Nottingham

  Arable swallowed, gasping for air. “I understand.”

  “You’re too kind.” Lady Margery d’Oily was fixing her hair. The fact that she considered rape and murder a kindness made Arable shiver.

  The young Waleran squeezed Arable’s shoulder. His face was suddenly kind, and relaxed despite the circumstances. Arable whispered to him, “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “I believe you,” he whispered back. “But that doesn’t really matter now, does it?”

  Arable stayed there, in the middle of the floor, and they subsequently forgot about her entirely. They collected their belongings and side-stepped around her as if she were a puddle of mud. Eventually, Arable closed her eyes and sank further down, exactly as important to the world as they made her feel. She wrapped her arms around her knees and tried to think, tried to find whatever it was she was missing. Her options couldn’t have run out, she simply had to figure out what was left. Her mind scattered, running down every opportunity left before her, but found only dead ends. She stayed there even as they left, even as the sun crawled across the floor, waiting, desperate, for anything to reveal itself.

  Closing her eyes, she wondered what Roger de Lacy would do.

  “Give up,” de Lacy suggested, rapping his fingers together, and snuffing out the candle on the desk. “What is the point in continuing to live when there is no one alive who wants you to do so?” He walked to the back of his office, pushed open the window and heaved his body out headfirst, his robes ripping as he slid through its opening and out into a plunge to the bailey far below.

  She shook away the false memories. There had to be something.

  * * *

  SOMETIME LATER, SHE BECAME aware that the stone floor was grinding into her hip and she repositioned herself. Hours had passed. It was dark, but she had not slept. Despite all the luxuries of the sprawling suite, she curled in a stony crook under a window. There was food about, too, but she didn’t see a point yet in eating.

  A knock at the door startled her from the grey haze, and she looked about wildly for a place to hide. She hadn’t touched the door, but maybe Kendrick wasn’t interested in waiting for her to misbehave. The knock repeated and she ran to the bed just to turn away from it again. When the door creaked open, Arable fell to her knees, only to see a pretty face peeking in. A girl’s face.

  “Oh, I’m sorry!” the stranger gasped and disappeared, leaving the door ajar.

  As slowly as her body could move, Arable inched around the edge of the room, far from the gaping door. There was no indication at all that anyone was there guarding her. No Kendrick. Just a scare, to keep her in line. She crept right up to the doorway and dared to flash her head through it, finding the hallway on the other side entirely empty.

  The castle felt different when she had no destination. Time slowed around her, pulling at her legs and numbing her senses. Not William. Not Roger. Not Margery. She had even flirted with the idea that she might attach herself to Prince John’s company, but that was gone now, too. Not the Guard. Not Roana. So she pushed. Her heels plied away from the stones that wanted to absorb her. She leaned into the emptiness. Forward, elsewhere, it didn’t matter. She couldn’t stay here, so there was no point in walking as long as she could still run. If she kept running, something might present itself, it had to. There was something she had missed, some opportunity she had never considered, but would now be a perfect solution.

  This was not the most difficult thing she had endured, she reminded herself. She had lost William before. She was, in fact, an expert at losing him. Roger de Lacy had been like a father to her, but she had lost her real father and survived that. And being abandoned by Lady d’Oily was nothing compared to being abandoned by her family. She had fended for herself before, so to think she could not save herself again was a selfish sort of victimism. But she was tired. Starting over again now … it was almost too much to grasp.

  There had to be another chance.

  There had to be something she hadn’t yet seen.

  There simply had to be.

  When she came to a stop, she was in front of the guest room William had kept before he took the sheriffcy. He had made promises to her there, just like his promise a lifetime ago that he would return for her. If only she could whisper to herself here and be someway heard in the past, to warn herself. Or to tell her younger self to never fall for the man in the first place. Would that such a thing existed.

  “Hello, Arable.”

  She turned, and her heart froze in midbeat. In a single white moment, all her hopes poured into this one possibility. William had come to find her, to apologize, to take her in his arms and keep her safe. He had been walking the castle in the same milk-sopped daze as she, and found himself here as well.

  The man who should have been William crashed forward and shoved her violently into the room, far more careful to shut the door silently behind him.

  “I’ve had a hell of a week,” Gisbourne snarled at her, “so it’s about time I get something I want.”

  Her skin curled.

  He struck her across the face so hard her entire body went numb. Ears ringing, she landed on the bed. She couldn’t see. She scrambled, tearing at its sheets to get over and away from him, to get something, anything, between them.

  “You make any noise and God help you,” his growl, “you’ll wish you hadn’t.”

  Down on the floor, on the other side of the bed. Fingers scratched at the wood, to find something. At the door, his belt clattered to the ground with a riot, his breeches untied.

  “Get back on the bed or I’ll hurt you.”

  Air left. Her neck wrought itself. She didn’t move, she couldn’t.

  “What a day, what a hell of a day. Awfully easy for you, isn’t it? Just a matter of cleaning and scrubbing and laundry, you don’t have the first clue what a man has to deal with, and how could you? Get on. The fucking. Bed.”

  Arable pushed away from her eyelids and hid at the back of her skull.

