Nottingham

  What Roger was saying probably didn’t make sense. He knew little about how the records were kept, but was hoping to be vague enough that Arnold would fill in the gaps for himself. To his satisfaction, the man started muttering any number of possible explanations, calculating potential mistakes, listing exemptions and loopholes they might use to right the error.

  “Terrible, yes,” Arnold concluded, “but we can fix this.”

  “We?” Roger lifted an eyebrow. “You are under the mistaken impression that you and I are in the same boat.”

  Arnold swallowed. “My apologies. That is … I can fix this.”

  “Not before you die.”

  Arnold started making noises, some of them quite entertaining.

  “Oh settle down, I’m not threatening you,” Roger said. “I’m simply predicting the future. I will have to return everything that Gisbourne has collected. Every coin, every straw. The Sheriff’s Guard will be a mockery, the people will be outraged, and I doubt you have the stamina to survive the ensuing riots.”

  “Riots?” Arnold’s head was probably filling with better nightmares than Roger could possibly describe.

  “This is a mistake of catastrophic proportions. The moment anybody else hears about this, we’re all done. All of us. Those that aren’t stabbed in the streets will die there nonetheless, alone, once the Chancellor has his way. You and your damned numbers, Arnold. They’ve destroyed us. You’ve destroyed us.”

  He tried to leave an opening for Arnold to suggest the obvious, but the old man wasn’t there yet. Roger flirted with giving it away. “I certainly don’t have much choice in the matter, I have to take this to Gisbourne immediately before the raids are over.”

  Still nothing. Roger stooped to feeding him his line. “Unless…”

  Arnold was, at this point, exactly as useful as a parrot. “Unless what?”

  “You can’t be serious?” Roger recoiled theatrically. “We could never hide something this important! Why, you’re holding the evidence in your hands! It only takes one person to look inside that book, and see the same thing I saw.”

  The old man’s eyes were moving now. Finally, self-preservation sparked to life somewhere in his brain and throttled his propriety into submission. “Then nobody must ever see this book.”

  Voila.

  Fifteen minutes later, they burned tome after tome together. Arnold believed it was his idea. Every record of debt owed in Nottinghamshire, every name and number cracked and blackened in a metal pot.

  “Hide it,” Roger whispered as the embers fluttered in the air. “Move your numbers around, Arnold. Use your magic. The list may be gone, but it’s up to you to balance the rest of it. Get creative. I’ll do everything I can to protect you. I’ll even take the fall if I must. But for God’s sake, if anything happens to me, you must take this secret to your grave.”

  One fell swoop, and Nottinghamshire’s villages were free from the fear of being evicted and arrested. Everyone could start anew. He could not undo the damage he’d done already by letting Gisbourne’s raids go forward, but this would put a stop to them going any farther.

  One down, three to go.

  * * *

  SIMON FITZSIMON WAS NEARLY alone in the massive dining gallery, since the majority of Nottingham’s Guardsmen were out on the tax raids. The giant Scotsman appeared smaller in that great emptiness, huddled over a bowl making the disgusting sorts of noises that larger men make when they eat. A few guards lingered at the outskirts of the hall, short skinny things, no doubt the freshest of recruits. The hall gave Roger’s footsteps an epic quality as he descended the wide stairs, and Simon begrudgingly stood at the sight of him.

  “Master-at-arms!” Roger called out, liking the way his voice echoed. “Which part of you is the most incompetent? Tell me, that I may remove it from your body and feed it to your children.”

  Simon simply chewed, slowly, giving the effort his full attention. “What can I do for you, Sheriff?”

  “I should say you could fall on your blade, but that end is generally reserved for more honorable men.” Roger toppled an empty tankard over with a single finger, still half the room away from FitzSimon. The guards at the edges pretended not to listen. “The least you could do is leave Nottingham tonight, and never be seen again.”

  “Are you going to tell me what’s going on,” Simon ground his jaw, “or do you just insult me until I guess?” Roger rarely interacted with the arms trainer, as there was little overlap in their worlds. But FitzSimon was well respected in the Guard, and worked closely with Gisbourne. So Roger was betting they shared the same opinion on a certain policy.

