"Yes and no," I said. "I defied laws to be sure, but I acted for the people and that is always meant to be in respect for the Crown."

The prince sighed. "Good Lord, Gisbourne, how on earth do you suffer this? Lady Leaford, you hadn't the right to take action, and acting as an outlaw will always be unlawful, naturally." He sniffed. "That said, in marriage your sins fall to your husband, and I have absolved him of them. You are free to earn my good graces."

"Grace may well be beyond her grasp, my lord," Isabel said soft to him. It weren't near soft enough, and I glared at her.

The prince chuckled. "Perhaps indeed, my love." He took her hand, playing with her fingers before drawing them to his mouth to kiss them. "Gisbourne, isn't my princess very wise?"

"Yes, your Highness."

"And beautiful too, isn't she?"

I couldn't much see Gisbourne, but Isabel were looking at him, and her face didn't look so pinched and catlike now. She blinked her eyes wide.

"Always, your Highness," Gisbourne said, and his voice were rough.

The prince sniffed again and waved his hand, leaning forward a little to meet my eyes. "Now, Lady Marian. This is my land, and as such, I will be the one to act for the people, do you understand?"

I stared back at him.

"You are a n.o.ble lady, and a wife. If you continue such flagrant disregard for my royal authority, I will punish you and my forgiveness will be beyond your reach. I strongly encourage you to cleave to your husband, be a good little girl and be dutiful and pious in all things. And Gisbourne, you might want to think about how the behavior of your wife reflects on your authority. Particularly the authority provided by certain positions?" he said, raising his eyebrows.

Gisbourne made some kind of a grunt.

Prince John smiled. "Now, Lady Leaford, you may kiss my ring and go."

Kiss my ringa"like he were the d.a.m.n king. He weren't even his brother's heir, only third in line to the throne, and he could sit here like a monarch. I stood still, but Gisbourne's fingers caught my elbow to drag me up and were grinding the bones like he were trying to make bread with them.

Finally I stood and stepped forward, kneeling before the prince to kiss the Angevin seal imprinted in gold.

He smiled at me, but all I saw were teeth.

Gisbourne dragged me out into the antechamber. As soon as we were there he raised his hand to hit me again and I slammed my good hand into his throat and my knee into his bits. "Don't you ever strike me," I snarled at him.

De Clare were still there and he strode over to me, grabbing my injured hand and squeezing. A scream bubbled up but I shut my mouth and it came out a yelp. He did it harder, twisting, and I fell.

"Trash," he spat at me. "How dare you hit a lord!"

Gisbourne were grunting but I couldn't even see him. De Clare squeezed again and I couldn't stop the scream from coming.

The door burst open with Winchester filling it, but it weren't needed. Gisbourne had his sword out, and I were fair shocked to see it weren't pointed at me.

"Unhand her," he rumbled.

Winchester crossed his arms as de Clare stared at Gisbourne. "I was helping you give the little b.i.t.c.h what she deserves!" de Clare said, his fingers still mashed in my broken hand.

"She is a lady of the court," Winchester told him.

He dropped my hand, and one of the knights caught me up before I fell. Lot of good they were when he were squeezing.

"Apologize," Gisbourne said.

"You've lost your mind, Gisbourne," de Clare said.

"No one ever said I was sane, de Clare. She's my wife and I'll be the one to show her discipline."

De Clare folded over to give me a mock bow. "My apologies, my lady."

Gisbourne sheathed his sword, satisfied, but Winchester's mug were still storm-filled and dark. "Come along, Marian," Gisbourne said, and Winchester's glare twisted to de Clare.

Gisbourne said nothing until we were back in his chambers. Then he let me go, pushing me forward, and he yelled out the door for some ale. He slammed the door shut, and I sat in the window, opening the shutter a s.p.a.ce and trying hard to keep the water in my eyes.

"You're a stupid, foolish peasant," he growled at me, sitting before the fire. "I told you to speak right to the prince. I told you to behave."

"The prince!" I snapped. "With his royal authority. What authority? He ain't the d.a.m.n king. He's a spoiled boy."

"He's a prince!" Gisbourne roared.

"He's your master," I snarled. "And what, five years your younger? Were you taking orders before he could even hold a sword?"

