Nottingham

by Nathan Makaryk

  The Nottingham Guard was the only family he cared for, and somewhere amongst them tonight were five gerolds who threatened the rest.

  A change in the torchlight caused him to look down the hallway, where a short, aged figure swimming in a sable-lined dressgown was striding toward him, eyes wide and a world away. The Sheriff was muttering to himself, or rambling perhaps, though his thin lips were barely moving. The skin stretched tight around his skull and neck, and the silver throughout his hair caught the light in a way that defined his every move.

  He stopped abruptly, aware that he almost collided with Guy’s chest. De Lacy’s eyes sharpened rudely, and Guy felt instantly unwanted.

  “Sheriff.”

  “Yes,” de Lacy cleared his throat. “How keen of you.”

  The baron slid past him, waving him off wildly with one wrist, and disappeared around a corner.

  Guy intended on saying “Enjoy your evening, Sheriff.” For whatever reason, by the time it came out of his mouth it had turned into, “Fuck you, old man.”

  The men of the Nottingham Guard slowly filled the great volume of the dining hall, minus those on duty. Barely a hundred. A small army in the right hands, but it meant a great many empty benches, with some of the longtables entirely barren. Guy couldn’t help but shake the feeling that even a complement such as this was but a skeleton crew.

  With Arable nowhere in immediate sight, Guy let himself get distracted by dinner. The men of his elite Captain’s Regiment had claimed the table closest to the raging main hearth, and he happily joined them. As he approached, the huge brute Morg stood and barked out, “The Captain on hand!”

  The others stood even as Guy shot them down. “Sit your asses down unless you mean me to spank them.”

  “What honor have we done, that we are so richly rewarded with as prestigious a visitor as the Captain?” Reginold of Dunmow was so good with a bow it made up for his need to use every word he knew every time he spoke.

  “Don’t waste my time, Dunmow,” Guy responded, “or I won’t be able to get to your mother by sundown.”

  “His mother’s dead,” whined Bolt, the lame-legged runt of their group, so nicknamed for the crossbow he preferred.

  Guy winked. “My apologies, not all women can handle me.”

  Bolt never laughed out loud, but he grinned wide and his neck clenched tight, as if his whole face was swallowing itself. Reginold and Bolt were implausibly good men, and would have joined the war both if not for Bolt’s limp. Reginold had refused to leave his “little brother” behind.

  “You all heard about Bassett’s big fish this week?” Guy turned to his young protégé. Bassett had recently arrested a few members of the Red Lions, a wharfside street gang that often tried to claim control over Nottingham’s fish market.

  “Heard about it?” asked Eric of Felley, twisting his long hair into a tail. The once-crown ranger pounded his fist to the table. “We were there!”

  Guy patted Bassett’s shoulder, “It was a fine job, Jon. That’s praiseworthy.”

  “Oh, I wish it weren’t.” Bassett shrugged it off. “Never cared much for praise.”

  It was the right answer, and Guy took pride in it. Before he had started grooming Bassett for leadership, he’d been as sharp a brat as any. “I imagine those Red Lions were just as surprised as I was to discover that beneath your bullshit, you may actually be a decent Englishman.”

  Bassett’s eyebrows danced. “Try not to tell anyone.”

  “I intend on telling everyone,” Guy returned. “You’re coming with me to Locksley tomorrow.”

  “What’s in Locksley?”

  Recruits, but he couldn’t tell the others. “Some people that need a reminder that we still punish people for little things like crimes.”

  Guy wasted ten minutes or so with the boys. They laughed, drank ale, and swapped stories. Their recent arrests made for legendary tales since action in the Guard was generally few and far between. Any stories more exciting than tax evasion were good for morale, and catching legitimate criminals made for legitimate heroes. Amongst these men, Guy was almost able to forget about the troubles beyond the table, the threats that lay hidden behind every false smile within the Common Guard.

