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.He was a good guide too.He and Ringo communicated directions through hand signals most of the way past thatched cottages and farmlands.It didn’t really hit me then that we were almost five hundred years in the past, and that everything my eyes took in I’d only either read about or seen in paintings.Archer went to wake up the innkeeper to get a room for us with the trade goods we brought.Ringo and Pancho took the horses to be stabled, and I clung to the shadows of the courtyard, staying as invisible as I could.Archer and I had a quiet discussion about my wardrobe before we arrived at the inn.He said I’d blend better if I had the dress on.I said I would only blend if I was lying on a brocade bedspread at the Madonna Inn.His eyebrow went up in one of those gestures full of unspoken conversation, and I blushed and wisely shut my mouth until we stopped to rest.Pancho almost went for the one bed, which was covered in scratchy wool, not shiny brocade, but then looked at Archer and stopped before he claimed it.I’d been listening to Pancho’s accent long enough that I did a decent impression of it to ask the innkeeper’s wife for two bedrolls.I had just pulled my hair from under my sweater and unbraided it when she tapped lightly on the door.I didn’t think, I just answered it.And despite being dressed like a guy, and covered in all the grime the dirt road and the back of a horse could lay on me, my long hair gave me away.The woman’s eyes widened in shock, and then narrowed dangerously as she handed them to me with a disapproving glare at the three males behind me.I sighed as I closed the door.“Apparently I’m this century’s version of a hooker.Awesome.” I tossed the bedrolls to Ringo and Pancho and crawled into the bed.Archer was sitting on the edge of it, unlacing his boots.“I should just cut off my hair and travel as a man.It would be easier.”Again with the eye-bugging.Poor Pancho.“Not if you have any hope of getting to Lady Elizabeth in the Tower.”“Right.” I muttered under my breath as I yanked a brush through my hair.“Can’t just go in over the walls like a normal person.”“My mother’s second husband was the Lord Lieutenant of the Tower until the queen had him arrested.I used to play there when I visited her.” Pancho’s voice was small, and he watched me warily.I stopped punishing my hair for having knots and stared at him.“You know the Tower of London?”He nodded and swallowed.A huge grin split my face, and I leapt up to go for my bag.Pancho jumped out of my way like I was going to hit him.I paused and considered him.I could feel the edges of his fear around him like an aura.Weird.“You don’t need to be afraid of us, Pancho.We’re not going to hurt you.”He wrestled with the fear.Tried to pull it back.I was fascinated that I knew that.It felt like a kind of animal instinct, maybe from the Shifter in me.“Why do you call me Pancho?”I looked him in the eyes.Always best when you’re about to give it to someone straight.“Because you remind me of a scared Chihuahua – which is a kind of little dog.My neighbor in L.A.had one called Pancho, and just like him you get cocky and proud to cover it.I give nicknames to people, and I say them out loud to people I like.And your name is Francis.I can’t say that with a straight face.”Archer struggled not to laugh while Pancho processed what he could understand of my words, since I didn’t bother to explain my words.His expression was like a loudspeaker for every emotion he had.I watched him fly through anger, indignance, resignation, until he finally settled on a kind of pride.The kid was twelve, and if he didn’t screw it up with arrogance, he might be a pretty cool guy when he grew up.“Just so ye know, I wasn’t born with the name Ringo.”Pancho watched Ringo grin with me at our private joke, then he finally nodded.“So, what shall I tell you about the Tower?”Getting InThere weren’t enough window coverings for Archer to sleep safely through the day on the bed with me, so we made a nest for him under it.I draped my cloak over the front so he was in a kind of dust-bunny cave.I sincerely hoped I’d beaten the bedding enough that any unwelcome guests of the microscopic variety had gotten the word their invitation was revoked.Pancho probably thought we were certifiable, but he didn’t demand an explanation.Not that I’d have given him one anyway.He was still passed out cold when I woke up in the late afternoon, but Ringo was lying on his bedroll studying the map of the Tower I’d drawn with Pancho’s help.“Seems the river might be our best bet for gettin’ in unnoticed.”“So one question is, did they keep the princess in the Bell Tower like modern history says, or in the Royal Apartments, like Professor Singh believes?”“They don’t know in yer time?” Ringo seemed shocked.“I did a bunch of research online before we left, but everyone has a different answer, and everyone believes his information is correct.The thing the Professor said, and I believe it, is no matter how mad Mary Tudor was at her sister, she still always treated her like a princess of royal blood because of their dad.It makes me think Mary wouldn’t have had her put in a cell.”“Well, they’re on opposite sides of the common, so one of us should do some scoutin’ before we all move in.”I looked at the details on the map that Pancho had so carefully pointed out: the guard towers, the garden, and all the best hiding places for children’s games.“I never studied up on Thomas Wyatt, so I have no idea where he was held before his execution.”Ringo looked over at Pancho, who slept curled up like a cold dog.“Do you know the actual date?”I nodded.“April eleventh.”“So ‘e’s got a week.”We were each lost in our own thoughts for a moment before I finally asked Ringo the question I hadn’t asked myself yet.“Do we trust him?”He considered the sleeping boy again.“’E’s young, so the arrogance of ‘is station is only a habit, not yet who ‘e is.And ‘e holds ‘is lordship in ‘igh enough regard ‘e won’t openly defy ‘im.But ‘e was in that ‘ole a long time for bein’ twelve years old.Darkness can change a person.”“I guess the question is, can his time in the darkness inspire loyalty to the people who got him out?”“Only if ‘e believes ‘e couldn’t ‘ave gotten out without us.”Ringo slipped out to find us some food, and I tackled the knots in my hair with a wide-toothed wooden comb from our trade goods stash.Archer emerged from under the bed, and I was surprised to see that the light had faded to dusk outside.He took the comb from me and smoothed out the last of the knots, an unexpected luxury that made me feel pampered.I braided it tightly while he brushed the dust-bunnies off his clothes and regarded Pancho, still curled in a tight ball on the floor, with humor and pity [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]