“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 slim 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.”