No Good Deed

by Kara Connolly

  The trees weren’t so close together here, and I could move purposefully, pretending the woods weren’t a little eerie. I caught a glimpse of scarlet, in line with the arrow’s flight, so I hurried along a deer path in that direction until I got to a gully—a streambed that, by nature or design, was deep enough to keep sheep in and men out, if not for it being bridged by a thick fallen log.

  On the other side stood a giant, twirling my arrow between his fingers as if it were a pencil.

  “Lose something, boy?”

  I was glad for the gully between us, log bridge or not. He was as broad as an oak and seemed about that tall, and he had a wicked-looking walking staff planted next to him, held with his free hand. Standing slightly behind the giant was another man. He was smaller and younger, and he carried a quiver and a hunting bow. A brace of rabbits was thrown over his shoulder. He was wiry and handsome in a rakish way that suited the jaunty green cap he wore. There was even a red feather stuck into it—the only color the pair wore that didn’t blend in with the woods.

  So…they were poachers, then. It didn’t totally rule out my throat getting cut, but more likely I’d get shot, or bashed with that staff of the giant’s.

  “I, um, see you found my arrow,” I said, brazening it out. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome, m’lord.” The man held the arrow out to me with a flourish, inviting—or daring—me to cross the fallen log to get it.

  I sensed sarcasm…and a trap, because I’m an intuitive genius that way. A glance behind me showed no sign of Much. His faith in my self-reliance was both flattering and inconvenient.

  Across the bridge, the mismatched pair smiled too-innocent smiles. I had my bow and two hunting blunts. Not much of a prize, or a threat.

  “Why don’t you just shoot the arrow over?” I suggested.

  “What if it stuck in a tree?” said Green Cap. “Or if it went into the stream? Or if I were to accidentally shoot you?”

  That was ridiculous, since we were less than twenty feet apart, but I continued the line of reasoning. “You’re a good enough shot to poach those rabbits.”

  Green Cap grinned. “Those coneys? We didn’t shoot them. They just dropped dead all on their own.”

  I didn’t even try to sound persuaded. “I’ll bet they got a look at your giant friend and died of fright.”

  “Ha!” said the big man, shaking the branches above him. “I like you, lad.” He stuck the arrow into the ground at the end of the log bridge. “There you are, boy. All yours.”

  He backed off, a grin splitting his dark-red beard. I looked from him to the rakish young man, who doffed his cap and swept one arm forward, inviting me to claim my property.

  Well, I had to do something. I needed that arrow back. My gut said the pair were more tricksters than thugs. I had nothing to steal, and I was on my guard. I called it a calculated risk and stepped onto the sturdy tree trunk.

  It remained steady and so did I, as long as I didn’t look down. The stream running through the gully was shallow and wouldn’t do much to break my fall. I turned my feet toes-out, like a tightrope walker, and leaned slightly to the right, since I held the bow on my left.

  The red-bearded Gigantor stepped forward and onto the other end of the log, the wood creaking and bowing under his weight. He brought his staff up, slapping it into his left palm so he held it horizontally. I groaned at the flashback to pugil sticks in PE class.

  “You said I could get my arrow,” I protested indignantly, like that would make him play fair.

  His smile widened. “The arrow is free for the taking.” He tossed his staff, then caught it. “But the toll for the bridge is that very fine bow you’re carrying.”

  Great. A comedian. I glanced at Green Cap, who just stood by, bow held across his shoulders, grinning like a fox. “I don’t need the arrow that badly,” I bluffed.

  “I think you do,” said the big guy. He spun his staff in front of him, meaning to intimidate me and succeeding. “I think you need to come and take it. And we’ll take your bow.”

  “Here’s the thing.” I really hoped to talk my way out of this, not least because I didn’t want my ass kicked. “The bow was a gift, and I can’t give it away.”

  “You don’t say.” He didn’t look surprised, just gave a horizontal swing of his staff, so I had to jump back and pinwheel my arms to stay upright.

  Over on the other bank, Green Cap bestirred himself to speak. “You see, my lad, we’ve heard tell of you and that bow. Such as how you could split a silver coin at forty paces.”

