“As long as it’s not wild carrot,” he said, his tone wry.
“My mother made it. You are safe from any accidental poisonings.” She riffled through the saddlebags until she found her travel sack, pulling the small container of salve out of the bag and letting the pungent herbal bouquet wash the smell of him from her nose. She took a deep, steadying breath before trusting herself to face him.
“So what encounters have you had with sisters of the order?” she asked as she dug her fingers into the salve, looking for anything to distract from the roughness of his skin. “You said Sister Catherine sounded like every sister you had met.”
“My sister, Abigail, she’s in a priory,” Adam said, keeping his eyes fixed on the ground. “Well, an abbey. Is that the same thing?”
“Not exactly, but I do not think you are interested in a lecture on the particulars of ecclesiastical hierarchy.”
Adam gave a half smile. “Not in the slightest.”
“What brought your sister to the abbey?” Isabelle asked, her fingers lingering over his jaw of their own volition.
Adam hesitated. Isabelle had seen her fair share of sisters come to Kirklees, their reasons as varied as their backgrounds. Sister Catherine had always advocated for courting royalty and only accepting girls of noble backgrounds and the large dowries that often went along with them. But when Isabelle’s mother became prioress, she opened Kirklees to girls of all status, wanting to provide shelter and a better life for those whose opportunities were limited or whose circumstances were unbearable beyond the priory walls. Isabelle feared, from the look on Adam’s face, that his sister was of the latter.
“I am sorry,” Isabelle said after a long moment. She stepped back, her fingers soft and oily from the salve. “I should not have pried. It was not my place.”
“She thinks I should move past it,” Adam said, working his jaw carefully side to side. He lifted his brows in surprise. “That actually is better. My thanks to you and your mother.”
Isabelle shook her head. “My mother is the true healer.”
“I think you did all right.”
Isabelle turned away from him, the heat of his gaze spreading over her back. “I am happy to help. Especially for the brother of one of our own.”
“Now you sound like Abigail.”
“Then she sounds like a lovely girl. I am sure I would like her.”
Adam grinned. “Oh, she’d love you. She’s only a year younger than me, and if she could have had her way of things, she would have been born a boy, same as me. She got into more scraps than I did, and me always having to haul her back out before she did any real damage. We ran everywhere, did everything together. Fishing, sword fighting with dead branches we’d haul out of the woods, tearing apart my da’s workshop until he kicked us out. I think it was a rude awakening for her when we got old enough that it was obvious she wasn’t a boy and her body didn’t listen to any of her demands otherwise.”
“What kind of workshop does your father have?” Isabelle asked, warmed by the image of a young Adam chasing a little girl with wild braids. She had no siblings herself—at least none that she knew of—and hearing him speak so lovingly of his sister brought a sharp pang of loneliness for her childhood self.
“My da is a tanner,” said Adam, testing the edges of his bruise. “Cures leather and the like.”
“That is it!” Isabelle said on a spark of inspiration. “That is what you smell like.”
Adam gave her a horrified look. “You think I smell like a tanner’s shop?”
She frowned. “Is that a bad thing?”
“Only if you’ve ever smelled a tanner’s shop. They smell of urine and rot on a good day, and worse when it’s hot. It’s a nasty process, making leather. Poisons the water and stinks to the heavens.” He pulled the neck of his tunic away from his body, exposing his collarbone and the top of his chest. Isabelle quickly cut her eyes away, her face warming. “Is that really what I smell like?”
“No, no, of course not,” she said hastily. “I only meant you smelled of leather. In a good way. Like a fresh pair of gloves. Or a well-oiled saddle. It is a nice smell.”
She turned toward their horse to hide the blush creeping up her neck and across her cheeks, packing away the salve. What was she saying, telling him of his own smells? What was wrong with her mind? If Adam noticed her discomfort, he didn’t remark on it.
“So long as I don’t smell of the shop,” he said. “I swear it took years to get the stink off me after I left Locksley, like it grew into my skin and came out of the roots of my hair. Even Abigail said she still woke up from dreams sometimes smelling the pits of blood and dung where my da washed the skins when they first came in from the butcher.”
