I shushed them as I heard the riders approaching the bend. The goats made it impossible for them to be stealthy, so at least that was one thing going right. Leaving the outlaw pair behind, I ran for the spot I’d selected, across from the hornets’ tree. I had to stay pretty far back if I wanted cover from the spring brambles.
My clothes were the gray and green of the forest and the dark brown of just-turned earth, and I raised the hood to cover my blond hair and break up my outline. With one arrow nocked, I sighted the target, shifting right and left to find the best path. Fifty meters away, downhill ten to fifteen degrees. Making the shot through the trees…would be tough. Arrows don’t fly straight. They wobble, just a little bit, just enough to worry me—especially with an angle that tight.
I stuck the other two arrows in the ground where I could grab them fast, and dropped behind the low thicket, holding the image of the target in my mind. The hum of the hive seemed incredibly loud, but the rush of my blood was even louder. I had to focus past it so that I could hear the soft clop of the horses’ hooves on the packed-dirt road, the small shift in sound as something passed between me and the buzzing hornets.
Time to rock and roll. I visualized the path to the hive, the arrow finding space between the trees. Everything happened in rehearsed and precise order, like a dance with my pulse beating the time. Up, nock, sight, draw, loose.
The arrow made a clear flight. The shaft hit true and stuck deep. Will’s fletching was white as a swan, and as easy to spot against the tree trunk, but I couldn’t savor the moment. I dropped flat again, out of sight, and listened as the lazy afternoon hum of the hornets revved up to a wrathful roar. It buzzed like a chain saw until the shouts and screams of men and horses—I did feel bad about the horses—drowned it out.
Guilbert shouted orders at the chaos like King Lear shouting at the storm. “Stop flailing about! You’re only making it worse!”
Poor Captain Guilbert. My French wasn’t up to interpreting all his curses. Not through all the screaming and yelling. I risked a peek to make sure the goats were getting away. All I saw of them was their white tails disappearing around the bend, and Little John beckoning them along.
Guilbert finally put his heels to his Porsche horse, and he and his men galloped away from the hive, taking the opposite route from the goats. He’d figure out pretty quickly they were missing—and possibly why—so I had to move.
I jumped up, grabbed the extra arrows, and ran, staying out of sight of the road. I’d spotted the cave as I was scouting. Useless for an ambush, but good for a quick hiding spot. I bet any outlaw would know that too. Will certainly had.
I’d expected him and John to be waiting, expected to be greeted by the grateful bleating of rescued goats. But the gap between the hills was quiet and the cave was empty.
No, not completely empty. There was a scarlet feather from someone’s cap, and it had been used as a pen to write in the dirt. The script was so old-fashioned, it took me a minute to realize the message was French.
Merci pour les chèvres, mon amie. Bonne journée.
At least he was a literate bastard son of a Norman.
There was no way I was going back to the priory without the goats, but I couldn’t stay in the forest, so that left the only other place I knew in the entire twelfth century. I headed for the village of Mapperley.
From the north, I didn’t have to go through the village to get to the chapel. The priest—Father Anselm—was out in the churchyard, and when he saw me, he pointed wordlessly to a path through the trees. It led to a hut in a clearing. The building was old, but the thatching on the roof was new. A low rock wall circled the yard, like maybe the space once had chickens or ducks running around in it. Now it just had a very un-friarly horse in a new-looking pen, and Much, who ran to meet me.
“What did you do?” Much asked, sliding to a stop. “Lady Isabel sent a message that you were going to get yourself killed or hanged. Sir James is putting on his sword.”
I grimaced, feeling even guiltier. From what I could tell, James’s humble-friar ruse involved putting down the sword, so it was a big deal he’d picked it up. “I guess I’d better go tell him that I’m not in need of rescue.”
The door to the hut was open, but I knocked on the lintel and waited rather than barging in. “Hey, Friar Tuck. I’m not dead.”
