Nottingham

  Everything he had, his very breath, rested on his ability to be the man who captured Robin Hood. It was the only claim that would make him invulnerable, and he was at every disadvantage of achieving it.

  A bulky man with an unadvisable amount of chin idled in front of Guy as they tried to leave. His eyes bulged, revealing his every thought. This was the kind that could never be reasoned with, who thought only with his gut. The creature revealed a heavy sword tucked at his side, which slowly found its way out of his belt.

  “There’s an awful lot of Sheriff’s Guard out there.” His voice had a pesky scratch to it. “More than usual.”

  “So there is,” Marshall grunted and tried to lead his horse around the brute, but found himself blocked again. Guy cursed himself for bringing the horses into the farm. He could dress himself down as much as he wanted, but any decent horsehand would recognize Merciful as healthy and well-stabled.

  But the bulk turned his blade around and offered its hilt up to Guy. “You’d best arm yourselves. Just in case.”

  The sword’s pommel boasted a flared cross under several layers of caked dirt, or excrement. Meant for the Crusade, one of those from the first lost shipment. Guy curled his fingers around it, afraid it might turn around and cut him in half.

  “What about you?” he asked, trying to match the man’s tone.

  “We have plenty.”

  Guy nodded his head slightly. He wondered where the sword had been already, whose blood it might have spilt. One reclaimed sword wasn’t much, but it might save a life.

  Even after the birklands consumed the last hints of Carleton, they rode in silence. The roads here were narrow and broke awkwardly into rolling ribbons of browning heath, othertimes splitting into switchbacks dense with overgrown thicket. There was black slurry always at the edge of the road, grown into slick traps by the season’s first overnight frost.

  “It’s worse than I thought,” Marshall said, since it had to be said.

  “This is only the beginning of it, I’m afraid.” Guy glanced nervously back. “The closer we get, the more zealous they’ll become.”

  Marshall rubbed the stubble on his head and slapped the sweat off. “How do we handle something like this? Every man we meet is an enemy.”

  “No, they’re not,” Guy corrected him. Marshall had finally glimpsed the magnitude of their mission, and was rightfully rattled. “These are the people we’re supposed to protect. They’re victims of a great many things. Of the hardships of life. Of the king’s taxes, certainly, but more than that they’re victims of Robin Hood. He’s capitalized on their gullibility, purchasing their souls for a little coin. Why wouldn’t they follow him?”

  Marshall shook his head.

  “The few things they do have,” Guy continued, “they don’t realize they’re not free. They can trade and have the opportunity to feed themselves thanks to the county. They’re protected from invaders by the King. But they don’t see this. It’s not tangible. They don’t know how much worse life would be in the anarchy they think they want. Then Robin Hood puts a coin in their hand, and it’s something they can hold onto. He takes their vulnerabilities, and trades it right back to them for their loyalty. Convinces them a few coins will make their lives better. Hard work and integrity? Gone. What man tries to improve himself when he’s offered a quicker path? Robin Hood is taking advantage of them at their weakest.”

  Marshall nodded, but he was not at ease. “Sounds like the Devil.”

  “Robin of Locksley is just a man, don’t glorify him. But it doesn’t have to be the actual Devil,” Guy sighed, “for it to be his work.”

  * * *

  THE NEXT MORNING, JUST outside of Godling, an old woman ran at them from the darkness at the side of the road, collapsing in the dirt before their horses. Her arms were mostly bone, her fingers twisted and pulled at each other as she lowered to her knees. What clothes she had were so rotten that a withered breast hung out in the open. Guy motioned for Marshall and Ferrers to halt, but kept his eyes open to the sides of the road. This was how the outlaws were known to steal from travelers, by distracting them with piteous displays and then springing their trap.

  But the crone was too far gone in poverty to be a thief. “Thank God, thank God,” she screeched, to no God that deserved her thanks. She unbent her fingers with some difficulty and tried to raise a palm up to them. “There’s a toll here, you remember? You remember, yes, just a little bit more, just a little bit more.”

