shouts. In moments the crowd was even louder than it had been before the Sheriff spoke, and pressing in so close that the guards ringing the gallows platform had to draw their weapons to hold the spectators off.
The voices were so many as to be indistinguishable, and yet by some strange trick of echo, Marian distinctly heard someone cry, “Long live Robin Hood!”
The Sheriff had heard it too, and heard that cry begin to spread, taken up by another, and another, until at least a dozen voices chanted the words. He bellowed again for silence, and didn’t wait for obedience before he went on.
“Well? What do you say to this? Do you admit it?”
Marian looked up, and it took some time for her to focus on the Sheriff’s reddened, angry face. Her lips parted, and she tasted the droplets of rain there before speaking. The crowd hushed, and waited, and watched with upturned faces. Marian murmured, “Long live Robin Hood.”
The Sheriff’s red face went purple, and he leaned out over the balustrade. “Confess,” he shouted. “Confess, and I will spare your father.”
The world went still. She no longer heard the crowd, no longer felt the cold on her bare shoulder and throat. Another raindrop fell, and she blinked moisture from her eyes. Intention crystallized, and she drew a shuddering breath.
“I am—”
“Enough!” The voice cracked through the air like shattering stone, and Marian had a strange swell of irritation. Will they never stop interrupting me?
The wild thought scattered, though, as she saw someone forcing his way through the press of the crowd. She could see only the black of his hair and the occasional glint of chain mail and dark leather, and in her confusion she did not recognize him until he’d mounted the stairs.
“Enough,” Gisborne said, his mask so perfect he seemed made of stone. “Let her go, my Lord.”
The Sheriff, his ire fading in favor of confusion, retorted, “It never occurred to you, did it, little brother? That your infamous Robin Hood could be the lady at your side.”
Gisborne let out a snort of derision. “You’re mad. She’s a woman.” He looked as he always had, hair raked back from his face, immaculate tunic laced up to his chin, black eyes cold. He carried a bundle under one arm, but the other rested—casually, lightly—on the hilt of the sword at his waist. He did not look at Marian. “Clever, yes, resourceful. But a woman nonetheless.”
“Not much of one,” the Sheriff sneered. “Look at her—tall and awkward as a lad, no grace or beauty to her. Have you checked, little brother, to see if she really is a woman after all?”
The question was not meant in earnest—her dress torn and gaping, there was no hiding the rounded shoulder, the swell of her breast. The question was a dagger, and it wasn’t meant for Marian.
Gisborne gazed coolly back up at the Sheriff. “She is not Robin Hood—that is all that concerns you.”
The Sheriff waved a dismissive hand. “Go back to your poachers and cutpurses. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I do know.” Gisborne’s lips curved. Marian saw it, recognized that twist—humorless but amused, wry and cutting. He lifted the bundle under his arm and then shook it out. Wool cascaded in an emerald green waterfall, and with it a bow and a handful of arrows clattered to the wooden platform. Gisborne let the cloak fall and held up a leather object in his hand for the Sheriff and all Nottingham to see.
He tossed the mask down upon the green pool of the infamous cloak. “I know because I am Robin Hood.”
FORTY-FOUR
THE SHERIFF WAS LAUGHING. Marian could neither move nor think. The crowd, confused by the quick-fire twists and turns, milled and shifted. “Of all the ways you have tried to raise yourself above your birth, this is by far the most entertaining.”
Gisborne did not return his mirth. He stood absolutely still, ignoring Marian altogether, watching his lord calmly. “It is no jest.”
The Sheriff grinned. “So you wrestled yourself, that day outside our walls, in full view of a staring crowd. You clashed swords with yourself in Sherwood, surrounded by your own guardsmen?”
“Decoys. How better to make certain no one would suspect me than to hire someone to appear as Robin Hood while I was there? A child could have thought of it.”
The words brought life back to Marian’s mind, thawing her frozen body. She caught her breath as the rain began to fall in earnest, pattering against her hair and