Dauntless (Valiant Hearts Book #1) (6 page)

“Might as well,” said Hadley. “We’ve had little enough success
hunting
today.”

True enough. Although they had barely begun their hunt for game, their hunt for ghosts had proved fruitless.

“I say, you haven’t seen any deer in these woods, have you?” asked White with a wink. “Or perhaps a boar, or for that matter . . . any men?”

The boy appeared more terrified than ever. His voice seemed to strangle in his throat. But he managed to squeak out a simple, “No.”

“Of course not.” Timothy took the boy’s hand in hopes of soothing him. “So where are you from?”

The boy’s blue eyes grew larger and larger. A tear slid down his cheek.

“Please do not be afraid of me. You know, I used to play in these woods when I was a child. Got lost a time or two myself. I am from Greyham Manor. Where is your home?”

“I don’t . . . I don’t remember. I . . . we . . . ’tis just
the
village
. The village what I always called home. I never strayed so far before.”

Ah.
Timothy understood. Many peasants never left their village of origin. They had no need to mention names. Poor frightened child. Probably knew nothing of the basic geography of his own shire. “Allow me to guess, and perhaps you shall recall the name. Perhaps . . . Endsworth or Flotsdale?”

The child remained frightened and confused. “’Tis that way, methinks.” He pointed west. “Not so far. I didn’t pass nothing in between.”

“Ah! Bryndenbury?”

“Yes, yes, that’s the one. Bryndenbury. I suppose now that you’ve said the name, I can find it myself. Thank you for your help. I don’t want to trouble you.”

“Absolutely not. I insist we accompany you. It is not so far from my parents’ home. Perhaps we shall stop in for our evening meal.”

The boy appeared not at all relieved. Timothy supposed stumbling upon a troop of the earl’s guards, pointing arrows his way while he was stealing berries would undo any child. Timothy draped his arm over the lad’s shoulder and led him back toward the horses. The boy would be happy enough once safely reunited with his mother in Bryndenbury.

The thieves would have to wait . . . for now.

Darkness had fallen, and still no sign of Gilbert. Although nary a sound had echoed from the forest for many hours, Merry and her band remained huddled and quiet in their makeshift fort. She attempted to keep Wren occupied playing a game with carved animals. In another corner of the room under a cross upon the wall, Allen led most of the children in whispered prayers as they knelt in a circle about him. He had long served as a spiritual advisor for the group.

Merry did not have the heart to inform them that as outlaws, they might well have been excommunicated from the church long ago. Of course, thanks to King John, all of England had been under an edict from the pope and forbidden to hold mass for several years during her childhood, and no one had paid that much mind.

Allen continued to pray in a sincere manner, with no pretense. Speaking to his heavenly Father, as he referred to God, in plain English, the most common language of all. Merry could not fathom where he had learned to pray thus. Yet she could not
help believing that if God still sat upon His throne, if any prayer might reach His ears, it would be one from these devout children.

Thieves or not.

As she recalled the stories she had read from her priest’s copy of the Vulgate Bible, she supposed the Israelites had found themselves on the wrong side of the law a time or two. And, according to the biblical account, God had not forsaken them.

Not as He had forsaken Merry.

No, Merry could not partake in the children’s prayers. She hugged Wren to her chest, thankful for the excuse to stay at a distance. She expected today’s events would prod Allen to begin his Sunday services once again. She dreaded standing among them as they worshiped a God in whom she no longer believed. Her own fervor had been stripped away on that ill-fated night two years earlier.

But she had not the heart to strip them of their superstitions either. If thoughts of God brought them comfort, she would support their religious beliefs. And if by chance Allen and the others were correct, better she be responsible only for losing her own soul rather than affecting the souls of every person in this room.

Wren looked up from her play. She twisted in Merry’s lap to study her in the dim glow of candlelight, then cupped Merry’s face with her chubby hand. “No wo-wee, Ma-wee. Sunshine men take care.”

Had Wren just admonished her not to worry? Merry chuckled.

She had heard of children creating imaginary friends before, but none so fanciful as Wrenny’s collection of sunshine men. The tot often chased the invisible creatures about the camp in her own private game. Going so far as to clutch the illusive figures to herself and cry, “Got you!”

