“Adam,” she whispered as Little argued with Helena and Patrick about the ill effects of half a pint. “I think we should leave.”
He frowned down at her. “Why?”
She cut her eyes toward the table, not daring to turn her head again. “Those men over there are staring at us.”
Adam’s dark gaze flicked up and back, so quick she would have missed it were she not looking directly at him. “Never mind them,” he murmured. “They’ve probably never seen a girl who looks like you. I’d stare, too, if I were them. They won’t bother you unless they think you’re worth a coin or two.”
“That is not…” Her cheeks warmed under his casual assessment. “I do not think that is why they are staring.”
How could she explain without admitting that she had not told them the full truth? Perhaps Adam was right, and she was only being paranoid. Except, when she stole another look, the mercenary was still watching her. And he’d actually stood up, his hand drifting toward the sword strapped to his waist. Isabelle swallowed hard, clutching at his forearm.
“Adam, we need to go,” she whispered urgently. “Now.”
Adam darted a glance down at her, frowning at Little’s vocal objections, but then his gaze hardened as it traveled over her shoulder to the cluster of mercenaries beyond. He raised a hand to the others and their conversation stopped midsyllable, all their attention drawn toward him.
“Isabelle, when I say run, you run,” Adam said, his gaze never leaving the mercenaries.
She nodded, her mouth dry, her stomach rioting. She dimly registered that it was the first time he’d used her given name, fear sharpening her senses enough that she knew the mercenaries had left their table and stood a few steps behind her, weapons drawn. Adam rose from his stool and the others followed suit, Helena drawing her short sword with a sharp hiss and Patrick producing two wicked knives from the folds of his tunic. Little pulled his heavy staff from over his shoulder, the end whistling as he twirled it around.
“Put your toys away, lads,” said the mercenary who had been eyeing Isabelle. “This isn’t your fight to win. We only want the girl.” He cocked his head at Isabelle. “You’re a long way from the priory, ain’t you, sweetling?”
A jolt went through her at the man’s familiar tone. How could he know who she was? But she knew the answer to that question, and it sent a spiral of panic straight down into her core. Adam took a smooth step in front of her, blocking her from the man’s view.
“She’s with us,” Adam said, his voice cold. “You can move along, or we can move you along.”
“What, you and your little cubs back there?” the man taunted. “That’s a cute sword, lass, maybe I’ll let you scratch my back with it.”
“Maybe I’ll scratch more than that,” said Helena through a clenched jaw.
The man grinned at Helena, his gaze shifting back to Adam. “You’re on the losing end of this, mate. The city’s crawling with us, and there’s only a pocketful of you. Give me the girl and I won’t break both your arms and make her watch.”
Isabelle couldn’t stop the shudder that went through her at the promise of violence in the man’s eyes as they latched on to hers.
“Come on, then, sweetling, come to old Blade.”
“Isabelle, run!” Adam said, just before swinging his sword at the man’s neck.
The mercenary caught Adam’s blow with his own sword, thrusting it off and twisting around to deliver a fierce strike. But then Little’s staff was there, crunching into the man’s nose, while Helena whirled into the action whipping her blade like lightning. Patrick was just as fast, silent and lethal as his knives caught two of the mercenaries across the ribs. It was close, and loud, and violent, and Isabelle could not even think fast enough to breathe.
“Isabelle,” shouted Adam, his face swimming into focus before her. He gave her a hard shake. “Run!”
“This way, lass!” David called, taking her by the arm and dragging her toward the back of the tavern. A narrow stairwell led up to a dark hallway lined with doors, each one painted with a different number. The old wood squeaked as David thundered up the stairs, Isabelle tripping along after him, glancing at her friends fighting for their lives and hers.
“She’s going out the back!” yelled Blade.
