Nottingham

  “No,” he admitted, sheepishly. “Maybe if I were Will, I could say yes. Or Sir Amon, or even Arthur, I bet they’d fight to the death. But I … as I am reminded far too often … am just Alan.” There was something terrible and honest about it, and it took Robin by surprise. “I don’t want to die. I don’t know what the hell Will was thinking. First of all, he shouldn’t have taken Elena with him. He should have taken me. And second of all, I would have told him not to do it in the first of all. I don’t know how he let himself get so carried away. We all loved Much, but you didn’t see the rest of us running off to kill the Sheriff.”

  Robin nodded.

  “It was never like this before,” Alan continued. “We never got into any real trouble, is what I mean. There was a scare or two, more than that maybe. But even then, it wasn’t like this. Nobody ever got killed, that’s for certain.” Robin didn’t react, but Alan quickly corrected himself. “Sorry. Excepting your father.”

  There was no offense given.

  “I ever tell you I knew him? I’m sure you figured. Terrible thing, what happened. I’d been pulling grain for him for about a year beforehand, worked the stables some, too. How I met Will. Your father was nice, you know, he never treated anyone like they were workers. Often times he’d even lend a hand. No, he was nice, but he had a strong head about the king-this, and the government-that, said it took his boy away. I guess he meant you. He had a fire in him when it came to that sort of thing. If I were him, I would have just paid the taxes.”

  Robin had made the same complaint to Marion.

  “Well, he believed in something,” Alan’s voice grew tighter, “and he got dead. Will Scarlet, I suppose he believes in something, too, and now he’s about to get dead. He’s gonna get Elena dead, too, for it. But even Little John, these Delaney brothers, they’re all fighting for their land or the people or something. Or something. You know why I’m here?” The wetness in Alan’s eyes was no longer coming from the rain. “It’s fun. It is, you know? The stealing and the fighting, sneaking around and getting away with it all … you know how exciting pulling grain is? This … this is fun.” He looked up again, where the silhouettes of the branches were darker than the cloudy sky above. “At least it was until people started dying.”

  Robin gazed upward at the heavy mottled clouds, drifting along so high above, not even noticing the two of them as they rumbled on elsewhere. When he looked down again, Alan’s face was more real than it had ever been. Something tender had taken over.

  “Have you ever seen red?” Robin asked.

  Alan didn’t seem to understand the question.

  “Some say it’s just a phrase, others say it’s real. When you snap, you find out. You find out what sort of violence you really have in you.” Robin paused, even the rain paused. He wasn’t sure why he started saying it, he hadn’t even realized it was on his mind. “I had a brother, you know. He … he succumbed to that. That thing, inside us.”

  “I know,” Alan said, gently.

  While Alan could only imagine the horrors of seeing his friends hang, Robin’s mind had gone somewhere else. He knew what would happen to anyone who got in between him and Marion. William had picked Marion for a reason, to draw Robin out. It was a personal attack, and an absolute violation of their history together. In every dark fantasy of what happened next, it ended with Robin and William in the same room, swords against each other. It ended with Robin seeing red.

  “That violence,” he said at last, “I don’t want to find out if I have it, too.”

  Alan’s mouth opened to respond, but rethought it. Eventually he asked, “Is that why you always seem against us killing anyone?”

  Robin shrugged. He didn’t want to think on it any longer.

  “If you don’t mind my saying so, for someone who is so against violence, you’re very good at it.”

  A lump stopped in Robin’s throat. “You have to study your enemy.”

  “Robin,” Alan’s voice had startling clarity, “you are not your brother.”

  Those words hit Robin with a relief he had not realized he needed.

  “Whatever you decide, we’ll follow you,” Alan urged him. “Just don’t decide out of fear. Fear just keeps you from doing the things you know you should. It holds you back. None of us are here because we’re afraid, we’re here because we want to do what’s right.”

  The rain fell on them both, harder, until it was impossible to ignore. Finally Robin smiled and pointed at the second glass, now overflowing. “You heard why Friar Tuck is here, didn’t you?” he asked. “Beer. He wanted to be where the beer was.”

