“Cleaning?” Little snorted. “Since when have we cleaned—”
“Since now,” Allan said, in a tone that brooked no refusal. He turned his stern expression on Patrick. “I trust you will keep my son out of trouble?”
“Sure,” Patrick said, looking not at all sure, and hopped up from his seat. “Uh, why don’t we see about clearing the tables down there, Little?”
“Clearing tables?” Little stood up, shaking his head. “We’re bloody outlaws, not maids. Next you know he’ll be asking us to wash our own laundry. Then what would my mum do?”
His protests trailed off as Patrick led him away, and Isabelle somehow felt more exposed without the two of them there. Allan turned his attention to her, his expression grave if not unkind. “I understand you have need of the Merry Men, lass.”
Isabelle straightened, her mouth going dry as her stomach threatened to eject the bounty of food she had just shoved in it. There was so much she wanted to say, to ask, that she could only manage a simple “Yes.” She glanced at Thomas, unsure of what she could reveal. “I have a message for Robin. Robin Hood.”
“Small trouble there,” Allan said, looking apologetically to Thomas and back to her. “He’s not here.”
He truly is real, Isabelle thought, at the same time that Thomas gave a curse.
“Where’s he bloody gone this time?” the barkeep demanded.
“North,” Allan said apologetically. “To York, to talk with Tuck. He thinks King John will go back on the charter he signed at Runnymede, which means the country is headed for war. And if there’s a war between the king and the rebel barons, we all suffer. Robin’s hoping Tuck might be able to talk some sense into the rebel barons.”
“Of course he is,” Thomas grunted. “When’s he due back?”
Allan shrugged a shoulder. “I’m not sure. He said, and I quote, ‘Diplomacy is a snail’s race.’ I took that to mean it might be a while before he returned.”
“Bloody hell,” Thomas said, glancing at Isabelle. “This can’t wait. Can you get a messenger up there to him?”
“’Course I can,” Allan said.
“I could go tonight,” Adam offered. “Wouldn’t take me more than a week.”
Isabelle stood up. “And I shall go with you.”
“No,” the three men said simultaneously.
Allan tapped his chin thoughtfully. “I’d tell you to take Little with you, but that might be more trouble than it’s worth.”
“Excuse me!” Isabelle said, indignant at being so summarily dismissed.
“You’ll stay here, lass,” said Thomas, patting her on the shoulder. “Safer that way.”
“We could cut through the forest to Lincoln, take the king’s road from there,” Adam said. “It’s a risk, but it’s the fastest route.”
“Excuse me,” Isabelle said more forcefully. “But I will not be staying anywhere. With all due respect, you cannot keep me here.”
Allan managed to look chagrined as he answered. “All due respect, lass, but we surely can.”
Adam crossed his arms and looked at her. “You’d only slow us down, sister. The king’s men are thick between here and York, and we can’t spend all our time rescuing you.”
“You would not have to rescue me,” Isabelle said, heat rising along her neck. “I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”
The three men looked at each other.
“When was it exactly you were taking care of yourself?” Adam asked. “When we saved you from that soldier back there because you didn’t stay put like Thomas said?”
“I was—that was…different,” Isabelle sputtered, glowing like an ember.
“This isn’t a game, lass,” Thomas said, his voice both firm and gentle. He took her by the shoulders, turning her to face him. “You were as brave a lass as any, bringing word this far. You do your family proud. But these are Robin’s men, and you must let them do their work. They’ll get your message to him, I can promise you that.”
“I do not doubt they can find him. But you cannot truly expect me to sit around, twiddling my thumbs, while…while…” She glanced around the clearing, dropping her voice so only Thomas could hear. “While the Wolf hunts me down. You said that Robin is my…please, Thomas. You have to understand why I must go.”
“You’ll be safe from the Wolf here, lass,” said Thomas in an equally low voice. “The Merry Men will protect you, and they’ll bring Robin back. You’ll have your time, lass, and your answers. This is the best way. Marien sent you to me for safekeeping. I won’t betray that trust.”