“So are your sunshine men strong?” asked Merry, tapping the child on her turned-up nose.

“Va-wee strong. And vaaa-weeee big!” The girl stood to her tiptoes and reached toward the ceiling.

“Are there many of your sunshine men?” Merry continued to humor her.

“So, so many. One, two, four, ten!” Wren raised her hands over her head, then plopped back down to the earthen floor and continued her play as if she had never ceased.

Merry envied her. How simple to be a babe. To live in the present. To think not of the past, nor the future. To exist in a singular perfect moment of romping wooden horses and sheep. Of flowers and butterflies dancing in the breeze. Of fleeting sunshine men and tumbles in the dirt. Contentment contained in the tip of her tiny thumb.

So unlike Merry’s world. Her own mind ever brewed with haunting memories and troublesome worries.

Someday Wren would understand that her parents had been slaughtered, leaving her a nameless tyke, barely half a year old, to fend for herself in this merciless kingdom. Had it not been for the ingenuity of Merry and the other girls—along with a particularly cooperative nanny goat—Wrenny would have died, as so many children did in their early years.

Death always spiraled about them in this realm, brushing against their shoulders, reminding them they might be next. Like the rotting remains of criminals upon the town walls, and at every road crossing. So common that it had become the subject of humor and sport. But Merry would never grow accustomed to it.

An odd sound met her ears from just outside the door.

The call of a wood warbler . . . or rather a childish imitation of one.

“Thanks be to God,” Allen said. “Our prayers have been answered.”

Robert rushed to the door and opened it.

In tumbled Gilbert, red cheeked and panting for breath. “All . . . is clear.” He collapsed against the wall. “But I lost . . . the berries.”

Everyone laughed and cheered as they hugged him and thumped him upon the back. Jane offered Gilbert a ladle full of water, then chided him in her motherly way as he gulped it too quickly.

Once the fray settled, Merry sat down next to the boy. “So tell us your tale, Gilbert.”

“Oh, ’tis a good one to be certain.”

The children hushed and gave Gilbert their rapt attention.

He proceeded to tell his story of stepping through the bushes to find a nobleman and three giant soldiers pointing their arrows at his chest, his berries flying through the air, and the nobleman’s unexpected kindness.

“I did just like you taught us, Lady Merry. I acted lost and scared. ’Twas easy, as I was frightened out of my wits. Except I couldn’t remember the name of the village I was to tell them I lived, so I pointed to the west. I remembered it was the closest one in that direction. And I cried and told him my mum would beat me if she found me out. So he let me down before we got there, and I ran away and disappeared between the cottages.”

“Excellent work, my good man.” Merry ruffled his hair.

“That’s what the nobleman done to me.” Gilbert smiled his gaptoothed grin. “He mussed my hair just like you do, Lady Merry. And he was young, like us. That’s when I knew everything would be fine. Said they were hunting, was all.”

Merry dared not ask for a description of the nobleman. Nor his name. For all she had survived during the last two years, she feared her heart could not bear to hear if it had been Timothy Grey.

Young Gilbert tilted his head, as if an afterthought occurred
to him. “Although one of the soldiers did ask if I’d seen any men in the forest, which was odd. But . . . no, they were hunting. They nearly shot me clean through.”

Hunters indeed. But hunting deer . . . or ghosts? Her heart clenched.

Merry gathered together her courage. “Robert, please take some of the men to town and investigate on the morrow.”

Robert’s shrewd eyes assessed her gaze. “You can count on me, Lady Merry.”

The following afternoon the children scratched their sticks into the dirt, practicing their letters and numbers beneath a cloudy sky. Writing. Another pursuit they would never have dreamed of in their former lives.

Merry scribbled her own dark thoughts upon a patch of cool, bare ground.

Circling always, surrounding each day.

Whisking my shoulder, death on the way.

Acrid and screeching, afar off they burn.

Crying and weeping, with nowhere to turn.

Hardly the typical love poem. Perhaps one might consider it a battle verse. A battle lost. She wrote the morbid words in her native English tongue. She rarely spoke French or Latin of late. Those languages were part of that other world. That world of love and family. Of safety and security.

Ashes and dust, a bitter return.

Longing for justice, oh, when shall I learn?

The taste in my mouth, of char and of soot.

