Lionhearts

by Nathan Makaryk

  Quill had only visited the Bell once before, to satiate his curiosity. But this day the door was locked despite it being a very drinkable hour. There were no patrons at the Bell Inn, not since it had been visited by Robin Hood.

  A groggy male voice refused them entrance when they knocked a third time. But after Potter barked out, “Sheriff’s Guard, come on now!” a barrel rolled behind the door’s thick frame and it opened to reveal a woman with a wide, textured face.

  “Doesn’t matter who you are!” she growled. Quill tried to realign everything he knew to make sense of how she could be the owner of the groggy male voice. “I can’t serve to you. Lessin’ you want to buy a whole barrel.”

  “We’re not here to drink,” Quill said. “Heard you had a few problems. Mind letting us in?”

  The woman shrugged and flung the door open. “Can’t get worse. Might as well let the whole city know you’re in here.”

  He noted the queer comment and ducked his head through the doorway, blinking to acclimate to the low light. Within, the stools and benches were piled upon the tables, and dust lines on the ground spoke to a morning’s sweeping. There were two windows that would normally light the room in the day, but both were boarded over with recently milled timber. The normal human musk of a tavern was overwhelmed with the vinegar stink of wine, mixed with lye.

  After some brief introductions, the woman—who identified herself as “Nissa, but most call me Niss”—explained what had happened. “Last night, a group comes in looking to make trouble for themselves. Normally chase ’em out, don’t need that here. My husband deals with that, and he’s a sight to reckon, but these ones wasn’t interested in leavin’.”

  “Is your husband the proprietor?” Potter asked.

  “Offie’s the Bell, and I’m plumb-goggin’ the opposite.”

  Quill recognized some of those as actual words. “Offie’s your husband?” he guessed. “And where is he now?”’

  “He’s upstairs, but no good tryin’ to talk to him. They put a beat on him, feckless cocksuckers, he’s still in and out.”

  “Now, no need for language,” Potter balked.

  “Ain’t no language, just fact. Each one of them had a cock in ’is mouth and not a single feck amongst the five of ’em.”

  “Alright then.” Quill tried not to imagine what that meant. “Let’s talk about them. Five, you say? Rumor has it that Robin Hood is claiming responsibility for it, does that sound right to you?”

  “He said as much. Standing right here when he kicked Offie’s head to the ground.”

  An odd shiver took Quill’s spine and he stepped away from the spot. Beneath him, a large circle on the dark stone floor had been cleaned free of straw and dirt. It was freshly scrubbed, where Niss had probably cleaned up her husband’s blood.

  “Would you recognize him again? Or any of the other four?” Quill asked. “Any obvious scars, or gloves, anything like that?”

  He felt a tinge of confusion from Potter at the second mention of the glove. Nobody outside Lord Beneger’s force knew yet that Gilbert was suspected as a traitor.

  Niss shook her head, and busied herself at wiping the cobwebs from some of the wall’s ornaments. “Kept their hoods on, hardly saw their faces. Robin Hood was a tall skinny fellow, I can tell you that, and not much pack to his kicks, at least. Otherwise Offie’d be in worse shape.”

  Not Will Scarlet, then. Too short. This one was likely Gilbert himself.

  Potter grunted. “And you’re closed until your husband recovers?”

  “Fuck on that. I can run the place on my own, but they smashed all the horns.”

  Quill looked around the room, scrutinizing it again. “They smashed the horns?”

  “Every cup, every flagon, anything they could find that’d hold ale. Either smashed to pieces or put a hole in it.”

  “That’s…” Quill walked carefully about, noting the lack of servingware, and tiny shards of debris in the cracks of the tables and cobbles, “… strange. Were they drunk?”

  “No. They came for that. Had hammers with ’em. Said it was punishment for us serving to Guardsmen like you. So thanks for makin’ yourselves so visible comin’ in, I’ll bet they’ll be back for a third round tomorrow now.”

  “Third round?”

