I glanced at David, her chosen arm. He looked between us, unsure. Would he be loyal to me or Eleanor, given the chance?
She looked to Margaret. “Margaret, fetch my letters,” she told her. Margaret dipped and ran off to obey her, and Eleanor’s white throat worked, sharp wrinkles filling and falling. “I have letters from your father. A pardon for your crimes, and a letter of creation. Technically the creation was for Gisbourne, but it falls to you in his death.”
I blinked at her. “Creation?”
“Of title,” she said. “The king has the ability to bestow and revoke titles. It was the only way he could make you inherit an earldom as a woman.”
“I know what a creation is, Eleanor. Richard—my father—pardoned me?” I asked.
She nodded. “I wrote to him the moment you were imprisoned. I had it for months, but John wouldn’t admit you were alive. And if you’re not alive, you can’t be released.” She came closer to me, skating her hands over my arms. “I told you. He has always looked after your welfare, even when you didn’t know your true lineage. He has always thought of you, Marian. Your father is an excellent man.”
I looked into her eyes. “I’m sorry, Eleanor, but I cannot leave. I can’t just . . . go.”
“Think of your sheriff,” she told me. “If you stay, your Robin will find you. He will stand for you against my son. And he will fall, like your friend fell. He will bleed for you, and he will die.”
I pulled away from her.
He will die.
Rob’s face, frozen like John Little’s, with shock and sudden knowing, like he could see Death creeping toward him over my shoulder.
He will die.
Blood running out of Rob like a swollen spring river gone red.
He will die.
Rob’s blood staining the snow, staining the stones in the courtyard, staining my eyes.
“Lady Scar,” Allan said, stepping toward me with a frown.
I scuttled back. “I’ll go. I’ll go,” I breathed.
“My lady,” Allan said, his shoulders dropping. “It’s the very wrong direction.”
“But she’s right,” I told him, feeling water fill my eyes. “She’s right. And I won’t watch him die.”
Eleanor nodded, coming nearer to me and blocking out my view of Allan. She clasped my shoulders and brought me closer, leaning her forehead against mine, and I shut my eyes, feeling the water slip down my cheeks.
CHAPTER
“She’s playing you like the strings of a damn harp!” Allan snapped at me, taking my things out of the satchel as I tried to fill it up.
“Stop that!” I yelled at him, slapping his hands.
“Ireland?” he said. “I’m from Ireland! Why do you think I came here?” he said. “Nothing good in Ireland.” He frowned. “Except the ale. The ale is fine.”
“Do you wish me to detain him, my lady?” asked David, watching with a scowl and crossed arms.
“No, David, thank you,” I told him. “Allan, really,” I said, snatching a dress back.
“And what are you going to do with that?” he asked. “A dress. A fancy present from Eleanor to buy your silence!”
“You wish to speak to me of dramatics?” I asked, pushing him back from my things. He were right—they were almost all gifts Eleanor had given me in the last day. I’d never owned much of anything in my life. “People will die if I stay here!”
“What makes you think they won’t if you go?” Allan demanded.
I looked to David, and he lifted an eyebrow.
“If Prince John doesn’t know I’m alive, he won’t go after Rob. He’ll leave Nottingham alone. He has no reason to bother.”
“Oh, you’re quite right. He’s had so many excellent reasons in the past,” Allan said, flouncing about with a cloak. “I’ll starve the people because they’re quite bothersome. I’ll murder Gisbourne because he’s ceased to be useful. And in fact—I shall cut off your fingers because you annoyed me and I don’t know how to talk about my feelings,” he mocked.
David stood. “You will not make a joke of my lady’s pain,” he said.
I pulled the cloak from Allan, and David stepped between us, staring Allan down. Allan met his challenging eye contact with a devilish smile, not breaking away.
David gave him a good solid push back, and Allan went, still smiling at David.
David shook his head.
“I won’t go with you,” Allan told me.
