Outlaw Princess of Sherwood by Nancy Springer

mouth, with his beard in a spiky mess and goose bumps on his bare, hairy legs. Etty stared. It was like encountering a strange animal she had never even heard of before. For just a moment she felt sorry for the poor creature, so scared and cold—but then her pity flared into anger. It was her father, and had he felt sorry for her when he had starved her? Had he felt sorry for her when he had sent her off to be married to an ugly old toad of a lord?
    Did he love her? At all?
    A loud groan sounded. Etty stiffened and looked to see who was hurt. Oh. No matter, it was just Lionel. “My back is broken,” he lamented, flopping full length on the ground. “That so-called king looks like a grasshopper, but he weighs like an ox.”
    No one paid any attention, for Lionel lived to complain. They all stood in a circle around the captive, looking down at him. His arms were hairy, too, with goose bumps. Etty no longer noticed his glare, for she had focused instead on his smallclothes. They looked far from white, and needed mending. Imagine, a king with holey smalls.
    â€œWell,” said Robin Hood after a while, “here’s your prisoner, Etty, lass. Now what?”

Eight

    W ith all eyes upon her, Etty blinked at Robin Hood, feeling as if her brain had turned into mashed turnips. In the great oak spreading overhead, thrushes and whitethroats and wrens sang of sunrise and spring, nests and mating and bugs and fledglings. And the chaffinches wondered: What? What? What ho, what? they sang. What, indeed? Etty thought. Robin expected her to take charge?
    True, she had very much taken charge till now . . . but she had not thought much beyond the capture. Her father lay trussed like a cooked goose at her feet, glaring up at her, and—
    And staring back at him, Etty felt her muddled thoughts turn sharp and cold like splintered ice. Turning to Robin, she inquired sweetly, “Have we a cage? I would like to put him in a cage in his smalls and give him bread and water to eat. Let folk stare at him. Leave him there to spend his nights in the cold.”
    Out of the tail of her eye she saw her father’s glare widen into a startled stare. She ignored him.
    Others were staring at her also. Beauregard, Rook, Lionel, Rowan, Robin. Etty realized they had never seen her truly angry—no, more: enraged. Yet she would not shout. She was too much her mother’s daughter to rage aloud.
    â€œNo cage?” she went on just as cooly to Robin. “Very well, we shall chain him to a tree instead. Shackles on his hands and shackles on his bare ankles. But let us shave his beard first—”
    â€œEtty, stop it,” said a gentle voice, Rowan’s.
    â€œWhy? I am quite serious. We must shave his beard to let folk see what a sorry chin he has under it. Then—”
    Rowan moved to stand before her, laying quiet hands on either side of her head.
    â€œI don’t want healing! Let me be.” Etty lifted her hands to push Rowan away. But in the next breath she felt—better, blast it all. Tension like a bowstring across her shoulders started to relax. She had not even noticed something buzzing like a thousand locusts in her mind until the noise eased into silence. Under Rowan’s touch, intimations of peace bloomed in her heart. For a moment, Etty really felt the new-day sunshine warming her shoulders.
    Rowan lifted her hands and faced her levelly, gesturing at her father. “You wish to be like him?” she asked.
    â€œNo!” Etty swallowed and spoke more calmly. “No. I don’t. Toads take you, Rowan.”
    The outlaw girl smiled as warm as the sunrise. “I’ll get our guest a blanket,” she said. “He’s cold.” She limped toward Robin’s oak.
    â€œHave your men unbind King Solon,” Etty told Robin in her normal tone, although wearily, “and let him warm himself by the fire, and give him something to eat.”
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    â€œMy curse on