  “This was the second time. Same thing a week ago. Horns aren’t too hard to replace, though I’d rather not spend the coin on ’em. Bought a handful in the Square after last week, had a few other taverns kind enough to bring me some of their own. Then last night they smash ’em all up again, and this time my windows, too. While, might I add, they was suckin’ on cocks and fully feckless.”

  Quill would have laughed if he wasn’t busy trying to piece it all out. He took a moment to be impressed with Nissa, who was able to find the humor in her husband’s beating and the attack on her livelihood. She seemed the sort of woman who’d weathered far worse, callused against everything but the chore of having to clean up after life’s inevitable obstacles.

  And if that fact was obvious to Quill after only a few minutes, it would be equally obvious to anyone else who encountered her. Nobody was dumb enough to think she could be intimidated.

  “Do you recall what times they were here? Both last night and last week?”

  “Course I do. Last night was just after midnight,” she answered without hesitation. “Week before … Friday. Half after tenth.”

  Bless her memory. Quill could compare notes with Ben’s team, to see if Gilbert had any time unaccounted for in those periods. Look for the patterns, and then be ready for him. It was good news that people like Nissa were finally willing to talk about it with the Guard. Back in the autumn, the commonfolk took a protective secrecy about Robin Hood’s activities. But when he roughs up a whole alehouse just for serving to Guardsmen—or chops off people’s hands—then he costs himself allies.

  As Potter wrapped up the discussion with Nissa, Quill found himself staring behind the bar at three large barrels of ale, mounted on their sides. Her earlier comment about selling the whole barrel stood up in his mind and stretched its legs.

  “Niss.” He aimed a finger at them. “You said they smashed your horns and flagons, but they left the ale barrels?”

  “That’s right.”

  “They take anything else?”

  She shook her considerable head no. “Didn’t take nothing. I had a couple bottles of mead they broke, but mostly just the horns. Just broke what we can pour into.”

  “And they said it was for serving members of the Sheriff’s Guard?”

  Her face twisted, as if to say she couldn’t care less about their motivations. “I’ll serve anyone, s’long as they don’t break the place. An’ I’ll continue to do so, so come back whenever you’re thirsty now. I could use the coin. You can be sure we’ll be ready for ’em next week, iffin’ they dare to come again.”

  They left the Bell Inn behind, though Quill paid special attention upon exiting to scan the street for any conspicuous faces who might be watching them. Potter seemed eager to return to the castle, and Quill could not argue against it. If he was lucky enough to quiet his thoughts, he might be able to catch a few hours of sleep before his night’s shift on the wall.

  “What do you suppose they’re after?” he asked as they turned south on Hollows.

  “What do you mean?” Potter returned. “They hate the Guard, they hate anyone who caters to them. Seems simple enough.”

  “Why smash the horns, but leave the ale? They could’ve broken the taps off those barrels with their hammers, spilt everything she had onto the floor. They could’ve cut the wine skins, but no. They left the merchandise. That would’ve put poor Niss and her husband back a good ways further than her lot of horns.”

  Potter shrugged. “They also didn’t kill anyone. You’re angry at them for not doing the worst possible thing?”

  That was true. Robin Hood had killed Lord Brayden and his mistress, raped her in death, and mutilated five poorfolk just for sport. Here he had jus
t crushed some drinking horns and left a man with a few days’ worth of bruises, no more. It was hard to find any parallel to the attacks, since they seemed so stubbornly unassociated with each other.

  “They was sending a message, is all,” Potter dismissed it. “Not to sell to Guardsmen.”

  “Then why go back?” Quill wondered aloud. “One visit is a message, two is a purpose. Everyone knows an innkeeper can’t refuse service to Guardsmen if they want to drink, so what good is punishing them for that?” And especially someone as hard-boiled as Nissa.

  “And why this tavern?” Quill added, just speaking as the thought came to him. “You ever drink here, Potter?”

  He shook his head. “Usually the Trip, or the Salutation.”

  “Me too. This place, this is hardly known as a frequent stop for Guardsmen.”

  “Maybe this is just their first stop. Maybe we’ll see similar attacks on other taverns soon?” Potter raised an eyebrow. “I don’t see the mystery. They told her why they did it.”

