Nottingham

by Nathan Makaryk

  “You think I’m beautiful?” she played along. “Well I don’t mind being robbed at all now. Take it all! Take me, too!” She thrust herself at Locksley. Another wave of reaction from the crowd, divided evenly by sex. The men hooted as she draped backward across the stump, while the women moaned in annoyance.

  Locksley didn’t take the crowd’s bait. “Maybe another time,” he smiled, and swung out of the fake carriage. “On your way, my dear, and remember, this is our secret!”

  He blew a kiss to her and she melted even further, letting her head nearly touch the ground as her body went limp. She knew what effect she had on men. Locksley, too, must be imagining her in a dozen other positions by now. Let him wonder.

  “Here’s something for your troubles,” Locksley said, tossing nothing at Will, who stood blankly.

  “What was that?”

  “That was an invisible coin you failed to catch. Always give a little something back to the carriage driver.”

  “What?” Will threw his hands up. “We give it right back?”

  “The driver’s not rich. And we want him to keep driving through the forest, don’t we? His passengers won’t know we’re giving it back to him. Keeps him from deciding on taking different paths, or asking his big strong friends to ride along for protection. And always leave to the back of the carriage,” he said, pushing Alan off with him, “even if that’s the wrong way for us. That way they think they’re safe by moving forward.”

  Arthur shouted a question from the crowd that stilled the merriment. “What are we supposed to do with diamonds?” Nobody had an answer. “Who are we going to sell them to? Hell if I know anyone. You can’t eat it. You can’t sleep under it. It won’t warm you at night. It’ll go with you to your grave, and only help you get there sooner.”

  “I’m sure there are some who may be able to use it.” Locksley’s eyes looked out to the crowd and found Marion. She stood wrapped in her green cloak, watching from a distance, only rarely joining in on their mirth. She raised an eyebrow in silent agreement. But it wasn’t the answer they needed.

  “So what’s the point?” Will asked.

  “What’s the point?” Locksley repeated, tapping the tip of his bow on the stump next to him. He nodded vigorously, his eyes moved about the crowd. He chose one person in particular and asked the question back. “What do you suppose the point is?”

  Along with the others, Elena craned her neck to see who had been singled out. She had not even realized he was there to watch. Jon Bassett, the injured gord they had nursed back to health, sat at the back with his hands tied together and a face closed tight as a fist. He was rightfully bewildered to be the target of the question, but then again his tiny gord brain was likely to be bewildered by the sun’s disappearance each night.

  Locksley repeated his question, with undeserved kindness. “You’re our guest here, and I’d like your opinion, too. Do you suppose any of this will work?”

  The gord squinted, chewing it over. That was an instant liar’s tell, and it meant the next string of words that fell out of his mouth would be utter horseshit.

  It was inexcusable that they had brought him all the way back to their camp, and few of the others seemed to understand what that meant. They thought they were in trouble for the fight at Locksley Castle, but that wasn’t it at all. The Red Lions scrapped with the Guard all the time in Nottingham, it was part of the game. But targeting a gord, making it personal, that was a line that every gang runt knew to never cross. By taking Jon Bassett prisoner, they’d gone too far.

  The moment they set him free, they’d have to abandon this camp. The only alternative was to make sure he never made it back to Nottingham. But Elena wasn’t sure any of them had the stones for that, even herself. Not in cold blood. Not without a fight.

  Not unless the gords crossed that line first.

  “It will work,” Jon Bassett said.

  Elena watched the crowd warm to him. They had already forgotten what he represented, and why he was here. She regretted playing along now, if it made even one of them feel somehow safer. Those that weren’t at the attack at Locksley Castle, the families here in the Oak Camp, just saw an injured man. They ate up his words as if he were promising them new peace and freedom. He told them Locksley’s plan would work, the Nottingham Guard would turn a blind eye to their new tactics. That they would no longer be worthy of the Sheriff’s attention. They ate his lies like candy, but the only thing he truly promised them was danger.

