A gift horse! Ark smiled grimly and sprinted to the back of the cart. He scrambled up the tailgate and dived under the waterproof treepaulin into the carefully sorted mounds. He wriggled under, pulling clean petticoats over him, and crossed his fingers, praying to Diana for safety.

“Where’s the little sliver gone?”

“He was ’ere a second ago….”

The voices were muffled as they drew closer.

“I reckon we nearly got ’im!”

Ark held his breath, waiting for pressed shifts and undergarments to be stripped away. His mother had always warned him about going out alone in the wood, else the ravens could snatch his body and suck out his soul. This was far more dangerous.

“’Ave a look from up there.” The cart shuddered as feet clambered to the top of the laundry pile. The full adult weight of a hulking guard crushed down on Ark, squeezing out the remaining air in his lungs. They’d either hear his ribs cracking or his heart hammering like a woodpecker’s beak.

A phrase from childhood came into Ark’s head:

Hold the feather, grab the weather,
Woe betide me, Lady hide me!

It was a nonsense chant spouted by old crones and repeated with glee in the nursery. But he was happy to believe in anything at this moment.

“Buddy holly!” the guard swore. “Can’t see ’im anywhere! Maybe the slippery twig fooled us into thinking ‘e turned left.”

“Grasp’ll kill us if we don’t find the boy!” hissed the other one. “Let’s split. He can’t ’ave got far….”

The weight on Ark’s chest lifted and the voices faded away. Had the old chant worked? Ark breathed deeply, filling his lungs, and counted to two hundred, even though his legs were itching to take off. Maybe he could stay in the cart and wait until it delivered its load? He was almost lulled by the gentle rocking motion. No! He shook himself. He had heard too much. Grasp would put the word out. As of now, he was dead wood.

First, he had to put some distance between himself and the High Councillor’s thugs. He carefully pulled back a pair of hose stockings and several layers of leather codpieces to make a peephole, trying not to think of where those items of clothing had nestled. He peered out. All clear. Ark slid backward and slipped cautiously off the end of the cart, wishing he had an apple to offer the steadily plodding pony.

“Thanks, old fellow!” he whispered. “I owe you one!” The pony’s blinkered eyes flicked toward him as if in acknowledgment, and the cart moved off, leaving Ark alone on the highway.