“Well.” The young Earl of Derby seemed to take it as a compliment. “I am still alive.”
The other earls all volunteered to take on the special task, one by one, each boasting of some cunning attribute or past victory that made them an ideal candidate. Each begging for their king to trust them to carry out this, his first private request upon return to his country. But Marion felt it coming, a wave as strong as any ocean. She met Robert’s eyes as he shook his head at the capitulating barons, the poor fools. He knew it, too. None of them had the highest card.
Robert waited for Marion’s silent approval before he addressed the King. “Your Grace, without Ferrers, we will need someone who knows the castle as well as he. We have a girl with us who worked as a servant in Nottingham Castle for years. We also have … the world experts at sneaking into the castle and … finding important men.” It was kind of him to avoid the word assassinating. “And we also have people already positioned in the city, to help us.”
That was a bit of an exaggeration, but in essence he was saying that we have Robin Hoods.
“And,” Marion added, surprised he hadn’t started with it, “thanks to the poor turnout of our recent council, every single one of our men knows exactly what Prince John looks like. No offense to you, Sheriff,” she referred to d’Albini, “but I doubt your soldiers are so familiar with the prince’s face. Had you answered the call to our council, perhaps. But your men would be sneaking around a castle full of John’s influential supporters, hoping to find someone who ‘looks important.’ Whereas my crew,” she hadn’t used that word before, “we could die off down to a single man, and that man would still be able to finish the mission.”
Her phrasing brought the tone down a bit. It was almost as if the others who had begged for the role hadn’t considered how dangerous it would be.
“Very well. Huntingdon. Cousin.” Richard nodded. “It’s you.”
“Stay with me a moment when we’re done,” the Archbishop of Canterbury added. “I have something that may aid you.”
“See to it,” the King finished. “The details are yours, but know that my campaign starts at first light, and does not stop until John has surrendered. Godspeed.”
* * *
THEY DID NOT SPEAK as they followed the archbishop from the command tent, across the rolling farmlands of the hills outside the city, now flattened by an army’s march. Robert did not so much as look back at her, but Marion knew every bit of his focus was upon her. It was the absences between them that spoke everything, the enormity of their silence. They did not look at each other, because they knew the other was there—and would be nowhere else.
They had not spoken of what happened that night in John Little’s tent, because there was nothing to speak of. That is, nothing to put into words. Nothing that an observer could describe as salacious. They had spoken of her hopes of turning herself over to Lord Simon de Senlis, and he urged her to reconsider, and then the conversation had ended.
But when their words were done, they had not looked away from each other.
At first she’d almost found it comical, as if they were each waiting for the other to say one final thing. But as that silence lengthened, she knew neither of them would break it. At first her heart had raced with wonder, with anticipation, that they were on the verge of springing into an embrace … but with time it became more intimate than anything physical could ever be. The longer she looked into him, and he into her, the more she felt herself change, as if she were shedding layers of her very soul. At first she was aware only of the faces she was making, but then of her body, and eventually she was so relaxed she was aware of nothing but her own self-perceptions. At first, the lioness that Marion tried to present to the world. Then, the uncertain lady she knew others saw in her. Next, the terrified girl she saw in herself. Beneath that, just a human, just a heart, slowly sloughing off all the unfair trappings that she’d placed between herself and happiness. She was more naked than she’d ever been, letting Robert stare into her, with no pretense. In him she saw the same discarding of masks, from earl to husband to man, to need. They were just two souls, desperately in need of the connection with the other, lying a foot apart on the floor of a dirty tent. If it was hours that had passed that night, Marion would not be surprised. And both of them knew that while they had done nothing to violate Robert’s marriage bonds—or Marion’s grief—they had simultaneously done something far, far worse.
And so they walked together, bound together—entwined, beyond any ability to explain it. It eluded definition, but had somehow become an integral and precious part of her. When she tried to discard it—to chide herself for replacing her mourning for Robin with this new, adventurous thing—it somehow only nestled in deeper. When she tried to think of Robin now, it was always Robert standing next to him, the better man by far.
And each, as untouchable as the other.
* * *
THE ARCHBISHOP’S AID CAME in the form of a waif of a young woman, dirty and wide-eyed, clutching a young boy of similar description. Her name was Sarra Billinsgate—so the archbishop explained—and she had very recently escaped from the city.
“Nor is she the only one,” he continued. “We’ve received a steady trickle of city refugees, who found us as soon as the army arrived. Most are, regretfully, being detained—for fear of inviting any of John’s spies into our ranks. But I’ve spoken with this one personally, and am compelled to believe her.”
The woman’s breathing was short and strained, her grip on her son tight enough to leave a mark. Her neck was too skinny, her arms were nearly bone.
“See that she’s fed,” Marion ordered, crouching down to the balls of her feet, hoping to make a comforting face at the child. He buried his face away from her. “You’re safe now, both of you. I know this must seem terrible—armies outside the city, and being detained. But I promise you you’ll eat, and be protected, and that everything will get better from this point on. After all, King Richard is back!”
And about to siege your city.
If either reacted, it was with a nod so subtle it might as well have been nothing.
