Nottingham

  William clenched his jaw. “You’ll have to go on without me.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Robin laughed, “I can wait here another day. Until you come back.”

  “I can’t.” It was all William could say. “I still have work to do. You’ll have to go back to King Richard and inform him what’s happening here.”

  “What? No … William,” Robin climbed back up the staircase, “we said we can’t get entangled here. I know it seems important, I know. But we’re not even supposed to be here. Richard needs us. Peace or no peace, remember?”

  “I remember.”

  It was so tempting. They could just get on their horses and leave, just as they’d promised, back to the beautiful simplicity of the war. Richard would thank them with promises of lands and riches he would never actually give. Already, away from the city for just a few hours, the events of the last month felt less immediate. More like a story or a dream.

  “They killed the Sheriff.” Robin shook his head, eyes wide with curiosity. “Huh.”

  His reaction was impersonal, William had to remember, because he had not met Roger de Lacy. To him it was indeed just a story, and he couldn’t fault that. William would have the same reaction if it was just news coming in from somewhere else. If they had never come home, neither of them would care at all.

  “Do you suppose we botched this one? You think this is our fault?” Robin asked, still detached. “No way to know, I suppose. Fuck, what a month we’ve had!”

  Robin grabbed his arm and pulled him down the stairs, and William surprised himself by laughing. There was a comfortable camaraderie with Robin, and it was so easy to slip into it. The two of them, back to back, against any odds. Untouchable.

  “Are you thirsty? Hungry? I’m a terrible host in my own home, what can I get you?”

  William was, indeed, starving. Eating had seemed a savage insult in the wake of the murder. And the apples were for the horses. Robin led him down to a smaller chamber adjacent to the dining hall, a private dining room that no longer had enough walls to be called a room. Part of the once-wall lay in the middle of the space, piling to an appropriate table height where Robin had evidently been making his meals. There was ample meat and vegetables, wrapped in cloth, for William to share.

  “I’m sure it’s nothing compared to what you’ve been eating,” Robin apologized.

  “It’s perfect.” William licked his fingers, thankful for every bite.

  They ate. William let himself relax, though he was partially unnerved that he was able to. But there was no practical distinction between leaving now or in an hour, and there was no knowing when he’d see Robin again. They traded stories of their adventures since they’d split a month ago, and tried to top each other with tales of increasingly stupid things they’d seen. William won that competition, with the young Ferrers’s proposed strategy of organizing an archery tournament.

  “Wow.” Robin laughed heartily. “Yeah, that would not have worked.”

  William let the smile linger on his face, grateful to feel such a thing again. “Oh just so you know,” he realized, “I saw Marion yesterday.”

  Robin breathed in and sighed. “What did she say about me?”

  “She said you’d be here.”

  He nodded. “How did she seem?”

  “She was pretty angry, about the Sheriff. And at herself.”

  Robin continued to bob his head, chewing at his lip.

  “It ended badly, then?”

  “Ended?” Robin was going to make a joke, it seemed, but got lost in his thoughts instead.

  “Sorry, brother,” and he meant it. But he couldn’t resist tagging on, “Not everyone can be as successful with the ladies as I am, you know.”

  “You asshole.” Robin kicked him playfully in the ribs. “You’ve spent the last month in a castle surrounded by women, telling them stories about riding with the King, and I get stuck with the vagrant forest folk. Please tell me you’re joking.”

  William couldn’t help but laugh. “Not at all.”

  “How many?”

  “How many girls, or how many times?”

  “You asshole,” he repeated, and this time William spat out food.

  “Just one, just one!” he coughed as he defended himself. When Robin relented, he finished with, “but easily three or four times a day—” and then Robin was snatching all the food that was left and throwing it in a sack.

  “You don’t get my food anymore!”

  With that, Robin and William went tripping backward and out of the room, slapping at each other and shouting insults, taking turns guarding and dashing back into the room to grab another bite of food and devour it loudly, or to pull from the wine before the other gave chase again.

  When they had both resigned themselves to the floor, catching their breath, the large dining hall was a deep indigo, the full moon and clear sky pouring in through the empty gaps in the ceiling. Robin was on his back, still heaving.

  “Did you bring horses? I never got ours back.”

  “That would be the second time on this trip,” William calculated, “that you have lost the horses. But yes,” he added, before Robin could retort, “I brought one for you.”

  “Good. We’ll leave in the morning, then.” Robin’s laugh lingered and died.

  William hoped this wouldn’t be difficult. He had promised Richard he would settle this no matter the cost. And he’d made another promise, more recently. When he left Arable, when she gave him the apples, he promised he’d be back. He wouldn’t break that one again.

  “I was serious, Robin. I won’t be going with you tomorrow. I have to deal with this.”

  “You don’t have to deal with this. You want to deal with this. I know you do.” He propped himself on an elbow. Of course he was taking it all so lightly, he was eager to leave the company of those he had spent his time with. “But things have only gotten worse in the last month. Which is exactly what I predicted.”

  “Did you predict they would assassinate the Sheriff?” William asked dryly. “You spent a month with them, you had no idea they were organizing something like that?”