  “There is only one real type of secret in the world,” Roger curled his lips on each word, “the kind shared by the dead. You thought that your pet boys would never say anything? You put swords in the hands of criminals and ale in their bellies and trust that they’d behave? You’re an even bigger idiot than your size would suggest.”

  They weren’t actually Roger’s words. Gisbourne had fought Roger at every step when enacting the plan to recruit nonviolent tax offenders into the Nottingham Guard. Some men would always consider the word prisoner to be synonymous with evil. No doubt it would be the first policy Gisbourne would destroy upon taking the sheriff’s seat tomorrow.

  Simon squinted. “What the hell am I supposed to do? They know not to say anything.”

  “So you admit it, then.”

  “Admit what?”

  “This obscenity. This utter corruption of justice!” Roger chose to wave his arms in increasingly large circles, fearing he’d laugh at himself if he tried to continue seriously. “Your use of men from the prisons as fodder for Guardsmen! Putting wanted men side by side with those loyal to Nottingham? Inviting betrayal into the ranks! Are you even vaguely familiar with the concept of a criminal?”

  Simon put his hands out, his stubby fingers spread wide. “I. Agree.”

  “What do you mean, you agree?”

  “I mean just that.” Simon scratched the red at his chin, and Roger imitated him. An old trick, to gesture like a person makes them think you’re on the same side. “I never would have trained those men to fight if I hadn’t been ordered to. Men come to the Guard for a lot of reasons, but those that only do it to save their own skin … I don’t trust them one bit.”

  “‘If you hadn’t been ordered to?’” Roger feigned confusion. “Gisbourne told me this was your idea.”

  “My idea?” Simon’s face turned the color of his beard. “He told me it was your idea!”

  “My idea?” Roger spat and gaped, turned and harrumphed, everything that Simon was doing, mirrored back at him.

  “That son of a bitch,” Roger offered, and Simon bit it.

  “I—son of a bitch!”

  “Well,” Roger coughed, “now I understand how my wives felt when they met each other.” Obviously a lie. “It would seem we have something in common. We’ve both been lied to. Gisbourne.” He seethed the word, and it poisoned the air.

  “He played us both against each other,” Simon said. “Damn it all, he’s got one of those gerolds in his personal regiment. After everything foul he said about them and you, he took one amongst his closest men.”

  Roger didn’t know who Gerold was, but he loved watching the lie solve other mysteries in Simon’s head.

  “He must be up to something,” he continued. “Something big.”

  “The man has ambitions,” Roger nodded importantly. “Best not let him know we’re on to him.”

  Tomorrow, when Gisbourne ascended to sheriff, Simon would see the wheels at work. Without the support of his own master-at-arms, Gisbourne would have a much more difficult time accomplishing his own agenda. It wouldn’t stop him, no, but it might slow him down, and keep healthy opposition and dissent alive. It would keep Gisbourne from ruling as a tyrant.

  Two down, two to go.

  He’d saved the people from their debt, and hurt Gisbourne’s authority. His next step was to miraculously find a great d
eal of wealth to send to King Richard. A wicked plan had been uncurling in his mind all night. It involved an outrageous lie, the unwitting participation of the good Lord Oughtibridge, and a very particular coinchest full of shit.

  Which, it occurred to him, he could not possibly carry on his own.

  “I need two of your men,” he told Simon.

  Simon barked out, only to scare those at the periphery of the room. There were few Guardsmen left at the castle, and the two young guards who stepped forward—engulfed in their blue cowls—were hardly intimidating. For a moment Roger doubted himself. Young new recruits such as these two … might Gisbourne retaliate against them for their part of this?

  Somewhere in the world, Marie told him to trust his instinct. Then he was moving again, with two of the future of the Sheriff’s Guard keeping time behind him.

  * * *

  A REMARKABLE TEMPTATION OCCURRED to Roger at the top of the four flights of stairs that led to his office. Aside from the joy of knowing he would never climb them again, he realized what he might do after he was no longer sheriff. He hadn’t spared a single thought to what came after, and doing so brought a renewed sense of drive.

