Scarlet

I nodded. “Tell us what to do.”

Not much time passed before we had to come right back to Nottingham. Ravenna’s wedding had nobles and peasants flooding into the castle, as the sheriff hosted the entire town for the wedding feast. The wedding would take place in the Great Hall. Though every guard were on post, the castle were at its most vulnerable, and we were going to swim right through like silvery trout.

We crowded in, pushing through bodies to get into the hall. Girls had flowers in their hair, and the clothing round the place were bright with color. My hood were down, my lopped-off hair out, and I weren’t hiding from anyone today. I had scrapes all over my face, and my chin were fair red raw, but it didn’t matter. I were marked and scarred and bloody and filthy, but today I weren’t going to hide my face.

The hall were awful hot, so many bodies rubbing together like sticks for kindling. As we got closer, I saw Ravenna, looking like a noble lady in a blue velvet gown shot through with gold threads, her face covered over with a veil like most noblewomen wore. I never fancied the veils. They were nice that no one could see where your eyes were wandering for, but they weren’t near so soft as they looked.

Her family weren’t up there with her, which I thought were fair odd. My eyes set to casting about, and that were when I saw him.

Hanging above the dais where Ravenna stood swung a heavy gibbet, an iron cage twisting on a beam. Robin were inside it, far off the ground, standing stiff and proud. The cage hung from heavy chains, not rope that I could saw through, and guards stood round the wheel that held the cage in place.

I felt my stomach twist and hollow as the priest climbed the stairs to the dais. The sheriff and Gisbourne came with him. Gisbourne looked up at Rob with a smug smile; I could kill him for that if nothing else.

The whole place fell quiet and the priest began to speak the wedding Mass. I started to sneak round the side. Much and John were busy elsewhere in the castle for now.

I didn’t listen to the priest speak. I’d heard wedding masses before, a few, and they general made me think of things I didn’t like to think none about, like Gisbourne and how I near had to marry him. I heard Ravenna say that she’d honor the sheriff and obey him, and I fair wondered if that were anything he’d ever do for her.

Before I got to the guarded wheel the Mass were finished, and the priest stepped down as the sheriff kissed Ravenna, pulling off her veil to do it. She looked scared, but she took his kiss, and she left her face unmasked.

I saw Gisbourne signaling guards to surround the dais before I knew what happened. The sheriff were holding Ravenna still, but then her shoulders drew up like she were trying to push him off. I saw his dagger flash over her neck, like lightning slicing through the sky. Her head jerked and a short, stunted scream came out from her lips.

“No!” Rob cried.

“Ravenna!” roared Godfrey.

The whole hall broke open, and women started screaming and crying and men started to roar.

The sheriff yelled over it all, “Silence!”

The people quieted but didn’t quit moving, fighting against the guards as Ravenna twisted, showing her throat slashed bloody and wide. She fell to the ground like so much trash, blood making her blue velvet black and shining with wet. Her body lay in a heap, and her big skirts took a while to lie flat. I looked back to the sheriff, frozen, my breath gone.

She were dead. He had killed her, with no reason, no defense, nothing. He killed her because he could, because she were a bird that he could crush.

“Good people, I try to show you my love, and this is how you repay me! You deny me my rightful taxes, you flee your punishments, and you send one of your own to beguile my heart and betray me. Ravenna Mason was helping the Hood from mine own hearth!”

“No!” Godfrey hollered. “No, no!” He broke through the guards and Gisbourne tackled him, pushing him to the ground and holding him there as Godfrey fought and strained, trying to get to his fallen sister. His arm whipped out from Gisbourne, but not to fight him. It stretched ’cross the space to Ravenna, trying to get to her, trying to touch her before her soul flew out.

“I’ve dealt with my unfaithful wife, and now I will deal with your last bastion of insurrection—that outlaw they call the Hood.”

I jerked into motion as the cage began to lower. Rob, with his heaving chest and angry eyes, looked every bit the caged lion, like they called King Richard. I scrabbled over people, using nails and elbows and fists to punch my way through. I pushed and pushed, getting closer body by body, standing a few feet away from the guarded dais.

I looked toward the entrance. They needed more time to set the explosion, and I needed some sort of miracle to get Rob free. My eyes skittered round the room; there were guards everywhere. There were windows high up, with big iron chandeliers filled with candles hanging down from the rafters. The part of me that weren’t happy to die today looked after them with longing, imagining scrabbling up to them and swinging—pitching knives this way and that like an avenging angel.

But that weren’t to be today.

I looked at Gisbourne and felt my stomach twist and my whole chest squeeze, like someone put me to the rack.

The gibbet landed with a heavy clang. Rob sagged against the side with the jolt of the cage, and the whole place were dead quiet, shocked silent by the sheriff’s cruelty, by this strange day where a wedding meant death instead of new life. Guards had taken Godfrey in hand, keeping him on his knees at the side of the dais. He just stared at Ravenna’s body, dead and lifeless and abandoned. Gisbourne were now free to draw his sword and go to the cage.

“No!” I screamed, my voice mixing with hundreds. I went forward but the crowd wouldn’t part, keeping me hard back, holding on to me. Gisbourne’s sword didn’t go farther, and he waited till the cries subsided.

“On your knees,” he ground out. “You’ll die a common criminal, worse than your traitorous father.”

Rob’s head were unbowed. He looked around the gibbet. “I’d love to oblige, Gisbourne, but there doesn’t seem to be enough room to kneel.”

“Open the cage,” Gisbourne ordered. The sheriff didn’t protest. A guard came forward with the key, and the door opened. I saw how heavy Rob leaned on the side of the cage. He were exhausted, and weak, and in a fair bit of pain. He turned to Gisbourne and I saw his back. The cloth were punched through hundreds of times in perfect little rows, and my whole body burned.

They had put him on a Judas board. It were a big board punched through with spikes, filthy and covered with blood and flesh, and they had put Rob on it till his skin broke and the spikes pushed into him.