FORTY-THREE
ARTHUR A BLAND
NOTTINGHAM CASTLE
RIOT!
“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” Arthur recognized his own voice. “Fuck!”
Panic and fear were the only masters now, and they waged a holy fucking war. The moment eight arrows pierced Caitlin FitzSimon’s chest, the crowd folded in on itself in chaos. All semblance of order burst like hot smoke, bodies screamed purposelessly in every direction. Arthur rushed to the edge of the crowd to press against the wooden supports of the spectator stands as the wave of people came. Half of them were terrified—the gates of the castle are locked!—and they went flying to the exits as if they might still find escape there. They trampled over each other with no care. Arthur pulled an older man to his feet who would’ve been crushed by the stampede, but it nearly bowled them both over. He reminded himself not to get killed doing something fucking idiotic.
But that half, the half that ran away, didn’t scare Arthur nearly as much as the other half.
“We do not stop until all of them are gone!” the prince had decreed.
So the other half were hunting.
“He’s one of them!” came a shriek, a thin old woman with her bony arm outstretched, shoving her finger at the back of a man she was following through the confusion. “Him! Here! Here! I saw him, he’s one of them!”
Her target was the big brute called the Dawn Dog. His face was terror-stricken but numb, as if he could ignore away the woman as well as everything else that was happening. But she attracted the attention of a nearby gord, who called for Dawn Dog to stop, and then for reinforcements. Dawn Dog panicked and plowed through the crowd.
Arthur didn’t pause to see what became of him, but took the opportunity to move away, back toward the field, struggling through the panicked streams of human bodies. “Order, order!” called a herald with a ridiculous moustache, before being knocked from his feet, vanishing into the mob.
David, he focused as soon as he could, he had to find David.
David had been one of the final competitors before they’d singled out Red Fox for death, and he might have been identified as a Red Lion. Arthur could find no glimpse of him now, even though his blond mop should’ve stood tall amongst the crowd in the field. A cluster of gords had gathered around the bodies of Caitlin and Red Fox, swords drawn against the approaching masses. Maybe these were the rest of the Lions, maybe overwrought in anger or grief, meaning to collect the bodies of their leaders.
David had to be somewhere, and there was no chance he’d been arrested and taken away so quickly. He, too, must have ran, then. Arthur watched the fight growing in the field a second longer, just to be sure.
Not my concern, he told himself, wheeling around. The Lions were aiming to get themselves killed, and Arthur had no intention of going down with them. So much for all Will’s plans. He wasn’t even here—he was off on some secret mission with Zinn, while David was forced to compete. So Arthur had chosen to watch the St. Valentine’s tourney with the rest of the commonfolk, he’d even bought stupid little fucking red-and-green flags to support his best friend.
“If you get yourself killed,” Arthur had warned David beforehand, “I’m going to kill you.”
Up above on the ramparts to the castle’s second tier, things appeared to be equally fucked. The gords there were concentrated in a single undulating mass, fighting something or themselves. A brawl, sure as shit. The prince had not simply turned every citizen against his neighbor—by sentencing the daughter of the castle’s armsmaster to death, he’d apparently started a civil war amongst the Guardsmen, too.
Anybody who follows him is going to drown.
Hells upon hells, Marion had been wrong.
They weren’t drowning, they were burning alive.
“Here, here!” came a clear voice, and Arthur turned to see two fatherly men dragging a stranger, each pinning an arm behind their captive’s back. “This one’s working for Robin Hood, this one here!”
For a moment Arthur thought they were bringing the man to him, but he startled to realize he was nearly back to back with a heavyset gord. Arthur held his breath as he slid away, trying to keep his face hidden, daring only a single glance back to see which Lion had been caught. The gord tugged the captive’s chin up to check his ear, allowing Arthur a clear view of a man he’d never seen before.
Not a Red Lion at all. The man protested his innocence, but the gord yanked his hair hard.
Not my concern, Arthur told himself.
