Nottingham

  Robin chuckled. “Right. Well, how about a knife?”

  “Stealing supplies is one thing,” Tuck wiped his moustache, “killing is quite another. Don’t worry, I don’t begrudge it you. You’ve done what you’ve seen fit. But I’ve chosen a path that abhors violence.”

  Robin instantly took offense, and had to remind himself Tuck couldn’t know how invasive his statement was. “You make it sound as if I enjoy violence. I don’t. I’m teaching these things to keep everyone safe.”

  “But we’ll have to kill people to be safe,” Alan said sadly, into his own sword. “Won’t we? If we’re going to sneak into the castle and save Elena and Will … there’s no way we can do that without it getting bloody.”

  “You may be right, Alan.” Robin met his eyes. “Or maybe not. We should be hearing back from Marion any day now, with all the information she’s been able to gather about the upcoming funeral.” He wished she was here now, but she insisted on taking frequent visits to Sheffield with Sir Amon to trade information with her contacts. “If we’re lucky, we can sneak in and out without ever having to pull steel.”

  “It’s not much of a plan yet,” Alan grumbled. “The entirety of our plan is to make a plan.”

  That was not far from the truth. “The plan is to prepare,” Robin tried to alleviate the man’s fears, hoping he did not sound as desperate as they were. “That’s what we’re doing. Don’t forget, this doesn’t end with getting our friends back. That’s where it starts. You can already see how many people are rallying to our cause, especially in the wake of the Sheriff’s raids. If we pull this off … when we pull this off … it’s going to be the start of something momentous. We’re getting people to stand up for change, a real change. A peaceful change.”

  Their less-than-enthusiastic agreement was a little unnerving.

  The only sounds that followed came from a clutter of birds somewhere in the central oak. Robin envied them, being largely certain the birds were not currently planning a rebellious assault on an impregnable castle. Not even one of them.

  Eventually Tuck cleared his raspy throat. “Be careful about becoming a hero, Robin.”

  Your father was something of a hero, Marion had told him.

  “Don’t take offense now, but this isn’t your fight.” The friar tangled his fingers into the wild mess of his beard, but his eyes were piercing. “You never seemed to see eye to eye with your father’s ideas, but now you’ve walked away from your king to stay and tend to Walter’s dream. That sounds like a man who wants to be a hero.”

  Of course he had considered it. It was impossible not to enjoy the attention. But it was not what brought him back.

  Tuck stood and massaged his injured elbow. “I wouldn’t blame you. Where you came from, they praise the King for everything you do. But then you come here, and people are singing songs about you.”

  “You wrote those songs, Tuck.” Robin pointed his finger. “Which I never asked for.”

  “That’s true. But you came back. And I can’t tell if people are interested in this peaceful change you talk about … or if they’re interested in Robin Hood. Could be we’ve made you into something we shouldn’t have. So be careful. There’s no place for heroes in heaven.”

  Robin laughed. Heaven had even less to do with his motivations than heroism. “Is that in the Bible?”

  “There’s no heroes in the Bible, either.” Tuck was sharper now, he didn’t seem interested in Robin’s non-answer. “Just ordinary people, doing what they could. Even in extraordinary circumstances.”

  Almost finished with their run, a group of ordinary people in their own extraordinary circumstances rounded their final corner, breathless and pushing themselves for a final sprint. Robin had not come back for their worship. But the fact they idolized him was proof that they needed help. Marion—and his father—had tried to build a world for them that they could shape for themselves. The opportunity was there, but none of them knew how to do it.

  For too long, Robin had thrown his hands out in the air when people refused his help, as if to say, Well, I tried. But the world is too hard.

  This time, instead of throwing his hands up, he was digging his heels in.

  “Well, what about you?” Robin turned the question around. “Why are you here, Friar?”

  Tuck grinned and picked up his cup. “Beer!”

  “Excuse me?”

  “John Little stole a ransom worth of beer from my village. I asked him where he was going and whether they needed a friar. He accepted.” Tuck waited for Robin to laugh, then threw his good arm around Robin’s shoulder. “I’m no hero, either, I’m afraid. Heroes die gloriously. But drunkards always survive.”

