“Why would he do that, Marian?” Eleanor asked, fixing me with her stare, sharper than my knives.
“I-I don’t know, my lady.”
“Then why did you so sharply inhale?”
I looked to Gisbourne, but his face held nothing for me. “Because Rob would stand for the people, fair and true. None of these other men care a whit about the people, but Rob—he does. It would change everything.” I looked fast from the prince to Eleanor.
“Precisely. You must give the people what they want, John,” Eleanor said. “If you ever hope to be your brother’s heir.”
Prince John looked out over the crowd again, his shoulders rolling with muscle and anger. “Fine,” he grunted. “But I still get to punish her.”
Eleanor let out a breath. “You cannot kill her.”
“I won’t kill her.” He glared at me. “She fancies herself a thief. I will punish her as one.”
His eyes drifted to my hands.
I jerked back, but Gisbourne caught me, and a scream tripped and caught in my throat. He dragged me forward and I fought him hard as horror dawned sick and dark in my stomach. Gisbourne caught up some rope from the bed that had been a victim of the prince’s wrath and lashed my good arm to the chair before forcing me into it. I kicked and kicked, but he tied me to the chair, gripping my good wrist and not looking at me.
“You are certainly within your rights to punish her,” Eleanor said, raising her chin a little and folding her hands in front of her. “But you will not.”
The prince laughed. “I will, Mother.”
“Really?” she asked. “You are a prince, and you are so undone by the actions of one small girl that you will punish her severely? Richard would have been too busy to notice, much less make a spectacle of such a small crime.”
The prince rolled his eyes. “Fine, Mother. I won’t hurt her.”
She nodded and stepped toward the door, and my blood rushed fast and cooling like summer rain. My breath came again.
The door shut and I looked to the prince, who hadn’t unlashed me from the chair.
He were studying me close, looking at me in a way I didn’t much like.
“Let me see her broken hand,” the prince said, and Gisbourne looked at him.
“My lord?” he asked.
“Let me see her hand,” the prince repeated, and Gisbourne took my hand, unwrapping the bandages, tearing it off where he needed. Gisbourne showed it to him and stretched it out painful. I screwed my eyes shut, desperate not to make a noise.
“Mother’s right,” he said. “Taking the whole hand would be too noticeable.” He chuckled. “How many times has she run from you, Gisbourne?”
He hesitated.
“Gisbourne?” Prince John asked.
“Too many,” Gisbourne said.
“Yes, but twice she made promises, yes? Once to be trothed to you, and then to be your wife, and she ran from you.” Prince John said it like it were a delicious secret, something he loved. “Two fingers, then.”
Prince John went and got the knife, and my heart ran fast and slipshod in my chest. He went to the fire and put it in the low, hot part of the flames and my feet scraped on the ground, trying to find a foothold to push, to kick, to fight.
I didn’t move an inch.
Breath rushing faster, I looked to Gisbourne, but he wouldn’t look at me. I jerked at my bonds until my skin tore and bled, and Gisbourne clamped his hands down on me.
I knew Rob were out in the courtyard below the window. I knew if I cried out he’d hear me, and he’d know, and he’d fight and he’d hurt to try and help me when he couldn’t.
The prince turned toward me, holding the knife, hot and glowing dull. “I can’t stop you,” I told him, trying to keep the tremble from my voice at how fast my breath were coming. He smiled at me. “But I swear, if you do this, I will visit this back upon you tenfold. Christ may well have turned the other cheek, but I won’t. Remember this act, because you’ll be cursing it for a damn long time to come. I will make you pay for what you do, your Highness.”
“Rruff,” he barked at me. “Your pup has quite the mouth on her, Gisbourne. Hold her hand flat.”
“Not her ring finger,” Gisbourne said harsh and low as the prince gripped the two smallest of my fingers. “That ring will stay in place.”
The prince chuckled and moved to my pointing and middle finger, and I shuddered.
With one last look out the window, I shut my eyes again and curled my lips over my teeth.
Water washed down my face, but I never once cried out. It were some sort of judgment from God, for I felt every cut and crack as they did it, but when it were done, and Prince John pressed a knife hot from the fire to sear the wound shut, only then did my world go black.
Chapter Seventeen
I watched the fire die, shaking with cold and pain in the chair, the lot of which made me feel thin like worn-out rags, like wind would pass through me and not notice me there.
Gisbourne hadn’t moved in the bed. I didn’t much think he were asleep, for something still crackled in the air like he were watching me.
I wanted to push open the shutters and let the cold in and wait for the sun to rise—it couldn’t be much longer—but I couldn’t move. I could bare think. Words and notions crossed my mind like whispers.
Robin were to compete.
Thoresby.
Sacrosanct.
Eleanor.
They’d never let Rob win.
This last bit made me shut my eyes against it every time. He were the best archer in England, I fair thought, and it were an archery contest. They wouldn’t never let him compete without a way to keep him from winning.
I couldn’t turn my thoughts to my hand.
I hadn’t changed clothes from the day before. Gisbourne must have dragged me here after I passed out; I had woken up in the bed in the middle of the night. I woke to pain, brutal and awful, and I cried out before I knew better of it. Gisbourne were awake, watching me in the bed beside me, and he just stayed there as I struggled to get up, staggered like a drunk, and collapsed into the chair. He didn’t say a word.
Tears stopped and started and I weren’t much aware of either part. I crushed my head into my knees and struggled to think of anything that were light and lovely and safe. I tried to think of the first kiss Rob had ever given to me, at the edge of Nottingham when everything felt, for a moment, like glittering light and sun.
It twisted dark, and all I could see were flames flickering into demons and frost stealing over to freeze the world, and Rob withering and dying like crops in winter.