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“Where’s Little John?” I asked.
They bowed their heads, slowly shaking them.
“We’ll find him, songbird,” Alan said, squeezing my shoulder.
“For now,” Will added, “we run!”
I looked over my shoulder one last time as we left the clearing, trying to memorialize Robert’s face.
But there was no one there anymore.
The tournament was a complete debacle. As John and Tuck had feared it might be. Not only had we not left with the ten-pound reward, we had lost money—a shilling, to be precise.
More importantly, we’d lost Little John.
I was unreceptive and distressed the next few days. We hid in the woods, far away, until things died down.
Whoever the rebels were that had attacked Nottingham, they had failed. I wondered what Robert had been doing prior to this to be part of them, while I had thought him dead.
We vowed not to leave the area until we learned more about Little John. On the fifth day following the tournament, we slowly stalked our way back through the final stage of the competition—the course where I had ultimately lost to Robert.
It took us hours of combing through the eastern side where John had been stationed . . . but we eventually found it.
Alan-a-Dale said, “Hoy, lads,” as he rose from a crouched position. His morose voice stabbed through my lungs before I had even turned around to face him, because I knew what it meant. I didn’t need to see what he’d found. I nearly burst into tears right then and there.
Alan held Little John’s quarterstaff in his hands like it was a priceless artifact and not a simple hunk of strong wood.
The rest of the Merry Men converged on the minstrel. We passed it around, searching for clues—for anything that would tell us what happened to him.
“He’s not dead yet,” Tuck promised us, trying to be the sole guiding light in John’s absence. “We don’t know what this means, but let us not jump to conclusions.”
We nodded sadly. Whatever it meant, it didn’t bode well. Maybe one of the rebels got him? Maybe an assassin in the woods, like the one who killed that poor man Heath?
Later that night, around a campfire, spirits were low. Perhaps lower than they’d ever been. We’d lost our leader. Our fearless commander, who was stern and sturdy, always willing to accept other ideas on what to do, but firm in his convictions and beliefs.
He had been the most hesitant to do this tournament. And now he was gone.
It’s my fault, I thought, sniffling. I’m too reckless and proud for my own good.
“What do we do now?” one of the younger scouts around the fire asked.
It was a question on everyone’s mind. Did we wait and see how this played out? Wait to learn of Little John’s death from someone in Nottingham? Did we become proactive and vicious, and search for him no matter the cost?
No one had any idea who to look to. With Little John gone, there was a deep void that wasn’t filled.
We didn’t know who to call “boss” any longer.
A few of the men turned to Will Scarlet.
He readjusted the red sash around his neck, which gave him his namesake, and cleared his throat. Little John’s staff was passed around the circle until he held it reverently in his hands.
Will was the most obvious choice to lead us with John absent. He had been John’s most vocal critic and detractor. He knew John’s mind better than any of us, because they had spent the most time together.
Yes, he was half John’s age, but that didn’t matter. He had the experience of being a bandit, perhaps longer than any of us. Since childhood, even, after parting ways with his ailing father. With William Elder, he had a reason to fight. A drive and ambition some of us lacked.
Yet Will Scarlet looked in my direction, shaking his head. He held the quarterstaff out, toward me. “It shouldn’t be me. It should be the one holding us together. Little thorn.”
My eyes bulged in shock. Slowly, the men started nodding. They looked to me. They passed the quarterstaff around until it was in my lap and my hands.
