Nottingham

  As Much trudged away toward the tree with his mission, Arthur exhaled. “Are we ready to do this?”

  Alan clicked his tongue and was away, along with Arthur and Tuck, to crouch by the ringwall with Will. “Alright,” John Little whispered next to her on the wagon. “Let’s steal some shit.”

  * * *

  SHE RUBBED HER HANDS between her legs for warmth. She and John would drive the cart into the ring of storehouses, under the assumption they were the least dangerous-looking of their group. The others would approach from behind the ringwall, using the oxcart’s dust cloud as cover, to meet at the back of one of the supply buildings. Tuck had suggested they focus on the one housing ale, but they’d settled on the one with farming supplies and smithing tools. Those items were irreplaceable, and invaluable to those with the right skills.

  “What do we do if they catch us?” John whispered. “Robin never taught us that none.”

  Elena had to smile. “It doesn’t work that way. We’re only guilty if we act guilty.”

  “How do we act … not … guilty?”

  “Listen. Real thieving isn’t about sneaking around in the shadows. If a guard sees you do that, they know you’re up to no good. The trick is to let everybody see you, but give them reasons not to care about you. It’s the easiest thing. Once they’ve decided you’re not worth worrying about—poof. You’re gone. They’ll never look at you again.”

  John nodded and smiled, then nodded, and smiled again. “How do we do that?”

  “These fellows here are following orders. They like following orders. We say, Well Captain Somebody told us these supplies needed to be moved right away, and now they’re more worried about going against Captain Somebody than they are about us. It’s about pretending you’re right, and making them doubt you’re wrong.”

  John still didn’t seem to understand.

  “I once snuck into some jeweler’s house on Greenhound Road in Nottingham. I thought I had the place to myself, but I walk in and find he has some sort of manservant, stiff and prickly and twelve ways of suspicious. He yells at me, but I say, ‘I’m supposed to be picking something up here, I’m sorry I’m late, could I get it?’ This prickled bastard lost everything he had going for him, and asked me what it was I needed. Soon enough he’s helping me fill my pockets and wishing me a good day.”

  “Bollocks,” John said.

  “Swear it.” Elena laughed. She’d eaten for a month that day.

  Of course, the next time she’d tried the trick she’d been cracked on the back of the head before she’d gotten away. But there was no need to tell John that.

  John tugged the reins and they were off. Up ahead, the silhouettes of the others huddled by the ringwall, waiting for them to rumble on by. Their cart clattered past into the great circular market area, pushing up a soft cloud of dirt. John drove their horses in a full wide round circle, easily seen by the gords that lingered at the fire. Not a one seemed to care. A cow-eyed farmer and his wispy daughter must have seemed about as threatening as pea soup.

  After dismounting and securing the wagon, they moved with purpose, daring any gord to question them. They pushed through the main door of their selected storehouse as the others snuck in through the rear. Two through the front, four through the back, they wove their way through dark tables. Hammers and pitchforks, sickles and hooks, baskets and whips, harnesses, plows pushed against the side wall, sacks of seed, and wire thimbles. The six of them met in the middle, giggling like children. Alan couldn’t even close his mouth.

  “Look at all this! This is the biggest take we’ll ever get! How much do we get to keep for ourselves?”

  John Little cocked his head at Alan oddly. “What do you suppose is fair? Half? One in four?”

  “Half’d be great!” Alan laughed. “But even a quarter’d be everything we ever need!”

  “Every stitch of this,” John grumbled sharply, “is taken from another man’s hand. Every piece of this bounty of yours was someone else’s yesterday. They needed it. You think you ought to have it instead of them?”

  Elena kept her mouth closed. She had felt excitement, too, but John had a heavy point.

  “We’ve got to keep some of it at least,” Alan pouted. “What’s the difference? They were never going to get any of it back without us.”

  “What’s the difference indeed,” John responded, but it answered a different question. If some poor villager had his tools stolen, what was the difference to him if they ended up in the Guard’s hands or Elena’s? When she looked around the room again, it seemed less like a treasure trove and more like a graveyard. Every item had a price tag written in guilt.