  * * *

  THEY SPENT LESS TIME thieving lately, as their inflow of new blood often brought supplies of their own. Besides, every encounter on the road brought an increasing element of danger now. Alan had brought back troubling news from his scouting shifts. In the two weeks since Bernesdale, the Sherwood Road had seen heavy use by contingents of guards from Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, headed toward the city. By Alan’s description, a veritable army was being amassed in Nottingham. Robin accompanied him this day in the hopes of seeing some for himself, in case Alan didn’t understand what he had seen. If Alan was right, he had to wonder if going to the Sheriff’s funeral would indeed be suicide.

  Stalking through the Sherwood again. It was a recurring hunt with a rotating cast. Robin wondered what William was doing now, what he was preparing. Again and again he replayed their conversation at Locksley, wondering what he could have said differently. William had tried so hard to send him home, before he had even explained what he’d done. That meant there was hope. William couldn’t face Robin with his actions, because he knew he was in the wrong. After they rescued Will and Elena, once they stole William’s victory, he would see reason.

  He’d return to the war.

  He’d have to.

  The air was damp and the sky a light grey. The slightest of rain always had a way of muting the sounds of the forest. If it had been colder it might even have turned to snow, but instead water floated in the air and soaked their faces. Robin traveled through the trees with Alan, impressed with his ability to move without making noise. He thought about commenting on it, but was certain the young man would take it the wrong way. You’re very good at being unnoticed, wasn’t the type of thing Alan wanted to hear.

  “I know why you came back,” Alan said out of nowhere. “And it’s not about being a hero.”

  “Oh?” Robin was, rarely, caught off guard.

  “It’s obvious.” Alan slipped through a dense cluster of birches. “Marion. I recognize the way you look at her, even when you first showed up. She’s … she’s your everything. She’s behind every word you speak.”

  “I don’t know about everything,” Robin replied, somewhat embarrassed. After a lifetime of never talking of the thing between them, it was strange for it to suddenly be a reality. Their younger selves would have thought they were destined to be together like this, but life had intervened for so long. Somehow, against all odds, they had fought their way back. “I can do you one better, Alan. I know why you were able to recognize it.”

  Alan just squinted his face.

  “I spent a lot of years pining after Marion, so I can recognize it in you. It’s Elena, isn’t it?”

  Alan was suddenly a frightened child, caught misbehaving. “It’s not like that.”

  “What’s it like, then?”

  He hesitated. “I know she doesn’t want me.” He wouldn’t look at Robin, no longer careful about the noise he was making. “And that’s okay, it really is. Will is my best friend, I wouldn’t … I just wouldn’t, you know? Will’s a better man than me, he’s stronger and faster and smarter. Certainly funnier. She’s better off with him, I know it. I just…”

  The leaves crunched underfoot. He kicked a bed of them into a beautiful violent plume.

  “Have you ever had a perfect moment?” Alan asked, his fa
ce brightening. “A perfect little memory, that’s just yours? I had one a few months ago. We all had too much to drink. Will wasn’t there, I forget why. Elena was bumping shoulders with me, laughing at something I said, and then she leaned over and kissed my neck! Or, at least, I think she did. I can’t really remember. I was too drunk when it happened to know what to do, and a few seconds later it was too late to react anyway. So I just pretended it wasn’t a big deal. It was perfect, you know? It’s mine, I can hold onto that. And if it happens again, I’ll know what to do. I’ll react faster. I just need the right circumstances again, right?”

  Robin might have let it lie, but he knew the recklessness such a thing could turn into. “She doesn’t love you,” he said.

  “I don’t need her to. I just want some of those perfect moments. Now and then. I’m fine with that, I swear.” Robin was well familiar with the bargain Alan had made with himself. There was nothing so cruel as unrequited love. It was a thing too cruel to even call love at all—it was obsession, and Alan would cling to those little nuggets of hope. Those beautiful-terrible moments that made life livable-unbearable.

  But it was something to live for, at least. There was still that.

