But Isabelle knew why they had come. She swallowed back a lump of guilt, following in silence for several moments, the rest of her concentration going to keeping her footing on the rope. There were plenty other questions she could ask, but just watching the confident, economical movements of the boy reminded her how much of a fool she’d already made of herself. She didn’t need to add to her humiliation with a thousand silly, ignorant questions. Even if she desperately wanted to ask them.
They had crossed several more trees, enough that Isabelle could navigate around their trunks without pressing her face against the rough bark, when Adam stilled, holding up two fingers for quiet. Isabelle wiggled behind him, taking shelter in the solid expanse of his shoulders while doing her best not to sway the rope as she searched the surrounding shadows for whatever had alerted him. Finally she heard it, a faint rustle drawing closer. Her heart pounded, her hands tightening on the rope, until Adam gave an exasperated sigh.
“You’re doing it again,” he called out.
“Doing what?” came a voice from below.
“Letting your arms swing.”
“I am not!”
“You are! Old Man Jeffers could hear you coming.”
A boy unwound from the darkness below, so tall and lanky Isabelle thought he must have been crafted from the same material as the trees. His hair gleamed a deep red in the faint moonlight, and he crossed his arms as he glared up at Adam. “That old turkey wouldn’t hear the Four Horsemen coming, and I wasn’t swinging my arms.”
He hauled himself into the branches, vaulting up through the canopy until he landed on the rope bridge with a speed that left Isabelle breathless. He leaned past Adam to give her a grin. “Hello again, sister.”
She regarded him with wide-eyed surprise. “Have we met?”
“Not properly, no, but once you’ve tossed a lass into a tree you’re practically related, don’t you think?”
Isabelle turned a furious shade of pink, glad for the darkness. “I see. That was you.”
His grin widened. “That was me. Allan’s the name, though everyone calls me Little.”
She took in the sheer height of him. “I cannot possibly imagine why.”
Adam chuckled, glancing at her over his shoulder. “His da is Allan A’Dale. Believe it or not, he’s the littler of the two.”
“For now,” Little grumbled in a voice that indicated it was a sore subject for him.
“The soldier, Little?” Adam prompted.
“What? Oh, right. Him. Be picking his way out of Sherwood for the next year on.”
Adam gave a nod, glancing over his shoulder at Isabelle. “See, sister? Nothing to worry about.”
There was plenty to worry about, but she wasn’t going to tell him that.
“Come on, then,” Little said, bouncing up and down and setting the rope bridge moving in a way that made Isabelle queasy. “I’m near to starving and all the best bits will be gone from the feast by now.”
Isabelle’s stomach awoke from its slumber at the mention of a feast, grumbling loud enough that Little raised both eyebrows at her.
“That you, sister?” he asked.
She considered letting go of the rails and plunging to the ground rather than answer his question, but Adam saved her with a shove on Little’s shoulder.
“Get on, then, if you’re so hungry,” he said. “It’s you blocking the way.”
They followed the bridges through the canopy, the single rope widening into a ladderlike structure of multiple ropes bound together, which made it far easier for her to walk along. Ahead the bridges connected to small wooden platforms encircling the trees, the planks fanned out like the rays of the sun to allow for easier passage between the bridges. She even thought she spied some larger structures, almost like houses, built around the trees in the distance, though she couldn’t imagine how that would be possible.
But all of that faded to insignificance after the first whiff of roasted suckling pig came wafting through the trees. It took all her propriety not to shove the two boys aside and race across the bridges toward the source of that smell, so fatty and meaty and delicious. Some sigh of desire must have escaped her, though, for Adam glanced at her over his shoulder with a curious look.
“Are you all right, sister?”
All she could manage was a nod, her salivary glands flooding her mouth in anticipation. She barely registered the walkways expanding around her, knitted through the trees like a spider web, extending out to cheery little houses that were, in fact, built high up in the canopy around the tree trunks. She didn’t even startle as other people appeared outside those houses and along those walkways, men and women and children going about their business, stoking cooking fires and hanging laundry and hauling braces of hares back from a long evening of hunting. All of them wearing the same deep green as Adam and Little.
But even in her hunger-induced stupor, Isabelle drew up short as the trees thinned out into a clearing filled with a feast the king himself would envy. She had never seen so much food, not even at harvesttime. There were a dozen stone tables patched in moss on the forest floor below, covered in platters of food so heavy Isabelle doubted she could lift one. It was enough to feed Kirkleestown three times over for the remainder of the year. Each table teemed with foresters, shouting and laughing and lifting flagons of ale like there wasn’t an entire contingent of soldiers scouring the woods just then.
“Where are we?” she breathed in awe.
“The outlaw camp,” Adam said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “Come on, let’s get you something to eat before Little opens his mouth and inhales it all.”
He led her to a break in the platform where a ladder extended down the trunk to the ground. If anyone was curious about her, they hid it well, their glances sliding past her to more interesting sights. Sure enough, Little had already elbowed his way into a table still piled high with food. He waved a turkey leg in her direction and she nearly bit his hand off.
“Come on, sister,” he said, mouth full. “Don’t be shy, I know you’re hungry.”
She didn’t even have the capacity to be embarrassed by the observation because she was too busy tearing up the nearest loaf of bread and shoving chunks into her mouth. Unlike the indigestible disappointment of the bread Thomas gave her, this bite dissolved into a heavenly, buttery mess in her mouth, and she closed her eyes and moaned with pleasure before devouring the rest. Little watched the proceedings with wide eyes.
“Never seen a girl eat like that,” he said. “Don’t know whether to be impressed or afraid.”
“I’d better tell Thomas we found the sister,” Adam said. He pointed a finger at Little. “No fighting.”
Little spread his arms wide, the portrait of innocence. “What do I have to fight about?”
“You always manage to find something. Keep an eye on the sister here, would you?”
Isabelle was too consumed by the delicious feast to note his departure. She dove into each dish with abandon, hardly tasting some of them in her eagerness to fill her empty belly. The genial conversation of the outlaws washed over and through her, and as her hunger dropped to a low growl, she was able to take stock. She wouldn’t have guessed these people to be outlaws were she not sitting in their hidden camp, eating what was probably stolen food. Despite all the tales she had heard of Robin Hood and his Merry Men, she didn’t expect to find an entire community of men, women, and children thriving within the wilds of the forest. In an odd way it reminded her of Kirklees Priory, a community isolated from the greater world, though with far more men and meats.