Scarlet

“Why couldn’t I just break them?”

I crossed my arms. “I reckon if you continue being yourself, we’ll need a coffin that’s fully intact in short order.”

Rob scowled at us. “Lads—and Scar—there’s loot to be sorted. Does this not hold your interest?”

I blushed. “Interested.”

John kicked the box open. They bent over it, pushing through things, but I stood rooted to the floor. It were sitting there, on top of everything: a lock of dark brown hair wrapped in bright red ribbon. The scarlet ribbon were too close to the ones I tied to my knives; even if the boys didn’t know whose lock of hair it were, they’d yap about the ribbon.

I reached in and grabbed the hair, twisting it round my hand in a trice to hide it from the lads. Rob looked at me quick, but we just kept digging through the things. There were clothes and boots, some money but not a lot. Much got into the jewelry, which we could melt down and sell for the most money.

“What’s this?” asked Rob, looking over his shoulder. He picked up a small ladies’ ring. “This is the Leaford crest, isn’t it?”

“Leaford were his fiancée,” I told them. “The one that killed herself.”

“He kept her ring? He must have taken her death hard,” John guessed.

Honestly. “You’ve no idea what you’re talking about or what a villain he is, John,” I told him.

Rob looked at me in that way of his, and I looked down.

“What’s that mean?” John asked.

“He just wanted to own her, like he owns her ring. And she killed herself rather than have him.”

It felt like a wave of water were coming to crush me with the weight of Rob’s stare.

“You knew her.”

I couldn’t cop to that. That would put me in Leaford’s lands, which weren’t far from Nottingham. “She had a sister. I knew her sister.” Even talking about Joanna made my pipes hurt. I couldn’t swallow proper.

I weren’t sure if Rob believed me or not. He kept looking at me, like I left a door open and he were trying to crane round the side to peek in.

John looked up at me. “So you must know more about him than you’re letting on. What do you know?”

“Nothing useful. Nothing good.”

“Tell us, Scar,” Much said.

“There’s nothing you want to hear. She just said he were awful. Signed the contract before it were even legal to wed and set the date for the first day it were. She said that her sister cried and cried to her parents that she didn’t want to be married, and they didn’t care. He wanted the land, and her parents wanted his money, and that were all there were to talk about.”

“So she killed herself,” John said.

“So they say.”

“That really doesn’t sound all that awful,” John muttered. “Not worth dying for.”

“You know nothing of it, John. To be silenced when your wishes don’t matter, to be sold like property, and to a man like him?” I spat at his feet. “A man would know nothing of it.”

“And what would a thief know of it?” John scoffed. “Like you’ve ever done a damn thing you didn’t want to.”

I shook my head. “I know what it’s like when you can’t get no one to listen to you. When what you say don’t matter. I half think every girl knows what it’s like to be silenced.”

“It’s a terrible practice,” Rob agreed. “Most parents wait longer. Most suitors want them to.”

“Let’s open the second one,” I suggested, kicking it open like John did. My foot rang and jangled with the contact, but it felt good after all the talking.

“Ooh, weapons,” Much said.

John pushed him aside. “You don’t even know what to do with them, Much.”

Much scowled dark, and before I could fuss at John for it, John tossed me a set of knives. I caught them.

They were treasures, the metal darker than most I’d seen. There were a fine grain where the metal had been folded. “This is Saracen metal,” I breathed. Both had a small ruby set in the hilt, a finer version of the garnet in my favorite knives.

“Easy, Scar—we should sell those,” Rob reminded.

I frowned. “You’ll never get a good price for these here, not what they’re worth. Besides, I can steal back the value if you give me the say-so.”

“Maybe she is a girl after all, hankering after shiny baubles.” John laughed.

My fist balled up but I didn’t sock him. Me wanting shiny knives and fool girls’ sighing over shiny jewels weren’t near the same thing.

“Do whatever you think is right, Scar. I can’t tell you what to do—isn’t that what you always say?” Rob said. He weren’t smiling at me, though, and he turned away, as if he didn’t want to see me nick them.

My mouth tightened and I tossed them into the pile that we’d sell or give away. I don’t have no grand thoughts of myself—I ain’t no saint to be sure—but thinking of Amy Cooper and the people who didn’t have nothing to eat, it’s not like I could keep them fair. Nothing were fair.

We kept digging through Gisbourne’s belongings, and the only thought that cheered me up were Gisbourne’s mug when he found out.

Much and I set to sorting the clothing into packages that we could give away. We could do that with the clothes since none were too distinct, but the jewelry and metals had to be melted and broken to sell raw. See, if Gisbourne were to find someone with something of his he could recognize, he’d kill the lamb for sure, innocent or not, and we couldn’t risk that. John and Rob took to hacking and snapping the other bits.

“Will you show me how to throw a knife, Scar?” Much asked, quiet.

I looked up at him. He weren’t looking at me; he were tying off a package of clothing. “Not sure if it’s your weapon.”

He frowned. “I know I’d have to borrow your knife.”

I shook my head, pointing at Rob with one of my knives. He had his long bow strapped ’cross his back. “Bow is Rob’s weapon. It suits him. He moves with it; it works like his arms got pulled out and shaped to a bow.”

“It’s part of him,” Much said, tucking his bad arm ’neath his cloak.

I nodded. “I’ll teach you, but I ain’t sure it’s your weapon.”

“Of course it’s not,” he muttered, piling more clothes.