Isabelle felt her chances slipping away, powerless to change their minds. And after all, were they wrong? Would she really not be a burden? What value could she bring to these trained foresters, more at home in the world than she and far more skilled in stealth and combat? Should she really risk her life—all of their lives—just because she wanted to meet the man Thomas said was her father?
“I’ll pack some supplies for you,” Allan said to Adam. “And you’d best take Little along. Just make sure he’s not so deep in his cups he can’t walk this time.”
Adam gave him a flat look. “He’s your son, Allan.”
“Which is why I know you’d best hurry if you’ve any chance of stopping him early,” Allan replied.
“I’ll take Patrick as scout, which means Helena will insist on coming as well,” Adam said. “We could use her bow arm if things get sticky.”
Isabelle leaned in, scenting her opportunity. “I can shoot.”
Adam glanced at the bow still slung over her shoulder. “I’m sure you can, sister.”
“I could be a bow arm for you. I can hunt, and track.”
Adam took a deep breath, speaking slowly. “We don’t need a hunter. We need an archer.”
“I can shoot,” Isabelle insisted. She looked between the three men. “Give me any target, any test. If I can outshoot anyone you pit against me, will you consider letting me go?”
“No,” Thomas said flatly.
“Hang on, Thomas,” said Allan, his gaze turning thoughtful. “The sister has a right to try and earn her place among the Merry Men if that’s what she wants.”
“Earn a place?” Thomas grunted, rubbing his forehead in frustration. “Allan, you can’t actually be giving the lass credence, can you? She’s a child, and a nun. She’s already got a calling. She doesn’t know aught about the world out there, and she’s been put in my charge. I’ll not throw that duty to the wind on account of her shooting a few hay bales.”
“We are sisters, actually, not nuns,” Isabelle said. “And I have not taken vows. My mother has not allowed it.”
“But you think she’d allow this?” Thomas asked.
“I…” Isabelle glanced at the foresters. “Perhaps. If it were necessary. Which I would say it is, as she has sent me all this way.”
Allan gave Thomas a patient look. “We don’t turn away anyone who wants to join the cause, isn’t that what Robin himself has said? There’ve been plenty who have come to us younger and knowing less. What makes this girl any different?”
Thomas stared at him for a long moment, his nostrils flaring in irritation as he considered his answer. Isabelle did not dare to speak, not even to breathe, as she waited for what the barkeep might reveal in his reply. He had clearly not told the outlaws about why she was there, or who she was, which meant Robin had kept her existence a secret from them. Something stabbed her chest at the thought of her father sharing his life with all these men and never once mentioning her. Did he really care so little for her? Or did he not even know of her? Her mother had certainly kept her share of secrets. Could Isabelle’s very existence have been one? Her gaze flickered to Adam, his dark eyes moving over her thoughtfully in a way that made the heat rise to her face once more. Why was he staring at her?
“This is madness,” Thomas finally grunted. “Sheer idiocy.”
“But you’ll let me do it?” Isabelle asked, clasping her hands together.
H
e stared at her balefully. “Don’t seem I have much choice, does it?”
Isabelle gave a little clap, bouncing up on the balls of her feet. “Oh, thank you, Thomas. Thank you.”
She threw her hands around his neck on impulse, giving him a hard squeeze. He grunted at the affection, patting her back heavily.
“I shall be fine, I promise,” Isabelle said, pulling back.
“You haven’t actually passed the test yet,” Adam said dryly.
“Oh, yes, right,” Isabelle said, smoothing her hands down the front of her habit, her palms suddenly sweaty. The confidence she’d felt just a moment ago bubbled into a nervous energy that made her jitter. “Where shall we compete?”
Adam lifted a brow at Allan. “This was your idea.”
“The range,” Allan said firmly. “Get Little and Patrick to help you set up the arrows and clear the targets.”
As the outlaws disappeared to prepare for the competition, Thomas turned to her. “I suppose it’s time you and I had a chat.”
Isabelle swallowed around the lump in her throat. “Please do not try to talk me out of it. You of all people should understand why I must go.”