The scream in my ear . . .

Soot. Soot.
Why could she think of nothing to rhyme with
soot
?
Foot
simply would not suffice. Tears spilled onto her cheeks, and she brushed them away before anyone could notice.

Far!
She could reverse the wording.
Far
would rhyme with
char.
But she could no longer gather her thoughts to finish the stanza.

Stupid poetry! Worthless words. She swiped her hand over the dirt, removing in a few quick strokes her feeble and dreary attempt of the day. An hour’s worth of work gone in a heartbeat.

How fitting.

Instead she focused on the children—so industrious, so full of hope as they carved their short words into the dirt. As they practiced the spelling of their names. Christian names only. Peasants had no need of family names. Once upon a time these children might have been known as Abigail of Ellsworth or Henry son of Ilbert.

But no more. Perhaps she should devise a new surname for all of them. One that they could carry into some new sort of stable existence.

She dreaded the news Robert might bring at any moment. She feared they might not be able to stay in Wyndeshire—or for that matter, in England—much longer. King John might be busy in the north with his baronial rebellion, but eventually he would turn his mind to more minor issues. And hear of the Ghosts of Farthingale Forest. Assess that they might just be . . . the missing children of Ellsworth.

No, they could not stay forever. France seemed the most likely solution. The French would not be quick to turn over a wanted English noblewoman to King John. She supposed any enemy of the king would be a friend to France. Perhaps at the port she could declare herself Lady Merry Ellison and find safe passage for them all aboard a foreign ship. They had ample gold coin
for passage. Perhaps they could buy their way into some sort of merchants’ guild and open a business once settled.

French. She must teach the children French.

Though they had not come within a furlong of their camp, the nobleman—whether Timothy Grey or not—and his soldiers might yet grow suspicious of a stray child wandering the woods. So for now they would double the watch and be diligent to stay hidden.

Despite Wrenny’s happy stories of sunshine men, this was no way to live. Merry needed to find a better solution, and soon. If it were not for her father’s stubborn, reckless ways, these children would be beside their own hearths with their own parents.

“They’re back. They’re back,” cried Henry from his watch point atop the hill.

Merry rushed to meet Robert, Allen, and Cedric at the rise.

“Tell me,” she prompted. “What did you hear?”

Robert frowned and shook his head. “’Tis not good.”

Merry bit her lip and braced for the news.

“Nothing conclusive,” said Allen. “Rumors of a hunting party from the castle in the woods yesterday. Castle guards, though, not a typical hunting party.”

“And other rumors as well,” said Cedric.

Merry grabbed Cedric by the shoulders. “What other rumors?”

Robert answered for the stunned Cedric. “Rumors that the Ghosts of Farthingale Forest have come to Wyndeshire.”

Merry steeled her heart. Steadied the racing beat. She would be strong. She must be. For all of them. Deep soothing breaths. In and out. In and out. The infusion of air did its job and cleared her spinning thoughts.

Somehow this felt so much worse than dangling from a branch as the king’s own knights rode past upon warhorses. The children
were at risk, not merely her own hide. The responsibility of it pressed down upon her, threatening to crush her into the ground. She rubbed her fingers and bade them to cease their trembling. “We will not panic. They are but rumors. Was there any talk of searching for the ghosts? Any reward offered?”

“None that we heard tell of.” Allen gave Merry’s shoulder a reassuring clasp.

It almost comforted her. “Then we shall stay still for now. Not stir matters further. And be ready to move if needed.”

Robert surveyed the children, who had abandoned their studies and ran giggling about the circle. “It shall break their hearts if we have to leave so soon.”

“It shall break mine as well,” whispered Merry. But she allowed herself only the briefest moment of sorrow. She pulled herself to her full height, which was short for a noblewoman. Arranging her features into a mask of courage she did not feel, she turned to face her men. “But we shall survive this. We always do.”

“Agreed.” Allen stood taller as well. “Even if they find us, they shall never dream a band of children might be the notorious ghosts.”

“No, of course not. That would be ridiculous.” Although their being the survivors of Ellsworth would be enough to see them all hanged if King John had his way. Perhaps if he remained distracted by his war, at least the little ones might survive.

One could always hope.

Otherwise one was left with nothing but morbid poetry. Ashes and dust.