A terse huff of air. “Your father betrayed the king.”
“My father obeyed his earl.”
“Who, himself, betrayed the king. Must we go round and round on this? War is war, your father lost. I will not bemoan the way of the world. By the laws of our King and our Lord, I owe you nothing. But I choose to repay you, Arable, and I think that should matter for something far more.”
There was no point in discussing it any further. “I will never live with you. Nor will my daughter.” She hoped to hurt him with that, she almost wanted to incite his rage, to goad him into violence, into finishing off his work. To prove himself the monster she knew he was.
But instead he sighed. “Very well. But I will give you coin. As much of it as I can. Whether you throw it away out of spite or put your child in comfort is on you. I hope you are not so bitter a thing as to actually harm a baby out of sheer insolence. I will see him cared for—or her, as you say—I will see that the child is given better security than your father gave my sons. I swear that, whether you want it or not, whether you accept it or not, I swear it nonetheless.”
His footsteps receded, and only after it had been silent for a long time did she break her stare with the distant speck of Nottingham and take account of her surroundings. Doing so brought a lump to her chest and tears to her eyes, all the emotions she’d been holding back. In all her fantasies of how this interaction might go, she’d never played with this one. She’d always assumed he would hunt her, chase her, beat her to death. Something brutal and wicked. Occasionally she imagined him begging for her forgiveness, dying at the end of his life. But this in between was somehow worse. If he’d tried to kill her, then at least the world would finally understand his real nature.
But his offer to help her, without apology, was not something she could grapple. If it were just her, she could reject it without a thought. To debase herself and her family’s memory by accepting his charity was unthinkable, she’d simply rather die.
But as a mother, something she was only barely beginning to grasp the concept of, she already knew that her dignity meant nothing if her baby’s survival was on the line. She could debase herself to the ground and deeper, she could call Lord Beneger Father if it meant giving the life growing inside her a real future.
It wouldn’t come to that, she swore.
After all, Lord Robert had not lost his earldom. She still had her new home in Huntingdon, and she would not have to even consider Lord Beneger’s offer if everyone could simply outlast the very minor distraction of seizing Nottingham Castle from Prince John’s forces without getting dead.
* * *
IN THAT REGARD, AT least, there was some startling news.
“You haven’t heard, then?” asked the Sheriff of Rutland, William d’Albini. He wasn’t a huge man, but he had two chins—the first smooth and white and the second red and prickled with short white hairs. He welcomed them in a circular room of the castle’s main tower, a wide opulent space with high ceilings and painted windows.
“What have we not heard?” Ferrers asked, his eyes instantly suspicious.
“Let me put it this way.” D’Albini lowered himself into a generous armchair. “I have thirty-three knights I can contribute to the march on Nottingham.”
“Thirty-three!” gasped Ranulph, the Earl of Chester. His slack jowls flapped with incredulity. “My bannermen are nothing but farmers and stableboys, where on earth are you hiding thirty-three knights? Why didn’t they answer the call to the Crusade?”
“They did.” D’Albini’s lips formed a rude smile.
“Deserters, then?” Lord Beneger asked. “We’d be better off without them. Their participation would make our cause look poorly. If we’re to depose a prince, we cannot be seen as—”
“Not deserters.” Behind now-steepled fingers, light danced in the Sheriff’s eyes.
All about the room, nobody could understand his game. Arable frankly didn’t even know why she was there at all, except that she had somehow become the surrogate version of Lady Marion ever since her disappearance. Another facsimile—the woman-who-was-not-Marion.
“You understand we march on Nottingham in two days?” Lord Robert asked, with his usual levity. “Because if you’re about to tell us you’ve sent a letter to Jerusalem to kindly ask your knights to come home for this, I do think they’ll be a trifle late.”
“Oh, they’ll be here.” D’Albini laughed now, eager for anyone around the room to enjoy this half as much as he. “They’ll be here by sundown, so I’m told.”
