The garden of the old manor of Leaford was filled with the humming of bees. They wandered from one bloom to another, from rose to lavender back to rose, and the drumming dulled the sodden air.

August, it was, and every soul in Nottinghamshire was sweating. Marian longed for a storm, but the sun was hot and the sky a flat unpromising blue. There would be no rain. There had been no rain for weeks, and Jem had to water the tiny walled garden by hand. The apple trees in the orchard would be drooping but Marian hadn't left the manor to see.

Marian cut another rose, and laid it in the basket. There was a time when she had been armed with more than this finger-long knife. No longer: this was the only blade allowed her.

It had snowed, the day she hid Albion, and Sir Richard had raised his voice for the first time. She had come into the hall from the early darkness outside, scandalous and soaked in her jerkin and trews, and yelled back at him. Not for the last time. But Robin's death had been fresh then, the loss incomprehensible. How could it all have changed so fast?

With the connivance of Bess, her maid -- no more a lady's maid than Marian was a lady -- Sir Richard had taken away and destroyed her clothes, her weapons, all the physical evidence of her time as an outlaw. He left her her memories, and her grief.

The others -- the boys, as she had thought of them, even Will, who would have laughed at her for it -- had never come to see her since that last terrible day. No one but Nasir, who had led her, without speaking, to a low mound deep in the forest. Who had held her hand when she collapsed, and silently wiped the tears from her face, and escorted her home. Home was Leaford now, and her father would not let her forget it.

"Marian!" Her father's voice came through the low doorway from the courtyard. She heard horseshoes on the flagstones, and the metallic chiming of bridles. It was time to go, and she had not finished dead-heading the roses. By the time she returned from London they would be gone to hips, and they would have no more roses before Michaelmas.

"Coming, Father." She handed the basket to Bess, who would not leave the manor -- not if my life depended on it, my lady -- and lifted her skirts to cross the garden.

Her father held her bridle for her as she swung into the saddle. His eyes met hers, and he clasped her hand on the reins briefly. "It will be better once we've been to see the king. You'll see, Marian."

There was a grave in Sherwood covered with long grass and the debris of spring storms. And she would ride to London to beg the king's pardon, and pray for rain.