Nottingham

  “I’m doing quite well, thank you,” John answered, “as I assume that’s what you meant to ask.”

  The baron ate alone, though there were many men present. Three or four servants bustled about, filling the baron’s wine or bringing new plates, while in the corner a boy who would never enjoy a woman was abusing a harp.

  “I’m fat and have too much food in my mouth,” was not what Red Roger said, but it was the best translation John could think of. He followed it with, “Oh, I’ll bet I can cram that in here, too,” as he shoveled something greasy from his paws past his lips.

  “I have one matter to tend to before I leave,” John called out. “An opinion. Baron Roger de Lacy, the Sheriff of Nottingham, is not long for his office. I’m to decide on his successor.”

  “High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, and the Royal Forests,” Gay Wally quickly corrected, blinking, but John gave him the tiniest of nods not to speak, and it almost seemed that he understood why.

  Red Roger took another bite before he spoke. “If I may,” the words gurgled out, and all waited as he picked a thing from his teeth. “Sheriff de Lacy is a waste of shit. He’s tried to coddle Nottinghamshire like a baby. But it isn’t a baby, it’s a wolf, and still he tries to let it suckle him, teeth and all.”

  He grinned and laughed, and those that served him laughed as well.

  “This county needs a man who isn’t afraid to get bloody.”

  A thick bald guard behind the baron bellowed out “Red Roger!” which was picked up and repeated a few times by the others. The bellower was congratulated by the other men near him.

  “Sir Robert FitzOdo,” the baron introduced the guard, not because he was important but because he was a rather expensive piece of jewelry. A knight in his private retainer. “Why should Richard get all the knights? You don’t train a hound and then lend it to someone else.”

  Actually many people do, John thought, but didn’t say so. FitzOdo answered by thrusting his fist again to chant the baron’s name.

  John pretended to be impressed. “Red Roger, indeed. I’ve heard quite a bit about that moniker of yours,” thanks to Gay Wally, “and if the stories are true, then you are a man who isn’t afraid to get bloody.”

  Red Roger pounded his fist a few times on the table to prove indisputably that he was capable both of making fists and pounding things with them.

  “We know how to deal with forest thieves here in Tickhill,” he boasted. “The problem with these sheriffs is they don’t stick around long enough to learn anything. Every ten years or so, some group of thieves crawls into the forest and shits on everyone. But Sheriff de Lacy wouldn’t know that, because five years ago it was Murdac who hunted them down. Ten years before that it was FitzRanulph. They never know what the fuck to do with themselves. But the thieves don’t come to Tickhill anymore, and do you know why?”

  FitzOdo shouted out “Red Roger!” again, and John had to hide his face as he considered that Red Roger could be a euphemism for a man’s cock. The knight barked it a few more times, pumping his hand each time, and John could have died happy.

  “This is why,” the baron continued, holding his fist out, tapping a ring on his middle finger. It had a thick talon sprouting forward. “I bled the last man who decided he was a prince of thieves. It’s only a little prick, but it does the job.”

  John almost snorted. Now he’s making it too easy.

  “I tied him up against a wall in town, and give him a little tap. Every tap opens him up, and he bleeds. Not deep enough to kill. Shallow, see, but I give him a little tap all over his body. When they heal, I tap them again. And he bleeds out. Slow and terrible. For everyone to see. That’s what you’ll get when I’m Sheriff of Nottingham. None of this fucking around. I’ll bleed this Robin Hood like I bled the last one. Red Roger!”

  The name was repeated around the room again, one too many times by the awkward harp-boy, who then hid his face.

  “Those cages outside of town, those were thieves then?” John asked. There had been two rotten bodies in iron cages hanging by the road to the town, each of which had another head impaled on a spike at the top.

  “Courtesy of Red Roger!” the baron boasted, and he raised his glass to his trophy knight. This led to another round of cheering.

  John waited for the commotion to die. “Would you really want to leave Tickhill for Nottingham?”

  “Fuck Nottingham. I’d rule from here.”

