by Kris Kennedy
Alfred shook his head firmly. “They simply dashed off.” He slid his hands in an accompanying motion, to emphasize the dashing.
Sherwood stared at him.
The mayor felt his face grow flushed. For the demoiselles, he reminded himself in a silent whisper.
He watched in distress as his hearty morning repast of cold cheese, hot pasties, and good ale was inhaled by the baron’s scavengers. Sherwood himself downed an entire mug, then signaled for another before dropping into a chair—the mayor’s chair—where his face became visible for the first time in shaft of morning light.
Albert gasped. The baron’s face had been viciously slashed open. He’d attempted a makeshift bandage, a wad of linen laid atop the wound, but dried blood was crusted down his cheek, chin, and neck, hardening within the morning beard sprouting along his jaw.
Cleaning that would hurt.
The thought cheered him somewhat.
“Do you need a doctor?” he inquired hesitantly and, if he was honest with himself, quietly, because he wasn’t averse to the man simply bleeding to death.
Sherwood snapped his head around. The new angle presented the ravages even more visibly. Fresh blood seeped through the rag.
“Jesus God, man, look at me. Of course I need a physic. And send out men to question the gate guards and everyone down at the docks, as well as anyone she does business with. Also, she mentioned a blacksmith. Find him.”
Now, an hour later, the doctor had finished his examination and reports were coming back in. It was not good. No one had any news of two runaways, and the doctor said the wound on Sherwood’s face looked serious and would most certainly scar.
Mayor Albert fussed with his tunic to hide his smile.
The doctor patted more cobwebs into the wound with a competent hand. “It is quite deep, my lord,” he said. “Perhaps if I—”
“Pull a needle through it and be done with it,” Sherwood snapped.
The doctor looked up, startled. “But we must release the humors—!”
“The humors are bleeding down my neck, you fool. Just stitch me up,” he snarled as one of his men limped in.
Sherwood looked over sharply. “Well?”
“Only one ship seems to have gone out on the last tide, piloted by a Didier.”
Sherwood snapped his gaze to Albert. “Who is this man? Is he a virtuous sort? How large is his boat? How far can he sail? Where does he generally port on the far side?”
Albert lifted his hands helplessly, and Sherwood gave a snort of disgust. “Call for your port reeve, he will know.”
As someone was sent for the reeve, the soldier went on with his report. “We found the gate warden and the blacksmith, sir. The porter swears they didn’t leave by the gates, and he was on duty all night, but I brought him to be questioned anyhow.”
The soldier hauled Gustav into the room and thrust him forward. He stumbled as he came. They marched Baselard in behind.
Gustav folded his arms over his chest when Sherwood questioned him, and shook his head firmly. “Allow someone in or out after the gates are closed? Never.” He shook his head at the outrageous suggestion, then smiled at the mayor. “Gates are locked for a reason, are they not?”
Albert knew very well Gustav opened the gates regularly after and before hours. He knew because a portion of the fees Gustav collected for the privilege of doing so went directly to the mayor’s private coffers. But every moment delayed meant another moment Magdalena could escape, so he simply nodded back.
In fact, lying had never felt so virtuous.
Sherwood turned next to Baselard. “You are a friend of the tailor’s?”
The blacksmith crossed his beefy arms over his chest and glared straight ahead in silence.
“How good a friend?” Sherwood asked.
Nothing.
“When did you last see her?” He started walking toward the blacksmith, and the mayor wrung his hands. The entire town had gone rogue on account of Mistress Magdalena. He was reminded, swiftly, of her winged contraption as a youth. Madness it had been, and yet, when she’d climbed to the high cliff, wearing her strange butterfly wings, a crowd had formed, and followed. And cheered.
She’d inspired them.
If Albert recalled a’right, it had been a young Augustus who had dragged her back to terra firma and surely saved her life. But still…
There’d always been a secret part of Albert that thought she ought to at least have been allowed to try.