  But her body, good God, her body slowly crawled on top of the bed.

  “I’ve got these prisoners, these forest outlaws, who think they’re better than me. I know they can show me the way to their hideout, but they refuse to talk! Of all the gall, wouldn’t you agree?”

  Arable bowed her head. If he was talking, it was better than him doing anything else. Her eyes moved but found nothing, nothing, there was an iron lantern on the wrong side of the room.

  “Of course you agree, because you can’t understand anything I say. You’re like a dog. You’re exactly like these criminals, you and Will Scarlet and Elena Gamwell, none of you understand what’s really going on here.” He tugged his breeches free and started unclasping his doublet. “I think I’ll probably kill them tomorrow. I can’t risk them defying me.” From his boot, he pulled a thick knife. “Now take your dress off before I cut it off you.”

  Her guts were stone. They sank her, they bore down through her and further.

  She closed her eyes.

  Then, a knock at the door, and he quickly blew out the lantern. In pitch black she moved without thinking, leaping from the bed to where the lantern had been, her fingers screaming for its frame, ready to sling it into the captain’s skull. But her fear betrayed her, her legs stumbled from the bed, she smashed into the wall and his hand found the back of her neck. She told herself to fight back, but her body gave up. Muffled, from the other side of the door, “Captain Gisbourne, are you in there? I thought I saw you go in there. I have some rather urgent news.”

  No movement.

  “Captain Gisbourne?” The door moved a breath against its hinges.

  “Yes, Marshall,” Gisbourne called softly.

  Marshall Sutton, the guard who had approached Arable earlier. She would trade him any favor in the world if he would just come inside at this very moment.

  Gisbourne pretended to yawn. “Just thought I’d catch a few moments of sleep, could you give me an hour or so?”

  “I think you’ll wan
t to see this right away, Captain. Sorry, Captain.”

  Gisbourne sighed. “Wait for me, then, I’ll be out in a moment.”

  Another rustle of buckles and clothing, a jangling violent nonsense with whispered curses behind them. Then the air shifted, he was right on top of her, the heat of his breath on her mouth, “You will come to my quarters tonight, and you will do anything I want, or I swear every Guardsman in the castle will know how you spied on Jon Bassett, how you’re to blame for his disappearance. I have had enough of not getting the things I deserve.”

  Then the air shifted again, the doorframe opened and light from the hallway poured into the room. Gisbourne’s shape disappeared, his voice mixing with Marshall’s as they marched out and away.

  Arable put her hands over her lips and clenched her eyes as tight as she could. Her skin was clammy, and she massaged her swollen jaw. There was blood in her mouth, and her tongue found a sharp cut in her cheek. The pain was better than the numb, though, and she pushed her tongue against it, just to keep feeling something, anything.

  She crawled back to the bed, finding comfort in the tiny space between it and the stone. There, with the fear still raging through her body and her limbs quivering, Arable let go. Hot tears poured out, but she did not wail, or lose herself. Instead it all flowed out of her. Whatever had been scratching at her skin flushed out her eyes and onto the floor to disappear, and more than her face felt the warmth of being washed clean. Silently. She didn’t whimper or heave. The tears just came, and streamed, and left, and then there was nothing left but Arable, sitting on the floor by a meaningless bed. She had thought there was nothing else for her to do, but she had been wrong. She had thought she was so overwhelmed by it all.

  But no. Not so overwhelmed.

  Not ever overwhelmed.

  Never overwhelmed.

  Liberated.

  Because literally anything she chose to do now would be better than doing nothing.

  And there, on the ground, casting a long oval shadow dripping halfway across the room, directly in the middle of the still gaping doorway, was the one opportunity she’d been hoping for. Arable picked her fucking self off the ground, held her head high and walked out of the room, determined, only slowing to swing her hand down and pick up the ring of keys Gisbourne had lost in the darkness.

  FIFTY-ONE

  JOHN LITTLE

  SHERWOOD FOREST, JUST OUTSIDE BERNESDALE

  JOHN’S BOYS RAN ABOUT, each one faster than the last, springing over fallen limbs and back upon themselves. Robin had them playing at chase, claiming it wasn’t just a children’s game.

  “Knowing how to run, how to dodge, how to tire a pursuer, that may save their lives. And besides, it’s fun.” Robin smiled, on account of him being Robin. And the others enjoyed their time of it, somehow forgetting come morning they would be on the road to Nottingham, to do as dangerous a thing as ever they’d done.

  Every now and then one of the boys would look at John, thinking to tag him into the game. He’d be an easy target but they never picked him, choosing to turn and run at another instead. Ten of them here, hand-picked by Robin from those that volunteered. They’d left the bulk of the group behind in one of their camps deeper in the Sherwood, that the ten of them might sneak into the Sheriff’s funeral. To rescue Will and Elena from the gallows they’d earned, and Marion against a wedding she hadn’t. Ten against too many.

  The Delaney brothers had prepared this small camp, just barely away from the village of Bernesdale at the southern spear of the Sherwood. They’d used it as a halfway point to Nottingham, exchanging messages with Prince John, their ticket to getting into the castle safely. If he could be trusted.

