Chapters (76)
- Title Page
- Copyright Notice
- Dedication
- PROLOGUE
- PART I
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- PART II
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- PART III
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- INTERLUDE
- PART IV
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- INTERLUDE
- PART V
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- PART VI
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- FORTY-THREE
- FORTY-FOUR
- FORTY-FIVE
- INTERLUDE
- PART VII
- FORTY-SIX
- FORTY-SEVEN
- FORTY-EIGHT
- FORTY-NINE
- FIFTY
- FIFTY-ONE
- FIFTY-TWO
- PART VIII
- FIFTY-THREE
- FIFTY-FOUR
- FIFTY-FIVE
- FIFTY-SIX
- EPILOGUE
- AUTHOR’S NOTE
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- Newsletter Sign-up
They would have to say goodbye to whatever selfish fantasies they may have once had. Those dreams belonged to young Marion Fitzwalter, but not to Lady Marion de Wendenal. Both of them had to recognize it, that their boats would never again drift together, because they were no longer going to the same harbor. They had come to a fork. Two different boats. Two rivers. She tried to convince herself. She brushed her hair so hard she bled.
FIFTY-FIVE
ROBIN OF LOCKSLEY
NOTTINGHAM CASTLE
ROBIN SMASHED HIS WEIGHT into the door. Its answer came in the form of a sharp crack, but it did not open. His shoulder swore at him, but he had no time to waste. Instead he leveraged his weight against the opposite wall of the narrow stone hallway and kicked at the door’s handle, satisfied with its splintering response. He burst upon a room too tiny to be burst upon, containing little aside from a crude oak desk and a man who had once been his closest friend, clambering to the far side.
“How did I know you’d be hiding in here?” Robin growled.
The highest room of Nottingham’s highest tower was the only place pompous enough for what William had become. Robin should have started his search here. He could have avoided all the troubles that were, at this moment, shortly behind him. He could only hope the makeshift barricade he created at the base of the staircase would slow them down, almost as much as he hoped for some clever means of escape to reveal itself before then.
Between the inevitability of those two moments, there was just him and William.
“Hello, Robin,” William said.
And the squire.
“Sheriff Wendenal!” Gisbourne’s squire burst into the room as well. He pinched his little weasel face into a little weasel scowl, and held his bent braquemar up as if he knew which end was the dangerous one. “The outlaws are inside the castle walls, they are—”
“Here, yes, they’re right here!” William interrupted. “Look, he’s in this very room! Watch out for the outlaw!”
Despite the ridiculous dimension of their room, Robin found a position to triangulate between them, his bastard sword held at a readiness that might take him toward either one. William appeared unarmed, but he also appeared too dressed for the late hour, and Robin did not intend on being caught by surprise again.
Robin had failed to anticipate that any of Gisbourne’s crew might follow them to Nottingham so swiftly—the squire had been quick to rally the castle’s host to action only minutes after Arable snuck them through the postern gate. Robin had been separated from John Little after a brawl in a dining hall, and could not reliably account for much of what had passed since then.