SHERWOOD FOREST
ARABLE LISTENED TO HIS words, but her only surprise was in how little they affected her. Will Scarlet was apologizing, in the same curiously whispered breath he always used with her, his eyebrows praying together for her approval.
“I understand,” she said, because she did.
His eyes begged for more, maybe he wanted her to kick and wail. Maybe he knew what it meant that she didn’t. She couldn’t say, It’s fine, because it wasn’t. Nor could she say, I’m furious, because in truth she didn’t feel anything at all about it, because how could she? She was a sailboat in an endless squall, weathering blow after merciless blow. There was no sense in being angry with any single wave.
“We wouldn’t be more than a day or so, three or four at the most. You could wait for us,” he suggested.
“That’s not … no.” Arable’s vote had been the only one for staying in the Sherwood and waiting on Will’s return. She had no desire to follow Marion’s group to Huntingdon, but waiting alone in the forest would be a deadly price to pay for stubbornness.
“We’ll get more men, then, and come get you in Huntingdon.” Will shifted from looking off in one meaningless direction to another. “Huntingdon’s actually a good idea for most of this group. You drop off the families there, and be free of them. And Marion. Then the rest of us, and the new crew I recruit from Nottingham, we’ll get back to it. You included. First we stop them from building their outposts, then we start hitting noblemen again. But we don’t stop at jewelry this time. We’ll take back what we had, and then we go five steps beyond.”
“I said I understand.”
She understood better than he, how unlikely it was for them to find each other again. If he was delayed in Nottingham. If the Guard built faster than they could fight back. And through all of it, there’d be no way to communicate. The idea that Will would abandon this new fight of his to fetch her in Huntingdon was a fantasy. He would be the one free of Marion, while Arable would be trapped with her now more than ever. Even Arthur and David—the closest things she had to friends in this group—were leaving with Will.
“I wish I could go with you,” she admitted.
His face tensed. “You could.”
But she couldn’t.
Arable de Burel could never return to Nottingham, not under any circumstance. Not for an hour, not a minute, certainly not “a day or so, or three or four at the most.” The city was full of her ghosts. Her father, and her mentor, and her lover—all three murdered in Nottingham. Their memories haunted the land for a dozen miles in every direction. Even if she could bear its sight, she was wanted as a traitor there. And unlike Will, her scarred face was known by every Guardsman and scullery maid in the castle.
She knelt to pack up her bedroll, which was also her rain cloak. The flattened bracken on its downside she brushed away with a bare hand. The rest of her belongings, which hardly counted as plural, were already in her sack. That was all it took to pack her entire life.
Will clearly recognized the depravity of her action, and his face writhed to express some sort of sympathy. She barely recognized the gesture on him. His once youthful features were devoured by his unkempt mourning beard, and months of unwashed dirt stained his skin dark and turned his blond hair to russet. He looked now more like the feral murderer that she’d once wanted to believe he was.
“Thank you,” she said, in case she never had another chance to. Through the bitter days of winter, he’d always looked to her comfort before his own. His care for her was practically religious, and appropriately born of equal parts gratitude and guilt. It might have been the only task that kept him sane. But aside from that penance, he kept his distance from her. Whether he associated Arable with the death of his lover, Elena, or if he simply couldn’t suffer the guilt of spending any time alone with another woman, Arable couldn’t know. His visits lasted only long enough to ensure her survival, and then he’d return to whatever cave of grief he had clawed into his mind.
Without him, there’d be nobody between her and Lady Marion.
Will practically read her thoughts. “I’m sorry to leave you with her.”
She could only laugh. “She sure thinks a lot of herself. And she has a knack for riling sympathy from the masses, I’ll grant her that. But it’s all selfishness. Marion … cares about Marion.”
His mouth tensed into a knowing nod.
“It’s not just her, though. Everyone blames me for what happened to Robin, but if Marion had just been decent enough to tell her own people her plans…” Six weeks earlier—at Robin of Locksley’s request—she’d led him and John Little into Nottingham Castle, from which Robin would never return. Nobody cared that their rescue mission failed because Marion turned them away. That she didn’t want to be rescued. That she was chasing her own ambitions. They just knew that Arable was the one who took Robin there. Half the group saw her as a symbol of their troubles, while the others suspected she’d outright betrayed them. Some avoided her entirely, and she likewise kept to the outskirts and talked to almost nobody.
Even the villages within the forest who had once protected them now refused them sanctuary. Their crops were sick, their fields were burnt, but they did not blame Sheriff Ferrers who had done it, no.
They blamed the death of Robin Hood.
Whose death was really on Marion, not Arable. “But somehow I’m the curse.”
“John Little likes you,” Will tried. “And I’ll ask the Delaney brothers to look after you.”
“I hate you, you know.”
The words caught both of them off guard, and for maybe the first time since autumn, Will looked her full in the eyes. She wasn’t sure why she said it, aside from the ravenous feeling that it might be her last chance to ever speak with him.
So she opened her mouth. “The Sheriff, Roger de Lacy, he was dear to me. You took that.” Will reacted as if he’d been punched in the chest, or harder somehow into his soul, exposed and raw. Tears came to Arable’s eyes, but they did not distract her. “But Will, there’s more than just hate. I can hate you and still be thankful for you. I can hate you and still wish you the peace you deserve. I can hate you and miss you, and I will. Hate doesn’t destroy everything else, not if we don’t let it.”
His eyes were red, his face rifled through every emotion it knew.
“Why tell me that?” he asked.
“Because I think you need to hear it. You and I have a lot in common.”
“Do you think I hate you?”
“No.” She brought her hands up to his cheeks. “I think you hate you.”
She kissed his forehead and stepped away, wiping her eyes. She could tell he wanted to say more, but he wasn’t good at such things. There was no need for any grand farewells, it was better to whimper off. She crossed her arms and winced. Her stomach chose to split the silence, ripping a sickening growl that even Will had to raise his eyebrows at. Her body was not doing well lately, her hunger kept her on edge all the time.
“The Delaneys. I’ll see to it. They’ll make sure you eat, at least.”
That was the only way he could show that he cared, this functional thing. He thought it was made stronger by repeating it. All she could do was shrug her shoulders. She recognized it as a kindness, but she wasn’t in the mood for accepting any. Making sure she ate shouldn’t be a favor. But to those she was left with, she was only a mouth to feed—she’d even overheard Marion once say exactly as much. Arable could hardly pretend she was much use to the group’s survival, but if Lady Marion Fitzwalter alone was left to judge her value, then Arable wouldn’t receive the last scrap of charred fat to suck on.
Whatever lay waiting for them in Huntingdon, Arable doubted greatly that it was safety. This Earl of Huntingdon would offer Marion some new opportunities to rise, to be certain—but Arable and the rest of the group were likely just stepping stones to keep the dear lady’s feet out of the mud.
“Good luck, Arable,” Will managed as he left.
She clicked her tongue, and sighed. “Good luck, Robin Hood.”
His beard twitched, almost as if there were a smile somewhere beneath it.