  “Get out of the way, woman,” Marshall barked, pulling his mount almost on top of her, but Guy ordered him to stand back. Guy spied an equally emaciated boy—hidden within the overgrown bramble at the side of the road—crouching beside what could only be a dead hog, half opened and gutted.

  “Just a little more, we only need a little more,” she moaned on.

  “Did the last man who came through here give you a toll?” Guy asked her.

  “You did, it was you!” she cried out.

  It was an unsettling comparison. “When last you saw me, which direction did I go?”

  She squeezed her face into an even more wrinkled mess and shook her head vigorously. “Neither way, you went through,” and she pointed into the dense wall of bare rowan behind her. The trees here extended their limbs low like claws, barren wild branches that made any passage impossible. Beyond them in the distance, columns of straight black trees gave the haunting image of an army at the ready. “Thorney, you said, you were going to Thorney next.”

  Guy inhaled slowly. “I did at that, didn’t I?”

  He tossed her a coin out of mercy. It bounced into the mud and only seemed to confuse her. There was no helping this one, nor her child. Whatever had scratched out her mind chilled Guy down to his bones.

  Madness. Of all God’s punishments, it was the most terrifying. Guy’s father had succumbed to it in his later life, and it was said to run common within a family. There could be no worse fate, to lose oneself. To have a lifetime of memories and reason fade away. Guy had experienced a touch of it once, when he had fallen into that muddy hole as a young recruit, and been unable to scramble out. He remembered what it was like to feel sanity slip away, to think about suicide in a way that honestly felt like a logical answer. No disease, no violence, was worse than losing one’s mind.

  It was not only mankind’s sickness to bear. A place could have it, too.

  * * *

  “WE’RE COMING CLOSE TO the tipping point, I think,” Guy said, their horses picking their way off-trail through the unrelenting bracken. It was not noon yet, and the sun pierced through the forest’s sparse canopy to scatter pillars of shadow in every direction. Surrounded at all times by a thousand hiding spots, but always unnervingly exposed themselves.

  “What’s the tipping point?” Marshall asked.

  “Let me ask you this. Which is more effective, ambition or intelligence?”

  Marshall snorted. “That’s easy. Intelligence. Ambitious young men do some awfully stupid things, that’s when they come to me in gaol.”

  “Certainly,” Guy considered, “but men with intelligence tend to keep to themselves. It’s usually wise to play it safe, but playing it safe doesn’t accomplish much. The ambitious risk more, and often fail, but to those that succeed goes the power.”

  “By such an argument,” Ferrers brushed off a twig that had landed on his shoulder, “there would never be men of intelligence in power. But that is not the case.”

  “Not at all,” Guy answered. “There comes a tipping point when wise men must act, when it finally becomes the wiser move. Look at our history of sheriffs. FitzRanulph was a smart man and he led for fifteen years. After him was Murdac, a good man but a bit impulsive, sheriff for six years. Next, de Lacy, a strategic imbecile, more worried about creating some legacy for himself than understanding what Nottingham needed. Two years. Now this Wendenal, with all ambition and no experience. This is the way of the world. The just are replaced by the ambitious, because the ambitious seize opportunity. Even
tually, only the most ruthless claim power through bloodright. That is the tipping point history shows us, when men of intellect must step back into the arena, to put a stop to the downward slope of greed.”

  Somewhere unknowably ahead, a heavy branch cracked and tumbled down, snapping the air until silence again filled the void.

  “I hope it doesn’t get worse than this,” Marshall sighed. “The world is insane enough. The Sheriff being killed in his own office, Derbymen running my prisons … no offense,” he added, to Ferrers, who shook it off. “Captain, I don’t know if you’re the man who can step up and put a stop to it all, but I’ll do what I can to help you.”

  “I don’t know if I am, either. But God willing, I’m going to try.”

  They moved through the skeletons of trees in silence, as Guy let it all filter through his head. The burden was obviously his to bear. There was nobody else who had seen the plot unfold as Guy had, no others who were close enough to the sheriff’s office to effect change. It’s why they had targeted him, he was certain.

