Lionhearts

by Nathan Makaryk

  “They’re not here for her, either,” de Senlis continued. “The Earl Robert of Huntingdonshire, may I present to you the Fourth Earl of Derbyshire, and High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, and her Royal Forests…”

  Arable gasped.

  “… William de Ferrers.”

  The lead horse took a few extra steps forward, from which descended the same pockmarked weasel that had lurked around every one of Nottingham Castle’s corners. The wretched son of the man who had led her father’s army to their doom. Ferrers had claimed the title of Nottingham’s Sheriff after William’s death, a replacement so despicable that it boiled Arable’s blood just to think upon. Now here he was, draped in a mud-splattered ivory cloak, extending his hand out in greeting to Lord Robert.

  “Earl Robert, thank you for having us,” he said, which were not at all the words that ought to precede a castle’s seizure. “I wish that I could have sent word ahead of time, but when I explain our presence I’m sure you’ll see that it was not an option.”

  Robert’s lips sealed together, his neck clenched, and he shook Ferrers’s hand. He stared until it was awkward that he had not responded, then his eyes flitted back to see if anybody else had any better idea how he should do so. Arable had nothing to offer. Robert settled for a wetting of his lips and a drawn-out, “Oh?”

  Ferrers laughed. “I hope we did not alarm you, though I imagine no one enjoys waking up to the sight of an unannounced army outside their walls. I come to implore your aid, as one earl to another, and for your family’s reputation specifically in capturing castles that would otherwise be considered impenetrable.”

  Lord Robert blinked. “You want me to show you how to capture my own castle?”

  The Sheriff flinched slightly in confusion. “Not at all. I need you to capture mine.”

  That confusion infected the entire crowd now.

  “Have you not heard?” Ferrers turned about, incredulous. “Prince John is mad. He’s taken complete control of Nottingham, he’s summoned his supporters from halfway across the country, garrisoning it for war. He’s locked all entry and exit from both the castle and the city. My Sheriff’s Guard have been practically deposed and thrown in with the commonfolk, starving and fighting in the bailey and the streets. I had to risk my life just to escape myself, and start gathering supporters to rise up against John’s coup. Cheshire and Derbyshire stand at my side, and I’m hoping I can count on Huntingdonshire as well.”

  It was the sketch of the rabbit and the duck again. They had thought they were in the bottom of a pit, only to somehow realize they were actually on top of a mountain.

  “You want us to fight against Prince John?” Robert asked.

  “I’ve heard all about your council here,” Ferrers explained. “And that Prince John labeled you all traitors for doing so. You have, so it seems, already rallied all the supporters we might need to take Nottingham back from him. You will need to mobilize at once. The longer we wait, the more he’ll be prepared for us.”

  “You don’t have enough…” Lord Robert struggled with the logistics, “… not to take Nottingham.”

  “What you see out there is merely a third of our forces. Earl Ranulph’s forces in Cheshire are marching already, at his son’s command, to match Derbyshire’s host and then march on to Nottingham. Meanwhile, we’ll convene with Rutland at Belvoir Castle, and then march west, to approach the city from opposite sides at once. How much time do you need to call your bannermen?”

  Lord Robert appeared as stunned as he should be. A few minutes ago he had been prepared to surrender his life, and he was now asked to, effectively, lead the rebellion.

  If Sir Amon only knew what he had dragged Marion away from, he’d feel awfully stupid.

  Arable also suddenly regretted leaving Countess Magdalena with such harsh final words. She had been under the obvious assumption that they would never see each other again. But tomorrow’s awkward apology was nothing compared to the prison cell she previously thought this day would hold for her.

  “Two days,” Lord Robert answered after deliberation with his captain. “We can send men to every major house by sundown, and they should need no more than a single day to rally their men and meet us here the day after tomorrow.”