“Oh, aye, that I do,” Thomas conceded. “You’re wily as your da and stubborn as your ma. But you might as well know what you’re coming up against, best as I can tell you. Robin could explain a sight better, but of course he’s gallivanting about the country playing the hero.”
“Does he…does he know about me?” Isabelle asked.
“Course he does,” Thomas said with surprise. “You’re the reason all this happened.”
Isabelle’s stomach fluttered. “What?”
Thomas glanced around at the outlaws gathered in the clearing. “Come on, then. This isn’t a conversation for general ears.”
He led her away from the clearing toward a small stand of trees with several trunks cut to low stumps, perfect for sitting. The camp, so lively and full of noise, was like an upside-down world from the priory, where she was used to the muted snoring of the sisters and the quiet rustling of night beyond the dormitory. Little bonfires twinkled throughout the trees, keeping the late-autumn chill at bay, and the houses overhead flickered with lamplight and movement. It lent a magical glow to the trees, dispelling the intimidating shadows she’d faced earlier.
“It’s only fair you know what you’re walking into,” Thomas said. “I don’t know the whole of it, mind you. The nobility tie themselves up in all kinds of rules that don’t concern me. But your da has told me enough about the man hunting you.”
“You mean the Wolf,” Isabelle said, heart pounding at the mention of the mystery man.
“Aye, the Wolf.” Thomas made a face as if pronouncing the name left a foul taste in his mouth.
“Who is he?” Isabelle asked, not sure she really wanted the answer.
“You’d know him by the name of Sir Roger of Doncaster.”
“Sir Roger…” She studied the pattern of the fallen leaves on the ground, chasing a faint memory. “I feel as if I have heard the name before.”
“I should think so, considering he’s the king’s right-hand man.”
And then it came to her, draining the blood from her face and gripping her chest so that she could not breathe. A name only spoken in hushed tones by the townspeople of Kirklees, quickly smothered under bowed heads and hasty hands. A name even the soldiers who locked her up spoke with reverence, no trace of their previous arrogance on display.
“Sir Roger,” she said, her voice no more than a whisper, her head spinning.
“Most powerful man in the country, second only to the king,” Thomas said gravely. “The most powerful if you ask the right people. Nothing happens Sir Roger don’t know about. Even John’s afraid of him, and that fool don’t have the sense to be afraid of much. Sir Roger has earned himself a reputation for carrying out the king’s dirty business these past twenty years.”
“But what could he possibly want with me?” Isabelle asked, her gaze skittering over the surrounding trees as if they might come alive with soldiers at any moment.
“It’s not to do with you, lass,” Thomas said sadly. “Your da, Robin, he made a powerful enemy in the king back when John was just a prince lusting after his brother’s throne.”
“How could Robin have made an enemy of John?” Isabelle asked. “What happened?”
Thomas scratched at his beard. “That’s where my know-how gets a bit fuzzy, lass. Far as I could understand it, Robin was some hoity toity fella in the nobility back in his youth. John thought your da was a threat to his campaign against Richard the Lionheart, so he sent the Wolf to take care of it.”
“Take care of it?” The earth moved unsteadily beneath Isabelle’s boots. “Do you mean—”
Thomas sliced a hand across his throat, clicking his tongue in a crude approximation of an ax strike. “He was supposed to kill your da and your ma, and you still in your ma’s belly. Thought he got the job done, too, didn’t he? Only they escaped.”
“I do not understand,” Isabelle said, shaking her head. “Why did my mother not tell me any of this before? How could my father just leave us in that place, and come here to play at…what? Being an outlaw? Why not come back for us? For me?”
Thomas shrugged. “You’d have to ask him that yourself. But what I do know is there’s old blood between Sir Roger and your da. Bad blood. It’s him Robin’s been outrunning these past sixteen years, hoping this day would never come. But if it has—if the Wolf has found out Robin’s still alive—nothing will stop him now. He’ll have every tin head from here to York hunting you.”
