The wizard stepped forward then, lifting his wand while he in-toned something in Latin. He walked slowly around me and the beam, sprinkling reddish sand onto the floor. When he completed the circle, he tucked his wand back into his robe. “It shall hold her hence,” he told Haverton, and without further explanation, he turned and strode out of the barn. The guards followed after him.
I tugged on my chain but I couldn’t walk out of the circle—I couldn’t even kick the sand with my foot. “What did he do?” I yelled to Haverton. “What does this mean?”
He turned back. “ ’Tis nothing to fret about, m’lady—only a bit of magic to keep the fay folk from spiriting you off. They can’t cross that line. You’ll be safe.”
Safe? I was handcuffed and trapped.
Chapter 11
This was what I got for telling the truth about who spun the straw into gold. I would be chained here all night, and even if Chrissy did come, she wouldn’t be able to help me.
I sat in the circle for a few minutes, thinking. Perhaps the chain meant there wasn’t a guard outside, and if I could find a way out of this cuff, I could escape. I tried to slip my wrist out of the band, then tried to pick the lock using my hair pins. When neither of these worked, I yanked on the chain, hoping it had a weak link somewhere.
I was tugging and rattling the chain so much that I didn’t hear the door open, didn’t hear Hudson walk over until he said, “They make those strong enough that a horse can’t break them. I doubt you’ll be able to.” He held a torch in one hand. It lit up the area better than the candle that was keeping me company.
I let the chain drop back to the ground and put my hands on my hips, breathing hard. “Do you have a key?”
“No. And I’d be executed if I let you escape. I’m supposed to be guarding you.”
I lifted my chin. “Go ahead and ask me what my escape plans are.
I don’t have any, because it’s impossible, and none of this would have happened if you had let me go last night.” He gave me a smirk that reminded me of the one Robin Hood wore. “Sorry, but who am I to mess up your fairy tale? Nice dress, by the way. Fit for a queen. Which reminds me—what do you think of King John now that you’ve met him?”
“I think if he lived in our day, he would spend his time making tinfoil hats to keep aliens from abducting him.” I gave the chain 156/356
another useless tug. “You know that none of this is my fault. Why won’t you help me?”
He leaned up against a post not far from the one I was chained to.
“I am going to help you. That’s why I’m here. I thought we should talk about our plans to find the Gilead.” I tried twisting the chain and then pulling on it. None of the links bent.
Hudson’s gaze drifted to the mounds of straw behind me. “The nice thing about having most of the guards either busy shoveling straw in here or sent into the kingdom to buy straw for tonight was that there were fewer men guarding the king’s quarters. I actually got to snoop around the king’s sitting room. The Gilead wasn’t there, so it must be in his bedroom. Probably near his window so it can get some light.”
“How nice. I hope his future wife remembers to water it. I’ll be someplace else.”
“After a royal wedding, everyone will be feasting—except for the kitchen staff who’ll be busy serving everyone. I could sneak into his bedroom then and take it.”
I stopped pulling on the chain long enough to mull over this possibility. “And we would be able to go home right after that? I wouldn’t actually spend a night married to King of the Froot Loops?” Dinner as the queen, I could manage. Anything else, I didn’t want to consider.
Hudson rubbed his thumb against his bottom lip, thinking. “Bartimaeus the Proud won’t be invited to the wedding. Assuming I can get hold of a horse, it will still take a couple of hours to ride to his village to give him the Gilead. I’m not sure how long it will take him to send us home. We’ll probably have to round up your family and come back to the castle for that.”
157/356
“So the plan is I marry King John so you can get the Gilead, and then you’ll ride off and I might never see you again?” He dipped his chin downward. “You can trust me.” I laughed. I couldn’t help myself. “I trusted you in the police station. That worked out real well.”
His gaze connected with mine, completely serious. “This is different. We need the Gilead to get home, Tansy.” I yanked the chain again and only succeeded in hurting my wrist.
“I don’t know how most guys flirt with girls here in the Middle Ages, but King John keeps threatening to kill me. Funny, but I don’t find that romantic.”