I had every intention of sitting and eating, happy and warm in the tavern, but we were back at the ocean, and I could smell it, and Rob seemed just beyond me, mocking my thought of leaving him behind. I left the tavern and went for the water, trying to find him again. Trying to be with him in these salty half moments, trying to call up some piece of him that I could take with me.
I found the port and followed the water’s edge out along the city till it fell into big rocks with places to hide. Picking my way out over slippery black boulders in the gleam of the moon, I finally found one that weren’t too wet and had a place I could tuck into besides.
The heat were gone from my skin, but the damp were still there, and it made the night seem colder again by half. I shut my eyes and breathed it in and wished him to me.
His hand touched my face, and water welled up in my eyes but I didn’t open them, holding onto his shadow self as long as I could.
“Come back to me, Scar. I don’t understand why you won’t come to me.”
“To protect you,” I whispered. “Because I love you.”
“It’s not you that will hurt me. It’s Prince John. He’ll kill us all, Scar, just because he wants to.”
“Not if I’m not there. Not if I don’t provoke him.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“Not if I kill him first,” I told Rob, overhot and fierce.
“Then what the hell are you doing in Bristol?” he asked.
I shook my head. “I’ll kill him,” I promised Rob. “Just stay here with me a while longer.”
“I’ll never leave you,” he told me, and I felt his arms on me. “As long as you love me, I’ll be here, hidden somewhere in your heart.”
The water slipped out, and I tried to imagine his arms tighter on me, holding me tight enough to be real, wondering if those words were meant to comfort me or haunt me. “I’ll never stop loving you, Rob. Never.”
“Then I’ll always be here,” he said, brushing a kiss into my hair.
I fell asleep like that, with the rock of the ocean waves, the cold of the night and fresh bite of the wind taking me away from myself. Wrapping me up with Robin like I could keep him there. When I woke up, I thought it were to a seagull cackling good morning, but it were someone laughing.
Turning slow to not be seen, I looked around. There were two women in the water, rucking in nets in the shallows.
“I’ll buy a pound of butter,” one said.
“Just a pound?” the other said. “I’ll buy the whole cow and have cream and butter and milk for years.”
“That’s awful work,” the first said. “All that cranking and squeezing and churning.”
“Then I’ll hire someone for it. A good little lass that could use the coin.”
The first clucked. “Heavens, I wouldn’t never have a little young thing running around my husband. No good, that one.”
They both laughed at this. “Well, if our husbands were any good, we wouldn’t have our butter cow, would we?”
They laughed again. “How much do you think it will be?”
“A chest for each of us, at least. Nothing but fancy dresses and servants and—”
“As long as it buys us warm socks and a hot fire, I’ll be right grateful,” she said, and I heard them splashing in the water. “Awful cold still.”
“You’re a simple woman. I’ve always liked that about you.”
The first made a grunting noise. “As long as those men don’t get strung up—then we’ll be in a bit of a fix for those warm fires, won’t we?”
“They won’t. They’ll all look out for one another; they always do.”
Another grunt.
“Besides, it ain’t as if the queen is all that heavily guarded.”
My limbs were stiff with cold. My feet weren’t sure on the wet rocks. There were bare enough light in the sky to see by. But I didn’t wait a breath before running for the inn.
David, Allan, and I were armed to the teeth and on our horses in moments, and my horse tore ahead in a fast gallop with David behind me and Allan behind him, racing down the road from Bristol to Bridgewater Castle, where Eleanor might have been.
There were a spot that were perfect for it. There had been a portion of the road that went through a thick forest with grand trees, and I’d even had the stupid thought that it reminded me of our ambush spots in Nottingham.
We broke into the dark of the forest and were blind for a moment, but I didn’t slow down. I heard the clash of weapons up ahead, and my heart seized as I knew, sudden and sure, that there were at least one more thing than Rob that I could lose, and she were an old white-haired lady that I never wanted to love.
I saw the knights in full fight, and a man in plain clothing reaching into the carriage and obviously scrabbling with something. More than half of him were outside the carriage, and without thinking much, I leapt off my horse and slammed into him, gripping his waist to tear him from the carriage.