Lionhearts

by Nathan Makaryk

“But here in the Lions, we protect our shit.” She heaved up and off the throne to wander closer to her cubs. “Skinny Pink here is Pink because he’s not ready to be red. He gets the shit jobs because he’s shit, but if he fucks up then we don’t yell at him, we teach him better. Because we all know he’s still learning. On the other hand, if Ricard the Ruby makes a mistake…” the lean Frenchman stretched his neck out in anticipation, “… then he gets my entire holier-than-God leg up his ass.”

  Ricard nodded with bemusement, though he quickly raised a single finger to silence his seconds, who cackled a bit too eagerly.

  Stutely, standing alone at the foot of the slab beneath the throne, seemed mortified by the idea.

  “That’s how lions work, the leader protects the pride. You hear stories about our king the Lionheart and you get it in your fool head that a leader is supposed to be all important, and his followers are supposed to protect him. That ain’t it … here, the king’s only job is to protect those beneath him. All the way down the line.” Cait watched Stutely’s head shake into a frown. “Not how Will Scarlet does it, is it? He’s the top of your fetid little pond, so he takes that to mean he can do whatever he wants, yes? Cut his ear off, kill the Sheriff, doesn’t matter who suffers beneath him, does it?”

  If Rob o’the Fire were present, he would have whooted in support. But Rob o’the Fire was still in bed, choking out scabs, recovering from the unprovoked beating Scarlet had given him.

  “A real lionheart puts himself last,” Cait continued, swiping a horn of ale from the boys. “Here, we demand more discipline as you rise, not less. More accountability for more responsibility. That’s why everyone wants to be a Red Lion, because we take care of our own. Here at the top, everyone’s mine to protect. Their victories are theirs,” she pointed at the crowd, “but their failures are mine. But Will Scarlet sent you to represent his failures today. Doesn’t seem right, does it?”

  Stutely stared for a long time, but not an inch of him seemed like to deny it.

  “He sent you today to tell me he wants to be ‘done.’ Because he knew I’d be angry. Suppose for a minute that you were successful, instead. That you found exactly what we needed. Do you think Scarlet still would’ve sent you? Or would he have claimed that victory and told me himself?”

  Deep in the hairy thicket of Stutely’s face, his beady little eyes blinked.

  “So no, you’re not ‘done.’ You’ll keep following the man with the velvet cap until I tell you you’re done.”

  If they could just find some dirt on the trademaster, that would speed up everything with the greenbeard. And like them or not, Scarlet’s outfit should be more than qualified to find that dirt, if it was there to be found.

  Stutely’s head bobbed. “Got it.”

  “And when I ask for Scarlet, Scarlet better goddamned be here. And you want to know something else?” She moved closer now, letting a full belly of disgust roil up into her words. “I’ve already had to come down hard on Zinnia a few times for how poorly you all are doing. But I’m going to guess that she hasn’t come down as hard on you, has she?”

  He shook his head.

  “’Cause she’s a goddamned lionheart. She accepts the blame, to protect you. That’s the cost of leadership. What you’ve come here today to tell me, that you want to be ‘done,’ that you’ve found nothing … well I regret that I’ll have to take a piece of that out of her. So think on that. That’s the cost of Scarlet’s pride. That’s the cost of you coming here to whine like a third whore. That’s the cost of being led.”

  If a full face could swallow, Stutely’s did.

  “Get your fickle candied ass out of here, and stop dealing in excuses,” she barked. “Follow the man with the velvet cap until you find something useful.”

  Ricard the Ruby, smoothing out his moustache, was the first to stand before her when she was done. “What do you need, mère?”

  “Bring Zinnia here,” she answered, and the Frenchman left to do so, because that’s what good dogs do.

  Back at the mouth of the den, Stutely’s feet hesitated as he sloughed away. Somehow, he had the balls enough to speak before leaving. “I am reliable, you know. I know I’m shit, as you say, but The Blood’ll do what needs to be done.”

  It would have been an admirable defense if not for that last bit, which caused Caitlin to bellow. “The Blood? Well shit, guess it’ll be a slow week for whoring. The blood normally only comes once a month.”

