“I mean how far do you want to take it, sir?” Derrick asked again, more importantly. “Am I still on a leash?”
Robert knew exactly what he was asking. Next to Derrick, his lean greyhound face flitting away from the rain, Ronnell checked his own costume. His weapons hidden in their folds. The hatchet. The bludgeon.
The Sheriff somehow thought the commonfolk would turn on Robin Hood when he was captured in the archery tournament. No, it would go the other way, unless his reputation changed. That’s what Robert and his boys had been working on for months, slowly—but now they had to do so harder than ever. As much as they could, before the tournament.
Of course Robert had known who Dillon Fellows was, that’s why he’d targeted the well-known young Guardsman. That’s why they’d done it in front of a church mass—the monster, Robin Hood. Respect was a fickle thing, and it was easy to move from one side to another. An arrow to the thigh—courtesy of Derrick’s bowmanship—and the people’s sympathies moved slightly back toward the Nottingham Guard.
Robin Hood, whoever he was, needed his home turned against him. Robert was flooding the hole.
If the thief was indeed caught at the archery tournament, nobody would think twice about defending the man who chopped their hands and pinned them to the wall. Or if he escaped the tournament, it would only be a matter of time before he’d be flushed out by the very people he thought would protect him.
“Just check with me first,” Robert said, hating every word.
“Yes, sir.” Derrick’s head bobbed.
At least he said sir.
Derrick flipped the hood over his head, leaving nothing but his sharp nose and smile. “After you, Friar.”
Robert knew a fucking thing or two about how easy it was to turn a man’s reputation to filth.
He moved down the lane toward the Spotted Leopard, gritting his teeth for what would come next. He didn’t even know if the tip they’d received that Robin Hood was a patron here was true or not—it didn’t matter. “Robin Hood” would be there tonight, and he’d be exceedingly hard to please. Tomorrow, maybe another whorehouse. The next day, the Commons. St. Mary’s, maybe. Every day until the tournament, until the people were slavering for Robin Hood’s head.
The people had to learn, they had to realize they were hurting themselves by keeping Robin Hood safe. The more they began to fear him, the sooner this entire nightmare would be over, and Sir Robert FitzOdo could get the fuck out of this city for the last time.
Nobody could love a man who gave you a coin and then beat you.
Nobody could love a man who cut off the hands that helped him.
Nobody would hide a man who loosed arrows into crowds.
And if that meant putting on a costume and burning down a brothel, or whatever fucking worse was in store this night, then so goddamned be it.
PART V
RED AND RED
FORTY
QUILLEN PEVERIL
NOTTINGHAM
FRIDAY, 14TH DAY OF FEBRUARY
IF ST. MARY HAD anything to say about it, she likely would have stormed out of her church and shooed them all away.
Presumably.
Quill didn’t really know much about her aside from the fact she was a saint, and that his companions this day—standing outside the great church’s gaping front door—were anything but.
“We’d best hurry,” Sir Robert FitzOdo growled, too anxious for his own skin. “These are precious seconds we’re wasting.”
His two lackeys, Derrick and Ronnell, both grunted something vaguely affirmative, as if the three of them amounted to even a single vote. It was possible the mere proximity of the church was a discomfort to them, burning their skin or the like.
“There’s plenty of time,” Lord Beneger answered, ever stoic, his eyes climbing the vertical lines of St. Mary’s stonework to her great square steeple. Where most of the city had been filled with slapdash structures that turned Nottingham’s normally straight roads into obstacle courses, the footprint of St. Mary’s grounds was untouched by the encroaching city. She lay like a massive stone lion, daring the rest of the world to come closer, knowing it wouldn’t. The largest structure outside of the castle itself, St. Mary’s prompted a true sense of awe that hushed even their irreverent crew. “She’s yet to ring nine, and we’re not due until half past. Provided our information is accurate.”
The answer was a glum mumble. “It’s accurate.”
It was difficult to tell which of them defiled the church more. The drunkard Coward Knight and his useless minions, the Lord Death and his lifelong sport of revenge, or the pudgy opportunist whose information they were reliant on.
