by Matthew Cody
Will had thought he understood what his father meant—until now. Lord Rodric hadn’t been speaking in metaphor; he was being literal. In war, horses’ hooves kicked up dirt, smoke billowed, and the air hung heavy with sweat and blood. The fog was a real, palpable thing that blinded you, and Guy’s hired swords quickly lost their zeal for the fight and began fleeing.
He’d meant to create a distraction, but in doing so, he’d set fire to his father’s house. Shackley burned around him as men fought and died.
For the briefest of moments, Will spotted Much in the fighting. John was pulling her toward the gate, but then Will’s view was blocked by a wave of fighting men. They’d sensed what he already knew—if they stayed here much longer, they would all end up buried beneath the ruins of a burning castle. The real battle had moved to the gate, where men pushed and shoved and battled their way to safety.
Will had just started to follow when a pained groan caught his attention. It came from a man lying several feet away, whom Will would have taken for dead if not for the pitiful moaning. His white cloak was stained with soot and mud, and the gold badge of his office lay broken at his side. Mark Brewer, the Sheriff of Nottingham, had a nasty bump on his forehead and seemed to be drifting in and out of consciousness.
It would be fitting, thought Will, for the sheriff to burn along with the house he betrayed.
The shouts were barely audible all around him, and the roar of the flames became a distant rumble as he stood over his onetime friend. The sheriff’s eyes fluttered but did not open. Will bent down and scooped up the gold badge. The chain had snapped, and it was filthy with mud. In the end, this badge had been all Mark wanted.
Will tucked the badge away in his belt and hooked his arms underneath the sheriff’s. The man was deadweight, and it took every bit of Will’s remaining strength to drag him toward the gate. He’d crossed half the courtyard before he stumbled and fell. He was just pulling himself up again when he heard the sound of snapping timber and turned in time to see the gate come tumbling down in front of him. A shower of sparks and coals crashed over Will like a wave, singeing his hair and stinging his cheeks.
When the dust settled, Will found himself trapped inside the courtyard behind a wall of flame. The heat was nearly unbearable, and the smoke would soon choke out what little fresh air hadn’t already been consumed by the fire. With a heave, Will took the sheriff once more in his arms and began dragging him back toward the main castle keep. Pieces of burning wood were falling off the battlements all around him, and more than once Will found his path blocked by flaming debris.
Eventually, he made it into the keep, where he slammed the door shut against the inferno outside.
It was mercifully cooler inside, and for a moment Will lay against the hard floor feeling the cold of the stone against his hot cheeks. He gasped for air like a fish on the shore, but he couldn’t rest for long, because smoke was already billowing in through the windows, and down one hall he could see the flicker of orange light as the fire spread to the castle’s interior. The main keep might have a solid stone foundation, but the wooden upper floors would burn just as easily as the outside walls did, and soon they’d come crashing down on his head. He needed to act before it was too late.
The sheriff was still only semiconscious, and for a second Will had actually feared for his life. But his chest was still moving, and he began to stir. Will didn’t want to have come all this way only to have the man die now.
It was easier to drag the sheriff’s weight along the castle floors than the courtyard mud, and Will found a way of supporting him on his shoulder that made the going a bit easier. Around to the rear of the castle he went, searching for the hidden storage room passage and, from there, the tunnel to safety.
The closet was undisturbed. And the tunnel disappeared into the damp blackness below. His plan was to drag the sheriff down into the tunnel and leave him there. If waking up alone in the dark caused him a few minutes of panic, then all the better. It was the least he deserved. But first he had to get him there without dropping the man on his head.
He left the sheriff moaning on the floor of the storage room as he searched for a length of rope. If he couldn’t manage the ladder, Will would need something to lower him down with. It took him longer than he would have liked to find a bundle of rope long enough for the job. He was on his way back when the castle tower suddenly shook. A large section of burning wall had collapsed near enough for him to panic. Very soon now he’d be overtaken by heat and smoke.
As Will ran back down the hallway, a figure suddenly appeared in his path. His horsehide armor was scorched and blackened in places, and he had a long, wet cut across his jaw, but he still grinned when he saw Will.
“Wolfslayer,” he said. “When I spotted you down there in the courtyard, dragging this miserable wretch away from the flames, I didn’t believe it.”
He gestured to the sheriff lying on the floor.
“I’d long suspected that you were out there somewhere, plotting against me, but I didn’t expect to see you again like this—saving the man who betrayed you. How very Christian of you!”
“Not entirely,” said Will. “I would have happily let you burn.”
Guy let out a laugh. “Indeed! And I’ll gladly do the same for you, but I think I’ll run you through first!”
Will drew his sword as Guy moved toward him. This was the moment he’d waited for, but he was dead tired from dragging the sheriff’s body through the halls and sick from inhaling all the smoke, and on his best day he was half the swordsman that the Horse Knight was said to be.
Sir Guy opened with a feint, which Will, exhausted as he was, fell for. He brought his sword up to block the blow that never came, leaving his side exposed. Guy’s blade slashed along his back and shoulder, not cutting deeply, but still drawing blood.