  “Don’t make yourselves a problem for us,” he lied and he lied and he lied, “and we’ll never know you were there.”

  * * *

  “THEY BELIEVE HIM, BECAUSE he says what they want to hear,” Will complained, later that night in their tent. He was agitated, on his back, but slowly tracing the length of her shin with his finger. She sat beside him, busying herself with his hair, roughing it up and smoothing it out, over and over. “They don’t think. They don’t ask questions.”

  “We know better than to trust a gord,” she answered him. Anyone who had lived under the Nottingham Guard’s boot would know better. They had lost friends to such empty promises. Over-zealous guards trying to make a name for themselves, offering leniency to little fish in exchange for bigger ones. The lure of an easy life was attractive to young boys and girls in the streets. The Guard preyed on that vulnerability, their desperation. Close friends in the Red Lions had been betrayed, closer friends had been the ones doing the betraying. None of them received what they were promised. They all ended in irons.

  “God’s fucking teeth, how can they think he’ll keep his word?”

  “Because they don’t know,” she said, wishing that saying it could fix it. “They’re not us.”

  “This’d be a lot simpler if he’d just died like a good boy.”

  She stared down into him until he noticed her pause. “Would it?”

  After a quiet breath, he shook it off. “You’re right, that’d be worse. But it’s still a shithole, what we’re in.”

  “What you’re saying,” she resumed stroking her fingers through his hair, “is that we’re at a disadvantage.”

  He closed his eyes and grunted.

  “So do what you do. How do we turn this disadvantage into an advantage instead?”

  It was a puzzle, really, a game they’d often played with each other on the road. One would concoct an unsalvageable scenario, and the other would invent an ingenious escape. The riddles always eventually devolved into flying away on dragons, which was probably not an option for them now.

  “He’s not going to die on his own, and we’re not going to kill him,” he raised a finger for each fact they knew, “and he’s going to tell his gord chums all about us.”

  “But we can decide,” she closed a fist around his third finger, “what he tells them.”

  He considered it, then drew her hand down and kissed her knuckles. “Who cares if they know about us?”

  “Who cares if they know about us?” she echoed, the truth of it hitting her at the same time. They never hid their existence as Red Lions back in Nottingham, they never thought that being discovered meant the end of it all. “Everyone’s worried that if a gord so much as looks our way, we’ll all instantly hang for it.”

  “That’s just because they don’t know better,” Will continued the thought. “This is their first time breaking the law.”

  “Exactly. The Guard never chased us out of Red Lion Square, even though they knew we were there. So why not?”

  “We weren’t a big enough problem to them, not worth the hassle.”

  “That’s only half of it.” Elena tugged his hair back. “We were also too dangerous for them to try. That’s the balance. Too small to be worth it, but too big to squash for fun. We could make it work out here, same as it worked in the city. Never being more trouble than we’re worth, we find a few corrupt gords and keep them fat and fucked … it can work. Same rules, bigger playground.”

  “Well the first part is handled.” He
scratched at his chin. “That Bassett fellow surely sees we’re not much trouble anymore, what with Robin’s plan.”

  “But there’s nothing to stop him from marching his friends back here and arresting everyone.” Elena finished it. “So we handle the second part—we make sure he knows we’re dangerous, too.”

  Will’s hand paused on her leg, thinking it through. “Robin wants us to make friends. Can’t remember the last time a gang got any stronger by giving all their coin out.”

  “I know.”

  He snorted softly. “What are we even doing, Lena?”

  “I know.”

  “Stealing from rich old ladies, and politicians? Only taking enough that the Sheriff doesn’t fight back? What’s the point of all this?”

  “I know.”

  “You know what, I want the Sheriff to know about us.” He sat up, moving his hands down to massage her foot. “I want him to fear us. We’ve been driven off our own lands for no reason, and Robin wants us to go out of our way to not make him angry now?” Will shook his head.

  “Robin’s only here through the end of the month. After this settles down, we run things our own way. We need to show Bassett what that means.”