“We’ll see soon enough,” Lord Beneger said.
“It’s accurate,” Rob o’the Fire repeated.
His round face had soft features and black bruises. Both begged for sympathy, but Quill had nothing but skepticism for the man. He was a Red Lion of little import by his own admission, and had come to the Nottingham Guard in the middle of the night, begging for amnesty in exchange for secrets.
Well, more accurately, one secret.
He knew how to catch the assassin Will Scarlet, so he claimed.
The last time an informant had brought them news, their opportunity had slipped by when the Sheriff refused to let them follow up upon it. They might have prevented the Spotted Leopard’s fate—burnt now, at the hand of Robin Hood’s torch, three days earlier. So even though they had enough going on with the tournament today, Ben was not going to hesitate for a second on this Red Lion’s information. The good gentleman o-the-Fire’s hands were bound by rope, concealed under a folded woolen cloak he appeared to be carrying. Given the damp spit of the morning’s charcoal clouds, it made the man look a right fool for not wearing the cloak—but since he was probably actually a right fool, it was all the same to him.
News like this was undoubtedly too good to be true. “He may lead us to Will Scarlet,” Quill had complained to Jacelyn de Lacy, “but I’ll bet my left nut that he gets something out of this, too.”
“I don’t care if he gets to fuck the queen,” Jacelyn had answered. “So long as I get Scarlet.”
She was in St. Mary’s now, absolving herself or whatever it was one was supposed to do, before they laid their trap. Jacelyn’s sole purpose in joining the Nottingham Guard was to bring justice to her slain uncle, dead by Will Scarlet’s hand. Quill was fuzzy with the details, but he imagined that everyone was allowed one bucket’s worth of sin before he was expected to empty it out on the confessional floor. The fact that Jacelyn de Lacy had waited until the last moment to dump out her bucket spoke to how much sin she was merrily ready to do unto her uncle’s murderer. The plan was just to arrest him, of course, but Jac was probably eager for things to go sideways, that she might end it her own way.
A part of him was jealous, that she’d get her moment. His thoughts lingered to the solemn table in his barracks room. The parchment and quill … and the letter to his father he had barely begun. He had sworn to write to his father and summon him to Nottingham, to make a claim against Ferrers for Sheriff, but every time he touched quill to ink, his fingers would not summon the words. Sending for his father felt like surrender, an admission that he could not handle this on his own. And how could he prove himself good enough to be Lord of the Peak one day, if he needed his father to sweep in and fix every problem? He’d burnt the first letter he started, and the second and third, until the sheer act of ignoring the table entirely felt like a victory.
And here they were, on the verge of capturing Will Scarlet. And more, given their plans at the archery tournament. The keel was righting, and though Quill could not claim to be its captain, he had his hands on the lines.
“Why are we waiting for her?” Ronnell burst out. “If she’d rather pray than catch criminals, we can do this without her.”
“We very nearly did,” Quill answered, before Ben could. “De Grendon didn’t want her participating in this at all.” She had a critical role
to play at the St. Valentine’s tournament today, and the captain didn’t want anything to jeopardize her attendance. But according to their informant, it was the tournament itself that provided the opportunity they were about to seize.
“We wait,” Ben answered. “There’s nothing de Grendon, nor Ferrers, nor King Richard, nor God could do to keep Jacelyn from today’s pursuit.”
Derrick huffed. “Just wondering how much confessing she has left in her, is all.”
Lord Beneger dismissed the comment with a slight wave. “I envy her. She’s on the brink of her vengeance, and she’s wise to tend to her soul first, to better enjoy it.”
Even in Lord Beneger’s cruelest scowls, there was always a slight sadness; some great weight that had long taken over his muscles. Jacelyn was purging her soul to better avenge her uncle, a man whom she had never even known in life. But Beneger de Wendenal mourned a son, his last surviving son. Quill hoped he never knew even a fraction of that grief.
“What about you?” Quill asked softly. “You’ll have your revenge as well, no?”
