Page 24 of Peregrine's Call
“I should have gone to my mother and sisters in the house. I could have been with them.”
“And died as well. Robin, you were a child. You couldn’t have changed anything about that.”
“If I’d had my bow, I could have shot one of them at least.”
“But you didn’t. And you probably weren’t as skilled then as you became later.”
“That’s true enough. I swore no one would ever get close to me while I had a weapon. I practiced my archery endlessly afterward.”
“It shows,” he said. “But all the same, a child can’t win against a band of armed men. You were right to run.”
“It never felt right.”
“Did you return there?”
“Later that night, yes.” She paused, remembering the scene. None of the horror of seeing her murdered family had faded, no matter how many years had passed.
Octavian put one arm around her hunched-up shoulders. The gesture nearly brought Robin to tears.
“You don’t have to tell me,” he said quietly.
“It would help to say it out loud. Does that make sense?”
He nodded, keeping his arm around her.
“I crept back there,” she said finally. “My mother and sisters were dead in the house…throats slit.” She suspected far worse had been done to her mother before she died. “I dragged my father’s body inside as well, and set the house on fire when I left.”
“Rough tasks for a child,” he said very quietly.
She nodded. “Before that, I took some clothing and gear. I dressed in my father’s clothes so I’d look like a boy. I didn’t dare stay there, in case anyone came back, so I lived in the woods on my own all through that spring and summer. I hunted and walked and slept and then did it all again. It felt as though I traversed the whole Ardenwood, but looking back, I can’t have covered that much ground.
“In early fall, I heard a commotion and went toward it. Some bandits had stopped a very fancy carriage on the road north. But they didn’t kill their victims. They just made them hand over what money and jewels they had, along with some supplies, and sent them on their way. So instead of shooting the thieves, I followed them. It was long way to their camp, but it was alargecamp. I spied on them for weeks, watching to see what they did. They would stop some travelers, but only the well-off ones, never the poor. And they never killed anyone except the armed guards who refused to go peacefully. That intrigued me.
“And then one day, I was careless and crept too close to the camp. One of the guards captured me and brought me to the camp’s leader, an older man who wasn’t like any person I’d seen before in my whole life—Rainald. And you know the rest.”
“Did Rainald and the others know that you were a girl?”
“Not initially. I didn’t trust them enough to tell, and the name Robin works just as well for a boy, so no one questioned it. I’d cut my hair short that summer. It was nearly a year before someone figured it out. Then Rainald was fairly angry because he thought I’d put myself in danger. But I knew what I was doing!”
Octavian said, a bit drily, “Of course you did. No one questions your confidence.”
Robin sighed, lowering her head to rest on her drawn-up knees. “I do. Sometimes I feel like I’ve got no more sense of direction than a deer, just bounding through the trees with no idea where I’m headed.”
“That does not sound like the Robin I know,” he said. “You’re tired, that’s all. In the morning, you’ll feel like yourself again.”
“Will I?” Yawning, she leaned into him, enjoying the warmth of his arm around her shoulders.
“Robin,” he said in a low voice. “This is not a good idea.”
Telling her story had relieved her of a burden she didn’t know she’d been carrying, and she was equal parts sleepy and giddy. She teased, “Are you afraid that with me so close, you won’t be able to resist the urge to kiss me?”
“Yes.”
She waited for him to laugh, but he didn’t. Robin turned her head to look at him, and was instantly ensnared by his gaze. His deep brown eyes were serious, watching her with an intensity that made it difficult to breathe.
“You do want to kiss me?” she asked, suddenly breathless.
He reached out with one hand and touched her cheek. “Yes. I shouldn’t, but if I’m honest, then I have to admit that I do. More than once since I saw you again.”
