Lionhearts

by Nathan Makaryk

  “Could be.” Arthur hadn’t really considered it. “Does that make it more or less likely he’ll want to kill us?”

  “I’d think more,” David answered, chewing it over. “Or maybe just a more violent death?”

  “Well they’ve only got bows.”

  “Right.” David snapped his fingers. “So they’ll have to get creative. They could use the tips of the arrows to … sort of, scratch our skin off, bit by bit.”

  Arthur stopped. “What? These are the things you spend your time thinking about?”

  He shrugged. “I think maybe you think I’m nicer than I really am.”

  Arthur was going to miss David, almost as much as he was going to miss being alive. “Actually, I know you’re nicer than you really are.”

  David smiled, then frowned. “What does that even mean?”

  “I don’t know.” Arthur turned back to the barricade. “Let’s go die.”

  A group of appropriately burly men moved to meet them as they approached the wooden contraption, the same type of burly thug people that Arthur would normally feel most comfortable around. They carried some broken chunks of timber as crude weapons, while a few other gutterstock men and a sturdy woman stood atop the odd structure with longbows half-drawn.

  “We’ve come to parley with Henry Russell,” Arthur announced, not looking the men in the eyes. He instead looked for any sign of the baileyking, perhaps watching them from the open slats in the rubble.

  “We don’t talk to gords,” grunted the nearest grunt.

  “Yeeeah,” David answered, picking at his dirty, quilted tabard, “we’re not gords. Try not to judge us by these things.”

  “Just a talk. You can keep our swords. Fuck, you can take everything I’ve got, you want to take my goddamn billies? We just need a word.” Arthur unbuckled his belt and let it slough off to the ground. Certainly wouldn’t matter if these people gained a few blades now, they had no idea they were about to be armed to the teeth when the prince opened the armory to them.

  Grunty motioned for them to step back and they did, then he crouched down cautiously to pick up the blade. As if even the most clever blacksmith in the world could concoct some sort of trap hidden inside a sword. He then—to nobody’s surprise—grunted, and shuffled off to presumably get his mum’s permission.

  “Hi,” Arthur said to the woman on top of the structure. She did not respond.

  “Any idea what we’re going to say to them?” David whispered.

  “Not really,” Arthur admitted. “Maybe I should cut my ear off?”

  “Oh definitely.” He nodded. “Works every time.”

  When Grunty returned he seemed a little more annoyed than earlier, probably because he wasn’t going to get the opportunity to fill the two of them with arrows, or skin them alive, or whatever the fuck else David’s weird fantasies were. Instead he led them, under the disapproving eyes of a wide variety of unfortunate assholes, around the backside of the barricade to a bit of overhanging wooden beams. The entire structure looked like it was simply balanced together, which was likely the case, and threatened to collapse and kill everyone inside at the first willful wind.

  More baileyfolk rebels huddled inside—Arthur didn’t recognize any faces, but he guessed many were members of the Red Lions or other gangs who’d never had their ears clipped. That was no surprise, that they’d end up here at odds with the Guard. After all, there were only two idiots in the whole world dumb enough to choose joining the Guard instead.

  Henry Russell was shorter than anyone had a right to be who called himself king, but he had an athletic build and moved with confidence. A plume of blond hair bound by a leather strap detonated from the top of his head. Both his cheeks bore long stretches of war paint—bright red, like that used on the tourney arrows—that crisscrossed over his eyes, making it difficult to—

  Arthur gasped, and flung a hand over his mouth when he realized it.

  The baileyking walked forward out of the shadows to peer directly at Arthur’s brow.

  “Goddamn, what happened to your head?” asked Will Scarlet.

  PART VII

  THE SIEGE OF NOTTINGHAM CASTLE

  FIFTY-FIVE

  MARION FITZWALTER

  NOTTINGHAM

  TUESDAY, 24TH DAY OF MARCH

  “EVERYTHING WILL BE BETTER when King Richard returns.”

