Nottingham

  Gilbert wrapped up his wrist, he caught his breath and held it, counting. Slowly. He wiped the blood from his arm, which was stiff up to the elbow. He stood from the table and leaned down to Jacelyn.

  Thank you, he whispered, and kissed her on the dead side of her face, and stood and left, didn’t he?

  PART VII

  ARNALDIA

  FORTY-SIX

  GUY OF GISBOURNE

  NOTTINGHAM CASTLE

  THE PUNCHLINE CAME, AND the endless parade of Guy’s misfortune was complete. All he could do now was laugh.

  What a welcome relief it was, this turning point. Up until that moment, when the dramatics crashed into hysterics, Guy had been clenching his fingers into fists, and his toes, too. Little footfists. But this final proverbial straw let Guy break down into laughter, a slap-happy ticklish sort of mania that brought tears to his eyes. The others at the longtable gaped at him as if he had gone mad, and they were exactly incorrect. In reality, Guy had finally gone sane. Trying to keep common sense in Nottingham—that had been insanity.

  William de Wendenal had been droning on, sitting in the sheriff’s seat and wearing the sheriff’s power but whining like a third child. Wendenal was trying to play the role of Roger de Lacy with only a quarter the wit. He had mastered all the strategy of an infant.

  But the sycophants had come to Nottingham, both to mourn de Lacy and to make alliances with his successor. Wendenal’s suspicious rise was ignored in favor of their own advancement. The collusion between Wendenal and the outlaws was undeniable even before his ridiculous betrothal to their benefactor Marion Fitzwalter. But William’s tenuous position would be solidified the moment he captured Locksley’s men, and despite Guy’s every effort he had yet to find any leads that might bring him there first.

  Now that he saw the endgame, there was no point in fighting anymore—the finale had already been orchestrated. Wendenal stared at him. “I suppose you’ll tell me what’s so funny about my suggestion?”

  Guy smiled, deeply. “Why, if you found nothing funny about it, I must have been entirely mistaken. The Sheriff’s law is the county’s law, and so must his sense of humor be ours as well. Henceforth shall I wait for the Sheriff to chuckle ’ere I e’er dare smile.”

  Wendenal rifled through his catalog of obvious facial tics that indicated he was displeased. “Shall I repeat myself, or do you think you can manage your task seriously?”

  “Why not just repeat yourself, for clarity’s sake?”

  Wendenal’s previous display of subtlety was now topped with an old-fashioned eye roll, and then he said it again. The punchline. By itself, the punchline is never funny, as it requires the setup of the joke. And this particular joke had been several days in the making.

  * * *

  THOSE FEW DAYS AGO, Guy paid a visit to Simon FitzSimon. Ever since de Lacy’s murder, Simon had been uncharacteristically affected, aloof even. Guy attributed this behavior to a misplaced sense of guilt—it was natural to be shaken by the terrorism that had taken place within the walls of the castle. But Guy needed all his allies at their peak right now, and it looked like Simon needed help. So Guy brought several fistfuls of ale to his armsmaster’s quarters, there being nothing so successful at lifting one’s spirits than one’s lifting of spirits.

  But the unkempt man who flung open his door was full of bitter and spite rather than remorse. Huffing and posturing, Simon denied his unusual behavior until Guy threatened to drink all the ale himself. When Simon finally let loose, he revealed a most curious story. The good Sheriff Roger de Lacy, apparently, had visited Simon on his final living night with a preposterous claim. He denounced his own insufferable idea of culling prisoners into the Guard, and swore it had been Guy’s idea instead. And unbelievably, Simon had fallen for it.

  “What fathomable long game do you suppose I would have been playing at?” Guy laughed. As they talked it out, reason prevailed—as it was always prone to do amongst reasonable men. And by the end of the night they both apologized and drank themselves silly, raised their tankards to the fallen, and practiced the eulogies they could only dream of delivering for the Sheriff.

  “To the Sheriff,” Guy slurred, “may the Lord be as wise in judging him as the Sheriff was himself.”

  “To the Sheriff,” Simon drank deeply, dark gold leaking out into his beard, “to honor you, we hope to send a few of your favorite gerolds to keep watch over your soul.”