  From this table, quite likely, as Red Roger had yet to move from it.

  “Bold.” John played coy. “Do you have enough men? Or would you ask Nottingham’s captain to move his entire force here to Tickhill?”

  Everything Red Roger had eaten attempted to escape his body. After coughing it back down, he hacked out some expletives about Nottingham’s captain. “Guy of Gisbourne? He’s a joke. A fucking joke. Ten times worse than de Lacy. First thing I’d do as Sheriff is replace him. That fucking idiot had Robin Hood in his grasp and then ran away. He lost one of his little boys, and ran all around the county looking for him like a fucking dog. He even begged my FitzOdo to help. Heard he went mad, arrested every man, woman, and child he could find in Nottingham, and still couldn’t even find his own cock. Gisbourne’s the most incompetent piece of shit to ever wear the uniform, and that says a fucking lot. He couldn’t find his men if he checked his own asshole.”

  His crowd laughed again, even though the joke made no sense. But that didn’t bother John nearly as much as the second mention of a name that he did not recognize.

  “I’ll take what you’ve said under consideration.” John excused himself, and gave the requisite number of farewells. The boy with the harp started singing a song that glorified Red Roger and much of the hall joined in, its drunken muffled chorus filling the hallway as John led his entourage away. He noticed a girl that may have been Myla, and was surprisingly pleased to think she hadn’t fallen to her death.

  Once there were fewer ears around, he asked Gay Wally, “Alright, who’s Robin Hood?”

  The boy leaned forward and blinked, but for once his lips didn’t move. John asked him the question again, and he blinked a few more times.

  “I cannot say with certainty. There are more than a few speculations going around. Some say he’s a nobleman masquerading in the night, others say he’s a simple yeoman who made a name for himself. I’ve even heard that he’s a knight, deserted from the war, with only hatred for King Richard.”

  “That was fascinating,” John lied, “now would you mind telling me what in the hell we’re talking about?”

  “He’s just some bandit,” came a rougher voice, a curt swordarm named Hadrian. John had promoted the man to the head of his contingent after dismissing the French knights that had been assigned to him, which he was expected to pay for. Hadrian was paid, too, but without all the bullshittery that came with being a knight. “Some group of men stealing from those that travel through the Sherwood. Nobles mostly. The ladies seem to find a sport in letting themselves be robbed.”

  John couldn’t have been less impressed. “Why do I care, again?”

  “Apparently,” Hadrian continued, “he’s very good. And he doesn’t keep what he steals. He gives it out. The peasants here in Nottinghamshire are having a better time of it than the nobles lately. That’s what I hear at least.” He gave a sneer to Wally.

  This was tasty. Not the thief, of course, but his effect on others. Move a little money in the wrong hands, and suddenly even a fat sloth like Red Roger could be stirred to fury.

  “He sounds delightful,” John said after heavy consideration. “Why the hell would I want anybody to kill him?”

  Social upheaval was precisely the sort of thing that delighted John. His world confined him to the biggest pieces on the board, but there was no arguing that the smallest ones could sometimes do the most damage. The more John thought about it, the more he was lured by the idea of hiding in the forest, making tiny amounts of hell for tiny amounts of people. He could play both ends t
oward the other.

  “I’d very much like to meet this Robin Hood.”

  Hadrian scoffed. “Nobody knows where to find him. That’s the problem, my lord.”

  “I’m not your lord.” John rounded the corner and they were outside again, a smattering of rain greeting their walk back up the hill to the tower. “Of course somebody knows where to find him, we just don’t know how to find that somebody. I shouldn’t spend my precious time correcting your gaps of logic.”

  “Of course.”

  “You say the ladies make sport of being robbed by him? Perhaps we can become very attractive ladies.”

  Hadrian clicked his jaw. “Your entourage is too large. No thief would attack a garrison armed such as we.”

  “Then we’ll travel light. Only a few of us.”

  “It would be too dangerous.”