  A distant nothing noise distracted them. Robin looked up, noting that the thin colored ribbons they hid in the trees had become more obvious in autumn’s depths, even though no random wanderer could decipher their purpose. Still, Robin’s heart froze cold when he saw, in the distance, the shape of a thin man in a blue cloak, head cocked upward at one of the ribbons tied to a bough above him.

  Instinct kept Robin calm, his muscles limp rather than rigid. For a few heavy moments he didn’t move, then he concealed himself silently behind a nearby low thicket. The stranger shifted rather precisely in various directions, the third of which left him staring directly at Alan. To Robin’s horror, it appeared Alan’s instincts in this situation were to put his hands out to his sides in the hopes of looking like a tree.

  The cloaked man, shockingly, saw through Alan’s disguise. “Excuse me, friend!” The man’s voice was articulate, his clothes were far finer than an average traveler’s. Though he appeared to be alone, Robin still eased his sword from its scabbard, careful not to reveal himself yet. The strange man had a song in his voice for Alan. “Please, I beg your assistance, oh scurrilous forest bandit. I am so terribly overladen with jewelry and gold, or whatever other incentive may specifically interest you. If you have any wits at all about you, please serve me in as criminal a manner as you see fit. I should warn you that my guard is half-blind, in both eyes, so fully blind rather, it’s a wretched condition. I don’t suppose you could be so bothered as to fucking rob me, would you kindly?”

  A dozen mysterious possibilities unraveled in Robin’s mind, and he hoped this might be an innocent joyrider rather than an obvious trap. The stranger gestured for Alan to follow him, which he did. Robin trailed at a healthy distance, and Alan found a discreet moment to look back for instruction. Robin could offer him nothing.

  Within a minute the trees thinned and they were upon the Sherwood Road, where there waited an unmistakable gaudy carriage outfitted with colorful streaming banners. Alan stepped onto the road ahead, nocked an arrow and aimed it limply at the stranger.

  “Ah yes, perfect, thank you! I feel adequately threatened now. You have most overwhelmed me, and I humbly surrender. Take what you will!”

  “Who are you?” Alan asked.

  “I am a defenseless traveler with just so much gold. And I’ve had the hardest time finding somebody to take it from me. Have you been on holiday, perchance?”

  The stranger lingered at the edge of the road. At least one more body sat atop the carriage, maybe one more inside. The stranger seemed to be around Robin’s age, with dark and curly ruddy hair.

  Alan was plainly clueless how to react, and simply said, “What?”

  “Please,” the stranger’s tone dropped a bit, “for the love of anything you find holy, tell me you are not Robin Hood.”

  “No,” Alan called out, to the stranger’s obvious relief. Alan again glanced nervously back toward Robin’s hiding spot, forcing him to duck down.

  “But you know Robin Hood?”

  “I might.”

  “There’s no need to be a prude, now,” the man said. “Have you any acquaintance with Robin Hood? He doesn’t have to be your best friend for you to say yes.”

  “Aye, I know him,” Alan said slowly.

  “Excellent,” the visitor clapped. “He’s still in the thievery business, then?”

  “I suppose.”

  “I only ask because I’ve been coming here for several days and haven’t been thieved upon even once. Each time I bring fewer men and more wealth, but nobody seems interested in any of it. I’m feeling quite snubbed, actually. Do you like all my decorations? I don’t know how we could make ourselves any more obvious.”

  Robin’s trepidations melted as he gave the carriage a closer look. Two horses were harnessed at its lead, with bells lining their reins. Tied to the frame and dragging on the ground behind were several destroyed instruments—the bridge of a harp and the handle of a lute. A young man inside the carriage pushed his large head out to watch with mild interest. The gruffer man atop flopped his hands about to show how weaponless they were. It was another pack of tourists, who clearly had missed the news that Robin Hood’s merry men had turned to assassins.

  Alan’s mouth waggled about. “Sorry, we’ve been busy this week.”

  The man just waved his hands and laughed. “I’m so sorry to interrupt. But I am eager to meet him, so if you would kindly lead us, we can all be on our way.”

