Lionhearts

by Nathan Makaryk

“What?”

  “You lived in the castle, you were friends with the Sheriff, and they trust you. Why can’t the same be true with me?”

  “I didn’t lie to them!” she answered, shocked he was pretending their situations were equitable. “I was up front with everything, and still they didn’t trust me! Most of them still don’t. While you sneak in, under false pretenses, you lie about your name, you lie about—”

  “Charley’s my real name,” he interrupted her. “Reg called me Bolt, and it stuck, but my name’s Charley Dancer. Always has been.”

  She had no response.

  “You said you were in the Captain’s Regiment, too?” Bolt motioned up to Gilbert. “But now you’re helping them? What’s the difference? What does it matter who I was before I came to join you? Aside from the fact that I can help you, it’s why I followed you! I know this city, I know the castle, I probably even know the Guardsmen you’ll come across. I volunteered to come originally but Lord Robert said no, on account of my leg, so I followed you instead. Figured you couldn’t turn me away once I was here. I’m not just a cripple, I’m not trying to kill you. I just want to help.”

  The rest of the group, too, was at a loss.

  Zinn leaned close to Arable. “The leg didn’t tip you off?” she asked at half breath.

  “More than one person in the world can have a limp,” she defended herself, but it was an embarrassing oversight. Perhaps her time with Bolt had normalized the affliction so much that she hardly even noticed it in Charley.

  “I never loved the Guard,” he continued. “It’s just where I ended up. I grew up in the streets. When the war came sixteen years ago, I ended up in the wrong place—in between the castle walls and the army. I climbed the siege ladders just to keep from being trampled. I jumped off on the other side and broke my leg, but Reginold found me, he protected me, and he took me under his wing. He was the only reason I stayed. Once he was killed…” His sentence drifted away, he bit at his lip and fought back tears.

  If Arable did not feel so very betrayed, she might have been swayed by it. But might it be the truth? Could he really have spent so long with them if he still meant to do them harm? Would he have suffered for so long, when there had been so many opportunities to turn against them?

  “Why did you hide from me?” she asked. “If you’d had a change of heart, as you say, why not reveal yourself? You’re only telling the truth now because you’ve been caught.”

  His lips trembled, his fingers reached forward, his froglike face stretched and contorted, and when he finally spoke it was with great difficulty. “Why didn’t you tell me who you were?”

  She had not expected that. “What?”

  “You hid your name, too, in Nottingham, didn’t you?” he squeaked. “I thought you were just a servant girl, I didn’t … I didn’t know you were a lady. But you were doing the same thing I was, weren’t you? Hiding who you were, to protect yourself?”

  “But I wasn’t secretly trying to kill someone,” she answered back. “I was just trying to survive.”

  “And that’s all I’m doing now,” Bolt replied. “And trying to make up for things.”

  Arable shook her head, she could not overcome the sense of being lied to. But he was saying all the right things. And like it or not, her mind was drawn to a similar moment of her own, cowering in the Sherwood, awaiting judgment from Robin and the rest of the group as to whether or not she was trustworthy. Whether or not she was a spy. There was nothing she could say that could convince them otherwise, when all of the facts pointed against her.

  But Bolt had literally come to spy on them. Of course he would say all the right things, he’d been preparing for this moment for months.

  Or maybe she was just on edge because she had to pee again.

  “Arable,” Tuck said with some humility, “I believe him. Charley’s been nothing but helpful. We trusted you, we took that chance. I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t do the same with him.”

  “He’s been useful before, and we need every friend we can get,” Lord Robert added. “Now is hardly the time to be picky about our allies. Look at this group—nobody here trusts each other! By that account, I’d say Charley fits in perfectly.”

  They were asking for her permission. Her history with him had apparently turned her into an authority on the matter. She didn’t want to make that call. She didn’t want it to be on her head when Bolt revealed his true nature, and turned them in. She had nothing beyond a gut instinct to say no. But Lord Robert was right. The stakes were too high, the world was about to be on fire and all their petty differences from the past were meaningless next to the threat of this war. Hell, she was standing next to Beneger de Wendenal, of all people. Surely little Bolt was nothing compared to that vile insult.