  “Which is only the first reason to doubt it.” Quill wasn’t in the business of taking thieves’ words at their face value. “If we look strictly at their actions, it seems … it seems like each time, Robin Hood simply wanted the Bell Inn to be closed for one day. No more, no less.”

  Potter clearly didn’t care anymore. “Then why beat up the husband?”

  Quill had no answer. “I don’t know. But I’m starting to think there are a lot of things I don’t know, and that is not a position I have any experience with.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  ARABLE DE BUREL

  GRAFHAM, HUNTINGDONSHIRE

  “THIS,” MARION PREFACED, “IS a tale of increasingly foolish acts.”

  And one half of the story started thusly.

  John Little had three heads, and somehow the middle one looked sadder and lumpier than the two beside it. Arable had never seen him look more uncomfortable, despite their winter of living in poverty. But this was a new version of misery on him, stuffed into a pompous orchid cote-hardie that ballooned massively at his shoulders and vomited lace upward about his neck. It was too fancy for their purposes, but it was all Lord Robert had been able to find that fit John’s impressive size. He and Peetey Delaney rode on their own horses beside her, while Marion and her group were off on their own.

  “Somebody made this on purpose,” John grumbled, flicking at the floof. “That’s the baffling part.”

  Arable tried with little success to pat down the coat’s more obnoxious accents. Her own dress fit surprisingly well, excepting a deep soreness across her chest. But that was little different than the rest of her body, still recovering from months of neglect. Her stomach had become so unaccustomed to food that it reacted oddly to the most innocuous meal, and she often fell asleep at inopportune moments as her brain forcibly reclaimed all its lost slumber. But instead of tending to herself and caring for her ravaged nerves, she was in a dress finer than anything she’d worn in years, riding a horse, preparing to do this thing.

  “You look the part,” John approved. In some small way, the disguise felt like redemption. Important felt good after so much time without it, even in pretend. “Better than me, at least. I think they might laugh me off.”

  “You’re an intimidating man.” She gave up trying to fix his costume. “I guarantee that nobody will argue with you if you try your very best at being surly.”

  If John had seen his outfit before this began, he might have refused to participate in Lord Robert’s scheme entirely. But the Earl of Huntingdon had this way about him, a cloud of personality that drew one in and made the impossible seem effortless. When he described this mission it sounded like an afternoon stroll, and Marion had insisted that occasional adventures such as this were now the price of his hospitality.

  “I need you to steal something for me,” Lord Robert had explained the night before, his smile wider than his actual face. “Don’t worry, it’s rightfully mine anyway.”

  In exchange for their new home, they had agreed to the unknown—and this was the first payment. An open-ended favor. That was his real price, Arable knew. He had not sheltered them out of generosity—he had purchased himself a toy. He wanted his own private little team of thieves. If there was one single thing Arable had learned from her time on the run, it was to always agree on the details of a trade first. Otherwise, the innkeeper might decide one drunken night he’d rather take his payment in something softer than coin.

  But since Marion had never known fear in her life, she’d never learned lessons on how to protect herself or the rest of them. And so, Arable was now in Grafham pretending to be an important lady, while the earl Robert of Huntingdon did his best impersonation of a thief.

  “Put on your angry face,” Arable suggested to John, trying one on herself. “Let’s go.”

  It was night, but a clear sky and the mirror lake behind the de Senlis manor made a silhouette of its features. It had only two stories, but if this was humble then Arable doubted she knew what the word meant. By now, the others would have found their way around it, hopefully avoiding the attention that Arable and John were trying to attract by carrying lanterns and riding horses.

  The plan had been crafted, cast, and rehearsed, and they had traveled for hours of a brisk but dry day from Huntingdon Castle. Grafham was unfamiliar to most of them, but Lord Robert led their small group with certainty. Arable’s trio was in charge of the lying half. Meanwhile Lord Robert and Marion—along with the other Delaney brother, Nick—would get the more interesting bits. It all involved a feisty lord, unpaid monies, and the manor in Grafham that hid them both.