James barreled out so quickly, he nearly knocked me down. He’d had to duck to clear the doorway, but he straightened when he saw me, and took an awkward step back. His expression was a mix of startled relief, a little bit of happiness at seeing me, and a lot of another-fine-mess-you’ve-gotten-into. “What did you call me?”
“Nothing.” I waved it away. James was the complete opposite of the fat, jolly friar from the Robin Hood stories. He was tall and young and soldierly, even in the brown friar’s robe. The neck was open—he’d ditched the cowl—and the sleeves were rolled back. His throat was tanned, and so were his forearms, except for a white scar running up the back of his right arm. Not that I was staring. I took it all in at a glance, as well as the fact that he carried his longsword, still in its scabbard, the belt wrapped tidily around it.
“Aren’t friars supposed to be peaceful?” I asked.
He frowned and countered with, “Aren’t you supposed to be shooting partridges and keeping out of trouble?”
“I was keeping out of trouble,” I said. “Then trouble came to me and confiscated the priory’s goats. So I took them back.”
He searched behind me in an exaggerated way. “And where are they?”
“Someone took them from me,” I said, fuming.
James sighed, gesturing to the door. “You’d better come inside and tell me what happened.”
I accepted the invitation, grudging as it seemed. The hut was cool and dim, and I leaned my bow against the wall. James offered me a drink in a wooden cup.
He’d laid his sword on top of a chest. Some tools had been dumped on the floor, as if the lid on the trunk had been opened quickly. “Did you build the horse pen yourself?” I asked.
“Of course.” James pointed to a stool. After I sat, he hooked another stool with his booted toe and dragged it closer. There was one cot, and a rolled-up pallet that must have been Much’s. For the moment, the boy sat on the dirt floor. James seemed to be making a thorough job of this friar disguise, vow of poverty and all.
“Speak,” he ordered. “Start at the beginning.”
I did, laying it out one outrage after another. Much thought the hornets were hilarious, and my description of the soldiers trying to herd the goats with their spears made even James smile a little. But at the end of my account, he rubbed his hands over his face in exasperation.
“Let me see if I understand,” he said, in that way that meant “Let me make sure you understand how stupid this is.” The stool was too short for him, and he sat with his elbows on his knees. Good thing he was wearing trousers, because he was obviously not used to sitting in a poor friar’s robe. “You attacked the chief forester and his men, which will enrage the sheriff when he hears of it. And you have nothing to show for your trouble.”
“I’m working on that,” I grumbled.
“The large man could be John the Smith,” said Much. He said “the smith” like a last name. “He was outlawed early this year because he couldn’t pay his taxes.”
“Why isn’t half of Nottingham outlawed, then?” I asked.
Much gave me a look I’d come to know well. “Half of Nottingham is outlawed.”
“Oh.” I’d thought an outlaw was the same thing as a bandit, like in the Wild West. But apparently being outlawed was like being in the penalty box, only instead of getting shut out of the game, you were shut out of the community. “The other man wasn’t a villager, though. Nice clothes, dark hair, lean…kind of roguishly handsome.”
James frowned. “Do you not have larger concerns than a handsome face?”
“I’m just trying to give you a visual,” I explained, then saw Much grinning at me, t
hen James, and then me again. I shot him a silent “What?” just as James caught the exchange and gave him a suspicious look. I changed the subject. “Can you track them or something, Much? Three goats and a guy the size of Little John…John the Smith, I mean…must make a trail.”
Sensing adventure, Much answered eagerly, “John the Smith is from up Barnsdale way. I have a cousin in Barnsdale.” He jumped up from the ground and dusted off his backside. “I can learn a few likely spots they might be in the forest.”
James held up a hand and tried to put the brakes on. “And when it gets back to the sheriff that you are asking after outlaw outposts?” The boy rolled his eyes, and the knight sighed in defeat. “Just be careful.”
“Okay,” said Much, and pfft! he was gone.
James frowned at the empty doorway. “You are a bad influence on him, Mistress Hudson.”