And what did they think would happen? If silence was now punishable by eight arrows to the heart, then of course every man and woman in Nottingham was going to miraculously find a Robin Hood to turn in. Every idle suspicion, every domestic grudge, every sideways glance was now permission to beat a man brainless and drag him to the Nottingham Guard. It was pure anarchy, every depraved dog turning on its own just to stay alive.
David. Find David.
It was no coincidence that so many Red Lions had made it to the final round. The gords must have arranged it somehow, meant to group them together, capture them at once. David didn’t deserve to be rounded up with the rest of them. But whether this madness was part of the gords’ plans, or if it had interrupted it, Arthur didn’t fucking know.
His shoulder jerked backward, spinning him around, and he brought his fist up to strike back. But it was just a young woman who’d stumbled into him, apologizing blindly, protecting her face now with both hands. She scrambled away, nearly tripping an older couple as she did, opening up a gap in the path where a round-faced fellow with wide eyes was staring right at Arthur.
“D’you see that?” the roundy asked his companion, as Arthur realized his clenched fist was still raised, ready to attack. “That man almost took that girl’s head off!”
“You one of them?” the companion demanded, his black bushy eyebrows crashing together in the middle of his forehead. He didn’t wait for an answer but drove closer. “Let me see your ears.”
Arthur didn’t think, he just reacted. As Bushy reached out, Arthur curled his middle and forefinger and jabbed their knuckles into the stranger’s throat. He didn’t wait—he grabbed the man’s head with both hands and wrenched him up and backward, letting his legs kick out from under him as his forward momentum continued, and Arthur put all his strength into thrusting the man’s skull down to the ground. Roundy reacted quickly, flailing his hands with open palms as if he were trying to grab Arthur’s face, so Arthur snatched the man’s forearm and pulled him off balance, opening his stomach for Arthur’s knee. As air burst from Roundy’s lungs, Arthur squatted and grabbed his thighs, hoisting them up and off the ground to send the fool down onto his back.
If Bushy had recovered by now, Arthur didn’t wait to find out. A simple raised fist had attracted these two, so by starting a fight he’d just declared open season on himself.
He flung himself into the crowd that was still retreating to the gates, whose backs had been turned to the scuffle. Behind him came the shouts of would-be heroes, desperate for the opportunity in stopping him. He was now their escape ticket.
Quickly, quickly, elbows and turns, avoiding stares, behind a vendor stand, back again, into the crowd, against the wall, fast, fast, he had to catch his breath, but couldn’t look out of place.
He’d traveled away from the archery range, in the market area now where he’d bought those damned red-and-green flags. The area was in complete disarray, most of the vendors who hadn’t fled were just trying to protect their wares. The crowds to the south amassed at the main castle gates—where Guardsmen stood on boxes or the battlements above yelling futile orders into their midst. If there was any escape from this hell, it wasn’t that way. Arthur backtracked, navigating the edges to return to the archery range.
At the first set of audience risers, Arthur spied a shallow walkway between its wooden beams and a cart that had previously sold skewers of meat. He ducked into its relative privacy, assuming it may lead to the far side of the risers, b
ut fuck if it wasn’t already occupied. Three young men in the dirty clogs of fieldhands had cornered a pretty young woman, who was waving one of the meat skewers about in defense. Her features were marred by a black handprint.
“Get the fuck out of here!” one of the bastards yelled upon seeing him, and Arthur was quick to comply.
Not my problem, he told himself. He had to find David, before the guards did.
A quick glance above told him everything he needed, and it only took a few seconds to hoist himself up the diagonal bracings of the stands. It put him at risk of being spotted, but once he hauled over the back railing he was at a good height to view the entire fuckfest. The risers themselves here were more or less deserted now, excepting a riot’s mix of discarded hand flags. A fight now raged in the center of the archery range, gathered around the bodies of Caitlin FitzSimon and Alfred Fawkes.
But there was still no sign of David. He was taller than most, and blonder than most, and if he was anywhere to be found it shouldn’t be this damned difficult.