Sherwood arrived in front of Baselard and as his sullen silence continued, the baron gestured to his men. They dragged Baselard to his feet. “Tell me something useful, Smithy,” Sherwood said softly.
Baselard swung his gaze to the mayor. “You going to let this Englishman run your town?”
Albert cleared his throat. “My lord Sherwood, I must protest—”
“Protest away,” he said, and slammed a fist into Baselard’s stomach.
The blacksmith struggled against the arms of Sherwood’s men, but there were four of them, and he was one, and as Sherwood struck again, Gustav got to his feet, as did the doctor, all staring in shock.
“Are you going to let him do this?” Gustav demanded.
Alfred the mayor made a sound of distress and then, for the second time in as many days, drew his sword in defense of one of his townsfolk, with no money in it for him at all.
It was really quite inspiring.
And it would delay Sherwood at least half a day.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
THEY DOCKED AT THE ENGLISH PORT the next morning.
Didier did the sort of precise maneuvering required by skilled captains to get his craft close enough to offload—bashed into a few unsuspecting boats, nudged others out of the way, to the curses and raised fists of other captains attempting to do the same thing. Their boat hit the quay with a heavy wooden thud, and the offloading began.
The docks were busy, the city beyond even more. Dogs barked, men shouted, hawkers called, and shoppers jostled one another in the markets, sometimes good-naturedly, sometimes not. Knights clinked down the streets and great ladies glided around mud puddles, brightly-dressed servants trailing in their wake, while their poorer relations hurried straight through the puddles, shopping baskets swinging off elbows and water jugs propped atop heads. Above the terrestrial havoc, kites and other birds cried a thousand different cries, whirling and swooping through the air, seeking mates, warning rivals, and always, always, on the hunt for food.
And everywhere—at every corner, on every ship, and at every shop door—soldiers.
The turmoil of war that had been brewing in France had reached its culmination here in England. Knights and foot soldiers with dozens of lords’ devices crowded the streets, armed and armored. Some even wore the livery of Prince John and, peeking out from under a goodly number of the cloaks, Tadhg saw the fleurs-de-lis, the crest of the royal house of France, and King Philippe.
“I do not like this,” he muttered. “What is happening?”
Behind him, Didier tossed a canvas cargo bag onto the docks. “Don’t know,” he muttered, and bent for another bag, his gaze warily scanning the scene. “Never seen it before.”
Maggie turned to them with an earnest face. “Perhaps a different port…?”
Tadhg shook his head, staring at the chaos. “William the Marshal is here. I must find him.”
She nodded. “Then we shall simply have to slip in without undue attention.”
“An excellent suggestion,” he agreed.
Nodding to Didier, he leapt off the boat and turned to her, holding out his hands. She came ashore with a graceful little leap.
She was still wrapped up inside King Richard’s cloak and voluminous hood. The fur-lined edges framed her heart-shaped face and her eyes were huge and dark. Swoops of red-brown hair draped across her forehead and sprayed beside her cheeks, a vivid contrast to her pale, almost luminous skin.
“Keep your head down, lass,” he said softly.
�
�Me? I should think you are the one who needs to keep his head down.”
“That I do,” he said absently as he examined the crowd for the best, most invisible route through. “This is not welcoming scene, and I do not know how popular I shall be in England. But you, lass, are fey beautiful, and you will be noticed.”
She smiled at him from under the warmth of his hood. “If one has to abscond with an outlaw, you are surely the one to do so with.”
He lifted his hand and drew his knuckles down her cheek. Her face was cold. He had to get her to warmth and safety. “I hope you still feel that way in a few hours,” he said grimly. “Now just keep your head down and do everything I say.”
Behind them Didier climbed off the boat as someone in a badged tunic made his way from one vessel to another, papers in hand.
“Dockmaster,” Didier murmured. “Everyone arriving has to pay a toll, and no one’s allowed in or out without cause these days. No traveling warrant required, but they’ll ask questions.”
