“All over, sir.” Munday bowed. “A lot of people come through this road, and every one of them has heard about you. Everyone knows Robin Hood and his men are stealing from the rich and giving back to the people!”
“His men?” asked a small blond whelp with his arm around a bony girl.
The girl echoed with “His men?”
Stutely knew the stories were lies. “Who in their right mind would just throw away good coin, eh? What sort of trick is this?”
The troll and Robin Hood tried to say the gold was real, which was as sure a sign as any that it wasn’t, since that would be exactly what a bunch of liars would say.
“Is Robin Hood the only name you’ve heard of?” asked the blond.
“No, no,” Munday laughed, “there are stories about all his men, too!”
“Oh good! Have you heard of Will Scarlet?”
“Yes! Yes,” Munday scratched his head again as he tried to remember the stories. “Yes! They say Will Scarlet wanted to join up with Robin and his men, and he found them in the middle of the Sherwood Forest. Scarlet challenged Robin Hood to an archery contest in order to join the group. He handed one arrow to Robin and said, ‘I’ll bet you can’t hit that tree down yonder.’ So Scarlet shot an arrow first and hit the tree right in the middle. Then Robin pulled his arrow back, let it fly, and it split Scarlet’s arrow in half, feather to head, right down the middle!”
The blond’s face went red and he started yelling things, even as Munday finished. “They say he’s the best archer in all the lands!”
“That’s not what happened!”
“That’s exactly what happened, my friends!” yelled the big man from the cart, climbing down and laughing. He was big, bigger even than Stutely, which meant he was fat and probably slow, too. “You want to know about Robin Hood? The real story? Robin Hood was fighting with King Richard himself, you know. He’s the son of a rich land owner…”
“Did he call me a son of a bitch? What are you telling him about me?” Robin asked, but the giant shoved him off, walking away with Munday and a crowd of people interested in hearing more lies. Robin Hood looked at Stutely as they left.
“None of those stories are true, you know. Robin Hood? Where’d I get that name from?”
His friend the troll laughed and flicked at the hood he was wearing. “You wear a hood,” he pointed out. Stutely laughed. This Robin was as thick as Munday if he didn’t even remember what he was wearing.
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Listen now,” he looked Stutely square in the eye, “don’t you go running around telling those stories anymore. I don’t need my name out there attached to all this. If you hear someone tell a story about this Robin Hood, you just tell them it’s a complete lie, and the real Robin is nothing like what they say.”
“I knew it wasn’t real!” Stutely gloated, looking around, but there was nobody close enough to hear. It was just the troll, Robin, and a short lady with dark strawberry hair. She had strong child-bearing hips and no man with an arm around her. “I knew he wasn’t nothing. What makes him so different ’en me? That’s what I’d like to know.”
“Nothing,” Robin answered curtly. “That’s the point. I’m just like you.”
“Well, you’re not just like me, now are you?” Stutely asked, flashing a smile to the strawberry woman, whose eyes widened. She knew it, too. Stutely was ten times the man of any Robin Hood. “There ain’t much to you, now is there, and not even a little boy’s beard!”
“That’s not quite what I meant,” Robin said, but the woman who was slowly falling for Stutely found it amusing. “I mean about being a hero. I’m the same as anyone.”
“The same as me? Did you put antlers on your head when you heard the Sheriff?”
Robin blinked. “I don’t know what that means. You’re missing the point, friend.”
That’s right, Stutely winked at his new lady. I’m a fancy talker, with lots of words, even the great Robin Hood can’t keep up with me. He resolved to start telling everyone Robin was a wanted poacher, too. That ought to make them believe his story about the stag.
They walked for a bit together, and Stutely meant to aim them to a place where he could give the woman an opportunity to sit down and take her clothes off. But he noticed her arm slip under Robin’s, and Stutely knew she wasn’t for him. What a woman like her could see in a lying coward like Robin Hood, he didn’t know. She had probably never even been with a man, and liked Robin because he reminded her of her girlish playmates.
