Nottingham

  “I came up behind Hawkins,” Morg tried to demonstrate, but his arms were weak, “meaning to cut his tip off. But he caught wind and turned, tried to fight back. Pricked himself right in the neck, idiot.”

  “Of course he was going to fight back,” the other Yorkie finally spoke. “What did you expect him to do?”

  “I expected he was going to kill someone,” Morg snapped, “and I wasn’t interested on waiting for it to happen!”

  Marshall defended him. “You want him to simply ask, Pardon me, aren’t you a murderer? Would you mind letting me clip your ears now? No.”

  “Seems he’s gotten out of two gaols already,” Morg said, finding his resolve. “He needed to be branded before he did it again.”

  Poor Morg thought Dale Hawkins was an assassin in disguise. If Guy had told his men about the gerolds in the first place, this wouldn’t have happened. Every bit of every damned thing that was going wrong was on him. He never should have accepted de Lacy’s policy on this.

  He should have done what was right, instead of his duty.

  The jostling of mail heralded a new flood of bodies into the room, and not one of them was a face Guy knew. There were too many strangers in Nottingham and they all wore Guard tabards.

  “Which one’s Morg?” the stranger’s voice was kind. “Sheriff’s asking for you.”

  “Shit.” Something about the way Morg pronounced it made the word even more offensive. “Is he dead?”

  “Doesn’t look good. Come on now. He wants everyone.”

  Morg stood and straightened himself out, ignoring the blood on his tabard. He went first, the others filing out behind him.

  * * *

  THE BLOOD ON THE floor of the barracks’ dining hall streaked away, sticky bootprints leading in various directions. The longtable Dale Hawkins had been led to was empty again but for the dark pool congealing beneath it. It alone was deserted. Every other table was filled with men and women, every soul in the castle might have been there. The air was hot with human breath.

  In the center, Wendenal, the man who called himself Sheriff, was raising hell.

  “Is this true, Guardsman?” He unloaded his fury on Morg as their party entered the hall. “You slit your brother’s throat?”

  “That is not true.” Morg stood his ground. “That man was not my brother.”

  Every muscle in Wendenal’s face found a way to turn smug. “Try to imagine how little I care for what you call him. He was a member of the Sheriff’s Guard, as are you, and you put your knife to his throat. Do you contest that?”

  Guy positioned himself near Wendenal, but the man had no interest in him. Instead, Guy searched the crowd. He found Eric of Felley and gave him a stern stare. There was nothing they could do to make any of this better.

  “I would think we’ve learned lately,” Morg tried to address the crowd, desperately looking for sympathetic faces in the familiar hall, “that not everyone who puts on the tabard is a member of the Guard.”

  “You want to talk about recent history?” Wendenal bit into it before the crowd could react. “You mean to say we should treat every man in the Guard as an enemy? You’re right that wearing the blue doesn’t prove a man to be deserving of the title of Guardsman, as I can see by the man who stands in front of me!”

  Morg swallowed. “That boy was a murderer.”

  “And he became a Guardsman. You are living proof it’s easy enough to change from one to the other.”

  “If I may, Sheriff,” Silas of York took a half step forward, “I knew the man in question, from the prisons in York. I was the one that recognized him.”

  “And I thank York for its concern,” Wendenal said, but his full force was still aimed at Morg. “So what did you do with this information, Guardsman? Take it to your captain? Or to me? Perhaps a servant girl, or a rock, anything at all that may have been more discerning than yourself?”

  Morg’s cow eyes opened wide, and he shrank a bit. “I didn’t think there would be enough time. In light of what happened to the Sheriff, I thought—”

  “In light of what happened to the Sheriff,” Wendenal tasted every word and spat them out again, “you should know better than to take justice into your own hands. De Lacy’s assassins decided to take his life because they thought they were right. They weren’t. We’re supposed to be better than them.”

  “I only meant to trim his ear is all, but he fought back—”

  “You held a knife to his face and you think he’s at fault that it cut him?”

  Morg breathed heavily, his body sagged. “Is he dead?”