  When morning came, with its usual unwanted gifts of pain and noise, Guy thought harder on what had prompted de Lacy to tell such a specific lie. Only the slightest tug on the thread, and a piece of the puzzle revealed itself that he hadn’t even realized was missing—Guy was the target.

  “What if the plan wasn’t just to put Wendenal in power?” he asked Simon, who was dousing his head in a horse’s water trough. “What if it was to get rid of me?”

  Simon spat water out. “You’re the captain, and a damned fine one. The fact that de Lacy made up lies about you proves they have nothing to use against you. The people love you, your men love you, no lie can undo that. Why the hell would they get rid of you?”

  “Because they think I’m a threat.”

  “Who’s they?” Simon asked, and Guy spelled it out. He had unfortunately made his enemies the day he married Elaisse Longchamp, who happened to be cousins with the man who had now risen to Chancellor. Theirs had been an entirely arranged marriage—his once youthful interest in marriage had died along with his first wife, Loren. Elaisse meant nothing to him. But the Chancellor had, by necessity, many enemies. Chiefest amongst those was Prince John, who had already clashed with Longchamp in only the brief time he had been back in England.

  And Prince John was in Nottinghamshire, according to reports, and intended on attending de Lacy’s funeral.

  “Damn it, I should have seen it earlier,” Guy cursed. “I thought I was simply collateral damage, when I’ve been part of their plan the whole time. It explains so much. Wendenal was antagonistic from the moment of his arrival, even though we should have been natural allies. We both wanted to stop the Sherwood gangs. Think on it—if his goal was only to take the sheriff’s seat, then befriending me as the captain should have been his first move. But instead he squeezed in, distancing me from de Lacy, and I didn’t realize it was intentional.”

  Guy was long accustomed to knighted men sneering down upon Guardsmen, thinking their extravagant employ made them nobler than those who sacrificed to keep the daily peace. Wendenal was no knight, but he had that familiar haughtiness. Guy had mistaken it for a more innocent disdain.

  Simon pulled wet streaks of his own moustache out of his mouth. “I’m not as smart as you, so don’t be stingy. Just tell me. How can they get rid of you?”

  Behind him, the main castle gate swung open, letting in a cluster of horses and men and banners, and trouble. And answers.

  “By taking away my support,” Guy realized. “By turning you against me, turning my men against me. De Lacy’s lie is the proof, and it’s just the beginning.” He watched the arriving men parade into view. “There’s something bigger to come.”

  Strangers marching into the castle was no curiosity anymore. Every corner of the lower bailey had been claimed for another contingent of men sent to help at the funeral, as if the Nottingham Guard were a limbless, blind baby. Guy would have been insulted if he’d cared about such prideful things. He’d already lost command of the prisons to the Derbyshire men, thanks to Wendenal.

  But this new group’s arrival had a more arrogant flair than most, each man drenched in importance and entitlement. Ten of them in total, six men in obsessively shined armor, three servants, and in their middle was the man unquestionably in charge. An insultingly virile man who caped himself in a bear fur, poised perfectly upon his blood black destrier, scrutinizing the bailey not as a visitor but as a man summing up an acquisition. His emblem was that of the bear and the ragged staff—men from Warwickshire.

  Ordinarily, Guy should have been alerted of any
important visitors. Instead he watched from afar the appearance of Hamon Glover—the ale barrel that someone had accidentally assigned as castellan—who clearly expected this Warwick host. Guy watched Glover greet them quickly and then escort them toward the bridge to the middle bailey.

  It was only an hour before Guy’s men reported the details back to him. The man in the bear cloak was the Earl of Warwick’s son, Waleran the Younger, Captain of the Warwick Guard. And every snippet of whisper breathed the same warning. “He was summoned by his father,” a reliable stableman confided, “and expects to stay. Seems he expects to be put in charge, actually.”

  The man being set up to replace Guy as captain.

  That was yesterday.

  Today, Guy was summoned to the Sheriff’s council a full hour after it had begun.

  “I see you’ve decided to join us,” Wendenal announced, to quiet the others. Waleran the Younger was there, in all his youthful ferocity, amongst a motley crew of other important faces.

