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I didn’t want to turn the children into hardened savages like the rest of the Merry Men. I didn’t have any recourse to stop it, either. The trials of forest living will separate the wheat from the chaff, I suppose.
I couldn’t believe I had started thinking like that—how the Merry Men thought. It was heartless, yet what could I do? I’d been with the band long enough to change, and those changes were becoming more readily apparent by the day.
At the very least, the children provided an excellent team of tailors and seamstresses. Practically all the Merry Men were wearing better clothes than they had just a fortnight ago, thanks to the job Emma and Gracie had done, with Much eagerly assisting.
“We can’t overexert ourselves or overthink this,” Tuck said, trying to calm the nerves and quiet the rumblings sweeping through camp. “We’ve been preparing for this for days, everyone.”
Aye . . . but now it’s actually here. Tomorrow. And I don’t feel ready. I wouldn’t voice my concern, because the last thing the Merry Men needed was the sound of fear coming out of the highest ranked woman in camp.
“I can’t believe I’m saying it,” Will Scarlet drawled, facing away from the fire to look at the Merry Men, “the chaplain is right. We all know our roles. We’ve been eager to get this over with, and now we can finally put it behind us.”
I appreciate his words, and yet, it wasn’t so simple, was it? “Putting it behind us” sounded like something you did when your carriage broke down and it needed a new wheel. You fixed it, put it behind you, and moved on.
This? If anything happened to Little John, I wasn’t sure I could ever move on. This was a human life we were talking about—arguably the most important one here. He had been the first Merry Man to steal my heart. My stomach twisted into knots at the idea of something happening to him.
Here, putting it behind us meant he was dead, and we’d failed. I knew if that happened, none of us would ever forgive ourselves.
With that in mind, I stood. “We need to be disciplined and proceed with caution. We are ready for this. Everything needs to go right, or we’re fucked.”
A couple people sniggered. They weren’t used to ladies using that kind of language. When smiles circulated through camp, I realized that my words actually had the calming effect Tuck had been searching for.
I continued, circling the fire, waving my arms to make myself seem bigger than I was. Pointing at specific Merry Men as I walked. “Crisp, you’ve never liked me. That won’t get in the way of you using those big strong arms to fend off our retreat in the southern quadrant of the square, will it?”
The stout man, whose bruised face had finally healed after days of black-and-blue, crossed his arms defiantly over his barrel chest. “Course not. I’ll be ready.”
“And you, Tate?” I asked, moving onto another man who had problems with me leading the Merry Men. “Can we trust you to hold the northern line and distract passing guards from getting close to us while we work?”
“For Little John? Absolutely.” The thin man looked just as defiant as Crisp, his cheeks hollowing as he glared at me.
Well, I know you’re not doing it for me, you smarmy bastard.
“You see?” I exclaimed, throwing out my arms. “We all have our jobs. It’s no different, no more complicated, than any other mission. Right?”
“Except Little John will die if we fuck up,” Much the Miller’s Son unhelpfully pointed out.
I narrowed my eyes on him. He really is getting to be more and more like Alan-a-Dale—unhelpful at the perfectly wrong times. “Thank you for that, Much.” I rolled my eyes exaggeratedly. “I think we’re all aware of that.”
Will flicked him again, and Much yelped—“Ow,” under his breath.
Other men laughed at the exchange.
I looked each man in the eye. “You may not trust me to lead, or even trust me to make the right decisions. But this plan has been agreed-upon by Will Scarlet, Alan-a-Dale, and Friar Tuck. Little John’s best friends and captains. We’ve quibbled over the details, yet come to a consensus. Aye?”
A boom of “Ayes” rang out.
I nodded, renewed confidence surging through me.
Every Merry Man was all in. From the younglings who would be checking the spokes of the carriage before we left, to the women who would cook the morning stew, to the frontline fighters who would help with the actual rescue.
We each had a part to play, and knew our roles front and back. We weren’t ill-prepared for this, I was just nervous about the results. Now that I looked into the chiseled faces and stern mugs of the Merry Men, I knew we would prevail. Some of us might die in the madness, but that was what happened in this life. We couldn’t be cowards who feared death. Not for the sake of our liberty and the liberty of our brethren.
“Freedom or death,” I said, pounding a fist into an open palm.
For a moment, people glanced around at each other, confused. I’d never said that before—none of us had—and they didn’t know how to react.
Will Scarlet stepped up next to me. “Freedom or death.”
Tuck and Alan came soon after, and once we had said it a fourth time, the rest of the Merry Men chanted the words with us, until the sound of our pugnacious voices carried through the trees like a choir’s rising crescendo.