  That had been Marion’s private belief for years. Her royal cousin had departed England mere months after his coronation, bleeding the country of its coin, its resources, its nobility, its knights, its manpower, its prestige. It was practically a cuckolder’s con—seducing the entire country to trust him just long enough to marry him, only to vanish days later and take everything of value with him. He had left his bride—England—penniless, in favor of a dalliance with his mistress, the Holy Crusade. By that analogy, perhaps he was not the sort of husband England should wish back in her bed. But without him, England was being assaulted by carrion suitors, like the great Penelope in Odysseus’s absence. Good husband or not, his return would scare off the scavengers.

  “Everything will be better when King Richard returns,” she had reminded them at the council, along with the reality that his capture made that impossible. It was the very reason they had sided with one of those scavengers—conspiring to raise John to the throne, and seek alliances in the riven political world of Chancellor Longchamp. Everything would indeed be better if Richard could return, but instead they’d had to take things into their own hands.

  But unbeknownst to any of them, it had already happened. Richard had been traded from Austria to the Holy Roman Empire, who accepted seventy percent of the ransom along with hostages and promises, and released Richard nearly two months ago. His armies had been traveling by foot ever since. All their fears and conspiracies had been meaningless. If only they’d known just to have patience. If only they’d waited for King Richard to return, to make the aforementioned everything better.

  No more war tithe, no more ransom. No more gain for de Senlis to call for Marion’s head. No more of the Chancellor’s nepotism. Perhaps some of Richard’s nepotism, but nobody was expecting heaven on earth. And, most importantly for their immediate circumstances, no more reason for Prince John to barricade himself in Nottingham Castle. King Richard had returned, and every last thing would be—inarguably—better.

  Except here they were outside the city of Nottingham, having just discovered that not everybody actually believed he had returned.

  “What do you mean they don’t believe I’m really me?”

  The King’s question was met with an exasperated huff from the Archbishop of Canterbury. “I mean precisely that, Your Grace. They will not even entreat to discuss it. They shouted at me from atop the city gates as if I were a burglar.” Hubert Walter was a careful man, the sort of proper English gentleman whose every nuance spoke to his skills at diplomacy rather than villainy. He had been freshly appointed to his position, a reward for his infinite service to Richard during their long journey. “They accused me of being a French spy!”

  Marion bit her lip at that. They were, after all, currently having this conversation in French—at Richard’s preference. Were anyone from within Nottingham Castle able to listen in on this deliberation, they would think themselves proven correct.

  “Who else would I possibly be?” Richard asked, incredulous. He turned to a soldier at his left. “Is it the beard?”

  If anything, Richard was thinner than Marion remembered him, no doubt a result of his time in captivity. And darker, certainly, given his long campaign in Jerusalem. “Can we not demand a parley?” Marion suggested. “If Prince John will simply come and meet his brother face-to-face, this nonsense would be over.”

  “The envoy refused,” Archbishop Walter answered with a chirp. “He said the prince would not be so easily tricked to let our archers feather him, not even to…”

  Richard’s eyebrows climbed halfway to his crown. “Go on.”

  The holiest man in the room s
wallowed. “… Not even to bare his arse at you.”

  While the room recoiled in affected offense on Richard’s behalf, he simply rolled a smirk from one cheek to the other. He leaned closer to Marion. “He might as well show his face then, we’d hardly know the difference.”

  She was glad to see that his irreverent humor had not been starved out of him. She had only interacted with him a handful of times in her life, but she’d always been impressed with his ability to make every interaction feel like a personal one, letting every person believe they shared a secret with their king. It was the same charisma that had made Robin who he was—and Robert, too, she realized, catching the earl’s glance across the table—and at another time she might unpuzzle why she was drawn to that quality so.

  She wondered if other people ever described her the same way.

  Robert, as if to answer, straightened his half cape and flashed her a comical grimace.