  “Dammit,” she relented. “Life can’t get any stranger.”

  * * *

  WELL, IT COULD GET a little stranger.

  Almost all the members of Gilbert’s crew were Zinn’s age—children, effectively. Most seemed to look to Zinn for their commands, though Arable got the impression that this group was only recently created out of a number of smaller gangs, possibly rivals, that had little more than their age in common. Frankly, it seemed they’d attached themselves to Gilbert without his consent, and the only other adult in the group was a thin Guardsman.

  They met him in another chamber, much smaller than the previous one, which smelled strongly of both beer and ash.

  “Glad you’re alive,” Beneger greeted the man.

  “I’m glad you’ve returned,” he replied, giving Lord Beneger a firm handshake. This was the Guardsman who’d discovered FitzOdo’s true nature and was nearly killed for it, but Arable didn’t recognize him until she heard his full name—Quillen Peveril.

  “My goodness.” Arable could barely keep up with the day’s surprises. “I know you.”

  “I’m so sorry for you,” Quillen answered, apparently by instinct, and then squinted at her face. It was no surprise he wouldn’t remember her, but there was no denying it. His pinched, beady eyes and tall nose were the same features she’d seen on him when he’d been a much younger boy.

  “Your father is the Lord of the Peak,” she stated, recalling long-lost memories. “My father took us to visit him once, it must have been twenty years ago or more.”

  “Oh I would have been a boy, then, less than ten at least. And I made that much of an impression on you?”

  “Well you got lost in the caves beneath the castle. Our entire family spent the night searching for you.”

  “Ah.” Quillen’s mouth opened in embarrassment. “I’m glad to hear I’m still famous for that.”

  Arable had to laugh, to think she would find the same boy twenty years later in another cave. But the grand caverns beneath Peveril Castle were nothing like these sandstone tunnels. Beneath the Peak was an underground lake, and caves as expansive as the mountain itself. Arable remembered marveling at it as a young lady, enjoying the way her voice echoed endlessly in that space, calling for their host’s son, “Quillen! Quillen!”

  It was a curiously small world.

  “I doubt I’d remember you otherwise,” she said. “I was the one who found you. You’d slipped down a little crevasse that nobody else could fit down.”

  “My God,” he said, eyes widening. “I do remember you. I haven’t thought on that in … I don’t remember your name, though?”

  “Arable.” She extended her hand.

  “Quill.” He took it, and the room erupted in laughter.

  “Keep your pants on,” Lord Beneger chuckled. “We’re in the middle of a war.”

  “What?” Quillen startled. “I was just saying hello.”

  Arable looked at the others—Tuck and Lord Robert, particularly—who seemed equally amused. “For Christ’s sake,” she scolded them. “Is that honestly all you ever think about?”

  Heaven forbid a man and a woman exchange pleasantries without some other motivation. It was an absolute wonder that
anything in the world ever happened at all, when men could become so instantly distracted by even the faintest hint of sex.

  They caught Quillen up on the circumstances of their presence, who returned with some grim news. “Well there’s no way into the castle tonight, might as well get some rest and try in the morning.”

  “It has to be tonight,” Lord Robert answered. “The fighting starts tomorrow.”

  “Well tomorrow is as soon as it’s possible,” he replied. “FitzOdo has taken over the Trip to Jerusalem, and they’re there tonight. There’s no getting inside as long as he’s there.”

  Tuck scratched at his beard. “Is he using the tunnels, then, to go back and forth into the castle?”

  “He never mentioned those tunnels to me,” Quillen answered.

  “He’s too big,” Zinn added. “Me and mine had a hard enough time in there. Unless he’s been spending his nights digging away.”

  “We sneak in during the night, then,” Beneger suggested. “Deal with him while he’s asleep. They’re not expecting us.”

