Nottingham

  “They’re shaken,” she said, her voice soft. “Nobody knows what to do. You rose up and took control. They’ll listen to you. People just need to be told what to do. They’re scared.”

  “They know I’m a fraud,” William whispered. “And what’s the point? Why am I even trying to be the sheriff, with what has happened? I wanted to bring Robin’s people in for peace talks, and that’s not an option anymore. I should just leave this to Gisbourne. He’ll—”

  “Don’t say that.” Her voice turned to ice. She turned him around briskly. Arable’s face was red and puffy, which made the scars stand out all the more. “He’s why you have to do this. You’re the only competent person in Nottingham right now. Of course that’s going to frustrate you. But it’s the reason we need you.”

  William was humbled by his own selfishness. “I’m sorry. I know. It’s just … it’s just so much.”

  He hadn’t even explained the depths of the situation to her. The sheriffcy was in absolute chaos. William had hoped to reshape the tax laws in ways that would feel just to the landholders as well as prevent them from abusing their vassals. But neighboring lords like Lord Oughtibridge were already in a state of revolt, and the city’s master tax assessor Arnold de Nottoir apparently had no records at all of their individual debts. It was absolute anarchy, and it would take William months to set it straight. And that was only if he were allowed to focus on such problems.

  At the moment everyone wanted to secure themselves from the threat of Robin Hood, and de Lacy’s funeral had to be arranged. William found no help from anyone regarding either problem. The majority of people saw him as a usurper, potentially complicit in de Lacy’s death, and took little effort to hide their animosity. Some were already actively working against him. Others swung the other way, feeding him fake smiles and compliments to reap benefits from his sheriffcy as quickly as possible. None of them, including William himself, expected him to last a week. In light of the assassination, the appointment of a legitimate sheriff would undoubtedly come from someone above. And they were right. Prince John would send men to enforce his previous edict, and then Sheriff Guy of Gisbourne would become a reality.

  “I can’t believe Robin could think I wanted this,” he groaned, forcing himself to breathe. He had to focus on one problem at a time.

  “Just tell me what I can do,” Arable said.

  “Keep doing what you’re doing,” he replied. “Get Lady d’Oily on my side. Convince her that de Lacy appointed me legally. If I can win her, I can win her husband. One at a time, I can start gaining some support.”

  Arable responded with only a small hum.

  “I’m sorry,” he said again, turning and taking her head in his hands, pulling her to his chest. Her arms wrapped around him and she squeezed tightly. “I don’t mean to ask you to do anything you’re not comfortable with. But if you could keep me informed, with whatever you hear, it would help.”

  She released him. “Right. I’ll keep you informed.”

  “Thank you.”

  He returned his gaze out the sliver window, out to the city of Nottingham beyond the castle walls. He thought of his father. William had always assumed he might take his father’s place in Derby someday. Ironically, his father now owed him fealty.

  His father, he startled to remember. He had been considering mining his father for any news of Arable’s family, for her sake. But he’d never done it. And if he were to write now, he’d have to explain everything else that was happening, and then his father would come to Nottingham. He would be a guaranteed ally, which William desperately needed.

  But William would have to hide Arable from him.

  No, even his own father could not aid him.

  “I need to get Robin’s outlaws,” he said solemnly. “That will gain me all the political purchase I need.”

  “What about Robin?” Arable asked.

  “I think I can protect him,” he said. “Once his group is arrested, he won’t have any excuses to stay. I’ll be able to get him back to the war.”

  But there was no way to communicate with Robin now, even if William had the words to persuade him. Sending Arable out in a carriage hoping to get robbed would not work a second time, and if Robin meant not to be found he was going to be successful at it.

  But there were exactly two people in the castle who knew where to look.

