Lionhearts

by Nathan Makaryk

  Marion swallowed hard and clenched her jaw. Earlier, she had reluctantly agreed to remain silent in this meeting, but for the life of her now she could not find any wisdom there.

  “Ever ambitious, Simon.” Lord Robert rolled his head side to side. “Suppose I pretend to be as innocent as you pretend to be outraged. What would you do with her? Bring her to the High Sheriff of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire? Reginold de Argenton is a friend of mine, and will not entertain your groundless accusations. Again, you’ll find your efficacy somewhat wanting.”

  “I have no interest in wasting Sheriff de Argenton’s time. Treason should be meted by the Chancellor himself. The choice is yours to make, your lordship.” De Senlis stiffened, though his tone carried no malice. “You can give the outlaw to me, or you can wait until I return with Chancellor Longchamp’s men by my side. If I were you, I would consider heavily whether or not you will still be able to call the castle yours at the end of such a meeting.”

  The conversation, which was only barely an apt name for the meeting, concluded with a bit of posturing on both sides. It was, inarguably, a pleasant alternative to immediate bloodshed, which was a more common ending for the meetings Marion found herself involved in. Such violence was less frequent since Will Scarlet had left, but somehow it now seemed harder than ever to keep herself on the proper side of living.

  “I think I don’t like him very much,” Lord Robert muttered as de Senlis’s complement vanished amongst the sinews of the yew trees. “All he cares about is this castle, trying to revive his father’s broken legacy.”

  Marion chewed on her lip. “Well, we did try to burglarize his manor.”

  “That’s true.” Lord Robert weighed the comment. “Alright, you’ve convinced me. I absolutely hate him.”

  * * *

  THERE WERE DISCUSSIONS TO be had, obviously, but Marion preferred to avoid the castle for so many reasons. Only the least of which was that it served as the setting for her greatest embarrassment. Beyond that, she wanted to avoid the Countess Magdalena at all times, and she did not want to leave Amon behind, who was still forbidden to step foot within its walls. But mostly, she just wanted the simplicity of her old friends.

  Their tents and shacks littered the spattering of villages that accompanied the Cook’s Backwater. The stream was not big enough for game but served for most other purposes before meeting the Great Ouse at the base of the castle grounds. To her surprise, Lord Robert accompanied her, dismissing his retinue of men and horses back up the hill. His noble attire, while appropriate to give Simon de Senlis a talkdown, was comically out of place around John Little’s humble fire. Robert gathered more than a few lingering watchers from the neighboring hovels, but he seemed quite comfortable eating with his hands and sharing ale.

  “There’s nothing for you to worry about,” Robert mulled between sips. “I’m not handing you over to de Senlis, no matter how many men he brings back.”

  “I appreciate that,” Marion smiled, “but you’re missing the point.”

  “No.”

  John Little said it gruffly, though it might have been half belch. The entirety of his massive frame was focused intently on Marion.

  She wasn’t sure how to react. “What do you mean by that, John?”

  “I mean no.” His jaw sidled horizontally, his beard rippled. “No, you cannot turn yourself in.”

  “I never said I would.”

  “But you’ll say it eventually. And the answer is no.”

  As soon as he said it, she realized it was true. It was the natural conclusion to this sordid tale.

  “Turn herself in?” Robert asked with some confusion. “Why would she do that? We’re more than capable of protecting her, and this situation is entirely my fault in the first place.”

  “That’s not true,” she insisted.

  “Well, it might as well be. Maggie … she put you in a terrible position, which has caused no small amount of friction between us. You were my guest, and whatever happens to you as my guest falls upon me. I should have stopped what happened. I—”

  Marion reached her hand out and closed it over Robert’s forearm, forcefully enough to stop his sentence, but let it linger there. He meant well, but this wasn’t his decision to make.

