voice halted when Gisborne emerged from the crowd to dart up the steps to the platform. Gisborne leaned down a fraction to speak into his master’s ear, his own face unreadable at this distance.
She could think of only one thing that would cause him to ride the short way from the castle at such a pace and interrupt the Sheriff’s speech. The guard, the wounded man, Tom—he’d awakened. He’d named his killer.
Marian ran her fingertips along the edge of her hood, reassuring herself that it was in place, that she was invisible in her guise as archer. She tore her gaze from Gisborne’s indecipherable countenance and watched the Sheriff instead. His features twitched as he listened to Gisborne, mouth stretching to a thin smear of a smile. Then he went on, concluding his empty speech.
The crowd’s response was lackluster at best, but for once the Sheriff had no interest in them. He was speaking in a low voice to Gisborne, gesturing one-handed. Marian saw Gisborne’s face harden a degree more as he shook his head once, and again. The Sheriff flashed him a grimace and shoved himself to his feet before stepping forward to address the crowd again.
“Good people of Nottingham, one more thing!” There was a faint whisper of discontent from the crowd, which was eager to find out if the contest would devolve into a battle or a grand chase between the guards and the outlaw’s men. Hardly discomfited by the lack of command over his audience, the Sheriff continued. “I am sure you have all heard tales by now of the outlaw called Robin Hood.”
Silence rent the quilted sound of murmurs and shifting bodies. Nobility and commoner alike gazed up at the Sheriff, with every bit of attention he could’ve asked for.
He smiled a grim, satisfied smile. “Some of you are here in hopes of seeing him. To turn him in to the law for the reward. Or to venerate him for his so-called kindnesses to the more wretched among you.”
Movement to her right nearly caught her off guard, but something in her recognized a scent she knew, a familiar way of moving, some ineffable quality that identified the man who’d taken a step closer to her. Alan was at her side.
“Robin Hood,” said the Sheriff, his voice oddly light and musing, as if reciting some monologue rather than addressing his town. “Robin of the Hood. You call him thusly for the cloak he wears and the identity it conceals. But from this day you may call him Hood for another reason.”
Marian did not look up. Something had shifted deep in her heart, though she could not have explained how she knew what Gisborne had said to the Sheriff. Tom, she thought, numbed to everything but the monk’s words echoing in her head. Go with God.
“Call him Hood for the hangman’s cloth,” said the Sheriff, his amiable voice hardening, eyes narrowing as he scanned the assembled archers. “He has killed one of my men. Let it be known here and throughout Nottingham that your hero, your outlaw, your Robin Hood, is a murderer.”
THIRTY-THREE
THE SUN RETREATED BEHIND a thin tatter of cloud, like a gentle lady hiding her face behind a filmy veil. Marian watched her shadow against the ground sharpen and soften, rise and fall like breath as the cloud shifted. The blades of grass cast shadows like knives, and then like fingers, and then like memories.
Nearby, archers prepared for the final round. Guards roamed the crowds, warning those who grew too impatient, too brash. Musicians played, vendors shouted, and somewhere a new infant was wailing at the inconvenient, noisy clutter of life.
Marian stood very still. People moved this way and that around her, swirling like little tangles of leaves caught in an eddy of wind. Her fingers were curled round her bow, whose tip rested against the toe of her boot. Her thumb found her leather-bound fingertips and slid across them, slowly, relishing the sensation. The leather had been smoothed when the archer’s glove was made, but no leatherworker could match the slick perfection worn by years of the slip of a bowstring again and again and again.
It was solely practical, that glove—unattractive, unassuming, unidentifiable as a glove except to an archer. Two leather thimbles for the fingers, bound to a wristband to keep it in place. Thimbles, thought Marian, stroking the leather again, fingers drawing circles on each other. Round and round they go. . . .