"You idiot girl," he growled. "Just shut up, be still, and do what you're d.a.m.n well told. I wouldn't have to hit you if you'd just do what I tell you."

"Keep hitting, see what happens," I snapped. They were brave words, but they weren't as honest as they should have been. My arm felt like it had splintered apart like a block of wood.

His eyes were fixed on the fire. "I can hit harder, Marian."

"I'm fair shocked you didn't let de Clare snap my d.a.m.n hand off," I spat at him. "Doesn't matter to you none."

He whipped round in the chair, his eyes blazing hotter than the flames. "Doesn't matter? Are you daft? For him to strike you is an insult to my honor. A grave insult that I will not allow."

I spat on the ground. "You have no honor."

He lunged from his chair, coming to me to loom over me, all darkness and hulk and shadows. "My honor is the only thing that means anything to me."

I stared back at him. "Then you have no thought as to what it means. I'm no innocent, so I can't say I ain't earned whatever pain you put me to. But you've killed children. Without a sin to their name. Honor knows nothing of that."

"I protect my own. My name. Nothing else matters."

Turning my hand, I looked at the new spots of blood on the bandages. "d.a.m.n fine job of protecting me you're doing," I told him.

He caught my chin and dragged me up, looking full in my eyes. His were dark, like oil skating over midnight water, and looking in them felt like falling into black. "Are you mine, Marian?"

My body set to trembling. "You know that answer, Gisbourne."

He let me go, looking away, the black waters drying up. "I do. And yet, you came. With bruises on your face, when all of Sherwood defends you."

"For the annulment."

His lip curled. "Naturally. And yet I wonder if it wasn't your sweet Huntingdon who has been dishonoring you the same way I'm wont to do."

"Rob wouldn't never raise his hand to me. Rob wouldn't never hurt me," I said, my mug hot and my blood running fast. "Rob loves me more than he loves his self." It were all I could manage to say the words clear and true.

My eyes set to leaking and I went for the door, near knocking a servant with a tray of ale. I pa.s.sed her and bare made it another bend in the hall before my mug burst with water. I ran.

I ran through the snow. I made it to the gates, to the towering walls of stone what kept me from Sherwood, from Rob, from the forest that kept some shadow wraith of Scarlet while Marian were here and skirted and chained. And I stopped.

"My lady?" called a knight, coming close to me. "My lady, it's freezing. Allow me to see you back," he said.

He reached for my arm, and I whipped away from him. "Don't touch me," I told him.

Much's words rang in my ears: you never give up. It seemed like a curse more than anything.

If it were true, and Gisbourne were set to be the winner before the compet.i.tion even began, then I weren't sure what I could do to stop him being sheriff. I didn't have a plan, much less a second plan.

All I had were fear, and worry, and faith. Faith that when the time came, I would know what to do.

My feet were cold and heavy as they climbed back up through the baileys. When they stopped, I were in a dark, cold room of stone. I moved past the pews like a ghost and fell onto the kneelers by the dais in the old chapel.

It didn't seem right to cry while you prayed. It seemed selfish to talk to G.o.d in such misery. My only sister had died so long ago. My band were in a forest that didn't feel like mine anymore. My love were kept from me by an awful ring on my finger, and it seemed G.o.d were the only one left to cry to.

Chapter Eight.

I went back to Gisbourne's room after night fell. He weren't there; I had pa.s.sed the main hall and knew most of the gathered court were there to feast with the prince. I felt like a shadow in the halls, and it weren't something I could stand.

I searched the room for my knives, but I couldn't find where the lady servant hid them. I reckoned Gisbourne had a hand in that. Course, it weren't hard to figure out where he kept his money, either, and I took a fair bit of that and stashed it behind the shutter where the lady servant couldn't strip it from me.

Fetching new linen wrappings from the dry storage, I peeled the old ones off my hand and tossed them in the fire. It were bleeding a fair bit, the stick that had set it broken. I used the fire poke to hack off a bit of a fireplace log and set that in its place. My hand were double-thick and raw and sore as anything. Cradling it to me, I curled up in the chair by the fire with one of the furs from the bed and went to sleep. He were a loon if he thought I'd be sleeping in the bed with him.

