Page 59 of Queen of Sherwood

It was a good problem to have.

I was just ready to plop my weary head down for sleep when Will made his appearance at our campfire. He stood over it, crossing his arms with an expression of grim tidings marring his face in the flickering fire.

“Maid Marian is gone,” he said.

My stomach dropped. “Pardon?”

Everyone at the campfire darted their eyes up to him in alarm.

“I wondered where she was, so I slunk off to find the sneaky bitch,” Will explained. “And she’s gone. She’s nowhere in camp. One of our horses is gone, too.”

“Fuck,” John said, hanging his head between his knees. “Not this shit again. And she stole another horse from us?”

“Are you really that surprised, John?” Tuck asked.

“Might not have poisoned us,” Alan pointed out, “but made her true colors known nonetheless. Tuck’s right. We all knew this would happen.”

Rosco the head guttersnipe waltzed up to our fire. “Penny-snatcher failed to mention another problem on our hands,” he drawled, eyeing Will. “Tick is gone, too.”

“Wait. What?” I said, flabbergasted.

Rosco nodded. “Sure as shit. Must have gone with the witchy redhead.”

“Likely seduced him with sweet nothings and false whispers,” Tuck said with a sigh.

“Tick is hardly even a man yet!” I cried out, standing and incredulously tossing my arms out wide.

“Calm your storm, little lordling,” Rosco said, raising a palm at me. “Marian will have no luck corrupting ol’ Tick between her ample tits, if I know the lad at all.”

“Why not?”

“Because he fancies a certain bucktoothed lad called Jimmy. Even if he ain’t never admit it. Why you think he’s so sickly over Jim’s disappearance?”

My head swam. “It doesn’t matter. This is bad.”

“Truly is,” Rosco said. “Should we rally the horses? Call the cavalry? Mayhaps we can cut ‘em off at the pass.”

Little John snorted. “What pass? She’ll already be in Nottingham by now, knowing our luck. Who knows when she left?”

“True you are, too, big man.” Rosco nodded and tapped his chin. “What, then? We just wait? Seems wrong.”

Little John eyed the rail-thin guttersnipe. “Aye, Rosco. We wait for news. Luckily she wasn’t here long enough to glean too much about us, other than our whereabouts. But she already knew that part, clearly. So we either wait for news . . . or we wait for the ransom letter that’s sure to come.”

Chapter 16

Guy of Gisborne

From a shadowy hallway in Madam Marian’s Teahouse, I watched as the madam herself arrived.

The estate had grown even since I’d been here less than a fortnight ago, and despite Marian’s absence. There were more whores than before, sashaying from room to room to ply their wares on the drunken clientele. More lost noblemen and aristocrats straying from their marriage beds, greedily paying for those wares.

Marian had created a booming economy here, and her success was evident. The woman’s ambition couldn’t be denied. Her beauty couldn’t be denied either, as she marched into the manor past crimson drapes.

She pushed a young lad in front of her—a slight boy who only came up to her chest—red-nailed hands protectively clamped on his bony shoulders as she led him down a hall.

I raised a brow, wondering what that was all about, and silently followed, peeking around a corner to watch.

Marian led the young lad to a bedroom door. I frowned, expecting the worst. Marian knocked once before opening the door, and an attractive woman stood in the frame, hands on her hips as she stared down at the boy. I recognized her as one of the two ladies of the night who had tried to seduce me the first time I’d come here, before Marian called off her bitches. Her name was Beatrice, if I recalled correctly.

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