Chapter 46 | Robin | One Month Later
Istood in the crowded town square of Nottingham, hood over my face, scowl twisting my features. I was shoulder to shoulder with hundreds of citizens hungry for blood. My men were hidden within the swell of watchers, near me. Everyone faced the same direction: the raised gallows at the center of the square.
I recalled the riot in this very place, last time I’d been here. The riot had spilled out during the hanging of the men falsely accused as Merry Men. It had been a momentous day, leading to Dan the Dove’s death at the hands of Sir Guy, and Little John’s assault from Sheriff George. For months, the city wallowed as George tried to exert his authority over the masses and reclaim his position as lord.
A vast recovery effort in the months that followed had somewhat helped George warp the public memory of that botched execution, which had ended in so much destruction of property and trust.
I still shuddered every time the memory of that day came to mind.
Now, the square was packed even more than before. This had to be the most notorious execution the city had ever seen—the hanging of the “Whore Queen of the Merry Men.”
Another wrongly accused person. This one a woman. The heralds on their crates called her a witch to anyone who would listen as the throng made for the square. They called her a sorceress who cursed the hearts of the men following her, leading them by their cocks. Others called her a common whore—a slut of noble origins—who was never satisfied with the aristocracy at court.
I supposed that part was somewhat true.
Shopkeepers gave out redheaded dolls and memorabilia to passing children. Others gave out toy bows and padded arrows. Everyone was here to watch the most infamous criminal in Nottingham history finally meet her well-deserved end.
If only they knew that the real criminal was stooped within their midst, watching with them.
Robert stood next to me, jaw clamped in anger. I knew he wanted to act out—to pull the same maneuver we’d done all those months ago.
He had started to fall for Maid Marian, shortly before she’d been ripped away from him.
I recalled a conversation I’d had with Marian the night before we left on our fateful mission to take down Sheriff George. After seeing how she and Robert communicated in the command tent, I bristled and charged into Marian’s tent.
“Just what are your intentions with my brother, woman?” I’d demanded to know.
She had stared at me with that haughty smirk that rankled me so badly. For a time, she’d said nothing.
“What’s your game here, succubus?” I’d pressed. “Is this to further slap me in the face? Take my estate, take my father, my brother—take everything?”
Marian had answered calmly. “Not everything is about you, little Robin bird. Maybe I actually fancy him?”
“Don’t play games with me, bitch!”
Then she had shot me a smirk that had become synonymous with her: a slightly tilted head, a tight, pointed jawline, and the hint of a curl at the edge of her ruby-red lips.
“Like father . . . like son, I suppose?”
I had gasped in shock. It was a wicked thing to say, and, looking back at it, I thanked Marian for it.
It made me stronger. More resistant than ever. Showed me that I could protect the men I loved, but even one closest to me like my brother had to make his own decisions. I hoped he would see through her deceit and not fall for the wicked swindler.
It had made it so easy to barge into her tent later that night, once the mission had ended and the truth came to light. It had made her state even more shocking, since mere hours after her pompous explanation to me, she had seemed like a completely broken creature.
She realized her actions had ended in a beloved man’s death, and if the truth got out of her duplicity, no one in camp would ever forgive her. Even the orphans.
Uncle Gregory was irreplaceable.
I never did tell the orphans what happened. Didn’t tell anyone, really—they could make up their own minds regarding the legend of Maid Marian.
Now, it was a different day. A new day. One where the chapter of the Merry Men was closing—in all eyes of the citizenry—and we were expected to move forward as a shell of our former selves.
Our leader was dying today, after all, right?
When the hangman led Marian up to the gallows, she was frail and hunched. She had spent a month in the worst prison in Nottingham, undoubtedly experiencing torture that even me or John had never felt.
A ragged sense of remorse and guilt flooded through me when I laid eyes on her tired face and broken body. She limped, and her usually curly hair was in flat tangles around her head.
For all they said about her, she looked like a crone, aged thirty years in a month due to not having access to her potions and oils that kept her looking forever young in the past.
I took Robert’s hand and squeezed.
His body seemed to deflate when he saw her.
He hadn’t been able to resist Marian’s charms, and now the repercussions were hitting him square in the chest. I felt for my brother, I truly did.
No one should be forced to watch the death of someone they fancy, and envisioned a future with.
“Stay strong, brother,” I told him in a whisper.
I wasn’t sure if my words rose above the din of jeering and shouting from the crowd. It was ear-splitting, and before long the vegetables came out, tossed onto the gallows at the Whore Queen.