  He opened his mouth to comment upon it to Marshall, but suddenly doubted himself. The lecture he had just given, it was the sort of lesson he was happy to give to those under his guidance. Young men, like Jon Bassett, and Devon of York. One still missing and likely to never resurface, the other dead. His protégés had a disturbing tendency to suffer cruel fates, and Guy wondered what percentage of that curse was his. It seemed every time he spoke truth to the world, someone suffered for it.

  “Both,” Ferrers said, crisply. “It’s better to be both ambitious and intelligent.”

  He smiled to Guy, awkwardly. It was as rousing a compliment as the young man had ever given. And if he continued to follow Guy, he was likely to be murdered by nightfall.

  “Thank you, Ferrers.” Guy tried to mean it. “Look at you, already so much smarter than your father.”

  * * *

  TO CALL THORNEY A village would be insulting, like calling a beggar a king. Something of a mockery by association. A small collection of shambling hovels clustered around a barren fire ring, and the nettled woods receded just enough for a few sickly fields of vegetables and grain fighting back stalkrot. Guy and his company kept their distance, but saw no indication that Locksley or his men were anywhere nearby.

  “Captain.” Marshall pointed two fingers at a solitary figure watching them, alone at the outskirts of the fields. Guy prompted Merciful forward. The thick man was made thicker with mangy hair that poured from every available orifice. He half squinted, his hands dangling uselessly at his sides. No weapons hung from his belt, but the lumps of his ill-fitting clothes might easily conceal a knife. Hell, so could his beard.

  When they were close enough, Guy shifted so the hilt of his stolen sword could be easily seen. “We’re looking for Robin Hood.”

  “Well, you’ve found Stutely,” the other said, blinking slowly.

  “Excellent, just the man we’re looking for,” Guy lied. “We were told you were the one that could lead us to him.”

  “I can do pretty much anything I want.”

  “So you do know how to find him, yes?” Guy climbed down, hoping to appear as non-hostile as possible. He groaned and rubbed his aching thighs.

  “It’s possible I’ve been to his camp. It’s possible more than a few times.” The evasive answer was as good as a yes, and Guy felt his pulse quicken. “But there are a lot of guards looking for him lately, so I don’t imagine he’d like me bringing a couple strangers to them, unannounced and such.”

  “Oh, we’re not strangers,” Guy laughed, pouring all his focus into appearing casual. He hoped that Marshall and Ferrers could follow suit. They couldn’t afford to spook the man, when he was their only lead. “Will Scarlet sent us. He broke out of the Nottingham prison, with our help of course, and he sent us ahead to tell Robin. Robin’s been planning to break into the castle to save Scarlet, and he needs to know … not to come. Before it’s too late.”

  Guy quietly stepped out of his own skin and slapped himself in the face. He was a terrible liar, but his lips just seemed to keep moving.

  Stutely, quite rightfully, stared in stupor. “Why would he do that?” he asked. “Will Scarlet hates Robin Hood.”

  Guy threw a sharp look to Marshall, who appeared equally confused. He stammered to cover his surprise. “He does, he does hate Robin Hood, and that’s precisely why Scarlet doesn’t want him to go to Nottingham. Wouldn’t want Robin to take all the credit.”

  Damnation. Guy was no actor, and was proving it now. Lying and stealing must come easily for the outlaws, but Guy had only a lifetime of honesty to prepare him for moments such as these.

  “I don’t know. Why didn’t he come himself?”

  “He didn’t say.” Guy feigned an equal confusion. He needed the right answers, and had none. If this went south, the trees would no doubt come alive with this beast’s cohorts. Even if he were lucky enough to arrest the man, Guy didn’t fancy the odds of leveraging any truth from him. Most folk are just as like to lie to save their skin than anything else, and any diversion on this trip meant failure. Everything was against them. Guy shrugged his shoulders and aimed for a non-answer. “I didn’t ask why. You know how Will Scarlet is.”

  “Yeah, that’s true.” Stutely bobbed his head, having agreed with something that only he could know about. Guy suppressed a sigh of relief. “But you’ll have to give me something more than that. Anyone can tell a story, you know? I could tell you I’m the King of England, but it wouldn’t make it any more true, now would it? Not that I couldn’t be.”