  Robin flinched. “No, they never talked about anything like that.” He looked William dead in the eyes, genuinely offended. “You know I wouldn’t have let that happen if I had known about it.”

  William chose his words carefully. “You know I believe you. But you have to admit, you’ve been up to some unusual things. You can’t blame me for worrying about … about whether your priorities may have … shifted. Even Marion had her doubts about you.”

  That seemed to strike a nerve.

  “What does that mean?” Robin asked. “What did she say about me?”

  “Nothing.” William replayed the conversation back in his mind, the what-ifs they couldn’t ignore. “She thought perhaps you had gone back, and were responsible for it. She was worried maybe you were … trying to prove yourself to her.”

  “She actually said that?”

  “Actually, she wanted me to give you a message. She said she truly hoped you had nothing to do with it, for the sake of her sister.” Marion hadn’t explained the message, but insisted it would mean something to Robin. And it did. His mouth gaped without an answer, he sat down and tried to shake it off, but he was rattled.

  “Well I didn’t,” he said at last. “I didn’t see it coming. Honestly William, I don’t know why on earth they would do such a thing. I really don’t.”

  This part, though, William knew. He had visited the killers in their cells yesterday morning, hoping he would lose control and strangle them. “They said there was a … a child that was killed.”

  “What? They killed a child, too?”

  “No, no. One of theirs. They claimed it was revenge, for an incident in Bernesdale, they said. Some boy, some orphan boy.”

  Robin sat up, instantly alert. “Much?”

  “Much, yes, that was the name.”

  Robin stood, clearly agitated by the news. “I never should have le
ft them.”

  William hadn’t guessed Robin would have known the child. Surely he could recognize he wasn’t responsible for what happened. Robin was no more to blame than Roger de Lacy. “I’m sure you did what you could.”

  “No,” Robin jerked, “I didn’t. I was supposed to train them. I knew they had violent instincts, and I…” He trailed away, and his face flushed red.

  William had no idea what to say. He swore there were tears forming in Robin’s eyes. But Robin bit it off, he breathed in deeply and came back down.

  “My brother,” he said, staring elsewhere, “killed Marion’s sister. Edmond was my responsibility. I was supposed to train him, I was supposed to teach him how to control himself … and I didn’t.”

  “Robin,” William’s heart broke for his friend, “you can’t put this on yourself. Whatever your brother did … whatever these outlaws have done … it’s not on you. Don’t do that to yourself.”

  But Robin grimaced. “I could have tried harder. I dismissed them as hopeless, but they didn’t know what they were doing. I, of all people, should have recognized that. They have no idea…”

  “It doesn’t matter now.” William stopped him from going down that route. “It’s done. The best thing for them now is to go quietly, and quickly. Get a map and show me where they are, they’ll be rounded up before they make it even worse for themselves.”

  Robin didn’t move. “What will happen to them?”

  Something nagged at William that he should lie, but he couldn’t, not to Robin. “Scarlet and Elena will be hanged at de Lacy’s funeral.”

  Robin shook his head. “And the others?”

  “I’ll do everything I can, but I don’t know. Don’t think about that. They’ve made their choices.”

  “Is there no possibility of keeping the peace?”

  “They assassinated the Sheriff!” William hadn’t meant to come off as angry, but hell if he wasn’t. If King Richard had been killed in the night, Robin wouldn’t be thinking of how to treat his murderers kindly. “They’re not stealing jewelry anymore. They snuck into the castle with one purpose—with the intent to murder. Roger de Lacy did everything he could to give them their space, to let them their freedom. To forgive that which is forgivable. This is not. They’ll be hunted down, imprisoned, and hanged. And they’ll deserve it, Robin. You couldn’t have stopped this. They’re murderers and thieves, deserters and traitors. The new sheriff will not be able to turn a blind eye to them the way de Lacy did. No.”

  Robin’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t disagree. He nodded, breathed out, and accepted it, because he had to. He chuckled, that was his way. “Who’s the new sheriff?”

  William didn’t know why he had been avoiding this.

  “I am.”

  * * *

  FINGERS OF BLOOD, SPIDERWEBBING away from de Lacy’s body. Arable entered the room behind him.

  “Oh God, William,” she moaned, then her face was unrecognizable, destroyed with grief.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” he shouted at her, but he closed the door and barred it—there were bloody handprints on the bar. William’s stomach lurched. He tasted copper in his mouth, it was in the air, it was in the goddamned air.

  “I didn’t know what was happening!” she cried, moving to the window and trying to breathe. “I thought Roger should know we couldn’t find anything—”

  But he didn’t have time to deal with her. At any moment someone might enter the room. William thanked God he had the presence of mind to understand what had to happen. He might have minutes, or he might have seconds.

  Arable’s eyes couldn’t leave de Lacy. “Oh God, was it Gisbourne?”

  “No,” William barked. He rifled through the papers on the table. Some were still sticky with blood, he had to peel them apart. “Where the hell is it?”

  “Please don’t yell, William.”

  “I’m not yelling at you,” he yelled at her, and she shrieked. “Don’t scream!”