  Ferrers’s smile was not a weasel’s grin, but some strange expression of genuine gratitude that Arable had never seen on him before. “Two days will suffice. Ranulph and I would beg your hospitality in the castle these two nights, and some of our entourage. Beneger, I assume you would prefer to stay with your men?”

  The name reached across the empty air and stabbed Arable in the chest.

  She had not even looked at the other riders, she’d been too shaken by Ferrers, and his news.

  Now her blood turned to ice as she looked them over, and recognized every line of the face she had once considered as kind as a father, and then as cruel as the Devil’s heart.

  Lord Beneger de Wendenal.

  Did she gasp? Did she scream? Did her soul tear itself from her body and flee, knowing the endless void was better than what must come now? What noise did she make that gave him cause to stare so directly back at her, his eyes wide, knowing, understanding not only who she was but how magnificently she’d been trapped?

  Arable turned, and ran, though time slowed to a crawl and the air into tar. She couldn’t breathe it, she couldn’t move through it. Her foot dug into the mud, the strain of it was enormous. She was not pushing herself off the round, no, her muscles pushed the entire world down and away.

  She had imagined this moment a thousand times. She always knew he would catch her. She should have fled to France, she never should have stayed. She should have gone with her brothers, who had probably fallen at his hands years ago. The last of the Burels, here before him, the end of his vengeance for his insurmountable rage.

  He followed, he practically pounced down from his mount.

  Was she moving? Had she even made it a single step yet? There was nowhere to flee to, but she didn’t need a destination. She could fly up, back up to the Heart Tower, to the same balcony she had stood at that morning. And she could keep flying after that. It would be better, at her own hands, than his. And better for her daughter, unnamed, unborn. Her death would not be his to claim, there was no hell cruel enough for such a thing to be.

  She did not look back, instead she saw the story of what was happening in the faces of the people in front of her. Their wide-eyed horror, they backed away from her, cleared a path. Their eyes told Arable how close he was. That he was gaining. That he was upon her. That it was over.

  Hold her head loftily high, she had told herself so recently. To the gallows with dignity. Instead she wept, ugly and feral, when his massive arm reached around her and caught her across the chest, stopping her flight, yanking her backward into death. She screamed now, yes, she screamed everything she’d ever known, every regret and love and fear came out at once, though she could not hear it, the only sound was her own heartbeat, thundering through her blood like a mountainslide, every beat the last one she’d ever have.

  And somehow, after this endless expanse of nothing, she was still there.

  “Arable, my God, Arable…”

  His arms around her.

  Hugging her. And he, too, was crying.

  FIFTY-ONE

  MARION FITZWALTER

  GIRTON, CAMBRIDGESHIRE

  THE CARRIAGE DOOR SPLINTERED but did not break. It was, however, enough to sufficiently alarm Sir Amon into unlocking it, rather than let Marion damage the frame—or, more likely, her legs—in an attempt to smash her way out.

  She spilt out of the carriage onto a once cobbled but now overgrown road, twisting her head in every direction in search of anything that might reveal their location. It was morning still, the fully covered sky glowed pale over long hills split evenly by the wide path. Off to one direction was a cozy village, a single church spire poking its head above the surrounding buildings to say hello.

  “Where are we?
” she demanded.

  Amon closed his face and breathed carefully. “We’re on the Via Devana. I believe that’s Girton, and I also believe that’s St. Andrew’s church—”

  “No.” She didn’t need more than the lone word to silence him. The two Delaney brothers had climbed down from the carriage bench, and were trying to will themselves out of existence. She ground her jaw and bore down upon Amon. “Where are we?”

  Her knight gave an acquiescent gesture to the brothers, swallowed, and stood as tall as his lean frame ever had. “Two miles north of Cambridge.”

  Cambridgeshire.

  She knew it. They were traveling south, not north. And Amon had lied to her.