  “I could,” I said, wondering who hadn’t heard the Tale of the Turnip. “But that’s not what happened. You should get your story straight.”

  Green Cap said lazily, “The point being, I’m sure you could make a fool of the sheriff with any bow, so why do you need that one?”

  “Because it’s mine,” I snapped. Green Cap had his own bow; he only wanted mine to be an ass. I couldn’t stand that kind of baloney.

  “Why not walk away, then?” the giant taunted, with another swing of his staff.

  Now I was just pissed off. “Because I know better than to turn my back on a bully.”

  “You’re smarter than you look, laddie.” The giant lunged, his great weight shaking the log. I deflected the thrust of his staff with my bow, gritting my teeth at the clash of wood.

  “Knock it off!” I demanded.

  “That’s what I’m trying to do,” he said, with that big grin of his. Then he swept his staff low, trying to knock my feet out from under me. I jumped just in time and stuck the landing by pure luck.

  “Hey, jackass,” I snapped, when I’d regained my balance. “What did I ever do to you?”

  “You bested the sheriff and the chief forester,” said Green Cap, his arms looped over his bow where it lay across his shoulders, the fingers of one hand ticking off my offenses. “You consort with Templars. You poach game from the Marian Sisters…”

  “The who?” I asked, startled by the name.

  The giant gave his staff another spin. “The Sisters of Saint Mary at Northgate Priory. Don’t you know whose pheasants you’re taking, boy?”

  “Okay, first of all,” I said, keeping a wary eye on him, “I’m hunting pigeons, not pheasants. Second, I’m hunting on their land with their permission, for their kitchen. Not that it’s any of your business.”

  “Anything that makes the lord sheriff wroth is our business,” said Green Cap.

  “Sorry I made your life of crime more difficult,” I retorted. “What with the extortion and poaching rabbits in Sherwood Forest and all.”

  Gigantor gave a pissed-off kind of roar—I barely managed to duck as the big man swung his staff at my head. The unyielding wood came close enough to part my hair.

  I popped back up. Dammit, what would Douglas Fairbanks do? The giant jabbed his weapon straight at my middle. Wincing at the thought of damaging my baby, I parried with the bow and knocked the staff to the side. Before I could recover, Gigantor delivered a stinging smack on my thigh. The pain rushed up my leg, my vision went blurry, and, worst of all, I lost my balance and toppled off the log bridge. I was airborne for a split second, then landed in the shallow stream that ran through the gully.

  I made a ridiculously huge splash as I hit the shockingly cold water and mud. All the air exploded out of my lungs and I couldn’t force any back in, but I held the bow tightly while I tried.

  “See if he’s still alive,” said Green Cap. “And grab the bow.”

  What kind of asshole steals a person’s only weapon while she is flat on her back, soaking wet, and in the middle of a forest known to harbor bandits and cutthroats?

  Over the ringing in my ears and my beached-fish gasps I heard great big splashing footsteps wading my way. Gigantor planted the end of his staff beside me and leaned down to take the bow.

  I kicked the staff out from under him, then rolled away as he crashed into the stream where I’d just been. The huge man flailed in the foot of icy water, bellowin
g curses in what I assumed was fluent Anglo-Saxon. I got to my feet, grabbed the quarterstaff from where it had fallen, and, when Gigantor tried to get up, I jabbed him in his barrel chest with the staff, hard enough to knock the air out of him. Payback’s a bitch.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Green Cap run to the edge of the gully. I spun, trying to sweep his legs out from under him with the staff like some kind of ninja, but I only managed to bang him across the shins. It was enough to make him stumble, and I reached up, grabbed his cowl, and yanked him into the stream along with his pal. He made a significantly smaller splash and knew fewer curses.

  I grabbed the arrow and scrambled up the bank. Only then did I turn back, lean my hands on my knees, and wheeze, “You should be kinder to strangers. Here endeth the lesson.”

  Then I slung the bow over my shoulder and hurried back out of the forest and into the meadow, where Much waited anxiously. “Are you all right?” he asked. “I was getting so worried.”

