“Oh, there is no danger. It grows but just behind the palisade. I go myself, for I alone can find it.”
“I will go with you.”
“No, stay here. Your presence is needed to encourage them. I will take two soldiers, if you so desire,” and she beckoned to a couple of fighting-men who sat near by. “Bring a lanthorn, concealed as best you can beneath your cloak.”
She led the way to a rear entrance. As the soldiers unbarred the open door, a woman’s voice addressed her. “I go with you an I may. Two women are safer than one alone.” It was Gyll Croyden.
Eleanor turned and looked into her face for an instant, then accepted her offer. “I thank you.”
In another minute they were hastening silently to the palisade in single file, one of their guardians leading, the other bringing up the rear. With difficulty they groped their way to the southern entrance of the town, and, after a word to the sentry stationed there, passed out. Soon Eleanor, by the aid of the soldier’s lanthorn, was plucking leaves from a bush that grew not over a furlong from the town.
They started to return, but paused, breathless, hearing a rustle of leaves behind them.
Then, suddenly, a low whir, as of a bird’s wing, and the rearmost soldier fell on his face, dead. A long, slender arrow, the like of which they had never seen, quivered between his shoulder-blades, a shimmering reed in the lanthorn light.
They broke into a run.