I scowled. “No one asked you to come.”
He looked offended in a rather dire way. “Who will entertain you?”
David snorted, and Allan frowned at him.
I pulled up another dress, and tucked it into the satchel. Beneath it were the stack of letters, and the sight of them sliced into my belly like a knife.
Allan didn’t have to be quick to snatch these from me. I were staring at them, and he picked them up, turning them over. “You haven’t opened a one,” he said.
“No,” I said, my mouth going dry.
“So that’s it, then,” he said soft. “You don’t want him anymore. The greatest love story I’ve ever had the chance to tell, and you’re throwing him away.” His head tilted. “In fact, why don’t we just do that,” he said, going to the window.
“Allan!” I yelled, diving for him as he pushed the shutter open. “Allan, don’t!”
I grabbed one arm, jerking it back and slamming my knee into his bits. He wailed, falling back and curling dramatic onto the floor with a howl.
David were right behind me, crossing his arms and watching Allan writhe on the floor instead of assisting.
I took the letters, pressing them into the satchel and buckling the leather shut. I turned to Allan as he started to rise, weakly leaning on the wall. “You think this is easy? That I’m being cruel?” I snapped. “Maybe I am! But I’d rather love him for the rest of my life than love him now and lose him soon after.”
Even as the words left my mouth, they didn’t feel true. Rob’s and my love had always been made in the cracks, the jagged little edges that came from the ruin of something else. It were a place that weren’t supposed to be filled with love, but that’s how it had always been. Our love filled the broken bits and made us whole again. There weren’t no perfect time to love him, not ever, and it had always been with the threat of death and hurt hovering round us. And we’d love each other anyway. Sure, and true.
“You’re giving up, my lady,” he told me.
“You don’t understand,” I told him. I hefted the bag up, and David shook his head.
“Leave it there, my lady. I’ll pack the horses,” David told me. “You go on.”
“Good-bye, Allan,” I told him.
He shook his head. “It’s not good-bye, lady thief. I’ll never believe that.”
I sighed. “David, I’m going to say my good-byes to the others.”
David nodded, and I went out of the room. I were in a skirt now, and I kicked at it as I walked down the hallway. I felt along my back; Eleanor had even purchased two knives for me, and I slid one out of my bodice. I turned it in my good hand. My stumps ached, but the fingers I had left were still sturdy for gripping things. I held the knife in my bad hand, squeezing it tight.
I could hold it. It were awkward, and painful, but I could hold it.
“You’re a lady now,” Eleanor said, and I raised my head to see her down the hall. “You don’t need knives, you know.”
Flipping it up, I caught it with my good hand. “Even a lady needs something sharp at her disposal,” I told her.
“That’s what words are for.” She lifted a shoulder. “Or knights, perhaps.”
“You’re not traveling with many,” I said.
“No,” she said. “Most are still covering the countryside, making announcements, assisting their lords. They are returning to me as fast as they can, but for now, we have enough.” She sighed. “I always like having more men about, but I’ll make do.”
I nodded.
She waved me
into her chambers, and Margaret were there, beaming at me in her strange way, and she handed Eleanor a cloth. Eleanor took it, unwrapping the cloth, showing my moonstone.
“This was when I believed him,” she whispered to me. “That you were dead.”
I swallowed.
“Here,” she said, holding up the chain, and I bowed my head. She slipped it around my neck, and the weight settled down, finding the dip between my breasts. She looked at it and nodded. “Where it belongs.”
“Thank you, Eleanor,” I told her. I jerked forward, hugging her.
“There have been many sins between us, my girl,” she said, petting my back. “But family protects one another. I will always keep you safe.”
I pulled back. It were a finite promise, but I knew she meant it. “Bring my father back,” I told her. “I very much want to meet him.”
