“It’s true,” Friar Tuck said quietly from the far end of the littered table, his bald head reflecting the room’s fire. By the look of him, spending the last twelve hours with the countess was as difficult as their trip to Grafham. “The taxes, the war tithe, and King Richard’s ransom, there’s no way to pay them all. We’ve been over everything.”
He raised some pages loosely in his hand and let them tumble back to the table.
“I’m sure you mean well,” Lord Robert gave Tuck a cute smile, “but I have men whose sole purpose is to manage my coin. They’ve told me—”
“They’ll tell you what you want to hear,” Tuck cut him off. “To keep their status, and their position, because the numbers tell them the same thing they tell me. Numbers, Lord Robert, numbers can’t lie. Your worth on paper is far higher than what you actually have, and that discrepancy cannot be bridged. You can’t pay your share of the ransom, not by any rational means.”
“Short of indiscriminately burgling every single one of your bannermen’s estates, which I trust is out of the question…” Lady Magdalena eyed the room heavily to ensure the severity of that choice, “… then our only option, dear husband, is to not pay. And that, at least, is something we have discussed.”
Arable hoped Lord Robert felt as foolish as he should, returned home in defeat on a quest that was doomed from the beginning. Like a child, come home from slaying invisible foes in the forest to the harsh reality of survival. He fidgeted, unpinning the cape from his shoulder and letting it fall onto the table. Perhaps it was that easy for him to transition from an adolescent perspective to that of an adult.
Arable didn’t know the details of how much money Lord Robert had given to Robin Hood’s crew before her time with them, but it undoubtedly made a difference in his ability to pay his royal dues now.
“What is your option, then,” Marion asked, “if not to pay?”
Robert did not answer, so Lady Magdalena took the reins. “We should stop referring to it as the king’s ransom. It is not Richard who demands it, but Chancellor Longchamp—and he is a fool to do so. Or, more likely, a tyrant.”
That word tiptoed around the room, stealing breath and raising eyebrows.
“We are not the only ones who have come up short. Chancellor Longchamp has abused the king’s power, and thrown the country into poverty. These laws, these taxes, this ransom … they are beyond any reason, they are an overreach of the blindest kind. The punishments for not paying are extreme. Longchamp claims lands and titles he has no right to, he takes property and livelihood with equal apathy. He’ll take this earldom from us, my dear, without a thought. He’ll replace us with anyone who promises to take more drastic actions. The chancellor’s grasp at power while King Richard lies in captivity is the ruin of us all. The solution is not to find clever ways of paying these outrageous demands. The rules are rigged, so it’s time to change the rules. And it’s time to change the man who makes them.”
The room expanded. Arable’s skin shrank. She suddenly longed for the smaller, sillier world she’d been living in seconds earlier.
“You’re talking rebellion,” she said.
“It was only talk,” Robert defended it. “Consider it a war game. We were speaking hypothetically, weeks ago. Any good leader would be wise to prepare for the worst scenario.”
“Which is where we now find ourselves.” Lady Magdalena touched his shoulder. “It is not rebellion to discuss our options. We made a list of those of similar mind that we might rally. My father has spent a generation building alliances of barons and earls from all over England of sympathetic ear, who have no direct ties to the Chancellor. My sister’s husband, Waleran, has a similar network of loyalties we can call upon. If this is not the moment, I don’t know what could be. Our king, captured—and our country ruined from within. The need has never been more dire, and the opportunity never more tangible.”
“You’d hold this … rally … here?” Marion gasped. “It’s too dangerous—”
“I did not ask if you had objection,” Magdalena barely said. “Your agreement is not required.”
Arable was shocked to see Marion cow herself, biting her lip rather than fighting back. Her own instincts screamed the same thing, but she was in even less of a position to object than Marion was.
After watching Lord Robert run childishly through a manor all night brandishing a sword as if there were no consequences in the world, she suddenly now had to wonder if his half of the marriage was truly the reckless one.