  “Tuck’s a humble man.” Alan shook his head. “Nobody does this for beer.”

  Robin stood and put a hand on Alan’s shoulder. “Nobody does this for fun, either.”

  A brave young man named Alan-a-Dale raised his face to the sky to trade his tears for rain. “Then let’s get Elena back,” he said. “Let’s get them both back.”

  “Let’s get them all back,” Robin agreed, because it was their only choice. And if they had to pull this off, then they would. There was nothing else to decide.

  They walked back to camp together.

  INTERLUDE

  GILBERT WITH THE WHITE HAND

  WELL, THESE GUARDS WERE an entirely different sort of who, weren’t they?

  Driven, as it were. Not different in their composite stuff, all blood and bone still, gristle. Men never came different as such, always two arms and legs unlessing they’d been cleaven off. Some men are greedy that way, take more than their fair. But these Guards—these whos—they leaned forward into their future, making of it what they would. Not like Marion’s men, who would only ever push if they were first shoved backward, always losing ground. Driving forward never meant much if you end farther away, did it?

  But that wasn’t why Gilbert had left them, them being weak. Nor was it a pity or strategy that made him leave. He’d thought on it, thought harder than he’d wanted to. No, that hadn’t been it. Besides, they weren’t all slave to that weakness. Will Scarlet had killed the Sheriff, but boyo if he hadn’t gone about it the wrong way.

  Gilbert touched the pale tan stones with his ungloved hand, didn’t he, because he could. Nothing about the stone was appealing, its craggy porous surface wouldn’t make any singular thing about Gilbert’s life better for having touched it. But Will Scarlet couldn’t touch it as it were, being locked away somewhere beneath where Gilbert stood now.

  The middle bailey, Nottingham Castle.

  Gilbert opened his mouth and ordered a lesser Guardsman to move, if only to witness the perfection of a thing thought, a thing spoken, and a thing done. The faceless thing hustled off, his blood pumping apologies. A nothing man.

  Too much stone, this place, if Gilbert had a preference. The inside of the castle was a new where for him. Not a good or a bad where, just a new one. The city of Nottingham, down by the wharfside, that had been a where, too, Red Lion Square. Gilbert knew the men there well once, and they were a different sort of who, too, not better or worse, either, just different. Less stone there, down by the river.

  Some would call this place his home, then, those that needed that thing. That, with little doubt, was also not the reason Gilbert had left them. But he had left them, as he’d left a dozen places before, snatching that fluttering bit of thought and turning it to action. Was there a reason to decide that an action deserved a cause? He’d never been base enough to question himself before, but it nagged at him, didn’t it? They might have assumed he disappeared on account of being so close to Much, but that didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel reason enough. Deciding upon reasons left a maddening sense of obligation. But deciding only on actions brings the satisfying sense of movement.

  But that, too, didn’t feel reason enough. As it were.

  Approaching the castle stables, another nothing man stepped forward to question him. Everyone was new in Nottingham, Gilbert included. Nobody knew nobody. This nothing man didn’t know Gilbert, wanted t
o stop him with a hand outstretched, which he was just as like to lose. It didn’t matter what words the man would sling. Gilbert had already been given the proper ones to disarm him.

  Stand down. Captain’s Black Guard.

  And the nothing man saluted and stepped aside, a well-practiced maneuver he would only further perfect during the rest of his nothing life.

  * * *

  GETTING HIS FEET INSIDE the castle had been the hardest part, but all it took was a lie. Seemed the death of the Sheriff had led every earl in five counties to pledge protection to Nottingham. Gilbert simply waited for the correct amount of confusion. That had been the hard part, hadn’t it? Being asked to join the captain’s private company had taken nothing other than being useful.

  Frost on the ground, biting into the dirt, his boot biting in the frost, breaking flakes until they were mud again.

  He was almost sad to say he liked the captain, Guy of Gisbourne, if he had a preference. Gilbert was less than pleased with what the man had done to Much, but there would be time to marry that discrepancy later. Or not. It could have gone either way, couldn’t it, Gilbert might have plucked an eyeball from the captain’s skull if the thought had struck him. Instead he’d listened, which offered its own sort of entertainment at first, and then interest. Captain Gisbourne spoke of deeper things than a man of his ilk ought to. The captain respected the sanctity of action, and the cowardice of regret, and Gilbert couldn’t fault a man with such beautiful taste.

