Page 33 of Queen of Sherwood

“What do you mean?” My heart pitter-pattered in my chest, fear rushing through me, up to my throat.

“We’ve had a visitor arrive since you’ve been gone. Quite a few, in fact. This one seems most pertinent, however. I didn’t know what to do with her.” He shrugged at Little John, Tuck, and Will as they approached us on foot, bringing their horses behind them.

“Who?” I asked.

“Well met, Robin. Giant John.”

Maid Marian appeared from the foliage behind Alan, a crimson-lipped smirk on her face.

Chapter 9

Little John

Ihated seeing Maid Marian again, for obvious reasons. Even more, I hated seeing Robin’s face cycle through confusion, disbelief, and anger.

I stepped between the two women to separate them—the deceitful woman I had kicked out of camp shortly before I’d been captured by Sir Guy; and the fiery young lass I loved with all my heart.

I felt a sense of shame whenever I saw Marian, and right now was no different. I had allowed her to seep into the Merry Men like a creeping toxin in our veins. Well . . . at Tuck’s urging, long before we met Robin, because the friar loved to stick his cock in her back then.

Yet I’d had the final say, and the responsibility of that decision weighed heavily on me.

Now, I knew her as nothing but trouble. Cunning and beautiful, no doubt, but without a hint of loyalty on her curvy body. I knew if she was here now, turmoil would not be far behind. I tried to give Robin a look that said as much, but I’m not sure if she could read the expression in my eyes.

We went back to camp before any discussions began. Mainly to calm tensions, because I knew Robin was close to an outburst at seeing Marian, especially considering what we’d learned from Landon in Ravenshead about Marian’s new “operation.”

We needed sleep. Badly. As Will Scarlet and Friar Tuck kept Marian in a tent away from camp—a holding cell for the time being—I stood in a separate tent with Robert, Alan, and our little star.

Robin spoke to the room. “What the fuck do you think she’s doing here?”

“Couldn’t say. All we can do is ask.” This, from Alan. “She only arrived a few hours ago. So did some of Robert’s people, shortly before her. Said they arrived early?”

Robert was a nonentity in this conversation because he didn’t know Maid Marian like we did. He’d only heard stories of her, none of them good. So he kept to the back of the tent, watching us.

I said, “She’s here to stir trouble, undoubtedly.”

Robin paced like a madwoman, shaking her head. “Why now?”

“Perhaps she’s acting as a spy,” I ventured. “To get the lay of the land?” Turning to Alan, I asked, “Have you shown her around camp?”

“Of course not. But she waltzed through it to find me, so she’s seen enough, I fear.”

Robin turned to me, furrowing her brow. “Who would she be spying for? Sir Guy?”

I shrugged. “When you exchanged yourself for Emma, you said you stayed in Wilford with Marian, until she knocked you unconscious. Then you woke up in a room with Sir Guy. So, yes, I’d say them colluding is a good assumption.”

“Shouldn’t we at least hear her out before we jump to conclusions?” Robert asked from behind everyone.

We all spun, incredulous. Robin stuck him with a dagger-stare, and a grim, “No.”

The tent fell quiet. I could only imagine what Robin was thinking right now. I would have given anything to peer into her mind.

Marian had been loosely associated with everything that had happened to us up until this point. She showed her hand at random times, often months apart. Just when she would begin to drift from our minds, she would pop up with some new scheme.

Only Marian knew Marian’s mind, and that was dangerous.

Marian had been our original Judas, betraying us to Sir Guy, showing him maps of our hideaways. She had been in cahoots with Robin’s wicked father, even, using her wiles and femininity to seduce him. She had escaped the Loxley massacre unharmed as Robin opted to take out her vengeance on the man who sired her.

She had disappeared then, and reappeared as the heir-apparent of the Wilford estate—land that rightly belonged to Robin and Robert, if they weren’t outlaws. To dig the knife in deeper, she held Robin’s prior handmaiden, Emma, hostage there. Then she held Robin hostage there.