The Earl of Huntingdon touched his fingertips to the table, a calculating demeanor now that bore no hint of his earlier levity. “Suppose I were to agree with you. We would have to proceed very cautiously.”
The countess kissed him on the cheek. “Oh darling, your agreement is not required, either.”
He stammered. “Maggie … we need to discuss this further. If we wrote invitations … well, talk is empty air, but putting ink to paper is taking a stance. I do not think—”
“I penned the invitations weeks ago.”
Robert’s jaw was not the only one to drop.
She smiled. “As you said, dear, to prepare for the worst.”
“To even have those letters in our possession is criminal. You must burn them at once.”
Her fingers wrapped around his. “I sent them out this morning.”
TWENTY-FIVE
CAITLIN FITZSIMON
THE LIONS DEN
ALFRED FAWKES WAS MOSTLY drunk, which meant he’d be inclined to fuck. Which was, after all, why Cait had encouraged him to drink. But only mostly drunk, lest the liquor get a hold of his cock before she did. It was a fine balance that she’d generally mastered—getting him drunk enough to forget about the bone-skinny whores like Clorinda Rose, but not so drunk that he’d fall asleep against the cave wall again. Men were like crabs—it really did take an exacting amount of work to get what little meat she needed from them.
“I’ve got a surprise for you,” Alfie slurred, every syllable a different note to a song he invented as he went. His attention was not on her, though. He was busy waving his arms in concentric circles, oblivious to the tight confines of their “room.” Their little nook was just another cramped tunnel in a network of barely navigable passageways. It had the luxuries of a flat bottom and a few worming holes in its top that let in a drip of light during the day and let out a bit of stink at night. To have a preference of one of these mole holes over another was the miserable extent of how far the reign of the Red Lions had fallen.
They’d be back. That’s what she told the cubs, that is. Bears were known to hibernate, and no one thought the less of them. Springtime, the Lions would prowl again.
“What’s the surprise?” she asked, though Alfie seemed to have forgotten already. Caitlin rolled to the side of the dingy straw mattress they’d built months ago, which long stank of mildew. A plate of butterbur leaves and incense was burning, and she threw a pinch of panta in to smolder amongst the embers. Pantagruel herb was said to keep a man’s seed from quickening, and the last thing she needed in times such as this was one more human to care for, especially a little one.
Maybe someday. But Caitlin had nothing to give to a child right now, aside from the promise of becoming an orphan. The recent months had been such a brutal setback, and it didn’t matter that there was nothing Cait or Alfie could’ve done to prevent it. The first ambitious little cubs who got the taste for blood might make a play for the ramshackle throne, thinking they could sit it better.
Hell, they might even be right about it.
Until then, it was all about the performance.
“Shhhh.” Alfie froze his arms in the air, pressing one long bony finger to his lips. “I’ve got a surprise for you.”
“You mentioned that.” She reached out to pull him down beside her.
But he wouldn’t move, and instead cocked his head up like a bird. “Listen.”
His finger pointed upward.
There were the normal sounds o
f this underground abode—the stifling return of their own voices summed upon themselves, the muffled low rumblings of the cubs in the main room, still arguing or throwing dice. But there was something else beneath it … Caitlin closed her eyes and found herself cocking her head the same way he had. A consistent heartbeat, more a feeling than a sound, pulsing within the cave walls. And then above it all, just the tail edge of a shifting whistle, slipping in and out and impossible to notice until the moment it was gone.
“Music,” she said once she identified it.
“I finally found where that leads.” Alfie’s finger stretched up to the wormhole at the top of their little chamber. Nothing but a black hole right now, but it carried a faint glow in the daytime, and brought in a few drops of water when it rained. “T’other end’s in Crof’s Plaza.”
“The Parlies, really?” Cait found that surprising. “Didn’t realize we were that far north.”
“And I paid a little troupe … a little musical troupe … to stand on top of our little hole while they play tonight.”