Will, however, managed to get his sword around to block Guy’s next attack, a slash aimed at his head. Behind him, he could feel the heat of the flames as they consumed the hall. Smoke drifted up from between the floorboards. How long, Will wondered, before the whole thing gave way?
Once, Will would have been content to have the whole castle come down on both their heads. When his grief had been at its worst, he’d viewed his own life as a small price to pay for revenge. But that was before he’d come to know Rob and John. And Much, most of all.
Today Will Scarlet stood for the bright red fullness of life. Today he wanted to live.
He parried another of Guy’s thrusts and managed to knock the big knight back a few steps with a slash of his own. But Guy was stronger and faster. Unless he made a mistake, it was just a matter of time.
The Horse Knight retreated as he regained his footing, and when he brought his sword up for another advance, a second figure stepped into the fray.
The sheriff was holding his head with one hand as he stumbled, groggily, into the hallway, blocking Sir Guy’s path.
Sir Guy shouted a curse at the half-conscious sheriff and swung at him instead. The sword connected with a slash against the man’s chest, but the sheriff’s armor turned away the blade.
The sheriff cried out as he stumbled backward, and Will found his opening. The sheriff’s fall brushed Guy’s sword aside, and Will lunged. It was a move that went against all his training, a full-force stab that would leave him defenseless if he missed.
He didn’t miss, but Guy swerved at the last instant, and Will’s blade scraped along the Horse Knight’s ribs instead of finding his heart.
Sir Guy cursed in pain, and Will fell onto his knees. Both lost their swords.
For a moment, their eyes met. There was an ominous creaking of wood as the floor shifted beneath their feet. Each of them had a split second to act—to decide. Will leaped toward the open passage door while Guy tried for the fallen blade.
Will landed hard on his stomach—he’d made it inside the passage, but in doing so, he’d had the air knocked out of him. He could barely roll over in time to see Guy standing in the ha
llway outside the door, his sword raised, the flames behind him lighting his grinning face like a demon.
The hallway floor gave way and Sir Guy disappeared, falling into the raging fire. Will heard a scream beneath the rumble of the falling wood, then nothing but the roar of the flames.
Wasting no time, Will shoved the sheriff into the open passageway. The man practically fell down the ladder, but Will didn’t let up. Together they ran from the collapsing building, fleeing into the underground blackness of the dirt tunnel.
Down there the air was cooler, and the smell of burning wood was replaced with the sweet smell of earth. It was dark, and so they stumbled on blindly through the tunnel, eventually relying on their hands and knees to travel.
Once they were far enough from the blaze to feel safe, the two of them collapsed in exhaustion. There was nothing to hear down there but the sound of their own breathing.
Will had played this meeting out in his head a hundred times since the day Geoff was murdered. What would he say to the man who’d been a friend to his family for years, only to betray them in the end? In his fantasies, his daydreams, Will delivered such a speech as to make the sheriff burst into tears and beg for forgiveness. In others, he’d done away with words and used a sword. But if he’d really wanted the sheriff dead, he could’ve left him back in the burning castle. And as for the power of his wounding words, well, he really couldn’t think of anything to say.
The sheriff prided himself on being practical, a survivor. But what the last few months had revealed about him was this—he was weak. Too weak to stand up to Prince John. Too weak to control Sir Guy, until he was forced to by the threat of a peasant revolt on his own lands. He might not have meant for Geoff to die, but by bringing Guy’s mercenaries into the castle, he’d been responsible. Let him live with that for the rest of his life. Let him try to control Nottinghamshire now that the people saw him for the puppet he really was. Let him wonder at the boy who saved his life this day, and what a small, cowardly man such as him could have possibly done to deserve it.
Finally, the sheriff spoke.
“Who are you?” he asked, his voice hoarse and full of pain.
“A ghost,” answered Will. Then he stood and began walking again, feeling his way through the dark.
“Wait,” called the sheriff. “My leg’s hurt. I can’t go as fast as you!”
Will didn’t answer, and he didn’t slow down. He stumbled out of the underworld and left the sheriff alone in the dark behind him.
TWENTY-EIGHT
We’ve all got pasts. It’s what you are now that counts. And what you do.
—ROBIN HOOD
John had carried Much throughout most of the journey to Sherwood. She was ashamed, looking back on it. John had spent days locked up in the stocks, he’d been beaten and whipped, and yet there he was, carrying her like she was some infant girl. Even after she’d stopped fighting him, after she’d given up the thought of running into the burning castle, he still carried her. When she’d buried her head into his big chest and cried so softly that only he could hear, he carried her.
When they reached the boundary of Sherwood Forest, John finally let Much walk on her own, but he kept his eyes on her. Nine Merry Men made it out of Shackley Castle; only one had been left behind.
Will Scarlet, bloody stupid Will Scarlet, was dead.
The old camp was no longer safe, so they made their way deeper into the forest, to the old crone oak. By the time they reached it, the men were asleep on their feet, and they collapsed at the foot of the tall tree, exhausted. After a rest, Wat and a couple of the others went to fetch water while Rob and John set about making plans. They needed weapons, money, and food. Will had been carrying the coin purse they’d taken from the hidden cache, but if Rob was angry about their secret stash being looted, he didn’t say anything.