  He’d take his name back.

  He’d been Roger de Lisours for most of his life, but every other de Lisours he’d ever met made him despise the name. There had been but one notable de Lisours, his grandmother Albreda. When she died the rest of the family fell on itself to divide and claim her considerable lands. Roger wanted none of it, and that unthinkable lack of greed made the rest of his family untrusting of him. They demanded he take the barony of Pontefract, a county away in Yorkshire, and in exchange he abandoned his name. But legally he still had every claim to it. And the night had whetted his appetite for taking things.

  Marie could suffer to wait for him in France a while longer. Perhaps he could stay a player in this game, if Roger de Lisours reclaimed his land and kept a neighborly eye on Gisbourne. Being deposed may even be the greatest thing that could happen here.

  Roger pushed open the door to his office to find William de Wendenal inside, startled. Between his fingers was a parchment with which Roger was quite familiar, famous for refusing to change the name written upon it. Wendenal started to apologize, but Roger waved him off.

  “It doesn’t matter. I see you’ve read it.”

  In a world full of Gisbournes and Oughtibridges, Roger had found a rewarding friendship in Wendenal. He had provided clarity of thought and well-needed conversation. Actual conversation, where people develop and strengthen their ideas, rather than blindly throw their own at the other with increasing volume.

  Another step into the room and Roger realized Wendenal was not alone. The haste with which Arable was adjusting her dress said more than enough as to what they had been doing.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, and she was the sort that meant it.

  “There’s no offense.” Roger smirked. “After all, it’s not even my office anymore.”

  “That’s not what I meant.” She reached out and touched the letter.

  “Is there nothing to be done?” Wendenal asked. He seemed freshly shaken. Perhaps he had only just read it before Roger walked in.

  “It’s my fault, all of it.” Roger stiffened and straightened his hair, looking at the other version of himself hanging on the wall, which looked back with derision. “I’ve made many mistakes, you know. Anything that has happened, I am solely to blame.”

  “Has anybody seen this?” Wendenal asked, and then, noticing the two guards behind Roger, “Wait outside.” They closed the door, and he repeated the question.

  “Nobody else has read it.”

  “Not Gisbourne?”

  “Gisbourne’s still in Bernesdale, as far as I know.”

  Arable’s face was pale. “That man is a monster. He can’t be given so much power.”

  “He will be,” Roger confirmed. “He has.”

  “He’ll spend the entire coffers searching for those outlaws,” Wendenal thought aloud. “The county will be bankrupt and your people will be living in fear.”

  “I’m working on that. I’ve done a poor job of managing all this, I see that now. I should have been more decisive. But I have a few final acts I’ve set in motion today, and one or two more before this night is over. I may be able to salvage something from this … debacle.” He hesitated before the final word, realizing that he was describing his own career.

  “One night? That’s not enough time.”

  “It’s all I have.”

  Wendenal snatched the parchment and held it over a candle.

  “What will that accomplish, William? Another would come in a week, along with the men to enforce it. Do I want to be remembered as the sheriff they had to drag out of his office by force?”

  “A week is all we need.” Wendenal’s eyes were bright now. “Do you want to be remembered as the sheriff who gave up, or the sheriff who brought peace to Nottingham? You know as well as I that Gisbourne’s raids will do nothing to change the outlaws in the Sherwood. If anything it will embolden them further.”

  “Oh I know,” Roger felt the anger in his veins, “but I could think of nothing else. Oughtibridge wanted the appearance of action, and this at least did not involve violence.”

  “But it gives you the public display you wanted,” Wendenal shifted, “so why not come to a truce with them at the same time, secretly? If we simply meet with the outlaws—”

  “You and your peace talks again.” Roger turned away. “I told you. We cannot bring them here, we cannot—”

  “We don’t bring them here. We bring you. To them.”

