy found himself smiling at Miranda’s logic. She reminded him of the woman he’d left behind in Scotland. As thick as two short planks, but harmless… and completely incapable of subterfuge of any sort. Billy looked thoughtfully at the couple. Perhaps it wasn’t a trap after all.

“But more importantly, the Sheriff plans to murder the Duke of Mansfield,” said Gisborne, urgently. When every one of the outlaws, including Billy and Dom, burst out laughing, the confused look on Gisborne’s face was priceless. “I thought you would be sympathetic to Sir Ian,” he said carefully.

“Very,” said Dom, grinning. “So sympathetic we rescued him last night.”

“Shouldn’t you have known about that, Karl?” asked Miranda, innocently.

“Yes,” muttered Gisborne, through gritted teeth.

“Yes, you should, Karl,” mimicked Dom, still grinning, then he became serious. “Why on earth should I trust you? This smells like a trap to me.”

“Do you seriously think we’d have come here ourselves if we were trying to trap you?” Karl gestured at Miranda. “You know who I am and this is the Sheriff’s daughter. He wouldn’t risk her life just to catch a few outlaws.”

Dom nodded, and said quietly, “Let me think about it, okay?”

Friar Astin chose that moment to emerge from his tent, looking haggard, and blinking in the sunlight. Miranda spotted him immediately, and squealed in delight. Everyone turned to look at her. “I’ve had the most wonderful idea, Karl!” she said excitedly, pointing at the Friar. “He can marry us! That’ll really piss Daddy off!”