Her eyes lit. “Who?”
I cast my mind around quickly and settled on Peter, Little John’s son, who was my age and safe enough to mention. “His name’s Peter.”
Aalis sighed dreamily. “Well, it isn’t as good a name as Conrad, but it’ll do.”
Conrad.
A plan clicked into place so neatly that my brain must have been working on it all day without telling me.
“What are your plans?” I asked Aalis.
She shrugged. “Stay here. There’ll be minstrels and games and food. One year they had an acrobat who could flip across all the tables.”
“Festivals are more fun with company,” I commented lightly. “Do you think Conrad will ask you to go with him?”
Aalis sighed again. “I wish. But he’s so shy and I can’t ask him. That would be too forward.”
“He already asked you to the tournament dance, didn’t he? What if I happened to mention to him that you were hoping he would ask you to attend with him? You know, give him a nudge in the right direction?”
Aalis beamed. “I’d like that. But don’t make it sound like I really, really want him to ask. Just slip a comment in casually.”
“Don’t worry, Aalis,” I said slyly. “I think all he needs is a minor distraction, and he won’t be able to resist you.”
BARON
“Sheriff!”
A soldier jogged up to the roped edge of our training arena just as my opponent came at me again. I blocked his strike, drove my shoulder into him, and followed with a hard blow that sent him sprawling into the dirt.
Sweat stung my eyes, and when I tried to wipe it away with my arm, I only smeared more perspiration across my face. I stepped over the fallen man and marched toward the stool where I had left a cloth. I’d spent the entire morning trying to convince myself that I didn’t care that Laurel was likely preparing to leave for Sherwood Forest without so much as a single word to me.
The soldier hovered near the ropes. “Sheriff…”
“What?” I barked.
He flinched. “It’s—it’s… your horse, sir.”
I lowered the cloth from my face and looked at him. “What about him?”
The soldier swallowed. “Well, sir… he’s gone.”
For a moment, I said nothing. Then I vaulted over the ropes and set off toward the stables at a brisk pace. The soldier hurriedafter me, nearly tripping over his own feet in his effort to keep up.
“Did the stable boy say what happened?” I asked.
“Ah, no, sir. It seems he was preoccupied with asking a young lady to accompany him to the festival.”
Of course he was. Everyone in the castle seemed to have lost what little sense they possessed over festival week. Soldiers had been trading shifts so they could sneak off to dances.
I strode into the stable and there, in my allotted stall, instead of my horse was a note pinned to the back wall by an arrow. I stopped short and tore the parchment off the wall.
I thank you, sir, for your fine horse.
It will be returned in due course.
He was taken for a purpose good,
Yours most humbly, Robin Hood
