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"Anyone with enough authority to protect them. A prior, a mayor, a coroner. I don't particularly care, provided the man isn't in Fitzwalter's pocket."

Hugh listened without interrupting.

"If the originals disappear, we'll still have the transcripts. Fitzwalter can't destroy evidence he doesn't know how to find."

Hugh nodded. He didn't write anything down. That was another reason I trusted him. He collected his lamp and headed toward the door.

Then he stopped.

"One more thing, sir. The old kitchen postern still floods whenever the Leen rises. Nobody's ever paid to repair it."

I stared at his back.

"Why are you telling me that?"

"Thought you might find it interesting."

He continued down the corridor.

I sat on the edge of the narrow bed for a long while after he left. The kitchen postern was hardly a secret. Every sheriff who'd commanded Nottingham knew about it, along with half the servants, the laundresses, and the masons who maintained the castle.

Robin knew about it too.

She'd spent three years gathering information about Nottingham's defenses, determined to avoid being captured and brought inside its walls.

If Hugh knew she might use that entrance, Fitzwalter could've reached the same conclusion.

And considering he'd managed to bring thirty-one soldiers into the castle before I even knew what he was planning, I wasn't inclined to underestimate him again.

The commotion began sometime after midnight.

Two guards hurried past my cell, followed by another three.

I moved toward the bars, listening as they complained to one another.

"Two carts blocking the kitchen passage," one said. "And somebody's overturned an entire tun of ale. Half the stores are in darkness because some fool put out the brazier."

"Fire?"

"Worse. A bloody mess."

I almost laughed.

I'd seen worse disturbances caused by careless servants on an ordinary market day.

Then I heard it.

Three short whistles. The sound was faint, coming from somewhere above and east of the dungeon, but I recognized it immediately.

Robin.

I'd heard that particular signal often enough during our years in Sherwood. Usually, it meant she'd stolen something, distracted my soldiers, or was about to disappear before I could get close enough to arrest her.

Three years of chasing that woman, and I'd never managed to catch her when she used it. I stepped away from the bars.

My pulse quickened as I concentrated on the mating bond.

She was closer now.