“Should I be worried?”
“Oh, probably.”
“But you know where he’s gone?”
She hesitated. “I think so.”
A pause, as he waited for her to tell him. He blew out a frustrated breath. “All right, don’t tell me. I trust you to be sensible. You’ll find him and bring him straight back, yes? Many strange folk are about. You shouldn’t be out at all.”
“Yes, I know. We’ll be back as quick as we can.”
“This isn’t like Sherwood. You don’t know the ground here. There’s no Little John to look after you.”
“I suppose you’ll go to Mother and Father with this?”
“I’ll tell them . . . if you don’t come straight back.”
“Thank you, Will.” No reason to draw them into it and make a fuss. Will touched his cap and vanished back to the shadows like a wraith.
Mary held Eleanor’s hand and set off.
Out of sight of camp, Eleanor took off running. Mary almost shouted after her from pure habit but stopped herself. Catching up with her sister, she was able to steer her away from the main track that led from the encampments to the village. Keeping to copses and hedgerows, they skirted around, heading for the palace. Took longer, but it wouldn’t do to be seen. Sweat from nerves and exercise chilled in the night air, and Mary shivered. Her brother was an idiot. He wouldn’t get past the main courtyard of the palace, much less to the king’s chambers. At least she didn’t think he would.
Then again, he might.
She touched Eleanor’s shoulder. “Do you suppose there are any trees near the palace?”
Eleanor pointed past the garden and a set of pastures, to an apple orchard near the edge of the abbey grounds. He could have found so many better ways to show the king how to climb trees. Invite him to a hunt at Sherwood, ask the guards to politely stand watch and perhaps catch the boy if he slipped and fell. But she suspected half the fun for John was in the sneaking out.
He would hang for this . . .
Traveling along the pasture to the first of the trees, Mary paused, scowling, but Eleanor seemed eager. She wasn’t angry John had sneaked off, Mary realized; she was angry John had left her behind.
They heard voices. Eleanor clasped Mary’s arm and pointed; Mary pulled her close to the tree and held her still.
They had been looking for two boys. Instead, a trio of cloaked men stumbled down the middle of the orchard. Drunken revelers got lost on their way back to their camps, maybe. However, at the end of the row of trees, one of them stumbled, the group lurched to a halt, cursing.
And they dropped the body they’d been carrying.
Mary swallowed back a gasp and held her sister close. They must hide, whatever was happening here, they could not draw attention to themselves, they must—
A young man leapt out of the nearby tree, shouting, landing on the closest of the men. This was John, of course.
One of the men immediately ran off, perhaps thinking he was being charged by a bear or a demon or something more dangerous than a sixteen-year-old boy. The man John had landed on cried and lashed out while John pummeled him. The third lunged toward John. This one had a dagger in hand.
Mary had nothing, no weapons, no bow and arrow. Wildly, she looked around and found a rake and a bucket propped up against the next tree over, left by some gardener. She grabbed them both and ran, Eleanor on her heels.
Screaming, brandishing the rake overhead, she hoped to make herself sound like an army as she charged straight for the fight and swung the rake hard at the knifeman’s head. He let out a rash of curses, ducked, stumbled back. She kept going, bringing the rake up and over and throwing the bucket at him. John kicked at the other one as he clambered to his feet to run after his comrade. Abandoned, even the knifeman left off and chased after his fellows. All were crying out the most blasphemous curses, fleeing across the orchard and past the shelter of a hedgerow. Mary leaned on the rake and watched.
John had the nerve to laugh. “I think we surprised them.”
Eleanor knelt beside the body the men had left behind, touching his neck, then holding her palm over his mouth. She looked up at Mary with urgency, wearing a thin smile that seemed hopeful. Mary joined her, touched the vein at the body’s neck—
“He’s not dead,” she said.
He was a young man with brown hair neatly trimmed above his ears, his face clean-shaven. He wore a neat, dark tunic and coat.
John joined them, to see for himself. “Perhaps he’s drunk?”