Much craved solitude, but John wouldn’t let her wander far from his sight. He worried that some of Crooked’s Men might have fled back to Sherwood after the fighting had turned against them, and he didn’t want anyone walking these woods alone. Much was too tired to argue.
She found a tree to climb instead. Despite the stupidly awkward dress, she climbed one she’d been up in before, when John had first shown her the old crone oak. It was a tall fir with enough cover to hide one from below but a good view of the forest floor in all directions. She’d spotted it almost immediately. Near the top, she found her old perch. Carved into the trunk was a sun and a moon, for father and daughter. She would’ve added a third, a star, but she’d lost all her knives.
She stayed up there the rest of the day, until the smell of cooking meat and a rumbling stomach lured her back down.
Wat had caught a brace of squirrels and was roasting them over a crackling fire. The men were drinking fresh water they’d hauled back in their caps—not a pleasant thought to touch Wat Crabstaff’s cap, much less drink from it, but she was thirsty.
John and Rob were still bickering over their next course of action.
“We need weapons,” John was saying. “What are we going to do if we run into Crooked’s Men? Wave?”
“You’ll just uproot a tree and swat them with it,” said Rob. “Isn’t that what you’re used to fighting with anyway?”
John threw up his hands.
“We’ll find weapons,” said Rob. “But let’s take a day or two to rest first. If Wat can do a little more hunting—”
“I almost had a rabbit, but he nipped me on the thumb,” said Wat, showing everyone the swollen bite. “Might turn rabid now.”
“If Wat can find us food before he turns rabid,” Rob continued, “we can get our strength back, and then, in a day or two, we hit the South Road. See if we can’t convince some kindly travelers to part with their silver.”
“And how do we do that without weapons?” asked John.
“That’s how we get the weapons!” shouted Rob, his patience gone at long last. “It’s not like Herne the Hunter or some woodland spirit is going to appear with a box of money! We have to steal it! That’s what we do—we steal things!”
Rob took a breath as John mumbled something too quietly to hear.
“In the meantime, we’ll have to make do with clubs and throwing stones,” said Rob. “You can handle that, can’t you, John?”
The men’s bickering eventually faded into a low roar in the back of her brain, and Much stared at the fire and remembered something Will had said to her. He’d told her that there was a time when it was necessary to become someone else, as he had. As she had. She’d been Much the miller’s son to protect Marianna the miller’s daughter, but what use was protecting yourself when you were already wounded near to dying? Who was she hiding from now?
“John,” she said, but the big man was too busy arguing with Rob to hear her.
“John!” She shouted this time. Her voice echoed out among the trees.
“God’s blood, what is it?” he asked. “You’re bound to wake the dead!”
Everyone else had gone quiet. Rob looked at her, his eyes curious.
“Yes?” said Rob. “You have something to say, Much?”
“I need to tell you something,” she said. “About who I really am.”
“You are Much,” said Rob. “You are a thief and a ne’er-do-well and a proud member of the Merry Men. Who you were before doesn’t matter. Whether you are Much the boy or Much the girl, it doesn’t matter. Not to us.”
“Matters a bit to me,” said Wat.
“Shut up, Wat,” said John. “What Rob’s saying, lad—er, girl—is that we all of us were once something different than we are now. You think Rob was christened Rob the Drunk? Or Robin Hood, for that matter?”
“We’ve all got pasts,” said Rob. “It’s what you are now that counts. And what you do.”
Much nodded. She’d been afraid of her secret so long that it was hard to let go of that fear. Especially when her heart was already pained with grief.
“Besides,” said John, “I always knew you were
really a girl.”
“No you didn’t,” said Rob.
“Hey,” interrupted Wat, sitting suddenly upright. “You hear something? Something out there, I mean?”
Rob gestured for quiet as they listened for something amiss in the night sounds, but all Much could hear was the buzz of insects and the crackle of their fire. She squinted against the blackness, but the wall of trees was impenetrable.
“Sounded like someone calling,” whispered Wat. “I swear.”
They were at a disadvantage. It was night already, and in the dark the glow of their fire would be visible to anyone approaching. Much and her companions wouldn’t be able to see farther than twenty yards into the trees. They’d been too tired to set up a lookout, and anyone could be out there now.
“There,” said Wat. “There it was again!”
That time Much heard it, too. A voice calling out.
“Crooked’s Men?” asked John.
“They wouldn’t let us know they were coming,” said Rob. “They’d just come. With swords.”
The voice called out again. This time Much could make out names. Rob, John … Much.
Much bolted to her feet and ran for the trees, ignoring Rob’s orders to wait. She burst through the stinging branches and tripped over roots hidden in the dark, nearly breaking her ankle in the process, but she got back up and kept running. The voice was getting closer, and soon she could see a shape stumbling through the trees, heading for the glow of their campfire.
She called his name and he answered her, and when she bounded out of the brush, he wrapped her in a great hug.
“I thought you were dead,” she whispered.
“Nearly,” he answered.
Then he loosened his hold on her, and she looked up into his soot-stained face. His eyes caught the firelight. Two tiny orange specks in the dark.