the cruel laws and taxes of his brother the Prince.”
“Enough, Alan.” Little John was eyeing Marian curiously. “Begging your pardon, Lady, but there’s not many noblewomen who’d come into Sherwood alone to help a peasant’s brother.”
“Elena’s important to me. And her brother was important to Rob—to Lord Locksley. His parents died of the pox when he and Elena were young, and the previous Lord Locksley forgave their debts so they could stay in their parents’ house rather than being turned out to fend for themselves. When the old Lord passed, his son found Elena a position as my maid, and Will a place with the miller in Locksley town. Rob—he wouldn’t sit by and let Will be arrested. If he were here.”
“I see.” Little John picked up a charred stick by the fire pit and stirred the leaves. Their camp was barely more than a place to store their few belongings under a rock—no real shelter, and nothing but the depth of the fire pit to hide the flames from patrols.
“You said you would tell me what you knew of Will,” Marian said, trying not to sound as impatient as she felt. “Have you seen him?”
John looked over at Alan, who stopped fiddling with the strings on his lute. He looked up, meeting Marian’s gaze, and sighed. “Aye. We saw him. We started searching not long after midnight and found him half-delirious by a stream.”
“Searching? How did you know to search for him?”
Little John started to respond, but Alan cut him off. “We heard him. Crashing through the underbrush like a herd of cattle.”
John shut his mouth, and Marian glanced between the two men and thought of Elena—her maid had been missing since the night before. Her maid, who’d served her for years and never let slip she had ties to an outlaw.
She would not press them. Not about their sources, at any rate. “Delirious, you said—was he ill?”
“Only in his head,” said Little John. “Battered and bruised, but not ill, no fever or chills. But mad, my Lady, quite mad.”
“It wasn’t madness,” Alan argued. “The lad was walking in circles, barely knew which way was north. And yet he escaped half a dozen of the Sheriff’s men with nothing but a sword and his wits? Someone helped him, John.”
“But a ghost?” Little John snorted. “Spirits and specters and spider’s webs, Alan.”
The ex-minstrel shrugged, shaking his head. “There’s far more in this world than you or I will ever understand.”
“Yes, but Robin of Locksley, risen from his grave among the infidels, returned to save Will Scarlet from the hangman’s noose?” John snorted again, but the breath turned into a cough as he turned and saw Marian. “God’s teeth. Forgive me, my Lady. I didn’t mean to—Lord Locksley’s your—uh.”
Marian had no attention to spare for his misstep. “Will . . . Will says that Robin’s spirit saved him from Gisborne’s men?” The hairs lifted along the back of her neck, the ring on her finger burning her skin as she suppressed a shiver. The voice in her mind was silent now, but she felt its presence nonetheless. She would have been inclined to argue John’s side, but for the vivid reality of Robin’s voice lingering to guide her.
Little John scrubbed a hand through the long hair at the nape of his neck. “Aye, Lady. But there’s no need to fear. I’m certain the lad’s merely had one too many bumps on the head. No spirits here.”
“Spirits have never frightened me,” Marian replied. “Did Will say anything else about this . . . apparition?”
“Only that he appeared out of the rock itself and wrestled him down before Gisborne arrived to capture him, then led the soldiers on a merry chase through the woods before vanishing again. Said he was made of darkness and shadow, but he recognized the spirit by the ring he wore around his . . .”
Little John’s eyes had dropped, and when his voice trailed off, Marian remembered—too late—the ring. She tried to tuck her hand beneath her skirts, but John careened to his feet.
“My Lady,” he said, voice hushed. “That ring—did it belong to Locksley?”
Marian’s mind raced. She could not risk anyone knowing she’d been in the forest last night, much less a pair of outlaws who would trade information in a heartbeat to spare their own lives. “It was his mother’s,” she said haltingly. “He gave it to me—wore it around his neck as a token of our betrothal when he went to fight in the Holy