  “I was unaware I was late,” Guy replied, since he had arrived immediately upon being summoned. But this was an hour ago, before the punchline.

  “And I was unaware that you had captured the Sherwood outlaws,” Wendenal continued his poor impersonation of de Lacy. “Or is it common practice for the Captain of the Guard to drink his nights away during a countywide manhunt? I’m just curious, really, being new here.”

  The table chuckled for him, at his heavy-handed boring sort of humor.

  “On the contrary, I commend Captain Gisbourne,” added the bear man, Waleran the Younger, “for his ingenuity. He swore he would search everywhere for this Robin Hood. He was only being diligent by looking for him at the bottom of a bottle.”

  Wendenal spoke again before Guy could counter. “Had you been here when I asked for you, we would be pleasantly free of your company by now. Instead, you will have to wait until we have the opportunity to backtrack.”

  “I do not have the time to waste, Sheriff,” Guy argued. “As you say, I am in the midst of a manhunt—”

  “But you have time to drink all night with the master-at-arms? Perhaps if you sit and wait, you’ll be sober enough to participate by the time we need you.”

  Then he pivoted and changed the subject. There was nothing for Guy to do but fume, a sport he had recently mastered. In the infuriating slog of time that passed, Guy curled his fingers and toes into fists, and an hour passed before Wendenal spelled out the plan for de Lacy’s funeral. “I want your men in the city on Sunday. Not in the castle. There are more than enough swords here already, and your men know the streets better than any of them.”

  The punchline, delivered appropriately by a clown.

  Guy put it all together and laughed like a madman, then eventually apologized like the fine little servant they wanted him to be. Wendenal repeated the command.

  “Ah, see, that’s not funny at all,” Guy apologized. “Thank you for clarifying, I apparently thought you had said something hilarious. Sometimes I mishear my betters, do forgive me.”

  He had heard the command crystal clear. His Nottingham Guard was commanded to spread out through the city while de Lacy’s funeral took place within the castle walls. When Locksley’s men attacked the funeral, Guy would be blamed for letting them slip through the city. In fact, Wendenal would blame it on the traitorous gerolds, and it would be the drunkard Guy of Gisbourne who put the criminals in a place to do such damage. There was the reason for de Lacy’s lie.

  It would destroy his credibility. And damnation, but it would work.

  The Young Bear finished the plot. “With your permission, I would that my men and I be in charge of the executions. Baron de Lacy was a good friend of my father’s, and Warwick has a keen interest in seeing his assassins put to justice.”

  Wendenal made a poor pretense of thinking about the proposal before agreeing, and so it was set. Waleran the Younger would capture Locksley’s men when they tried to save Will Scarlet at the executions, and thusly promote himself to Captain of Nottingham’s Guard. Guy would be damningly absent. Locksley would be discreetly shipped back to the war, his mission here complete. Both Sheriff and Captain replaced with the Chancellor’s enemies, and the people tricked into supporting them both. Nottingham was effectively under assault by a hostile power, attacking from within. What Prince John meant to do with his victory, Guy did not know. But Guy himself was presumably to slink off in defeat and accept how miserably he had been outsmarted.

  There wasn’t a single inch of his body that was interested in that plan.

  It might have been tempting—to let it happen, to stop this endless fighting against men and politics. The farther Guy rose in life, the farther he was from the simplicity of right versus wrong, from the justice that had first drawn him to join the Guard. He could simply surrender to these schemes and fall back into the beautiful ignorance of an unempowered life. If not for those it would hurt. If not for the common people, who would suffer at the rule of increasingly corrupt men. If not for Jon Bassett, still missing. Devon of York. Reginold of Dunmow. Brian Fellows. George Sutton. Bolt, lost to the world. Morg, sitting in prison. Men who had suffered or died for no reason but the plots of more powerful men.

  And the boy. That tiny limp frame in Guy’s arms.

  These were the voices that urged Guy to keep fighting, and they were considerably louder than the siren call of laziness.

  * * *

  “GROUPS OF TWO TODAY,” Guy called to those who had not yet left, scattered about the stables. “And leave your blues behind.”

