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Corpses were strewn about the area. Men in black cloaks, black armor. Bloodied and dead. The blood was fresh. This couldn’t have happened more than thirty minutes ago.
I cursed myself for letting Robin out of my sight.
Then I saw the shortbow on the ground. The broken quiver and arrows surrounding it. Damn my foolishness, not keeping an eye on that roguish little heathen. And now she’s gotten herself taken!
I checked the pulses of the men, found nothing helpful, and yelled at God. My mind spun, no idea what to do or where she might have been taken.
Then I saw a blur out the corner of my eye—
A young lad running through the fields, headed in the direction of the estate, away from a barn.
He was yelling, “Darren? Brother!” and his face looked similar to the dead boy’s at the front of the field.
Chest hurting, I crossed the field to intercept him. He froze when he saw my brown habit and I raised my arms. “Boy, what’s happened here?”
“God only knows, Father!” Tears rolled down his cheeks. “Has you seen my brother?”
“Nay, son, I don’t know who your brother is. Have you seen a young lady, a handful of years your elder?”
He nodded briskly. Pointed back at the barn. “Came careening in like a hound on fire, she did. Lady Robin took a horse and took off! Who was I to stop her?”
My heart soared. She wasn’t taken! I clamped my jaw. “Where did she go, lad? Which direction?”
He pointed again. “South, Father.”
I nodded curtly. “Bless you, lad.” I couldn’t bring myself to tell him about his brother, so I simply said, “Check the tilled field near the estate, son.”
We ran in the same direction back toward the estate, parting ways before we came to the edge of the field.
As I hopped onto the carriage bench and snagged the reins, the boy’s blood-curdling scream wrenched into the late afternoon sky.
Robin had gone south. The quickest route out of Wilford and into Sherwood Forest. But our camp lay northeast. Perhaps she plans on wrapping around Nottingham, outside of it, to point northward.
The alternative—that she was headed south and had no intention of returning to the Merry Men—was too painful to think about.
So I followed her. Yipped the horses into moving and continued the road south, toward the outskirts of Wilford. I leaned low in the bench, as if my hectic, air-friendly posture could make the carriage move faster.
I debated cutting the cart loose and taking a horse, to ride faster, but I knew the Merry Men would need this cargo-carrier. They were already going to fume about the paltry bag of coins I got for our Wilford haul.
I quieted my mind of possibilities, trying not to jump to conclusions. I didn’t know Robin’s intention, what she knew, or where she was going.
I had to trust her. Trust she would return to the people who could protect her. How did she escape those cloaked men? How did they end up dead? Surely she couldn’t have ended them all . . . No, I needed to stop thinking. Just ride.
The carriage bumped over an uneven stone and nearly sent me flying. The wind slashed against me from my breakneck speed. I tore through the road wildly, the horses huffing and snorting as they galloped.
A gate stood ahead. The edge of the town proper.
Three men stepped out from behind the stone pillars of the open fence. Cloaked in black.
“Fuck,” I growled.
They stopped in the middle of the road, staring at me barreling toward them. There was no way around them. To the left off the trail was thick mud, to the right was a dry riverbed. Both would send me careening.
Whistling, I slowed the horses. “Whoa, now.” I patted their hindquarters.
The men sauntered toward the carriage, sneers on their faces as they studied me.
The one in front said, “Afternoon, Father.”
