“That’s not possible. I hit it! It was a perfect shot!”
“Ah, but even a perfect shot can go awry. Can’t it, lass?”
The male voice turned Marian’s stomach, the familiar greasy tones like a tangible stain on her skin. She clutched her bow tighter, barely resisting the urge to draw another arrow and hold it ready just in case. Still perched on the tree trunk, she pivoted on one heel to face the owner of the voice.
Guy of Gisborne was a small man in every way. Stick thin with a belt that needed extra holes just to keep his trousers up, and boots so small he had the look of a cloven hoofed creature. There was scarcely enough room on his face to fit two eyes, a nose, and a mouth. His ears clung for dear life to a skull dusted with wiry strands of brown hair that rallied against being confined by the hat perpetually flopping around his head like a wilting mushroom cap. His eyes never quite seemed to fully focus, always darting left and right even when he was speaking to someone. He was less a man and more a mouse. A nervous, scheming little rodent who escaped predators for no other reason than being too pathetic for any self-respecting predator to rouse itself for.
“Lady Marian, how wonderful to see you again. I do hope your presence here is an indication that you have given my offer further consideration?”
Marian bared her teeth in a grimace. “I have not. You shame us both with the asking anyway, and well I think you know it. Now get off my land!”
Watery brown eyes blinked, real confusion knitting his brows. “Your land? But, my dear lady, you are on my land.”
“Your land?” Marian curled her lip into a sneer as she stood to her full height—an impressive six foot even. With the added height of the tree trunk she still stood on, and Guy’s own miniscule stature, she may as well have been a goddess looking down at an insect. “You’ve gone dumb then, on top of everything else. This is my land. And you will leave now or be evicted with due force.” She pointed at him with her bow as she spoke, part of her hoping he would insist on staying, would give her a reason to remove him.#p#分页标题#e#
Guy scratched his head, twig-like fingers threatening to send his limp hat to the ground. “Lady Marian, I do hate to argue with a lady, but you are most definitely on my land. Turn your pretty face but an inch and you’ll see my home atop the ridge.” He dropped his hand and leaned closer, leering as he dragged his gaze up and down her body, revealed by the part in her cloak. “In fact, why don’t you come home with me and I’ll give you a proper tour? You can see what could be yours if only for one little word.”
“Never.” Marian bit off the word, but a growing sense of dread curled like a rousing dragon in her stomach. She may know little of gardens and fields, but she knew her forest, knew every branch of every tree and each stone and patch of moss.
This was not her forest.
Her cheeks burned. Oh, gods, have mercy. How far did I chase that little red trickster?
Guy’s leer broadened into a smile. “How about a drop of the creature before you go? I’ve a bottle of whiskey my great-uncle dug out of a bog—left by the fey themselves no doubt. We could toast to our coming happiness.”
Choking back a growl, Marian hopped down from her perch, stiffening her spine as she turned to head back home. Not yet noon and already her day had gone to the goblins. What next?
“I must insist you stay, Marian.”
“Lady Marian,” she spat over her shoulder. “And I wouldn’t stay for all the gold at the end of the rainbow.”
“It’ll cost you all the gold at the end of the rainbow if you don’t shut your mouth and do as you’re told.”
Ice hardened his words with an uncharacteristic arrogance. The hair on the back of Marian’s neck stood up, instinct prompting her to draw. She nocked the arrow, but kept her bow lowered. The blush fled from her cheeks as she turned and lifted her chin.
“Excuse me?”
The little mouse of a man eyed her with a gaze much sharper than it had been a moment ago. He pointed off into the distance. “You’ve been hunting on my land. Without permission. Again.”
Marian followed his finger and her lips parted. The fox she’d been hunting—the cause of this whole mess—was hanging by the arrow lodged in the birch. No, not hanging by—hanging over. The little bugger had draped its body over the arrow and apparently gone to sleep.
“That— It— I— That fox isn’t dead!”
“It looks dead to me.”
“The arrow isn’t even going through its body, you mad fool!”