Scarlet

“The sheriff doesn’t give a damn!” Rob snapped at me. “And he’s going to hang them with whatever thieves Gisbourne can round up.”

I felt my cheeks blush. I hated when he yelled at me.

“We’ll have a few days yet if he wants a big hanging,” John said.

“Possibly even a week or so,” Much agreed.

“I’m sure we can wrangle something up to keep him busy for two weeks, can’t we Scar?” John asked with a smile.

I looked away, and I felt Rob’s eyes burning holes in me. “Let’s just break them out of the prison tonight and make no bother of the lot.”

“Get it done. I want this done,” Rob said. He rubbed his head. “And we all need sleep before we do anything. Even you, Scar.”

I shrugged. I were fair tired, anyway. We stayed quiet till we reached the cave, and once there, Much handed out some bread to all of us. I took mine and went to sit on top of the ridge above the cave.

“Scar,” John called. He bounded up the ridge and sat beside me.

“You aren’t fixing to watch me eat, are you?”

“No,” he said, biting into his bread. I bit mine. “How you feeling, anyway?”

I lifted my shoulder, not bothering to talk. Awful. I felt awful.

“What’s your plan for the prison?”

“Don’t know. Need to think on it. Whatever we do, we can’t never use it again, because Gisbourne will figure it out and fix it. Think maybe we should save the tunnel for later.”

“How do you reckon to get in, then?”

I grinned. “I got ways, John Little.”

His eyes looked me over in a funny way. “You don’t need to tell me, Scar.”

My cheeks went hot without me knowing much why, and it were light enough that he could tell, which made the whole matter worse.

“You ain’t half bad when you blush, Scar.”

“What happened to me being a coward?”

He shrugged. “I think I’m starting to figure you out. You steal all this food and eat none; you had a friend that you loved. Really, I’m starting to think you’re pretty tough—but with a bit of a soft belly.”

“What friend?” I asked. I never loved any friend of mine. Never much had a friend.

“That Leaford girl. When you talked about her, it was obvious how much you cared about her.”

I felt the blush slide right off my mug.

“You don’t like to talk about much, Scar, and don’t worry, I’m not asking. You don’t have to talk about your friend. But yeah, I think I’m figuring you out. Slowly, of course.”

I smiled a little, but not a real sure smile, and stared off into the night. I waited until everyone else went to sleep, and when I went into the cave, I mounded my bed far from John. Were this his way of shining on me? After all this fighting?

I slept, but it weren’t a real restful sleep.

I went to have a lookabout round the prison the next afternoon, and Rob said he’d come with me. I nodded, waiting for him to run up ’longside me. He had his dark hood up, and I had my hat down low.

“You angry at me for something?” I asked him after a little bit.

“What makes you say that?”

“Usually you talk. And you yelled at me last night.”

He turned to look at me, but I didn’t look back. “I hate what’s going on. Can’t believe they arrested the twins; Godfrey was only trying to keep his sister safe, and they throw him and his sister in prison—and she had nothing to do with it.”

“I’ll get them out,” I told him.

“It’ll be years until Richard’s back. It took him as long as I was there to conquer the city of Acre, which is miles outside the Holy Land, and he won’t come home until he takes Jerusalem. How can we fight back this flood for years more? How can this situation continue?”

I crunched a branch underfoot, sneaking a look at him. I knew my heart weren’t never too sure ’bout many things, but if I ever could, I wanted to be sure for Rob. That way when his heart stumbled, I could be sure for the both of us. “It’s like you said, Rob. We do what we do because there’s something we can do about it. Things like ‘how long’ and ‘what if’ aren’t part of that. It’s about the hope, not the horror.” Thoughts of London welled up in my pipes but I kept going. “And for that matter, you know all about the horrors, just like I do, just like John does, just like Much. We shoulder it so these people don’t have to know it too. And I know this because that’s what you say. And when you say it, I believe you. And when I believe you, I’ll follow you anywhere.”

His eyes closed, and he nodded. “You have more faith in me than I do for myself sometimes, Scar.”

“Well, that’s right as rain,” I told him. “You don’t need to be sure of yourself all the time. Fact, it’s a little more bearable when you ain’t.”

He smiled a little, looking at me. “You think I’m unbearable?”

I shrugged. “Sure. You ain’t like nobody else. Sometimes I don’t know what to make of you at all.”

“This coming from the thieving, knife-throwing outlaw girl. As if there were anyone like you in the wide world.”

“Yeah, but you see right through me.”

“It’s not that I see through you,” he told me. “It’s that I see you. You don’t want anyone to see you, but I do.”

I nodded, and my old bruise started beating under my hat. “Wish you didn’t, sometimes.”

He sighed. “Sometimes I wish I didn’t too. It would certainly be easier,” he said soft.

That knifed into my belly like a hot ax. I knew that, as far as souls went, mine were black as tar and, like my face, it were strange and scarred. Somehow, some part of me always thought Rob saw me as different than all that, though, saw the good bits of me as better than the ugly bits.

That weren’t the way of it at all, clear as day. Rob saw the tar and the scars and wished he never peeked at all.

I didn’t look up or speak the rest of the way there.

We spent several hours in Nottingham, which were tough for Rob. People could recognize him there, so he stayed out of the castle proper while I found a way in.

When I met up with Rob again, it weren’t with good news.

“Gisbourne is fussing with everything. He’s changing the guard shifts—he’s doubling them on the prison and on the gate and ordering them to move around at night. He knows I can get in but he don’t know how.”