  * * *

  THEY CALLED IT THE Rabbit Hole, apparently, a square cell in the center of a small courtyard in the middle bailey, whose only door could not possibly open from within. Inside that cage was a gullet staircase leading down into the caves below Nottingham Castle’s sandstone base, into the catacomb of underground prisons. It held a single occupant at the moment. A beast of a Guardsman named Marshall had deposited her before withdrawing down into the tunnels again.

  William had to ready himself at the sight of her. Such a small thing, so thin, but she had driven a knife into Roger de Lacy’s chest a dozen times.

  “Good morning, Elena.”

  “A good morning? Did you die?” she asked him, out of the corner of her eye, as if she could not be bothered by his presence.

  “No.”

  “Then not good enough.”

  Of course she was impertinent. She had decided she was the victim.

  “And what do you suppose would happen if I died this morning?” William aimed for an indifferent tone, the one that all inquisitors adopted. He wasn’t sure he was successful at it. “You’ve started a career in killing sheriffs, so am I next? I presume you thought this out. Baron de Lacy is dead. You were successful. Congratulations. But you don’t strike me, at this exact moment, as much of a winner.”

  “You’re welcome.” She smiled at him.

  “So what were you hoping would happen? Am I to stop all taxes in the entire county and start giving out coin for free? As you and Robin do? If I die this morning, will the next sheriff do just that?”

  “This is a nice castle.” Elena glanced up at the keep towering above her. “It must have nice beds.”

  As much as he wanted to reach through the bars and strangle her, he needed the information she had. “Is that why you killed Roger de Lacy? For his bed?”

  She scoffed, and it drove a piercing iron nail into William’s patience. Her scoff said she thought Roger’s life was hers to take, for whatever minor trifles she’d suffered. She had not known the man. He’d just been a symbol to her of the world she saw as an enemy. Bitter little souls like Elena Gamwell were born every day, while a Roger de Lacy came along once in a century.

  “I’m not going to play your game.” She smirked. “You and Robin of Locksley, working together. Doing damage on opposite ends, fighting your way into the middle. Sorry for disrupting your little war.”

  “War, now?” William actually laughed. “Girl, don’t pretend you know a thing about war. You imagine yourself on one side, and the Nottingham Guard on the other, and that’s all it takes to constitute a war? This is no war, Elena. This here … this is a holiday. What a luxury when paying your taxes is your greatest concern. I’ve spent my time at the brink of humanity, at the war’s edge, where civilization ends. Real war. You probably can’t even dream of it.” He thought of the dumbfounded citizens of Acre, rioting on a whim, getting cut down in their own streets, in their own homes. That was where Elena’s tactics would lead. “I promise you, killing people never solves anything.”

  She didn’t answer. She was staring at a leaf on the ground. Eventually, “I agree, more death won’t help anything. I can save you two dead bodies. Let us go.”

  That’s what he needed, her plea for survival. “I can’t do two,” William said casually, in a way he hoped might catch her attention. He lowered his voice, conspiratorially, such that even Marshall might not be able to hear him at the base of the staircase. “But I may be able to help you. Perhaps you’re willing to bargain.”

  Frankly, escaping the gallows to spend the rest of her life in a cell was a poor trade, but she might be young enough
to think otherwise.

  “Willing to bargain?” she asked with feigned innocence, a mocking I’m just a girl and I don’t understand tone.

  She didn’t want to be patronized, so William tried at the truth. “You killed the wrong man. Sheriff de Lacy did more to help the people of Nottingham than you could possibly understand, but you killed him before he could finish what he started. The man you should hate, the man who killed that boy of yours, Much? His name is Lord Guy of Gisbourne. You put a sword to his throat. Taking it away may have been the biggest mistake of your life. He’s a ruthless one, that, with more support here than I. He has the desire to take this role of sheriff from me, and he may have the ability, too. He will storm into the Sherwood, he will hunt your people and kill them like dogs, he’ll parade their corpses through the towns. Our rich friends will hail him as succeeding where Roger de Lacy and I failed. His family is far more influential than mine. This is inevitable. Which means my only option is to beat him to it.”

