The night’s chill settled on her immediately as she emerged from a hollowed tree trunk into the woods. Thomas lowered a curtain of moss over the hollow, draping it so that no one would even know the opening was there unless they were already looking for it. She couldn’t see the Blue Boar Inn from here, much less hear it, and she took a deep, cleansing breath for the first time since spotting the inn what felt like years ago. Thomas gave a trilling whistle that she would have mistaken for a birdcall if she weren’t right next to him.
They stood perfectly still for several moments, waiting for what, Isabelle couldn’t fathom. She glanced between the barkeep and the thicket of trees around them, waiting for something to change, but the night grew colder and her stomach grew louder and still nothing happened. Even Thomas looked annoyed.
“Bloody idiots probably carousing half in their cups by now,” he muttered, releasing another sharp whistle, this one louder and more impatient. “What’s the bloody point of a signal if no one’s listening for it?”
“Who are we whistling to?” Isabelle asked, because it seemed safe enough to talk now.
“Nobody, apparently,” Thomas groused, staring hard at the trees. He glanced down at her, his features softening at the complete befuddlement on her face. “Sorry, lass. This is all probably a bit of a shock for you, eh?”
“Yes,” Isabelle said faintly. “Yes, it is.”
“Robin would do much better to explain the whole business to you,” Thomas said, his gaze sweeping the trees. “If he would show up.”
“He is…Robin Hood is coming here?” Isabelle puffed out a few short breaths, staring hard into the trees like she could pierce the veil of night with her anxiety. “But I…Does he even know I exist? Does he know who I am? Is he expecting me?”
Which was a foolish question, for of course he would not be expecting her. Perhaps he didn’t even want to see her. She didn’t know the first thing about how she ended up at a priory with her mother and he ended up the king of the outlaws. Maybe she was about to be a very unwelcome intrusion. Her stomach gurgled loudly in sympathy.
“I can’t—” Thomas began as a distant whistle cut through the trees, nothing more than the call of a nightingale. But Thomas grumbled at the sound. “Finally, the fools.”
“Is that him? Them? The…” What had Thomas called them? “The Merry Men?”
“Better be,” Thomas said, crossing his arms.
“I thought you said you did not know them,” Isabelle whispered, but he held up a hand to silence any further inquiries.
Another call rose up, distinctly unnatural, and raised the hairs along the back of Isabelle’s neck. She reached for an arrow over her shoulder on instinct, her fingers sliding into the well-worn grooves of her bow as the nock in the arrow snapped into place. Several birdcalls flitted across the distance like a flock taking wing, but Isabelle couldn’t tell which might be real and which might not. Which, she supposed, was the point.
“Bloody hell,” Thomas muttered, uncrossing his arms. “The soldiers must be in the forest. Stay here, lass, and hide in the tree. You’ll be safe until I can fetch you.”
“Should I not stay with you?” she asked, half afraid to be alone and half determined not to give in to her cowardice.
Thomas shook his head. “You’re safer here. Besides which, Robin would string me up like a hare if anything happened to you on my watch. I’ll come for you when it’s safe, just listen for my whistle. You understand?”
Isabelle nodded, though she didn’t understand, not really. She hadn’t understood a single thing since her mother found her in the potato-cellar prison several days ago. But she climbed through the tunnel opening and down the ladder as Thomas settled the moss back into place, leaving her in more than one kind of darkness. She paced the small space, absently stroking the grooves in her bow, the wood worn smooth over the years from the oils in her hands.
Her ears strained toward the mossy opening overhead as her mind darted from one question to the next, trying to fit the pieces of her incomplete puzzle together into something that would make sense. If she were back in Kirklees Priory right now, it would be close to the matins hour, the sleepy first prayers of the day, leaning heavily against her mother as one of the sisters droned their prayers at the head of the chapel. She wished for the thousandth time that her mother were with her to sort everything out. God’s teeth, she’d even take the comforting familiarity of Sister Catherine’s nasally whine if it brought some semblance of balance to the world.
