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My gaze drifted over to Hudson and Robin Hood again. I couldn’t help but compare them. They were both tall and handsome, but Robin Hood didn’t seem nearly as … as solid and sturdy as Hudson. I didn’t know how else to describe it, and I didn’t know why I found it so attractive, but I had felt it every time I’d touched Hudson: that solidness.
Hudson motioned to a horse. Robin Hood wrinkled his nose and said something that made Hudson narrow his eyes. I had wondered last night if Hudson and Robin Hood remembered each other. I could tell now that they did. And since the common enemy was gone, they weren’t getting along anymore.
Finally Hudson turned away from Robin Hood and strode back to me, his expression grim.
“Robin Hood wouldn’t let you borrow a horse?” I guessed.
“If I ever get back to the twenty-first century, I’m going to write a new book about Robin Hood.” He came up with a few titles then, although none that publishers would ever print.
I stood up. “I can pay him for a horse. I’ll just change something else into gold.”
Hudson sent Robin Hood another withering look. “I offered to buy one, but they already have as much gold as their horses can carry.
Right now, they’re over there deciding which town they’ll go party it up at.”
I let out a sigh. “I guess it was too much to expect that they’d give any gold to the poor.”
“Oh, they’ll be spreading it around at every alehouse and inn they come to,” he said. “The poor will get a share.” I handed him the pillowcase with the supplies. “Do you have enough gold to buy horses in the village?” Without giving him time to answer, I added, “I can give you more.” 236/356
“I have enough.” His next sentence came out slowly, thinking out loud. “But it’s still tempting to take more.”
“It’s not a problem.” At least it wasn’t much of one. I picked up a handful of acorns from the ground and changed them, only flinching a little.
I held the acorns out to him. He stared at them, but didn’t take them. After a moment of waiting, I slipped them into his pocket.
His gaze moved to my eyes. His expression was a mixture of realization and reproach that I didn’t understand. “I let you change those,” he said, “even though I knew it would hurt you.” He shook his head as though he regretted that and looked me over. “How bad is the pain?”
“It’s not bad for little things.”
“The whole enchantment is bad.” He took an acorn out of his pocket and turned it over in his hand. It glistened in his fingers like a piece of jewelry. “Your enchantment unleashes a powerful dark magic.”
“What do you mean?”
“Greed,” he said. “If it’s doing this to me, what is it doing to someone like him?” He nodded over at Robin Hood. “It’s got to have occurred to him that his band will have all the money they want if they don’t let you go.”
“They wouldn’t …,” I started, but I didn’t finish the sentence. Why wouldn’t they keep me a prisoner? King John had been eager enough to do it.
Hudson didn’t take his gaze off the Merry Men. Friar Tuck and Will were shoving each other over some insult, and the rest of the men were laughing. “I shouldn’t leave you with them,” Hudson said.
“You’re outnumbered, and your family doesn’t have any real weapons.
Why would bandits ever let you go?”
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I had left the magic book sitting on top of one of the boxes, and now I picked it up and held it tightly. Suddenly I worried that Robin Hood would take it from me. Did he understand what it was? We had been sitting in two separate groups this morning at breakfast, but some of the men must have overheard us talking about it. If Robin Hood took the book away from me, I couldn’t write the moral, and I would be trapped here.
I stepped close to Hudson so he wouldn’t have to raise his voice while we talked. No, that wasn’t why I stood close. I wanted to be near him, to feel his sturdiness.
Hudson lowered his voice. “When I leave to buy horses, Robin Hood will probably take you somewhere different from the meeting spot and then say I didn’t show up. He won’t let you leave.” I clasped the book harder. Hudson might be wrong—I hoped he was wrong—but could I take that chance? “We never should have told him I could change things into gold.” My gaze swept around the forest and the thick wall of trees that surrounded us. At breakfast, the forest had seemed beautiful, but now this place seemed remote, isolated.
“You’re right. I can’t trust him.”