  Alan-a-Dale tagged David of Doncaster, who tagged Arthur, and so on, in circles around John, but never did they bring him into it.

  “Why’d you come south with us?” John asked Friar Tuck, sitting on a log and watching the others. “You don’t mean to come to Nottingham tomorrow.”

  “I try to be where I’m needed.” Tuck fidgeted. “I don’t always get that part right.”

  “But supposing your arm were right as your head, you still wouldn’t go with us.”

  The friar kept his lips tight. “That I wouldn’t.”

  “I don’t value shame none, Friar, so I don’t mind telling you I wish it had been my arm they broke instead of yours.”

  “That’s kind of you.”

  “It’s not. It’s not kind. I wish it, so that I might have a reason not to go.”

  They watched on silently, as Arthur tagged Nicks Delaney, who swatted at Geoffrey and Thomas. These two were young farmhands with thick moustaches from Bernesdale, joined not a week ago. Men John barely knew, who were spry to risk their lives without enough reason. The Delaneys insisted, being so close to Bernesdale, that they could rally another dozen men from the village like it was nothing. But Robin wouldn’t have it. They’d labored over the details of the plan too much to change it now.

  “You don’t have to go,” Tuck said.

  “I do,” John corrected him. “If I didn’t go tomorrow, I’d have no business staying none neither. These are my boys, and I don’t fancy losing any more of them.”

  Thomas tagged Gamble Gold, who tagged Peeteys Delaney, who tagged Robin and fancied himself the king of the world for having done it. John’s stomach twisted. Iffing they needed to run tomorrow, there would be no keeping up for him.

  Iffing they couldn’t find Will and Elena, or that their faces were recognized in the crowd and a host approached, John knew he couldn’t outrun the first of them. It’s why he didn’t play now, and why they didn’t make him. These boys all hoped for success tomorrow, but in failure they also had a chance of escaping again. John, on the other hand, would only be coming back if all went well, every last bit of it.

  He could have made an argument against his own participation, to say his size was a hindrance, that he would endanger them all. His was a unique shape, more likely to draw attention than anything else. But there was no pretending John believed it himself. If forced to stand his ground, at least he might be able to give his boys a head start. There was no knowing how many of them he might save by simply being there.

  But if he didn’t go, and they came back missing a few, he’d never know how many of those lives he’d traded for his own. Nor did he know whether or not it made him coward to wish he could risk it.

  Alan hooted out a victory as he tackled Arthur a Bland hipwise, the both of them tumbling over another through the brush. Arthur responded by pulling Alan to the ground and slapping his arms about the lad’s face. All playfully, but still. “You’re not allowed to tag me back,” Alan cried out, laughing.

  “I’m not tagging you back,” came Arthur as he pinned Alan down. “I’m kicking the shit out of you.”

  “You can’t change the rules,” Alan shrieked. “That’s why they’re called rules.”

  At length, Arthur relented and disappeared into the late-evening fog to find another victim. John took in the dusk glow, thanking whatever quirk of nature it was that made such a thing possible. A heavy thick white slipped through the trees, turned to a curious blue-green by the moonlight. It might mean rain in the morning, but for tonight it gave them a blanket, and let them burn a campfire without risk.

  Alan crawled to John and took the stump Tuck had abandoned in search of some ale.

  “You’re not wearing your necklace,” John scolded him. When they’d left their Oak Camp and said their goodbyes, the young pretty Malory had thrown her arms around Alan and tied a string about his neck with a few trinkets on it. John hadn’t seen it since.

  “What?” Alan asked, then shook his head. “It was stupid. She said it was for luck. Wearing a necklace isn’t going to give me luck.”

  “You don’t wear it for luck. You wear it to make her happy.”

  Alan made some noises. “She doesn’t know I’m not wearing it, so it can’t make her not happy. She’s silly.”

  “You’re silly, too
. She’d be good for you.”

  “You don’t understand,” Alan mumbled to himself, always thinking nobody knew who he had his eyes upon. He’d never grow out of such a thing by keeping it a secret, only making it the more precious. John was about to say as much, when Robin appeared suddenly and sliced through them with purpose, his finger to his lips.

  “Down!” he whispered fiercely, with more at stake than a game of chase.

  Alan dropped quick enough to the dirt while John lowered himself to a knee, keenly aware of how little he was concealed by doing so.

  “What is it?” Alan asked, but Robin just pointed out into the mist, whereupon a moment later came the snap of a twig and rustle of leaves. If there was anything to be seen, John’s eyes couldn’t make it out. But Alan slowly rose, pulling the hood off his head, and spoke at his loudest.

  “Holy fuck me.”

  “Hullo, boys.”

  Just as casually as if he’d been playing chase with them the last hour, Will Scarlet strolled out of the fog with his arms out wide.

  John couldn’t but stare, with no words at all, just a shock that took over the whole of his body. It was Will alright, smiling and a little thinner, and unbelievably here. Alan started four or five sentences, but couldn’t finish any of them, and settled for grabbing Will violently and slapping his back.

  “It’s good to see you too, Alan! Hullo, Robin.”

  Robin stood, so alarmed he might burst. “How did you get here?”