Something terrible has happened.
She’d never heard such a quaver in her mother’s voice. Not when she fell from a window in the dormitory when she was six and knocked herself unconscious. Not even when she got lost in the woods for an entire day the first time she snuck out of Kirklees, just after her mother was elected prioress and Sister Catherine had threatened to put Isabelle in the stocks for mixing up wild carrot and hemlock and nearly killing Sister Margaret. They hadn’t found her until after sunset, long past tears, shivering and huddled beneath an alder tree. Even then her mother had gathered her up, knocked the dust from her small habit, and murmured soothing promises that all was well as she carried Isabelle back to the refectory for a late supper.
Her mother was fashioned of the same material as her bow—flexible and smooth on the surface, but unbreakable at her core. She couldn’t imagine anything that would actually scare the prioress, and the idea that something—or someone—could put such fear into her mother left her feeling that maybe the world was more chaotic and dangerous than she ever suspected.
“Oh hell, Isabelle girl,” she hissed, the curse coating her tongue. “Pull yourself together. You’re no good to anyone if you fall apart at the first sign of trouble. I don’t believe Robin Hood is known as the king of the outlaws because he bends so easily to fear.”
And even though she had yet to meet him, somehow the thought of the rogue outlaw close by, perhaps charging gallantly through the trees to tie up those soldiers in a snare of trickery, gave her the courage to square her shoulders and stand up. She was not just Isabelle of Kirklees; she was the daughter of Marien, prioress of Kirklees, and Robin Hood, the not-so-mythical outlaw king of Sherwood Forest. Or so the barkeep said. Still, it was a comforting idea if she was meant to face down seasoned soldiers with nothing more than her bow. She donned her parentage like a cloak of chain mail and climbed the ladder up to the base of the tree to listen for Thomas’s signal.
It wasn’t long before he returned, his heavy footsteps crunching over twigs and rustling tree branches. He’d said to wait, but Isabelle was too eager to prove her bravery. She slipped out of the tree, careful to drape the moss back in place as he’d done before. It was a very Robin Hood thing to do, she thought, to pay attention to the details. Her father would be proud, she hoped.
She turned to face the barkeep as he emerged from the trees, the faint creak of a poorly oiled metal joint the first and only warning of her hasty mistake. For it wasn’t Thomas who appeared, but a young soldier, his sword drawn and pointed at her.
Isabelle froze, instantly regretting every single decision that brought her there. She should have waited for the signal; she should have listened more closely to the gait and pacing of the footsteps; she should have insisted on staying with her mother; she should never have taken that shot at the soldier in Kirklees, no matter how heinous his treatment of the villagers. Although she really couldn’t bring herself to regret that last one, even if she’d ruined her own life in the process.
“You there, what are you doing here?” the soldier demanded, the tenor of his voice betraying his youth.
Isabelle nearly sobbed in relief. He didn’t know who she was. She’d almost forgotten the hat that hid her hair and the modifications she’d made to her habit before entering the Blue Boar Inn. Her knees still shook like they were submerged in freezing water, and he still had her at swordpoint, but at least he hadn’t called for anyone else to drag her away in chains. There was still a chance. A s
lim one, but a chance nonetheless.
“Oi, what’s it to you what I’m about, then?” Isabelle asked gruffly, mimicking the aggressive nonchalance of Samuel from the tavern.
The soldier narrowed his eyes. “You are speaking to a soldier of the king’s army, boy, and you will do so respectfully.”
Isabelle snorted. “Not bloody likely, mate.”
The soldier sucked in a sharp breath. Too far.
“I was only taking a walk, see,” she continued hastily, letting a little of the rebellion out of her tone. “To take care of…of, uh, personal matters, see? I was just finishing up my business when you came about, like to startle me right down me britches.”
The soldier turned his head to the side with a disgusted sneer. “That is far more information than I required, boy.”
Isabelle cleared her throat, her cheeks warming. If only the sisters could hear her right now. She had earned at least a day of penance for her actions this night alone. “Yeah, well, you asked, mate.”