  “Shame.” She seethed it, because she did not know what else to say. Amon made to explain himself, but she brought a fist up to her lips and he knew better than to test her fury. She had made it clear—unmistakably clear—that she intended on offering herself over to the Lord Simon de Senlis peacefully in exchange for her people’s safety. If she was lucky, she might even have talked de Senlis down from trying to claim Lord Robert’s earldom, at least for the time being. Amon had originally resisted the idea, but somehow she didn’t question his last-minute change of heart. He had never lied to her before, but had now exhausted the entirety of that trust with a single act.

  He had awoken her in the middle of the night with the Delaneys, explaining that John Little and the rest of the group meant to defend her when the time came. It was Amon’s infinite wisdom—so he explained—that they steal away and travel to Simon de Senlis on their own, thusly preventing anyone else from being harmed. He’d used her deepest sympathies against her rather than trust in her judgment. He even said that Lord Robert would meet them on the road, that he had arranged for the carriage and horses. Knowing that she’d want to see him.

  It was an absolute violation.

  Marion had fought back tears for the first hour of that ride, at having missed the opportunity to say any farewells, knowing how John would blame himself for her need to vanish without them. She’d resolved herself to whatever grim future lay ahead, and at Amon’s insistence she even managed to catch a bit of sleep, knowing how particularly arduous the coming day would be.

  They broke their fast before dawn, they traveled farther as the sun warmed the clouds from above, and Marion cursed herself for not noticing it earlier. Despite the single endless blanket that covered the heavens, she should have recognized that the sun had risen on their left instead of their right. Once she asked the question, Amon grew silent.

  When she discovered the carriage door was locked, she started kicking.

  And now here she was, standing on an old Roman road, betrayed by those closest to her.

  “You lied to me, Amon. You deceived me, against my explicit command—”

  “My lady, I would remind you that my charge is to your father, not—”

  “You have conducted yourself shamefully, ill-becoming of your knighthood—”

  “I do not deny that, but I saw no other way—”

  “No other way to what?” she snapped. “To get what you thought was best? Your charge is not to think, or to get things that you want, but to protect me. Which is your charge no longer, Amon, I dismiss you from your service.”

  “It is not yours to dismiss.” His voice stayed soft, his eyes pleading. “My lady. I am protecting you, and I shall continue to protect you, whether it be at your father’s employ or of my own volition.”

  She couldn’t stand the sight of him at the moment, and turned upon the Delaney brothers. “Turn the carriage around, we’re returning to Huntingdon immediately.”

  They both grimaced and looked at each other, then to Amon.

  “Nick.” She looked each of them in the eye. “Peter.”

  “This wasn’t their idea,” Amon defended them. “I solicited their help. But we are resolute to continue south, to the safety of your grandfather’s lands in Essex.”

  “I’m not going to Essex.” She made those words as clear as any that had ever been formed. “Simon de Senlis will turn Huntingdon upside down for me, he’ll kick all our people out, they will be nomads again, and they cannot survive that a second time, you know that. You are damning all of them by … absconding with me like this, which makes you as much of a threat to their lives as anything we’ve faced. And how do you think I am going to respond to such a threat?”

  “You’re more important than that,” Amon answered evenly.

  “I’m taking your horse.”

  She moved directly for his mount, idling beside the two others that were harnessed to the carriage. But he placed himself directly in her path.

  For years she had depended on him, something closer than a friend, though their bond was silent. Amon Swift was always by her side, a solemn truth as much a part of her as her own name. She knew his smell, of all the damnable things, the comforting scent of rosemary that was in the oil he used to keep his leather gloves from cracking. The long drawn lines of his face had always been gentle for her but hard for her enemies—and for the first time his jaw set in opposition against her.

  “You stand in my way,” she said, slowly. “You’re physically stopping me.”

  He did not move.

  “How far are you prepared to go with this, Amon?” She took a few steps closer, his height becoming more obvious until her nose practically touched his chest. She took a step to her right, and he countered. To her left, the same. “You’ll block me now. Will you lay a hand on me next?”