Tears burned in my eyes.
Marian may have caused us distress and heartache . . . but no one deserves this. It’s because of me she’s here at all.
I hadn’t been strong enough to take the blame when Prince John demanded our leader’s head.
I’d allowed Marian to be in this position, because I feared too badly what would happen without my mates by my side.
Will, John, Alan, and Tuck were scattered within the crowd. All of us came to watch, to pay our respects, along with many other Nottingham natives in our ranks—Rosco and the guttersnipes; Emma, who had briefly been Marian’s maid in the past; Briggs, who was there to protect the heart of the man he called leader.
The Merry Men and Oak Boys made a showing, and when Marian looked out at us, she recognized faces. I could see it in the narrowing of her eyes, the squinting and small nods she gave invisible faces in the crowd.
When her eyes landed on mine, my heart stuttered.
And she winked with a smile.
I groaned, jolting at the expression on her face. Damned woman, I thought. Has to make me care about her and like her even in the end. Perhaps that’s truly your power, eh, succubus?
I realized something in that moment.
Maid Marian had always wanted everything on her own terms. When she couldn’t get it, she acted out. Whether it was security, fame, fortune, or power.
And now . . . even her death was on her own terms.
That was what separated her from everyone else: She was willing to go to any lengths to meet her ambition. It just so happened that her ambition had been too lofty this time, even for such a cunning self-preservationist.
The executioner put the noose around her neck and tightened it. He forced Marian to stumble up to a box to stand on, and the cheering reached a fever pitch from the audience, in every direction.
Sir Connor—who had never actually spoken to Robin Hood, and therefore didn’t know that the person he had arrested was not her—appeared with a scroll in hand. He read through an arduous list of the crimes Robin of Loxley was being hanged for.
Most of them were true. Some of them were pure fabrications.
I kept my eyes on Marian the whole time, with her head ducked, looking out at the crowd. She seemed more frantic now, for some reason.
My brow furrowed.
Then the whites in her eyes grew huge in her head when she landed on a particular spot in the crowd, near me.
I followed her gaze—
And my heart stopped in my chest.
A small lad, no more than ten summers old, had pushed his way through toward the front of the crowd. I heard voices behind, caught in the crowd, yelling out, “Barry? My sweet? Where did you go?”
With a plummeting stomach, I noticed how Marian didn’t take her eyes off the whelp. He stared up at her in awe.
His face was freckled. His hair was red and floppy on his head. The color of crimson.
“Maybe . . . if you were a mother . . . you’d understand.”
Marian’s words hit me in the chest.
“My God,” I choked out.
“Sister?” Robert asked.
I pushed away from him, wading deeper into the crowd. Elbowing people out of my way, until I was hemmed in on all sides and the stuffiness of the sweaty, odorous bodies nearly overwhelmed me.
With a growl, I kept shoving, headed for the small boy.
Tears were running tracks down Marian’s grimy face now.
Sir Connor finished his spiel, and then announced Marian’s sentencing. He turned his back to the crowd and motioned to the hangman.
The boy continued watching, a smile on his young face—
And my hand landed on his shoulder. I squeezed tightly, pulling him close against me. “Barry?” I smiled down at him, and he looked up at me in confusion. “You don’t need to see this, lad.”
“But I want to!”
I pulled him close, forcing him to stare up at me. “Your parents are worried sick about you. Can’t you hear them? Here, let’s find them.”
Confusion dashed across his adorable face. He had the same sharp chin, the mischievous eyes as his mother.
“Well, fine, then,” Barry said.
We were the only two people facing away from the gallows, walking hurriedly away, deeper into the crowd.
I spotted a handsome couple looking around frantically, whose eyes lit up when they saw me.
“Barry!” the dark-haired woman shouted, rushing toward us. She wrapped the boy in an embrace, crouching to get eye-level with him. “What have I told you about running off on your own, silly boy?!”
She looked up at me, wild-eyed, confused because she’d never seen my face before.
And she would never see it again.
I smiled at her. “Keep a close eye on this one, ma’am.”
Then I disappeared into the crowd—still heading away from the gallows. Feeling guilty and sad.
A raised voice forced me to turn around, shrieking up to the heavens.
She deserves my eyes on her, I thought. At least that. She deserves to know her son is safe.
Marian’s cry was loud, tinged with defiance, and shook me to my core.
“Long live the Merry—”
The box shifted, the rope dropped, and hundreds of citizens gasped in unison.