  And so now there was this thing, what Gisbourne called his Black Guard, wasn’t there, full of men—and that other one—who had been culled from the ranks of their castle’s visitors. A better breed of hunters, as it were, who could build as quick as destroy. Capturing Locksley seemed to be of paramount importance, and Gilbert had yet to mention he could personally do so whenever he chose to. He wondered whether a somewhat more nothing person would have felt sour, being party to hunting down those he could have called friends, if he had a preference. Were the thought to settle itself, he could tell the Captain where the old Oak Camp was now. They could bring Marion’s men to the castle in irons by sundown. Or perhaps he’d keep quiet and let them meander about the Sherwood blindly. Loyalty was a joke, a perfectly useless reason nothing men gave to commit suicide. So maybe he’d find the opportunity to plunge his knife into the hearts of these new men, one by one, when the chance presented. He hadn’t much decided, and wasn’t like to until the moment came, was he?

  But the buzzing had been growing, and that would tip the scales, as it were. He had stayed with Marion’s men a surprising long time, never worrying about what was next, and the buzz had kept itself away. But this was next now, and the now was all that was ever worth bowing to.

  * * *

  IN THIS PARTICULAR NOW, a stable boy was preparing a few horses, three, for the morning’s task. Gisbourne’s orders were to round up eyes outside of Nottingham. They split into trios to go from town to village, looking for people willing to keep wary of their Robin Hood, and bring news to the Guard when they did. Not the easiest task, given current relations. Villagefolk were fearful of the Sheriff’s Guard of late, on account of the raids, and Locksley’s offer of rampant charity was an attractive thing to those in need.

  Today’s trio included a man named Silas of York, who was too honest to be interesting, and the fop Quillen Peveril. There were others on the same hunt, and of distinctive worry was a trio led by one Sir Robert FitzOdo. This bulky knight was flanked by his two attendants—brothers whose names Gilbert hadn’t learned. FitzOdo was paid by the Baron of Tickhill Castle, Roger de Busli, and had joined the Black Guard in Nottingham by his own demand. FitzOdo regularly proclaimed Baron de Busli as the man who would kill Robin Hood. Captain Gisbourne feared FitzOdo would drag Locksley to Tickhill before Nottingham, but the captain didn’t appear to be in a position to refuse such ambitious help. Still, Gilbert kept his mouth shut about the Oak Camp, didn’t he? He chose the myriad of possibilities over the finite. He saw no reason to intervene as long as the consequences were so captivating.

  At each stop, Silas and Quillen would approach the town directly, while Gilbert rounded about on the outskirt, one of the few places he had a preference in being. Finding men loyal to Nottingham would take more honey than vinegar, and he held no delusions as to which side of the line he fell. So Gilbert slunk off to watch for those that didn’t know they were being watched. On a few occasions he netted them a friend that way. In a crotch of a village named Thorney, Gilbert found a beastly sort of fellow living on the outskirts by the name of Will Stutely. Gilbert fueled the oaf’s sense of importance, and the man promised to report the first thing he heard about Locksley.

  In other places, the story was different, wasn’t it? In a rotted hunting hollow named Godling, Gilbert came across a pair of farmers who were too healthy for their impoverished lifestyle. They hid while the others lied to Silas, so Gilbert came at them from behind and sliced a ribbon of blood from their calves as they stood. He took turns shaving tiny pieces off of them until they chose to stop fighting.

  Lie to me, and you’ll wake up choking on your own cock.

  Gilbert always enjoyed making threats that involved a fellow’s manhood, didn’t he, ever since a similar promise of violence had been made to him back when he was trading with the Red Lions. Some bony cutpurse who fancied himself a slickshit, he cornered Gilbert in Dutch Alley. The bony boy had demanded Gilbert’s white glove, threatening to saw off Gilbert’s cock. Gilbert was forced to explain this plan involved purposefully untying another man’s britches and manhandling his cock, probably with both hands. While the boy tried to defend his sexuality, Gilbert calmly delivered six inches of sharp steel up into the boy’s own crotch, all while keeping his own hands pleasantly cock-free. As it were.