“I think you’d better explain it, then.” Lord Beneger shared no amusement. It would likely be the only time in her life that Arable found herself agreeing with him.
D’Albini repositioned his weight, bubbling only for himself. “Surely you’ve heard of the army that landed in Sandwich last week?”
“Rumors, nothing else,” the Earl of Chester huffed. “The French wouldn’t dare land an army here, it’s preposterous. It’s a lie, an empty excuse to let John seize the castle, for his own greed.”
“No. Prince John believes it, with all his heart.” Lord Beneger stood, cocking his head as if hoping to be challenged. “I spoke with him, and he was nothing short of shaken. He told me flatly, his spies have confirmed it. John thinks they’re marching for Nottingham with one purpose—to kill him. To put Arthur Plantagenet on the throne, in Richard’s absence.”
Lord Robert chuckled, rapping his fingers on the table. “Then perhaps his spies are manipulating him. If so, I daresay he’ll be surprised when we arrive at his doorstep instead of the French. Perhaps he won’t put up a fight at all.”
“Ah, but there is an army in England.” D’Albini raised a single plump finger. “I have confirmed that myself. It landed in Sandwich ten days ago, and is marching north.”
Robert reacted with his entire body. “It’s real? Why hasn’t the Chancellor organized a defense?”
“Oh the Chancellor knows all about it, as would you all if you hadn’t been so consumed this last week rallying your forces.” There was a joyous smile on d’Albini’s face. “The army does exist, and it is headed directly to Nottingham. In fact, my scouts say it’s larger even than anyone has been reporting.”
Ferrers spasmed, clearly impatient with the riddle. “What are you hinting at then? If these rumors are true, it is half the reason for our urgency. If Prince John is still in Nottingham when the French arrive, they’re like to destroy the whole city.”
“You’re asking all the right questions, except for one thing.” D’Albini shook his head until he was certain everyone was waiting on his next syllables. “That army isn’t French.”
Well that silenced them all.
“Austrian, then?” Ranulph asked.
D’Albini roared with laughter, nearly choking on himself. He slapped the table and coughed out the rest of it. “No, no no no, go the other way!”
It came to Arable, but she was hesitant to say it, for fear of being ridiculously wrong. But when nobody else offered a guess, she cleared her throat. “The army … is English?”
“It’s bloody English!” d’Albini exploded. “King Richard has been released from Austria, and he’s come home!”
Every single jaw in the room dropped. Hell, Arable’s daughter was still in the womb, and her damned jaw dropped.
“Released?” Ferrers echoed. “How?”
“The ransom is paid. In part by the Chancellor, and in part by Richard’s mother—largely in the form of hostages to be held until the remainder of the ransom can be collected.”
Most of the room had a laugh at that, but Arable could only marvel at it. What Eleanor of Aquitaine had done might well have ruined her. What had the most powerful woman in the world sacrificed for her son? But Arable knew, it was no more than any mother was prepared to do.
D’Albini continued, slapping his knees. “King Richard’s back, and he hears his brother’s been stealing castles while he’s away. So he’s bringing his army on up to stop him. They s
hould be here by evening, come from the south road. You can see them already, actually, if you squint. Ergo, my thirty-three knights—if they weren’t fool enough to get killed in the Holy Land—will be with them. And I imagine there ought to be several hundred more at Richard’s side. And those are just the knights, of course! Probably a few thousand in archers, twice that again in footmen, and double it all in followers. How many men you think the Lionheart will even need to knock his littlest brother off his ass?”
FIFTY-FOUR
ARTHUR A BLAND
LOWER BAILEY, NOTTINGHAM CASTLE
DAVID’S FACE WAS CLOSER than it had ever been before. “We should have never come to this city,” he whispered, and Arthur sure wished he’d fucking said as much a few months earlier.