  “Robert, please. I’ve already wasted enough energy being angry with your wife. The truth is, nothing that happened is anyone’s fault but mine. The countess may have maneuvered me into an unfavorable position, but the leverage she held over me was entirely of my own making. The idea that you are responsible for me … well that implies I had no fault on my back when I came to you, which is anything but the truth.”

  Robert’s eyes found hers, and whatever need to resist her seemed to melt away. John Little shook his head, giving her an unenviable stare. Even Tuck seemed to find the rare advantage of silence.

  “But everything you’ve done—” Robert tried, but Marion just raised her hand.

  “Everything I’ve done has been for the families I brought here. That’s where this started, and I’m trying not to lose focus on that. Helping them was all I originally set out to do—it was never about overturning the law or replacing Sheriffs or Kings or inciting a rebellion. Now I’ve brought them here at great cost…” Her voice faltered.

  Robert returned her grasp, giving her wrist a firm squeeze. “They’re all under my protection.”

  “And I’m afraid I have put you in danger as well, Robert.” She had to wipe the wetness from her eyes. “If the Chancellor names me traitor, you are right to fear he may claim your title, too.”

  “He’s welcome to try.”

  “He is indeed,” she said quite seriously. “And if he is successful then I think you’re also right in assuming that Huntingdon would return to de Senlis. And what of my people then? Do you think Lord Simon de Senlis will suffer to have any outlaws living on his lands? How can I pay that price, or the price that you will suffer—that anyone will suffer—all simply so I can go on pretending that my actions of the last few years should have no consequences?”

  The fire crackled, and offered no answer.

  She thought achingly back to a time, so recently, when she had thought of running off with her grandfather in search of her next big hurdle. The idea that her people here in Huntingdon were so safe that she could leave them was an impossible dream now. Their fate, and Robert’s, had become bound as one—and was on the opposite side of the wheel as her own.

  “Are you asking us?” Tuck asked, his voice coarse. “Or telling us?”

  “I’m asking,” she answered, instantly offended. She was not the type to give orders, and it hurt that Tuck could even think she was uninterested in their opinions. It was everything she had argued against at the council—the horror of a world in which those in power acted in nobody’s interests but their own. “I’m asking all of you. Even you, Amon.”

  “My lady.” He bowed his head, but the inclusion clearly caught his surprise. She rarely consulted him for advice, despite their frequent proximity. It was not meant as an insult, she had once explained. “I value your ideas greatly, Amon, but I will generally keep myself closed to your counsel. You will be as well known by my side as my own arm, but ours is not a partnership. If I ask for your advice once, then you would risk growing bitter when I do not ask it a second time, or when I disregard it. You are more than a protector to me, but we will both be the safer if my decisions are wholly mine to make.”

  But she asked for it now. Maybe because she knew the extremity of her situation, or maybe because she guessed that he would soon no longer be able to provide his service to her.

  “With respect, my lady,” he said calmly, “you undervalue yourself. You brought fifty-four souls to this castle, and you would trade your safety for any one of them, because you are who you are. But you’re worth a hundred of them. And that is not to speak poorly of any one of them—I include myself in that figure, and John and Tuck here. You’re worth a hundred of us. And if there were actually a hundred of us to
be sacrificed, you’d be worth a hundred more.”

  Her throat tightened, she could not respond.

  She would like to think he was right.

  But if she let these people suffer for her actions, she’d be worth nothing.

  FORTY-FIVE

  ARTHUR A BLAND

  NOTTINGHAM CASTLE

  “ONCE UPON A TIME,” ARTHUR explained, having traded the entirety of this story for the pleasure of Zinn’s silence for its duration, “there was a young man named Arthur.”

  She instantly broke their deal. “That’s your name.”

  “I know that’s my name. This story’s about me.”

  “Then why are you pretending it’s about someone else named Arthur?”

  “I’m not. Shut the fuck up and listen.”