  “I don’t see what everyone likes about him,” he whispered.

  “Bassett?”

  “Robin.”

  She placed both her hands on his cheeks and looked him square. “He’ll be gone before we know it. And who’s been fighting from the beginning? You’re a thousand Robins.”

  He breathed in, all the way, and out again. Twice.

  “What if we just scare the shit out of him?” he asked with a boyish chuckle. “The gord.”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “Gilbert,” he said.

  She loved it. “Gilbert.”

  He leaned over to kiss her shoulder, and a shiver shot up her spine. “In a clean fight, by the way, Robin wouldn’t stand a chance,” he said, moving to her neck, and he never lied to her.

  * * *

  THE GORD ATE WITH them the next night, around a large fire. He drank their hot apple cider, he joked with Friar Tuck about mishearing his name as Friar Tug. Some of the young boys in the camp spent the rest of the evening rushing up and grabbing at his tunic, yelling “Tug!” Elena watched Much run up to the gord with a mouth full of food and show it to him, as if he were some brother to play with. It was like watching a child play with a sharp knife, and it put Elena’s nerves on edge. But she had plans now to deal with him, which blunted the edge a fair shade.

  She was just waiting for the moment to play her hand.

  “We’ll escort you out of the Sherwood,” Marion was saying. “I think we’ve proven that we don’t mean you any harm.”

  Bassett nodded, staring into his cup. “You’ve been kind. My chest still hurts like a fucking…” He trailed off and looked at John Little, who winced in apology. “But I get it,” he finished. “I do. I get it.”

  “You’ll talk to William de Wendenal, then?” Locksley patted the man’s shoulders. “Let him know we’re ready to talk?”

  “I will.”

  “Gilbert’s prepping the horses,” Elena said, as nonchalantly as possible.

  But Marion immediately pricked an eyebrow at her. “Gilbert? No, Amon can take him back.”

  Elena did her best to pretend that was surprising. “Why?”

  Marion had no response, she just shrugged and waffled. “This is important, and I trust Amon.”

  “And you don’t trust Gilbert?”

  “It’s not that.”

  “Because he’s weird?” Elena put as much accusation into the word as she could.

  Locksley had no problem saying it. “Well he is weird.”

  “We’re all weird,” Elena splayed her hands out at the group around them. “Everyone thinks Gilbert is some sort of ghost story or something, just because he sticks to himself. Not everyone needs the world to like them, you know?”

  Locksley gave a half laugh but stopped himself, because he always laughed, and it was exactly what she was describing.

  “I’ve known Gilbert for years, and he’s more than a glove, he’s more than a spear lurking out at the edge of camp. Just because he doesn’t talk to anyone, you all assume he’s some sort of madman who can’t be trusted. You trust this man,” she pointed her finger as Bassett, “because he has a handsome face with a big friendly smile, even though he was trying to kill us five days ago. But not Gilbert. Gilbert has a creepy hand and an ugly face, so he must be some sort of monster.”

  Marion looked genuinely hurt. “Elena, I didn’t … I’m sorry. Gilbert can take him, it doesn’t matter.”

  Elena shook it off.

  Perfect.

  * * *

  AT THE FIRST SIGN of the half-moon in the black night, they took Jon Bassett to the edge of the glen. The fading murmurs of the camp clung to the edge of hearing, the fires eclipsed by the thickening trees.

  “Put this on.” She handed a roughspun tunic to their guest. “We can’t be seen escorting a Guardsman as a prisoner, now can we? And you’ll wear a hood until you make it to the road.”

  Shortly thereafter Gilbert joined them, holding the reins to his horse gingerly with his gloved hand. Elena helped the gord up, but then climbed behind him and pulled the hood over his head.

  “Answer him honestly,” she whispered in his ear, “or I can’t protect you.”

  “What?” Bassett asked, jerking fruitlessly, but she slipped down and motioned for Gilbert to do his part.

  “What are you going to tell your captain?” Gilbert asked. He rarely spoke, and when he did it was not with the gravel one expected from a man of his curiosity. His voice was clean and smooth, like a songbird, or wind through the reeds.

