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No, I thought, shaking my head. I can’t use the Merry Men’s coin on my vices. They’d kill me if I returned empty-handed.
It was a struggle to resist. I was proud of myself for doing it. Had I even a drop of drink in me, the outcome might not have been the same.
I glanced over my shoulder, out the shuttered window. The carriage still sat peacefully outside, the two horses shaking their heads and manes. Nothing seemed to be amiss, and Robin was keeping strangely quiet in there. Not her usual mischievous self.
“How many entrants in this contest? When is it?”
A bony shrug. “Less than a month away. No one has the final tally yet. If you’d like to throw in, the going bet for participants is sixty. I think that’s underselling it—I’m guessing eighty.”
Already gambling on the match before it’s even begun. The underbelly of Nottingham seemed to be growing worse with the trying times. “And the payout for the winner?”
“Word is the winner gets a bag of ten pounds.”
My brow flew up my head. “Ten pounds?” I quickly did the arithmetic in my head—twenty shillings per pound, two-hundred-forty pence per shilling. That meant the winner would gain two-hundred shillings, or nearly fifty-thousand pence. “That’s as much as a petty baron makes in a year!”
“Aye. Big business. Prince John himself is throwing it. No idea why Nottingham is his choice of venue. Maybe it’s his closeness with Sheriff George—knows he can keep the riffraff under control.”
Sixty to eighty participants, with a purse of nearly fifty-thousand pence. These were high numbers. Lots of competition. A tourney like this will bring the finest archers in the land.
“So?” Scratch asked, drumming his spindly fingers on the table. “Care to place a wager, monk?”
I stuffed my pouch away in my habit, frowning. “You won’t get me to part with the coins you’ve just given me, guttersnipe.”
He smiled again, showing the gaps in his teeth. “Always worth a shot with you, Friar Tuck. What’s changed? Not the betting whore you used to be?”
I glanced over my shoulder at the carriage outside. “Everything has changed, Scratch.”
He grunted, and I made to leave, pounding my fist on the table. “Good doing business with you, cheat.”
“And you, baldy.”
I smiled and left, exiting the door, thinking about the contest. I was so absentminded walking toward the carriage that I missed the girl who bumped into me.
I started, my hand reflexively going to my chest to make sure the pouch was still tucked away. It was. “Oh my, apologies, ma’am.” I looked down at the girl.
Her face pinched in a sad smile. “Hail, Father Tuck.”
I tilted my head. “Little Emma?” My gaze went over the short girl’s shoulders, to see if anyone was following her. She had come out from the almshouse, it seemed. “What are you doing here?”
Her eyes darted. She looked scared. “Looking for you, sir.”
“Me? What’s going on?” She was wearing one of the green dresses I’d sewn. But Emma wasn’t living at the orphanage anymore—she worked in Wilford. I hadn’t given her a dress.
“I was visiting my sister.” She leaned closer. We were in the middle of the town square, people passing us on every side. Hardly a private place, and she was acting squirrelly. “Gracie gave me this dress because she was worried.”
“Worried?” I put a hand on her shoulder to lead her toward the carriage so we could speak quieter. “What about, dear lass?”
Once near the carriage, under the shadow of an awning, she reached into the cuff of her dress. Slowly, she pulled out a thin strip of hemp, rolled like a scroll.
She unrolled it and presented it to me. “This was sewn into the sleeve of this dress, sir. I knew you gifted the clothes to the almshouse, so I thought it was peculiar. What do you make of it?”
I studied the crude drawing, eyes scanning the paper. My lips pursed, wondering what those blotches were, and the circles and lines connecting—
I inhaled sharply, nostrils flaring, hearing Emma’s words for the first time. I snatched the drawing. “You said it was sewn into the seams of the dress?”
The handmaid looked shy, like she’d done something wrong. She nodded profusely. “W-What is it, sir?”
It was a map of Sherwood Forest . . . and all the locations the Merry Men called home. I scratched my forehead. My heart sank when I glanced over at the closed window of the carriage.