  She pushed into him, pressing her body into his as she tried to slip around him but his feet bit into the ground and he matched her. Using more of her shoulder, she tried to find some leverage at his ribs to force him to move ground. Failing at that, it came to elbows, and then to hands, where finally she successfully shoved him off his balance to stumble a foot away. In a reflex response, he reached out and grabbed her by the forearm.

  “There it is,” she breathed, even as his hands returned to his sides again. “Doesn’t take much, does it? You’ve crossed that line once, you’re willing to grab me. What’s next, then? Will you strike me?”

  “We cannot let you return to Huntingdon.”

  She slapped him across the face.

  He did not respond. His hands were now frozen in their dangle.

  “You’ll have to hit me back if you want to stop me. I’m taking your horse, I’m returning to the castle, and I am saving my people.”

  His head shook slightly. “You’re giving in to his demands, you’re doing exactly what he—”

  “I’m answering for my own crimes!” she shouted. “I am guilty, and I cannot let the others be punished for that guilt!”

  “And I cannot let you make that decision.”

  She slapped him again. Then again. On the fourth she shoved him, made to slap him again, and he instinctively caught her midair.

  “Stop it!” Nick Delaney was shouting, but all Marion’s focus was on her once loyal knight. She could see his own surprise that he was still holding her wrist.

  “One step at a time, Amon. How far will you go now that you’ve made your decision? How much more right do you think you are than me? Enough to restrain me, it seems. Enough to hurt me? Will you throw a sack over my head and tie me up before you let me walk away?” With her other hand, she reached down and wrapped her fingers around the hilt of his sword, sheathed at his belt. “Will you pull your blade on me? Tell me what your line is, because I guarantee you I’ll go past it and more, to get back to Huntingdon and do the right thing. So you’d best decide now what your limit is. Will you kill me to prove you have the right of this?”

  His hand met hers on the pommel, its pressure all aimed at keeping the blade sheathed.

  “Didn’t think it would come to this?” she continued. “Did you think I’d just suddenly agree with you and happily abandon all my responsibilities?”

  “But that’s exactly what you’re doing,” Peetey said. He’d positioned himself behind Amon, so that sh
e could not ignore him. “Lady Marion, please listen. We talked about this, all night. At first I thought it was something villainous, too, to take you as we did, and God I’m sorry! But Amon’s right. You have bigger responsibilities, that you can’t walk away from.”

  “Things you’ve started,” Nick joined in, “that reach across the whole country. That’s more important.”

  “More important than the lives of—”

  “Yes.” Peetey didn’t hesitate at all, as if the answer were insultingly obvious. “Listen, I can’t pretend to understand even a tenth of what’s at stake here. But I know that what happened at the council, successful or not, was important. And I know that if you get swept away by the first angry little lord who demands your head, that nobody will ever try anything like it again for a hundred years.”

  Off to the east, the bells at St. Andrew’s marked the hour of nine. Peetey didn’t continue until every last note was done, faded away into the blanket of sound from the north wind.

  “You want to sacrifice yourself to save the rest of us, because—as you say—it’s the right thing to do. And the fact that you’re willing to do that is why we can’t let you do it.”

  Nick tried to catch her eye. “You’re a rare kind of person, and we need you at the front. That’s the real reason they want to arrest you, because they know the kind of thing you can become.”

  “My lady,” Amon said, still resolutely in front of her. “I mean no offense, but you think like a civilian. You think the best thing you can do is protect those beneath you at all costs. But a proper commander bears the burden of surviving his own—or her own—mistakes. It is easy, isn’t it, to make a decision knowing you alone will shoulder the consequences? But a learned leader makes her decisions knowing that only others, often innocents, will pay the price of failure. It is a terrible thing, to survive unscathed when others suffer your choices. But we need you to be the person who is strong enough to do just that. Going to de Senlis is the weak choice, not the strong one.”

  “You want to make a real sacrifice?” Nick added, sidling beside the others. “The real sacrifice you can make … ah dammit, Amon, how’d you phrase it earlier?”