* * *
THAT NIGHT, SHE DRAGGED William out to the castle’s barbican at the eastern edge of the lowest bailey. They often walked out into the city if they had enough time, but the odd encounter at the market left her craving the safety of the castle. So they climbed up one of the squat, round towers to stand above the main gate, with nothing but a cloudless starry sky above them and the movement of people walking below. She recounted the day’s misadventure with the mewing ladies, and William laughed.
“At least someone is enjoying this.” His arms surrounded her from behind and she leaned into his warmth.
“I don’t know that Lady Oughtibridge enjoys it,” Arable considered, “she just wants people to talk about her. Which I am, so I suppose it worked.”
“Oh, I was talking about Robin.” William chuckled. “Sounds like he’s having a delightful time out there. To think, I was worried he had the harder task of the two of us.”
There was complaint in his voice. “Still struggling with Roger?”
“Mhm.” He brushed her hair aside to place a small kiss at the base of her neck. “He won’t talk with the outlaws because it would be too nice, and he won’t stop them because it would be too mean. So instead I’ve been focusing on ways to secure just the supply caravans, but he won’t assign any manpower to it. The city’s still recovering from Gisbourne’s shutdown of the fishmarket, and every single Guardsman is apparently required here. He won’t take my advice on anything, though he wants me present for every meeting he holds. I don’t know…”
He went quiet, and she squeezed his elbow. “What?”
“The strange thing is, he might be right. These last two weeks, things have been getting better. No fighting, no arrests, and these stories of Robin Hood seem to be entertaining most people.”
She smiled and pushed into him. “Are you jealous?”
“No, I’m useless,” he scoffed. “I think Robin’s fixed it all on his own, while I have been completely ineffective.”
“Well, you gave yourself an impossible task, of course you were going to fail. Nobody changes Roger’s mind but Roger. But if what he’s doing is working, as you say it is, then what’s wrong with that?”
“That’s just it.” His voice lowered. “It only works so long as…”
Behind her, William’s rhythm changed, he held a breath for too long and she knew exactly what it meant.
“You know something.”
“I … no, it’s just a rumor.”
She twisted around to look him in the face. There was no moon out tonight, only the fires at the gatehouse below gave his features any definition of worry. “What is it?”
“You obviously cannot tell anyone, Arable. But de Lacy suspects Chancellor Longchamp will soon replace him, with someone more … loyal. Or corrupt, I suppose, depending on how you look at it. Once that happens, this little equilibrium will be over.”
Someway, he thought he should smile about that. He thought it was something worth making a little joke about. Arable had no words to speak so she simply shoved him away.
“What? What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong? How long have you known about this?”
William stammered for an answer. “It was … it was when the Earl of Warwick first arrived. The day after the stables,” he added, as if that ought to make anything better.
She could scarcely believe it. “That was two weeks ago! Why didn’t you tell me about this?”
“What?” His face implied it had never crossed his mind.
“You didn’t think that was something I should know about?”
“It wasn’t really my secret to tell.”
“Do you understand what this means?” She backed up against the battlements, trying to find something more stable than him to support her. “I am here, I am only here, William, at Roger’s hospitality. He knew my father. He knows who I am. If he were to leave…” Her words failed her—she could only begin to grasp the fear of having to run again.
“What is there to be afraid of?” he asked.
“Are you serious?” She was shocked he could be so ignorant. She had spent half her life running from her family’s name. It wasn’t just William’s father, it was anyone who sought to earn favor with him. Even so many years later, Lord Beneger was known to reward those that brought him any news of a Burel, or of their misfortune. They had not talked of it for seemingly mutual reasons, but Arable suddenly wondered if William was even remotely aware of the suffering she had endured over the years in the shadow of his father.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and at least it seemed genuine. “I didn’t think about that.”
She shook her head, stupefied. “I don’t know how that’s supposed to make me feel better. You’ve known this for two weeks. Two weeks, and you didn’t think about what this would mean to me.”
“I’m going to fix this.” He stooped his head and leaned into her, an easy answer that she did not want to grant him. “Besides, it’s only a guess. It’s been two weeks and nothing has happened. De Lacy could be sheriff for years still. But either way, I will fix something for you.”
“How?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I’ll figure it out. But you don’t have to live in fear, never, not again.”
A moment ago he was complaining how ineffectual he was, and now he thought he could solve her entire life with a wave of his hand. The disappointment was a familiar feeling. She had learned how to live on her own, and she didn’t need him to protect her. She would find a way to fix her own problems, as she always had. He would be gone in another two weeks, and there was nothing he could do to keep his promises from a thousand miles away.
But while he was still here, all she wanted was for him to pretend she was as important to him as he was to her.
“Promise me you won’t keep these things from me,” she said, tugging at his sleeves. “No secrets, not between us.”
“I promise.” His voice was resolute. “And I’m sorry.”
“Alright,” she said, though it wasn’t. She moved away from the edge, having lost her interest in watching the city. But she let him walk with her. Their time together was already so short, there was no point in holding a grudge against him.