“Do you like it?” Robert smiled, flipping the end of his cape about, catching the boy’s attention. “I could have one made for you, young sir. Would you like that?”
The boy looked to his mother, though still they said nothing.
“We understand the city gates are locked down, and no passage is permitted,” Marion added. “We’d very much like to know how you got through them.”
Sarra swallowed, perhaps to some pain. “I don’t want to get anyone in trouble.”
“Quite the opposite,” Robert said. “If someone helped you get out, they may be able to help us get in. They may be the key to stopping this war before it begins.”
After a look down at her son and a curt shake of her head, Sarra answered clearly. “They’re called the White Hand. They’re a gang, though that’s not a very kind word for them. The Red Lions were all killed, and now there’s a dozen gangs instead, the White Hand is one of them. Only they’re trying to help people, help smuggle them out of the city.”
“The White Hand?” Marion was surprised by the haunting phrase. “I don’t suppose the name Gilbert means anything to you?”
Sarra seemed shocked to hear it. “That’s him, he’s their leader, yes. He’s the one that led me and Hugh out.”
Robert clearly sensed Marion’s hesitation. “You know him?”
“Gilbert was part of Locksley, he stayed with us after the fire, but disappeared shortly after Robin joined us. He’s something of a ghost story.” She turned back to Sarra. “Did you see him? Did you talk to him? Tall, gaunt, and the glove?”
She nodded her head. “He’s a good man, he was kind to us. His people leave their symbol throughout the city, a sign you can find for safety. There are caves under Nottingham, long tunnels, though you need a light to see. One reaches out far beyond the city gates, that’s how he’s been getting people out. So long as
the prince’s men don’t see.”
“Well this is only good news,” Robert laughed. “We have a secret way into the city, run by a … friend? Or someone sympathetic, at least. Sarra, I know you’ve already been through more than anyone should have to endure, but could you do one thing more for your King? Could you lead us the way back to the entrance to this cave?”
She shook her head no before she had the bravery to say it, her mouth twisted hard to find some way to back out now. But even as she did, her son peeked out again, staring at Marion as hard as his little eyes could. His lips parted and a slight voice asked, “Are you Lady Marion?”
“I am.” She smiled widely, though she was shocked to have been known. “You’re a very smart boy, how did you know that?”
“We saw you last autumn,” his answer came. “In Thorney. You were with Robin Hood.”
“I was,” she answered again, though her smile now was forced.
“There are a lot of Robin Hoods in the city now,” he said, and gulped for air. “But everybody knows they’re liars. Robin Hood’s dead, isn’t he?”
Unsure how to respond, Marion braved the truth. “He is.”
“That’s okay,” the boy said matter-of-factly.
“Is it? Why is that?”
“Because you’ll look after us.”
Marion did an admirable job of not running very, very far away.
“I’ll show you the entrance,” Sarra said. “But not for your King. I’ll do it for you.”
* * *
“YOU’RE NOT GOING,” ROBERT said, exactly one moment before she said the opposite.
“Of course I am,” Marion answered. “It was my idea.”
“You’re not, it’s too dangerous.”
“Because I’m a woman?” Marion asked, shocked he would make the distinction. “You had no trouble taking me to Grafham.”
“Because there wasn’t going to be any killing there,” he responded sharply. Behind him, the fields stretched far down the gentle hills to the city walls, above which the tiers of Nottingham Castle sat, climbing and wrapping around each other, daring them to come closer. The sky was full of heavy clumps of clouds, dark beasts turned brilliant gold at their edges. It would have been a perfect spring dusk if not for the promise of death that hovered around them.
Robert continued. “We will very likely have to kill a lot of people to get into that castle, so I can only afford to bring people who are very good at that. I already hate that we have to bring Arable along, but she’s necessary. She knows the city, she knows the castle. She’ll be enough.”
“I know Gilbert, though, and she doesn’t.”
“Doesn’t matter. Sounds like he’s willing to help either way. You’re staying here. Not because you’re a woman, but because you’re you.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“You’re Lady Marion, even that little boy knows who you are.” He scratched at his cheeks, and shook his head. “You’re too important to die in a cave under the city, or by some errant crossbow bolt in the middle of the fighting.”
“I’m too important? You’re an Earl, Robert, I’m just—”
“Stop it.” He flinched and brought both his hands to his face, fidgeted, then they moved to her shoulders. As always, he didn’t quite touch her, not quite. His palms hovered an inch away, he wouldn’t cross that line. Which meant that it must have been her that moved first. In a moment her arms were around him, his hand on her jawline, drawing her in, her heart leapt into her throat, but he paused. Perhaps he was too breathless to continue, or perhaps he was aghast at the next boundary they thought they’d never cross. Perhaps waiting for her permission. Perhaps that’s all he’d been doing that night in the tent.
But this time, the madness of all of it—all of it, the rebellion, and his damned insistence on facing an army on her behalf—it removed her every inhibition, her fingers found the laces of his doublet and she pulled him into her, thrilled that he met her just as forcefully, just as eagerly. His lips were thin, but confident, the stubble of his chin scratched her, and when his tongue parted her lips she lost herself, her fingers finding his hair, his elbow, she pulled his cape around her to be closer, to keep him, to keep him from going to the castle.
