behalf of the Sheriff,” he said formally, voice rising a little. “I am ordered to make an arrest.”
Marian’s eyes searched the dark windows of her home but saw no sign of movement. Her fingers tightened until she heard the crackle of ripping grass roots against her knuckles. She summoned all the spirit she could, painfully aware that she had little left to show. “Then make it.”
Gisborne inclined his head as though accepting a gracious concession. “If you would be so good as to inform me where she is, I will.”
Marian blinked. “She?”
“A woman by the name of Elena Scarlet. She is, as I understand it, your maid.”
Marian’s grip went lax, and she felt the panic rising, heart pounding in her ears. “Elena?” she echoed senselessly.
“She is the sister of Will Scarlet, is she not?” Gisborne spoke respectfully, though his tone invited no contradiction. “Her brother was the first one to tell of Robin Hood and is almost certainly one of his gang of cutthroats. She volunteered to work in the kitchens, a lady’s maid offering to do low scullery work, on the day Robin Hood helped her brother escape imprisonment. And, as it turns out, she is betrothed to a man named Alan-a-Dale.”
Marian needed a sword, a knife, anything she could use to parry the onslaught of words that cut deeper and deeper each second. She could not think—her shoulder throbbed, and her limbs tingled.
Gisborne’s lips moved, but his expression could not have been called a smile. “You seem confused. Although, now I think of it, you didn’t attend the archery contest, did you? I worried at the time that you were unwell. Given your love of the bow and arrow, I wouldn’t have thought you’d miss it.”
“She is only my maid,” Marian managed in a sharp, brittle voice.
“She’s betrothed to the man who won the contest meant to catch this land’s most notorious criminal. I should think the fact that she’s your maid is the least remarkable thing about her.” Gisborne’s black eyes showed nothing but a polite, remote interest. “Or it ought to be.”
Marian’s lips trembled with the effort of not shouting. The boys nearby were joking with each other once more. Gisborne wore no visible weapon, but she did not doubt he was armed—a dagger in his boot, or tucked up his sleeve. That he had not arrested her, or killed her already, told Marian he wanted something else, something she could not predict. Which meant he would not hesitate to use her people to get it.
“What do you want, Gisborne?” She’d never addressed him so to his face, as a man might, without the trappings of genteel society.
The scarred cheek twitched. “Exactly as I’ve said. Elena Scarlet. Even if she is innocent, as you claim, she knows something. I intend to learn what it is. The minstrel has his pardon—we cannot touch him. But she has no such protection from the law.”
Marian’s jaw ached, her teeth grinding. Her eyes flicked toward the apple tree, where one of the boys had hopped down and was reaching up to receive the bushel basket his friend was handing down. She forced her gaze back toward Gisborne’s face. “What do I have to do to spare her? Shall I beg?”
Gisborne rose out of his crouch effortlessly. If his old wound pained him, he masked the signs with the ease of long, long practice. His shadow fell across Marian’s face, his eyes like obsidian as he gazed down at her with utter indifference. “I want nothing from you, Lady Marian.”
The words hit, and she hadn’t the strength to hide it. Gisborne’s hand moved toward his waist, and Marian flinched, expecting to see the bright spark of sunlight reflected off steel. He paused, watching her reaction—if he enjoyed her fear, he gave no sign of that either. He pulled an object from the pocket hanging from his belt, but it was no weapon.
He loomed over her a moment and then tossed the thing into the dirt beside her. “But I would hear what Robin Hood has to say.”
He didn’t wait for her response. Turning, he strode away, only the faintest hitch in his step to tell of his limp, and vanished around the corner of the house. Behind her, the boys’ laughter began to fade as they carried their baskets back toward the village. Jonquille whickered and took a few steps to a new patch of grass.
Vision still blurred with anger and tears, Marian’s fingers curled clumsily around the object Gisborne had