They continued talking about themselves, and Stutely tricked them into walking ahead so he could fall behind and leave without them noticing. They’d be so puzzled when they realized he was missing, and would wish they had asked him more about himself when they’d had the chance. But they didn’t really deserve to hear any stories about Stutely’s bravery. They liked to talk haughtily about feelings and ideas, and there wasn’t anything Stutely hated more than people who were full of themselves, and so out of touch with the real world.
Eventually the visitors all returned to their cart and said their goodbyes. Near everyone was out to give thanks to the “hero” that Stutely alone had actually met. He’d be sure to correct their opinions once the cart left. The troll pulled a leaf-shaped lute from the wagon and strummed a chord, to the delight of all those around. Stutely could have played it better, but most instruments were built so poorly they broke when he played them. The troll sang a verse,
Stop and listen, gentlemen,
That be of freeborn blood,
And I shall tell of a goodly man,
His name is Robin Hood.
Robin was a prude outlaw,
And against the law he fought,
So courteous a leader as he was one …
Whether he wants to be or not!
They laughed, and the villagers laughed, and everyone laughed because not one of them knew anything about the truth. Stutely took the chance to grab the blond’s elbow as he moved to catch up with the wagon.
“The stories aren’t true about him, you know. He’s nobody. That’s all he is.”
“I know.” The boy scowled. “He’s a joke.”
“Thanks.” His girl scrunched her face, then grinned at the boy. “So you mean Robin Hood didn’t split your arrow in half?”
“He broke it over his knee!” he yelled out angrily as they both leaned into a run to catch up. The singing and laughter drifted away down the road, and the people of Thorney watched them leave and then started talking amongst themselves about their good luck and what they were going to do with the coin they’d received or how well they’d eat tonight.
Except for Stutely. He wouldn’t eat a single apple they’d brought, if they’d brought apples, or anything else that had been given by Robin the Liar. He’d said it himself, he was nothing special, just a coward with important friends. And now that they’d gone, there was nobody in Thorney better for having met them.
They’d eat fine tonight, but come tomorrow they’d rely on old Stutely again to push the ’barrow, and then they’d see what a real hero was. Not a smooth-faced boyman who sings his way into town and gives out stolen food, but a big strong man with a big strong beard, who provides for them day in and out, with never a care for himself in the world. They’d see, and they’d thank him one day, and they’d sing songs about him, too, and wouldn’t wrinkle their nose so much when he walked by, or laugh at him behind his back, which he always heard.
PART IV
A NECESSARY CRUELTY
TWENTY-SEVEN
ARABLE DE BUREL
NOTTINGHAM, MARKET SQUARE
“THE CRAFTSMANSHIP IS MEDIOCRE, the design uninspired and asymmetrical,” complained the Lady Margery d’Oily, casually listing the flaws of the rolled carpet that settled heavily over Arable’s shoulders. “Whoever made it clearly thought its value was proportional to the amount of time she wasted upon it.”
“Then whyever did you purchase it?” asked the Wilford sister.
<
br /> To break my spine, Arable might have answered.
“For normalcy’s sake, dear.” Lady Margery’s lips gave a smile that her eyes did not share. “The Market Square is a tangible metaphor for the health of the city. We must do what we can to nurse her back.”
Who’s going to nurse my back?
She groaned. Humility struck one of the Guardsmen in their entourage, who offered to take the carpet from Arable’s shoulders in exchange for a silk-lined box of beeswax candles. Arable whispered a thank you to him, and massaged her shoulders as she regained her bearings.
The Market Square indeed seemed sickly to Arable, as it had been for nearly two weeks. Ever since the Nottingham Guard raided the Red Lion Fishmarket, the city streets were practically graveyards. The Guard had clamped down the city like a judicious parent, needing little reason to arrest anyone they saw. Arable had mixed feelings about it all. The Guard was still searching for Jon Bassett, and while she hoped they never found him, the city would suffer until their manhunt was over. Apparently they had yet to identify even a single person linked to Bassett’s disappearance. The anonymity of that was somewhat rewarding—as if the entire world had collectively agreed it was better without him. But by punishing no one, the Guard was punishing everyone. It someway gave legitimacy to Bassett as a human, when his absence should have gone as unrecognized as the swatting of a fly.
