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“They’re the best fighters of us, too,” I said, “in case anything does go wrong.”
He opened his mouth to agree, then realized what I was saying and snapped his golden eyes over to me. “Hoy. And what does that make me, brat princess? Just a pretty ornament?”
I winked at him. “The prettiest.” The excitement inside me spoke in my glimmering eyes. “Let’s go. I’ve seen how close you’ve been getting to Will lately, so it’s for all of our benefit that this works without bloodshed.”
He nodded sagely. “Aye, I’ll admit I missed his cock. I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing it again.”
“I wouldn’t mind, either.”
We grinned at each other and took off out of the trees, rustling bushes as we headed for the hill in the opposite direction as Tuck and Will.
They were nearing the door and the guards by the time Alan and I had wrapped around the other side of the hill and were approaching the back of the abbey.
We lost sight of Tuck and Will. We were on our own.
Judging by what we could see through the apertures of the abbey, I noticed dim candlelight splashing the first level, while the second level was enveloped by darkness.
“Emma won’t be on the first level,” I whispered.
“Aye, but the third guard might be,” Alan said, tugging his black hood deeper on his face to block out any moonlight that might catch his golden locks.
I did the same with my hood. “Straight to the second story, then. We don’t have long.” I squeezed his arm, put my hand to the shortsword at my hip, and crouch-ran up the rest of the hill. Alan was close behind me.
We made it to a stack of barrels and hid behind them. Peering over the lip, we waited for a moment to see if anyone showed themselves through the window of the first level.
The building was constructed from stone, its walls mostly polished and smooth, yet with dips and jagged edges in some parts. Houses of God were some of the only buildings in England that were afforded the lavishness of stone masonry.
From where we crouched, I could vaguely hear Will and Alan conversing with the guards on the other side. Distracting them. Arguing with them.
“Will can only contain himself for so long,” Alan murmured in a whisper.
I nodded, put a finger to my mouth to shut us up, and we darted out from behind the barrels. We came at the abbey from the side of a large window leaking murky orange light, making sure not to show our shadows through the window.
We slid our backs against the wall, staring out, and took deep breaths. Alan was to the left of the aperture, I was to the right.
I glanced inside the opening but couldn’t see much, so I looked at him and waited. He held a finger up, peering into the room from his better angle. Then his finger closed into a fist, and I ducked under the window and rushed to his side.
With our bodies touching, his warmth seeping into me and giving me strength, I craned my neck and stared up at the next window on the second level. The dark one.
It was wild to think this two-story manor was simply Abbot Emery’s dwelling. The rest of the abbey, with its schools, wide halls, refectory, nave, and cloisters, rested at the base of the hill triangulated between us and Will and Tuck. From our vantage, we could see the high walls of the miniature city.
I hoped the priests hadn’t relocated Emma to the walled section while we’d waited in the woods for nightfall. It would be nearly impossible to reach her if she’d been moved.
A fluttering in the pit of my stomach told me they hadn’t. Abbot Emery would want them alone for the evening, before depositing them to the nunnery.
I grew nauseous at the thought, and twice as vehement.
With a tiny nod, Alan crawled onto his hands and knees.
I stepped onto his back, eliciting a sharp crack and grunt from him, and then reached up to the perch of the second level with my chest against the wall.
I cursed under my breath after realizing the lip was not quite within my reach. The wall was too polished to climb, except perhaps for that tiny nook that could be used as a foothold . . .
Flaring my nostrils, I shrugged the thought aside. I had promised Tuck and Will that I wouldn’t do any daring maneuvers. So, I stepped off Alan, and shook my head when he stood and cracked his body back into place.
He went to a knee, folded one hand over the other, and held them out. I smiled at him, stepped onto his hands, and he gently pushed me upward.
This time, my fingers found purchase. I held tight, feet kicking in the air as I used all the strength I’d built up in the past few months to hoist myself over the foot-wide ledge.
