Putting my hands on his chest, I pushed him off a bit with a teasing grin. “That’s not a good idea.”
“You’re a better spot and I’m a better shot, and you can practice your shooting,” he said. “Besides, I think it’s fairly well known we’re an unbeatable team,” he said, darting in for a quick kiss.
“Kissing doesn’t count as hunting,” Will Clarke said. We turned to him, and he were frowning serious.
“Exactly,” I said, trying not to grin as I pushed Rob off.
“Rob!” Much yelled. “Scar! Try setting a good example, please?”
Will were still in front of me. “Why don’t you and your brothers go with Missy, Will?”
He turned to Missy and his face turned redder than the ribbons I liked. “Fine,” he grunted.
The peat and wood were loaded up on carts to be taken to market, but the meat were sold off to butchers in the neighboring towns who could resell it on their own. The hunters all ended a bit early, and the little ones took some of the meat back to the castle. Rob and I took the rest to sell, getting back to the castle as everyone were eating, tired but looking less frightened than they had in a long while.
It felt like sun finally breaking through storm clouds.
Rob went back to his room with a glare toward David, and I took Much (Bess insisted, since she still needed to rest and couldn’t help) and Missy Morgan aside and asked them to come with me to the forest.
David strode over to us, frowning. “What’s going on?” he asked.
“There’s going to be a wedding,” Missy crowed.
“A secret wedding, Missy,” Much reminded her gentle.
She blushed and blinked her eyes slow at him. “Sorry.”
“A wedding, my lady?” David demanded. “The queen—”
“Won’t know,” I told him. “Now if you’re my knight, I need you to help.”
He frowned again. “As you wish, my lady. But surely this is women’s work.”
I frowned too. “Perhaps, I just . . . I don’t know many women. Fondly, at least.”
“I can take care of that,” Missy told me, smiling.
“Remember it’s secret,” Much and I said at once.
She laughed. “I know. Let’s go to the forest, then!” she said.
We did. Before we were done the first night, Missy also got Ellie and Mariel, Bess’s two barmaid friends from the inn, to help out. Though Ellie gave me a bit of a saucy wink, she never made fun of the things I didn’t know as she started to order us all about.
We hunted one more day, and then didn’t hunt the next. The butchers round Nottingham wouldn’t be able to buy more meat so soon, and we let the littler ones hunt small animals to feed the workers. Rob went to help with the tree folk, and I went to cut peat with the women and children.
Down in the mud and muck my knife kept slipping from the weak grip of my half hand and I gave up, hacking at it with the full hand only. I had spent so long in the stillness of prison, I’d forgotten just how much I needed this hand for. I’d forgotten just what Prince John had taken away from me.
It were late in the hazy warm of the afternoon when we heard a crack and a boom. The women all lifted their heads and turned like a pack of gulls, and I sprang up and ran for the sound.
Much and a whole group of workers got there ’bout the time I did, called over by yelling men. Everyone were hollering, throwing their hands about, and pointing at one another, gathered round a downed tree that had taken two others in its path, and from what I could see, landed on at least three men.
“Rob?” I cried. “Rob!” I hated the girlish shriek there were in my voice, but I couldn’t help it none as I scrabbled round the trunk, looking for him.
“Scar,” he said, hands catching my shoulders as I turned.
Relief choked me as I hugged him overtight, clinging to him. “Christ and his Saints, Rob,” I breathed into him.
He kissed me quick, and we broke apart, looking at the damage. Two men were close together and the third were farther down. “Cut the trees,” he ordered. He started barking men’s names and indicated the three sections to cut so that the trunks would be small enough to lift. “Much!” he said, pointing to the men. Much nodded and moved quick, overseeing the cuts the axes were aiming for.
The men were crying out with every hack of the ax, and I turned to the gathering women and young folk. “Rocks,” I said, pointing. “And the logs they’ve already cut. Wedge them next to the men so the weight’s off a bit,” I told them, grabbing an armful of wood myself. We built up little walls on either side of the pinned men, pushing and heaving till it pressed the trunk up, ever so little.
My heart kept pounding hard right up till it were late at night and the last man came free. The first two had broken their arms, I reckoned, but he were the worst. He could bare stand.