Page 165 of Queen of Sherwood

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.

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