Yet so far, there were no leads. Nobody offered even the tiniest knowledge of what had happened to Jon Bassett.
It would come. It had to come.
Guy knelt and said a prayer at the base of the stone ring. Any other day this would be a bustling market, where a prayer would seem comically misplaced. But this day it was a promise that the Nottingham Guard was untouchable. There could be no mercy for the filth of the city who would target a Guardsman. The rest of his boys were busy with the gaols, sorting the people they’d arrested, but Guy wanted a short time to himself, in his streets. In a city at peace.
The baron had decreed that no one was to be harmed, and no one arrested. Guy had chosen something that was the opposite of that. Not blindly, though. He would accept the punishment—he just wanted a little bit longer.
The sixth runner was not a single man, but his entire regiment.
Reginold and Bolt, Eric, Morg, even Devon of York arrived with solemn faces. The symbolism was ham-handed, that the baron could turn Guy’s own men against him if he so wanted. They apologized, of course, but said nothing else. Their missing member was too obvious.
Guy thanked them and conceded to return to the castle in their company. He asked them about their families, and tried to give minor memorable bits of advice. He had every reason to expect it would be the last time he would interact with them as their captain.
* * *
BARON ROGER DE LACY was dining in the high keep, because of course he was. While the Nottingham Guard had orchestrated one of the strongest raids against crime in their city’s history, the man who sat in the sheriff’s seat ate honeyed bread. The hypocrisy was too obvious for mockery.
The baron was speaking with the visiting Earl of Warwick and the kingsman William de Wendenal, who had apparently become a regular participant at the sheriff’s table. Guy cared little for those who would whisper private advice into the baron’s ears, especially those who did not call Nottingham home. Wendenal’s presence in particular was mystifying—rather than return to the war, he was offering de Lacy counsel on matters he should not even be privy to. It was the sort of closeness Guy had shared with Ralph Murdac, the tightness that should be natural between a sheriff and his captain.
Roger de Lacy lifted a finger to silence their conversation upon seeing Guy. “You’ll excuse me, but discipline, by its very nature, cannot be suffered to wait.”
Guy held his chin high. “Baron, I’m told you summoned me.”
“By numerous men, and frequently. Sit.”
Guy hesitated, then threw his leg over a chair and lowered himself into it.
“Not you,” de Lacy growled, looking sharply at Morg—who had claimed a chair as well. The man flinched and stood upright, very likely shitting every inch of his considerably sized pants.
Guy dismissed his men and waited to speak until they were gone. “Baron, have you not received my reports from the field?”
“From the field? Did you make it all the way to Jerusalem? Yes, I received many men who reported your circumstances, and I asked the same question to each one. Why was I speaking with him instead of you?” De Lacy aggrandized with his hands and lilted through his sentences the way a bad storyteller tells a joke. “Each one had the same answer, that they were only doing as they were told. Obedience. A curious trend amongst your men, from the lowest guard and up, but mysteriously stops just shy of captain.”
If the baron meant to take his station from him, Guy would much prefer it happen without a performance. He had no problem admitting his faults, but disloyalty was not one of them. “If they reported properly,” he said, “then you understand the reason for my absence.”
“Indeed, you misplaced one of your men,” de Lacy answered coldly. “You must have left him next to your common sense. I understand you spent a week searching the Sherwood for both of them.”
“I have reason to believe,” Guy paced his words, “that one of my best men is being held captive by the outlaws in the forest.”
William de Wendenal spoke up. “My friend Robin is still with those outlaws. He would not allow that to happen. I could have told you as much.”
“And as you say, he is one of your men,” de Lacy added. “One. There are many more of them that needed your leadership here. And you are one of my men. Your duty is to me. If I decide to waste my captain’s time searching for a lost dog, you will permit me to make that decision for myself.”
The Earl of Warwick seemed concerned. “Your man,” he asked, “has he been found?”
Guy answered reluctantly. “No.”
“If Warwick can be of any assistance, you have our support.”
“Take that offer back,” de Lacy interrupted. “Tell me Gisbourne, do you have any evidence that these outlaws took him prisoner?”
“He was left behind with them—”
“It was a yes or no question. Did you have evidence?”
Guy fumed, but swallowed his pride. “No.”
“No?” De Lacy feigned surprise. “But we sent our captain and his best men out to the Sherwood to look for them. Surely there was some proof? No evidence to justify using our best resources?”
Only common sense, and the lies of the coward knight FitzOdo. “No.”
“No. There has been no body, no ransom, no demand. So instead you return to the city and take your failures out on the river gangs, I am told. You’ve conducted these mass arrests. Were they productive? Did you find your man held captive in a shack by the Trent?”
“No.” Guy’s lips moved, but his teeth did not. “But I have rea—”
“That’s the third ‘no’ you’ve told me today. I trust it is the last of its kind.”
“Yes, Baron.”
“‘Yes, Baron,’” de Lacy mocked his tone. “Always ‘Sheriff’ when you agree with me, but ‘Baron’ when you do not.”
“The city has been in an uproar,” the earl muttered. “I cannot imagine the difficulty of containing it. What was the Guardsman’s name?”