  “Prince John is under the impression we are a French army,” Hubert summarized, “and rejects any compulsion to reconsider.”

  “Have they seen the banners?” Richard balked.

  “They have,” the archbishop’s mouth pursed against a frustrated scowl, “and they think it is part of the deception.”

  A sharp man with a sharper moustache—Sir William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke—let out a long laugh, taking in the scope of the army that had been assembled. His own sizable host was amongst them. “This would be the most elaborate deception in history! They’re mad to think as much.”

  Their armies had converged in the fields to the north of Nottingham’s city walls. Their battalions sprawled long and wide, as if their numbers needed any exaggeration. The sigils of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire were most prevalent, matched closely by Huntingdonshire and Cheshire, but dozens more mingled amongst them. Sheriff de Ferrers’s original intention of reclaiming Nottingham Castle from John had practically become an afterthought, as this gathering was more a celebration of Richard’s return—overrun with loyal lords eager to prove themselves by welcoming their king with startling obedience. Marion, too, had been overwhelmed with relief when she had chanced upon the army on the Roman road—letting it whisk her back north to discover that Robert had not lost his earldom at all, but joined forces with Derbyshire and Cheshire to march on Nottingham. With Richard’s army added to theirs, it was ludicrous that Nottingham Castle thought it could defend itself from them.

  A breeze lifted the flap of the command tent, beyond which lay thousands and thousands of good men, awaiting instruction.

  “My brother is not mad,” Richard said quietly, his face calculating. “If he truly believes we are a French army flying English banners, someone else must have put that idea in his head.”

  Marion sealed her lips as tightly as possible. She had no idea how the prince had concocted this idea about a French invasion, but there was no denying that her council in Huntingdon must have done something to push him toward paranoia. It was not an easy thing to pretend she did not carry some blame for all this, but with practice she could get good at it.

  “It’s not so surprising, is it?” asked the Earl of Chester, a man made round by both muscle and wealth. “Nobody believes the king has returned. John’s allies have been rallying his call for almost a month—not just here, but all throughout England and France, too. Everybody knows that if they don’t claim for John, they’re essentially supporting young Arthur instead, who’s a ward of King Philip! Given that choice, why wouldn’t they pick John? Like it or not, these are fiercely loyal Englishmen before us, not a band of rebels. And they believe they are defending their new king.”

  “That’s how it was in Tickhill,” joined Hugh de Puiset, Bishop of Durham. “The baron there—de Busli—claimed in favor of John the moment he took Nottingham. When I told him Richard was returned, he practically threw me out of his castle. I had to bring two of de Busli’s men to Belvoir to see for themselves, and they very nearly died on the spot.”

  “You say that to be funny,” Richard raised a finger, “but that’s happened, too. I’m told the commander of Mont St. Michel died of fright when he heard I’d been released. I did not realize I was so … terrifying.”

  “Perhaps we ought to prop you up outside the gates, then,” suggested the archbishop. “And make this battle a unanimous victory.”

  “Battle?” Marion asked, more than a little out of turn. “There’s not going to be a battle. This is a misunderstanding, not a coup.”

  Every human in the command tent stiffened, looking to each other. It was a game she’d seen a dozen times before, where the men of power each avoid being the one to explain to the woman what was happening, as if she could not figure it out.

  “Do not underestimate the danger of a misunderstanding,” Richard lectured, though not unkindly. “That is, after all, why we are here. I heard my brother was claiming castles, seizing power. If I had known he was simply defending himself from imaginary threats, I would not have bothered marching my armies here. Yet here we are, two idiots, screaming into the abyss.”

  “What of his followers? Do they deserve to die, for following orders?”

  “For following my brother’s orders over mine? Yes,” Richard balked. “John at least has the excuse of ignorance. Those that stood at the gate today and turned the archbishop back are openly traitorous.”

  “And even if John genuinely thinks he’s only defending himself,” the Earl Ranulph said, “the people see it as a coup.”