  He scanned the crowd again for Arable, and found her emerging from a sidewall with fists full of ale. She walked directly toward him, eyes wide, begging for attention. Guy rose from his chair to watch her, to find the gerold she had identified.

  But instead she came to him, even serving his table first. The boys hooted and whistled at her, but her eyes never broke from Guy’s even as she slammed the drinks onto the table in front of each man, deliberately, ending with Jon Bassett. Only then did she break her gaze down to that final cup, the dented pewter tankard.

  Guy’s throat clenched, a harrowing sense of betrayal claiming him. He instantly regretted telling Bassett about the recruits from the prison, if only to avoid this heartbreak.

  Arable had not overheard a group of gerolds conspiring against good men.

  She had overheard Jon Bassett planning something against the gerolds.

  EIGHT

  WILLIAM DE WENDENAL

  ACRE

  THURSDAY, 11TH DAY OF JULY 1191

  “FUCK AUSTRIA!” KING RICHARD coughed, and William hoped very much it was not a command.

  Richard had been sick for over a week, and his face had aged a century. Though he had barely left the tower since the city’s capture, he still refused to let either William or Robin double for him even to make the simplest of public appearances. It was possible the king resented William’s decision to wear the warcrown on the day the walls broke, but it seemed unlikely. That had been a simple act of necessity, the very type of strategic thinking Richard demanded of them. In hindsight, it was barely even worth mentioning. No, William thought it more likely that the messenger from Saladin had affected Richard more than he would admit, feeding into his inherent paranoia. Others more prone toward conspiracies and ignorance thought the messenger was even responsible for Richard’s illness itself.

  William and Robin accompanied him by his circular bed, adorned in silks, where the king was in as much of a tirade as one could successfully throw while lying down.

  “Fuck Austria!” he repeated, then rolled into a wheeze and a fit.

  The entire world’s population had tried unsuccessfully to siege Acre’s walls before England’s arrival, but the Austrians had at least waited until England and France arrived. They thought this earned them the right to be treated as equal liberators and wanted their flag raised as well, which Richard had refused. Richard’s fever dreams led him to scream some additional choice obscenities about his feelings for Austrians, and the unfortunate size of their collective genitals.

  Leaving him to his misery, William drew Robin a comfortable distance aside to talk about supplies. The fighting had stopped, but the city was anything but safe. Surrender, after all, was a fine word for kings to throw around, but in William’s experience it never seemed to matter much to a city’s people. “It was their nature,” Richard had explained, to fight back against whatever occupation they thought was upon them, even their own. The Saracen population at large was peaceful, but factions were prone to gathering in small groups that attacked wherever they saw opportunity.

  And now William had heard disturbing stories of soldiers stealing from each other, for want of weaponry. Their replacement shipment had yet to arrive, and many suspected it never would. “We’re losing more each day. Deserters take swords with them, or sell them. If our men aren’t armed, they get scared, they make poor choices.”

  Robin dismissed it. “We got through the siege without them.”

  “Because we put the swords in the front. The skirmishes that break out now … they could happen anywhere.”

  “The men can make do.” Robin shook his head. “It’s war, not a county faire. If they can’t adjust to shifting circumstances, they shouldn’t be here in the first place.”

  That made William la
ugh. “Half this lot are here as a punishment. The other half are farmers trying to avoid paying taxes. Anyone of title is trying to show the King how faithful they are so they’ll be rewarded when it’s all over. Not one of them should ‘be here in the first place.’ But they deserve to have England protect them while they’re here. They deserve to have a sword if they need a sword.”

  “For England to protect them?” Robin said with a sly smile. “Are you familiar with the concept of war? They’re here to protect England. They’re here for their king.”

  “Please.” The open walls of the tower room afforded a breathtaking view of the city, its many tiers of rooftops cascading down to the sea walls, and the stormy seas beyond. But gorgeous as it was, it was not England. And Acre was but the first battle in the war. Nobody wanted to be here. “Show me a single man here who is honestly trying to save Jerusalem for Christianity.”