  Wendenal looked to his right, but the men there gave uncertain responses. “You opened his throat. I’ve never seen a man survive that.” He looked down now, just a moment of hesitation, then stood tall again to deliver the punishment. “What’s your name?”

  “Morg.”

  “Your full name.”

  He shifted. “Kyle Morgan.”

  “Kyle Morgan, you are to be imprisoned for assaulting a fellow Guardsman. If Hawkins dies, you may likely face the hangman as a traitor.”

  That word was repeated many times by a shocked crowd, and ever more harshly by Morg himself, whose face went red. Guy closed his eyes, unable to see the man blubber.

  “We are not outlaws!” Wendenal bellowed, silencing the room again. “Not one of us, not you or I or the King himself, holds the reins to justice. If you think you should be able to kill whomsoever you please, go join Robin Hood. But if you claim to be true men of the Guard, you commit yourself to something better. To behaving as men rather than beasts. That is your choice. Kyle Morgan, I do not discount your years of honorable service. But you made your own choices today, and you must live by them.”

  Nothing was left where Morg stood, just meat. “I didn’t mean to kill him.”

  Wendenal sighed. “That may rank as the most useless thing I’ve ever heard a man say. Take him to a cell.”

  But nobody moved, and Guy felt a curious wave of pride. Morg was one of their own, the beloved bear of the Nottingham Guard. They knew his heart had been in the right place, that he was trying to defend them all. And, perhaps more importantly, Guy could now count the exact number of his men who felt the same as he did, who refused to jump at Wendenal’s every command. He committed to memory those who watched the new sheriff’s priorities with disbelief. If he was lucky, he was looking at the future members of the Black Guard.

  Wendenal eyed the room, perhaps realizing his lack of support. But there was a humanity in his face Guy hadn’t expected, and his tone softened. “I don’t take any pleasure in this. But we must hold ourselves to the highest of standards. Are there men here from Derbyshire?”

  A small cluster of men near the back of the room stood, dark green sashes across their chests. “We are, your lordship.”

  Wendenal gave a terse nod, his eyes flickering back and forth before speaking. “I submit this man to your custody, please take him to our prisons, which I also now place entirely in your control.”

  Derbymen. Wendenal now had his own loyal regiment, giving him control of a part of Nottingham Castle. There was nothing right about this.

  Guy took a step closer and Wendenal threw him a wild-eyed warning, but he could not let this go unsaid. He approached cautiously to whisper in Wendenal’s ear. “It will be dangerous for him down there, Sheriff.” The title tasted like bile, but Morg’s life was worth it. “He’ll be a target for the other prisoners.”

  Wendenal nodded. “Be sure he gets his own cell,” he called out, “and keep him isolated from the others. Remove his tabard.”

  “Lord Wendenal,” the lead man from Derby bowed, “we’ve served your father before. You can count on us.”

  They didn’t need to claim his uniform. Morg pulled his tabard over his head and threw it to the ground. He went willingly. If he had chosen to fight, the barracks could have ripped itself to pieces. Guy noticed more than a few hands moving to their hilts, uneasy glances shared amongst those that did not know
if they should act. But Morg was escorted out of the hall without incident, over the blood on the stone, out into the blackness where he would return to the prisons in a very different manner.

  Marshall Sutton made a show of his anger, staring wildly at anyone nearby, perhaps daring everyone into a fight. He was joined by Silas from the Yorkshire Guard, and a few others who seemed eager to object. Guy noted their faces.

  He would offer each of them positions in the Black Guard by sunrise.

  As the hall emptied, a young woman in a blood-soaked white tunic hustled in from the east wing and approached Wendenal. Neither said a word. The visitor simply shook her head sadly and retreated. Dale Hawkins was dead.

  FORTY-THREE

  ROBIN OF LOCKSLEY

  THE OAK CAMP

  “A SWORD ISN’T A club,” Robin bellowed, repositioning Alan-a-Dale’s arms so that he did not look quite so clueless. “It’s supposed to be an extension of your arm.”

