AllFreeNovel
Share Us
My eyes searched the camp as I noticed no one else was running up to greet us. Fear exploded up my spine and my eyes trembled as I met Alan and Will’s faces. “Where’s Tuck? Oh, God, please tell me—”
“Come with us,” Alan said, his voice more serious than usual.
I nodded, taking his hand and squeezing.
A throat cleared loudly behind us. “Are you forgetting someone? Or am I not part of the band any longer?”
We all spun round.
Will and Alan’s eyes bulged.
“Holy shit,” Will sputtered. Even Alan was speechless as Little John emerged from the darkness, his torch doused.
“Oh, right,” I said as he approached with four orphans nipping at his heels. “Look whose lazy ass I found lying around in Nottingham.” When Will and Alan gawked at me, I smiled. “I did vanish for a reason, after all.”
“You devious little bitch!” Will yelled, and despite his words, his tone sang with merriment. He raised his fist, then ran up to John and hugged the huge man, not looking like much more than one of the young whelps at John’s heels.
For some reason, seeing the two of them embrace so violently, so brotherly, was the greatest boon of all. I put a hand to my mouth and bit back another sob that tried to wrench free of my throat.
Alan draped an arm over my shoulder as we watched them punch each other in the arm and laugh. Will stumbled much more than John did from the punches. They horsed around like father and son, and could even look it if Will was a bit taller and John a bit angrier.
“You did it, songbird. I fucking knew you would.”
Alan’s voice was honey in my ears. A tremble racked my body, and I sniffled, trying my hardest to hold back. I couldn’t believe the guttural feeling of relief that swarmed over me . . . and yet, it wasn’t complete.
“Please tell me he’s still alive,” I whispered, glancing in fear out the corner of my eye at him.
Alan’s long hair whipped in the breeze, tickling the side of my face as he nuzzled his cheek against mine. “He is, lass. You can stop fighting and break down now. The Merry Men are united again.”
I did. The sob finally broke free and I felt like I was going to collapse. But I had to see him—see why Friar Tuck hadn’t come to greet me himself.
Alan took me to a tent in the center of camp, with Will and John close behind.
Inside, Tuck rested on a raised cot. His habit was off. A bandage stretched around his bare, thick middle. His leg was similarly bandaged, and his arm was in a sling. Half his face was bruised horribly, in much the same way as Crisp’s had been when Tuck punched him on my behalf.
“Oh God, Tuck!” I cried, and then ran in.
He smiled at me, warm and soft. Then he winced when I tried to approach. “Getting old is the worst kind of torture, lass. I do not recommend it.”
I laughed high in my throat. “You mean all this was from getting old?” I asked, gesturing down at his damaged body, trying to reconcile it.
“Aye.” He shrugged with effort. “And a few stray blades, I’ll admit. Maybe a club over the head, too.”
I bent and kissed him on the cheek.
When I pulled up, to my surprise, he wasn’t the same smiling, content friar he had been before I kissed him. He looked strangely . . . guilty?
“Tuck? What is it?” I asked, tone urgent and frightened.
“We have a problem, little heathen.”
My eyebrows jumped. The claw of anxiety came roaring back, squeezing around my heart. “W-What is it?”
“I lost Lady Emma in Nottingham.”
Chapter 38
Robin