“Is she the reason you came to be at the outlaw camp?” Isabelle asked quietly over her shoulder.
“Oh, aye,” Adam said, a dark current rippling through his words. “I never forgave the men who hurt her, but I did find them. Tin heads, of course, propped up on their own importance and swimming in ale. There were three of them and one of me. They didn’t think I stood a chance.”
Her breath caught at the unspoken violence in his voice, his pain still so fresh, his rage crackling. She sat beside him, wanting to take his hand, to wrap her small fingers around his as much for her own comfort as his. She’d heard enough versions of his sister’s story from those who sought shelter at Kirklees, and it never failed to break her heart that women could suffer such violence at the hands of men.
“I’d snapped two of their arms and smashed one of their noses by the time their friends heard the fighting and pulled me off them,” Adam said, his gaze hard on the ground. “Not even a cut on me. At least not until they got me to the stocks. Then they had their way, the cowards.”
A faint white scar followed his hairline down past his temple to just above his ear, right where she had applied the salve. She wondered if the soldiers had given it to him.
“What about your family?” she asked, her voice soft.
Adam gave a laugh that chilled her. “My da came to visit me, once. Just after they’d left me practically for dead. Told me he was ashamed. That I’d let my impulses rule my head and put all our family in danger over one daughter. He said if anyone ever came to let me out that I could find my way to another home and not give a look back. Not that there was anything for me to look back on. My father had the shop, my mother had my little brothers and sisters to look after, and Abigail was gone. There was nothing for me in Locksley anymore.”
Isabelle’s heart tightened into a knot, the tension aching through her entire chest. Adam shook himself as if coming out of a reverie, taking a deep breath.
“Anyway, that’s where Robin and Little John found me. They were passing through towns like mine, wrestling any idiot foolish enough to try his hand against Little John. Got me out of the stocks and I joined up on the spot. Never looked back, just like my da said.”
Isabelle studied her hands, lacing and unlacing her fingers, but it was not quite the same as holding his. “My mother would say forgiveness is essential to leading a peaceful life.”
“Maybe,” Adam said, stretching back. “But it’s not peace I’m looking for. Robin always says we help those the king would rather use up and forget, people like Abigail. The king doesn’t look at people as precious, he looks at them as a commodity. Somebody to work his lands and fill his coffers and clean his boots.” He leaned forward, his eyes narrowing. “But his time is coming to an end.”
“How can you be so sure?” Isabelle whispered. “He is a king, with an entire army at his disposal.”
“An army bought and not yet paid for,” Adam said. “You can buy a sword, but you can’t buy loyalty. John will find that out soon enough. His days on the throne are numbered.”
Looking at Adam just then, his jaw set and his eyes blazing, Isabelle could almost believe it. She could almost believe that Sir Roger was only human, fallible and beatable. She wanted to believe it, so desperately, that the
se rebel outlaws could actually change the country if things had really gotten so bad as they were in Kirkleestown. But it was easy to fight for ideals, and much harder to face the reality of their consequences. Consequences that her mother would pay if she did not do what the Wolf demanded.
“We should keep moving, should we not?” she said. “If we want to reach York in time.”
Adam nodded, standing up from the log and tossing his apple core into the woods. And even though it had been Isabelle’s suggestion, she regretted it as soon as he left to find the others. She could have sat with him for hours, talking of his family and Robin and the Merry Men. If it had been another time, another set of circumstances.
She sighed, standing and following after him toward the sound of wood striking against wood, followed by a vibrant string of Gaelic curses. She found Adam at the bank of a wide creek where Little and Patrick faced off, Little wielding his staff and Patrick holding a crude approximation of one that looked fashioned from a fallen tree branch.
“I keep telling you not to look where you mean to strike, Patty,” Little said, swinging the bottom of the staff forward to meet Patrick’s low blow. “I know what you’re doing before you do it every time.”