  She didn’t bother to watch him sulk off in defeat. There were far more important things for a lioness to do.

  TWENTY-SIX

  ARTHUR A BLAND

  NOTTINGHAM

  FRIDAY, 31ST DAY OF JANUARY

  DAYS ROLLED ON LIKE this, became a week. Sometimes they trailed the man with the velvet cap, even when he didn’t wear the velvet cap. Sometimes they did whatever other busybody work the Lions wanted. When they worked in twos, Arthur tried to claim David as his partner, though Zinn usually broke them up. He wasn’t sure which of the others he hated pairing with more—Stutely or Scarlet. Stutely’s refusal to bathe had turned into a constant source of argument, given the unfathomable stink his body had collected. He was oftentimes denser than Arthur had ever realized, and of late he’d become increasingly stubborn.

  There was a sense of being trapped now, that none of them mentioned. Ever since Cait had rejected their attempt to quit, working for the Lions felt less and less like a choice.

  And Scarlet was Scarlet. Every day, as before, was a gamble with him. His swings were wider now. At his best he was incorrigible and brilliant, outthinking whatever mission they’d been assigned and completing it in half the time, or for twice the reward. At his worst he was a silent storm, violent and uncaring. Left to his own devices, Arthur had even seen Scarlet talking to himself, scratching at his skin, taken to sudden bursts of crying that he could hardly disguise. Ever sober, but ever drowning.

  David, against all odds, had only become increasingly fond of their little runt captain Zinn. Her petty little street gang—the ones responsible for the con of the endless bread roll—was full of equally rapscallious little cunts that David also apparently loved. In some other kinder life, David of Doncaster might’ve made a loving father. But in this actual rotgut of a life, Arthur would sooner chop his own cock off than have to care for a child.

  Will’s plan now, in short, was obedience. They did their work, and well, and hoped to earn some allies. Arthur didn’t like life at all, but then life wasn’t supposed to be liked. He did what he was told, bit his tongue, and then did so some more. Sometimes they’d pinch pockets, or study the rotation of the guard, and sometimes they did practically nothing. If that was earning them the respect they’d come for, he hoped it would pay off soon. Because saying “yes mum” to Caitlin FitzSimon felt like going in the wrong direction. And the more they mixed with these Red Lions, the more Arthur saw what kind of men and women they were.

  These were the type who thought they were allowed to do whatever they wanted until life was likable. That sort of thinking was the short way to a quick death, Arthur knew. Arthur went beyond their orders and bothered to wonder why the Red Lions were so interested in the man with the velvet cap. His name was Gerome Artaud, and he was one of the city’s trademasters. He inventoried every parcel of food that entered or left Nottingham, be it by road or by boat. The Red Fox clearly meant to blackmail him.

  Which meant they were aiming to take that food for themselves.

  More food for the Lions, is what it meant. And less for anyone else.

  He’d caught rumors of similar actions, that Robin Hood had done. Beatings at the Commons, for people who gave out food to the wrong people. Hardly seemed like a Robin Hood-like thing to do.

  Artaud was back at the brothel today, which was a regular stop for him. But this day, Zinn had chosen to accompany them. “Sometimes you have to send a man to do a little girl’s work,” she’d complained in her usual carefree manner. She’d made some dismissive joke about the siz
e of Arthur’s cock when he asked her about the fresh bruises on her face.

  Zinn was inside the Spotted Leopard with Will this time, and Arthur didn’t want to think about what depraved story Will would concoct to explain her presence. Arthur’s role was to make the rounds again, while Stutely was on the door again, and to his knowledge, David was back in the Red Lion Fish Market singing songs with gang children again.

  Damn it all, he missed David. David was supposed to be his consolation, that at least they were in the muck of this together. But he rarely saw his friend anymore. David’s stupid fucking jokes were no longer there to balance things out. Thank God for every good moment, too, Tuck had urged.

  There was no fucking God in the world, but there was even less of Him in Nottingham.

  “Are you with any of the others?” He heard a woman’s voice around the corner. “Is Hanry with you?”

