Outlaw Princess of Sherwood Read Online Free PDF Page A

glimpse of something that gleamed in the moonlight. Surprise took her breath away.
    Curly golden hair.
    â€œRobin!” she squeaked.
    â€œOh, for the love of toads . . .” Rowan lowered her bow.
    â€œRobin, you rascal, you . . .” Etty could not think of anything stinging enough to call him. She grabbed a pebble and flung it at him.
    â€œOww,” he drawled in his own tenor voice, grinning, then coughing. He wiped his nose on his sleeve.
    â€œ Father ,” said Rowan, “what if I had shot you?”
    â€œI knew you wouldn’t.” Flinging the hood back from his handsome face, Robin stood up and vaulted over the rocks, into the rowan hollow. Rowan gave him a kiss of greeting on his cheek, but Etty was in no mood to kiss him.
    â€œWhat if one of us had screamed?” Rowan was still trying to chide her father.
    â€œI knew you wouldn’t.”
    â€œI nearly did,” Etty complained. Even in moonlight she could see the glint of fun in his blue eyes. Blast the scamp, she had thought she was beyond being fooled by his pranks. If Tykell had been here, he would have wagged his tail, and Robin would have been discovered at once. Or if he had stood up, they would have known it was him, he was so tall. Or if—
    â€œDon’t you ever wash your face?” Robin asked gravely, peering at Etty. “It looks dark.”
    He was teasing her. And it would have taken a hard heart to resist the mischief dancing in his eyes. Etty had to smile.
    â€œHere, Lionel, a snack for you.” Robin pulled a large packet of something from under his mantle and tossed it to him. Pulling off its coarse cloth wrapping, Lionel released the sumptuous aroma of roast venison.
    â€œThanks!” he exclaimed, although of course it was not just for him. They all sat down to share it.
    â€œNo thanks called for.” Robin coughed again. His voice sounded as clogged as his nose. Looking weary now, sitting within the hollow, he leaned against the rock.
    â€œI owe thanks also,” Etty told him, “to one of your men.”
    â€œAy, for shooting the guard this morning? ’Twas Will Scathelock. What were you doing at Fountain Dale, lass?”
    â€œBeing stupid.”
    â€œAy, well, what’s life without a spice of stupidity?” Robin wiped his nose on his sleeve once more; did he have to do that? His sleeve looked crusty. He coughed again.
    Rowan told him, “You sound worse than yesterday. You should be in a warm bed with a mug of black mullein tea.”
    â€œHalf my men have colds, and the other half have chills,” Robin grumbled. He was losing his voice. “And here I am out in the cold for no better reason than—”
    â€œTo play the fool,” Rowan put in.
    â€œNay, surely not! I came to see what we are to do about Queen Elsinor.”
    Etty wondered, had Rowan sent him word about Mother? Or had Will Scathelock reported the situation in Fountain Dale to him? One way or another, Robin seemed always to know what went on in Sherwood Forest.
    And somehow during the interval of his clowning, Etty realized, her mind had made itself up about a few things.
    â€œI found out one thing this morning,” she told Robin. “My mother wants me to run—”
    â€œYou should,” Rook said in his flat way.
    Etty shook her head. “No. If I run now, I’ll spend my life running from my father. You don’t know him.” A petty king. Set upon his own power. Relentless when that power was challenged. “He’ll hunt me forever unless I put a stop to him somehow.”
    Silence. In the valley, frogs chimed like distant bells. Above the budding oaks, a bat buzzed like the insects it fed upon. Far away something snarled. Etty felt many eyes on her as the truth of what she had said hovered like a dark moth in the night.
    Rowan murmured, “I see.”
    â€œDear me,” Lionel said, “you don’t want to spend the rest of your