She brought me to a bench in the corner of the small courtyard and I sat.

“Allan a Dale,” David said for me. “He’s a—well, he’s many things, but I think minstrel is the most of them. Favors a red hat.”

“I know Allan,” a boy round my own age piped up. “Saw him not long ’go neither.”

She pointed to the door. “Fetch him, would you?”

He nodded and dashed out the door, two of his lanky fellows following behind.

“Now come,” my new friend said. “You need your strength. I can’t send you off again without a full meal and a good song.” She waved her hands like a wizard at the others, and they went to do her bidding.

Her daughter started to play again, alone for a start. Her strings made sweet notes that were made just for this moment, a breath of joy in a lifetime of hardship. The others joined in, and the sound grew full and round.

They brought me a trencher of meat and bread with a hunk of butter and hot, roasted potatoes. I started to eat slow, and she chattered while I did, telling me about her family, six children in all. She introduced them all to me, except for Emily, the one playing, and Roger, one of the boys that had run off to fetch Allan. She told me about their life—her husband were a dyer and she helped him and made a bit more on the side with washing, and Emily could get some work playing here and again. They usually made it by, but the taxes cut too deep. It were too much and they didn’t have the money.

“Lordship’s not usually so bad,” she told me soft. “We were petitioning him for something—more time, less money, something. And that prince came in right when we were doing it. He had his guards catch us all, and the next morning, there we were. The prince didn’t even come to watch his handiwork.”

“He watched,” I told her. “Somewhere. I’m sure he didn’t want to be seen, but he couldn’t have come near so quick when he saw me if he weren’t.”

“He hates you,” she said.

I nodded. “He does.”

“Mum!” yelled Roger, and he kicked the door open and twisted in, one of two boys carrying Allan with his arms strung round their necks. I stood, and David leapt over to them, taking Allan.

Allan’s head lolled forward, and he realized it were David holding him, and he leered up at him. He started to salute and David’s lip curled. He let Allan fall.

“Christ on a cricket,” Allan garbled, rolling slow in the courtyard. He saw me, rolling to sit up. “Lady thief!” he cried. “Heard they—” He laughed drunken. “Tried to whip you into shape!”

David punched him across the face.

Allan dropped like a sack of potatoes.

I crossed my arms. “Was that necessary?”

“I won’t tolerate an insult to your person,” David told me, straightening his tunic. “But no. That was more for my enjoyment.”

“Well, now you have to carry him, you know,” I told David.

He raised a grim eyebrow to me. “Worth it.”

With a sigh, I thanked everyone for their help, and stood as David hauled Allan over his shoulder.

“Wait—” the woman said to me. I didn’t know her name, and having heard the names of each of her children, I weren’t sure if I could ask now. Like I should know her already. She drew a breath, looking at me. “Is he coming back?”

Everyone were quiet, looking at me.

“Oxford is his vassal,” I told her. “He has a right to be back here.”

“You will stay, then?” someone else asked.

My breath hitched. “I can’t. I don’t have the right to be here.”

“But what will happen to us? What’s to prevent him from starting back up tomorrow?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Oxford—he’ll be better.”

Roger nodded to me. “We’ll be better, m’lady. I won’t let him hurt anyone anymore. Even if I have to wear a hood and learn the bow to do it.”

There were shouts and grunts, all agreeing with the boy.

They’d be killed if they fought back. He were a boy—a young boy, not trained in hardship the way Rob and Much and John and I had been. He still had a heart, and he’d lose it.

But if they did nothing, they’d be whipped, and taxed, and broken.

I shook my head, stepping back from them. “I can’t,” I told them. “I can’t tell you what to do. What choices to make.”

Roger’s mother put her hands on his shoulders. “You’ve shown us all we needed to know, my lady. Thank you.”

Chapter 13

The next morning I went to Allan’s room and opened the door, finding David already in there, rumpled and mussed, sitting in a chair and staring at Allan. He started to stand when he saw me, and I shook my head.

David eased back with a sigh.

“How is he?”

David’s shoulder lifted. “Well enough, I think.” He leaned forward and slapped Allan’s exposed cheek. “Wake up, you lousy drunk,” he growled.

Allan jerked and looked at David with a sleepy smile, then turned and saw me. “Just the lady I wanted to see.”

I snorted. “I’m certain.” I came forward and sat at the end of his bed, careful not to jostle my back. “I’m hoping it’s to tell me that you didn’t get stone drunk with no reason and there’s some plot in all this.”

He sat up full with a groan. “Christ Almighty, Lord, I don’t deserve such a pain in my head.” He touched his face and then his eye, wincing. “And I think I’ve been beset by ruffians.”