  “What do you mean?” Bassett asked in a panicked breath.

  “About us,” Gilbert drew close on his horse. “What will you tell them about what you’ve seen?”

  “I’ll tell them the truth,” came the voice under the hood, hurried and uncertain. “I’ll tell them you’re not a threat, that it’s a waste of our time to worry about you. I’ll tell them you’re just trying to take care of your own. That you’re just like us.” His voice petered out, empty.

  Gilbert’s tone was indifferent. “I’m not like them. I’m something different, aren’t I? So I need you to know something. If you’re lying to me, I will find you again. I will cut off your eyelids and let your eyes dry in their sockets. I’ll slice your cock in half, down its length, and let it heal, only to do it again. I won’t kill you, but your life will be over, as it were. I kept a man like that for six months once. He ate his own tongue, and most of his left arm, and he thanked me for serving it to him. This is your future if you lie to me. I keep a place in the city, I have Guardsmen who owe me far more than your little life. I promise you there’s no place you’re safe from me, should I choose to want you. As it were. If you intend on bringing your captain and his men back to hunt these people down, that’s fine. I don’t care at all. I really don’t. The only thing I care about, right now, is the truth, isn’t it? Do you understand what I have said to you, yes or no?”

  Bassett’s breath was dry, he turned hoarse. “Yes. Yes I do.”

  “So what are you going to say about us?”

  “The same as I told you before. That’s God’s truth.”

  Gilbert looked down at Elena for approval, and she shrugged. There was no knowing if it would work, but one thing was certain. Bassett would tell the story to his friends.

  Every gang needed a reputation.

  TWENTY-SIX

  GUY OF GISBOURNE

  NOTTINGHAM

  THE FIFTH RUNNER WAS a skinny lad in the Common Guard named George Sutton. The fifth summons in two hours, and the fifth distraction. It wasn’t George’s fault he had been sent, and he nearly tripped over his own words trying to speak. “The Sheriff demands your presence, imm-m-m-ediately,” he mumbled, fearing retribution. Guy simply thanked him. He didn’t punish people for follow
ing orders. But he had little interest at the moment in doing so himself.

  The streets in Nottingham were grim and empty, and he did not like the haunted quality it gave his city. But grim and empty was what the situation called for. Nor was the city quite as barren as it seemed—Guy could feel eyes behind him. Window shutters twitched as he turned, and silhouettes in the shadows melted into walls. It was silent enough that he could hear bird calls above, but half of them seemed positively human.

  Perhaps there were some in the city that feared him, and rightfully so. If they were afraid of the Nottingham Guard, then all the better they lock themselves away. The rest of the city, the goodfolk, deserved to have the streets to themselves for a while. They deserved to feel protected again.

  It had been a merciless few days since he had returned to Nottingham, despondent and empty-handed. But he had learned one useful bit of information in his extra time away. He had called upon some of his old informants from the city in the desperate hope they might know anything about the woodland rebels. Instead he learned something about the girl who had put a sword to his throat, Elena Gamwell, and her lover, Will Scarlet. Something even Devon of York hadn’t been able to tell him.

  They were Red Lions.

  Guy followed the wharfside alleys rather than the Long Stair. He wanted the grime of it. His feet led him to Red Lion Square, the fishmarket by the river Trent that had been long plagued by the worst of the city’s gang activity. The market was deserted now, the fish pool had been drained, the stalls dismantled. His men had erased it from the city, and would not allow any reminder of its presence.

  Instead they would feel its absence. They would realize they had lost something. They would feel the consequences of what it truly meant to steal. If the Red Lions were involved with the criminals in the Sherwood, then they were responsible for anything that happened to Jon Bassett as well. This message would get back to them. If you take something of ours, we can take something of yours. If the forest outlaws were supplied by their counterparts in the city, they’d feel this right in their bellies. For two straight days the Guard had swept up every last trace of the river gangs and doled out justice.