  Robin pointed his finger uselessly and let it drop. “Alright, you have a point. Call it duty then.”

  “Duty,” William echoed. “Duty is a thing you do because you have to. An obligation.”

  “Duty is a choice,” Robin countered. “You choose to do your duty against your own personal interests, and there’s tremendous sacrifice there, because it’s the right choice.”

  “Hm.” William’s father had done his duty, and it had been anything but the right choice. “The right choice is whatever protects the people.”

  “Then all the more reason, I say! If they can’t do without a sword, they should have brought their own.”

  William stared at him. “Farmers don’t usually own … are you familiar with the concept of farming?”

  “They could buy one.”

  “You just don’t want to climb that staircase again.”

  “That plays a heavy factor, yes.” Robin laughed. “But if you really think a dozen swords will make a difference, I’ll climb it again.”

  William kicked Robin’s leg playfully, and they lingered to listen as Richard hacked, coughed, probably died, and coughed again.

  “No. You’re right, they’ll have to make do. Those replacement swords … they’re not coming.” Perhaps it was Richard’s health that had him on edge. They had not discussed what would happen if his ailment went south, what an unthinkable future might hold if the king perished here. William guessed he and Robin could grab the crown, roll Richard’s body into a river, and rule England together in secret for the next five years.

  The very thought of it made him nauseous.

  Robin grunted. “We can agree that the Austrians are terrible though, right?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Useless bastards.”

  * * *

  THAT AFTERNOON, THE KING’S complement was to meet publicly with local leaders to finalize the city’s surrender. William had finally convinced Richard that “the king” needed to be present, and then successfully tricked Robin into carrying that responsibility. After all, it wouldn’t do for the king to celebrate too heavily, so William took that grave task for himself.

  The details of the surrender, of course, had been worked out privately between Richard and Saladin’s envoys over the previous week, but these things required public pomp and tradition. The war was still far from over, but Saladin’s armies had retreated from Acre.

  Robin sat high on Richard’s white horse, the king’s deeply tapered war helmet cropping his face to an indiscernible nose and chin. William stood on foot at his side, a freshly washed white tabard over his own mail. Traditionally, Richard himself would have been nearby as well, disguised as a squire in a deep hood, but his health prevented his attendance. The diplomacies would be carried out by Goddard of Leicester, Richard’s selected envoy, which meant Robin would spend his entire day only sitting on a horse looking important. Every now and then, he stole a chance to “accidentally” kick William’s helmet, and William could barely keep himself from giggling.

  The location was some holy site which was supposed to guarantee their honesty, but William could see little of importance in the dirt courtyard. Its open space was tiered with low stone rings that offered ample visibility to the center. Richard’s footmen stopped in fine formation at the edge of one tier, Robin the only one on horseback. The Saracens, of course, were denied any show of military strength, so a collection of dirty old men wrapped in dirtier rags assembled across the courtyard. They sent three of their number to the central area, where they were joined by Goddard and a few others.

  Thereupon followed an unbearably boring account of names and acreage of land proclaimed loudly by Goddard, repeated in some ungodly non-language by the elders, followed by murmurs of both spite and agreement from afar, all of which were far short of interesting. William chose to focus on anything else. Which was how it came to be that, as all other eyes were on the proceedings, he accidentally discovered he was staring at a group of two dozen men scrambling onto a rooftop several buildings away, carrying long poles.

  He blinked to be certain, and he was.

  “Robin. Danger.”

  Robin didn’t react, and William was unsure he’d been heard over Goddard’s grand voice. He glanced up at Robin who, even under his helmet, was giving him a whimsical stare.

  “I’m sure you mean Your Grace?” he corrected, deliberately.

  But William couldn’t care about his slip. He turned around to squint at the distant gathering again, just in time to realize they were not poles at all, but longbows. His gut twisted, and this time he used his full voice. “Archers!”

