Page 104 of Queen of Sherwood

“What’s our move, then?” Alan-a-Dale asked. “Smarter minds than mine would say we’ve found ourselves waist-high in shit.”

I followed my twisting thoughts about Sutton and the Muddy Meddlers, furrowing my brow. Moving my gaze from the bright green grass to my mates, I said, “There’s an issue of timing we could work in our favor.”

“How so?” Will asked.

“That Meddler who got away last night on horseback—no doubt he’s in Nottingham by now. He didn’t see Bishop Sutton’s fate. His report to George can only explain that we have Sutton as our captive. Not that he’s dead.”

“True.” John pulled at his beard while thinking. “I’m not sure yet how we can use that to our advantage.”

“Neither am I. But it’s something. As long as we can keep that farce up, we may be able to weasel out of this.”

“Nonsense,” Tuck said, standing with a groan from the bank. He had been more oppositional as of late, yet I couldn’t blame him—the former holy man saw his flock going down a dark road. “There’s no weaseling out of this, Robin. Our souls are already on a tenuous precipice. Beyond that, ‘weaseling out of this’ is exactly the kind of thing we need to go against right now. For the sake of morale. We need to act decisively.”

My eyebrows jumped up my forehead. I hadn’t expected that response from Tuck. “What are you saying?”

“I can’t believe I’m agreeing with the angry little fucker, but Scarlet is right. We need to bring the fight to them. As you mentioned, Sheriff George must fall. Right now, with George believing Sutton is in our possession, he will be rounding the Knights Templar to fight a holy crusade against us. Sutton’s capture—and especially his death, once it’s revealed—will only work to bolster the fraught relationship between George and the Knights Templar leadership. As I feared might happen, we now have two forces working against us, rather than one.”

“Perhaps we can use Sir Guy,” I said.

Everyone looked at me askance.

I sighed, hands on my hips. “I know you all think I’m mad. You also didn’t have an explanation for why Guy would send the Meddlers into our camp after he’d helped us catch Sutton. I think it’s time you all at least entertain the idea that he’s working in the shadows against George.”

John’s eyes flashed dark. “Robin. We all watched that man hold a dagger to your throat, and drip blood from your flesh. You told us yourself that your body was bared to him in those shackles when you were imprisoned—”

“He covered me with my cloak!”

John firmed his mouth, his upper lip twitching. “You can’t blame us for never trusting that despicable fucking worm. That’s something we cannot do, and you need to recognize that.”

The other three nodded in unison, all of them in complete agreement for once.

With a heavy sigh, my shoulders sagged. Fine. Then I’ll be the only one. It’s frightening, placing any trust in a man who has worked against us so often. Yet what options do we have? He is the closest opportunity we have against Sheriff George.

Luckily for me, I was the leader of this damned group. I didn’t want to do anything that went against the Merry Men’s beliefs or trust in me, but if I found an opening to use Sir Guy to our benefit—as he had used us so many times before—then I would gladly take it. I could deal with the fallout among my mates later.

“Let’s get back to camp and start packing to move locations,” I said, ignoring all the intrusive thoughts about Guy of Gisborne. My mates were right, to a degree, and nothing I could say would make them change their minds about him. I had to accept that, as Little John had pointed out.

“Aye, before we lose the band even swifter than we have been, with our prolonged absence,” Will said.

“I think they’re starting to realize that we’re an odd bunch,” Alan pointed out, raising a finger.

I chuckled, shaking my head. My cheeks flushed as I recalled last night, and I was pleased that our savage tryst in the woods had overshadowed the horrors of the events before it.

At least for the time being. I knew once we went back to camp and reconciled the destruction, death, and devastation, that the reality of our situation would hit harder.

I needed to be strong for our people, and so did my mates. We needed to have answers and show unquestionable support for each other. That was how we were going to get through this newest chapter of grief in the lives of the Merry Men and Oak Boys.

“You are forgetting an important thing we must do before any of it,” Friar Tuck said, drawing our attention to his sad, frowning face. “We must bury our dead and make their journey to Heaven a pleasant one . . .” As he trailed off, I watched his belly rise and fall heavily, as if he was coming to acceptance of his own. “. . . And then we have to do something with Bishop Sutton’s body, too, to hurry his journey along to Hell.”

ROBERT AND UNCLE GREGORY had thankfully taken over in our absence. With the leader of the Merry Men gone—the designated boss of our alliance—my brother took place as captain.

With the help of some of his people, Robert had rested every corpse in a line in the middle of camp. None of them had tarps over them to hide their ashen, scarred faces, or the wounded expressions on their gray cheeks.

It was a horrible sight to see. Poor Maria, who had helped me live to see the light of today, had a gnarled slit throat. The smoldered man from last night had been identified as one of Robert’s Oak Boys. Six Muddy Meddlers joined the group of dead, and Merry Men spit on their carcasses as they passed them. Jamie and the two others from the abduction raid lay in perpetual grimaces of pain.

Friar Tuck gave them each the sign of the cross and spoke of the people he’d known. He spoke of Maria’s resilience, explaining how she had come to him in a time of need, recently, and conversed with him about God. About His existence and her struggles to believe when so much strife and misery surrounded us.

His story about Maria, and their parting words and embrace, brought tears to my eyes. I’d had no idea Tuck had had any kind of relationship with the young lady, and it made me feel stronger knowing that he had played a small part in her life, showing her acceptance and understanding.

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