  This was one of their days with nothing to do, in the cramped little cupboard of Zinn’s hovel off Plumptre Street, when she was recovering from the beating she’d taken at the whorehouse. Arthur’s generosity with his own history was aided by a pilfered bottle of Portuguese red.

  “Arthur made the same mistake that many young men make of labeling himself in terms of things he did not have. He did not have much food, so he was ‘hungry’—and stole what he could from the people that raised him. Those people never complained, because they did not notice. He did not have any money, so he was ‘poor’—and stole horseshoes from the stables to sell. Those horses never complained, because they were horses, and horses only complain about politics. He also did not have any God, so he was ‘lonely’—and gave hell to those who did. God also never complained, because he was quite busy with being imaginary bullshit.

  “Arthur survived like this for quite a while, an orphan boy raised by an entire community of neglect. He had no mothers to praise him but a hundred fathers to discipline him, and that would be a sad story if it weren’t so fucking commonplace and boring. No, young Arthur was just like a hundred other hungry, poor, lonely people, excepting he had the decency to be named Arthur which, objectively, is the best name ever. The only thing special about Arthur was that he didn’t die young, which made him exactly the same as everyone else alive, and only slightly more special than the dead.”

  * * *

  HOT WHITE PAIN LASHED across his forehead and red filled his vision as Arthur went into rage. He sprang up out of Brick’s grapple and smashed his skull into the man’s jaw, he grabbed his wrist and twisted, wrenching the bastard’s arm until the blade was aimed at himself, its tip was already bloodied from Arthur’s brow. The brick tried to resist with both hands, but gave up to claw at Arthur’s face.

  Arthur didn’t notice.

  He put all his weight into a sudden push that jabbed the knife away from himself and into his would-be murderer’s neck, just once, just barely. He went for a second stab, but Brick released his grip of the knife and barreled backward to probe his wound, which spurted hot blood out as they both tumbled to the ground again.

  The knife landed between them, but closer to Arthur, and he didn’t wait. He snatched it up and closed distance in one bound, falling down onto the man, slamming it into his brick chest thrice more, down to the hilt each time, only then pausing to wipe the blood from his own eyes and wince at the agony lancing across his brow. He had to wipe his eyes a second time, then again, but he couldn’t tell if his hands were too bloody to help or if he was bleeding faster than he could wipe. By the time he leaned his head back into the sky, he was staring right into pug-ugly Neck Fat, who was screaming something—but the sound was from another world, underwater away. Arthur wondered if the man knew how stupid he sounded.

  Arthur tried to stand but he fell backward. He raised his knife but it was gone, the pug ugly stood on top of him, his boot on Arthur’s throat. Arthur made noises that should’ve been words while Neck Fat reached down to carve out his face.

  Arthur’s mouth filled with vomit.

  “Having little to tie him to one place, Arthur the young man grew into finding jobs that kept him wandering from town to town. He’d deliver foodstuffs and make trades between Redford and Sheffield, Leeds and Doncaster, always taking what he wanted from his cargo and finding every manner of unsavory diversion along the way. We shouldn’t say he was happy doing this, because that was yet another thing he didn’t have. Happiness.”

  “He didn’t have a penis?”

  “Shut up. He wasn’t happy, but neither was he miserable—and up until this point he had definitely had a lot of miserable. So comparably, it was better. But the thing, the important thing of it all, is that Arthur kept on labeling himself by the things he didn’t have. More specifically, the things he knew of that he didn’t have. If only he’d known that he should’ve been labeling himself by the things he didn’t know he didn’t have, he wouldn’t’ve had such a miserable time being miserable all the time. Do you follow?”

  Zinn shook her head no. “That makes no fucking sense.”

  Arthur continued regardless.

  He spat it out, the stinging taste of bile bringing him back to his senses. He would’ve wondered why he was still alive, but the pug-ugly’s face had been made even pug-uglier by the thin metal skewer that pierced it from cheek to cheek, little bits of charred meat still dangling by the handle. Neck Fat’s head twitched, his hands fumbled to make sense of what the girl had done to him, and why he couldn’t open his mouth.