  The gate swings both ways, he told the men whose calves he’d slashed. My friends will reward you if you tell us about Robin Hood. But if I find he’s visited you and nobody told us, then I’ll take increasingly large pieces of you until the majority of your body is mine. I’ll let you decide for each other which part I take next. Do we understand one another?

  They did. Gilbert thought about sliding his knife through one of their throats, he would have enjoyed it, wouldn’t he? It would have satisfied the buzzing. It had been over a year since he’d scratched it, since he’d needed to. But for a breathless nagging reason he didn’t. Something about the idea that Much had gone the same way.

  That had been new. He didn’t want to call it grief, but it rang of the ugly thing.

  He didn’t tell Silas or Quillen about that little incident. It was well understood, wasn’t it, that cutting calves was considered rude amongst strangers. Until he spent more time with his new companions, he would have to keep certain sides of himself hidden, as he had with Marion’s men. A few of them understood there was wonderful depth to darkness. But for those who believed that God was made of light, Gilbert would always have to only pretend to live in their world.

  * * *

  THEY KEPT QUARTERS IN the barracks of the middle bailey, four to a room. Gilbert housed with Silas, Marshall, and Peveril. But he spent much of his nights out, studying the castle, memorizing distances between doors, finding the darkest nooks where one could conceal oneself, or a body. Whether he would ever need this information he couldn’t say, but he wouldn’t be in want of its knowledge. As the honorary ghost story of whichever group he found himself, it was his duty to play the part. There were not many private indulgences he allowed himself, but playing to this caricature was one of them.

  He’d already heard the usual bevy of theories on his glove go around the castle and back again. That he was saving his hand until it could take Robin Hood’s life. That he only had two fingers and that he killed anyone who ever saw him take the glove off. One was that he only wore the glove to make people talk of it.

  In the lower, largest bailey, nothing men went about raising a gallows. They were at work as soon as there was light enough to do so, haulin
g massive timbers and hoisting them to position. It was expected to be quite the spectacle. The public was invited, with every hope that Robin and his men would be amongst. And they would be, Gilbert had no doubt of it. The thought gave him pause, though he could not quite say why. It would not be Scarlet on the gallows, just some prisoner from down below. If Marion’s men sprang to stop the execution, they would be most surprised. Scarlet and Elena would have had their throats unceremoniously opened earlier that morning, and their bodies would then be flung from the middle bailey walls for all to see. Assassins did not deserve the respect of an execution, such was the message, and the capture of Robin would be the final punchline. Gilbert was undecided if he enjoyed the joke yet, wasn’t he?

  The construction noticeably lulled as Gilbert strode beneath the skeleton of the half-finished gallows, the workers eyeing him, wondering which figure was more revered by death. He made a show of trailing his gloved fingers against its timbers, even paused and whispered a few nonsensical words into one of them. On the other side was the door to the cramped abbey where de Lacy’s body currently lived—or rather didn’t.

  It reeked of incense in the cubbyhole abbey. Men were afraid of the stink a body gave off, thinking obscuring its smell would make a corpse more palatable. De Lacy’s body wore death well. His face sank low and grey into his skull, his fingers were more bone than tissue, but he was handsome. All around him candles burned, sage smoked heavy in a bronze bowl, the ash lifting up and out of a grate in the ceiling. Over de Lacy’s body were two more, not dead yet. Not yet, were they? Holding a rag to his mouth was a man whose purported esteem was only matched by his age and girth. This Bishop of Hereford, here to preside the funeral, if he survived long enough himself.

  The other body was the other one, that most curious addition to the Black Guard. No hand over the mouth for this one, hovering over the sheriff’s body closer than most could stomach, staring. The half of her face Gilbert could see wasn’t anything to be called pretty, but most would consider it her better half. She shifted slightly to look at him. The other half of her sloughed, as it were, her eye fixed forever forward and dead. Her eyes, even the one that could see, were the first eyes that never nervously glanced down at Gilbert’s glove.