Outlaw Princess of Sherwood Read Online Free PDF Page B

disguise again. But no, this was a smaller man, and she could see his matted beard hanging. It truly was one of those accursed Wanderers this time. One of those roaming foreigners with their black hair and black eyes and their sad, narrow faces. At the sight of him, Etty’s nose wrinkled as if she smelled something bad. She felt entitled to sneer, for everyone hated the thieving, begging Wanderers with their hoards of gold. Everyone said they lent gold to rich lords, and demanded human flesh in return. Folk said that they stole babies from cradles and raised them to be witches. Folk said they possessed the evil eye, and that if one of them walked between two men, one of those men would die.
    Etty did not believe in the evil eye. But the beggary, the thievery, the hidden riches, these were common knowledge. She could see how the soldiers down below had frozen like songbirds when the hawk flies over, silent and wary as the accursed one passed. Etty’s lip curled like her nose as she watched the dark-robed figure slip by.
    Once it was out of sight, her body relaxed. Time inched on. Etty sighed. Had the sun ever before moved so slowly in the sky?
    Along came a peddler in a cart, trundling by almost as slowly as the sun. Later came a swineherd driving his pigs, and later yet, a knight with his squire trailing him. All turned their heads to stare at the encampment, the lady in her cage. Etty felt her face burn with mortification for her mother.
    Otherwise she took small interest in the travelers, even the knight shining in his mail, even a page boy on an aristocratic white pony. Etty did give a moment’s regard to the pony, slim and sleek and pretty, for even at a distance she could see the bright yellow plumes nodding between its ears, matching the plumes in the page boy’s hat above his long, curling yellow hair. Quite the dandy he was, what with the hat and the hair and a tight crimson tunic and perfectly fitted yellow hose above tall leather boots. Etty blinked as she saw him enter the encampment, sweeping off his hat as he approached her father’s canvas castle of a pavilion. But then she forgot about him. Some lord’s messenger, that was all.
    The sun crawled like a yellow snail toward noon. Somewhere, monotonously, a cuckoo began to call. Annoying bird. It laid its eggs in other birds’ nests. Backdoor bird, folk called it, because of the way it came and went when no one was watching. If a man’s wife were unfaithful, folk mocked him: Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Calling him a cuckold because someone had been sneaking in his back door.
    Bracken rustled slightly, and Etty heard a panting sound. She turned, then smiled. Tykell, her escort today, stood waving his plumy tail and breathing his meaty breath in her face. He licked her ear, then turned around three times and lay down on the sun-warmed rock beside her.
    â€œReady for a nap, Ty?” Etty murmured, stroking his thick fur. But her smile did not last. Down below she saw that her father had emerged from his pavilion. Father, like a lead soldier—no, an itsy-bitsy leaden king—was stalking around the encampment and, judging by the way he flailed his arms, roaring orders.
    The cuckoo kept calling. “Hush,” Etty muttered.
    â€œCuckoo!” It perched almost over her head now, in the holly, so close she could see its sleek gray feathers, its beady amber eye, its yellow bill gaping as it called. “Cuckoo!”
    â€œMy father’s not a cuckold.” Mother was a virtuous woman. All the more reason that Father should not be treating her this way. “Go away, backdoor bird—”
    Etty gasped, and her eyes widened. The cuckoo did not go away, but she forgot all about it, sitting bolt upright, staring at the scene below. Mother seemed to be lying down on the hard, bare floor of the cage, maybe warming herself in the sunshine, maybe even napping. Nothing else had changed. But Etty whispered, “Yes! That’s