Changing her clothes was a challenge on another level. She still had her cloak, which covered much of the habit she wore underneath, but the bottom edge of the skirt swished out with every step she took. It pained her to lose the warming layers, but the skirt had to go. She took an arrow from her quiver and used the sharp edge of the head to cut into the fabric with a ripping determination, tearing the hem up to the knee and slitting through the middle to form wide, loose legs. It wouldn’t fool anyone in the light of day, but hopefully it wouldn’t attract the attention of a few drunkards by firelight. She tucked her mother’s salve into a fold of her habit and slung her bow and quiver over her shoulder as if preparing for battle.
The young boys were still gathered around the entrance, shouting down their insecurities with a swaggering bravado that was easy for her to adopt. The older and wiser of the foresters had long since turned their backs on the boys, but that only seemed to rile up the young men even more. They elbowed into one another, pummeling shoulders and knocking heads and swigging back mugs of ale like they’d never catch up. They reminded Isabelle of the herd of goats Sister Margaret tended in the back fields of the priory, locking horns over the slightest transgressions. She headed straight for them and the entrance beyond.
“Oi, you couldn’t land a slap on the broad side of a pig,” one of the boys called, as thick as he was tall. He smacked the smallest of them on the back, the boy Isabelle first noticed when they arrived.
The small boy turned a deep red. “Maybe I ought to practice on the arse end of a horse first, Samuel. Lend me your face, will you?”
The other boys broke up into shouts of laughter, pounding Samuel on the back so hard he spilled some of his ale. He puffed up like a guinea hen, shouldering his way toward the smaller boy just as Isabelle tried to swagger through their ranks. The two of them bounced off each other, knocking Isabelle into the smaller boy.
“I’ll clock the both of you,” Samuel growled, bearing down on them and curling his thick fingers into fists.
The small boy, sensing the trouble coming his way, shoved Isabelle toward Samuel and disappeared into the flickering shadows.
“Who the hell are you, mate, and what the hell do you think you’re doing?” Samuel demanded, getting right in her face. “They’ll be cleaning up your parts for days round here when I’m done with you.”
Had she been full of belly or sound of mind, she might have apologized and slipped out the same way the smallest boy had gone. Had she not been running in fear for her life the past three days, she might have been cowed by the boy’s browbeating bravado. She was no stranger to the bullying ways of others; Sister Catherine had waged a campaign against her of backbreaking manual labor ever since Marien was elected prioress over her, and she loved nothing more than to punish Isabelle for the slightest infractions with a brutal caning in front of the other sisters. Isabelle knew how to grit her teeth and bear it, and had spent the last five years doing so.
But she was not full of belly or sound of mind after the events of the last three days. And so, when a drop of spittle from the thick boy’s lips landed on her cheek, wet and warm and disgusting, it was like a key in the lock of a secret door. She could almost hear it click in her mind, feel the door swing open as a wave of red poured out of its dark recesses. The boy never even saw the punch coming as it connected with the soft flesh under his jaw, his teeth clacking together as he sprawled back into the arms of his friends.
“I’m your worst nightmare, mate,” she gruffed, her voice low and raw with anger as she mimicked the accents of the boys around her. “Come for me again and I’ll show you where I’m from. You want a sparring dummy, go find your friend. You want someone who will put up a real fight, stand up.”
She regretted the words as soon as she said them, for the boy was probably twice her weight and could easily flatten her out. The other boys egged him on, dragging him up and shouting for him to do all manner of unpleasant things to her face. For a moment she considered running for her life and forgetting about the Blue Boar Inn completely. But her mother’s words echoed back to her, steeling her spine and giving power to her resolve.
Be braver than you feel.
She would not let this red-faced, thick-necked, beardless boy get the best of her. Even if it meant she got pummeled to a pulp. Which she most certainly would. But she would do it with pride. She clenched her fists hard, bringing them up in front of her as the other boy did the same. The first punch had been lucky; she’d never punched anything in her life, and already her knuckles ached from the impact. They certainly hurt worse than the other boy looked, eyes gleaming like a wild hog’s. His friends closed in around them, yelling and shoving each other and tossing coins on the ground as bets against her.
Yes, this had definitely been a terrible idea.
“For the love of Saint Peter, shut up, you lot!” someone shouted, cutting across their little fighting ring with a roar. A thick man with hair the color of a first snowfall shoved through their ranks, hauling Samuel up by the collar of his shirt. “I told you last time, Samuel, I caught you stirring up trouble round here you’d be banned for life.”
“It weren’t me, I swear it!” Samuel squeaked, his face turning even redder as he clawed at the edge of his tunic where it cut into his neck. “It’s that fellow there. He started it! Tell him, boys.”
Some of the boys nodded their support, but most of them disappeared into the night the same way the small boy had, leaving Isabelle standing on her own, her hat dangerously askew.
“Yeah, it’s always someone else starts it, but it’s always you I find in the middle of it.” The man gave Samuel a good shake. “That’s enough, then. You’re banned from the Boar.”
“You can’t do that!” Samuel whined, all bravado gone. “I’ll tell my da, I will!”
“You go on and tell him, then. See if you don’t end up with a backside blacker than a chimney stone.” The man raised his voice to the few boys still standing about. “That goes for the lot of you, you hear? I find out even one of you’s been sneaking drinks for Samuel here, the whole lot of you is banned. You understand?”
“Yes, Thomas,” several of the boys muttered, avoiding eye contact with the older boy.
“Now get, the lot of you,” Thomas said, shoving Samuel away. “Go on and tell your da; if he’s got a problem, he can come see me anytime.”
As the older boy slunk away, on the verge of tears and muttering about justice, Isabelle was so relieved to not have her face smashed in that at first she didn’t register the white-haired man’s name. And when she did, he was already pushing through the door leading inside.
“Please, sir, are you the barkeep here?” she asked, darting around several patrons to catch up to the big man. She didn’t bother keeping up the low voice or the swaggering stance. “Thomas of the Blue Boar Inn?”
The man looked down at her with a frown. “Depends on who’s doing the asking. What’s it to you?”
She scrabbled for a hold on his sleeve. “Please, I need your help.”
Thomas rolled his eyes, shoving through a thick patch of men singing a bawdy song loudly and off-key. The noise inside was near deafening, the heat and press of the men nauseating. “Not another of you. Listen, lass, you’re not fooling anyone round here, least of all me. If it’s work you’re looking for, we’re full up. If it’s the Merry Men you’re thinking of joining, I don’t know them and I don’t care what your sad story is. You’re best off crawling back to whatever farm you left and giving your mum a hug and telling her you’re sorry for ever tearing off in the first place. All right?”