“We should’ve left after Zinn caught me in the alley,” Arthur counted on his fingers, “we should’ve left after the Red Lions said no, we should’ve left after Will chopped his damn ear off, or when Stutely abandoned us, or when Will broke that barmaid’s finger—but now, now is when you change your mind?”
“I wanted to leave the whole time.” David’s face winced. “I thought you wanted to stay. I would’ve left if you’d brought it up.”
“I will gut you.”
Whispering was required, as there was no place to talk. There were exactly sixty-three members of the Nottingham Guard in the castle—well, sixty-one, since Arthur and David were technically impostors—and that number was going down. They were all confined to the lower bailey, just as much prisoners there as the baileyfolk. The highest two baileys of the castle proper were reserved for Prince John and his allies, readying themselves for the approaching French army. The prince was feverishly distrustful of the Nottingham Guard’s ability to protect him—and admittedly, Arthur and David were a testament to how easy it was to infiltrate those ranks.
The more Arthur thought on it, the prince was probably actually being pretty reasonable.
The Nottingham Guard had claimed the south bend of the lower bailey, sharing it with those commonfolk who’d committed to help keep things orderly. They were at stark odds with the “baileyking,” and those baileyfolk he’d incited to rebellion. They kept their distance in the north end of the bailey where the archery tournament had been held, where they had reassembled the remnants of the audience risers into a blockade that divided a quarter of the field into its own region. Their petulant leader had a real name now, at least—Henry Russell. He kept himself secluded in that barricade probably out of fear of being killed, just as he’d done to the previous baileyking.
From the bulwarks above, the Worcester crossbowmen could easily keep those rebels in line, but they apparently wanted to save their bolts for the war, whenever it came. Henry Russell refused all attempts at diplomacy, but had fortunately not incited any open conflict with the Nottingham Guard. The two groups were at a stalemate, living in an uneasy peace. The Guard had swords, but Henry Russell had archers—and the best in Nottingham, if the tournament was to be believed. It was like being trapped in a cave with a bear—it hadn’t happened yet, but someone was going to get mauled.
“Latest on the French army is that they’re close, they’re gathered in Rutland,” announced the captain, a stoic Midlander named Fulcher de Grendon. He was a lean man who kept his long hair in a tail, and had some supernatural ability to maintain his calm through all this madness. He alone amongst the Guard was allowed passage back up to the middle bailey, but only under an absurd amount of supervision. “I know Prince John isn’t our favorite person of late, but if the French capture or kill him, then our children will be speaking French for the next thousand years.”
“He got a plan for us?” asked Morg, one of the Guardsmen Arthur had grown close with.
“He does, but it’s not a good one.”
More grumbling at this. Arthur grumbled, too. He had no idea what to do with the fact that he considered himself part of the word us.
“Prince’s men will line the battlements. The supply cranes are being converted, hopefully to keep some of the siege ladders off the walls. Nottingham Castle’s never been taken before, but can’t say the same for the lower bailey. Curtain wall’s lower, and it’s too long. So if the French manage a way over, they immediately become our responsibility.”
The grumbles this time actually turned into laughter. Sebastien, who tended to stick close to Arthur most days, was first to complain. “There’s not enough of us!”
Matthias joined in. “We’d be decimated!”
“The prince agrees,” Fulcher said seriously. “So given the nature of the threat, he’s calling on all proud Englishmen to raise a sword in defense of the castle. To that end, he’ll be opening up the armory, and giving swords out to everyone here who can carry one.”
“Oh that’s fucking brilliant!” Arthur shouted, instantly earning an elbow to the ribs from David. But his outburst had earned him support, and suddenly there were a dozen other Guardsmen looking to him for a follow-up. “We’re already all trapped in here, ready to tear each other’s throats out, and the prince wants to give everyone swords? We’ll all be fucking dead before the French get here!”
“Isn’t my call,” the captain answered. “As always, our job is to keep the peace.”
