Read Outlaw Princess of Sherwood for Free Online

it!”
    Stiff from her vigil, she struggled to her feet. “Ty,” she told the wolf-dog, “I am an idiot. Come on, let’s go find the others.”
    Â 
    â€œI am an idiot!” she cried to the others when Ty had led her to them. They took no notice, preoccupied by the task at hand. In a secluded glade of Sherwood Forest, they were butchering a deer. The air smelled of new green leaves and violets in bud and innards and blood. Ettarde did not mind the guts and blood, but she noticed that Lionel did; he stood with his back to the deer—even though he had shot it, apparently. The skin lay at his feet. “Your kill?” Ettarde demanded.
    Lionel nodded. “Better one full-grown stag than a dozen yearlings,” he grumbled.
    There it hung by its hocks from the limb of an oak, its elegant head dragging on the ground, looking silvery naked with its skin off. Robin and a couple of his men were doing the butchering. They would receive a share of the meat, Etty knew, for this was not a fallow deer or a roebuck; it was a massive red-deer stag, with so much meat it would spoil before Rowan’s small band could eat it all.
    â€œWell done. Even your great belly could not eat so much venison,” Etty teased, trying to cheer Lionel. He hated to kill. But someone had to, if the band was to eat. Rook brought in fish he caught with his bare hands, but it was not enough. Etty could shoot a bow, but she was no hunter. And Rowan, a fine hunter, could not yet follow the deer. She was still limping. Also, Rowan had all the gathering of herbs to see to. So it was left to poor overgrown-baby Lionel to kill game for meat. Etty smiled to herself, knowing that she and the others would hear Lionel lament for days now.
    Rowan saw the smile and returned it, perhaps thinking the same thing. Sitting with a mass of mistletoe in her lap, she plucked its cure-all leaves, which had to be gathered before the berries appeared. Next Rowan would be looking for nettles to heal sores, then mallow and mullein for poultices and colds, agrimony and camomile for fever and bellyache. And holly and hyssop and coltsfoot and comfrey.
    â€œI am an idiot,” Etty told her.
    â€œHow so?” Rowan inquired gravely. “I have no cure for idiocy.”
    Forgetting to be either a princess or an outlaw, Etty bounced in place like a puppy. “I was an idiot, but I have it now!”
    They all turned to her—all except Tykell, who began devouring scraps. Rowan put aside her mistletoe. Rook, who had started scraping Lionel’s deerskin for him, stilled his knife. Robin stood with his jerkin sleeves rolled up and his bare arms bloody, organ meats in his hands. “Have what, lass?” His voice sounded hoarse from his cold.
    Lionel demanded, “You know how to rescue your mother?”
    â€œYes. No. I mean, not exactly. Sort of through the back door.”
    They stared at her blankly.
    â€œBack door,” Etty repeated as if they were quite dense not to understand. “All I was thinking is Mother, Mother, rescue Mother. But I can’t. Father has her at the center of Fountain Dale, with all the guards in the world stationed around her. But his pavilion is off at the edge of the clearing. There are a few guards, but they won’t be expecting us. If someone can make a little diversion at the far end of the dale . . .” Etty looked at Robin Hood, then at Rowan. “An odd noise or something, just enough to distract the guards but not enough to make them raise the alarm, then Lionel and I can get to him before—”
    â€œNow, wait!” Lionel peered at her. “My dear lady, why me?”
    â€œI’m not your dear lady. Why you? Because you’re big enough to carry him off.”
    â€œBut—but—but—”
    â€œLionel, no more but s! You know you’re going to do it.”
    Rowan said in her soft way, “Instead of rescuing your mother, we capture your