When they stopped to breathe, he touched his forehead to hers. “You’re too important. And no, not just to me. You’ve started something, and you’re going to see it through.”
“What?” She couldn’t keep track of what he was saying, continuing their conversation as if nothing had just happened. “You mean the council? It’s over, it was a failure. King Richard is back.”
“It wasn’t a failure.” His hands held her cheeks, he placed a single kiss on her brow, her eyelashes flicked against his skin. “You’re the face of something now. And you’re also King Richard’s cousin. People were afraid to stand with you at the council, even though they knew you were right. Now that Richard’s back, you’re in favor again. People will … they’ll kill just to be associated with you.”
To be associated with you. There was a jealousy in those words, as if he found himself unworthy of such a role. “For what? I advocated for King John, who’s now clearly a madman. I wanted to dethrone the Chancellor, whose reign is over now that Richard is back. What do they—”
“It doesn’t stop there!” he said, his eyes imploring her. “You weren’t just advocating that the Chancellor be controlled, you were advocating that any ruler be controlled. You convinced that room that even a king should have restrictions, that we can make an England where the people are not afraid of their rulers. Where those rulers are bound to follow the rules as well. And with a king like Richard at your side, you can make that a reality. You saw that. Before all our eyes, you changed the King’s mind.”
“Barely—”
“Barely, yes, today. But tomorrow? That’s why we can’t risk you, Marion. You’re tomorrow.”
Suddenly the city and castle of Nottingham tumbled away from her feet. She was a thousand miles in the air and had no idea how she hadn’t realized it. It was everything she’d been building on a small scale at Locksley, suddenly laid out before her, and all she had to do was grab the thread and keep pulling.
“So no, you don’t get to risk your life crawling through a cave with me this afternoon. I’m not going to throw you over a horse and ride away like Amon did, but damn it—you have to start listening to the people you trust. Think of what Amon said to you. You’re not allowed to sacrifice yourself anymore. He was right, Marion. This was your call, and we’ll do it for you. You keep worrying about whether you can be anything like Robin Hood was, but you don’t get it at all. Robin Hood was a king, yes, but king of his pond. But you, you’re playing in the ocean. It’s time that you act like it.”
She felt her draw drop. She didn’t feel like the queen of an ocean. She felt like a petty little girl who wanted the fleeting joy of kissing him again, without the guilt of what it meant for her memory of Robin, or for Robert’s very living wife. She wanted to crawl into a tent with him and hide until the war was over, then crawl out and ask who had won. And the fact that she wanted these things, instead of the power—she knew in her bones—was the reason he was right.
“We’ll bring you back the prince,” he straightened, “or die trying. My lady.”
FIFTY-SIX
ARABLE DE BUREL
NOTTINGHAM
ARABLE WAS REWALKING THE alleys of her own past, in every literal and metaphorical way she could fathom. Before her loomed the city of Nottingham and its castle—a chapter of her life to which she never wanted to return. Four months earlier she’d crossed this exact spot, horseback with John Little and Robin of Locksley, on a similar mission to sneak into the castle and stop the man in charge. They had stolen inside in the middle of the night, for reasons they all thought sickeningly noble at the time. Robin had died that night—she’d led him to his tomb.
Further back, sixteen years ago, her father might have shared this same spot, too. The par
allels were nauseating. Then it was her father, Lord Raymond de Burel, leading his bannermen at the side of their earl, William de Ferrers, to siege Nottingham’s Castle and claim it for the king. Now it was the daughter and the son of those same two misguided souls—Arable leading their group into the city, and the younger Ferrers at the charge to siege the castle. And claim it for the king.
Would that she could stand here, and whisper backward.
What went wrong? she might ask herself of four months ago. Had she learned anything from her failures that could keep her friends alive this time?
What went wrong? she might beg of her father, to know what she never would—what his final days had been like. Surging through the city streets, raising ladders over the castle walls. She would never know how he met his end, if it was with bravery or cowardice. Was it a quick blow to the head, or did he suffer? So it might go with his daughter, or any of them, slipping into a city that was ready to eat itself alive.
What was different? Was Arable insane to think any of it would go better this time? Or was she simply doomed to relive her own mistakes—and her father’s—over and over again until one day she awoke to realize she’d been dead for a thousand years, trapped in some terrible purgatory?
No.
She was not the same woman who had fled Nottingham at the top of winter. Arable the servant had been the victim, fleeing. Lady de Burel had finally stopped running, ready to meet her enemies face on.
Or side by side. Lord Beneger de Wendenal crouched beside her by a ruined half wall, a divider between one field and the next. She found it easiest to accept his existence by remembering what had happened when last she was here. Since Arable was so good at bringing ruin to those around her, she could at least leverage that talent upon the one man who most deserved it.
They’d waited for dark, a waxing half-moon giving just enough light to guide their way. The bright fires and incessant clamor of Richard’s armies was behind them, a gripping spectacle that was sure to attract every eye of the city’s watchmen.
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