  “I’m fine,” I said as I squelched past and started the hike back to the priory.

  Much had strung the sack of game from the end of the stick he’d used for driving the birds, and when he fell in beside me, it dangled over his shoulder like Huck Finn’s handkerchief bundle. “Are you wet again?” he asked, wide-eyed.

  “Yep.”

  “What happened?”

  The farther I got from the forest, the more I began to enjoy my little moment of victory. I laughed, and it felt as good as a stretch after a long cramped sleep. “I think I just kicked Little John’s ass.”

  News spread through Nottingham like something supernatural. That night, the sisters put full pots over the coals to stew; the following morning, there was an orderly queue of alms seekers at the priory gate by the time the bell tolled for Morning Prayer.

  I watched from the door of the apothecary as the sisters came from their individual chores, met in the courtyard, and went into the chapel together. It was very familial, and made me homesick. I had been away from my folks for ninety hours, MRT.

  “Medieval Relative Time,” I explained to the empty apothecary, but there was no one there to appreciate my cleverness. Much was with James, Isabel was at prayers, and not even Mental Rob weighed in on it.

  Of those ninety hours, I’d been running, shooting, or unconscious for most of them. And what did I have to show for it? Zilch.

  Okay, I had a really nice longbow. But as far as progress toward getting home? Nada, and it wasn’t going to come and get me while I was hiding out here.

  I went back to the worktable and picked up the leather strips I’d sewn into finger guards last night when I couldn’t sleep. The longbow’s rough string was murder on the calluses on my right hand, and stitching the leather was a lot more productive than trying to stitch together a return-home plan out of absolutely nothing.

  Where to begin? Nottingham Castle was the obvious place, despite Captain Guilbert’s dire warning. I had to start somewhere, because in addition to having no clue how to get home, if Hudson Standard Time ran the same as Medieval Relative Time, then I had two parents worried out of their heads and, incidentally, no international championship medal.

  No one needs a gold medal.

  “Dammit, Rob!”

  I stalked to the back window, where my poor hoodie had been hung to air out, grabbed the sweater, and yanked it on over my shift. I didn’t need to play this game of What Would Rob Do? He had chucked a sure shot at an Olympic medal to go off and save the world in a place maybe just as medieval as where I was now. If he were here, he wouldn’t start looking for a way back until he’d filled the priory larder, dug wells for all the villages, and maybe constructed a proper sewer system too. The difference was, he’d already done that once, and I couldn’t disappear on our parents a second time.

  Except this is time travel. You don’t know that you won’t get back at the moment you left.

  “Oh, right.” I grabbed my sneakers from where they’d also been airing out on the windowsill. “Because nothing ever goes wrong with that plan.” It was like Mental Rob had never watched an episode of Doctor Who, which made it even more obvious he wasn’t Real Rob. “Or I could show up ten years older—or worse, middle-aged. Which is not to mention all the things I could die from here. Plague and pestilence and no running water. And did I mention plague? And that’s if the sheriff of freaking Nottingham doesn’t hang me.”

  “Who on earth are you talking to?”

  Isabel’s question nearly startled the life out of me. I hadn’t realized prayers were over. “I was just thinking aloud.”

  She put on the apron that had been hanging by the unlit fire. “What are you thinking about?”

  I spun the stock-answer roulette wheel. “Ending world hunger.”

  “Starting with Nottingham?” she asked, sounding amused. “There are twice as many poor at our gate today as usual. If this keeps up, you may well have to get over your fear of rabbits.”

  Dammit, Much, you have a big mouth.

  “I’m not afraid of rabbits,” I grumbled, and sat to put on my shoes. “People are awfully excited about the pigeon pie. I don’t know how anyone heard about it so soon.”

  “How did the Tale of the Turnip reach Dorchester in a day?”

  Seriously, it was like Nottingham had a Middle Ages social media network. I think it was called Much the Miller’s Son.

  I went to the door again, leaning against the jamb to peer out. The sisters had set up a long table—what looked to be planks across sawhorses—and they had big pots and baskets of dark bread. Besides those seeking alms, some people appeared to have brought goods to trade for the sisters’ goat cheese and milk. Clothilde was at the dispensary, where I assumed Isabel would be taking the noxious potion she was spooning from a big jar into a smaller jar.