  “We keep nothing of what we get here. Now get to work.” John sighed. “We’ll barely scratch the amount of wrong that’s been done today. We’ll take what we can, but this doesn’t mean we won none. It only means we lost a little bit less.”

  Alan’s smile faded to a guilty frown, but once John turned away he slunk close to Elena. “If we can at least find a sack of onion seed,” he whispered, “I’ll never complain about rabbit stew again.”

  John disappeared out the front to begin the slow display of unloading the empty crates and barrels they’d brought along. They had positioned the wagon at the side of the storehouse, that they could unload it from the front and load it up again from the back unseen. Arthur and Alan started dragging sacks of seed and crates of trowels.

  “Take anything large and flat first,” Arthur said when he saw Alan pointing in wonder at a plow yoke. “We can stack them high, and throw anything else on top.”

  They moved quickly and quietly. In seven or eight passes, John sat down the last empty barrel they had brought for show.

  “That’s it for the front. Still nobody giving as much as two looks this way.”

  The friar twisted his beard in his hands. “You know, I think the building to the right is where they were storing the wine…”

  “Don’t get greedy,” John said, with a paw on Tuck’s shoulder.

  Will smiled. “Pretty sure there’s a quote or two about that somewhere in that book of yours.”

  “Greed?” Tuck played dumb. “Can’t say it rings any bells, actually.”

  John cleared his throat. “A greedy man brings trouble to his family.”

  “Oh, I see the confusion.” Tuck grinned as he lingered at the front door. “Trouble’s in the building on the left. I’m going to the building on the right. A greedy man brings wine to his family. Wine, you see?”

  He opened the door, in love with himself, and only once he was gone did John crack a smile.

  Elena helped Alan drag a particularly large sack. “I’m already tired,” he complained. “I can’t believe I used to pull grain all day. We should walk up to the guards and ask them to help.”

  They heaved the sack onto the wagon. It was almost full, groaning with each new crate. Elena wondered whether they should heave off while they could. If they broke the axle on the way back to the Sherwood …

  The tiniest squeak from far away.

  Elena froze. “Did you hear that?”

  “Hear what?”

  The sky was warming, and in the quiet it came again, just a morning lark chirping its first song as the stars slowly disappeared.

  “Nothing. Just keep an ear out for the signal from Much.”

  He would have given a long, trilling whistle, not a quick chirp, if he’d seen any signs of trouble. But they’d been inside half the time, or talking. Might not have heard him.

  “Don’t worry.” John plopped down an armful of horse blankets. “He can see everything from the treeline. Just keep moving.”

  The minutes slipped by as they carried and rolled and dragged the last goods they could. Every now and then, John would crack the door and peek out. The gords at the fire were only talking amongst themselves or sleeping. Whenever possible, Elena snuck a kiss from Will as their paths crossed, to the point where they almost laughed and dropped their bounty. Tuck waddled back in with a devi
l’s grin, a small cask under each arm and a red stain down his beard.

  “Was there ale in there?” John asked, and Tuck answered with a flourish of his eyebrows. John elbowed him eagerly, and the friar hurried back for more. The wagon complained terribly about its weight, and Elena eyed it with each added strain, thinking about how much more they would add to it with their bodies, particularly John.

  “Will’s a lucky man,” John Little said importantly to her, while they both took a moment to catch their breath at a table full of leather harnesses.

  “Why’s that?” she asked.

  “Don’t ever let him take you for granted, Lena. What I wouldn’t have given for a girl like you.” John winked, his wide face smiling deeply. “Don’t mistake me now. You know I loved Marley with all my heart, God rest her soul. But she was ever a wife, and that’s what she cared about. It’s better she’s gone. She wouldn’t have fared too well with what we’re doing here. But to have a woman like you, who’s willing to go on robberies and fight with you back to back, a girl who’ll put a sword to the throat of the man who insults you … now that’s love.”

