folded stack of brown wool behind the boulders told her Elena had succeeded. Donning Robin’s clothes had once felt like some form of tribute to him—some way to feel closer to him, to keep him alive. Now she felt the way a warrior must feel when he takes up his shield: ready to face whatever fate might bring, and determined to fight to the last if she had to.
Elena had gone white when Marian explained her plan for the contest, but she hadn’t objected the way Marian had anticipated she would. Instead she was silent for a long time before she spoke.
“My Lady,” she said slowly. “You cannot know how much I’d like . . . how grateful . . . But my Lady—Marian, then—what about the guard? If he dies . . .”
“He won’t die,” Marian had said, grim.
Elena had stepped closer and put a hand on Marian’s arm. “If he dies,” she repeated gently, “Robin Hood will be a murderer. The pardon they’re offering for winning the contest . . .” She didn’t finish the sentence, but she didn’t need to.
Marian had looked up, catching her eye. “That pardon is Alan’s. If I end up exposed, a pardon won’t save me.” It was the first time she’d said that aloud, the first time the words had ever formed in her thoughts. But they were true. She’d never survive the disgrace of her blood and her name.
Now, standing outside the pavilion at the end of the archery range, Marian scanned the crowds. Elena would be there somewhere, lost in the sea of spectators. How agonizing to have to watch, Marian thought, sliding the smooth, worn leather of the archer’s glove covering her fingertips against her palm. To be helpless in the unfolding of your own fate.
She was wearing Robin’s clothes, but not his cloak—to appear as Robin Hood here would be foolish in the extreme, for there was no guarantee of his safety up to the moment he stepped up to loose his arrows. Her cloak was one of rough-spun brown wool that Elena had procured for her. Neither could she wear a mask this time, for while it would conceal her features, it would also proclaim her identity as the outlaw. Instead she was back to moving carefully through the press of people, ensuring the hood hung low and shadowed her face, checking every time she was jostled that it hadn’t slipped back.
A number of other contestants had entered the pavilion similarly cloaked, faces in shadow—the golden arrow was sufficient prize to tempt any entrant, but the pardon had brought more than one outlaw to the town. Watching one bulky fellow with a rough, unshaven face duck through into the pavilion, Marian paused thoughtfully.
Checking out of the corner of her eye that she was unobserved, she stooped to retrieve a handful of dirt from the ground at her feet. She rubbed it in well along her lower cheeks and jaw. At best, it would look like she was sporting a day’s growth of beard. At worst, the dirt would hide her fair, clean skin as long as the upper half of her face remained in shadow.
A fanfare sounded, so close by Marian nearly dropped the bow in her hand. She hurried into the pavilion, where a tired-looking official in the uniform of a scribe was making notations on parchment. Marian looked for Alan—Elena had asked to be the one to explain the details to him, sparing Marian the need to sneak out in the night to do so—but in the press of people she could not find him.
“Name?” The scribe didn’t look up. Marian would’ve expected a scribe to be pleased by the prospect of doing his job outdoors for once, here among the people and surrounded by festivities, but the man had an exceedingly sour disposition.
“David,” Marian replied, letting her voice crack a little, like a lad’s. “David of Doncaster.”
“Group four,” said the scribe, and waved her away when she would’ve asked for more information.
Marian had thought the pavilion contained archers as well as spectators trying to identify Robin Hood—but as it turned out, every one of the men crammed into the little space was competing. The notoriety, or the wealth, was too tantalizing for the people of Nottingham and its surrounds to ignore. The contest would proceed in shifts, with the top two archers in each group returning at the end to compete in the final round.
In vain, Marian searched for Alan. She could not risk