  He ran to her and put his hand over her mouth. He couldn’t risk anyone coming until he was done. She squirmed under his palm, but then melted into him and he cradled her head into his chest.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Arable, I need you to be strong, I need you to help me here. I need to find the letter I brought with me, the letter from King Richard—”

  She moved before he finished saying it, plucking it from one of the cluttered shelves sunk into the stone wall, where he never would have found it. “Why, what do you need it for? What’s going on?” she asked, but he was back at the table. Roger’s feet were there next to him.

  “We’re not losing like this. Not to this.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “To this! To this … insanity! It’s not too late, it can’t be too late.”

  “William slow down, you’re scaring me.”

  “I need ink. And a quill. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to scare you.” Her eyes were huge, and wet, her mouth nothing but a tiny trembling dot. He wanted to comfort her, and he would. Later. “Ink.”

  She found it, and he had to close his eyes to focus. He had to write calmly, confidently. It was tricky to find a place on the table that was free of blood. Arable seemed to back down from her fear. “What are you writing?”

  “King Richard’s letters gave us royal authority on the matter of securing the supply line.”

  He dictated as he wrote, slowly, it helped to calm him. “I, Roger de Lacy, in respect and loyalty to the crown, of my own wit and will, allow an extension of that authority, and hereby appoint the High Sheriffcy of Nottinghamshire to Lord William de Wendenal.”

  He signed a name at the bottom, Baron Roger de Lacy.

  “William.”

  “Wax, and his seal.”

  She shook her head no, only slightly.

  “Arable.”

  “You can’t do this. It’s too dangerous.”

  “It’s the same risk I asked him to take.”

  “And look what happened!”

  “I only need a week. We can still do it.” He folded the parchment and slammed his fists into the table. “His wax and seal!”

  But she had them already, she was holding the wax over a candle.

  Not in vain, Roger. He savored a long final look down at de Lacy’s body, his face obscured, his hands twisted. William wished he could have seen his face one more time. Above, the painting on the wall scowled downward, looking at something on the table.

  Shit. Almost forgot.

  He peeled the letter from Prince John off the table, the despicable command that had started everything this night. When they were finally safely away, he put it in Arable’s hands.

  “Burn it.”

  * * *

  “ROGER DE LACY WAS leaving anyway. He was tired, tired of everything. But he was surrounded by lackeys. When he met me, he wanted to groom me for the position. I refused, of course, but apparently he made it official. They found the assignment in his office the night he died. Signed and sealed. His last official act was to name me his successor.”

  The lie came out easily, he had already told it so many times in the last two days. But it tasted sour when he told it to Robin.

  “That’s insane,” Robin cut in. “You’ll have to turn it down. We can’t stay. You can’t take over as sheriff. We have our orders.”

  “That’s just it, Robin, we have our orders. And, whether I asked for this or not, I have the opportunity here to really…” he searched for the word, but he was too afraid Robin hadn’t believed him, “… to really do them. I could fix a lot of things that led to this supply problem in the first place.”

  “You can’t be the sheriff.” Robin laughed at him, but his eyes were serious. “We’re glorified bodyguards. You think they’ll let you run the county? This isn’t like putting on the crown for a day.”

  Actually, the similarities were haunting. In Acre, William had taken on the warcrown when Richard couldn’t, and that leadership had saved countless lives. Here he could do
the same. “Don’t sell us short, Robin. My father is well known in Derbyshire, of no small title, and we are personal advisors to the King himself.”

  Robin was clearly jealous, in light of his time with the rebels. Going from soldier to sheriff was a hell of a leap. If their roles had been reversed, William would have argued against it as well. But jealousy was just an emotional pettiness, and Robin was better than that.

  “As I said,” William continued, “I can’t leave. I brought you a horse, I only came to say goodbye, I’m afraid. I didn’t want you to wait around for me. And I needed your help.”

  He tapped the map, the one that Robin still had not marked. He was being unusually evasive on that point. William knew this wasn’t what Robin wanted to hear. He wouldn’t want to travel alone, or to return to Richard as a failure.

  “What are you going to do with that?” Robin jabbed his finger at the map.

  “As I said, we’ll round them up. For their own good, Robin.”

  “You’ll throw them in a dungeon. For their own good?”

  “Are we talking about the same people? If they hadn’t killed the Sheriff, there would have been a peace. I was working on a peace. But as it is, I’ll have to play this through.”

  “Play this through? By hunting down women and children?”

  “Thieves and murderers.”

  “Who are fighting for their own survival—”

  “By killing the Sheriff?” William cut him off. Robin was grabbing at straws, he had to realize that.

  “They’re good people, William,” he pleaded, but half-heartedly. “Most of them are families, chased off their land, or have lost too much. You can’t punish all of them for the acts of a few. Their situation is not their fault—it goes back a year ago, when the Sheriff raised taxes.”

  “I know where this goes back. It goes back to when your father incited a rebellion.” William instantly regretted it. But the name Walter of Locksley had been said too many times in the last month. The great instigator. Robin’s father had built his own private nation in the middle of England. Walter of Locksley taught the common people that they were allowed to ignore their country’s rules. Robin should consider himself lucky he was not branded a traitor’s son.