The Fellowship of the Hood~A California Girl in Nottingham's Court

Chapter Five~Part Two

When I regained consciousness, I realised that we were on a ship. It was a Cog ship.  A broad beamed merchant vessel.  Not the fastest ship on the water but it had a hold large enough for two prisoners.

My hands were bound so I had to give Elliot a shove with my boot to wake him.

“Where the devil are we?”   He asked as we both tried to sit up.

“We’re on a ship.  Probably kidnapped to become slaves.”  I replied.

Elliot said, with conviction, “I’ll nay be a slave to no man.”  He tried to free himself from the rope tied around his wrists.

“The men who grabbed us were French.”  I told him.  “I could hear them speaking to each other before the other man knocked us out.”

“Do ye speak French?”  Elliot asked.

“No,”  I said, “but I’ve heard your mother and Guy speak it to each other.  I recognised it right away.”

“Then they’ll be taking us where we were going anyway.”  Elliot reasoned.

“Shh,” I whispered.  “Someone is coming.”

A large man came down the ladder, turned and said in French, “Parlez- vous Francais?”

“No.”  I replied.  “English.”

“My English not good.”  He stated.  “”We take to France.  Important person to have you.  No try to escape, we kill you.”

He went back up the ladder.  Elliot and I glanced at the man then at each other.

“Who could want us in France?”  queried Elliot.

I could only think of one person.  My lovely half-sister, Isabella.  After we had captured the castle at Nottingham, Guy wanted her sent back to France.  Robin was all set to have her tried for treason, but Guy insisted that he had done enough damage to her already and wanted to show mercy by having her brought back to France.  Apparently, she had come up in the world, if she was the one that had us kidnapped and I was pretty sure that she was.  I told Elliot as much.

“But she does not know about me.”  He said.  “Why take me, too.?”

“Probably just incidental, since we were together.”  I answered.

“Let us try to loosen these ropes.”  Elliot said, while he scooted to me.

With our backs to each other, we tried to loosen each other bindings, but that proved a difficult task.  Finally, Elliot was able to tug on the knot of my rope and it gave a bit.  Then I did the same for his.  We didn’t want them completely off so as not to alert our captors to our plan which was nothing, yet, except to have our binds loose.

There was a commotion topside and we could hear the sound of running feet and oars splashing in the water.  We felt the ship jolt and the ride got pretty bumpy.  I’d been on boats and ships before and Elliot was a strong young man so neither of us got seasick.  Just jostled about as the ship was rowed faster over the water.

After several hours there was a great THUD as the ship came ashore.  The two men who grabbed us back at the tavern pushed us up the ladder, then off the ship and onto a wagon that immediately took off.  We were banged and bashed against the sides of the wagon as the horses that pulled it ran at a full gait.   Finally, we came to a stop.  The two large men once again grabbed hold of us and threw us into a large room with many rugs and some fine furniture.  We were pushed to our knees in front of a lady seated on an upholstered couch.  Our captors stood behind us.