  None of them, excepting Lord Robert, were comfortable in their roles. But Will Scarlet had taken the only men who were actually good at this sort of thing with him to Nottingham, while Lord Robert expected them all to be experts on the matter. And so Arable—who admittedly at least had a lifetime’s experience at lying—was now in charge of the first part of the night’s plan.

  Two young watchmen met them on the approaching lane, and Arable spoke before they could ask a question. “We’ll see the lord of the manor, or the chamberlain, if he’s indisposed.”

  They snapped appropriately to attention. “Shall I say who is to see them?”

  “You shall not.” John gave his voice a gruff lilt. “And we’ll be asking the questions.”

  “Pretend you’re in charge,” John had coached her. “Most people just want to do what’s asked of them and be done with it.” But he also explained that he’d learned this advice on sneakthieving from Elena Gamwell, who was now very dead.

  Arable’s heart raced, and she hoped she was hiding it well. Every instinct told her to disappear in a situation like this, to shy away from unwanted eyes. This was the opposite of everything she’d become good at. She wondered idly how bloody her death would be, and prayed she would at least not see it coming.

  The obedient watchmen led them to the front entrance of the de Senlis manor. Within they would find the Lord Simon de Senlis, fourth of his name, but the first who had never held the title of Earl of Huntingdon. Lord Robert had explained it all—three successive generations of Simons de Senlis had called Huntingdon Castle home until they were overrun by Henry the Younger’s forces in the Kings’ War. Unable to reclaim his castle back on his own, the earl enlisted the military help of Lord Robert’s father. When the war was over, King Richard gifted the earldom of Huntingdonshire to Robert’s family as a reward, inadvertently turning the Senlis family into their bitter rivals. This youngest Simon de Senlis was now effecting his minor revenge by refusing to pay into King Richard’s ransom, which put an enormous financial pressure on Lord Robert to pay the Chancellor by making the difference himself.

  “It’s too much politicking for me,” John Little had huffed. “Just tell me what to steal.”

  “You don’t have to steal anything,” Lord Robert repeated. “You just need to find out where his money is, so I can steal it myself.”

  * * *

&nb
sp; “COULD YOU REPEAT THAT?” the baggy-eyed chamberlain asked, after blinking twice and staring into his own soul.

  “I said, hullo. My name is Petrus, and I’m a bodyguard.”

  This was—unimaginably—what Peetey Delaney actually said both the first and second time. Arable practically yanked him backward before he made a blunder of all their prepared aliases.

  “My apologies,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “My attendant is quite weary from the road. Allow me to introduce Lord Jonathan of Hastings, officiant en parole of the royal treasury, an honor which I share with him as benefactor adesso. My name is Lady Arabella Colonna, and we appreciate your inviting us inside.”

  None of those words, strictly speaking, made any sense. But the chamberlain stammered and stepped aside, nonetheless. “I didn’t—yes of course,” he cringed, and held the door ajar for the three of them.

  She reminded herself of William—before he became terrible, that is. Or rather, before she learned he was terrible. He’d been clueless how to act as a Sheriff, so instead he just did his best impersonation of Roger de Lacy. “I just say a lot of complicated words,” he’d described in bed one night, “and I use them confidently. Most people don’t have the first clue how anything works, and are far too embarrassed to admit as much.”

  Arable could say she’s the first priorate of bullshitshire and they’d smile and bow.

  And still the best Peetey had come up with was “Hullo, I’m a bodyguard.”

  They filed through the door into a small foyer, whose arched walls gave way to the manor’s main reception hall. Its sunken gallery was met by short staircases on all four sides, and a series of elaborate ringed chandeliers filled the emptiness above. The manor likely held a hundred rooms at Arable’s guess, built with two stories in a great square design around a central courtyard. This reception hall alone could have hosted a festival. Arable immediately surveyed its layout, trying to account for every detail. Three balconies loomed—one at the top of each of the other staircases—all currently empty, making several exits aside from the main entrance behind her.