Isabelle’s head swayed, and she braced both hands against the tree trunk to keep from falling. How had her life turned so inside out in a matter of days? All because she shot that stupid arrow.
“I should have stayed in the priory as Mother told me,” she whispered. “She was trying to protect me, and I was too selfish to see it. I just wanted to help, and now I’ve made everything worse. I’m such a fool.”
“You’re not a fool, girl,” Thomas said quietly. “You’ve the impatience of youth on you. You can make a better choice now and stay. You’re safer here in Sherwood surrounded by the Merry Men than you will be out there.”
But she’d already seen what the Wolf’s forces did to people who got in the way of what they wanted. She’d stood between the soldiers and the townspeople, the only thing that stopped them from trampling innocent people beneath their horses’ hooves. She couldn’t put these people at risk, even if they were the famed Merry Men. She shook her head resolutely.
“I will go,” she said. “I will find Robin.”
“If you win,” Adam said from behind them.
Isabelle turned around to face the young outlaw leaning against a tree, a ghost of a smile across his face. He was so at home in the wilderness, his eyes gleaming like a nocturnal hunter. Her heart started its hammering again, racing for a different reason at the sight of him. He seemed to sense the catch in her breath because his smile widened slightly, bringing more warmth to the cool night air.
“We’re ready for you, sister,” he said.
She nodded, a soothing numbness falling over her as her body went through the motions of following Adam around the camp, past the remains of the feast to a long stretch of open field with three targets set up at varying distances, their centers lost in the murky darkness of predawn. The carousing outlaws had abandoned their feast for a greater entertainment, clustered around the edges of the shooting range. They cheered when they saw her, the naive challenger. Allan A’Dale stood before them, raising his long arms to the sky.
“Merry Men of Sherwood,” he called, “there is one among us who wishes to join the notorious ranks of the fellows of Robin Hood!”
Several more cheers peppered through the crowd at that.
“Does it have to be such a spectacle?” Isabelle muttered.
Adam looked down at her, amused. “You haven’t met Robin. This is subtle.”
The
comment stung for reasons she couldn’t properly rationalize, and so she hunched her shoulders as Allan continued.
“As you know, no man or woman, however desperate their plight, can wear the Lincoln greens without earning them. This lass, Isabelle of Kirklees, has challenged for a place among the Merry Men! Only by defeating our champion at a shooting competition will she earn her place and deserve the title of true outlaw.”
As the outlaws cheered, some shouting bets among them, Allan A’Dale held an arm out, calling her forward. After a brief moment, Adam set his hand on the small of her back, giving her a little push.
“Go on, then, sister,” he whispered against her ear. “Show us what you’ve got.”
“Now, Isabelle, as the challenger, you have first choice of bow,” Allan said, sweeping his hand to the side to indicate a rack full of bows. He gave her a wink. “Choose wisely, lass.”
Isabelle examined each bow, all of them finely crafted and well used, many of them taller than she was. She wondered how many, if any, Robin had previously wielded. She stepped back, clearing her throat.
“I shall use my own bow.”
Allan raised both brows dramatically, the bets among the men shifting and swaying at her proclamation. “The lady shall use her own bow! And now, Merry Men, for our challenger!”
The crowd roared as Allan swept his hand to one side, right past Isabelle. She turned, giving Adam a questioning look, but he shook his head.
“Oh, not me, sister,” Adam said, stepping aside. Behind him the crowd parted as Patrick dragged a young woman forward, small and compact, her expression as sharp as the short sword she wore at her belt.
“Who in their bloody ale-soaked mind challenged me to a shooting contest?” the girl groused, whipping a long, dark braid over her shoulder.
Isabelle’s jaw went slack at the sight of the girl, dressed in the same garb as the men and loaded with twice as many weapons. She wore them with a comfort that suggested she knew how to use them, and the look the girl pinned on Isabelle made her suddenly doubt every shot she had ever made. For a brief, ludicrous moment, she imagined Sister Catherine trying to assign penitentiary chores to this girl, and the thought made her want to laugh aloud.
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