“I didn’t think I was looking,” Patrick grunted. He brought the bottom of his staff forward again in a strike to Little’s knees, but before the wood could make contact, Little parried the blow. “And what have I said about calling me Patty?”
Little tilted his head thoughtfully. “To keep doing it?”
“To stop doing it,” Patrick said, groaning as another of his blows slipped off Little’s staff. “I swear you must be cheating somehow.”
Isabelle kept clear of their fighting area, not wanting to find herself on the receiving end of a wayward blow as Little deftly blocked Patrick’s strikes with friendly taunts. They were both covered in a fine sheen of sweat from their practice. Little caught sight of Isabelle and Adam, waving with one hand as he put the tip of his staff to Patrick’s chest and shoved the Irish boy into the water.
“Oi, Adam,” Little called. “Come and fight me. I need a real challenge.”
“Don’t make me lob a stone at that thick head of yours,” Patrick spluttered, coming up out of the water.
“Come on, then, Adam, give us a go,” Little said, drawing his sword from the scabbard on his belt. “Unless you’re worried I’ll trounce you in front of the sister.”
Adam sighed, giving her a small shrug as he pulled his own sword. He swung it around, opening up his shoulder, as he approached the tall boy. “The only thing I’m worried about is the crying I’ll hear from you for the rest of the day. Guard up.”
They faced each other with sword hands low, the tips dancing through the air as they moved on light feet around the small clearing. Patrick dripped his way over to where Isabelle stood, watching. He nodded to Adam, whose relaxed stance and slight smile didn’t make him look like a man ready to fight.
“This is the only form of retribution I’ll get for Little’s pounding,” he said to Isabelle.
Isabelle started to ask what he meant by that, but Adam opened their sparring with a swing toward Little’s left shoulder, the blade arcing so fast it glinted like lightning. Little barely escaped the blow, dodging to the right and countering with his own strike to Adam’s ribs. Adam blocked Little’s attack with even more boredom than the tall boy had shown Patrick, easily turning his blade to the side and sliding down to nick him in the hand. Little gave a shout, pulling back his sword arm.
“That hurt,” Little grumbled.
“I told you to use the guard to your advantage,” Adam said, sounding thoroughly unapologetic.
They sparred for several minutes, Little working up a true sweat in his efforts to find a hole in Adam’s defense. Adam, for his part, turned more aggressive as they fought, tapping Little several times on the shoulder or in the ribs to let him know when he was caught. Isabelle watched the gleaming swoop of his blade, the sword a natural extension of his arm. He moved with fluid grace, his lean muscles flexing and relaxing as he executed each movement with careful explosions of energy. He never once lost his footing, or missed the mark of his attack, or took his eyes from Little’s gaze. It was a breathless dance of violence that held Isabelle transfixed.
Little dropped his sword arm, the tip dragging through the dirt as he raised his other arm over his head and backed away. “I give, I give,” he panted, dropping both hands to his knees with a heaving breath. “It’s a good thing you’re on our side, mate.”
Adam smiled, his own chest rising and falling rapidly now that the fight had drawn to a close. “I’m always on your side, Little. Until I’m not. Then you’ll never see me coming.”
“Bah,” Little said, waving him away. “The Merry Men never turn on their own. Thicker than blood, eh?”
The Merry Men never turn on their own. Isabelle’s stomach turned at the reminder of what she had to do. What she had chosen to do.
“You all right, sister?” Patrick asked, frowning. “You look a bit pale.”
“Only exhaustion,” she said, mustering a faint smile.
Patrick nodded sagely. “I could use a warm fire and a spot of stew myself. I’ll be glad once we reach the camp in York.”
Isabelle could not share his enthusiasm. The closer they got, the tighter the noose around her neck. And eventually, she knew, her neck would snap.
Isabelle could find no peace in sleep after that, but the droning pace and uneventful passage of their trip did lull her into a numbing complacency as the scenery shifted from heavy forests to rolling hills. She grew so content that when Adam’s horse stopped abruptly she nearly tumbled out of the saddle and had to scrabble at Adam’s waist to keep her seat. She peered over his shoulder at what had spooked the horses.