She smiled at this. “I cannot wait for that bright day, my girl.” She pressed her hand to my cheek. “Now, David will escort you to Bristol. There should be a ship within a day or two—by the end of the week at the very least—headed for Ireland. You can both buy passage and send word to me when you are met by Theobald Butler—he is far more loyal to me than he is to John, and he will protect you.” She handed me a letter. “This will explain everything to him.” She gave me two more papers, both with ribbons and seals flapping off. “These are your pardon and your creation,” she said.
Holding them against myself, I drew a breath. “Tell me that this is the right thing to do, Eleanor,” I whispered to her.
She raised her chin. “It is the only thing to do if you want to protect those you love,” she told me.
I sighed.
“Ladies,” Winchester said, coming to the open door and bowing to us.
“Winchester,” I said, smiling. “Thank you. For everything you’ve done for me.”
He didn’t smile. “You’re welcome. Of course.”
“Walk her down to the courtyard, won’t you?” Eleanor asked Winchester. “We still have some packing to do. Margaret—stop simpering.”
Margaret flushed and turned back to her task.
“Where will you go next?” I asked her.
“Toward Cornwall,” she said. “Perhaps up toward Devizes Castle first, and then down to Cornwall. That way we can travel all along the south coast.” Her mouth tilted up. “And I’ll have an excuse to stop in Bristol and ensure that you’re off all right.”
“Good-bye, Eleanor,” I told her.
She nodded once, her mouth pressed tight shut. She waved me off and turned away, and Winchester offered me his arm.
He were silent down the hall, down the stair, down another long hall. We were about to make the courtyard, when I asked, “What is it, Winchester?”
He shook his head. “It is not my place, my lady.”
“You’ve been an excellent friend to me, Winchester. Please.”
“This is wrong,” he said soft. “Locksley thinks you’re dead. You’re lying to him—you’re asking me to lie to him.” He shook his head. “More than that. You’re torturing the man. A man who has seen too much torture in his life by half.”
“She’s not wrong,” I whispered to him. “You know he wouldn’t think of the danger. You know what he would risk for me. And I won’t ask him to do it.”
“That doesn’t make this right,” he told me.
We walked into the courtyard. It were clouded and dark, the sky heavy with rain like unshed tears.
“I can’t make you choose differently,” he said. “But I wish you would.”
I shook my head. I mounted my horse, and David bowed to Winchester, who just looked at me with stone in his eyes.
David mounted, and I spurred my horse, looking to the roads. One went north, to Nottingham, to Rob, to the light and his love and the feel of his heartbeat melting into mine. He would choose the north road, if it were him. He would move heaven and earth to return to me.
The other went west to Bristol. I stared at the north road, but I took the one west.
I wouldn’t fix a broken thing only to see it shatter before my eyes a moment later.
I weren’t close to good health yet, and we could only ride so far and so fast; it would take us three days or more to reach Bristol. We stopped at an inn that night, and David told them we were man and wife. He slept on the floor while I lay awake on the bed, staring out the window, thinking of Rob. It felt like leaving England and putting that much space between us were saying good-bye to Rob, to all the love I’d ever had for him, and I had only three days and however long it took to get a ship to figure a way to do it.
The next morning, we saddled the horses, and the stable boy brought out a third horse with him. “Boy,” David said, pointing. “That’s not our horse.”
“Of course it isn’t,” Allan said, coming out from the inn with a wide stretch and a yawn. “It’s mine.”
“Christ Almighty.” David sighed. “I thought we got rid of you.”
“You don’t wish that for a moment,” Allan said, mounting his horse. “Besides, did you really think to go to Ireland without one of her favorite native sons?”
“Clearly a foolish hope,” David muttered, mounting as well.
I swung up onto the horse, feeling my body ache as my muscles settled into place. “Play nice, boys.”
“I am devoted to your every request, lady thief,” Allan told me. “I cannot speak for the errant.”
“A word, my lady,” David said. “All I need is a word from your mouth and I will physically prevent him from following us.” He met Allan’s eyes. “Or walking.”
