My hand had started to bleed again from the blow, and as we were shepherded back to the castle by guards, one of the ladies fussed over it so until I finally agreed to let a runner go for the monks. It would be a fair long while before the runner made it out there and the monks made it back, and I prayed the ladies wouldn’t be clucking near so much. As soon as I agreed, though, the ladies ceased to bother me, and Isabel went out to watch the joust. I headed for Gisbourne’s chambers and stopped at a window, looking out over the grounds. They were far enough that they looked like toys, knights on runners set to lance each other.

I couldn’t see the royals under their tent, but I wondered if Eleanor were there. What had Isabel meant, making so much of her interest in me? She had been kind, but I didn’t know enough to reckon if it were a special thing.

What other notice would she have of me? Unless she had a softness for half-wild girls with a penchant for thieving. She had been her own brand of wild when she were young—she fought wars! Incited her children to rebellion! Taught her sons how to be kings and married her daughters to some of the most powerful monarchs in Europe.

I shook my head and went back to the room. Without Gisbourne there, it were quiet and calm, and I locked the door and took the chance to lay on the bed for once. It were a fair fine thing, and before I knew better, I were fast asleep.

I woke to a pounding on the door. Startling awake, I stood from the bed and frowned at it like it had betrayed me. Going quick to the door, I opened it to see Brother Ignatius and a figure a bit taller than him in a hood. It were too short to be Rob, too slight to be John—

“Much?” I asked.

He pushed me gentle-like into the room, dashing the hood off. “Hush,” he said. “Still an outlaw, you know, even if I’m not the most recognizable one.”

“He insisted,” Brother Ignatius said, bringing me to the heavy, carved chairs. He were one of the older monks, but by far the best at healing arts. He unwrapped my hand and I hissed as the cloth tore free from the blood and muck that weren’t quite skin. Much were bent over my chair, peering over my shoulder to glare down at it.

“Hmm,” Much said.

“You see,” Ignatius said, extending a finger over the cut on my knuckles and looking to Much. “It isn’t so much the cut, but the worry that the bones aren’t setting straight. And won’t be able to.” He turned his gaze to me. “My lady, you seem to so treasure your hands and yet you are impeding their healing.”

I grit my teeth as he pressed the bones. “I ain’t meaning to.”

“Aren’t,” Much said. “Come on, Scar, you have to try harder to speak right.”

That made my heart thud heavy and I looked down at my hand.

“That’s why they keep hurting you,” he plowed on. “Isn’t it?”

“No,” I snapped, not looking up at him. “They keep hurting me because they like to hurt people. Same as the old sheriff. It ain’t nothing I’ve done wrong.”

He eased off my shoulder, coming round front. He crouched in front of me, his stump near to my wounded hand. “Scar, that isn’t what I meant. I just thought that you started talking like this for a purpose, didn’t you? You must have, being noble to start with. But why don’t you adapt back? Change again and prove them all wrong.”

Ignatius set to wrapping my hand again and I turned into my shoulder ’gainst the pain. “It isn’t that easy,” I hissed after a moment that stung at my eyes. “And I don’t see why I should. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want this.”

“Scar,” he said soft. “Didn’t you see how the people looked at you today? Same way they look at Rob. You are nobility and they all know it. If you want, you can live up to that. Embrace that. Use that.”

I thought of Isabel and Prince John, and damned Gisbourne. “I never want to live up to that. I never want to be part of that, Much. That’s why I ran away in the first place.”

“Was it?” he asked.

I lifted my shoulder, hindered by the Brother tugging on my hand. “Somewhat. I knew I weren’t never going to be the lady my mother wanted me for. I knew I didn’t want to marry Gisbourne. And that were enough to make me run.”

“You can’t run now,” he reminded me soft.

“I can always run,” I growled at him. “But running won’t never change that these are my people. Running won’t give me an annulment and let me be with Rob, proper and right.”

“Then fight,” he told me. He grinned at me, slow and bright like the sun, holding my hurt hand gently as the Brother tied it off. “And try and use your words.”

Chapter Fourteen

The Brother gave me a cloth sling to keep my arm tucked away, and I fidgeted with it on the way to supper.

“Will you stop that,” Gisbourne grunted.

“The damn monk tied me up,” I grumbled back. “I can bare move my arm.”

“I believe that’s the point.”

“I don’t like it.”

“That doesn’t really matter, does it?” Gisbourne snarled. “Be still.”

I frowned.

“I won the joust, since you’re so concerned.”

Were I meant to have been outside, watching him get his prize? “What did you win?” I asked.

“A gold figurine of a jousting knight.”

“Fitting.”