  “You mean a hand?” Alan’s joke turned glum as he grimaced against the new muscles involved in holding a sword properly.

  They gathered in the field under the central oak tree, as before. They paired off against each other in pairs, as before. They breathed air, as before. Everything else was different.

  When last Robin had trained them at swordplay, he cared more about keeping them from hurting themselves than about hurting someone else. They had been children in the woods staring down coachmen, and needed to know little more than which end of the sword was which. Now, they would almost certainly draw steel against the Nottingham Guard. If they could not do so confidently, they would only ever do so once.

  There used to be only ten of them sparring, now there were three times as many. Motivated help had poured in from the surrounding villages, especially from those closest to Bernesdale. Robin had them change partners constantly, forcing them to adapt to new sizes and styles. Alan was currently paired up against Nick Delaney, a painfully handsome man with an equally handsome twin brother Peter. They had come to the camp along with their father Henry after Gisbourne ousted them from their home in Bernesdale for his own men’s comfort. They were exactly the type of help Robin needed—even-tempered, eager to learn, and decent beyond reason. They had quickly become beloved around the camp for their assistance in all things from cooking to building shelter. They’d already earned nicknames—“Nicks” and “Peeteys”—to help explain how they could be in so many places at once. When young women fantasized about what princes and kings must be like, they imagined men like Nicks and Peeteys. Pairing one of them against the skinny hapless Alan-a-Dale was almost cruel.

  “Can we use sticks again?” Alan whined. “These swords are slower and heavier.”

  “Not unless you want to go into battle with one,” Robin returned.

  “But I could fight forever with those.” He stretched out his arms. “These fights don’t last more than one or two attacks.”

  “Neither will a real one.” Robin kept a stern voice against Alan’s levity. “This isn’t tournament fighting. A real fight is over before you even realize it’s begun. Show me your stance.”

  Alan held his sword out and away from him like it was a sack of vomit.

  “Where are your hands?” Robin asked. Alan wiggled his fingers but fortunately didn’t answer, “They’re right here,” again, because nobody had laughed the previous time he said it. Somehow he always ended up with his hands overlapped on top of each other no matter how many times Robin reminded him one should be halfway on the pommel.

  Nicks seemed to take pity, and swung his sword in a slow and obvious sweep toward Alan’s side. Even with the forecast, Alan only held his sword limply up to defend, and the resulting momentum knocked him off his feet to a bed of dead leaves. The others laughed, because they’d never seen a body cleaved in half before. Robin knew what the hole in Alan’s side would look like, how his shattered ribs would pierce his flesh. He knew what sound Alan would make as he cried away the last of his life.

  “You can’t just stand there and take the blow,” Robin scolded, grappling Alan back to his feet, momentarily surprised by how thin his shoulders were. Nicks’s shoulders alone could have crawled off his body and beaten the life out of Alan. “Their sword won’t magically stop just because yours is in the way. That energy is still headed toward you, and if you absorb it, you end up with a broken arm, at the very least. And how much fun is a broken arm, Friar?”

  At the edge of the group, Tuck was drinking a large mug of beer, grinning wildly.

  “Don’t answer that,” Robin finished. “What you really want, remember now, is not to fight against that energy, but to redirect it.” He demonstrated with Nicks, signaling for the man to attack. Robin stepped back just out of range, deflecting Nicks’s blade down as it passed between them and redirecting it up and away, leaving Nicks’s belly wide and exposed. “Transfer the attack.”

  “Can I transfer the attack into something that’s not an attack?” Alan asked. “Maybe a pillow? I’d be alright with that.”

  “The Sheriff’s Guard,” Robin lectured the group, “will be trained in simple moves that are designed to work against unskilled opponents. Once you recognize these attacks, you should be able to avoid them simply enough, and transfer them away from you.” Most of the students were nodding, while poor Alan just shook his head in abject frustration. Not every man was built to swing a sword, Robin knew, but most could at least learn the basics. “Watch your hands, watch your feet, watch your angles.”