“Yes, to my misfortune,” the soldier muttered. He cut a glance back at Isabelle, his gaze probing in the darkness. “Where did you come from just now?”
“I told you—”
“No, before that,” the soldier said. “Where were you that you needed to…take a walk?”
“Oh, uh…” Isabelle’s mind blanked on any reasonable response. She couldn’t say the Blue Boar Inn, because he might think she was trying to escape the fighting there. But she knew nothing of the land around here, and if she answered with something wrong or nonsensical, he might see through her cobbled disguise and arrest her anyway. “I was, uh…with my mate. Samuel.”
“And where is this Samuel now?”
Isabelle scratched at her neck, a thin trickle of panic sweat winding down her back. “Well, uh, probably doing the same, sir. He’s a…tiny fellow, you see, can’t hold more than a thimble at a time. Mean as a hungry badger when he’s in his cups, though. He’d even pick a fight with the likes of you.”
“Is that right,” the soldier said flatly. He glanced back toward the trees where he had first appeared, as if he would rather be back at the Blue Boar Inn cracking pates instead of discussing bodily functions with her. “I suggest you find your way back to your friend and keep him out of trouble, then, boy. There’s enough of that going around this night.”
“Yeah, sure, ’course,” Isabelle said. The soldier had already turned away from her, as good as a dismissal, and Isabelle was so relieved and pleased, she committed her second mistake of the night. “None of the Boar for us tonight, sir!”
The soldier paused, and in the half turn it took him to face her again, all her hopes sank into a well of panic.
“What was that about the Boar?” the soldier asked, each word carefully crafted and laid out.
“What?” Isabelle asked, her voice edging higher.
“Would that be the Blue Boar Inn to which you are referring?” the soldier asked, his tone so very casual, his gaze so very not.
“I don’t…I didn’t…” Her heartbeat spiraled out of control. “No, I don’t know a thing about a Blue Boar, or any other color boar. I said…what I said, what I meant, was no—no more for us. That’s not—I don’t know any Blue Boar, sir. Is that…What is that?”
It got worse as she went along, but the words kept bubbling up out of her as the soldier lifted his sword and advanced across the small space. His gaze cut through her disguise, his shoulders tensing and his eyes crinkling with determination. The world spun around and she feared she might faint, but still the words kept flowing, an endless stream of nonsense.
“I don’t…look, I don’t want any trouble here, sir,” she said, stumbling back a step and bumping her hip on the tree. Only after she said it did she realize she’d forgotten to disguise her voice. She cleared her throat, muttering a few more gruff words, but it was too late.
“Put down your bow and stay where you are,” the soldier said, the point of his sword only inches from her face.
“Yeah, sure, of course, mate,” Isabelle said, bending down and placing her bow on the ground. “Don’t want no trouble, none at all.”
She waited until the soldier had lowered his sword to spring forward, barreling into him and knocking him flat on the ground. He coughed in surprise, stunned into momentary inaction, and Isabelle took the brief advantage to scramble up and snatch her bow, sprinting into the thick of the woods. She crashed over bushes and ricocheted off trees, raising an unholy racket that would do more to bring the soldiers down on her than the shout of warning from the one she’d left behind, but it couldn’t be helped. She was spooked like a deer with an arrow through its haunch, leaving a bloody trail of noise even an amateur could follow.
Her chest heaved, her lungs screamed, but she could not stop. She was lost before she even knew it, running blindly at the contingent of soldiers for all she knew, but still she could not stop. Her heart or her lungs or both would have to explode before she could be brought down. She’d hunted a fox like this for hours once, the injured thing so desperate to escape she found it lying on its side, legs still twitching, eyes roving about madly. She’d sat with it and smoothed the fur behind its ears until it quieted down, then stilled forever.
If I escape this alive, I vow to never hunt another fox again, she thought, though she already knew the answer. The foxes were safe from her either way.