  For the second time, Elena’s heart skipped at a noise from outside.

  Voices and horses.

  And a scramble of other noise, and John was already peeking out the door. “Another delivery,” he grumbled. “Livestock. Chickens and goats. Bastards.”

  “They’re delivering bastards?” Elena whispered.

  The sound of the wheels and the chickens grew louder, creaking to a stop too close outside, so close that John retreated from the front door and shooed the boys away. Will hurried the others out through the back, and then Elena heard a trilling little whistle at the edge of the world.

  Much.

  She whirled around to grab John, too late. The door opened and the growing light outside made a square around his massive frame, with the shapes of two men standing at the open doorway.

  “What’s this here?” one voice with a northern accent barked, and the other, “What’s that back there?”

  Get out of here, she thought to Will.

  John answered with a dry sarcasm, readying for the fight. “Tools, mostly. Farming. Can I get you something?” He leaned over and picked up a pitchfork from the table.

  Let me get there first, John, don’t take them on alone. But there was too much distance between them—

  “We have knives,” the first man warned, and John was rounding a table with his pitchfork. Elena grabbed at a trowel on the table. If she could throw it just right—“Do they go in here, or is there another place for weapons?”

  The air went out of Elena’s lungs. “We’ll take them, we’ll take them!” she shouted, as casually as a shout could sound. “We’ll organize them, don’t worry.”

  “Thanks, girl,” the man at the door said. “Go grab that box o’ knives, would you?”

  The second man hustled back to the chicken cart. John looked at Elena gravely, and placed the pitchfork down on another table, slow and dumb, too relieved to think. The men weren’t Guardsmen, they wore simple tunics and plodders. Just wagon drivers.

  “Chickens mostly, we’ll be glad to get rid of that,” the one said, kicking the mud off his boot.

  “I hear you. We just sort the shit,” Elena said, affecting her voice to match the stranger’s northern lilt.

  “We have a small chest or two of coin, too, where do we drop that off?”

  “Oh, we’ll take that,” Elena shrugged nonchalantly. God’s shit. “And if it gets a little lighter between there and here, won’t no one be looking for it.”

  She winked. That was another trick, one she should remember to tell John. Give a smaller secret, and they won’t suspect the bigger one. If you can get them in on it, then you’ve turned an enemy into an ally.

  “You sure?” the man asked, eyeing John Little.

  John took his cue. “Just don’t take anything they’ll miss.”

  The driver nodded and clicked his tongue. He had heavy bags under his eyes, every inch of him looked exhausted. When the second fellow returned, Elena took the box from him. It was full of short picks for horse hooves and fruit paring. These pathetic little tools and the words we have knives almost got them all killed.

  Then Elena was out the back door, to find the others in case they still thought there was danger. The last thing they needed now were swords drawn. She found them by the wagon, Alan sitting on its lip, mouth agape and trying not to laugh.

  “‘Excuse me, where should we drop off all this coin?’ You two are the luckiest sons of bitches I’ve ever known.”

  He grabbed Elena by the neck and shook her playfully, so hard she almost dropped the knives on their feet. John joined them a moment later, walking out the back door and shaking his head numbly.

  “God’s knees,” Elena said, “you should have seen John almost spear them with a pitchfork.”

  “I hope we stole a box of breeks somewhere,” John planted his finger on Will’s chest, “because I think I shit myself back there.”

  “I’d say we have enough.” Arthur smiled. “Time to get out of here?”

  Will giggled. “Don’t forget the chest or two of coin.”

  “It’s all yours,” Elena said. She’d had her brush with danger for the day. Will slipped back inside to fetch it, while John untied the horses from the sidepost.

  “You think we’ll get it moving?”

  “She’ll move.” John nodded, patting the horses on their haunches. “If they can carry me all the way here, they won’t even notice the rest of it.”

  Elena gave a quick look over the wagon, trying to count what they’d taken, and what it meant to those that would receive it. She couldn’t help but wonder. If they kept even a fraction of the haul for themselves, they could start to turn their camp in the woods into a real village. They could live off the land rather than what they stole, they could govern and defend themselves. It was what they were growing toward, stability. A central point where they could live freely, from which they could branch out in time.

