“You don’t have to give it to her today,” she says, sinking back onto her cushions. “But someday you may want to.”
Robin looks up at his mother’s face. “But don’t you want it still?” he whispers.
His mother smiles and folds his fingers around the little ruby ring. “I want your wife to have it.”
TEN
“WHY IN HEAVEN’S NAME would you want to come with me?” Marian’s father eyed her suspiciously from beneath his wiry gray eyebrows. “My God, when you were a child, I had to all but drag you with me when I went to Nottingham.”
Marian schooled her features. The less her father knew, the better, for them both—he had little knack for deception. “I don’t know—a change of pace, something other than these walls, these fields.” She hesitated, hating the move she was about to make. “I see Robin everywhere here.”
Her father’s surprise softened, and he heaved a sigh. “All right, my dear. Come then, if you wish. But you know that Sir Guy will most likely be there, unless he’s out chasing bounties for the Sheriff.”
Marian didn’t have to hide her expression at that—distaste curled her lip, and she shook her head. “I know. But I suspect we’d be seeing him anyway.”
“He doesn’t strike me as one to give up easily,” her father agreed. His face was neutral—unnaturally so—whenever Marian’s suitor came up in conversation.
“At least his appearance won’t be a surprise. And in Nottingham, I can claim other social obligations for part of the time.”
Her father chuckled. “True. All right, tell Elena and pack what you need, and I’ll have Midge saddle Jonquille.”
Elena said nothing when Marian informed her of the trip, but her eyes grew round and wet, and Marian knew why—her brother was being held somewhere in Nottingham Castle, facing the gallows. How long the Sheriff would wait for Gisborne to extract information about the Locksley impostor, Marian did not know. But traveling with the family might give Elena a chance to see Will before his execution.
What Marian didn’t share with Elena was that she had no intention of letting Will hang. Her plan was still hazy at best—she wished, again, for Robin’s knack with strategy—but they’d be in Nottingham for at least a fortnight while her father attended the Sheriff. He and a dozen other lords from across the land had decided to converge upon Nottingham together in the hope of convincing the Sheriff to show more leniency in his taxation policies.
Two weeks. Plenty of time to help Will.
Marian kept scanning the trees as they rode through Sherwood, half expecting to see John and Alan there in the shadows. She tried to stop herself, for fear of giving something away to her father or Midge, who was traveling with them as horse handler and squire for her father—but every time she let her mind drift, her gaze swung back toward the forest.
Elena, at her side, kept her gaze ahead, her expression as calm and composed as ever.
You’re far better at this than I, Marian thought.
Nottingham was only a few hours from Edwinstowe on horseback, but the ride felt interminable. By the time the King’s Road finally emerged from the trees and into the green fields surrounding Nottingham, Marian was ready to bolt—and Jonquille, picking up on her rider’s nerves, made a halfhearted attempt to break into a run.
The approach to the city was crowded with people, and beggars lined the roadsides as merchants and peasants dragged carts in and out of the gates. There had always been beggars in Nottingham, a handful of ragged people turned out of homes overcrowded or seized by the crown—but Marian had never seen so many in one place. Her father’s presence and obvious importance kept most of the beggars away, though Marian could not ignore the way their hungry eyes followed the travelers. She did not carry coin. Her father would have some somewhere in his saddlebags. But a couple of coins to the few outstretched hands nearest them would be like a single twig bobbing in the open sea—it would not keep these people from drowning. And she could not look at them, sympathy and guilt weaving together like chain mail around her battered heart.
Far worse than the people calling out for coins or food were those who’d given up begging altogether. Clusters of weary, dirty, thin-lipped people dotted the slopes on either side of the city gates, barely registering the arrival of new nobility. They seemed to Marian like they were waiting—but not anxiously, not hopefully.