Across the field, the opposite bank of spectator stands was thick with people. That structure had been built right up against the outer curtain wall, and the actors on top had apparently thrown down a rope to help people escape up to the walkway. Already Arthur could guess there were too many people trying to climb at once—there were twenty, thirty people already gathering below and more by the second, desperate to get up and away. It wasn’t a terrible option, but farther along the walkway up top, two gords were already running toward the actors, shouting and pointing. That path wouldn’t last long.
A scream crawled up from below.
Probably the girl with the meat skewer.
Not your problem.
Another scream.
Damn it, he scolded himself.
But still he hazarded a look down over the back rail of the stands. The young woman’s top was now torn in half, exposing herself, and one of those men held a snatch of its pale fabric in his hand. Arthur turned around one final time in the hope of seeing David. If David was hiding, he was safe. If he was missing—arrested, or worse—then there was nothing Arthur could do about it. And if that was the case, then he’d feel a need most terrible to put his fist through something. And so, with no sign of his friend above, he submitted to getting himself in-fucking-volved below.
Maybe this could be a deal. If he saved the girl, then he’d deserve to get David back, too. A fair trade.
The first bastard crumpled into the mud as Arthur dropped on him. His feet landed firmly on the man’s shoulders and he used that to roll off backward to a crouch, placing himself directly between the young woman and her other two shithole attackers.
The alley was long and thin, barely enough for two to stand side by side, which gave Arthur a distinct advantage in taking on multiple opponents. Well not an “advantage,” David probably would remind him. Just not a “disadvantage.” You’re still outnumbered. And he had no weapons. No swords had been allowed past the castle gates, and he’d even refrained from carrying a blade in his boot for fear of it being discovered. Now he wished he had it, because neither of the two remaining men shared his pristine sense of honesty.
“What the fuck?!” one bastard yelled, glancing up at the stands to see if any more men were about to drop on their heads. Unfortunately, Arthur was the only one dumb enough for that. This man had the square, pocked face of a brick, so that was his name now. Brick scrambled to pull a knife from his belt. “Who are you? You with her?”
“Not with her,” Arthur raised his fists into a fighting stance, “just in front of her. Move along.”
The man he’d landed on—Mud, of course—started stirring, earning himself a boot into his shoulder blades, and another faceful of muck.
“That girl’s a thief,” the second man said, a pug-ugly type with a roll of neck fat. “Watched her steal mesself, she’s exactly who they lookin’ for.”
“Three of you, with knives, against a half-naked girl in an alley.” Arthur repositioned his feet. “You’re gonna try to claim moral superiority?”
“They’ve locked the gates, you fucker,” accused Brick.
Neck Fat grunted in affirmation. “That girl’s our way out of here.”
“We turn her in, they let us through.” His attitude shifted to a slightly happier brick. “You can come with us, f’you want.”
“You can fuck yourselves!” the young woman shouted from behind.
Arthur didn’t turn to check on her, for fear of giving an opportunity to strike. But he nodded slowly. “I’m inclined to agree with the lady. Best get a’fucking.”
“He can’t breathe!” Neck Fat yelled, pointing down to Mud. Arthur let up just a bit and the man spasmed, coughing out blood and muck and grabbing at his own throat. For one sickening moment, Arthur’s heart twisted—it reminded him too much of the way Elena Gamwell had died, twisting and coughing on her own blood. Arthur had been forced to watch with a gag in his mouth and a blade at his throat, he felt that gag now, he couldn’t swallow …
Mud’s skull gave a rewarding crack when Arthur’s boot found its temple, and he slapped the knife right out of Neck Fat’s hands. He drove forward, unrelenting, swinging a fist toward Brick’s face, but he only found air—the man ducked away to the right. Arthur reacted on instinct, he twisted and clipped his elbow out hard, finding the man’s jaw, only barely softer than his namesake. He landed a foot into Brick’s hip that meant to push him down to the ground, but he abandoned that in favor of grappling the man’s arm with both hands. Brick still held his knife, and Arthur could certainly—
A sudden weight on his back smashed Arthur forward into Brick. He tried to hold onto the arm but lost it as he rolled over the man’s back and came up in the slop. Right-side up, fortunately, but in danger. He pivoted on all fours and grabbed the nearest leg he could find with both hands, applying pressure at the knee to make it buckle and bring his enemy down to the ground with him. It was the brick, a very angry brick now, while Neck Fat was behind him searching for his lost blade in a cluster of trash. But Brick still had his knife, reeled it up high, and Arthur could do nothing but wonder why his grumpy little failure of a life wasn’t flashing before his eyes as he held his hands out uselessly, as brick and blade came pounding down—
FORTY-FOUR
MARION FITZWALTER
HUNTINGDON CASTLE
THE CAVILING LORD SIMON de Senlis was young for a leader, Marion noted, but no less imposing for his youth. His outfit embellished the features he lacked—it boasted conservative fashion in the military style, and shoulders that rivaled his horse’s. He looked a good deal more presentable than when last Marion had seen him, which was, admittedly, when they had snuck into his Grafham manor to steal from his treasury.