“Jon Bassett,” Guy answered with precision, only to the earl. “He was also a friend.”
“I can’t listen to this,” Wendenal scoffed. “Your friend, one of your best men? Jon Bassett is a monster. Do you know about what he did? Have you even seen Arable since you’ve returned?”
“Arable?” That name took Guy by surprise. The handmaiden who had alerted him about Bassett’s abuse of power months ago. He had no idea how she was involved.
“He cut her up,” Wendenal spat it out. “He dragged a knife across both sides of her face and you have the audacity to defend him.”
Guy was speechless. He did not think he could feel more betrayed than he already did, but he had no doubt it was true. If Bassett had deduced that Arable had identified him, and connected that to Guy’s loss of faith in him—it was not unthinkable at all. The poor girl.
“I consider Miss Arable a personal friend,” the baron continued, stone-faced. “If you are successful in finding your man, I can assure you he will face dire consequences for this. So if you need any reason at all to question his disappearance, I would think you need no more than that.”
“There you have it.” The Earl of Warwick slapped his hands together. “I’ve seen this tale a dozen times. A Guardsman thinks he’s above the law, snaps one day and goes too far, then flees. If he’s with those outlaws of yours, it’s probably because he’s joined them!”
Guy refused to believe it. If Bassett were going to desert the Guard, he wouldn’t do it in the middle of a mission. Would he?
Given their history, there was no knowing what else Bassett was capable of. He had planned to beat a gerold, he had apparently assaulted Arable, and he was bitter about losing his status. If Guy had missed all the warning signs, he could easily have misinterpreted the man’s loyalty as well. And all of this, every last bit of it, fell on Guy’s head. If he had not told Bassett about the gerolds in the first place …
If de Lacy had not issued that infernal policy …
The Sh
eriff, against all odds, seemed to take a cue from Guy’s silence. “It’s not easy when one of your own turns against you, I know. Let him go. And try not to blame yourself.”
Beneath the baron’s words was an impossibly self-righteous snark. It said, It was your man, not a gerold, that betrayed you. It said, You never get to question me again.
Guy was too afire to fight back. “As you say.”
“Very well.” De Lacy pivoted in his chair. “As for this river gang, would you care to make a proper report? I’ve heard of your exploits in the city, but not from your own lips. We have a lot of damage to undo.”
Guy blinked, unsure he had heard the command properly. He had expected this conversation to end his career, but the baron seemed content to let it lie. He should have been relieved, but it was somehow even more insulting.
“Yes, Sheriff,” he stammered to collect his thoughts. It would take an hour to describe the events of the past few days, and the details would be wasted on de Lacy. He didn’t know the city, not in the intimate way Guy did. Guy could list a dozen places they had raided and de Lacy wouldn’t understand the difference between any of them, he wouldn’t know the history of the gangs who claimed those areas, nor their subtleties. The last three days had been a marathon of peacekeeping, which involved more than just sending Guardsmen into buildings and yelling at whomsoever they found. But de Lacy’s understanding of the real work it took to keep a city safe was amateur at best, so that’s what Guy gave him.
“We’ve raided every alley between Red Lion Street and Leenside. Sixty men arrested the first day alone. The gangs know they’re not allowed to target Guardsmen. There has been some resistance, but no casualties on our side.”
“What about their side?” William de Wendenal asked.
“What about their side?” Guy shot back. “Even if Bassett turned deserter, as you say, the rumor holds that the forest outlaws have him. These gangs have ties with them, which means they share responsibility for capturing a Guardsman. What do you suppose the people think when they hear something like that?”
Someone like Wendenal couldn’t understand why Guy had used such strength. It was not petty vengeance. If the citizens of Nottingham thought the Guard couldn’t protect its own men, they would not feel safe themselves. The people would instead turn to the gangs for protection, who would have run of the city within days. Even the slightest dent in the Guard’s reputation could have disastrous effects. Men like Wendenal simply saw this as vanity.
“So instead, we’re the ones to fill the streets with violence.” De Lacy’s eyes drifted lazily to the tall vaulted ceiling. “And what do we lose while the city lives in fear? When you scare everyone out of the markets, how are they to make their living? When there is no one brave enough to step outside, who suffers most? You cannot arrest everyone unfortunate enough to live in the alleys. We cannot declare a civil war within our own city, we cannot have its inhabitants terrified to live here—”
“We cannot have our men taken prisoner—”
“—I cannot have you interrupting me again.” The Sheriff’s nostrils flared and his skin shivered. “Your impatience has wrought terror on this town. I want this resolved peacefully, immediately, and with as much favor toward the poorest of our city as possible.”
Guy bristled, but there was no point in arguing. Regardless of who de Lacy blamed for their current situation, the chaos of their effort was already over. The baron seemed to think the city was at its own heels over this, but Guy’s men had already wrestled it back to civility, and a calm it had not known for some time. He didn’t need any praise for that.
“Yes, Sheriff,” he said, as humbly as possible. “Very clear.”