  “You, no,” Quillen huffed. “But he’s on his highest guard. He thinks Gilbert is trying to kill him, mostly because of the fact that Gilbert is very much trying to kill him.”

  All eyes moved to Gilbert, who did absolutely nothing to deny it.

  “I was wrong about him,” Quillen explained to Lord Beneger. “FitzOdo was the one doing unspeakable things as Robin Hood, and we never suspected him. All while we were tracking Gilbert—I made a mess of that. Gilbert … uh, well I don’t want to speak for you, but he means to make FitzOdo pay. He killed Derrick, and probably would have killed Ronnell and FitzOdo, too, if he didn’t stop to save me instead. They’ve been protecting themselves in the Trip since.”

  “And he never leaves?” Arable asked.

  “Oh, he leaves all the time, but never without a large group of supporters. And only during the day. Not sure what he does, really. But either way, once he’s holed in for the night, we can’t get to him. They’re ready to be attacked.”

  “So we have to wait,” Arable agreed. “We can sneak in when he leaves.”

  “People are going to start dying tomorrow,” Lord Robert said, though his tone implied that he knew there was nothing to be done about that. “Marion wanted us to stop this war before it started.”

  “He’s a knight, right?” asked Tuck. “Why not trust him to do the right thing? We can go talk to him, explain what’s happening.”

  The cavern hushed. It was nice to think of a world in which it would be that easy.

  “Do we really want to risk everything on that?” Beneger asked. “On the good will of a man who’s been chopping hands off commonfolk for fun?”

  “Not him,” Charley whispered. “Trust me. ‘Do the right thing?’ That’s not FitzOdo.”

  Even Tuck seemed to understand.

  “One problem,” Lord Robert said. “Even if we can sneak past him when he leaves, that would be a one-way passage. That only works if we’re able to convince Prince John to surrender of his own accord.”

  “If not,” added Beneger, “we have to drag the prince out by force. And if FitzOdo hears us coming back into the Trip through those tunnels with a screaming prince in our hands, that’ll be the end of that.”

  Arable closed her eyes. Nobody wanted to imagine what that scenario looked like.

  “We’ll have to split up.” Beneger stretched his arms. “When FitzOdo leaves, half of us tend to him. The other half get into the castle, as fast as possible, to find the prince. After we take out FitzOdo, we can secure the Trip for ourselves, in case you need it to bring the prince out again. If enough of us survive FitzOdo, maybe we can follow behind and help, too.”

  That was met by silence. There were dark and heavy boulders in that sentence, such that none of them knew how to grapple. Both paths seemed equally suicidal.

  “What if we can’t do all that?” Nick asked.

  “Then we all die, I expect,” Beneger said. “Did you think this was going to be easy?”

  FIFTY-NINE

  ARTHUR A BLAND

  LOWER BAILEY, NOTTINGHAM CASTLE

  WEDNESDAY, 25TH DAY OF MARCH

  “NO, THANK YOU!” DAVID shouted over the castle walls.

  But the French army still approached.

  “It was worth a shot,” he said, and absently fingered the feathers of his arrows. It was unlike him to display such amateur behavior—Arthur had seen his friend scold other men for exactly such a thing. “Are your arrows still in your quiver?” David had asked one of the Red Lions when they’d been practicing at their archery. “Yes? Then stop touching them. They’ll be there still if you need them.”

  But they’d never done this before. They’d never seen this. It was as if the world itself had ended, it was so impossible to imagine life ever being normal again. The earth was moving, rolling, screaming. The French army was as wide as the goddamned horizon, its noise was more than anything that could even count as sound. Arthur felt it in his bones, in his heart, it pounded through him like a sudden crack of thunder, except it never ended, never settled.

