Edwinstowe were due north on the main road from Nottingham. It weren’t big like Worksop, and Lord Thoresby, the nobleman responsible for the town, didn’t have the sorts of coffers for his own private guard. So more often than not Edwinstowe bore the sheriff’s anger like a little one bears a bully. Besides, past Edwinstowe the road snaked through the forest before it went to Worksop, and that were where we made most of our money, watching over the road in the shelter of the forest, if you will. It meant that the sheriff came down much harder on towns what were close to him than he did on those through the forest.
When we walked through the town, the Coopers’ home were the only one with a candle burning inside, and I saw John hesitate as we went close. He stopped at the gate, and I stopped with him. “Go on now, Fred,” I told him. “We’ll wait.”
Fred went forward slow, and in the low light he looked pretty white. Didn’t blame him. Mothers could be tough.
His mother opened the door when he knocked and burst out sobbing, hauling him inside without a glance to us.
“Where are we taking him?” John asked.
I examined a scrape on my hand. “Much’s father will take in the family in Worksop until we can find them something elsewhere.” Licking my thumb, I rubbed out the dirt on my hand.
“You lied to me tonight,” John said.
I shrugged. “I lie to you a lot. Reckon you might want to be more specific.”
“You said you’d wait at the top. You said we’d go together.”
“Well, yes, that was a lie.”
He turned his head. “I don’t give a damn if you lie to me, but if you do it when the life of a boy is on the line again, I swear I’ll knock your block off.”
My ears were burning, most because John were the type that wouldn’t even joke about smacking a girl, but I just shrugged. “I got him out, didn’t I?”
“How do you know Gisbourne?” he asked.
I froze. Most people, when they’re frightened or something, they shriek and run away and general make it fair obvious. I’ve learned you should be very careful about what you show, so I just kind of freeze up and try to think quick. “Don’t.”
“Yes, you do. I’ve never seen you look one inch of scared, and tonight you had a little touch of it, which I reckon means you were terrified. Did he collar you in London?”
“I don’t know Gisbourne. I know his name. That’s all.”
He shrugged. “You don’t have to tell me. But I will tell Rob, and he’ll get it out of you.”
“Nothing to get.”
Fred opened the door then with a small bundle of clothes, and his mother and sisters stood behind him. The candle in the window had been put out. “Ready to go, Fred?” I asked.
He nodded. John put his arm on Fred’s shoulder, always the older brother.
We walked him to Worksop, and dawn were breaking as we got there. We went to Much’s father, a miller whose shop were set away from the market center. He always needed apprentices, so it weren’t too unusual to see a young boy there. He gave us some eggs and bread for breakfast and John and me went on about our way.
“Sorry you didn’t get back to Bess,” I said.
“Should have figured.” He tugged a loose strand of dark brown hair that had escaped from my cap. “You’re coming undone.”
I pushed it under the cap and pulled the cap down tighter. I felt heat on my face and hated that the sun would show me blushing.
“I don’t know why you don’t chop it off. No one would ever know you’re a girl, and isn’t that the point?”
“Why, so then you could knock my block off without feeling guilty?”
His face flattened a bit. That were fine. Getting him angry meant I didn’t have to fess to the fact that I liked my hair. I liked even more that no one saw it but me. And it reminded me of someone who I liked to remember—just me. “I wouldn’t really ever hit you, Scarlet,” he grunted. “You better know that.”
“Then don’t talk about it. If you just said what you mean, you wouldn’t have to yap so much.” I shot him a glare. “Besides, you did once.”
“I didn’t hit you that time, I tackled you. Which was a hell of a way to find out you were a girl, by the way. Never would have done it if I’d known, and then Rob starts in on me with a holy fury, telling me not to hit a girl, because he knew.” He scowled. “Why do you tell Rob everything first?”
“Didn’t. He figured it out on the way up from London.”
“How?”
“I wouldn’t never bathe with him or pass water when he were near. He got suspicious quick. Seems real boys are awfully eager to parade their bits around.”
He snorted. “You know, that one tackle was too long ago for you to still be complaining about it. Boys settle things by fighting each other.”
I nodded. “That were right when I got to Sherwood. Before Much were one of us. Before there were even really an us.” I kicked the leaves at my feet. It were strange how short and long that seemed in the same breath. Forever, and a blink.
John spat. “Before Nottingham cut off Much’s hand, you mean.”
I shrugged up. I didn’t like to think on it, much less to say it aloud.
We hit the main road from Worksop to Edwinstowe, and there were a brewer with barrels of grain for his beer on a wagon. It might’ve even been Tuck, but I didn’t catch the front end. I ran up to it and hopped on the back, and John followed me. I gave him my hand to pull him in.
We hid behind a barrel of grain—not from the brewer, mind, because few tradesmen around here would refuse us anything, but sometimes the sheriff’s men patrolled these parts.
“Wonder how Rob fared,” John said.
“I saw some deer meat at the Coopers’. Edwinstowe will eat today.”
“I saw some bread on the step at the Woods’ house.”
I didn’t say a word.
“Take it that was you, then.”
“You think I bake?”
“No, I think you steal. Despite saying that you’re in this because Rob blackmailed you into it.”
“I ain’t Rob’s servant, you know. Honestly, you people think I’m chained to the man.”
“Aren’t you?”
“No.”
“Well, how did that all work out, then? You’re blackmailed or you’re not.”
I sniffed. I didn’t want to admit none that Rob caught me stealing from him. Less than that did I want to remember the awful days leading up to that. “Rob gave me a devil’s choice. Told me I had to help him or he’d send me to the prison—not the gallows, with a nice quick drop and a sudden stop, but the bloody prison, where you die slow with your inner bits rotting out. But Rob ain’t the sort to really throw me in prison, is he? Didn’t know that then. But I could leave now. Fact, I might not stay much longer.”