  Arthur had just rounded to the front of the brothel, where he was surprised to see a waif of a woman speaking with Will Stutely. She leaned forward, as if desperate to claw the clothes from his body, which was alarming on its own. Most anyone gifted with a nose was more like to lean away from Stutely, so this woman must have a powerful reason to do otherwise. Arthur’s first instinct was that she was a whore, but she was ever on the wrong side of the brothel’s door.

  “Haven’t seen anyone,” Stutely was answering, his face obscured by the entrance wall to the Leopard’s walkway. “He’s not with you?”

  The woman shook more than her head. “You’re certain?”

  “What about Rog and … little Hugh?”

  Arthur angled to the left, where he knew there would be a skinny stretch of mud between the neighboring building and the whorehouse, from which he could continue to listen without being spotted. There was, apparently, an advantage to having walked this block exactly five thousand times.

  “Rog is dead.” The woman’s voice quivered. “He died of the greenrot, a few weeks ago. Never should’ve taken that fucking coin. Never should’ve come to this fucking place.”

  “Sarra, I don’t…” Stutely stammered for a response, as if he’d never had any cause to show sympathy before. Through the slatted fence and a bit of foliage, Arthur could see them well enough. The girl was beet red, her eyes puffed in distress, and every inch of her malnourished body seemed on the verge of breaking.

  “What about Hugh?” Stutely finally asked. “Your son, little Hugh?”

  “He’s somewhere,” she said with a hopeless gape. “He doesn’t come home most nights. Home! Whatever that’s supposed to mean. Oh God, I don’t know what to do. You can help, though, can’t you? You can help?”

  Stutely leaned forward to look down the lane. Probably checking for me, Arthur thought, and held his breath in curiosity. “I’ll help you, but I’m busy right now. Where would I find you tonight?”

  “You’re busy?” Sarra’s question reeled with insult, and a snide sneer snatched up her face as she took in her surroundings. A hurtful smile made it quite obvious she recognized the Spotted Leopard for what it was. “You’re busy?”

  “Not that,” Stutely chortled. “I’m protecting the door, see. For someone inside. Sort of a bodyguard, you know, for an important person. Very important.” He emphasized the word very with an eyebrow, in case she didn’t know the word’s meaning.

  But Sarra curled her lips, baring yellow teeth. “You don’t have to lie to me.”

  “I’m not lying.” Stutely clamped down hard. “A very important man, he comes here a few times a week, always sees the same girl, Saddle Maege. Pays me to watch the door while he’s in there, nothing unrespectable about that.”

  Arthur found that last addition interesting. Because the truth was that their work here was indeed something less, something south of respectable. Working for Scarlet, working for Zinn, working for the Red Lions.

  Not working, really. Fetching. Watching.

  “Working for Robin Hood,” Stutely gulped out, finishing Arthur’s own thoughts. That, at least, was true enough. And it was supposed to be good. Working for Red Fox, the new Robin Hood, was supposed to mean they were helping people. But that wasn’t it anymore, not at all. The only people Red Fox helped were Red Fox’s people. And Arthur’s life had devolved into helping Red Fox do whatever the fuck it was he was doing. But where people had loved Robin Hood in the Sherwood … here they seemed just as like to recoil at the mention of his name.

  Sarra, for instance.

  Sarra spat in Stutely’s face.

  The glob of brown splayed across his nose, thick. He instantly wiped it away, but a long strand stretched to his whiskers, and as he tried to shake it off, Sarra filled his face with another. Arthur stopped watching and ran back to the exit of the mud alley, to foolishly add himself to the situation.

  “Robin Hood killed my husband!” Sarra growled, a naked, shaken sound. “He chopped his hand off and left him for dead. And Hugh … whatever happens to Hugh, that’s on Robin Hood, too.” She spat a third time, but had nothing left in her mouth to spit.

  “That’s enough now!” Arthur barked with his deepest voice. He didn’t think it would take much to scare off the beggar woman, but the last time he’d walked into a situation with any amount of confidence, he’d ended up with his breeches in a ball around his feet. “Get out of here!”

  “I’m going!” she shouted back, twitching nervously away. Her eyes danced up and down Arthur’s body, twice, before she made the decision to leave. She was looking for his uniform, he instantly realized. She’d mistaken him for a goddamned gord.