“Bloody mercenaries,” David muttered, pushing open the door to one of the rooms. It looked like many years had passed since it had last been used, a cottony web of dust covering the moldered pallet on the floor. David pushed the door closed, dropping a heavy iron latch into place before dragging a chair into the corner of the room. Isabelle watched in a daze as he stepped up, pushing at a square of thatched ceiling. The thatching gave way to a patch of sky bloodred with the light of the setting sun.
“All the roofs are connected around here,” said David, holding out a hand to her. “There’s a potter’s shop at the end of the row, low enough to get you to the ground. Go for the cathedral, tallest building in the town. You can’t miss it. Ask for sanctuary.”
“I cannot leave them,” Isabelle said, turning toward the thuds of metal and grunts of pain below. “This is my fault. I need to help them.”
“The best help you can give them is to be as far from here as possible,” David said. “Your friends will find you at the cathedral. You’ve got to go, lass. Now.”
Isabelle lurched forward, taking his hand and letting him haul her up through the narrow patch onto the roof of the tavern. Outside was absurdly quiet after the explosion of fighting she just left, a faint background symphony of drunken conversation leaking from the surrounding taverns. Every part of her fought to go back downstairs and help the others, but David was right. She would only be putting them in greater danger by staying, never mind that they were in this danger because of her. She needed to get away, needed to draw the mercenaries off them.
She ran across the roof in a crouch, taking a deep breath before daring the narrow plank of wood connecting the Lion’s roof to the building beside it. It wobbled beneath her boots and she threw her arms out in panicked circles, trying to regain her balance, until the beam stopped tipping. She slid her feet forward, not daring to lift them from the wood until she reached the neighboring roof. No one came crashing out of the Lion’s door below, but she didn’t know if that was a good omen or a bad one.
The rest of the beams proved more stable, and she crossed each roof as fast as she could until she reached the last one, the potter’s shop. It was a shorter building than the Lion, but staring at the distance from the edge to the ground made Isabelle woozy. She had a very different idea of heights than David did. She closed her eyes, leaning back from the edge to take a shuddering breath.
Be braver than you feel.
The memory of her mother laid a cool hand against her cheek, bringing Isabelle’s surroundings into sharp relief. She would get down from the roof, because she had to get down from the roof. She had stood up to the soldiers in Kirklees, faced the foresters in the Blue Boar, and won her place with the Merry Men. She could handle a jump. She opened her eyes, standing tall at the edge of the roof, ready to make the leap.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” someone said behind her, hauling her back into an iron grip.
“Not so quick now, sweetling,” Blade breathed into her ear, his arm like a steel band around her ribs. “Got someone wants a word with you.”
Isabelle couldn’t scream if she wanted to, so tight was his grip. She couldn’t get enough of a breath in to keep the edges of her vision from going black. Panic seized her lungs and set her arms and legs thrashing, her whole body desperate to break the ale-soaked, rotted-breath grip he had on her. She kicked back, her heel connecting with his shin and scraping down the length of it. Blade cursed against her ear, squeezing until she thought she would pass out.
“I only like it more when you fight back,” he breathed. “So go on, give me a show.”
“Let me go,” she said in a high, thin voice. “Please.”
“I’ll let you go when I’ve g
ot my coin. Now we’re going to jump off this roof, you and I, and if you try to run, I’ll take my time with you. Understand?”
Isabelle nodded, going still despite the trembling in her arms and legs. Blade stepped up to the edge, his arm still tight around her waist, and eyed the street below. With a grunt he shoved her forward, the roof dropping out from under her feet as she plunged toward the ground. She landed hard on her side, the shock reverberating up her spine and down through her legs, the air knocked out of her lungs from the impact. By the time she could suck in a breath, Blade was there, crouching over her and hauling her up.
“Not very graceful a lass, are you, now?”
