It was Alan-a-Dale’s voice that called out to them. Once he was visible, approaching the camp’s glow, Marion could see he was accompanied by a stout figure lumbering at his side. Their momentary panic subsided as Alan called for them to gather, aiming straight for the campfire. The stranger boasted a giant beard and an ugly patch of fur thrown over his shoulders. Marion noticed he carried no weapons, and thought she recognized him though she could not say from where.

“He was wandering through the forest all on his own,” Alan explained, reaching out for the fire’s warmth. “Screaming for Robin Hood.”

“Robin Hood, thank you!” came the stranger, his voice thick but desperate. “Thank you! I’ve been looking for hours.”

“And you brought him here?” Will Scarlet gasped. His hands remained at his back, fingering the handles of the two idiotic knives he always kept strapped there. The twins, as he called them, never left his belt even when there was absolutely no call to be armed. The others simply amassed around the visitor in a normal display of curiosity.

“He insisted on talking to us,” Alan continued, finding Robin. “I couldn’t turn him back, who knows who may have found him yelling like that?”

“We shouldn’t let just anyone know where our camp is,” Robin said.

“I know. But just listen to him. He’s got something you should all hear.”

“Do you remember me?” the visitor asked eagerly, though John Little’s massive arm kept the man from getting too close to Robin. “It’s me, it’s Stutely.”

Marion at last recognized the man, more by his smell than name, from one of their visits to the villages.

“Will Stutely from Thorney, we talked about—”

“Just tell him what you told me.” Alan guided the man to a stump to sit, and he obeyed.

“It’s the Sheriff,” Will Stutely said to his hands. “He raided our village. A dozen guards, maybe twenty, they rode into town and just started taking everything. Stealing right out of our homes, everything you gave us and then some.”

Marion gasped audibly. “What? He wouldn’t—!”

It was unthinkable. Roger de Lacy was a pacifist to the bone, and this simply wasn’t in his nature. Either this man was misinformed or there was something new at play, something that had forced the Sheriff’s hand. Marion’s stomach heaved and a sudden stab of guilt shot through her body as rigid as an arrow. She should not have stayed in the forest so long. If she had visited Nottingham even once in the last month, surely she would have seen the signs of something like this, and could have prevented it.

“They just barged right into my home,” Stutely reported. “They threw whatever they could into my barrow, and then they took the barrow, too.”