In the end, it was not a soldier or an expired heart that brought her down, but a lowly tree root, snagging her toe and sprawling her face-first in the dirt. She lay there in the sudden quiet, her ragged breaths muffled in crunchy, half-moldered leaves, her body refusing any command she issued. She could not have lifted a finger if an angel came down from on high and offered her eternal salvation. A wretched, broken sob slipped out of her, the last of her energy wasted on self-pity. She had just enough time to miss her mother, and the safety of Kirklees, and even the wretched Sister Catherine and her hatchet-like nose, before she heard the crunch of approaching footsteps.
Somehow, some way, she dipped into a well of strength she did not think existed to drag herself to her feet and draw up her bow. She might not be able to escape the soldiers, but she would be damned if they found her lying facedown in shame. She set an arrow and lifted the bow, focusing her attention along the narrow line of the shaft, stilling her breath and her heart and the maelstrom churning within her, to confront her fate.
“I know you are out here, girl,” said the voice, off to the right, the brazen confidence in it sending a tremor through her hands. “Your…friends at the Blue Boar Inn have already been dealt with. Do not make me do the same to you.”
Oh, poor Thomas. What had she brought down on him? On all those men in the tavern? How many lives tonight had been ruined—or worse, ended—because of her? Because of something she still did not understand. What hope did she have of saving herself if even those fearsome foresters could not stop the Wolf?
Moonlight glinted off the shoulder plate of the approaching soldier, only a few steps away, when a shadow dropped in front of her on silent feet, taking her by the waist and tossing her up into the branches as if she were nothing more than a sack of feathers. Another set of shadowy hands caught her, hauling her up and clamping a hand over her mouth to stifle her scream of surprise. She thrashed her legs, clawing at the figure to release its grip.
“Stop that or you’ll knock us both out,” a voice hissed in her ear, young and male and irritated.
Isabelle thrashed harder, biting into the hand still pressed against her mouth. The boy growled, doubling his grip on her waist in one sharp jerk.
“Would you stop that?” he said. “We’re here to bloody help you.”
Had she the freedom to speak, Isabelle might have protested, but below them the soldier stepped into view, eyes raking the trees for any sign of her. She stilled, her captor doing the same, neither of them daring a breath with the soldier mere feet below. Suddenly she was grateful for the hand over her mouth, for she wasn’t sure she co
uld stop the squeak of terror rising up from her belly otherwise.
“Where the hell has she gone now?” the soldier muttered, turning in a half circle. “One damn girl and we’re combing half the country looking for her. A bloody mess, it is. The Wolf’s lost his mind.”
She sucked in a breath at the mention of the Wolf, her captor pressing his hand more firmly against her mouth to stop any further sounds escaping. Isabelle prayed to every saint she knew and a few she made up on the spot that the soldier would not look up, or even stop to rest. Already her thighs trembled from holding her position for so long, and she didn’t think she could stand it much longer. The boy holding her must have sensed it, because he drew her back against his chest for support.
“Steady on, sister,” he said, no more than a breath brushing against her ear that sent a single shiver over her. “I’ve got you.”
Isabelle pressed her eyes closed, all of her attention fixed on one breath in, one breath out, steadying her nerves as her mother had always taught her when hunting. One thumb rubbed over the smooth polish of her bow handle, pressed against her side where the boy held her, the arrow caught under her arm and digging into her side. It would absolutely ruin the fletching, she was sure, but that was the least of her worries at the moment.
“Come on, Little,” the boy muttered. “Do your job.”
Something crunched through the forest off to their left, loud and clumsy like a wounded animal, or like a terrified young woman fleeing for her life if you didn’t know any better. The soldier whirled toward the sound, sword raised on alert.
“Who goes there?” the soldier called out, but the crashing continued away from them, deeper into the trees. The soldier grunted, sheathing his sword and running off in the same direction. Still Isabelle did not dare to move, nor did the boy loosen his hold on her, until both the crashing and the soldier’s pursuit faded into the night.
Hood Page 3