  “So we let them sit in their castle until they’re ready to come out and talk,” Marion explained it back to him. “What we don’t do is start trading English lives.”

  “Marion,” the King spoke, before his supporters could jump on her. “I do not disagree with you. But nor can I allow the people to see me as weak. If they see my brother as rebelling and that my reaction is nothing beyond knocking on his door and walking away, then that coup suddenly becomes real. No, I must treat this as if it were real. And if my brother was actually making a grab at my throne in my absence, then my reaction would be swift. And violent.”

  Marion could scarcely believe it. “So your first act upon returning to England would be to slaughter your own people? Your men, gone for years, come home only to die a few miles from their families? Is that the kind of king you want to be?”

  The eyes that met hers were cold, and for a brief moment she saw the result of his captivity there—a naked rage that refused to be controlled again. But Richard did not snap, he simply waited it out, then softened. “I will be the kind of king who brooks no revolts, especially from my own brother. We send our full force in, at first light, and we take the castle as quickly as possible.”

  Marion withheld a gasp, but he noticed it.

  “I hate this no less than you!” he bellowed, daring anyone to argue. “Frankly, more of you here should share my cousin’s horror. A little too eager for a bit of killing, I’d say, all of you. But if John will not parley with me, I see no alternative.”

  “There must be!” Marion’s mind raced to find one. “John’s no fool. If he were simply able to see you, face-to-face, he would relinquish the castle immediately! So while killing everyone between you and him would certainly be effective,” she hit the word sharply, challenging anyone to find joy in that prospect, “there’s realistically only one person in that castle we actually care about.”

  William d’Albini fidgeted. “Don’t make us guess, woman. What are you suggesting?”

  She steeled herself against that word—woman. It was meant to paint whatever she said next in a poor shade. She’d borne it her entire life, but never grown accustomed to its sting. Most of Richard’s advisors here were already skeptical of her presence—which admittedly was more a result of nobody telling her no rather than someone telling her yes.

  But for now, she was in the room, and she intended on making the most of it. To Richard alone, she answered. “Use a scalpel, not an axe. Wait as long as you can to make your main assault—and in the meanwhil
e, send in a small force to infiltrate the castle and find Prince John. If he can be convinced you are who you are, all the better. If not, then he should be extracted and brought to see you in person.”

  The King snapped his fingers to seize attention, though he waited some time as he chewed the idea over. “I concur. But I cannot wait to start the assault. Come morning, they must see the wrath of their King, or think me coward. As a silver lining, I should think the chaos of the siege would only help this small force to find an opening in the castle’s defenses.”

  Robert made eyes with Marion at this news and whistled. “So you’ll siege the castle with the full strength of your Holy Crusaders … as a diversion?”

  The King grimaced. “If we’re lucky, then yes. If not … well, the siege will work, too. And I suppose my men could use some bloodshed. They’ve been cooped up for ages, waiting for me to get out of that damned castle. With a host of our size, there’s no chance the siege will fail. But it may take a few days. So if the small force gets to my brother first, well then just think of all the English lives you’ll have saved by doing so.”

  All the lives she’ll have saved. That was not the currency in which she counted success. Marion could think of nothing but those who would die, meaninglessly, between the prince’s stubbornness and the king’s reputation. It clawed through her belly like an animal. She’d spent months—months!—scraping for the survival of a hundred souls in the Sherwood … and now those kinds of numbers seemed trivial, mere grains of salt over a banquet of war.

  “Very good,” d’Albini chuckled. “And who is to lead this force?”

  “I suppose it ought to fall on me,” William de Ferrers answered, “as I know the city better than anyone else.”

  “No, you’re Sheriff here, you need to be seen on the front lines, that the people know you’re on the right of this,” Richard answered. “If you’re seen sneaking into your own city, it would read poorly. No, I need you at the vanguard. Ferrers, I hope you’re better than your father at doing this.”