Her men were armed, and her first instinct was to commandeer one of their swords, but Alan was right. Her shoulder was better than it had been, and she might be able to hold a sword, but she’d have little strength to swing it or block more than a blow or two. And she wouldn’t be able to draw a bow for a long, long time.
Marian gazed back out into the drizzle-shrouded chaos until her eyes focused on one steady, unmoving bit of color. A corner of green dangled over the edge of the platform. She was not weaponless after all. She made a grab for the cloak and dragged it over the edge and into the shadows. As she pulled it over her shoulders, a hand seized her elbow.
Alan’s face was close to hers, intent and anxious. “What are you doing?”
Rising certainty curved her lips into a smile. “Being Robin Hood.” She squeezed his arm and then darted out into the fray before her men could stop her.
She was instantly knocked over by someone running past, and she barreled into a short, pockmarked man wielding a heavy spindle as a cudgel. He started to swing it and then stopped, gaping. All he could see was the hood—Marian dropped her eyes as fast as she could—but his arms seized her out of the mud and dragged her back onto her feet.
The crowd carried him away before she could say a word of gratitude, but Marian had her balance now, and she wove her way through the rioting mass of people, many of whom saw the cloak and fell back out of her path.
She reached the platform’s edge again in time to see Gisborne’s sword fly out of his hands, knocked away by a big man in guard’s mail. Gisborne flung himself down onto the wood to avoid two more swords, spraying blood onto the planks from a gash in his neck. Horror gave Marian strength, and she launched herself up onto the platform with an inarticulate cry.
Momentum carried her into the big man, who took a step back onto thin air and then toppled off the edge of the gallows with a bleat of consternation. The other two men were recovering their balance and readying to swing again. Marian straightened, and a ragged cheer went through the masses. To them, yet a third Robin Hood—not Marian or Gisborne—had appeared, and they could not get enough.
Marian grabbed for Gisborne’s arm and dragged him up, ignoring the breathless, wordless protest that escaped him. She glanced toward the balustrade, careful to keep the hood shadowing her face. The Sheriff was staring, eyes bulging, at her and Gisborne side by side. He began shouting, and though Marian could not hear what he said, she could read his utter bewilderment in his features. He’d been so certain the Lady Marian was Robin Hood, and then so convinced that Gisborne was, that now he had no idea what to do.
She waited a moment longer, making sure the onlookers had seen Gisborne, half-supported by the cloaked figure of Robin Hood, until a crossbow bolt hummed past them.
“Time to go,” she shouted into Gisborne’s ear, and then shoved him toward the edge of the platform.
FORTY-FIVE
IN A BALLAD, MARIAN would have swung in on a rope, or a conveniently draped banner, and swept him up and carried him off in a single, breathtaking feat of daring. In a ballad, the rescuer would outweigh the rescued by a significant margin and be able to sling the fainting, dainty form over a shoulder.
But Marian could only push Gisborne bodily into the crowd and then jump from the platform herself. She landed with a thud that jarred her breath painfully in her chest, and she groped around until she found Gisborne on his knees, gasping. She had only one good arm, and blood soaked skin and tunic down his side, but together they careened up and into the crowd.
This time the hands that touched her as she passed were those of allies. When her feet slid and skidded against the mud, someone grabbed her elbow and hauled her upright again. When a guard managed to free himself from a cluster of maddened townsfolk and come at them, sword raised, a stout woman in an apron dusted with flour gave a shout and flew at him, along with half a dozen others, knocking him to the ground.
A path, ragged and changing but unmistakable, opened before them, and Marian broke into a run. Gisborne