I’d never been called a bad influence before. Or bad, even. Despite my lack of focus, I trained hard, got good grades, did volunteer work, and generally represented the Olympic spirit. But maybe that was all because of Rob’s example. Look what happened when I was on my own. Total anarchy.
“Don’t frown like that,” said James, leaning forward to catch my downcast gaze. “Much doesn’t need encouragement to cause mischief.”
I flushed, a little embarrassed he’d read my mood so easily. “It’s not that.” I’d figured out already that Much didn’t do anything he didn’t want to do. “I was just thinking about my brother.” I looked up with a rueful grimace. “This has all forced me to admit what a steadying influence he had—has…”
Will have. God, this was messed up.
Maybe it was the tense shift, or maybe just something in my tone, but James seemed to sense the underlying current of tangled loss and worry and hope. “Where is he?” he asked. “Back home in West-of-Here?”
I smiled slightly. “No. East.”
His brows climbed. “In Jerusalem?”
I nodded. Rob was farther east than that, but it got the idea across. War. Desert. Suck. “He’s part of an aid group. They dig wells in the desert, build irrigation systems, that kind of business. Helping refugees…”
“A Knight Hospitaller, then?” At my blank look, James explained, “They protect pilgrims in the Holy Land.”
I could see Rob as a knight—in an idealistic, Sir Lancelot kind of way. “No, his group is made up of people from all different countries, with no religious affiliation. They provide medicine, food, shelter—whatever they can—to all people and faiths.”
James turned that over in his head for a moment, his gaze distant. “Yes,” he said. “There’s a need for that.” It was an iceberg of a statement—starkly economic on the surface, but haunted and wistfully deep underneath. “How long since you’ve had word of him?”
Communication here must count time-lag in months, if not years; I didn’t know how Skype compared to that. “Long enough to be worried. Their camp was attacked, and there’s been no word. The authorities think he and his friends are lost in the desert.”
“I’m sorry,” James said, his gaze intent on my face. The prayer he offered was just as genuine. “God grant that he is safe somewhere.”
I nodded, swallowing a sudden thickness in my throat. I missed Rob every day, but it was easier to stay emotionally level when people didn’t stir things up with their sincere concern and stuff. The roller coaster of my situation hadn’t helped.
“What about you?” I asked, changing the subject. “Do you have brothers or sisters?”
He stood, taking my empty cup. “None with whom I’m close.”
“Why not?”
“I went to Huntingdon as a squire when I was eight. That’s how I met Henry and Isabel.” James set his cup and mine by the jug of ale, straightening them as he spoke. “We three were good friends before I left with the Crusade, if you can believe it.”
“I can believe it.” It takes a certain level of familiarity for someone to be able to piss you off in a particular way. “I just can’t believe you were a squire at eight.”
He raised his brows. “How old were you when you picked up a bow?”
Family legend said I made one out of my crib mobile, but I didn’t believe it. “That’s different. A practice target doesn’t try to shoot you back.” I lifted his scabbarded sword from atop the trunk. I knew it would be heavy, but it still nearly tipped me off the stool. “Good God. How did you lift this thing?”
“Well, I didn’t start with that, obviously.” He watched me lay the weapon across my knees so I could examine the equal-armed cross on the pommel.
“But you’ve had this awhile,” I said. There wasn’t a single shabby thing about the scabbard, the silver hilt, or the sword belt, but I recognized the care that goes into a thing that suits you perfectly. I can shoot anything, but I don’t have a relationship with every bow I pick up.
I squinted at the grip, flicking my nail over the join on the cross guard. “Is that some blood left there?”
“What?” Horrified, James bent over to see. I laughed, and he shot me a glare. “That’s not funny.”
“That’s because you didn’t see your face.”
He took the sword from my lap and laid it back on the trunk. The hut was cool and smelled of ale and clean dirt and sawdust. It wasn’t a bad smell at all. I caught James’s hand, turning his forearm to look at the jagged white scar that cut across it. “How did you get this?”
