The Orphan King (11 page)

Thomas, William, and Isabelle walked in companionable lack of conversation.

The canopies of tall trees on each side of the narrow road made it feel like they were walking through a hallway with an arched ceiling. Although the sun was at its highest point, the denseness of the forest and the thickness of the leaves overhead put them in shadow so dark it felt as if twilight were pressing upon them.

The near silence was eerie too. Birds sang ahead of them and behind them but fell silent around them. Occasionally there would be a crashing sound in the underbrush away from the road, and Thomas could only guess—and hope—it was caused by a deer.

There was no doubt who owned this land. The king of England.

Otherwise, peasants too poor to own the iron for an ax head would have stripped the branches for firewood and pulled out the fallen trees. But the king’s land? For peasants, it wasn’t worth the risk of imprisonment to be caught off the road. The king’s gamekeepers wouldn’t even have to find them with firewood in their hands, or more damning, a
bow with arrows. Leaving the road was considered intent of stealing from the king, whether dead wood for fireplaces or meat for the fires.

As for the solitude, if there was no purpose in entering the forest, why waste time walking along the road? Peasants often lived and died without leaving a five-mile radius of the huts where they’d been born. They had no need to travel.

Those who moved through the forest on the grassy road in places worn to dirt were those with money. Deep ruts from the thin wheels of coaches were a testament to that.

This wealth made them attractive prey for bandits, men who lived in the forests and saw no reason not to kill the king’s deer as needed, men who knew that capture would result in execution and thus had little to lose by attempting brazen robbery. Indeed, all that would stop them from attacking a coach was the retinue of guards a nobleman could hire to travel with him through the king’s land.

Thomas was well aware of all this; he’d heard plenty of tales from the monks during their drunken meals, jests about thieves captured and women taken as prey.

Isabelle must have been equally aware. She moved beside Thomas and put an arm through his, clutching him close for protection.

Thomas caught an amused glance from William. He pretended not to see it and matched his stride to Isabelle’s.

Physical contact with her was entirely pleasant, and he found himself dreaming about how it might feel if she held him tight, her head against his chest, the softness of her hair against his chin. Or her lips brushing against his.

These daydreams were much more than entirely pleasant.

It irritated Thomas then, when John came dashing back toward them, waving his arms.

“Hurry! Hurry!” he shouted from two paces away. “It’s a family! They’ve been robbed!”

Isabelle gasped and pulled her arm away from Thomas. Another reason for him to be irritated at John.

“Slow down,” William said.

“I’m stopped,” John replied indignantly. “I can plainly see where you are, and I haven’t gone running past you like a madman.”

“No,” William said in an even voice, “slow down your thoughts. Your voice. Collect yourself. If they’ve already been robbed, nothing we can do now will help them prevent the robbery.”

John frowned at William, then spoke in a dead monotone at an exaggerated slow pace. “Hurry. Hurry. It’s a family. They’ve been robbed.” He cocked his head and grinned. “That better?”

“Actually, yes. A panicked man inspires panic, just as a calm man inspires calm.”

“Well, thanks for the lesson. But is that going to help the young woman get her clothes back?”

John had been exaggerating, but only a little.

The young woman had long black hair, messy like a bird’s nest. She sat beneath a tree, clutching an old blanket around her like a cape. Holes in the blanket showed that one of her shoulders was bare.

“We barely got away,” the old man beside her told them. A hood covered much of his head. Gray hair stuck out like straw, and his face, in shadow, was smeared with accumulated dirt and grease. He spoke in a reedy, frail voice. “They had hold of her coat, and she had to slip out of it to run. As it was, they ripped her blouse. And we had to leave
everything behind. Everything. We’ll starve, to be sure.” The old man spit. “Bandits.”

Thomas felt a sharp jab in his left buttock. He bit off a yelp and glared at William, who had just used the end of his knife to prod him.

“Eyes to yourself,” William growled in a low voice that only Thomas could hear. “It’s not fair, taking advantage of the woman’s indecency.”

Thomas looked past the old man and his daughter to the fork in the road ahead. “Where did you come from?” he asked.

The old man pointed at the road on the left. “There. They were waiting just beyond a stream. There’s a bend, and when we crossed the water and rounded the bend, they sprang out at us. Twenty of them or more. It was all we could do to save ourselves.”

“Twenty,” John said. He held up his hands to count his fingers, then shook his head when he reached ten. “That’s more than this. Even if William takes ten of them, that leaves …” He thought briefly, but couldn’t come up with the number, and concluded, “That leaves too many for me and Thomas.”

“You’d be fools to tangle with them,” the old man said. “Have you any money you can give us for saving you from grief?”

“Grief?” William said.

“Aye. Now you know which road to avoid. Take the road to the right and you’ll not be trapped. Instead of losing all that you have to them, perhaps you can give us a pittance as a reward.”

Thomas reached into his shirt to pull out his pouch.

He felt William put out a warning hand as he leaned into Thomas. “It’s that bare shoulder that’s addled you. Haven’t you learned? Keep your pouch hidden. Turn your back and find the smallest coin you have, then let’s be on our way.”

Thomas changed his mind about offering a reward and pulled his hand out empty.

“That’s better,” William said. “I’m glad I’ve been able to teach you a thing or two.”

