Page 30 of Peregrine's Call
Robin tugged at Tav’s sleeve and stepped away from the crowd, around the corner of the building to an alleyway. The smell of the stables grew stronger here, a smell of animal droppings and straw. The indistinct sound of voices filtered in from both sides of the alley, with the stable boys at one end and the yammering crowd at the other.
Octavian leaned closer to her. “What are you thinking?”
“That place he mentioned—Willesden. I saw it once when I was just a child. If I were a lord driven from his home, and I knew Willesden existed, I’d consider regrouping there.”
“You think Pierce is there? The man called it empty,” Tav said.
“News takes time to travel, and doubly so through a place like the Ardenwood. Lord Piercecouldhave taken over Willesden…”
“And sent his men out to raid to get supplies to make the place livable.”
“They kill the folk who get in their way, but they don’t kidnap anyone because they don’t want ordinary folk to know where they are, at least not until the place is fully defensible.”
“Could you find it?” Tav asked, excited.
“It’s just a guess,” she warned. “We could get there and find nothing at all.”
“I’ve asked people at every point along this journey about Lord Pierce, and no one has offered anything else useful. He hasn’t made a name for himself in any other part of the country, as far as we know. So maybe he is at Willesden, which means Govannon is too. It’s worth the risk. I’ll take care of supplies. You can walk with Ada to her new home. Meet me where we stabled the horses in an hour.”
After Ada bid Robin goodbye, with a tight embrace and a whispered promise to keep her secret always, Robin left her in the care of the seamstress and returned to the horses.
The weather turned warmer as they went west over the next few days, a lucky turn of events considering how rough the country was becoming. A few times they had to go around steeply rising hills or avoid a washed-out path. Robin led the way, her sharp eyes watching for any danger from the woods. Octavian rode behind her, almost silent. The few times she looked back at him, he was completely alert, focused on the surroundings. His sword hand was always loose at his side, ready for an attack.
The farther they traveled, the more familiar the land became to Robin. She was close to her childhood home, where she’d first grown up among the rocky hills and the narrow trails of the forest. Farms were barely more than clearings in this area. Some folk herded sheep in the parts of the Ardenwood that were clear of trees, and the hillsides lay covered in tough, dark green grasses.
“Are we getting close?” Octavian asked more and more frequently.
“I’m sure we’re near Willesden,” she replied, “though I can’t guarantee that this is where Lord Pierce chose to flee to.”
“If we find nothing, at least we can eliminate it.”
“He might have gone directly into Wales,” Robin said. “Wasn’t he working with the Welsh when he tried to marry Cecily?”
“He was,” Octavian confirmed. “But that was five years ago, and alliances don’t last. Word is that the Welsh betrayed him. Not to mention that Pierce is an unpredictable sort of man. I wouldn’t trust him to saddle a horse, let alone fight a battle with me.”
They came upon a group of coppiced trees with chopped wood stacked neatly under a few pines, ready to be used for fuel. She smiled. Here was the best evidence yet that they were near a large estate. Only a lord, or a larger institution like an abbey, had the resources to send foresters out to prepare wood. This must mean that they were now on land controlled by that estate, which she hoped was Willesden.
Then she heard the jingle of horses’ reins.
“Wait.” Robin put her hand out to stop Octavian from moving forward. “Someone’s coming from the other side.”
* * * *
A moment later, a group of men emerged from the trees. Tav counted quickly. Ten of them, too many to take on alone. Six of the men were dressed in common clothes while the other four wore armor. All of them carried weapons, though.
The men had carts with them, and it was evident that the group came here to retrieve the stacked wood. The four soldiers fanned out to watch the surrounding forest, and the rest went to work, carrying armfuls of wood from the stacks to the carts.
Robin whispered, “They’ll go straight home from here.”
Tav understood her point. They could follow the group and perhaps be led directly to Willesden. Who else but a lord could have a retinue of ten men, carts, and horses just to fetch firewood?
“Stay down,” he warned her. “No need to risk being seen. We’ll be able to track this group easily.”
She nodded, then settled down to a crouch, a position she seemed able to maintain for hours. Tav didn’t know how her legs didn’t cramp up, especially in this cold. But Robin never complained and never appeared uncomfortable. In fact, the longer she stayed in the Ardenwood, the more at home she seemed.This is where she belongs, Tav realized. Robin truly was happiest in these cold, wild woods.
At Cleobury, she had an air of awkwardness, of someone trying to fit in and failing. Tav always assumed it was due to her age—the uncertain time between childhood and adulthood. But now he understood that Robin would never be at home in a place like Cleobury. She was too wild.
When the sounds of the departing group faded into the woods, she stood up. “Let’s follow!”