“Point of a Saracen lance went up under my shield.” He was matter-of-fact about it, and about pushing up his sleeve to show the straight red line of a newer scar across his triceps. “Sword cut here. An arrow broke this bone”—he pointed to his clavicle—“and to show you the rest would make us both blush.”
I stood up to get a better look at his collarbone. There wasn’t much to see. Scar-wise, I mean. I was looking for science. “Oh, wow. So the chain mail really does stop a…Was it a broadhead? A bodkin point should have pierced the armor, especially from a recurve—”
He took my shoulders and set me back a pace. “It was pointed and it hurt. Let it suffice that I dealt more than I received, or I wouldn’t be here for you to prod at.”
Now I was blushing, and I took another step back, toward the open door. “Sorry.”
Suddenly I was looking at the Spartan hut in the light of new information. The place was plain as a monk’s cell, with no attempt to trick things out for comfort. The horse’s pen outside was the fanciest part. I wasn’t even sure Much’s bedroll wasn’t cushier than the bedding on the cot.
“Are you doing penance?” I asked. My insight seemed to startle James, and he looked ruffled, like he was searching for a way to explain. I helped him out with a matter-of-fact “We have veterans in West-of-Here, too.”
His hand dropped to rest on the hilt of a sword that wasn’t there. He caught himself and made a rueful grimace. “When I returned to England, I made a vow.” The banter was over, and the stillness of conviction settled back over him. “If called upon, I will use that sword to defend the innocent to my dying breath, and I will give my life for any godly cause, but I’m done killing for the Church or the crown.”
“And the, uh, Knights Templar are okay with that?”
James didn’t sigh or shrug, but both were in his voice. “It’s under negotiation.”
I was still working out what that meant when a ferocious pounding shook the entire hut, dislodging straw thatching and endangering the whole structure. I didn’t know what I was thinking—earthquake, meteor shower, giant ogre—but I was closest to the door and stuck my head out to see what was happening. Someone—someone strong and furious—grabbed the back of my tunic and yanked me out of the hut like a cat yanking a gopher out of a hole.
I yelped, tripped over my own feet, rolled as I fell, and came to a sprawling stop, blinking in the sudden sunlight.
Sir Henry Guilbert, chief forester and goat confiscator, stood over me, thunderous, armed, and covered in hornet stings. “Robert Hudson, or whatever you are cal
ling yourself, you are under arrest for theft, assault, and whatever else I can think of between here and the Nottingham dungeon.”
I scrambled backward like a crab, only less effectively. I saw James run out of the hut, but mostly my vision was full of Guilbert, his face, throat, and hands covered with angry red welts the size of quarters. In my few, but memorable, dealings with Guilbert I’d seen him snide, stonily businesslike, and vaguely irate, but I’d figured him too much of a cold fish to get truly furious. I’d figured wrong. He was livid, literally and figuratively.
He was also alone. There was only his horse outside the stone wall, and even it looked mad at me.
James strode forward, his sword half drawn. He may have vowed not to kill anyone, but he looked ready to mess someone up. Guilbert gave him a glance; then his eyes were back on me, just waiting for me to offer an excuse. “Do you really wish to interfere with an agent of the crown in the midst of his duty, James? What does your knight’s code say about abetting treason?”
James slammed his sword back into its scabbard and stopped where he was. “It says you need a better reason than anger to arrest a yeoman.”
“Let’s start with attacking the king’s foresters,” snapped Guilbert. “Then there is stealing from the sheriff of Nottingham.”
“I didn’t steal anything,” I said truthfully. “Do you see any goats here?”
“I see this.” Guilbert grabbed my ankle and lifted my sneakered foot. “No one else leaves tracks like this.”
Curse you, Chuck Taylor.
Guilbert let my leg drop with a thud. “When I saw your direction, I remembered that Mapperley had a new friar, supposedly the son of an old Nottingham family.” He finally widened his attention, taking in the hut, the yard, and James’s plain woolen clothes with a mix of bemusement and contempt. “What does your father say about your humble status?”
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