  He stopped. It was a left turn he had not expected. The idea bounced about his skull for a bit, searching for a jagged line. “If you’re about to tell me that you’ve known how to find them this entire time…”

  “I don’t.” Wendenal raised his hands. “I swear. But Robin of Locksley and I planned to meet, no matter what, in three days’ time. If you come with me, into the Sherwood … he’ll take you to meet them. And you can end this, peacefully, with nobody knowing about it.”

  Surely with an hour to think upon it, Roger would find some flaw in the plan. At the moment, it admittedly seemed like a decent option. But it would only work if he was still the sheriff in three days, or else he could not honor any agreement made. Which meant burning the prince’s order.

  “Do you think you can still trust him?” Roger asked. “It did not take long for your friend Robin of Locksley to transform into this renegade Robin Hood.”

  “Trust me,” Wendenal smiled, “we can trust him. Think of it. A lasting peace. The last act of Sheriff Roger de Lacy. Or hell,” Wendenal smiled now ear to ear, “maybe you’ll get to stay.”

  He had already chased that mirage. Roger squinted, letting the candlelight turn into perfect white pins. But a peace would go a long way.

  “Does anyone else know of this letter?” Arable asked.

  “Lady d’Oily,” Roger thought aloud. “But only that I’ve been deposed. She doesn’t know who is to replace me. Hell, she doesn’t even know who wrote the damned thing.”

  Wendenal sucked in air. “Can you trust her?”

  “Probably not.” The truth tasted sour.

  “But she trusts me,” Arable squeaked. “I could tell her whatever you need me to, if it will buy you a little time.”

  “Arable, you shouldn’t risk yourself—”

  “It’s nothing. I can do it. Anything is better than Sheriff Gisbourne.”

  The pieces fell together, then crumbled.

  “No,” Roger grumbled. “We are not the only ones who know. Gisbourne would undoubtedly have received a letter as well.”

  “But Gisbourne’s out on his raids,” Arable said. “If a letter came for him, he hasn’t seen it yet. We just have to find it first.”

  Wendenal nodded, smiling. “We’d better go. Quickly.”

  But he didn’t move, he waited for Roger to agree. And Roger was not yet certain.


  “I know it’s a lot,” Wendenal pressed, “but imagine the good it can do. You say you’ve made mistakes. Now’s your chance to fix them. You know this world better than I. If you tell me it’s too dangerous, then I’ll believe you. But imagine the gain.”

  Wendenal didn’t know what he was asking. To go against this edict, it could have dire ramifications. Roger could obey it and still have a future, a future he had just barely begun to think about. Or he could do as Wendenal asked, fight for a week’s worth of work, and potentially lose everything. Somewhere in the world, Marie was there, reminding him that the easy choice was never the right one.

  “Well, fuck me,” Roger said. “But I feel rather a bit like Robin Hood.”

  “Thank you, Roger.” Wendenal hadn’t called him by his given name before. Arable found her way under Wendenal’s arm, and he touched his nose to hers. “Important people are depending on you.” With a heavy look they left, closing the door behind them.

  “Ah, the young and ambitious,” Roger told the portrait of himself on the wall. “They just stole your happy retirement.”

  The portrait, rather predictably, scowled back, unamused. He still had two visits to make this night.

  He wondered if Margery would be asleep by the time he was done with Lord Oughtibridge, and sat to craft the letter that was pivotal in his ruse. The lord and his wife, quartered two floors below, intended on leaving in the morning. Roger would see that they did so under quite different circumstances than they expected.

  Halfway through the letter, the door opened behind him. Roger turned to see the two Guardsmen who had been waiting outside enter cautiously.

  “My apologies! I need you to fetch something for me.” He felt poorly asking them to carry the fetid chest, which had been taken to the stables but never emptied. But before he could direct them, they closed the door and slid the heavy iron barrel through its breach hinges.

  Something was happening outside.

  “What is it?” he asked. In his head, a thousand scenarios played out too quickly. Gisbourne’s raids had gone horribly wrong, and there was rioting outside the walls. Or perhaps one of the Guardsmen recruited from the prisons had indeed snapped and was on a murdering rampage through the castle.