  I slipped the leather guards onto the pads of my index and middle fingers, flexing to make sure they weren’t too tight. “I have a question,” I said.

  Isabel faked a look of shock. “A question? From you, Ellie? Quelle surprise.”

  “Funny. Okay, you grew up near here, right? Are there any, um, stories about places in the woods or the castle where people have, say, gone missing…?”

  Her amusement was obvious. “Fairy stories, you mean? How—?”

  A new, unwelcome clamor interrupted her. We exchanged a glance. The sound of horses and raised voices and the metallic rattle of weapons could be nothing but bad news. I knew that from Mapperley.

  Isabel wiped her hands on her apron and headed for the door. “Stay out of sight. Especially with that.” She pointed to the bow I’d picked up automatically. “No need to rub salt in the wound you dealt to Nottingham’s pride.”

  “I’d say it was more of a slap,” I said.

  “Well, you’d be wrong.” She was out the door like a little whirlwind, closing it hard behind her.

  Like that would stop me. I hid the longbow, because there would be no blending in while carrying it. The rest of me should do. I’d been getting ready to leave the protection of the priory, so that morning I’d tightly bound my chest. My sweater was tunic-length by now, and I grabbed the leather belt Much had given me and settled it low on my hips, the way James wore his. No way was I giving up my jeans, because pockets hadn’t been invented yet. Neither had sneakers. Luckily, mine were well camouflaged with dirt. The last thing I did was tie back the front of my bobbed hair so that it looked short at my ears and neck.

  This was more than I ever primped in my normal life.

  I climbed out the workshop window and over the back fence of the herb garden. That put me on the path that led to the main hall, past the goats and chickens. A nun, younger than me, was coming out of the goat pen after washing up in the pail by the gate. Another nun met her by the chicken coop, and neither noticed when I fell in behind them, becoming just another body hurrying to see what was going on.

  The pair came to an abrupt stop at the corner of the priory hall. I had to make a clumsy sidestep to keep from running
them over. At the scene in the yard, my heart did a clumsy stutter step too.

  The folks who had come for alms scurried out of the way of the horsemen riding through the gate, led by Captain Sir Henry Guilbert himself. The chief forester reined in, bringing his smoke-black horse to a prancing stop. I had to admit, the guy could rock a leather jerkin and a don’t-dick-with-me attitude. Two of his rangers forced the crowd to draw back to the outer limits of the space, making room for Nottingham’s soldiers.

  I stepped back with the rest of the villagers. I was between Goat Girl, who was wringing her hands, and a mother with her wide-eyed son held tight in front of her. Arms folded, I watched as Guilbert ran a tactical eye along the line. His gaze passed right over me, stopped, and jumped back to lock with mine. There didn’t seem any point in pretending, so I gave him a wave and got the stink eye in return.

  Then the sheriff of freaking Nottingham rode into the yard, and took center stage, dressed in rich silks and his fur-trimmed mantle, despite the warm morning. His weaselly face looked way too pleased, and I knew from experience the sheriff’s good mood meant the people’s bad news.

  As the newcomers dismounted, I concentrated on staying still so I wouldn’t attract any further attention. The sisters of the priory had all stayed at their posts. Sister Clothilde planted herself in front of the dispensary, as if daring anyone to try to get past her. I recognized the prioress, standing on the chapel steps, staying there so she had the height advantage once the sheriff got down from his horse.

  “How can we assist you today, Your Honor?” Her tone was meticulously polite.

  The sheriff adopted the same tone, but on him it was oily. “My deputy tells me there have been reports of poachers and thieves in the greenwood.”

  She raised her brows coolly. “There are always poachers and thieves in the greenwood, Your Honor.”

  “Just so,” the sheriff acknowledged, missing the point. “But so close to your priory lands? One might worry for the safety of your flock.”

  The prioress folded her hands into her sleeves and looked down her long, thin nose at the sheriff. “We have very little flock, m’lord. They’ve all gone to tithe or taxes.”