  “We finally getting blacks?” Eric of Felley answered, starting to tug off his uniform. “Been confusing people, wearing blues and calling ourselves the Black Guard.”

  “Later,” Guy responded. “What I mean is, no uniforms. Dress down.” It wouldn’t be a popular order. Ludic and Marshall nodded and tugged their tabards over their heads. They had been Guy’s first recruits to the Black Guard—long loyal men suddenly deposed of duty when Wendenal gave his Derbymen control of the prisons. Guy unbuckled his own doublet, pulling its hoops until they gave, and handed its weight to Ferrers. “We have less than a week to find them, and our current strategy is not working.”

  “Well my current strategy,” Eric bellowed, as an answer for the group, “is to follow your lead. No blues.”

  Guy appreciated the rally. “Your nose looks good in brown.”

  “I don’t have blues,” coughed Silas, still wearing the rust colors of Yorkshire. Uniforming Guy’s new members had scarcely been a priority.

  “Lose what you have,” Guy answered, unclasping his longsword’s baldric from his belt. His eyes lingered on the pruned ivy cross on his sword’s hilt, pounded by Nottingham smiths into Toledo steel. He stowed the blade away, high on a shelf above Merciful’s saddle sling. “Leave anything that identifies you as a peace officer.”

  Silas scowled but obeyed. Behind him, Quillen Peveril inclined his head slightly in a polite refusal. A calm patience defined the man, whose hair and clothing were ever sharp and exact. The Peveril name reached back over a century to the first High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire. When the family had arrived to show their respect at the funeral, Quill personally volunteered for Guy’s new company. It was no surprise he would find it insulting to remove his uniform—it was said that a Peveril’s blood ran blue instead of red.

  “There are a lot of desperate people out there,” Quill complained, “who wouldn’t think twice of doing harm to a few unknown travelers. Don’t you think we’d be safer in uniform?”

  “Undoubtedly,” Guy answered quickly. “And if anyone here is uncomfortable with the order, you are not obliged to follow it. But consider this—the people who have been willing to help us so far, they’re good people. How much information will good people have on these criminals? No, we need those desperate people you speak of, who might normally hide when they see the Sheriff’s Guard. They’ve heard lies about us, or been bribed by the outlaws.”

  Nods all around, even Pev
eril, though he did not move to disrobe.

  “Robin of Locksley changed the rules on us, and he’s winning. You can’t beat a cheater by playing even fairer. It’s time for us to cheat a little, too. Where are the others?”

  Eric answered. “Jacelyn and the White Hand left this morning. And FitzOdo is precisely wherever the fuck FitzOdo wants to be.”

  “That was a truly perfect use of vulgarity,” Guy said. FitzOdo was just one more variable that complicated everything. He had wrecked their search for Jon Bassett a month ago, and now had returned to presumably help hunt Robin Hood. Guy trusted the coward knight as far as he could spit. He’d dealt with FitzOdo’s master, the Baron de Busli at Tickhill Castle, on multiple miserable occasions. Red Roger thought himself a king within his own walls, and if FitzOdo captured Robin of Locksley first, there was no telling what would come of it. Rumor held that Prince John was spending his time at Tickhill lately, too, so it was no leap of logic to think FitzOdo was here on their behalf, to prevent Guy from finding Locksley at all. But by bringing them into the fold of the Black Guard, Guy could at least keep small tabs on FitzOdo’s movement.

  “I’m not sure I know how to talk like an outlaw,” Silas mused. “Any suggestions?”

  “Oh it’s not so hard,” Marshall jabbed at him. “It’s a lot of mine mine mine.”

  “Just open your mouth,” Eric knelt and started rubbing dirt into his face, “and start lying. You’ll fit right in. Hey, Captain,” he turned, almost making himself laugh, “you want I should kick your ass a bit? That would certainly help you blend in.”

  “You’re welcome to try,” Guy crooned back. “I hear you’re quite the fighter. Tell me again how you lost those teeth? How tall was the man you were fighting?” The boys laughed and hissed.

  “Let him alone,” Ludic spoke up, a thing he only occasionally did, and it quieted them quickly. Until he followed with, “That’s the closest Eric’s been to a woman in years.”