She wished she were like Helena, sharp and quick and brave, so she could spit in his eye or slice his throat. But one good shot didn’t make Isabelle like the outlaw girl, not really, and so she went along as he hauled her up. She only fought him once, when he took her bow and quiver, tossing them in a nearby pile of trash. But his grip on her arm made her bones hurt, and the threats he promised were so heinous and specific that she went limp as he dragged her through the street into the main market. Most of the tradesmen were packing up for the day, eager to be out of the streets before nightfall, and if any of them noticed her distress, they did nothing to intervene. She lost track of the twists and turns they took through the city, the shadows growing longer as the evening sun faded into an early twilight. By the time they reached a respectable-looking building with cheery fires burning next to the guard stations, she was completely lost.
“Got someone here the man would care to see,” Blade said to the guards, shoving Isabelle forward.
The guard looked her up and down. “Don’t look like much from here.”
“Well, it’s not you that needs to do the looking, is it? Tell him I’ve got the girl.”
The guard’s expression didn’t change, but he turned to the doors and disappeared inside. Isabelle wished for her bow, for her mother, for Adam, for the mythical promise of her father. But no such salvation came and the guard reappeared, waving them through the doors. She jumped when they clanged closed behind her, fighting the urge to throw herself against the heavy wooden beams and beg for her release.
The interior of the building was cool and dim. In a strange way it reminded Isabelle of the priory, with stone walls arching overhead and meeting in a wooden support beam that kept the rocks from tumbling down on them. Darkened entryways studded the halls, alluring in their aura of freedom, but she knew there would be no escaping these hardened soldiers. She tilted her chin up, doing her best to mimic the cool authority her mother exuded as prioress.
They turned down a narrow hallway that ended in another heavy door guarded by more mercenaries. Blade nodded to the men standing guard and rapped on the door, waiting with his head tilted for a response. A faint voice sounded from within and Blade pushed the door open, dragging Isabelle forward.
“Found the girl, sir,” he said.
The room was surprisingly small, most of it occupied by a massive wooden desk covered in neat stacks of parchment. It reminded her of the writing desks where the literate sisters would copy manuscripts. Behind it sat a thin man with gaunt cheeks and hair heavily streaked with gray. His fingers were almost skeletal as they moved between the stacks, scratching out letters in a quick, sure hand. His surcoat was crafted of fine silk dyed a deep blue. He did not lift his head as they entered, but held up one hand to wave them forward. Blade shoved her toward the desk, standing behind her to prevent any attempts to flee. Not that she could, with another dozen mercenaries standing guard throughout the building beyond.
“You may go,” the man said, his voice low and droning, but with an odd hollow quality to it, like it was the echo of a person long ago forgotten. He folded the letter in thirds and dribbled hot wax on it, pressing his seal into the wax to mark the letter. Isabelle caught a glimpse of a wolf’s head, teeth bared in anticipation.
“You don’t want me to stay, sir?” Blade glanced at Isabelle. “In case the girl tries anything?”
The man looked up, pinning Blade down with eyes like black winter ice. “You think I cannot handle a single female child?”
Blade cleared his throat, his cocksure tone wobbling. “No, sir, I didn’t mean it like that at all.”
The man watched the mercenary, his expression unchanging, his chest so still Isabelle wondered if he was even breathing. “Then why are you still here?”
He did not raise his tone or change his inflection, but the hardened mercenary did not dare to question him again. He gave a muttering bow and backed out of the room, closing the door behind him. Isabelle tried to keep her legs from trembling, but her body was in revolt, her eyes darting around the room, looking for any kind of help—a window, a weapon, even a candlestick. Something to make her feel she wasn’t completely at the mercy of this man.
“Please do not waste my time or insult my intelligence by thinking you can escape,” he said, leaning back in his chair and lacing his fingers together. “You know who I am?”
She didn’t want to say it, didn’t want to manifest her fear with those words. But she needed to know, to be sure. “You are the Wolf. Sir Roger of Doncaster.”
He gave a brief nod, and in that confirmation her heart sank. She was doomed. The Wolf had her, and whatever he wanted, there was nothing she could do to stop him. Her friends were on the other end of town still fighting, possibly hurt or worse; her mother was miles away in Kirklees, counting on her to get word to Robin, not knowing the battle was already lost; and her father…she would never even meet the man. Somehow that felt like the greatest defeat.
