round if you can, after you’ve made certain he’s bound tight.”
Marian could not come any closer or risk being spotted. Unarmed, she had to wait for her opportunity. If one of the men moved away to search for Alan, or to relieve himself, she could ambush him—take his sword and crossbow if she was lucky enough to get one of the bowmen alone. For now, she could only watch.
Gisborne had struck John so hard that at first, they could not even elicit a groan from the man as they slapped at his cheeks, trying to rouse him. Marian thought for a horrible moment that the blow might have killed him, until he did give a little moan, slumping over onto his side as they let him fall.
The forest around them was silent, the birds having fled, and the sounds of the Sheriff’s men drowning out the whispering breeze. At least—most of the birds had fled. The tick-tick-tick of a robin’s alarm call grated against her ears, high overhead. Gisborne must have caught up to John too close to the bird’s nest.
But then Marian blinked. It was autumn—the spring’s hatchlings had long since fledged, and only the presence of young would keep a territorial robin in the branches when the commotion below had sent the rest of the birds away.
A robin . . . ?
The clicking cry came again, and Marian’s head jerked up in time to see something move in the branches above. It was little more than a shadow slipping from a thinner patch of leaves into concealment, but it was enough.
Alan.
Marian glanced round the edge of the oak’s trunk once more, checking that she could still see each member of Gisborne’s little hunting party, and then started up the tree. Climbing was a skill she’d taught Robin, rather than the other way around. He’d lived his early childhood in town, and when his uncle, the Lord of Locksley before his father, had died, he spent the first year or so falling out of so many trees it was a miracle he’d come through it intact. Marian had—quite ruthlessly—laughed at him.
She made slow progress this time, forced to test each new branch carefully to make sure it wouldn’t quiver and wobble, betraying her presence to Gisborne or his men. And then, when she was high enough to see the dark shadow that was Alan, she had to pause to make sure her hood hung low, making it difficult to see.
She kept on the other side of the trunk from Alan, staying close to the bark and easing one eye out to look at him.
“Sard me,” breathed the minstrel-turned-outlaw, staring, white-faced. “You do exist.”
Marian had never heard that particular swearword spoken before, though she knew what it meant. She wondered what Alan would think if he knew he’d asked a woman to . . . well. She could laugh later, when John was safe.
She nodded, deciding to keep her speech to a minimum. Instead, she pointed at Alan, and then off into the trees, away from where they crouched.
Alan’s wonder and shock at seeing a ghost made flesh faded, and his eyebrows drew together. “He’s my mate.” He spoke in a low voice, clever enough to know that a whisper would carry farther. “I won’t leave him.”
Marian sighed. In this moment, she could’ve wished he had a bit more of the heartless outlaw in him, a willingness to turn tail and leave his cohort behind. True, he’d double her manpower—but two unarmed people against a dozen were no more likely to win than one, and he’d make it harder for her to stay hidden. She shifted, looking down at the crowd below. They were still trying to rouse Little John. She could see the big man’s muscles twitch, and thought he might be pretending unconsciousness.
Smart, though the deception wouldn’t last very long. And Gisborne was getting impatient.
“Why are you here?” Alan asked, keen eyes sweeping over Marian’s cloak, tunic, the well-fitted boots. She shifted her weight so she could withdraw the hand in his line of vision—her height gave her the seeming of a man, but she still had a woman’s narrow fingers.
“To help.” Marian kept her voice as low as she could. With a start, she realized that Alan wasn’t unarmed after all. One hand gripped the branch on which he perched, but the other was clenched around his bow. How he’d managed to climb one-handed, Marian could not imagine.
“Why are you hiding your face?” Alan asked suspiciously, starting