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Holding her spine bowstring taut, she watched the nearest booth, a cloak-maker. When the merchant inside turned his back to reach for another bundle of goods to lay atop the counter, she glided over, face averted, and pinched her fingers around the topmost bright green cloak and slid it off the top.
It tumbled to the cobbled ground in a heavy, muted whisper. No one seemed to notice. Heart hammering, she reached back, dragged it a few steps before swinging it up into the air and, holding her breath, draped around her shoulders.
No one rushed at her with cudgels or cuffs.
Her hands were shaking as she went onward as the sun began stretched its rays down into the streets. Hawkers came out and counters dropped down and merchant wives began their day’s shopping.
She slid a pair of shoe leathers off a hook hanging at the corner of an inattentive man’s shop, then hid behind his store and stuffed
her feet into them, lacing them quickly. Passing a busy comb stall, she stood behind a very loud noblewoman who was dissatisfied with the selection, and as the merchant tried to allay her impatient, Magdalena stretched her hand out and curled her fingers around three of them.
In seconds, they were in her hand and she’d turned away, moving through the crowds. Fingers trembling, she swept her hair up into the expensive combs, then stepped out into the street.
No one looked at her except to nod and move out of her way.
She stared around in amazement at all the stalls and booths and things she could have, simply for the taking.
It was like a harvest. She could have anything.
How could Tadhg have left this behind?
The heady sense of power was quickly conquered by a sense of injustice. Having been a merchant made it entirely unacceptable for her to steal simply because she could.
There was the faintest pang of remorse for this ethical line in the sand, then she quickly refocused her attentions.
She moved through the crowds however fast the person in front of her was moving, skipping like a rock from group to group, making it appear she was in union with them, until another group appeared to take her down another street. Just as Tadhg had shown her.
Then she peeled off from all groups and dipped into an alleyway. Crouching low, she hid behind crates for a full hour. Then another. She waited until she was sure Sherwood’s soldiers would be sure that she could wait no longer.
Then, silent and invisible as a moth in a green cloak, with combs in its hair, she retraced Tadhg’s steps to the lair of his outlaw brothers.
Chapter Forty-Seven
SHE SCRATCHED at the door, then put her mouth to the crack between door and jamb and whispered, “Fianna.”
Silence.
She said it a little louder. “Fianna.”
Nothing. A cat prowled down the empty alley. Maggie watched it, then clearing her throat, she rapped politely on the door.
Nothing.
She knocked again, and again, until she was reduced to pounding on the door as Tadhg had done, shouting for all the furies to hear, “Fianna.”
The door was wrenched open.
“Cease, harpy,” ordered a voice.
She stumbled backward.
One of the outlaws started out at her. Not the tawny giant who’d greeted them before. This was the darker, colder version of Tadhg, who’d walked away from the table when she went inside.
His gaze slid over her shoulder, up and down the street, then settled on her. She stifled a chill. He stared into her eyes. It was like staring into a black cyclone. “Why are you here?”
He might have stolen her breath. She could do nothing but shake her head.
“Why are you here?” he said again.