In the end, the Guard blankly blamed “the gangs,” which led to this imposing new policing of the streets. Many of those arrested had since been released, and now the Guard was focused on keeping the city safe from retaliation. Even still, the city markets remained desolate. A few older vendors had recently braved the opportunity to return to the Market Square, and Lady Margery had insisted on spending her coin.
Her husband’s coin, actually, as she had been quick to correct. “And I am eager to trade it for anything that will infuriate him.”
Lady Margery had admittedly grown on Arable. Her husband, the Earl of Warwick, had departed Nottingham the previous night without his wife, which Lady Margery found little mercy in mocking. “Serves him right for keeping me in the dark. Always wrapped in ham-handed conspiracy and political scheming. He would have you believe there is an incalculable machination that guides all events, from the assignments of new earls to the schedule of their bowel movements.”
“My goodness, Lady d’Oily,” balked Lady Delaney Oughtibridge. “Whatever must they think of you?”
Lady Delaney was a furious weaving of self-indulgence and self-pity, and Arable took a moment to consider how much more pleasant she would be were she falling down a well. The woman was exactly as useful as the carpet Lady Margery had purchased. Most of the ladies in their throng were equally intolerable. The sisters from Bridgeford and Wilford—Alison and Avery—were the terribly important daughters of a terribly important lord who arranged a terribly important set of marriages in exchange for something long lost and forgotten. Now the sisters found little joy in life aside from traveling to Nottingham to glimpse the notoriety their lives would never have.
Not that Arable could complain. She, too, was the daughter of a once-prestigious family, notable now only for how efficiently it had been removed from existence. She wondered with a grim nostalgia if she might have ended up just like them, had she not been thrust from that life before it was too late.
Their group was rounded out by a few younger ladies, a throng of attendants such as Arable, and an uncomfortable complement of Guardsmen. Whatever hope Lady Margery held of inspiring confidence in the city’s market dashed against the perimeter of those Guardsmen. Their presence assured each merchant no other customer would visit so long as the ladies lingered, which led to Lady Margery’s decision to use them as beasts of burden. The Guardsmen bore the bulk of her purchases, including five baskets of white grapes, a series of bronze hammered jewelry boxes, and two bolts of widow-lace satin. The man who had shouldered the rolled carpet for Arable already appeared to regret his chivalry.
“None of it will do,” Lady Delaney lamented melodramatically, turning away from the vendor stalls. “I need earrings, or a necklace, but only of the highest quality.” She sighed deeply, as if she had expected to find such craftsmanship in the aftermath streets.
Lady Margery said nothing, earning more of Arable’s admiration.
“I don’t know if I mentioned it,” Lady Delaney repeated herself to the younger girls who were kind enough to pretend she had not, “but on the twelfth of October we were robbed on our way here from Oughtibridge. It was Robin Hood himself, you know, and he climbed into my carriage and took my brooch from me with both hands. I was as close to him then as I am to you now. He kissed my wrist, you know, this one here. He said if he had a spare horse he would have stolen me as well, for I was far prettier than the brooch.”
Gossip had quickly turned it into the latest social contest. The Lady Miranda of Thurgarton had been the first to boast of her misfortune in the Sherwood, so the rumors went, and her account of the thief with a knight’s physique and a gentleman’s tongue had titillated the envy of many. The handsome outlaw plucked only a collection of thin silver bracelets from Thurgarton, but when he stole both the earrings and a kiss on the neck from the daughter of Lord Maunsfeld, the challenge was met countywide. In the previous week, restless ladies fabricated any number of reasons to visit Nottingham by way of the Sherwood Road, taking their joyrides and picnicking needlessly into the forest. Lady Delaney had fashioned bells to every rein of her eight-horsed carriage to make herself a more obvious target. “He only needs an excuse to find me,” she said, tracing her neck with her fingertips, “although if I have nothing for him to steal, I fear he may take something else entirely.”