  “Hurry on, then,” the driver grumbled. “It’s fucking cold out here.”

  “I can’t just bring you to our camp,” Alan said. “I have no idea who you are.”

  “Yes you do,” the man sighed. “If you’re the type of person who needs titles, you probably know me as Prince John.”

  Robin nearly gasped aloud. He had only met the prince once before, but now he could instantly recognize some of the man’s features. What he was doing in the middle of the forest with only the slimmest of an entourage, begging to be robbed, was a question that would undoubtedly consume the rest of Robin’s day.

  “I’d ask for your name,” the Prince explained, “but since we’ve already established it isn’t Robin Hood, I frankly don’t care at all. All I care about is that you take me and my immeasurable wealth to your leader, and that you do so before I strangle you out of boredom.”

  “Here,” Robin said, moving out of hiding. Prince John turned sharply and exhaled, clapped his hands, and moved to greet Robin properly.

  “Stay back,” Alan ordered, once again raising his bow. “You’re not allowed to get close to him.”

  “Yes I am, you witless sod,” Prince John said back at Alan, but his eyes stayed on Robin, with seemingly no fear. “Because I’m here to fucking help you.”

  FORTY-FOUR

  ELENA GAMWELL

  PRISONS OF NOTTINGHAM CASTLE

  THIS ISN’T HOW IT ends.

  This prison cell, it was just a place. They’d been many places, and each was theirs to leave. Simply a matter of waiting for the right moment, and not hesitating to choose. Together, she and Will, they’d climbed out of much worse places than this.

  That was a lie. This was the worst.

  Elena had been in and out of gaol before, growing up in the maze of alleys on the south end of Nottingham. She’d chosen to leave that life. Catty-corner to St. Mary’s Church was a gaol that earned the name Sinner Mary’s. It offered more protection than the streets could, and on one occasion she’d been arrested on purpose since she knew Will was in for a stint. That was before he was hers. Rather, before he knew he was hers. She’d chosen that as well.

  But Sinner Mary’s had still been a normal building, a tall stone square. This prison in the castle was something else entirely. It was a cave, clawed out of the earth beneath the courtyards. On the other side of
her iron gate was more cave, only lit when the guards came. Otherwise, the dark. A small hole had been dug a handswidth deep beneath the bars where she was to relieve herself. Every so often, a man with a shovel would come by and remove its contents, not caring if it spilled over the floor in the process. She didn’t mind. The stink would protect her from any errant guard with an itch between his legs.

  Time didn’t work down here. There was no telling when it was day or night, or how many of either had passed.

  It was just a place. One more story to tell later. Beads on a string. That was life—simply a series of events. It was just a matter of choosing to move from one to the next, her and Will. Too many people complained about their lot, their life, their rotten luck. Elena chose to be better than that. That’s all it took, the act of choosing, and all that was left was to walk it. Out of the Alleys. Out of Ten Bell Yard. Sinner Mary’s. Red Lion Square. Anywhere. Redford. Locksley Castle. The Oak Camp. Bernesdale. Nottingham Prison. Somewhere Else. Somewhere Better. Somewhere Safe.

  This is the last bead, her fear laughed at her. This is where you’ll die.

  She pushed the thought down. There would be a chance to leave this place. She chose to be sharp enough to find it. Half of luck was simply having the courage to act when the moment was right. Killing the Sheriff, for instance, had been a perfect chance with a tiny window of opportunity. If she and Will had debated it with the others, it would have passed them by. Instead they’d jumped on instinct, and everything she suffered now was worth it. It would be over, soon enough. She just had to keep her eyes open for that next window.

  Still, it was harder without Will. He was somewhere down here, too, “down the north tunnel,” she had overheard. Every now and then, after waiting too long and then even longer, she’d give a trill little whistle from her cell to let Will know she was still there. Every now and then, after dying of fear and pinching herself to keep from crying, and then longer, she’d hear the response, just barely from down the tunnel. Or maybe she didn’t. Or maybe she thought she did. Or maybe some other prisoner was just copying her.