“A fool for beauty, that’s what I am. An utter fool. Never saw a pretty lass that couldn’t spin my head three ways till Sunday. God himself crafts the lines of a pretty face, I always say, and so how could you say no? You’re looking at God. God’s work, even—it’s like looking at Christ,” Allan prattled on.
“Am I supposed to be the lass?” I asked him. “Because I still don’t recall asking you to come.”
“There’s still time to send you home,” David added.
“You haven’t listened to a word I’ve said. Patriotic duty? Sworn to protect my king’s fair daughter, nay, his country? A man cannot say no to such things. It goes against my honor. The fiber of my being!” Allan proclaimed.
Rolling my eyes, I reminded him, “You’re Irish, Allan. Richard isn’t your king, and England isn’t your country. And I haven’t seen much of this honor you claim.”
He looked mortally wounded. “Have I ever acted dishonorably to you, fair thief?”
“It doesn’t count if you suspect she’d cut your hands off,” David grunted.
“It counts,” Allan and I said at once.
“What about men?” I asked him. “Are you saying men are not crafted by God?”
It might have been the sun, but I could have sworn he colored up a bit. And as someone who hid her blushes fair often, I figured I knew better than most. “Men are the crudest castoffs of God’s work, I must say,” Allan said.
David chuckled.
Allan frowned. “Are we there yet?”
I glared at him. “Does it look like we’re there yet?”
He looked round us, to the cow pastures beyond the dirt road we were riding down. Our horses were in a quick canter, and Allan were frowning along.
“Do you never ride?” David asked. “Even the lady is more accomplished than you.”
“I grew up riding,” I explained. “Even if I didn’t do it much for years after.”
“I ride very gracefully,” Allan said with a sniff. “You two just enjoy it more.” He leaned toward me on his horse. “We could leave him here, fair thief,” he confided in a none-too-quiet whisper. “If you can forgo your penchant for big, strong men.”
“He is required protection by the queen. And it has nothing to do with my penchants, Allan—I just tend to be in the same business as big, strong men, only they need to be twice as tall and twice as heavy to do what I can in half the time,?
?? I snapped. “And if you’re coming along, I hope you’ll serve as much of a purpose as he does. Do you have any contacts in Bristol?”
“I have friends everywhere, my lady.”
“Well, then perhaps you’ll keep your ear to the ground and your mouth blessedly shut?” I said.
David chuckled.
Allan pouted. “You know that’s mostly through an extended network of people with ears to the ground, don’t you? I don’t like putting my ear to the ground.” He pouted further, brushing dust from his bright red cape. “In fact, I don’t much care for being dirty.”
“Allan, stop, for the love of God,” I asked him. “Just stop speaking for a while.”
David chuckled again at this, and I glared at him. He shrugged in return. “I didn’t comment when you called me required protection, did I?” he asked.
I sighed, but Allan weren’t speaking for the moment, so I rather thought I’d try to enjoy it.
I were surprised by how much I did enjoy it. I missed being outside, I missed being away from the city. The trees were in sap, and the smell were enough to get drunk on, to let my mind swirl back to Sherwood and Nottingham and kisses in the dark woods, the rough swipe of bark against my back, and the hot swipe of Rob’s hands on my front.
I shut my eyes. Forget him, forget him, forget him.
It didn’t seem near that easy.
CHAPTER
The three of us made Bristol three full days after leaving Eleanor. The port city seemed prospering and heaving, with Wales in sight across the narrow channel. It bristled the hair on my neck, having an enemy so close and my escape so near.
Escape.
It were quick work for Allan to find the next ship to Ireland that were leaving in three days’ time, and we went to an inn to stay for the in-between. Riding through the country hadn’t meant a lot of gentle nights, and all three of us were happy for a hot bath, even if it were expensive. I went first, and donned a set of men’s clothes over my hot, damp skin.