Alfie had his moments.
She closed her eyes again and angled her ear up to the wormhole, desperate to make out any of the notes. Her mind filled in the rest, connecting the dots and creating a melody where there was nothing but vibrations and ghostly whistles. Alfie had brought musicians into the den once, to keep the boys entertained, but that had brought a nearly disastrous amount of attention their way. The tunnels carried sound much farther down here than in the open air, and the whole of Nottingham leaked their music into the streets like a sponge squeezed of its water. There’d been almost no music in Caitlin’s life since that night. And though she’d only complained of that fact once, Alfred Fawkes was ever a man who listened to his woman.
“Thank you,” she whispered, drawing him in and sliding her hand down between his legs. But after half a minute or so with no reaction, she gave up. Too much ale tonight, she sighed, regretting the waste of panta.
“There’s also this,” Alfie continued, oblivious to her disappointment. He drew open his red duster and revealed a flat, rounded bottle from a deep pocket. Its top was still sealed with a cork and dirty golden wax dripped down the bottle’s length, both of which carried a sweet smell of honey.
It was kind, but not productive. “Oh, Alfie.”
“Courtesy of the Salutation Inn.”
“This doesn’t help us,” she chastised him, raising the bottle of mead up to the lantern to inspect its liquid within. “Put it with the ones we took from the Bell.”
“Just one bottle,” Alfie defended himself. “Just enough to celebrate.”
“We have nothing to celebrate yet. We ought to give this to the greenbeard.”
“We have everything to celebrate. This is a promise.” He reclaimed the bottle victoriously, cradling it in his hands like a father holding his newborn son. “This is evolvable … this is invulvable lillity … this is evulnerable…”
“Invulnerability.”
“That.” He snapped his fingers. “My lips preceedeth me.”
It was hardly invulnerability. One bottle was only worth one visit—those were the greenbeard’s terms. Even a dozen visits wasn’t nearly enough to do what they needed. They’d have to find a more permanent way to get the greenbeard his mead, something that didn’t involve roughing up the other taverns every week. She hated that tactic anyway. Even pretending they were punishing places that served to Guardsmen, they were risking their reputation with the barkeeps. And the reward was not a guarantee—once it was all done, it likely meant little more than a pair of aces as their hole cards. Might literally save their lives someday, so worth the effort … but it was merely a shield, not invulnerability. And one they could likely use only once.
“What’s the real goal?” she asked aloud. Any thought of sex had fluttered away, leaving the damned idea of a child lingering at the back of her mind. “Stay alive another day? More coin, more coin? Until we’re too big and we get chopped down? We’re already the head of the Lions, where do we go from here?”
“We get the Lions back to where they once were,” Alfie said harshly, his fingers jabbing with each stressed word. “If Will Scarlet could do it, we can do it, too.”
“But he walked away.” Dumb little rogger that he was, she could still see the wisdom in what he’d done. “Once he was at the top, he left. Because he needed somewhere else to rise.”
“And now he’s at the bottom.”
That was true enough, at least. But he’d risen further, first, before the fall.
“I hate that he thinks he’s Robin Hood,” she said, staring up into the wormhole that led, eventually, to a real world. More than anything, she hated the idea of owing the name of Robin Hood to Will Scarlet. When it was just some stranger’s title she had no qualms about claiming it, but now that she’d seen the whiny little mess in person, she didn’t want any of his inheritance. “I know it was my idea for you to take the name, but I’m having doubts now. Why not let him keep it? We don’t really need it.”
“But I like it.” Alfred smiled, his thin lips stretching to ribbons. “It fits me. And we’ve gained as much from it as we’ve … not.”
Cait’s brows furrowed themselves at that. “That’s not an argument for keeping it. That means we’ve come out even. That’s a business that fails, that comes out even.”
“Just because you don’t know the argument, doesn’t mean it’s not an argument.”
