My hand burned and I wondered what price Rob would have to pay for being the people’s favorite.
Gisbourne stirred and I tucked the blanket tighter round me. “Close the damn window, you crazy woman,” he grunted from the bed.
I didn’t. I stared outside, watching the swirls of snow like it were meant to sweep me into it, steal me away into its silence. Snow were a thief of noise, of sun, of darkness. No day would ever be bright and no night would ever be truly black under its curtain, and all that were under it fell silent and still.
It were a fair perfect thing for the archery competition.
Gisbourne cursed and threw off his blankets, bellowing for Eadric to come and dress him.
I felt Gisbourne’s eyes on me, and I looked to him. “Do you fear for your beloved?” he asked me, smiling dark.
“Always,” I told him. There didn’t seem any need to lie or bluster about now. “I think that’s the nature of loving someone. I fear for him with every breath.” I met Gisbourne’s eyes. “But I also trust with every bit of my heart that he can trounce you.”
Gisbourne’s smile twisted. “Don’t think for a second, my dear wife, that Prince John will ever let a vagabond be named sheriff.”
“And your honor can stand that?” I asked. “To win, knowing it were all false?”
“False?” he asked, chuckling. “No. The prince promised this seat to me long ago and he damn well better deliver. The winner isn’t the falsity; it’s the entire game. It’s been nothing but a farce from the start.”
“And what of me? What did he promise you to marry me? You say it were a bribe, but I don’t understand why he would ever do it.”
“You’ll figure it out.”
“I think you’re lying. Most because if the prince bribed you to marry me you’d never grant me an annulment. You’d never even think of it.”
His eyes met mine, dark and level. “He’s toyed with me for long enough. I have followed the letter of his orders. I don’t give a damn if he doesn’t like it.”
Staring at him, I almost believed it. I shook my head, looking out at the snow. “That ain’t the way of it at all, is it? You will always fear the prince and his wrath.” I laid my head on my knees as winter wind blew over my face. “You’re just his dog. That’s all you ever were.”
He made a grunting sort of noise but didn’t answer. Eadric came and began to dress him, and after a while, Mary came for me, in what I hoped would be the last day I ever sat in noble dress.
The nobles’ dais were bigger and fancier than before. The prince, Eleanor, Isabel, and Winchester were all on a platform higher still, the rest of us flanked out more careful than before. I were closer to the edge now, displayed, and I felt like some weak thing they had trussed up to remind Rob to keep his place.
A horn sounded and the contestants took the field. They high-stepped over the falling snow—which, in fair amusing fashion, pages were sweeping idiot-like from the field of play—and came to the cleared space several feet from the nobles’ dais, full across from the heaving, cheering, wild throng of common folk.
The men looked different now. Free from the metal of armor, it weren’t a game of defense now. Each man were bare of all but his skill.
Rob glowed. He were red-cheeked from the cold, but more than that, his eyes were bright, a lush blue like fall sky that every flake of snow seemed to make brighter, bolder, more beautiful. His shoulders were square and strong, standing firm against the world.
His eyes met mine and his smile were quick and sly, a slip of the old Rob I knew before the nightmares had begun. The Rob that were every inch the hero of the people. My blood ran hot and I smiled back at him.
It would stand. Whatever strange and awful tricks Gisbourne and Prince John had devised, whatever the outcome, I felt it in my heart that the world would be right again. Even if it weren’t Rob, a lawful sheriff would take the seat and the people would eat, and live, and be free from such tyranny as they had known. Good would stand, and evil wouldn’t win out this day.
Their names were called, and Prince John welcomed them. He explained the game—four rounds with a target that would be more removed with each round, and anyone that missed the inner circle were eliminated. Best shot would win the game, the prize of the golden arrow, and the seat of sheriff. Him what won were to take his oath as soon as the game were done.
There were five targets; the first distance were twenty paces from the mark. It were a shot a child could make, but it were meant to be easy. The men took several minutes to practice, testing the spine of the foreign arrows, testing their bend. How supple the spine of an arrow were changed everything in the way it flew, and it weren’t something you could know without flying them first.
The horn blew for the start of the first round. Fifteen men were competing, and the first five stepped up. Gisbourne were in them.
Edward Marshal were overseeing the competition, and he stood to the side, half between the target and the archers. He raised his arm, and they pulled arrows from the quivers staked into the ground, and five creaks sounded as the archers drew the strings back, fixing their bows with that lovely tension that set an itch in my hands.
I looked at Gisbourne. His stance were perfect, balanced, easy, and sure, his arms filled with strength and power that the bow didn’t bother with. All a bow cared for were the beat of your heart, that tiny space between beats, between breaths, when your mind were clear and clean and the arrow could slice right down the center of it.
Marshal’s hand dropped, and four arrows flew. Gisbourne’s took a moment to fly, and I could feel it, him waiting for that perfect half-breath.
His were the only one to hit the center ring, and as the others gaped at him, he turned around and smiled at me, wide and brash. I nodded to him. It weren’t within me to try and say he weren’t an epic marksman.
Five more stepped up, and Robin were in that wave. He rolled his shoulders and smiled at the crowd, and they cheered for him. He could make this shot blind, and they all knew it.
His arrow hit center. Of the other four, three more hit the inner ring.
Robin turned to me and winked as they left the marks. The last five moved to the marks, notched, drew, and let fly. Three more arrows hit the inner ring.
It were a fair paltry showing, to be true. Even with a broke hand I could have made that shot.
Eight archers moved to the next round, and the herald sounded the horn, causing four small pages and one overtall page to run hell for leather over the snow, churning up flakes behind them and even kicking snow onto their own backs. They grabbed the targets and hefted them up.