“Perhaps.” Lord Beneger’s voice held as little enthusiasm as was possible. “There’s no proof yet that Will Scarlet killed my son. He might deny it. Or there may be others. And Robin Hood might live on regardless. That’s why I envy her. Her target is fully within her grasp. The only thing worse than the pain itself is to never find satisfaction. To know that your quarry has slipped away, like words in the wind. To never know what became of them, or what their actions did to them, if anything at all. She’ll get hers, from Scarlet, today. But mine … mine is not so certain.”
The Coward Knight reared his bald head into Rob o’the Fire’s face. “This gang runt turned on Scarlet. After St. Peter’s, and the brothel fire, and the Commons … the people are finally ready to turn to us, because they know we’ll help him. That’s what I’ve been working on for months—doing good, that is. Spreading the rightful name of the Guard. Helping people. You make fun of me all you want, but this today happened because of me.”
Quill exchanged a confused glance with Ben. How FitzOdo thought that his daily routine of getting drunk was “spreading the rightful name of the Guard,” Quill didn’t know. The man was probably just jealous that he couldn’t claim this victory for himself.
Unlike FitzOdo, Quill knew better than to count his chickens before they shat in his lap.
Or something.
One thing at a time, Quill breathed. First, Will Scarlet.
* * *
JACELYN REJOINED THEM SHORTLY, apologized for her delay, and they heaved off.
South from St. Mary’s, the ground dove down sharply toward the docks, though they took the Long Stair that offered a gradual ramp to the river’s level. There were nine of them in total now, as two of Lord Beneger’s Derbymen had joined them with their final member—a wary councilman named Gerome Artaud. The thin man was Will Scarlet’s intended target, so Rob o’the Fire claimed, and had proven himself willing to participate in the reversal of his trap.
Their large company might have normally made for a conspicuous group by the docks had they not dressed down into the vulgar common trappings of laborers. Quill’s neck protested at the rough edges of an ill-fitting tunic, which snagged awkwardly at the leather plating of his underarmor. He would have preferred a shirt of mailed chain, but its heft and noise ran an even greater risk of being discovered. They walked without purpose, in drifting clumps, lest any watchful gang member find cause to send warning of their arrival down the food chain.
Quill’s eyes scanned the edges of the buildings and the hollows of windows, but found no sign of anyone paying them a single mind. It took only a few minutes for them to situate, scattered at convenient distances from the unimposing square shack of the harbormaster’s office. It was stilted up above many of the other long storage houses, a bit removed from the river Trent but easily accessible from the main thoroughfare. A wooden staircase led to its doorway, and Artaud promised that inside was a single room with no other exit. Artaud alone was dressed in his normal garb, which was abnormal enough to be readily identifiable. The cut of his clothes was clean and foreign, and a distinctive velvet cap turned him into a literal target amongst any crowd.
Gerome Artaud strode with purpose up the stairs to his own office, accompanied by Lord Beneger and the two extra Derbymen—all three disguised in the tawdry rags of any docksman. Artaud was accustomed to traveling with three incognito bodyguards, so he explained, and Lord Beneger had chosen to use that device to their advantage.
At half past nine each day, Gerome Artaud ate a meal in his office alone, perusing the records of the day’s imports. Those bodyguards would stand watch outside.
But this day, those bodyguards would be dismissed to attend the archery tournament.
So at half past nine this day—so Rob o’the Fire claimed—the assassin Will Scarlet had orders to enter the harbormaster’s office and mutilate him.
He was less forthcoming with the why of it all, which felt as if they were being tricked into taking out the Red Lions’ trash. If the gang was cleaning house and cutting ties with Scarlet, Quill didn’t like doing their bidding. But as Jac said, it would be worth it if the day ended with Scarlet in chains.
Only half a minute or so passed before the three bodyguards emerged from the harbormaster’s office again. They shook their master’s hand before hustling away, hoping to make it up to the castle while there was still room to be found in the spectator stands for the afternoon’s festivities. The man and his velvet cap re-entered his office, exposed and vulnerable.
