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“No packages or coffers, sir, nothing. All I’ve got is me. Search away. I’ll disarm myself for you,” he added, and began yanking blades out, tossing them onto the ground before him, hoping neither man noticed the one empty sheath before the others were emptied as well.
“No, no, that won’t be necessary,” the official said slowly, glancing again at the soldiers, then he tipped forward, and said in a low voice, “Best keep your voice down about the Franks, sir. They’re everywhere these days.”
He straightened and waved Tadhg on.
The guard next to him made a move, then looked at the dockmaster in confusion. “But sir, they said to bring in anyone who’s heavily armed.” The soldier glanced at Tadhg and lowered his voice. “For questioning.”
A ripple of tension moved along the dockmaster’s grizzled jaw. “Who said that, Ralph?”
The soldier blinked. “Well, the….” He waved behind him. “The French king’s lieutenant.”
The dockmaster looked up slowly. “I do not take orders from the French king on English soil, not yet I don’t.” He barely glanced at Tadhg, then his gaze slid to Maggie and held for a second.
“Best take your bride and get out of this town,” he said, and started walking off. “People like us don’t belong here anymore.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
THEY MOVED THROUGH THE CROWDS, deeper into town, up the high hill that lead to the richer homes and businesses at its crest.
Tadhg kept his hand on Maggie’s spine and guided them like shadows through the crowded streets.
“Head down,” he reminded her, and she walked at his side, her head tipped obediently down, the world a tunnel viewed through the loose sweeps of finely-woven hood.
She felt as if no one even saw them, wafting from group to group, murky overhang to overhang. He kept them close to the edges of larger groups, always a step behind, as if they were joined with them...or perhaps not. He conversed with her, his head tipped close, as if they were at their ease, a day at the market, but the words he said meant nothing, his smiles were false and empty, his laughter devoid of anything. His fingertips never left her back, and yet he never saw her, she was certain of this. His attention was focused outward, scanning, restlessly surveying the world for danger.
It was base, protective, intent and relentless.
It was at once wildly reassuring and coldly terrifying.
He had them linger at shops and bakehouses whenever soldiers appeared, rested a hand on her hip or between her shoulder blades, exerting just enough pressure to tip her into the deeper shadows cast by the awnings whenever a soldier passed by. He would feign questions and show great interest in the goods until the soldiers passed on, then edge them away.
She did everything he told her to do, by touch or murmur or eye contact, responsive to the slightest urging.
At one point he murmured, “You’re doing fine, lass,” and she felt warm all over.
When they reached the end of one row of gorgeous veils, he slipped a folded length of the airy material off the top off a pile and slid it under his cape so quickly, so stealthily that no one noticed.
“Put this over your hair,” he ordered in a low voice after they’d moved away from the stall.
“Tadhg, we are not criminals,” she protested faintly, even as her fingers dove into the rich, silky material. It was sky blue with silver embellishment all along the edges. She stared at it with a bolt of envy she hadn’t known existed inside her. She suddenly lusted for this silk.
“Sherwood will be coming, lass,” Tadhg explained in a murmur as they continued their march up the streets. “They will be searching for someone who looks like we do: a simple woman and her well-armed, bearded escort. Therefore, we can no longer be those people. I haven’t the coin to pay, so we must m
ake do. Now put it on.”
She pulled off the hood and let it float down over her head, the long ends hovering like air itself past her waist. She tucked it under the mantle. “And what of you? My well-armed, bearded escort?”
He was already tugging her into an alley and emptying… Good Lord, he’d been stealing things all along and she had not realized.
She stared in amazement as he took out soap, a set of silver combs, and then, not looking up, he thrust out a long strand of some shining stones. “’Tis a necklace. Put it on.”
Hesitating only a moment, she did. Brightly painted stones fell in a long woven thread down the front of her chest and past her belly. She stared down at herself, her fingers tangled in the bright beads and delicate silver wire.
“And this,” he said, handing over the exquisitely-woven webbing of a golden hair net.
She gasped as she took it, and he glanced up sharply at the sound.
“What?”
