“But what if someone’s caught her?”
If someone had caught her, she could not cry out for help. Mary could shout her name all night long; her sister couldn’t answer.
“Eleanor is very clever and isn’t caught easily, but we must find her.”
Stirring again, Walter said pleadingly, “Your Grace, what is happening?”
“Someone has tried to kill you.”
“But why? My lady, let me go; I’m well enough now—” He pulled away from her grip and stumbled. Mary and Henry both caught him that time.
Deliver Walter to the abbey or look for Eleanor? Mary did not see how she could do both at once, and she dared not leave the king alone. No wonder Robin Hood had kept a whole troop of men and women around him, just to split out some of the work.
Still at the hedgerow, looking across the field, she could just see John—and the men who were converging on him. Insects buzzed around their glowing lantern. John might be able to trick a pair of them, but not so many.
“John, you’ve got to get out of there,” she murmured.
Henry set his jaw. “I will go and show myself. Command them to leave off.”
“Can you be sure they will recognize you and not kill you before you have a chance to speak?”
He scowled. “How is it there’s so little I’m allowed to do? I’m meant to be king!”
“What must I do to serve you, Your Grace?” Walter said tiredly. “I can deliver a message, or, or . . .”
“Be quiet,” Henry said. “That’s all for now.”
“Yes, my liege.”
Walter seemed to be coming around but still wasn’t steady on his feet. That decided it for Mary; John and Eleanor she could trust on their own, at least a little. Henry and Walter, she could not.
“We will take him to the abbey. Then at least you and he will be safe, and I can go help John.”
“I will send guards back with you,” he said decisively, as if happy to think of some useful thing he could do.
A shout carried up from the river. John had fallen. The dark-cloaked men had run him down, and now they closed in on him.
“He’s done for,” Walter stated unhelpfully.
“Eleanor!” Henry exclaimed.
Mary looked and gasped to see the girl running up along the hedgerow. “Eleanor, where have you—”
She held out a bow and quiver of arrows and seemed quite smug to have brought them.
“You went to find weapons,” Mary stated, disbelieving. Eleanor nodded. The girl hadn’t had enough time to get all the way to the Locksley camp and back. She was barely out of breath. Mary took the bow; it hadn’t seen much use. The arrows had brown fletching. She didn’t recognize them. “Where did you get these?”
Eleanor pointed vaguely back at the barons’ camps. Mary closed her eyes a moment and drew a calming breath so that she wouldn’t yell. Yelling never did any good with Eleanor.
“You can’t just go taking bows and arrows from people,” Mary said—softly. Her little sister shrugged, unapologetic.
“Mary—” Henry said.
She could no longer see her brother, hidden behind the wall of attackers. She drew a handful of arrows, planted them in the ground next to her, raised one to the bow. She had never killed. Now she had the thought that she could kill all these men easily. Henry would pardon her, whatever happened, just from sheer high spirits. But she hesitated—was she ready to kill?
She was not, so she aimed carefully, drawing on a spot a foot or so to the left of the lantern, which served as a bright and easy target. Released her arrow on a long, high arc. Picked up the next arrow and fired. The arrows hit the grass in a row behind the attackers, shots meant to startle, to frighten, not to kill.
It worked. Unable to see where the arrows flew from, unwilling to risk their own lives to finish off the boy’s, the men scattered.