  Alan raised his hand.

  “Yes, Alan?”

  “I don’t know what that last one means.”

  Robin smiled, but only because he had nothing else to offer.

  “What if they’re not dead yet?” came a question from Gamble Gold. A hairy man from a hairy village, Gamble was more of a brawler than a swordsman, and probably from experience. “What’s the best way to kill those fuckers?”

  There was a rage in his question that Robin had been hoping to avoid. There were heavy differences in the reasons behind each volunteer’s arrival. Men like Gamble Gold seemed interested in punishing any Guardsman who got in their way.

  Robin frowned at him. “Remember, these men aren’t so different from us. They have lives, and families. I guarantee you that if you injure them or prove you’re the better fighter, they will run.”

  It was such an easy thing, to see the enemy as faceless nobodies. It’s what they did in the war, it was the only way to justify any of it. Uniforms made it even easier, and a wash of nameless Guardsmen sounded like a thing that nobody could ever miss. Anonymity turned violence into a tool, a necessity which Robin refused to succumb to here. Every man who pulled steel against them would be an Englishman, and that was a crucial thing to remember. It kept that hungry beast at bay.

  “So we’re not supposed to kill them?” someone croaked in the back. It was another new recruit, a short sort of frog man named Charley Dancer.

  Robin shook his head. “Only if you have to.”

  “I swear, if they hang Will and Elena,” Alan tried to sound braver than he was, “I’ll kill them all myself.”

  A few men nodded in grim approval.

  “That was Elena’s promise,” John Little added, “and I stick to it. Whoever’s responsible for one of our deaths, has got it coming back.” Robin noted that more people rallied at this than when Alan had said the exact same thing a second earlier. “Any problems amongst?”

  Robin had another lecture prepared, but nobody could tell John Little no. His burden in all of this made him unchallengeable. “None, none,” answered Charley, folding his frog face. “That’s a promise I can live by. Just wondering if they might feel the same.”

  “If who might feel the same?” Arthur asked.

  “The Sheriff’s Guard. What if they don’t take to having their men killed none neither?”

  “That’s a good point, Charley,” Robin jumped in, happy for the opportunity. “Just remember, anyone you attack might be a Scarlet, o
r an Elena, or a Much, to somebody else.” Or a William. “No need to make any more enemies than we already have.”

  “Excepting we haven’t killed any children.” Little’s voice was harsh. “That’s not the finest of lines.”

  Again, there was no way to disagree. Robin proceeded cautiously. “Even still, we cannot act as the wanton criminals they make us out to be. Once we get Will and Elena back, they’ll still need to answer for what they did. Without the support of the people, we cannot accomplish anything.” He had returned to prevent any more senseless death, not to add to it. “Alright everyone, once around!”

  Robin twirled his fingers in the air and the body of men groaned and leaned into a run. He had trained them to do sprints around the field at random times, to get used to unexpected bursts of excitement. “Where’s your sword?” he yelled at David of Doncaster, who sighed and ran back to retrieve it. John Little walked at an obvious leisure, so he tapped John’s flanks playfully with the flat of his sword. “Best get used to running, John.”

  Somehow John moved even slower, each step deliberately hanging in the air. “Best get used to disappointment, Robin.” He winked.

  No human being wanted to run in circles in the woods, not with winter on its way, not with so uncertain a future, no one. But they did it at his command, and he could only hope he was doing the right thing. After getting everything wrong with them in his first month, the change was as frightening as it was invigorating. There was a future to be built here, something started by his father and Marion that deserved a chance to work. Robin was still fumbling to figure it out, but he liked the shape it was taking.

  Alan hadn’t run with the others, so Robin just gave him an understanding nod. He needed a rest, and forcing him to run now might make him feel like a deeper failure. “What about you, Friar?” Robin turned to the man, seated on a log with the jug of small beer between his feet. “Want to learn how to swing a sword?”

  Tuck looked down at his arm, strapped across his chest, in more or less the same way he would look at a wild boar sleeping on his lap.