The Heirs of Locksley (The Robin Hood Stories 2)

“Only to go to chapel, and only when there aren’t so many people around.”

How somber a boy did one have to be to sneak out to go to chapel? That was a question for another time. Carefully, John tried the door, hoping it was not secured from the outside. But that would make it a terrible bolt-hole. It swung inward, and he eased it open an inch or two. Darkness lay outside—because the door was hidden behind a tapestry. Which meant perhaps it was not being watched.

They needed to get outside as quickly as possible, preferably in a way that no one would see them. How far did the boy’s authority really go? Couldn’t he simply order anyone he saw to let them go? And they would report back to de Burgh or des Roches. Somehow, getting by on the orders of the king felt like cheating. How much more fun to get away without anyone seeing them at all?

“Give me a minute, sire. Wait here, I will return.”

Around the near corner, the guards stood watch at the main door. John avoided them, turning the other way. He moved quickly, with purpose, listening closely for voices. At the next corner, an archway exited to a walk that led to the abbey grounds.

He returned to the tapestry, where Henry was waiting, eagerly gripping the edge of the door. Now John had only to tell the King of England what to do. No, not the king. A co-conspirator.

He spoke softly. “Your Grace, we must move quickly but without rushing. We walk with purpose, so no one who sees us will think of stopping us.”

“But we do have a purpose.”

“Yes, but we want to avoid looking guilty about it. We want to look like we’re not sneaking.”

“Ah.”

“We walk down the center of the corridor, just two young lords out for a stroll. Do you have a cap? And leave the cloak behind, it’ll only get in the way.”

Grinning now, Henry did all this, put on a dark nondescript cap and left the cloak on the bed. Oh, God, John really was going to hang for this. He was corrupting the king. He quickly put the thought aside and moved on.

As it happened, Henry was good at following instructions. John thought back to the coronation, the boy sitting so properly, speaking so properly, never wavering through the precise drudgery of the ritual. Suddenly, John wondered if he was doing the king a great service, teaching him to rebel. Just a little.

More quickly than John expected, they were outside. The night was cool and damp, the sky heavy but without rain. The sounds of revelry from the front of the palace drifted over, the light of torches turning the hazy air orange. But on this side, all was dark and peaceful. The abbey church loomed, a few faint lights shining through glass windows. Ahead, gardens and the abbey’s stone walls. Beyond, orchards and pastures.

The young king paused a moment, looking up and around. He stretched his arms, shuddered like a horse shaking off a harness.

“This way, sire,” John said, and nodded to a packed-dirt path leading into the darkness. Then they ran.

The nighttime orchard was nothing like Sherwood. The pale trees were lined up in neat rows; the ground beneath them was well groomed. The branches were full of new spring leaves and budding flowers. The foliage was thin enough, hiding would be more difficult. No mind; they wouldn’t be here long. Just an hour or so, until the king grew cold and had his fill of this small adventure.

“The trick is to find a low branch, but not too low. One you can reach by jumping and is strong enough to take your weight.” He found a likely tree, one with lots of spreading branches that would be easy enough to climb. John jumped up to it, a foot on the trunk, a hand on one branch, using momentum to propel himself upward. He paused, standing on a branch, holding the one above it.

The king looked back up at him, face screwed up, clearly daunted.

“Just try,” John said.

“You’ve been doing this your whole life. You must have been born in a tree.”

John laughed. “My mother would not have put up with that.”

Henry pushed up his sleeves, which promptly slipped back down, and reached for the first branch. He moved slowly, methodically, struggled to pull himself up, but then got an arm over, then swung a leg, and suddenly he was straddling the branch, gazing around in amazement.

John climbed to the next branch up to give him

more room. Henry stood—carefully, keeping a hand on the trunk—and followed John up. They were a dozen feet off the ground now, and through the tree’s branches had a sweeping view of the church and village, and the wide sparkling stretch of the Thames beyond.

“You’ll have to come to Sherwood and see the old oaks,” John said. “You could build a whole village in the trees there.”

“The stories make more sense now,” Henry said. “If the foresters don’t look up, they’d never see you here. Standing still, dressed in green, you’d look like just another branch.”

“I’ll tell you a secret: they hardly ever look up. It’s magical.”

“Did your father teach you to climb trees?”

John furrowed his brow. He couldn’t remember not climbing trees. “I don’t really remember. He mostly just set us loose. I’d follow Mary around—she loves the forest. It drove me mad when she went off to the woods and left me behind.”