  For only a moment, her mind touched on John’s sermon. That everything they were taking had been taken from others already. This promise of prosperity relied on someone else, somewhere else, going without. It was only a split second, but the dream was sour now. She chose not to think of it.

  Arthur was on top of the wagon with the reins in hand. John was behind ready to give it a push. Elena ducked back inside to hurry Will, who was standing in the middle of the room with one small chest in his arms, unmoving, just staring.

  “Trying to figure out how to pick up two at once?” she joked, and jogged between tables and barrels to help him.

  Will didn’t respond, but instead he grew larger, sideways, a shadow growing from behind him, cloaked in black—its arm was wrapped around to the front and held a knife to Will’s throat.

  “Silently she gets on her knees,” the voice said, and Elena’s blood went cold. “Silently, or she watches her lover die.”

  But Elena was already on her knees. She hadn’t even thought about it.

  “Silently she unbuckles her belt, silently,” it said again, “and drops her weapons on the ground.”

  Elena’s fingers fumbled on the buckle, even though she had no weapons on it, and she tried so hard, so hard, to place it down without making a noise.

  “Silently, she moves back, silently.”

  Elena crawled back on all fours, sliding each limb without a breath.

  “Not as much fun on that end, no?” said the voice. “As Captain of the Sheriff’s Guard, I should let you know that I speak for the Sheriff himself and you may consider my word his law.”

  Elena closed her eyes and there was a sharp noise, the sound of Will’s throat opening, but no, it was the back door slamming open.

  “Come on, you two!” John shouted, and was five paces into the room before he registered what was happening.

  “Put your weapon down and get on your knees,” Gisbourne said softly.

&nb
sp; “Damn it, that’s fine, that’s fine.” John leaned his quarterstaff against the wall. “Just don’t hurt him.”

  “On your knees.”

  John put a hand on a table, but his legs wobbled when he tried to lower himself. “They’re not so good these days.”

  “My apologies then, why don’t I fetch you a divan to rest on, or you could get on your fucking knees.”

  John winced as he did.

  However long the next moment lasted, it was an eternity. But it ended with a quiet hoot from outside. “That’s it, Captain.”

  “Very good, come and grab their weapons, will you?”

  The front door opened and men poured in, more than had ever been at the fire ring, clattering through the room, taking their weapons. Elena’s eyes darted for anything left behind, a smithing hammer or a small blade, anything. A long thin hook lay on a table to her right, maybe small enough for her to pocket, if she could get to it. Gisbourne shoved Will forward and the chest spilled coins like blood on the ground. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of this earlier,” he gloated to a skinny man beside him in a light cloak. “Why bother wasting time trying to find a bunch of rebels in the woods when you could get them to come to you instead?”

  John still had some fire in him. “What you’re doing here is wrong.”

  Gisbourne looked insulted. “You’re literally stealing. We just caught you, in my supply house, taking things that are not yours. Please don’t tell me what I’m doing is wrong. Stealing is wrong. That’s something your king and your God agree on. Or do you think yourself smarter than them?”

  A beefy guard with a thick beard tapped his foot in front of Elena. “A lot of sharp things in this room, eh? You think that’s the best choice you could make with your life, given recent turn of events?”

  Elena had only shifted an inch or two toward the hook, but it had been noticed.

  At Gisbourne’s command, the Guardsmen started to drag them outside. The beefy one crouched down to look Elena square. “You know there are two ways we can do this,” he said.

  This, at least, Elena had been through before. So she nodded, and then there were hands on her arms, lifting her up and moving her outside. She was surprised to see the tip of the sun piercing the horizon. The wagon with its chickens had moved to the side. By the central firepit, Arthur was on his knees surrounded by three or four guards. Elena managed a look back down the alley between the buildings, and already there were guards unloading their wagon, and disappearing to the back door to return the crates.