The ladies blushed and pretended to encourage her while they all schemed to be the first to bed the outlaw.
Arable had to bite her lip to bear through their chatter. William had explained how his friend Robin of Locksley was embedded with the thieves, attempting to domesticate them. Frivolous escapades with the county’s ladylings seemed domesticated enough, but Arable worried something more was growing.
“Geoffrey insisted we take more men to protect us,” Delaney was laughing, “but I was able to convince him otherwise. And he never asked why I needed to wear so much jewelry!”
“Perchance I’ll visit you in Oughtibridge,” a vacant-eyed ladyling mewed to Delaney. She held a few wispy shawls up to her face. “Which color do you suppose Robin Hood prefers?”
They giggled and each purchased one, threatening to ride into the forest before the others with increasingly few servants. By the time they would be done, their offers would involve walking into the forest alone, entirely nude but for a single diamond necklace. Only Lady Margery seemed to share Arable’s disdain for their twattling banter, but she was much better at hiding it.
Arable sighed and counted the hours before she would be free. She coveted the time she’d been assigned to William each day, and had grown very fond of having a room to herself. They usually spent those hours together if William was not otherwise indisposed, despite his original promise that they were a gift for her to enjoy on her own. She enjoyed spending them with him, and a flattering suspicion told her he had hoped as much when he made the arrangement.
A commotion was brewing between a Guardsman carrying grapes and a stranger in a loose brown tunic. “What’s the matter, you deaf?” the Guardsman barked, blocking the man’s path. “Move along or we’ll move you along.”
“Oh, you’ll arrest me again, will you?” the man wailed, his bulgy young face peeking at the ladies. “What’ll you do to me this time, trim my nose?”
His head was closely shaven, making the grotesque red stump of his left ear more obvious. Soft tissue scarred halfway down his jawbone. Arable instinctively reached up to touch the scars on her own cheeks.
The Guardsman stretched his neck. “You want to make me tell you again?”
“Or what, you’ll throw grapes at me?”
The basket hit th
e ground with little regard for the poor grapes, but another Guardsman ordered the first to back down. Arable didn’t know either of their names. At the far end of the Market Square, the once empty space was slowly filling with unlikely customers. Boys and young men, lingering and leaning, casually appearing from avenues and doorways. Arable could feel her heartbeat quicken. Most had short hair, some cut as close as the agitator here, while others kept longer hair only on their right side.
The Guardsman turned to Lady Margery. “If it please you, Lady d’Oily, we could return to the castle now.”
With barely a word spoken, the Guardsmen formed a channel for the ladies to travel safely, leading away from the Market Square to the south, as the crowd was blocking the direct route to the castle. Even Lady Delaney was silent as they walked. They kept their heads down and pretended to be unnotable.
All talk. There was no secret thrill in these street thugs. The ladies would not be vying to be their first target. Arable chanced a glance behind, hoping the seamstress they had just visited would not be punished for some perverted sense of class betrayal. More of the boys appeared ahead, sidling either side of the street, and Arable held her breath in fear. She wondered if they might accept the candles she carried in exchange for safe passage, even as she knew how ridiculous an idea that was.
But the young men stepped aside, abiding the Guardsmen’s orders with smug disinterest, staring back with wicked smiles. Another young man snapped his teeth at them, notably missing the lower lobe of his left ear.
Despite her fears, they passed out of the market with no altercation. The Guardsmen continued their quicker pace through the smaller streets while their commander took to describing the city casually, to calm the ladies’ nerves. “They call this street Wheeler’s Gate, as it was the main causeway for carriages to St. Peter’s Square, there ahead of you,” and so on.
By the time they passed the spear of St. Peter’s Church and were on the long wide lane that wove back to Nottingham Castle, the other ladies were laughing nervously and chatting of frivolous things again. Arable felt a curious pang of relief that the Guardsmen had been there, despite her usual anxiety in their presence. She said a silent prayer that whatever grudges they held for her had vanished along with Jon Bassett. Or at the very least, that she had become the least of their worries in a city gnashing at its own tail.
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