“Let us through!” David bellowed. “The queen mother is expecting us!”
“Desist or you will be run through!” a guard yelled back. “No one shall come near the palace tonight!”
I hesitated. It would be an easy thing to throw off my hat and raise my chin and tell them I were a princess, Richard’s daughter, Eleanor’s granddaughter. They would take me behind their swords and they would defend me.
But then Prince John would hear I lived, and he would change his plans, bend his mother’s ear, and make sure I were thought a liar for my words.
Before he found another way to see me dead.
“Follow me, my lady!” Allan shouted, pointing back at the road.
“Are you mad!” David roared.
“Ride fast to try and break through and go sharp right,” Allan said. “We have to get away from the rioters!”
I nodded, trembling in the saddle. I spurred my horse hard, David out in front of me and Allan somewhere behind.
We turned round the bend, and the rioters were closer than I thought. They’d separated for David, but now they were turned, looking at him, and not moving for me.
My horse reared and tried to stop at the same moment, twisting to the ground with an unearthly scream. He threw me off as he went down, and my legs landed bare shy of the horse’s back. People swept back from the horse, stepping on my body as I struggled to move away, off the road.
My sword were gone—I couldn’t even see where it went.
I got to my knees, and a body slammed into mine, sprawling me backward again.
Panicking now, I got to my knees again, desperate to stand, fearing the force of the crowd. I got one foot under me, and someone pulled me up.
“Hush, I have you,” a voice said in my ear.
My blood rushed over with dizzy relief. “Allan!” I cried.
“Hold on to me, lady thief. We need to get you out of here,” he told me.
I nodded, holding tight to his arm. I’d lost a boot, and the other one were tatters. I felt every rock in the road as we pushed against the tide of people, trying to find a way off.
We made it back to the heart of London, and Allan tugged me down an alleyway that weren’t half as crowded. He nodded me ahead, farther away from the mob.
“My lady!” David shouted, grabbing me as we pushed down into an alley that were open and dark.
“Lady?” someone growled, grabbing me round my waist.
I yelped as one arm held me tight and the other started patting and grabbing my clothes, looking for money or jewels or God only knew what else. Three other men set on David and Allan as the man pulled me off my feet.
I drew my legs up and let them drop, slamming my heel into the man’s kneecap. He howled and dropped me, and I whipped round to shove my elbow against his face.
He roared out a curse, covering his eye and wheeling back.
One man were bleeding on the ground and David dispatched a second. Allan slung a punch over the third with a little whimper. The man stumbled, and I jumped over him, running down the alley. Allan ran ahead with his long loping legs, leading the way. I followed behind him, and David followed behind me. I were the middle. The weak point—the one that needed defending. I’d always been one of the guards, not the guarded.
It weren’t far, now that we were away from the crush. Allan took us down closer to the river, to a tavern that bore the name Rose and Thorn, and I near collapsed against the door, heaving for breath. “It’s shut,” I told Allan.
He looked wounded, knocking twice, pausing, and knocking twice more on the door.
We waited several long moments.
The door opened a crack, and whoever were behind it saw Allan and opened it.
He nodded us in. I went first, and a young man led me into the tavern room. Windows that would look onto the street were boarded over, and there weren’t no fire in the hearth. There were a few candles on a table near the casks, and two other people at a table. They looked up at me.
One were a boy, and the other were a grizzled old man.
The one who led me in pointed to a bench. “Sit.”
I blinked at the sound of the voice. “You’re a girl,” I realized.
She looked at me like I were mad. “So are you.”
She turned away from me, going to the back, and I sat at the bench, feeling strange and put out of my own body.
David came and sat at the bench of another table, his back to the wall. It were a soldier’s choice. He could move from there, cover me, and fend off attackers, while still sitting closest to the door to defend an exit.
Allan didn’t sit. He paced, jumping to help the girl in men’s clothing with cups for us and a plate of bread. “My thanks, Kate,” he said.
She frowned at him as she passed us ale and the bread. I took a piece of the bread and handed the rest to David, and he took some and passed it to the others at the table. “You shouldn’t have brought her here,” Kate said to Allan.
This made the others look at me, and the bread went to ash in my mouth.
“Not here, Kate,” Allan warned.
“They can be trusted,” Kate snapped. “As much as I can, at least.”