  “Then we’ll have to double-check, before we leave…” John turned in the doorway to the tower and let the rain collect on Hadrian’s head, “… that none of us are giant pussies.”

  He closed the door dramatically on Hadrian, who of course opened it again a moment later. But John enjoyed himself nonetheless. He sprinted up the circular stairs that spiraled up the inner wall of the tower to his official guest room. Hadrian would probably worry all night that John would dress him in women’s clothes the next day with a wig on his head.

  Poor Red Roger, John thought, you could have been an entertaining sheriff.

  Needing ink and well, he called for Gay Wally, who hid his resentment of being used for such clerical tasks. John also asked for the edict that Waleran de Beaumont had left for him to sign.

  “I should appoint Robin Hood as the next sheriff. Wouldn’t that be a thing.”

  “Did you not promise the Earl of Warwick the title to his son?” Wally asked it in that polite way that was not actually a question.

  “Look at you,” John applauded. “Did you listen in on everything today?”

  Wally didn’t respond, but he might have blushed.

  “My apologies, boy, but I’ve been a terrible role model. Some lucky day when you get a girl naked yourself, you shouldn’t expect it to last as long as what you overheard today. That only comes with nearly perpetual practice.”

  “I’ve been with a woman,” Wally said, stumbling only slightly on the word woman.

  “How terrible for her. I wonder who is crueler with their little pricks, you or Red Roger?”

  There was wine in the room, so he poured a glass for himself and, feeling reckless, one for the boy, too. “Yes, I did tell Waleran that his son would have the sheriff’s seat. But all I got in return was a blank promise. He had nothing else to offer. Red Roger offers to kill Robin Hood for me, but I don’t want him to do that at all. Thieves are fun, they make the world unpredictable. Waleran wants to make Nottingham a better place, he wants to rid it of corruption and disease. It’s all very noble. Sickeningly noble. Red Roger wants to make Nottingham a better place, too, in his own way. They want to make it better because their worlds are only as big as they can reach.”

  John leaned in close now, as the boy brought a candle and wax without even being prompted. “Listen to me, now. This is important. Their worlds are so small, but mine is so big, don’t you see? They can’t make Nottingham healthy as long as England is diseased. They’re trying to put bandages on a finger, without realizing that the forearm is rotten. It needs to be cut off. If Nottingham were a better place…”

  John shook his head. Tiny men have tiny goals.

  “This Waleran wants me to go after the Chancellor, and he wants me to win. But I don’t intend on winning. I told him. I don’t want to be king. England needs a good king, not me, it needs my brother. Not ever me. If we start making England a better place, then Richard has no reason to come back.

  “But if England burns,” John continued, taking the quill, “then he has to come back. He simply has to.”

  The edict was complete but for a signature at the bottom and an emptiness in the middle where he was to appoint a name as the new sheriff. John signed his own name at the bottom, then wrote Lord Guy of Gisbourne in the empty space. Ten times worse than de Lacy, Red Roger had said, and John was counting on it.

  The candle burned his finger when he dripped its wax onto the paper, but John didn’t mind the pain.

  PART V

  LEX TALIONIS

  THIRTY-FIVE

  ELENA GAMWELL

  BERNESDALE

  ELENA GAVE WILL’S LIP a soft bite, and for a moment there was nothing but him. She tried to pull him closer but he pushed her off, the brat, softstepping away into the dark, turning just in time to flash that irresistible smirk. His warmth was still there, on her chest and in her arms, and she held onto it until the chill took over. Only then did she turn back to see John Little’s patronizing smile, which turned into a silent pucker and a flash of his bushy greying eyebrows.

  “Get your own,” Elena teased him, and looked back at Bernesdale’s market.

  Removed from the rest of the village, a wide shoulder-high stone ring circled a dozen or so long low storehouses, all made from the same heavy misshapen stones and straw thatching. For an hour or two, that wall and the night had given them plenty of cover to watch the comings and goings of the raided plunder. A steady fire was kept raging at the center of the ring, where there would normally be a motley of merchants and roving traders. But there were no colorful wares or tradesmen now, just the blue and steel of the Nottingham fucking Guard.