And she suddenly had far more pressing matters to concern herself with.
TWENTY-EIGHT
ELENA GAMWELL
THE GREAT OAK
“GOOD, ELENA.”
No, it wasn’t. She glared at Locksley. She had missed the mark by an arm, and it was barely twenty feet away. Locksley’s archery lessons were amateur, giving even terrible bowmen like Alan the false impression they had a knack for it. Elena had missed because she shifted all her weight onto a single foot, hovering the other just above the ground. Not because it was good form. To train herself to shoot under the worst circumstances. If she ever needed to shoot an enemy less than twenty feet away, she wouldn’t have the luxury to square her feet and steady her shot.
But Locksley complimented her. “Good, Elena.”
No, she wasn’t.
Locksley’s view of their world was limited to flippant encounters with nobles traveling the Sherwood Road. Yes, they had made easy coin with little trouble, and yes, they built a helpful reputation amongst the villages. But they had traded their freedom for dependency. Dependent on the right marks coming within their grasp. Dependent on Marion selling their loot to her anonymous friends. Stealing from the rich and selling to the rich was just another kind of slavery.
She and Will had left Nottingham hoping to find something different, something permanent. Important. She thought they had found it at Locksley Castle, in the family there that was tighter than any gang. But the world was far bigger than they had realized, and it cared very little about their intentions within it.
But that was also their advantage. Away from the city, nobody was watching them.
Back in Nottingham they had grown to become the largest fish in the market, which meant every fool gord had his eye on them. B
ut maintaining their secrecy out in the Sherwood was offensively easy. There was no city guard to march through their camp every day, no patrols to outsmart. And if the gord Jon Bassett had been frightened properly, the Nottingham Guard wasn’t like to come ambling about to make trouble any time soon. It was time to take everything they’d mastered with the Red Lions, and scale it up. Gambling, forced protections, organizations of slickpickers, there was no reason they couldn’t make it all work outside of a city.
But first the others would need to train at more than just archery. And Locksley’s easy answers had quickly made some of their group alarmingly docile. It was already more like running a troupe of actors than a gang. There were—admittedly—pieces of it that were fun, that she’d steal after Locksley left them. But cheap theatrics and charity could not keep them afloat for long. The real work was there for them to take—black market trades, smuggling, the like. Less fun and not as profitable, but it would sustain them in the long run. After their jovial little carriage heists petered out. After Locksley left.
It would be her turn, hers and Will’s, soon enough.
“Make way!” Will shouted and Elena turned to see that Much had been provided a bow and arrow, and a log to stand on. The log was critical, as the bottom of the bow reached lower than his toes.
“Whose idea was this?” she asked, slipping in to bite softly at Will’s neck.
He gasped. “It was his!”
Her hand wrapped around his waist and pulled him close. His breath sharpened. He couldn’t lie to her like this, she knew his every weakness.
“I swear, he begged me to use the longbow.”
“You shouldn’t let him embarrass himself,” she warned, her hand on his chest.
“He won’t embarrass himself,” he insisted. “I only gave him the bow. Yes!”
He clapped his hands hard, twisting away from her as Much started to line up his shot. He meant well, but Will was too eager to see Much grow into the same boy he had been himself. That was no surprise, of course. Much had thirty fathers and thirty mothers in this group, and each sought to remake him in their own image.
The bow gave a huff rather than a twang, and Elena’s heart sank as Much’s limp arrow leapt to the right, only a few feet away. Much threw the bow down, hopped off the log in frustration, and stormed off.
“I told you,” she said.
“Where’s he going?” Will’s face twisted. “Much, you have to practice, you can’t just…”
The other men called out their empty condolences but laughed it off and returned to their own efforts.
“You have to be careful with him,” she scolded Will, gave his forearm a knowing squeeze, and loped off into the forest after Much.
* * *
HE HAD NOT GONE far. She found him sitting on a fallen tree a dozen paces into the woods. Picking at the bark with his fingers. She stomped loudly to announce her arrival.
“Don’t you worry about it,” she said when she caught up to him, messing her fingers through his blond mane. “Nobody gets it right their first time.”
“You do,” he mumbled.
“It’s not my first time,” she corrected him. “I’ve been shooting arrows since I was your age, and I started off terrible.” He made a face, but she was quick to follow. “You held too long, and it tired your arm out. And the bow was too big for you. That’s all.”
“I wanted to make sure I hit it,” he grumbled.
“Here, fix this.” She sat beside him and flipped her long braid onto his shoulder. She felt him tug at it, untangling the twine she kept weaved within. “It doesn’t work that way with arrows. You have to trust your instincts and let the bow do the work.”
A whip-thunk followed by cheering made her look back at the men. David had made his shot and everyone celebrated. A flash of jealousy covered Much’s face.
“I’m not strong enough,” he complained.
“Of course not, that bow is huge! I can’t use it, either.” She shrugged. “But I’ll lend you mine next time. And not everyone is good with a bow, you know.”