“You’re drunk.”
“I am! The air has forsaken us!”
She sighed, even as he tumbled down into the straw and took her calf in his hands, massaging her muscles. He knew he couldn’t please her tonight the way she wanted, but he was also wise enough to know he could try to make it up to her.
“Will’s an old friend,” he cajoled her. “I’ll send him away if you tell me to, but I think he’ll be useful. He just has to learn his place.”
Will Scarlet wasn’t interested in learning his place. The job Cait had in mind for him was too dangerous to give to anyone she cared for, but it couldn’t be done until their work with the greenbeard was complete. Until then, Scarlet was festering like a sore in their ranks. Might even be a threat. But it wouldn’t help to have that conversation while Alfie was shy of his senses.
Her thoughts had darkened. “I’m worried about this Lord Death.”
He shook his head and kissed her knee. “Stupid name, that.”
“And Robin Hood’s such a good one?”
His lips moved up.
Rumors were that Lord Death was the last Sheriff’s father—that he was Revenge in human form, come to hunt his son’s murderer. Alfie had dismissed it as drunken haver earlier, but Cait knew there was some truth to it. “We don’t want to be mistaken for the man he wants.”
“All the more reason to keep Scarlet. When it’s pouring outside, you can only control that which you bring inside your home.”
“The fat man said something strange, too,” she said. She’d meant to tell him tomorrow, when their heads were clearer.
“When did you see the fat man?”
Cait just waved her hand, since it didn’t matter. The fewer times she was forced to see her father, the better. “Says they think that Gilbert’s tied with Robin Hood.”
“The White Hand?”
“They wouldn’t be wrong.” They hadn’t had any dealing with Gilbert since that business with the Guardsman Jon Bassett last year, and they were only the better for it. Gilbert had turned traitor and joined the Guard himself, and he was welcome to any punishment coming his way. “Gilbert used to work with Scarlet. Might still be.”
The music breathed down through the walls, barely there.
A hum, Alfie’s head shook no.
“Ask him about it. If they’re watching Gilbert, and Gilbert’s working with Scarlet, then they might keep going and find us, too.”
His lips moved, slowly, up her thigh.
* * *
“NO, YOU’RE NOT.”
Caitlin didn’t even bother looking up as she said it. She had no desire to stare at the hairy oaf Will Stutely, but that was not why she kept her head down. Scarlet had sent the lowest of his men to report back on their work, and that simply wasn’t how they did it here.
“Ah…” came Stutely’s bloated groan. “Maybe I should talk to someone else?”
“Maybe you should do what you’re told, and realize how lucky you are to even be here,” she snapped. “I told Zinnia that I wanted Scarlet to report back to me, and you don’t look like Will Scarlet to me. Which is good for you most of the time, but right now very bad. Why do you suppose he sent you?” she asked.
“I’m reliable,” he said, and Cait almost laughed that he did so seriously.
The rest of the Lions Den had less restraint. A dozen of her boys were playing dice at the tables and stopped to laugh at Stutely’s response. Alfie was topside, dealing with some particularly conservative priests at the Commons who’d become troublesome. Whenever he was out, Caitlin sat the throne. But this mouth-breathing rambag somehow thought he should talk to someone else.
“It’s true,” Stutely doubled-down on his answer. “I always do as I’m told, the best I can. Don’t see how that’s something to laugh at.”
“Scarlet sent you because you’re shit,” Caitlin said, finally raising her eyes upon their visitor’s beastly face. “Don’t wrinkle your nose at me—open your ears and learn a thing or two. That’s not an insult, calling you shit, that’s just fact. Shit slides downhill, so whoever’s at the bottom is shit. Someone has to be at the bottom, and it just happens to be you. Lookin’ about this room, I see at least … three more pieces of shit.”
At the horns, Skinny Pink stood up and raised his ale. “I am definitely shit.”
“That you are,” growled the Dawn Dog and pushed him down again playfully.
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