“What happened?” she asked, but Adam held up a hand.
“She smells something,” he said in a low voice, and the others had reined in their mounts as well, all of their ears pricked up for what the horses had already detected.
“Patrick,” Adam said, but the Irish boy was one step ahead. He tossed Helena his reins, slipping down on silent feet and running toward the closest hill for cover. They waited, quiet and tense, Adam’s horse giving a low whinny. Patrick came running back.
“Highwaymen,” he said. “Over the next rise.”
Isabelle jerked back at the mention of thieves along the king’s road, but the others looked as if it were no more than an irritating inconvenience.
“Bloody hell,” Adam said, letting out a breath. “Ours?”
Patrick shook his head.
“How close are we to York, do you figure?”
“Pretty close,” Patrick said, waving at the hill behind him. “I can see the castle from the hilltop.”
Adam tapped a finger on the pommel of the saddle. “Do you think you could get word to Little John? They’re taking a risk, ambushing this close to our territory.”
“We can take them,” Little said, already reaching for his staff. “It’s been ages since I’ve had a good row.”
“You had one not a day ago,” Helena said. “And you fought on the way here!”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t count, does it?” Little replied. “Neither of those was a proper thrashing. Come on, Adam, let’s crack some heads.”
“Not with the sister here,” Adam said, shaking his head. “We can’t risk her getting hurt.”
“All I require is a bow,” Isabelle said with far more confidence than she felt.
He cut his gaze over his shoulder. “And where is yours now?”
She flushed, looking down at the ground. “I misplaced it in Lincoln.”
“Exactly.”
“They don’t look like much,” Patrick conceded. “Farmer’s axes and a few cudgels among them. No more than six.”
“Are you all just spoiling for a fight?” Adam asked incredulously.
“Well, if it’s one we could win,” Patrick said, trailing off with a shrug.
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br /> “Idiots,” Helena said, closing her eyes and lifting her head skyward.
“All right, look,” Adam said. “Little and I will go up the road. Helena and Patrick, you flank to the left and right. Isabelle, you take Helena’s bow and find a vantage point.”
“You want me to give her my bow when she just admitted to losing her own?” Helena demanded.
Adam pinned her with a look. “Would you rather give her your sword and let her take up the action instead?”
Helena narrowed her eyes at him but did not argue again, holding out her bow for the other girl. When Isabelle made to take it, though, Helena drew it back an inch. “You take care of her, do you understand?”
“Of course,” Isabelle promised, cradling the bow as she took it.
“Stay out of the fighting,” Adam warned her. “Anyone comes for you, shoot them. If you can’t do that, you run, fast as you can. Everybody understand?”
They all nodded, Helena and Patrick dismounting and leading their horses off to opposite sides of the road. Isabelle slid off Adam’s horse, her legs so sore she could cry, shouldering the bow and quiver and cutting across the hill in the same direction Patrick had disappeared. Adam and Little continued forward as she crept up the hillside, kneeling at a vantage point as the two horses crested the hill and dipped down into the valley below.
“Halt!” someone shouted from ahead. Six men swarmed the road, surrounding Adam and Little in an instant. Patrick had been right, their weapons were crudely fashioned, but they wielded them with a grinning eagerness that made her breath come in short, panicked bursts. One of the men, with more gaps than teeth and a woolly black beard, swung his ax and let out a whooping shout that sent Adam’s horse into a frenzy.
“Well, hello, mates, what a fine evening we’re having,” the man with the black beard said, his words mushy through his missing teeth. “You? Not so much.”
“Clever,” Adam said flatly. “What is it we can do for you fellows this evening?”
“You can start by giving us those fine horses of yours,” said a man with yellow hair and a trimmed beard. “And then we’ll be taking those swords, and whatever coin you’ve got. And don’t think to be hiding nothing from us, because we’re bloody men of the highway. We get what we want.”
Hood Page 11