Gisbourne slammed into the room late and well drunk. I woke but didn't open my eyes none. I stayed quiet and still as I felt him loom over me, blotting into dark the light of the fire.

He didn't touch me. I heard noises, and him moving away, then the bed creaked and the curtains rushed over the bar.

I opened my eyes. His clothes were strewn on the floor, and the bed were covered over with drapes. I shut my eyes again, clutching my hand to my heart, trying to remember what all this hurt were for.

Waking early seemed the best way to skirt round him. I tried to put on my own things but it were d.a.m.n difficult and I had to call for the lady servant. I bid her hush and do it quiet, and she obeyed me.

It would be a few hours yet before Gisbourne rose, and it felt like the closest I'd get to freedom for a long stretch. I retrieved the purse and went for the marketplace.

Even the market had changed. n.o.bles were still arriving, trailing behind the prince in a progress, and with them came merchants and sellers of every sort. The market were jostling and full, and slipping into the people put me at ease.

I bought knives from a merchant I liked that most days were up in Leicester. I got two sets of cheap ones for the coin I'd filched, and as I were paying and the merchant turned, I caught a wrist with his fingers around a blade hilt.

"Don't," I warned soft, my eyes flicking up to the man who owned the wrist.

His face flickered into a grin, and with a quick twist from him I were a step away from the merchant's shop, held tight against the thief.

"Can't you let me have my fun?" he asked, his Irish brogue low in my ear as I aimed my knife to drive in his thigh. "Scarlet?"

I stopped before I stabbed him, wriggling out of his paws. I turned and looked at hima"tall and shift-footed, with too-long hair and too-bright eyesa"not a lick of which were known to me. "I don't know you."

He swept into an awful proper bow. "Allan a Dale, my lady thief."

Tucking my new knives into their proper places, I frowned at him. "You know me?"

"I came up in London behind your legend. And still it grows," he told me, tossing me an apple from a stand. He waved me forward. "Walk with me?"

"Dangerous prospect," I said, but I did, and I bit the apple. "I miss London every now and a bit."

"Filthy, pest-ridden, hard-scrabble, beautiful city," he said, grinning.

"But how did you know me?"

He looked cut. "A knife-wielding lady who cut off her own hair to fight a thief taker? There aren't many of you in the world, my lady."

I snorted. "Don't have to call me lady, Allan."

"Dressed like that I think I do." He cast about in the marketplace. "So where is Robin Hood?"

"Where he ought," I said. "With his people." We pa.s.sed a shanty of a house on the edge of the marketplace, and two children were there, filthy and still, watching all the people go by.

Frowning, I turned back to the nearest bakers stall and gave the rest of my coin for bread. "You're paying for things?" Allan said.

Lifting my shoulders, I went back toward the children. "Not my coin, so that ain't quite so."

He laughed. I gave a loaf to the two children and quick enough others came, and Allan were quick to take bread from my stack and rip it apart to spread round. "I've heard this is what you do," he said. "Stealing to feed people." His head went to the side. "It's so a strange."

"It's what n.o.bles do," I said bitter. "Prince John feasting every nighta"he's taking the game and the crops from the people of the shire, putting them to starve in winter. Least I ain't stealing to feed myself."

"Don't be ridiculous," he said. "He's stealing to feed his ego, not his belly. It hasn't been so well tended these days."

"His ego?"

Allan kept the last bit of bread for himself, and with the food gone, the children went too. He nodded, chewing. "You didn't hear?"

I frowned. "I ain't much for gossip."

He stopped, swallowed, and then did a turn with a tuck of his cap, winking for show. "This is the royal court, fair thief. It lives on gossip, perception, and hearsay." His hands spread wide. "Let me spin you a tale, then."

He bowed and I crossed my arms.

With a shrug, he stood. "Well, when Richard left for the Holy Crusade, he kicked John to France. Told him to stay out of his country while he was away, and named his wee nephew his heir. Because G.o.d knows, Richard knows how to steal a crowna"it was taught to him in the womb, so they say. Eleanor of Aquitaine herself incited her sons in rebellion against their father. And if he didn't learn violence from her, then maybe from the Devil that bore them all."