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Robin’s brow furrowed, her view fixated on a single point at the base of the hill.
“What is it?” I asked.
She nudged her chin down there, staying quiet.
I crouched next to her and hissed. Rounding a bend, stepping into our view about fifty feet down the steep, lush slope, three men trudged through the undergrowth. They moved slowly. We were too high up and hidden for them to see us.
I recognized their garb.
“Fuck.” I clenched my jaw.
“What is it?” she whispered.
I grabbed her arm, turned us around, and led us back the way we’d come. Her feet churned fast to keep up with my longer strides. All the levity and chirpiness was gone as my mind whirled.
“Slow down, Alan!” she cried as we passed the landmark boulder. “You’re hurting my arm!”
“Don’t care,” I growled. It’s for your safety, songbird.
In less than fifteen minutes we made it over the log-bridge, past the clearings, and neared camp. I managed to retrace our steps in a quarter the time it originally took us to travel them.
We arrived in the clearing as the sun finished settling beneath the horizon, sending a brilliant emerald flash overhead.
Friar Tuck was the first to see me—first to see my pale face as I pulled Robin into the glade.
“Alan, what is it?” the chaplain asked.
“We have to move, Tuck. Now.”
He winced, thick eyebrows jumping.
“Gisborne’s scouts are hot on our trail.”
Chapter 23
Robin
“Who is Gisborne?” I asked, as shadows fell over the faces of Friar Tuck and Alan-a-Dale.
I rather liked both of them. Unlike Little John and Will Scarlet, these two were easier to get along with. If beggars couldn’t be choosers, at least my prison guards weren’t sick sadists.
Now, the air was stuffy with tension. Both men, usually sarcastic and wry with their words, had pinched lips and tense bodies.
Gisborne must be bad news. My next logical thought: Except for me, perhaps? Could he be part of the search team sent by Father to find me?
I still needed to find out what happened to Uncle Gregory. I would trick these men into trusting me—play the innocent fool—if it meant learning about my poor uncle’s fate.
I had already started to develop a plan.
Friar Tuck gave orders to the men. “You heard the bard, friends. We have foxes on our tail, and we need to outpace them. Get to it.”
The flurry of action in the camp startled me. No longer were the men lazy and sitting around idly, or doing chores. The whores from last night were long gone.
The camp became a machine of organized chaos. Tent stakes were uprooted. Weapons and supplies were thrown into sacks. Boot, hoof, and wheel prints were smoothed over and stamped out. A few men walked in random directions with heavy tread, to mislead and divert our pursuers.
I walked with Alan to his section of the camp, near the river. He took the bow from me, threw his lute across his other shoulder, and swept everything else into a small sack—salted beef, wood carvings, bedding. When he folded his tent and squeezed it into the bag, it was like he’d never been there.
“Who is Gisborne, Alan?” I asked again.