“I cannot allow such depravity to go unchecked,” de Senlis insisted, almost as if he actually believed this was an ethical burden, rather than a political opportunity. “I cannot allow such corruption to fester so close to my home.”
“Spare me your indignation, your incredulity,” Lord Robert returned, keen on calling out the spectacle for what it was. “Get to your point, man.”
Three days had passed since the council had crumbled in her hands. Each of its attendees—Marion’s grandparents included—had fled Huntingdon’s walls by nightfall, fearing whatever retribution Prince John would inevitably return with. None had yet come, but the news had clearly spread, as was evidenced by the day’s arrival of de Senlis and his men.
Marion was part of a line at the front gates of Huntingdon, with Lord Robert at its center—a crisp green demicape across one shoulder that bore his shire’s signature yellow hunting horn. That sigil also flew from atop long wooden poles carried by the bannermen at his sides. Her own modest dress featured a similar shade of the green, though she was uncomfortable with the loyalty it implied. Beside her, Amon’s shield still flew the white swords of Essex. A dozen of Robert’s men finished their line, blockading the entrance to Huntingdon Castle.
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nbsp; Across from them, their line was matched by Lord de Senlis and his host. The lord had brought nine men with him in full attire, a show of force that was disturbingly reminiscent of a battle formation. The main road was bordered on either side with yew trees, whose appreciable growth read less of beauty now and instead gave a spiderlike discomfort.
“My point is this.” Lord Simon de Senlis’s horse repositioned itself, though its rider kept a level gaze. “I demand you turn over the traitor, the outlaw known as Marion Fitzwalter, to my keeping. I will deliver her the justice that you seem incapable of offering.”
“If the Lady Marion were a traitor, as you say,” Lord Robert treated the word playfully, as though the concept were laughable, “then it would be your duty to bring her to your earl for punishment. I don’t suppose you know who your earl is, do you? A handsome man, I hear, this Earl of Huntingdonshire?” His men laughed. “Your earl is already in possession of the traitor you describe. Why would I hand her over to you just for you to hand her over to me again? I think you may find yourself in this transaction, as in the world, quite inconsequential.”
De Senlis waited his turn to speak. “Shall I sneak into your castle through an open window? Threaten to skewer your kitchen scullions, as you did mine? Or shall we try the novelty of dealing with each other honestly?”
Under better circumstances, Marion imagined she would find the Lord Simon de Senlis a respectable man. He carried himself with a practiced charm and took care in the construction of his speech. Education spoke to self-improvement, which forgave many the worser trait. But the worser trait, in this case, was calling for her head on a pike.
This was just the first fallout of her spectacular failure at the council. Each day brought the fear of punishment. If not the prince’s men, then a contingent loyal to the Chancellor would arrive to dole out his consequences. Lord Simon de Senlis, though a tepid threat on his own, was simply the first bounty hunter.
“I’m not here to play games,” de Senlis continued. “It is well known the Lady Marion held a concord of sedition within these walls, and you have ignored my petitions for her arrest. If you are unfit to do your duty as earl and bring punishment to an admitted traitor to the crown, then I take it upon myself to declare you as the witting accomplice you appear to be.”
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