“Sir,” one of Gisborne’s men said in a low voice, “I heard that Hood’s men were few. Just a handful.”
“The cells aren’t for them. Go—you have my orders.”
Marian peeked around the corner in time to see the first man march off, as Gisborne reached out to take the arm of the second. “In two weeks’ time we’ll be asked to begin making arrests for failure to pay debts. There’s no need to tell the men just yet. But pick a few of the most discreet and start preparing, for the numbers will be staggering, and we’ll have to work quickly.”
He sent the other man off and then stood motionless for a time, head bowed, cold eyes on the stone floor. Marian’s stomach churned, anger and dread both making her feel sick. She fled before Gisborne saw her, and when he called upon her later she could not dismiss the memory.
He’d interviewed her extensively when he first brought her in, but when he visited her the next day he made no mention of it. He’d bowed over her hand, and his eyes had lingered at her throat, which bore a grim necklace of onyx and azurite bruises. He’d asked after her father, and whether she was well, and informed her that the stableman had seen to her horse and that the mare seemed fit and in good spirits.
Marian could not stop thinking about the missing cloak. She knew it could not lead him to her, but a dozen little voices whispered and pointed out different paths to disaster. Someone could have seen the woman hiding the cloak. If the rain didn’t wash them away, the mud could have preserved her boot prints leading from the hiding spot to the place where Gisborne had found her. There could be a few shed hairs clinging to the inside of the hood, her exact shade of chestnut, wavy and too long for a man’s. . . .
Gisborne gazed at her, a faint frown distorting his features. “You seem well,” he said finally.
“I am unhurt,” she replied, an undercurrent of pleasure coursing through her. He didn’t know after all. She was still winning. “The Sheriff has been keeping you busy.”
“Indeed.” Gisborne’s face showed not a trace of guilt at the idea of arresting otherwise innocent people for failing to pay the Sheriff’s ever-increasing taxes.
Marian’s heart hardened just a fraction more.
Gisborne cleared his throat. “I hope, my Lady, that soon you will have no cause to fear.”
Marian fought the urge to point out that she wasn’t afraid—not of Robin Hood, at any rate—and bowed her head. “I know you are doing everything in your power to find him.” And failing.
Gisborne’s frown lessened a degree, though the expression that curved his lips now could not have been called a smile. “I have reason to believe he’ll be apprehended soon.”
Marian’s pleasure vanished, and every ounce of her willpower went to avoiding a telltale flicker of her expression or shift of her weight. Gisborne watched her, but mildly, without the eagle-eyed intensity she’d expect if he suspected her involvement. “Oh?” was all she could think of to say.
“It will take some time yet, but I will catch him, Marian. My Lady.” The slip was absentminded. The correction, however, was not. His not-even-a-smile vanished, and his shoulders drew back. Dour, remote, and rigid once more, he inclined his head. “I will be away from the castle for a while. Please forgive my absence.”
And he was gone.
Though the castle was quiet, the town below was in a relative uproar. It had taken less than a day for Marian’s men—Robin Hood’s men, she corrected herself—to begin distributing the Sheriff’s grain throughout the town. Marian had caught fragments of conversation between guards and officials saying that there were roadblocks, and agents at the markets to detain, and searches, trying to make it impossible for the thief to profit from his ill-gotten gains—but it was a lone monk from one of the local orders who noticed a sudden and puzzling decrease in the crowds begging for food at the church. Gisborne had raged, in that icy way of his, and the guards had torn through the town, but even Gisborne could not tear a piece of bread away from a hungry child, nor arrest a toothless old man for the bowl of porridge in his gnarled hands.
The name of Robin Hood was everywhere: in the jokes told by the guards, in the whispers of the servants, and in the conversations over needlepoint and