  All Guy had was the stolen sword, but he had a hunch it wouldn’t do. “We don’t … Will didn’t really think it would be an issue.”

  “What we ought to do,” Stutely lit up and ground his hands together, “is think of some sort of secret phrase. Something that only a real member of Robin’s men would know. That would do it.”

  He kept rubbing his fingers and waiting expectantly, convinced he had just invented the greatest breakthrough in the history of military strategy. A library of phrases that would be fitting slogans for the outlaws came to mind. Strength in Cowardice. Real Men Hide in Trees. Kill All Who Disagree. But Guy tried to think from their perspective—these men rallied the weak through fear, and they exploited the vulnerable.

  “Remember Bernesdale,” Guy said.

  Stutely’s eyes squinted ever so slightly, and he gave a long low nod. Bernesdale, where they’d sent a child to be a murderer. They trained young boys to kill, and still arrogantly claimed to be the victims. Guy had lost three men at Bernesdale, counting Bolt. Remember Bernesdale should be the cry of the Nottingham Guard. After a few heavy moments, Stutely scratched at his beard. “Yeah, I remember it. What about it?”

  “That … that should be the pass phrase.” Guy couldn’t fathom that anyone could be so dense.

  “Why would that be the pass phrase?”

  “Are you serious?” He had been wasting his worries. This man was no gatekeeper, he was a base idiot.

  “What does Bernesdale have to do with anything?”

  Guy’s patience packed up its belongings and traveled far away. “Are you going to fucking take me to Robin Hood or not?”

  “Yeah yeah yeah.”

  It took all of Guy’s focus to climb back atop Merciful, his thoughts consumed with splitting the man’s skull open to marvel at its vacancy. “You trust him?” Marshall whispered at the first discreet opportunity.

  “Ho God, no.” The idea sent spiders down his spine. “But it’s as good a sign as any that we’re on the right track.”

  More accurately, it was the only track they had. All his hopes were poured on the back of this dim-witted troglodyte. The worst part was that he was damned lucky to even have gained this much. He was reminded of the empty feeling in his belly when they were tracking Jon Bassett, when the tracks disappeared into rain puddles and they had nothing left to follow but guesses.

  Perhaps, like Bassett, they were about to fall off the ea
rth.

  * * *

  STUTELY DIDN’T HAVE A horse, and there wasn’t a man alive who would ride double with him. Fortunately the oaf offered to walk on his own, boasting that he could walk as quickly and as far as a horse anyhow. He lumbered ahead, just out of earshot, picking his way down an unrelenting slope covered by an endless bed of fallen brown needles. But Stutely’s distance allowed Marshall to ask the most important question. “What do we do when we get there, Captain? There’s only three of us, we can’t fight them.”

  “We’re not going to fight them,” Guy kept his voice low. “I just need to talk to Locksley.”

  “Talk to them?” Marshall gulped aloud. “You think that’ll work?”

  “Not all of them,” Guy had to laugh. “Just Locksley. Remember what their plan is—Locksley intends on walking them all into a trap. If we threaten to reveal that betrayal, he’ll have to bargain with us. Otherwise he’ll be at the mercy of his own men, and they have not shown themselves to be a particularly forgiving group.”

  Marshall murmured an agreement. “What sort of bargain?”

  “Anything we can use against Wendenal. In exchange, we keep his secret…” he gave the prison guard a wink, “… for an extra minute or two.” Even if Locksley gave him nothing, turning the thieves upon themselves would spoil Wendenal’s plans.

  Marshall chuckled as he figured it out. “Alright. What if they don’t let you talk to him?”

  “They have to,” Guy scoffed. “A parlay between enemies is sacred. Only a tyrant would kill a messenger.”

  Merciful lost her footing to a hidden pit, but recovered.

  “Then what if they’re tyrants? What if they kill us?”

  “Then we’ll be dead,” Guy considered, “and we won’t have to worry about this anymore.”