“I didn’t ask if I made myself clear!” De Lacy’s eyes were red, he raced through his sentences with ferocity, just barely able to chomp out each word before the next came on its heels. “I am not interested in your assessment of my clarity. I know I made myself clear by speaking clearly to begin with.”
In a flash he was done, returning to his meal as if there were no argument at all. Guy waited, to see what further instruction or insult de Lacy felt like delivering. But his cares seemed to withdraw to a size no larger than the plate in front of him.
“If I may,” Wendenal broke the silence. “It seems this has gotten out of hand. You say that you want this resolved peacefully? I could arrange to bring the leader of the outlaws here to talk. You may recall that John Little was willing to meet—”
“You and your damned peace talks!” de Lacy burst again with no warning. “I’ve already said no to that idea, why do you keep bringing it up? No, we will not meet with them. No, we will not invite them to the castle and talk it out.”
Wendenal shoved his plate away with both hands. “Why not? You say you want a peace and it’s right in front of you, why won’t you reach your hand out?”
“Do you honestly not understand this?” De Lacy’s jowls shook. “You’re right, we could have a peace with them, today. Today is not a timeline I care about. My duty is to care for Nottingham’s future, William, which means making decisions that protect her beyond the horizon. These thieves, these brigands, they have stolen from the king and attacked our men. What sort of message does it send if we invite them to a table? The next group sees us bending over and knows they can make us bend farther. They learn they can get what they want by hurting us, because we’re willing to compromise. They take that vulnerability and exploit it. No, William, no! We cannot publicly acknowledge them as anything but monsters, not now, not ever. And it’s not because they’re actually monsters, it’s because it would invite the real monsters to come to the feast.”
Guy was dumbfounded. For once, he was in absolute, perfect agreement with Roger de Lacy.
William stammered to respond. “They’re just people, Baron. They’re not asking for much.”
“They’re not asking for anything, they’re demanding it.” De Lacy smashed a roll of bread to pieces and grabbed at its remains. “If a man came in here right now and demanded a single crumb from this table, I wouldn’t give it to him. No matter what he threatened. Not if he held a hundred of my men prisoner, not if my very life was in the balance. You would sit there and judge me, call me a mule for refusing to budge, letting my men be slaughtered while ‘they’re not asking for much.’ Not a damned crumb, no. Because the next man demands the whole basket. And after that, the castle. We. Do. Not. Negotiate. Not with men who use fear as a weapon.”
William’s only response was to swallow, and shrink into himself.
“Are these people terrible?” de Lacy continued. “No. I sympathize with them, I do. I want what’s best for them, but not at the expense of what is good for us. Right now, their only power is to terrorize us. If we allow ourselves to feel threatened, their power grows. We have already made this situation worse than it should be. We fueled their need for an enemy, and they rallied at it. The only proper response against fear is to laugh at it. To ignore it. That is why I did not want to meet with them, and it’s why I did not want to hunt them down, either.” He turned sharply upon Guy at this. “Yes, they have wronged us, but we can choose not to react. We can let it slide, let them disappear, let it go. We don’t need to win. We can stop this cycle of taking an eye for an eye, before every one of us is left blind.”
Guy felt genuinely humbled. He had not seen such raw emotion from the Sheriff before. It was like hearing a man’s final confession on his death bed. His desire for forgiveness, it was commendable. He could see now, it was why de Lacy asked him to forget about Bassett. It was the reason Guy still held the title of Captain. It was an enviable fantasy, but whether it could ever work in the real world …
From the side of the room, one of the servant girls was quietly crying. She apologized and dismissed herself, and they continued their meal in silence. All around the table, the others focused on their food. The earl softened his bread with some peppered oil and strawberries. Behind Guy, the slightest shift reminded him that his ass
istant Ferrers was still there, glued to the wall as though he were furnishing. A new girl refilled their wine, the sound of men practicing at swordplay clattered in from the windows, and the breathing of the table eventually relaxed.
After some time, the Sheriff met Guy’s eyes, no sign of ferocity left in them. “Is there anything else? I should let you to your work.”
Guy nearly stood but stalled. There was indeed something else that had been brewing, a byproduct of their massive arrests in the previous few days—a bitter business with no proper solution. He had been dreading its resolution, but it was the sort of decision that would be best made with the Sheriff’s consent. No part of him wanted to make the choice alone.
“Sheriff, if you will. Another matter requires your counsel.”
“I hope the matter is more tender than this pig,” de Lacy poked at his meal.
“Most of the people we arrested will be released, of course. Perhaps a day or two in gaol will loosen someone’s memory, but then we’ll throw them back in the pond. However,” Guy continued delicately, “some of them fought against my men. These agitators, we should be certain that they … serve their full sentence.”
De Lacy grumbled longer than necessary, eyeing the earl. “What my captain is indelicately referring to is an edict I gave earlier this year that recruits Guardsmen from the prisons. King Richard’s taxes have provided us a surplus of healthy useful men wasting away in our prisons. I’ve given them a second chance, and it’s not up for discussion.”
The earl nodded, though his doubt was obvious. Any halfway competent man would be quick to question the logic of the policy. But Guy continued, “We can’t offer this second chance to any of these new prisoners.”
“So we won’t.”
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