“You think that baileyking’s going to keep the peace?” Arthur yelled. It was one thing to be trapped with the bear, but another to be forced to go tickle it. “You think they’ll just decide to do the right thing when the French come swarming over these walls? If the French get inside the castle, it’ll be because those fuckers let them in! Then we’re fighting two groups. It’ll be a goddamned bloodbath.”
The captain squinted at him over the crowd. “What’s your name?”
Fuck. Arthur should’ve kept his mouth shut. He and David had befriended a number of the Guardsmen, but they’d kept their faces concealed around the captain. If anyone would know they weren’t actual recruits, it’d probably be him.
“Arthur,” he answered. They’d given up on using Norman a month ago. Completely unnecessarily, he added, “And this is David.”
David whimpered.
“Well, Arthur may be right,” the captain continued, but he spoke to the whole crowd. “And it’ll be a risk we take. But what’s the alternative? We go over there right now and kill them all? We can’t arrest them, there’s no secure place to put them. So we’d have to kill them, which means some of us die, too. You tell me which is smarter, to cut our ranks in half before the French get here? To kill off a potential ally? Or to trust they’ll understand what’s at stake when the French arrive? These are citizens of Nottingham, they’re not monsters. They’re over there barricaded up because they’re trying to protect what little they have left. We’re enemies now, but allies tomorrow.”
“Someone ought to tell that to the baileyking,” Arthur scoffed.
“You volunteering?”
Arthur had never prized himself much as a quick thinker. He’d always been happiest when there was a thing in front of him that needed to be punched, because that didn’t usually require much in the way of thinking it out first. But in the half second after the captain’s question, Arthur’s mind did an impressive bout of gymnastics.
He knew the baileyking couldn’t be trusted if they didn’t come to an agreement first. He also knew it was in everyone’s best interest for the baileyking to fight when the French came. And he also knew how two very specific feckless dickshits had already crossed that gap from previously hating the Guard to throwing in their lot with them. If Captain de Grendon went and talked to the baileyking, he’d use all the wrong goddamn words. But Arthur and David, they’d lived a few extra lives in the last few weeks. Hell, if they hadn’t escaped to the middle bailey after the riots, they’d probably be holed up in the baileyking’s barricade right now, getting ready to fight back. So if anyone knew how to think like them, and how to sway them, it was Arthur a-fucking-Bland.
“Goddammit, yes,” he answered. “I’ll do it.”
He
turned and walked north. No point in waiting for anyone to think they had the authority to approve it.
He struck himself instantly as some sort of tragic spectacle—what with the curtain wall on all sides, where the prince’s men were looking down into the crucible of the bailey to see what would happen next. Here was the great fool Arthur a Bland, approaching like a pit fighter to meet his enemy on the other half of the arena. The commonfolk watched him walk through their camps, and the hideous wooden barricade wall grew larger as he approached. Perhaps the girl he’d rescued that first day was here, watching him, and he tugged the blue cowl off his head and let it drop to the ground in the idle hope she’d be impressed.
Jumping into alleys to protect girls had earned him the nasty gash across his head. How much more would he lose today just for trying to save the whole damn castle?
“What are you doing?” David’s voice came, hustling to keep up with him.
“What the fuck am I doing.” That was all the answer he had. “What the fuck am I doing.”
“Are you feeling alright? Woozy, maybe? That wound doesn’t look like it’s getting any better.”
Arthur absently reached up to touch the scabs of his forehead, which were at times either itchy or pussy. “Really?”
“It stinks,” David said. “Then again, I don’t know if that’s a good sign or a bad sign.”
Arthur looked at his friend. “When would it ever be a good sign for something to stink?”
David had no answer.
He kept walking. “What the fuck am I doing.”
“Well you’re not going without me,” David said, keeping pace as they made their approach.
“Didn’t want to die in the war, anyhow,” Arthur said off-handedly. “Better to get that done with ahead of time.”
“Agreed. ’Sides, this baileyking might actually recognize us. Figure he’s one of the Red Lions?”
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