  Arthur pushed himself up to his knees despite the heavy drunken weight that swirled through his senses. With his left hand steadying the pug-ugly’s face, his right pulled the skewer back out the way it’d entered, and then up again through his pug-ugly nostrils, and eventually, hopefully, into whatever constituted his pug-ugly brain.

  The body slumped backward, as Arthur probed the wound on his own brow again. More blood on his hands, his head was numb, his hands were shaking. The young woman was there, but sideways, or upside down. She clutched her torn clothes across herself, but her modesty was wasted since the world had chosen to go entirely blurry.

  “Thank you,” she probably said.

  “Did he cut my head off?” Arthur asked back. Something about those words didn’t sound right, or maybe it wasn’t his voice at all. Again he tried to finger his head, certain there was a knife wound all the way across it, his brains seeping out. He surely didn’t have long left.

  “Cut your head off, sir?” she asked, leaning in. Her hair was a thousand pinpricks in the wound on his head, but her accent was the stuff of dreams. That girl saved your life, he knew, although he wouldn’t be alive long to enjoy it. “I can’t say to that, but you’ve got a nasty one here, that.”

  Arthur winced as she inspected him, testing out his eyebrows, wondering if there were still muscles up there that worked. “Did he cut my head off?” he asked again, since words weren’t really his thing anymore.

  “No,” she scoffed. “You got lucky, there. I think his hilt got you more’n the blade. Not too deep.” Her fingers brushed at his forehead, which was fortunately quite numb. “But you’ll be ugly. Best get going. Don’t want to be caught with no corpses right now, that’s ever the truth.”

  “Wait,” he said limply, since he was in love with her now, but he’d never really seen her face, and she disappeared and left him to tend to his own injury.

  The urge to crumple and sleep was profound, but he remembered his bargain with the world. He’d saved the girl, which meant David had to be safe. He’d find David and they could limp out of here, and Arthur could die in peace outside the castle. Or farther. Not in Nottingham. He’d never wanted to leave the forest, and damned if he was going to fucking die here. If nothing else, he had to survive just long enough to get outside the city and die with some green around him.

  There were water troughs not so far away, he remembered, and he knew he had to wash the blood off his head and his hands if he stood any chance of slogging along. When he emerged from the crannyway of the fight, there were still people running and calling out, but they were a thousand miles away. All Arthur wanted was the water.


  One trough was overturned but the other was upright—he plunged his hands in first and scrubbed away at the blood, then pushed his entire face into its depths. That was as good as a slap across the cheek, it sprang his nerves to life and he came up sputtering. His head was still abuzz, but he grew the bravery to massage closer and closer to the wound on his head. Eventually his fingertips found soft tissue, but he seemed mostly intact. Most of the pain was above his right eye. He didn’t go any farther, fearful that his fingers would plunge through down to the bone, or worse. He wondered what would happen if he poked his own brain, if he might lose all control of his body and shit his breeches. Even David would laugh at him for that.

  He cupped water into his mouth, too, he’d almost forgotten about the vomit. The water was dank and bloody, but better than bile. No wonder she hadn’t fallen in love with me. He’d been covered in blood and bork. She called me ugly.

  A hideous crack split the air, followed swiftly by the horrible screams of too many people, and Arthur eased his head around to see it with startling clarity. The easternmost audience stand, where the actors had been hoisting people to safety, was collapsing. There were altogether too many bodies on it, all swarming over each other like a cluster of ants, and the structure beneath them buckled once and twice in a plume of dirt—as if it were some beast that opened its great mouth to eat them all alive. The tinder screamed from the pressure, snapping the rope that reached up above. The body of some poor sod was practically launched from the battlement like from a catapult, flung by the tension in the rope down into the mess of broken wood and bodies below.