  They stood on the battlement of the lower bailey, as did every other competent archer in the castle, as did every other half-competent archer, as did every other incompetent slug who could be made to hold a bow, as did a few other people even more useless like Arthur himself. They stood shoulder to shoulder, Nottingham Guardsmen next to soldiers from Gloucester and Worcester, next to villagefolk and baileyfolk, next to Will Scarlet’s men, next to liars like himself and David. Some had their own bows, some had those from the castle armory, some had nothing. David had his own personal quiver slung at his legs, while most relied on barrels or page boys prepared to run across the battlements and replenish any bowman who ran low.

  And the French army still approached.

  They hadn’t slept, the French had seen to that. Horns had blasted all through the night. “But that means they didn’t sleep, either, right?” Arthur asked his friend. “That had to hurt them as much as us, right?”

  David squinted back at him. “Is that … is that supposed to change our strategy in some way?”

  “I don’t know,” Arthur answered, because he didn’t know anything anymore. “Sure. You can shoot your arrows into the ground, so that if they try to lie down and fall asleep they’ll be very uncomfortable.”

  “I think I’ll aim for their bodies,” David replied without humor.

  Arthur didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what he was supposed to say, if there was anything at all that was expected of people in circumstances like this aside from waiting and dying. He wiped the sweat from his brow only to find something slick and oily. His wound was weeping again.

  “That’s not a good color,” David said, sparing him a glance.

  Arthur smelled his fingers and wished he hadn’t. Admittedly, he felt as if he had a bit of a fever, too. “Not the top of the day’s worries.”

  Arthur’s fault, that they were here. He’d convinced Will to stay and fight, argued that the three of them were somehow special, that they were the sort of people others looked up to. But now he knew how profoundly wrong he was. They were just three bodies, three of a thousand who would die, meaninglessly, and soon. They weren’t helping anyone by being here—except the French, who could gloat over three bodies more.

  “Will was right, we should’ve left,” he whispered, watching the army collide with the city walls. The decision had been made to abandon the defense of the city. Nottingham’s perimeter was too long, impossible to defend against an army of this size. Instead Prince John commanded them to make their stand at the castle, which was far more defensible. If there was anyone still left guarding the city gates, they had no effect. The unfathomable mob of the French army barely flinched as it passed into the city, as if the walls weren’t even there—there was only the slightest sense of bottlenecking before they were in the streets.

  For some reason, Arthur thought the streets would slow them. He�
�d thought the people of the city would ambush the army, bursting from their doors and windows with knives and clubs, beating the invaders senseless from the advantage of their close quarters. He’d wanted to see the throng stall and swell, recoiling in horror, not knowing how to react to a populace that refused to be overridden. At least a slight delay, at least slow them down. At least tell the French that they meant not to lie on their backs and spread their legs.

  But the army flowed through the streets and alleys like melted butter—if anything, their approach went faster, rushing through the seemingly abandoned city of Nottingham.

  “Why won’t they defend themselves?” he asked aloud. “Why are we fighting if they won’t fight for themselves?”

  What had happened? Why was Arthur left to defend this city when those who lived here were cowering in their homes? What the fuck was he doing here?

  Panic grabbed him. He was trapped. There was no getting out of the castle now, he hadn’t realized it until this moment, there was no last-minute escape anymore, there was no chance of using Will’s rope ladder now, nothing but the ground beneath him tilting steeper and steeper still—steeper until the beast, war.

  He reeled, Guardsmen all around him. These people … why was he beside them now? Only a few months ago they’d hunted him, captured him, put him on his knees—he’d watched silently as Elena had died. Some of those men were with him now. They weren’t going to defend him, not if he was injured, they didn’t care about him …

  Behind him, down in the bailey, a mob of fucking civilians. Will Scarlet, leading his men in training exercises, making them repeat the same moves, even now, stepping in formation. The same practices that Robin of Locksley had taught them, now applied to commonfolk who’d never swung a sword before. Will barked out numbers and orders, keeping them alert, sharp. It was better than waiting on edge, Will had explained—better than letting the dread seep into their muscles and freeze them. If they could keep moving, keep practicing up until the very moment the army broke through the walls, then they’d hardly notice the difference between when they were practicing and when they were dying.