“I shall endeavor to have answers,” Tadhg replied.
“The more money you have, the fewer questions they have,” Didier advised quietly.
“That may prove a problem.”
“They also search everything. Will that prove a problem?”
“For me or for them?”
Didier made a disgusted sound. “Well, you’re just a boatload of problems, aren’t you?”
“Give me the dagger,” Maggie said softly.
Tadhg had spent the last years of his life in constant war, witnessing Man at his worst, doing all the shocking things humans were capable of, but this startled him so much his jaw fell. He jerked his gaze down to Maggie.
“Are you mad?”
She shook her head. “Practical. Place it in my hand, here.” She’d turned slightly toward him, and he saw her hand slipping out between the slid in the mantle thrown over her shoulders.
Tadhg wrenched his attention back to the dock official, who was drawing nearer. “Never. If they find it, there will be questions, and they shall all be directed at you.”
“Then you shall have to divert their attention, will you not? But they will most certainly find it if it is on you. And then where will we be?”
Neither looked at the other as they spoke.
“Maggie.”
“Now.”
With a low curse, he slid his hand under his cloak and slipped the dagger out of its sheath, pressed it into Maggie’s cool palm two heartbeats before the dockmaster appeared before them, parchment roll in hand.
He nodded at Didier, made a little check on his papers, and turned to Tadhg, ignoring Maggie and her downturned, modest head.
“Name?” he asked, bored and officious.
“John son of John, Cambridgeshire. And my new wife.” Maggie stirred beside him but stayed quiet.
“Purpose of your visit?”
“Returning home,” he said, keeping his voice calm, speaking in the modulated tones of a man from the English Midlands.
Disinterested, the official nodded and thrust out a hand. “Half penny.” His gaze moved to Tadhg’s travel-worn cloak and boots, and the hilt of his extremely large sword poking out from beneath. He waved to an armed port guard a few paces back, drawing the man forward. “And to search everything, of course.”
“Of course,” Tadhg agreed and flung his cape wide, with the confidence of one who had nothing to hide.
The eyebrows of the dockmaster and guard shot up when they saw the arsenal of weapons covering his body.
“Lot of weapons you have there, John son of John,” said the official slowly.
He shrugged. “Father trained me well. Was in the wars—”
“Which?”
“All of them. Fighting for our lord king in the south or, in truth, anyone who needs me. Always ready to fight an infidel or a Frenchman.” Tadhg grinned a lopsided grin. It felt as if it floated on the surface of his face, flotsam in the sea, for all he could think of was Maggie, standing beside him like a hooded shadow, the ruby-hilted dagger in her hand.
The official hesitated, glanced uneasily at the soldiers wearing the livery of the French king, then said, “And you’ve no goods to be taxed?”
“No packages or coffers, sir, nothing. All I’ve got is me. Search away. I’ll disarm myself for you,” he added, and began yanking blades out, tossing them onto the ground before him, hoping neither man noticed the one empty sheath before the others were emptied as well.
“No, no, that won’t be necessary,” the official said slowly, glancing again at the soldiers, then he tipped forward, and said in a low voice, “Best keep your voice down about the Franks, sir. They’re everywhere these days.”
He straightened and waved Tadhg on.
The guard next to him made a move, then looked at the dockmaster in confusion. “But sir, they said to bring in anyone who’s heavily armed.” The soldier glanced at Tadhg and lowered his voice. “For questioning.”
A ripple of tension moved along the dockmaster’s grizzled jaw. “Who said that, Ralph?”
The soldier blinked. “Well, the….” He waved behind him. “The French king’s lieutenant.”
The dockmaster looked up slowly. “I do not take orders from the French king on English soil, not yet I don’t.” He barely glanced at Tadhg, then his gaze slid to Maggie and held for a second.
“Best take your bride and get out of this town,” he said, and started walking off. “People like us don’t belong here anymore.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
THEY MOVED THROUGH THE CROWDS, deeper into town, up the high hill that lead to the richer homes and businesses at its crest.