“You are.”
“I am.” She tilted her head back dramatically to accept the compliment. “But I could never fight with a quarterstaff the way John does, now could I? And he’s not very good with swords. You’re probably better at that than he is.”
“I don’t know.” He tugged at her hair, then moved away. “I’m not good at anything.”
“Hey, stop that,” she said, turning to look him square. “Why do you say that?”
“I’m too small.”
“I’m pretty small, too.” She sprang to her feet, dragging him with her. She was barely a head taller than him. “I’d rather be small than strong any day. We can move faster, and we can squeeze places they can’t, and we can walk a lot quieter, too. Didn’t you hear about how I snuck up on the Captain of the Sheriff’s Guard himself?”
Much nodded.
“That’s what you’ll be good at. You’ll be a little sneak. Nobody will ever see you coming.”
At last his face brightened, and she reached out to mess at his hair again, but he ducked away and ran into the woods.
“Your feet can’t touch the ground!” he commanded, and jumped onto a log and ran its length, then jumped to an exposed root, then a rock. Elena ran after him, following his steps exactly. She turned to see Will watching after her, blew him a quick kiss, then gave chase.
They played for half an hour, and Elena was embarrassingly outmatched in energy. She eventually changed the game to a hide-and-seek just to catch her breath. The bed of the woods was covered in crisp, freshly fallen leaves eager to be trampled, and the sun streamed through in wide bands that were almost enough to make her forget how rotten life had become. There was something to be said for the fresh air here, and the wide open spaces, so very different from the cramped alleyways of Nottingham.
If nothing else, Much was lucky to grow up playing chase and make-believe. Elena’s youth was full of cutting purses and slipping marks, mingling and sparring with the gangs of Nottingham’s slums. The Ten Bell Boys of Nottingham had to teach themselves everything. Back then, brawling and thieving didn’t have any consequences beyond going a day without food. Or gaining a new scar to show off. Every now and then it was big news when someone got thrown into Sinner Mary’s, but they were always let loose soon enough, no worse for wear. A life without repercussions had weaned them bolder than most, and more hot-headed and reckless as they grew older. Pickpocketing turned to horse thieving, simple lies developed into repeatable cons. They organized as their numbers grew. Then came leaders, reputations, and jealousy, infighting and ferrers. Rivalry. Brawls with guards turned into planned attacks, then ambushes, and boys that got arrested didn’t come back again. The Ten Bell Boys eventually took over the fishmarket in Red Lion Square from another gang, and renamed themselves to suit. Each took a red name—Bloody Rudder, Rob o’the Fire, Crimson Tommy, and Ten Bell Will became Will Scarlet.
Elena was the only one who hadn’t taken on a red name.
If it hadn’t been for Will, she’d be there still. Helping the Red Lions all try to get themselves hanged, if she hadn’t earned herself a knife in the back yet. Such was the life they’d been bred into. The Red Lions were full of suspicion and betrayal, which they had appropriately left behind. Now, they had built a loyal crew.
Or rather, Walter of Locksley had built it. She and Will, they just inherited it.
Lord Walter had started something. A life in which each person is only accountable to herself, and not to the arbitrary rules of some parlie sheriff or king. A world where it was acceptable to throw a wine bottle at a captain when he tries to take what’s yours. Or put a sword to his throat when he calls you a bitch.
When we scale up, she wondered, would the trouble scale, too?
She panicked for a moment to realize she couldn’t find Much, and put away her thoughts on the future. She closed her eyes and waited for noise until she caught the faint patter of his breath to t
he west.
Good on you, boy, she thought, hoping he had strategized to put the sun in her eyes. But when she sprang on him from around an oak, he gave no reaction. He stood still, staring upward, eyes unblinking, barely there.
He wasn’t looking at anything, and she didn’t even bother to check. She’d seen him disappear like this before, his cheeks puckered as his breath quickened, and she knelt down to take his hand. “Breathe,” she said. “Breathe. Shake it off.”
His fingers were cold and limp in her palm, and she bit back a knot in her chest that would have turned to tears. She whispered Much’s name in his ear and held his head close to her breast. She squeezed, and eventually felt his body sag, his head roll, and he looked her in the eyes.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” she said, finding her own voice too tight. “It’s not your fault.”
He didn’t answer.
It was impossible to know exactly what triggered these episodes, but they all knew the cause. He had been with the group well before Will and Elena, and sometimes he felt like the child they might have had in some other, easier life. John Little called him the miller’s son, on account of finding him by a river outside a mill in Bernesdale. Not one of them knew what had become of his parents, but whatever it was—Much had witnessed it. He’d never spoken of it. And the few times they ever asked, he was like to disappear as he had now.
“How are your dreams?” she asked gently.
A shrug.
“Good and bad, yes?” She squeezed again. “Either they’re good dreams that are bad when they end, or they’re bad dreams that are good when they end, yes?”
Nottingham Page 29