  “You want me to help you kill my friends?” she asked dumbly, but he could tell she had wavered. She was impulsive, but not without some intelligence. “What sort of an offer is that?”

  “Not kill. Arrest. They’ll stand trial, and only the men. The women and children will be left alone, I can promise that. It is a far better option than what Gisbourne will do with them. With a little time, most of your people will receive leniency. Some time in the prisons, yes, but nobody dies.”

  “Except Will.”

  “Scarlet?” William scowled. “Do yourself a favor and forget about him. He’d already be dead if we didn’t need to make a show of killing him. A lot of important people will come to watch the Sheriff’s murderer die. But nobody outside these walls knows there were two killers. And besides, a woman on the rope is a hard sight.”

  Elena rolled her head. “Will’s is the only life I’m ‘willing to bargain’ for.”

  William brushed himself off and stood taller, that she would have to look up at him. He dropped any pretense of civility. “Let’s not mistake this situation for something it isn’t. There is no scenario in which Will walks away, not one. You two snuck into this castle and assassinated the Sheriff. Will isn’t in prison because I’m a terrible person, he’s in prison because he is. Death is exactly what he deserves. Hell, it may be what you deserve as well, but at least do me the favor of pretending it was all Will’s idea. There’s no bargain that gets him out of that cell until he goes straight to the gallows. That’s not how real life works. If he doesn’t hang, I would be seen as the most incompetent sheriff in England.”

  “Then your competence is the price of peace.” She stepped up to the bars, her breasts pushed against them, just barely. William tried not to look. “You’re asking me to sacrifice my friends, and you’re unwilling to sacrifice your reputation?”

  “I’m asking you to save your friends!” he spat. He shouldn’t have. She shouldn’t have been able to rile him, but he could feel the potential for success slipping deeper into the earth than the cells below. “Goddamn it, we can help each other here. I am trying to strengthen my position, to keep Gisbourne away from you, don’t you see that? I’ve got everyone after me, I don’t have enough men, and if I lose this position, you lose your life. My reputation is the only thing that keeps you alive. So yes, it is paramount. I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”

  “What would you sacrifice for your peace, then?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. Her fingertips gently traced the bars. “Would you sacrifice a friend? A lover?”

  Robin. Arable. “Only if I had no other choice. And you have no—”

  “Then I pity you.” She leaned back, fingers curled around the iron. “I, too, want peace. But I want peace for my friends, and for my lover. I would sacrifice anything for them, but not them. Without them, there’s no reason to fight at all. I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”

  There was no point in talking to her anymore. She was ruled by her scorn. William could try with Will Scarlet, but he would have even less to bargain with. No, this strategy was a dead end, and he did not have the time to entertain it further. Catching the thieves was the surest method of solidifying his position, but there were other avenues at his disposal. Different enemies to corner, different allies to embrace.

  He turned to leave, pausing only to offer one final threat, just for the empty fun of it. “If I catch your friends without your help, I will hang them all.”

  She let go of the bars and dropped to the floor, crossing her legs. “I killed the Sheriff, alone. Will is an innocent man. Hang me, and let him go.”

  “You give up your life for a dead man. Tell me, where is the great sacrifice in that?”

  She smiled, cruelly. “We may still surprise you.”

  FORTY-ONE

  MARION FITZWALTER

  THE OAK CAMP

  “ANSWER ME THIS,” MARION asked Tuck, warming her fingertips at the nearly depleted tallow candle within his tent. “Do you hold that God is all-knowing?”

  “He must be,” Tuck answered, “for He is God.”

  “And do you hold that God is all-powerful?”

  “Again, He must be. If He were not all-powerful, He would not be God.”

  “And all-caring? Does He love us all, every one of us?”

  “He does, despite our mistakes and our sins, for all of us can be redeemed.”