“You have proven a difficult girl to find, Isabelle.”
His men had thrown her in prison, chased her like a stray dog for days, upended her life, and stripped away everything she had ever known. He might have her, but she would not be cowed by this man. She tilted her chin, looking down the length of her nose at him.
“If it is an apology you expect, you will be kept wanting.”
His lips pressed together in a flat line. “I see you inherited your father’s penchant for insolence.” His dark eyes swept over her dispassionately. “And your mother’s beauty. Wasted in a priory, of all places. As if God could save her from me.”
Her stomach twisted and she lurched forward a half step. “Leave my mother alone.”
“Ah, no witty retort? No arrogant proclamations? Perhaps there is not so much Robert of Huntingdon in you after all. Such a shame, I did not expect you to break so easily. Do you even know who your father is, child?”
“Of course I do,” she snapped, but it was too quick, too hot. Too defensive.
The Wolf clicked his tongue. “How very like Huntingdon to abandon his wife and unborn child in a dusty priory on the edge of nowhere and never return for them.”
She tried not to let the insult find its target, but it slipped under her defenses and needled at her resolve, because of course he was right. How could her father just abandon them, leaving her isolated from the world and defenseless against the likes of Sister Catherine? And why did the Wolf keep calling him Robert of Huntingdon?
“He did not abandon us,” Isabelle said, clenching her fists in determination. “He put us there to keep us safe from the likes of you.”
The Wolf gave her a faint smile. “Is that what your mother told you? Or those heathen friends of yours? How very little you understand, child.”
“I understand enough to know I would trust those heathen friends over anything you say,” Isabelle retorted. “If you mean to arrest me for the incident in Kirklees, very well. Put me in your dungeon and be done with it.”
“Oh, I intend to do far worse than put you in a dungeon if you do not cooperate,” said Sir Roger, turning the air cold with his resolve. “I do not have the time or inclination to play these childish games. I want Robert of Huntingdon, and you will tell me where to find him. If you do not, I will hang your mother.”
Isabelle’s mouth fell slack, the distinct sens
ation of tumbling down a deep well unbalancing her where she stood. She could not possibly have heard him right. He would never…No one would ever harm her mother. This was…It was madness.
“Close your mouth, girl, you look like a simpleton,” Sir Roger said, disdain dancing over his tone.
“Please, you cannot do this,” Isabelle whispered, her bravado crumbling like dead winter leaves. “Do not hurt my mother. I do not know where my father is.”
“Do not bother with lies, girl,” Sir Roger said. “I already know Robert is not hiding among the townspeople of Kirklees. My soldiers made sure of that before your intervention. And if your mother saw fit to send you out alone, there is only one person she would trust with your safety. It is charming, if ultimately futile, that you wish to throw your life on the sacrificial altar for a man who has given you not a thought since ridding himself of you.”
“Please, I promise, I do not know where he is,” she said. “Truly.”
“Then you will find where he is, and you will bring him to me.”
“Why are you doing this?” Isabelle whispered, her voice thick with tears. Tears that spilled out and down her cheeks in shame. She did not want this man to see her weakness, but she could not stop it.
Sir Roger leaned forward on the desk, swallowing her up in his cold gaze. “Because your family should have died sixteen years ago. Consider it a gift that I am allowing you and your mother to live now. But Robert of Huntingdon is a threat to our king and country, and I will not let him live.”
“My father has been gone for sixteen years,” Isabelle pleaded. “He is no threat to you anymore. None of us are.”
“As long as Robert breathes, he is a threat,” said Sir Roger. He looked her up and down in disgust. “If your poor choice of attire is any indication, he has sought his refuge among the arrogant outlaws of Sherwood Forest, no doubt stirring them up into rebellion against the king. Always a thorn in my side. Shall I have the forest burned down? Shall I put your friends in the stocks until they starve? What tragedies will you have on your hands before Robert is in mine?”
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