“I think instead,” Thomas said, “we should take back from the bandits what they stole from these travelers.”

T
homas reached the fork in the road before he realized William was not walking beside him but deliberately hanging back. When he glanced over his shoulder in curiosity, he saw that William had a restraining hand on John’s shoulder. Isabelle walked behind them, obvious worry across her beautiful face.

“Well,” Thomas said to William, half-grinning, half-serious, “I suppose it’s better to find out here than at our destination what kind of man you are.”

“You’re accusing me of cowardice.” It was said flatly.

John squinted as he watched and waited for Thomas to react.

“I’m accusing you of walking behind me as we approach a decision. You tell me if that’s cowardice.”

John swiveled his head toward William.

“Curiosity,” the knight said.

“To find out whether I’m a coward?” Thomas asked.

“I have no doubt about your bravery. You’ve firmly established that. Just wondering which road you’ll take after your brave declaration back there. The one with the bandits. Or the one without.”

“You heard the old man. They attacked the girl, nearly ripped the clothes off her. Took everything they had.”

The knight put a hand on each hip. “Is this a battle that belongs to you?”

“They were robbed.”

“It’s your duty to correct every injustice in the world?”

“They were robbed! You have a sword and are a fighting man. I have my own sorts of weapons. We can find a way to defeat a few meager bandits. And if we can’t, what chance do we have against a castle?”

“Robbery happens every day, and gangs of desperate men are on every road,” William said. He gestured around him, indicating the roads. “Why bother seeking Magnus? Spend all your days pursuing bandits.”

“I am not on every road. I do not see every crime.” Thomas crossed his arms. “But the ones I see, I cannot ignore.”

“Do you propose that if, somehow, we defeat these bandits, we herd them like cattle to a local sheriff and have them imprisoned? I thought you agreed that we should avoid towns because three of us are outlaws ourselves, escaped from the gallows. Bringing in bandits will likely result in a return to the gallows, you included for helping us escape.”

“We don’t need to imprison the bandits. Only take back what they stole from the old man and his daughter.”

“All right then; satisfy my curiosity. Which road will you take? The one with the bandits? Or the one without?”

“Haven’t I made it clear I am willing to take a battle to them?” Thomas said. “We’ll send John ahead to scout their position. Isabelle can serve as bait. I have a few things in my cloak that will help us greatly. You’ve got a sword and chain mail. Surely you can handle what needs to be done. At best, they’ll be armed with knives and cudgels.”

Thomas began marching up the road that forked left, the one they had been warned to avoid because of bandits. William, John, and Isabelle followed. They walked in silence almost to the first bend. Thomas could hear the tumbling water of a stream around the bend.

“Good choice,” William said. He picked up his pace to walk
alongside Thomas. “I hope you don’t mind that I offer you some advice, though.”

“What’s that?” Thomas was feeling generous toward the knight for agreeing to help.

“Keep your distance from the poor maiden in distress who has begun to follow us.” William pointed back down the path, and Thomas turned to see the young woman and the old man rushing up the road toward them.

“Hardly,” Thomas said. “She needs to be warned against trying to help. We can do this ourselves.”

Thomas walked back to meet them. The old man was leaning on a heavy walking staff.

“Please,” the woman said, clutching the blanket to her body. “Don’t go that way. It’s far too dangerous.”

“We are not afraid of bandits,” Thomas answered.

“Out here in the forest, there’s no protection against the evil of men,” she answered. “And it looks like your friends have abandoned you.” She pointed up the road.

All Thomas saw were trees, the bend in the road, and the flash of water at the stream. She had not lied. They were gone.

Confused, he turned back. Just in time to see a dark flash, like a hawk striking downward. In that split second, he recognized it as the walking staff being swung at his head by the old man.

With barely more time than to manage a flinch, Thomas desperately twisted away, raising his shoulder to the blow. The impact seemed to break his upper arm.

He rolled sideways and kept his balance, staggering a half step backward. He clutched his arm with his opposite hand, hardly believing how quickly events had happened.

“He’s fast,” the woman said, grinning.

“Not fast enough,” her companion said. The quavering voice of an old man was gone, replaced by the swagger of a much younger man.

“The others are getting away though,” she said. She lifted her hands to her mouth and placed her fingers inside her lips. She blew hard and a shrill whistle echoed through the trees. “You complicated things,” she said. “We expected you to take the other road.”

Two more shrill blasts of that whistling sound.

Then she gave a command to her companion. “What are you waiting for? You know he has more money hidden somewhere.”

“Wait,” Thomas groaned. “I’ll hand it over.”

“That’s not fun.” The walking stick flashed again, but this time Thomas’s attacker showed shrewdness. Instead of aiming for Thomas’s upper body, he swung low and hard—much more difficult to dodge because it demanded a total shift of his feet, not a mere twist or turn with his feet planted.

The massive blow hit Thomas across his left thigh, and he buckled.

The next blow swiped the side of his skull, and he pitched backward. Blackness threatened to overcome him, but he fought the impulse to collapse into the peace of oblivion.

Instead, completely on his back, he reached into his shirt for a pouch with both hands. It took effort to make his fingers obey. He was able to open the pouch just as both of them knelt beside him.