  “I can’t believe you,” Marion sighed, wishing that the stories from her childhood could actually be true. “I could believe any two of the three, but not all of them. He may be all-powerful and all-caring, but perhaps He cannot see everything that happens. Or He may be all-caring and all-knowing, but lacks the power to intervene. Or if He is all-knowing and all-powerful, then He clearly doesn’t care. What happened to Much … how can you explain that? It wouldn’t happen if God knew about it, cared about it, and was able to stop it.”

  Tuck nodded, as always, but his smile was personal and painful. “I sought those sorts of answers myself once. In a lot of places. In my travels I’ve spent time with Jews, pagans, Muslims, and stranger types, and a colorful variety of sects within each one. The White Monks at Fountains Abbey claim the key to revelation is in isolation. I shared the road with a Carmelite Friar named Pantaleo for some time, preaching the power of building communities. None of them had all the answers, of course. They can’t. If the answers were to be had, then we wouldn’t have to call it faith. There will always be doubt, and that’s good! It’s what keeps us open to other people, to other ideas. The moment someone thinks their beliefs are facts, they become dangerous. It is uncertainty itself that makes true devotion possible. The divine is strongest within its mysteries.”

  Marion watched the lone flame flicker against the weight of their breath. “That’s not much of an answer.”

  “Well it’s not much of a question, really.” He smirked. “You make your case for His three qualities, but you assume that He cares for things we care about, knows things the way we know things, and is powerful in the way we describe power. But we cannot know any of this. We cannot, and we should not. You want to describe Him with these three aspects, to make Him more human, but He is not. If we do not understand why terrible things happen, that is our failing, not His. That is the time to stay true to Him. It’s the only time it really matters.”

  Marion breathed in, and reached out for his good hand, finding it as cold and stiff as her own. He was right about at least one thing, that there were no solid answers to be had. “Powerful in the way we describe power”—if there was some other version of power out there, she did not know what it was. She had used every power available to her, and half the power that wasn’t, and still come out wanting. “I admire your optimism. But you want to tell me that the best answer is that there is no answer. How is that supposed to make someone feel better at a time such as this?”

  “Honestly,” Tuck’s eyes twinkled, “how could it not?”

  * * *

  IT WOULD BE THEIR final dinner together around the ca
mpfire. Across the flames, John Little closed his eyes. Next to him, the memory of Will and Elena bowed their heads as well. Alan would have been next, grasping his knuckles together, his eyes closed too tightly. Much would have lowered his head but peeked around with one eye open.

  Marion had exhausted her last bits of time trying to group people together, hoping to aim them in safe directions. Most were gone already, including the families that kept to themselves. Those who had not yet left would depart by morning.

  Arthur and David, bless their hearts, had stuck it out to the last. They kept the fire hot, they helped the others pack, without judgment. Even now, Arthur brought her an extra blanket for her legs, for which she quietly thanked him. He ground his jaw and breathed in heavily, stepping back as if he knew it was the last task he’d ever do for her. Those two would pick their own way tomorrow, as they’d done before Locksley.

  In some morbid way, she’d been successful. She had wanted to build a community of people who had a say in their own governing, who could choose their own futures. As they scattered now into the wind, their decisions were at least their own. No master to protect them meant no one to save them, either.

  Whatever it was she and Lord Walter had tried to do, this was the cruelest version of it.

  Marion closed her eyes and surrendered to her limitations. Her muscles went limp, and she could feel neither the warmth of the fire nor the bite of the cold night. She gave everything she could. She tried to hold onto the small morsels of advice Tuck had given her, despite her own constant shortcomings.

  She didn’t want an answer, or a sign, and she prayed for nobody’s safety or health. All she did was offer herself.

  She prayed there was some greater plan, some greater power, that she simply hadn’t seen yet.

  And she prayed she’d be wise enough to recognize it when it came.

  Perhaps the wind stilled just a bit, or perhaps the fire glowed brighter for a moment, or perhaps the sighs of the woods all found the slightest peace at the same time, but Marion felt that there could still be some hope. Beneath it all, there had to be hope.