At least, so it appeared to anyone watching.
The exchange of clothing had been done quickly inside the office, and the illusion was believable even to Quill. The man now beneath the velvet cap—alone in his crow’s nest office awaiting Will Scarlet’s arrival—was actually Lord Beneger de Wendenal. Gerome Artaud was already gone, disguised as his own bodyguard, walking briskly back to the safety of the castle with his two Derby escorts.
The rest of them had but to wait, conspicuously clumped near the dockmaster’s stairs, only a short run away. Once Will Scarlet appeared and entered the door to confront his prey, they could all close in behind him in a matter of seconds.
Quill’s heart started beating faster, at the knowledge of what was coming. He had not seen Will Scarlet since the night of the massacre outside Bernesdale, where Quill had watched him turn some of the young men of the Guard into bloody ribbons. He still awoke some nights in a sweat, dreaming of that fight, wondering how he had survived the carnage. It seemed impossible that the world could put that man back in front of him again.
He tried to distract himself, by controlling what he could.
“If you make any unsolicited noise,” he said casually to Rob o’the Fire, fastening the man’s hands to a sturdy dock cleat with the excess rope, “if you give Will Scarlet any warning, or bring undue attention to us … if you bring your gangling friends down on our heads, or any bit of this goes differently than the way you’ve described … well. Well, I will certainly … I will be upset. I don’t know that I have a threat for you. Jacelyn, can you make a threat for him?”
She didn’t move a muscle. “We’ll throw you in the river.”
“We’ll throw you in the river, is what we’ll do.” Quill raised his eyebrows in turn, hoping one of them was more menacing than the other. “Is that it? We’ll throw him in the river?”
“His hands are tied, he’ll drown. And it would be fast. For us, at least.”
“That’s very practical.” Quill gave Rob’s rope a solid tug. “You hear that? If you try to betray us, we’ll treat you very practically. I was hoping for something with a bit more teeth. Bloody, something, you know. We’ll cut your cock off, and feed it to you, something like that.”
Jacelyn smiled, and Quill was certain he did not want to know why. “You men sure like threatening each other’s members. Such a strange fascination.”
He turned back to his captive. “I�
��m not going to cut your cock off, that sounds terrible. I’d have to grab your cock and try to cram it down your throat, that’s a lot of cock handling. No, I’ll … I’ll cut your eyeball out. And then I’ll take it and aim it back at you, so that you can see … exactly how foolish you look … without an eyeball.”
Apparently his raging nerves were occupying all the brainpower he normally used for wit. Jac gave him a pathetic laugh. “I don’t know how you’ve survived this long, Peveril.”
He smiled at the insult, but then swallowed it down. He was on her bad side, her frozen side. “Sure you do,” he answered. “We take the lot we’re given and make it work for us. I imagine your days have been harder than mine.”
If she meant to respond, she was interrupted by the appearance of a small man loping across the yard, headed directly to the base of the wooden stairs.
“Here we go,” Jac whispered, and Quill’s bowels demanded to evacuate his body.
Their target stopped for only a second, risking one glance back before he climbed the stairs in daring, breathless bounds, and an absolutely unwelcome terror turned Quill’s innards to stone. And whatever was coursing through him, he knew, was but a shaving of what must pump through Jacelyn’s every breath. Though it was only a dozen stairs, the world had slowed such that it took hours for Scarlet to climb them.
When time returned to its cruel progression, a second figure darted across the thoroughfare behind Scarlet, bounding up the staircase a moment later.
“Who’s that now?” Quill asked in a shock, and turned quickly to Rob o’the Fire to ask it again even faster. “Whozzatnow?”
“Fuck,” Rob breathed, his beady eyes struggling to widen. “He was supposed to be alone. What’s she doing here?”
“Push him in the river,” Jac growled. She was probably serious.
Will Scarlet opened and closed the office door in a flash, while his skinny little companion leaned across the railing, guarding. Jacelyn lurched but didn’t move. They’d all been ready to bolt the moment Scarlet was inside, but now they’d be spotted by his lookout on the rail.
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