  Fortunately, as they predicted, only a handful of gords actually stayed with the supplies. Most were out collecting it. Every now and then a wagon would roll in, sometimes two or three, with men huffing to keep pace beside. There was always some sort of confusion as to what they were supposed to do with their loot, until eventually it was organized and distributed to different storehouses. Then they’d leave again, back on the road, or to find shelter over in the village. Elena watched one empty wagon driven by men in plainclothes, who actually loaded supplies and left again toward Nottingham. That had given Will the inspiration for their plan.

  “You expect them to simply up and give it all to us?” John Little had asked.

  “Actually, yes.” Will had winked. “That’s precisely what I expect them to do. Look at them—they’re just doing their jobs. So let’s help them out.”

  “They’re probably the bottom of the barrel anyhow.” Arthur grinned. “They’ve got dozens of regiments out there, stealing from as many places as they can at once. That’s where the best men will be, where they think people might fight back. These here are just a bunch of gord rejects.”

  “I wonder if that Jon Bassett is here,” Alan whispered.

  “I hope he is,” Arthur spat back. “I told you we shouldn’t have let him go. Promises to tell them all how wonderful we are, and now they’re raiding every village on the map. I’d love to ask him, face to face, whether he had a hand in this.”

  “You can scratch your balls later, boys,” John said, causing everyone to hush him. Even when he whispered, his low voice carried further than he thought. “Dawn’s getting close, and whatever we do, it should be done before daybreak.”

  “It’s not even going to feel like stealing,” Will snickered to Elena. “It’ll just feel like … work.”

  That was just as exciting, as far as she was concerned. “That’s the best sort of stealing, when they never even know you were there. Even better, they’ll never even know they lost anything. It’s brilliant.”

  She’d said those last words directly to him. You’re brilliant. He needed strength, he needed confidence, and she knew exactly how to give that to him. Will needed to know she was right about all of this.

  She’d been right about Robin of Locksley, after all. Of course he had abandoned them the moment real action was needed. The only thing Elena had been wrong about was the idea that using Gilbert to scare Jon Bassett would make the Guard afraid of them. But this would be a far more effective way to say the same thing. With
Locksley gone they could finally start growing beyond their merry little band, and into a proper gang worth reckoning.

  The Sheriff seemed to think he was unopposed, but this morning he would learn otherwise.

  “What do you want me to do?” little Much asked.

  “I want you to go home,” John Little whispered at him, “but I don’t get everything I want.”

  They had been halfway to Bernesdale when the boy popped out of a barrel, scaring them all halfway to shit and back. John Little had plucked Much and hurled him out of the cart, but Much insisted that he’d be coming along whether they liked it or not.

  “It’s too late to turn back,” Arthur had warned, “and we won’t get an opportunity like this again none, neither.”

  “Maybe he’ll be useful,” Elena had persuaded them. “I can think of a few things a little boy can get away with that none of us could.”

  Now, she smiled and gave Much a wink.

  Bernesdale. It’s where he had grown up, and it was the source of whatever terrible thing from his past gave him waking nightmares still.

  “You’re going to climb that tree,” Elena explained, pointing to a gnarled oak to the east of the market ring. “Keep an eye out for any unwelcome visitors. You see anything you don’t like, you make a call like we promised, right? Nobody will think twice of a boy climbing a tree.”

  That was something Elena had played up for a long time. Even years after she was old enough to resent it, her young face and small size had often let her avoid suspicion.

  “What sort of ‘unwelcome visitors’?” Much asked, fumbling over the phrase.

  “Gords,” she said. She could have said monsters. They’d already seen too many. Two of them had guarded the Sherwood Road just outside the town. Eventually one left to piss in the woods. John Little had taken care of him with a lovetap from his quarterstaff. They’d used Much to distract the other, a skinny lad with a limp, then Will had surprised him with the heavy butts of his twin blades.