Tadhg kept his hand on Maggie’s spine and guided them like shadows through the crowded streets.
“Head down,” he reminded her, and she walked at his side, her head tipped obediently down, the world a tunnel viewed through the loose sweeps of finely-woven hood.
She felt as if no one even saw them, wafting from group to group, murky overhang to overhang. He kept them close to the edges of larger groups, always a step behind, as if they were joined with them...or perhaps not. He conversed with her, his head tipped close, as if they were at their ease, a day at the market, but the words he said meant nothing, his smiles were false and empty, his laughter devoid of anything. His fingertips never left her back, and yet he never saw her, she was certain of this. His attention was focused outward, scanning, restlessly surveying the world for danger.
It was base, protective, intent and relentless.
It was at once wildly reassuring and coldly terrifying.
He had them linger at shops and bakehouses whenever soldiers appeared, rested a hand on her hip or between her shoulder blades, exerting just enough pressure to tip her into the deeper shadows cast by the awnings whenever a soldier passed by. He would feign questions and show great interest in the goods until the soldiers passed on, then edge them away.
She did everything he told her to do, by touch or murmur or eye contact, responsive to the slightest urging.
At one point he murmured, “You’re doing fine, lass,” and she felt warm all over.
When they reached the end of one row of gorgeous veils, he slipped a folded length of the airy material off the top off a pile and slid it under his cape so quickly, so stealthily that no one noticed.
“Put this over your hair,” he ordered in a low voice after they’d moved away from the stall.
“Tadhg, we are not criminals,” she protested faintly, even as her fingers dove into the rich, silky material. It was sky blue with silver embellishment all along the edges. She stared at it with a bolt of envy she hadn’t known existed inside her. She suddenly lusted for this silk.
“Sherwood will be coming, lass,” Tadhg explained in a murmur as they continued their march up the streets. “They will be searching for someone who looks like we do: a simple woman and her well-armed, bearded escort. Therefore, we can no longer be those people. I haven’t the coin to pay, so we must m
ake do. Now put it on.”
She pulled off the hood and let it float down over her head, the long ends hovering like air itself past her waist. She tucked it under the mantle. “And what of you? My well-armed, bearded escort?”
He was already tugging her into an alley and emptying… Good Lord, he’d been stealing things all along and she had not realized.
She stared in amazement as he took out soap, a set of silver combs, and then, not looking up, he thrust out a long strand of some shining stones. “’Tis a necklace. Put it on.”
Hesitating only a moment, she did. Brightly painted stones fell in a long woven thread down the front of her chest and past her belly. She stared down at herself, her fingers tangled in the bright beads and delicate silver wire.
“And this,” he said, handing over the exquisitely-woven webbing of a golden hair net.
She gasped as she took it, and he glanced up sharply at the sound.
“What?”
“It is…too beautiful.”
He looked at it, his brow knotted in confusion. “Too beautiful? For you?”
He sounded utterly baffled by this, and she could not stop herself: she leaned forward and in yet another alley, kissed her outlaw, very softly.
“Thank-you,” she said softly.
“Oh, aye, I can steal you anything you want lass,” he said grimly. “Was awful good at that, upon a time.”
Well then.
His gaze fell to the dagger, which she’d slid into her belt. “I’ll take that now,” he said, sounding even more severe.
“Of course,” she whispered, and handed it over.
He had taken a hood for himself, and a new tunic. There was nothing he could do about his beard without water, but she tied his hair back, smoothed the hem of the tunic he’d nabbed over his many weapons, and piled her cloak and their purchases in his arms so he looked like a servant toting packages rather than a deadly guard. Then they were on the move again.
Finally, they were past the shops and bustling crowds, and there were no more soldiers to be seen. They’d entered a neighborhood of wide streets and rich townhomes, brick-walled and slate-roofed, and finally, Tadhg finally slowed their pace.