“Here,” I said, and looped his arm round my neck, hugging close to him and holding him up. I held him tight and he groaned, slipping from my arms.
I yelped as he fell to the ground, and Rob and the others tried to haul him back up. He resisted, and coughed once. A gush of blood came from his mouth. I dropped to my knees and the other men stepped back a bit. Trembling, I rearranged myself around him and knelt by his head, laying his head gentle on my knees. I wiped the blood from his mouth, dashing the red on my legs and wiping his mouth again.
His name were Thomas Percy, and he were so young. Bare twenty-and-two, only a few months older than Rob. He were handsome—all the Percys were, their hair like corn silk and their eyes so soft and brown they looked like a puppy’s. “Rob. Robin?” he said, and his voice were thick, caught up in his throat and wet.
“Right here, Tom,” Rob said, kneeling. Emma Percy, Tom’s little sister, gave a yell and came over to him, sitting on Tom’s other side. She grabbed his hand, crying a terrible fuss.
“Rob,” Tom said again. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean—I was trying to help.”
It sounded young and pitiful to my ears, and I stroked his hair back as tears slicked down on my cheeks. Rob clapped Tom’s hand in both of his and nodded solemn to Tom. “You did well, Tom. You did very well.”
“Tom, no,” Emma said. “No!”
He touched her cheek, but there were a bit of his blood on his fingers and it smeared over her face. “You’ll be all right, Emma. Connor will take care of you. He loves you, Emma.”
She gripped his chest, crying hysterically and tugging him as if she’d keep his soul from flying out. “No, Tom,” she said, over and over.
Tom coughed again and spat out blood, but more caught in his throat, shining at me in the dim light from the torches someone’d lit. “I’m sorry I won’t be there, Emma. To give you to him. You’ll do it, Rob,” he said, looking solemn at Robin. “You’ll give her away?”
Rob nodded, and I saw water in his eyes, not falling down, like it were his will alone that kept it in.
“There, Em,” Tom said, but it were more a gurgle now, quieter too. “You won’t be alone.”
She wailed and clutched him, but I felt it, the moment when his eyes lost their light and his body went still and slack. I felt tears leaking into the seam of my mouth, and I kept petting his head, like if I never took my hands off him he wouldn’t have died.
But then the monks came, and villagers came with a cart, and they took him away. And soon everyone else went away, and it were just me and Rob in the forest still, with blood on our hands. He were in front of me, and then he were pulling me up. “Come on, love,” he said to me soft.
I clung to him, and tears started coming out faster. Not moving more, I sagged against him, and he clutched me tight, letting me cry on him like I weren’t much used to doing. I weren’t used to tears being a thing I could share with anyone, but there in the woods with death still lurking round us, I wanted to give them to Rob.
“We can’t win, Rob,” I whispered after a bit. “We can’t never win. All of these people—they look to us for hope and help and all we do is get them killed.”
“Yes,” he grunted. “And how many more would die if we weren’t here?”
I shuddered, and he gripped me tighter.
“John died,” he breathed in my ear. “But it wasn’t our fault. He was innocent, and the prince killed him. His death isn’t our fault. It’s our banner. Our cause. Our reason to fight, always.” His head nuzzled against me. “And yes,” he whispered. “He’s also the reason I want to give up every damn day. I miss him, Scar. I miss my brother.”
Rob shattered me. I broke into a million tiny pieces, crying in his arms like I never cried my whole life. I cried for John, who hadn’t gotten near enough of my tears. And I looked around the forest and wondered if it would always be like this, tired and broken beyond all putting back together. Every day we lived, and every day it felt like we had a little less to live for.
We went back to the castle, a place it were dangerous and easy to start calling home, and Rob drew me aside, holding my hand.
“Stay with me tonight,” he asked. “I don’t want . . . after today, I just want you in my arms. Any way you’ll have me.”
I thought about how I loved sleeping against him, wrapped into his heartbeat like I could be tucked into his heart, and I shut my eyes against the temptation. In the dark behind my eyelids, I thought again of when I got to the tree and didn’t see him, and had thought for a moment that he were dead. Dead and gone from me forever.
Opening my eyes, I shook my head. “I know,” I said. “But David will have a fit, and soon enough, we will be married.”
“When?” he whispered. “I know we should finish raising the tax, but Scarlet, if we’re going to do it—”