  He could sense the release of the arrow volley at the edge of the world, just a whisper in the air. Richard’s soldiers didn’t panic, they methodically unslung their shields and knelt in defense. William slid his own shield up to Robin, maneuvered behind the horse for protection, watching the attackers the whole time. The arrows fell limply down from above, rattling and snapping harmlessly against shields, or missing entirely. But a few screams were there, too. When the volley was over, William emerged from behind the horse to see the cluster of dignitaries in the center of the courtyard stumbling to their knees, and then the ground. Goddard, too, had been pierced through the chest, and staggered down into a lump.

  Behind William, the English soldiers that had been standing at attention, shields still raised to their shoulders, were now swarming down the terraces, good men. Battle cries, and a stampede of soldiers eager for a solid kill. But Robin, in a commanding voice that William had not heard from him before, called out, “Hold! Hold!”

  He held his broadsword aloft, demanding attention. Though the violence of the moment had taken over many, some obeyed and slid to a halt. The screams of those rushing forward died down until all were staring at Robin, sword still held high.

  Good for him, William thought. There’s a Lionheart.

  It was a hell of a moment—an army stopped in its tracks, seeking direction rather than revenge. The archers on the far rooftop were not preparing another attack, and there did not appear to be any other surprise groups making assaults. The citizens were as shocked as anyone. Had the army surged forward in retaliation, they would have butchered a hundred innocent civilians in a heartbeat. Instead, Robin only needed to send one contingent to seek out the archers and—

  “Hold!” Robin yelled again to the men. But he was jolted by his horse, kicking and fighting at the reins. William realized she had taken a few arrows in her side … and one had penetrated Robin’s shin, deep, through the muscle.

  “Hold—” once more, but the horse hopkicked in pain and Robin lurched forward.

  The movement twisted the arrow that pinned them together. Robin’s face clenched but he did not scream, unlike his mount. The animal reared up, lost her footing, and stumbled, her back legs crumpling as horse and rider came down in a horrifying crash. The roar, the roar, by God, was tenfold what it was before. The soldiers Robin had stopped pulled their steel and flowed down the garden tiers, a wave of men, then an avalanche, crying vengeance. They crashed not into but through the crowd o
f bystanders, too dumb to run or yell in their own defense.

  William grabbed Robin, kicked the arrow hard to snap its shaft, and pried his leg free of the thrashing horse. This time, Robin cried out. If not from the pain, from having lost control of the situation.

  There were more men huddled around than William could count. He stood and unsheathed his bastard sword, swinging slowly over Robin’s body, yelling for everyone to back away. The horse made a startling lurch in an attempt to rise, then screamed something hideous. The fall had given her a grievous injury, too severe for the horse to ever walk on. He plunged his sword deep through the poor beast’s throat, a black river of blood pouring out. The horse’s body spasmed and sunk, kicking as she died. William continued to push men back, and commanded two young footmen to fetch a stretcher.

  “I can walk,” protested Robin, unconvincingly. The clamor of riots in the surrounding streets undermined his calm. A glance at the offending rooftop showed the archers had since fled, or moved to defend against the advancing soldiers, or died. Probably some of all three.

  “Where the fuck is Craton?” Robin demanded of the nearest man who could possibly know. Craton, a youngish man who was better kept away from combat, should have the king’s horns.

  “Yes, good,” William agreed, chiding himself for not thinking the same. He grabbed at the nearest soldiers. “Hold this ground, there! You, I need five men on that terrace. Quickly, barricade that alleyway—no, not alone! In pairs!” He rattled off commands on instinct, ordering men to hold certain areas, to fetch runners, to check behind doorways. He did not care about fortifying the area so much as he simply wanted to give men specific responsibilities. The fewer people willing to join in on the wanton bloodshed, the better. Soon enough those men were barking commands of their own, and down the line. The two foot-soldiers returned with a stretcher, and the three of them lifted Robin onto it.