  It stopped him in his tracks, as sure as an arrow. Was that what he’d become?

  Guarding the door, and chasing away the poor?

  Taking orders because he didn’t care enough to say no?

  “Don’t go,” Stutely called after the girl. She stopped in the road, but didn’t turn. If anything, she was buckled over, her body giving way to a wail. “I’m not with them, he’s not really Robin Hood…”

  “Stop lying!” She twisted, her tortured face wrenched in knots. “If you can’t help, then you can’t help, that’s fine! I’m used to it. But you don’t have to be terrible about it, you don’t have to add to it. Always out for yourself, Will Stutely, nothing ever changes. You think I don’t know this place? Go inside and get your cock sucked, rather than stand out here lying to me!”

  Arthur tried to help. “It’s true, he wasn’t lying.”

  “He’s not lying?” Her smile was wicked. “Is your Robin Hood in there right now, is that who you’re protecting? He’s fucking Saddle Maege for a crown? Who—by the way—is a man, so don’t fucking tell me you’re not lying to me. He probably pays double for Maege to fuck him back.” She laughed and cried in a single burst. “Why’n’t you let him know he’s wasting his coin, since you’re so eager to do it yourself!”

  Stutely moved but Arthur managed a hand onto his shoulder, letting the poor wretch trip off down the lane, cursing at the world and whichever god she felt had deserted her.

  “She’s drunk,” Arthur said, though Stutely was agitated beyond his ability to hear it. “Who was she?”

  “Her name was Sarra.” His eyes focused on the last place she’d been before disappearing. “We lived in the same village, ’fore it burnt.”

  Arthur squinted off at the same spot.

  “Thorney, right?” he asked, recalling the name.

  Stutely’s head bobbed. “The fire brigades, at top of winter. Last time I saw Thorney was when you all came by, asking for helpers. I almost didn’t join, but seemed it was the right thing to do. Those fire brigades weren’t so tough, only one or two Guardsmen each, you know? I could take one out on my own, maybe two.” His jaw tightened. “But I couldn’t stop the ones that come when I’m not there.”

  Arthur had never bothered to ask the man’s history. He was just an arrogant strongarm, and even David wasn’t shy about having a laugh at his expense. “Did you ever go back?”

  A long, knowing grimace. “Nothing but
black and char. So I stayed with Marion’s Men. I guess that’s when I ‘joined,’ seeing as how I didn’t have a home to go back to. Never saw anyone from Thorney again, but she saw me standing here and recognized me. Her husband’s dead now, I guess. He wasn’t much of a man, but he didn’t deserve that. Hand cut off? She said Robin Hood did that?”

  Red Fox was the man who called himself Robin Hood, and here they were doing his beck and call. It tasted sour, every goddamn drop of it tasted wrong.

  “He’s not Robin Hood,” Arthur said, since it needed to be said.

  “I joined because I thought I’d be helping Robin Hood,” Stutely muttered. “But he was dead before the fire brigades even started. And I hate to say it, and I hope you don’t hate me none for doing so, but I don’t think Will’s got his head together at the moment.”

  The fact that Arthur agreed with Stutely was enough to show that the world had gone upside down.

  At the edge of his senses, there was a commotion brewing.

  “I used to tell stories about Robin Hood to that woman’s son by the campfire. If I were to talk about him now…” Stutely’s face turned into a fist, “… I’d tell little Hugh to run like hell.”

  At that, the wooden door of the brothel exploded outward.

  Four or five bodies tumbled over each other, clattering out and collapsing into the slop and mud of the street. Arthur braced to move out of their way too late—someone’s shoulder smashed into his chest and he went down with the rest of them. He winced when he hit the ground, feeling a questionable wetness soak into his elbows and knees. He was not surprised for even a moment to see that it was Will Scarlet at the center of the brawl.

  “Get off!” Will shouted, scrambling backward through the muck, blood speckling his face. But his opponents ignored him. Arthur recognized them—the brothel’s muscle, probably throwing Will out for coming too many times and not buying. There was still something wilder and violent happening there, and as Arthur regained his own feet he was able to make sense of the chaos.