His hand moved slightly to the weapon at his side as he repeated, “Arable?”
Later, in the history of the world’s worst lies, Arable would need to file her feeble response of: “No, I’m not.”
His face squinted, not in doubt that she was right, but in doubt that any human could think to use that as an excuse. Eyes darting to the Delaney brothers and their stolen tabards, Morg fumed. “Who the fuck are you two?”
She knew it was a terrible idea.
“Morg!” Bolt exploded, and slipped between them, pushing into Morg’s belly and wrapping him in a hug. Go, he mouthed to her—then took to playfully punching Morg in the chest and laughing far too loudly about it.
He hesitated. “Bolt? What are you doing here?”
“Don’t worry, she’s with me, there’s so much I have to tell you!”
Again he glared at Arable, and she took the cue. She grabbed both Delaney brothers by a fist of their stolen tabards and cut hard to the left, slipping into single file to make a path through the crowd that was disinterestedly watching the commotion of Bolt’s now public reunion.
That trick wouldn’t work a second time.
Five seconds in, and one of the four of them was gone.
A few hard eyes followed them but Arable mumbled a terse “Make a path,” leveraging the Guardsmen’s bred instincts for obedience. It only needed to work long enough to disappear, and let Bolt’s distraction win the contest of interest. She abandoned any hope of making it closer to the high keep, and opted instead for a direct line to the rear entrance of the maids’ quarters. It was the wrong way, but they needed to get out of this crowd—and she hoped it would at least be empty, as there were clearly a thousand tasks outside that the girls ought to be tending to.
They crossed a wafting air coming from the kitchens, and the smell of roast meat instantly brought her mouth to water. Arable wondered how long it had been since she’d eaten. Perhaps there would be time to steal a bite of something from the adjoining quarters. She didn’t even look back as she flung open the familiar wooden door and tucked under the worn stone arches that had been her home for so long. Thankfully, it was mostly empty now except for one young girl who was curled in a bed crying, and Arable hated herself for yelling so harshly at her to make herself scant, which she quickly did.
“Shit, that’s a lot of soldiers,” Nick exhaled, kneeling down on a bed to regain his composure.
But there was not even time enough for a reply. The door behind them opened again violently, and two men entered—one in a Nottingham Guard’s tabard, the other in a mismatch of pieces and a fat knife held out in readiness.
Both Delaneys sprung to their feet and drew their swords to block the small corridor. “Get to the keep!” Peetey whispered at her, and turned to give her whatever small amount of time they might.
Arable couldn’t watch. Too quickly, they were losing too quickly, she cursed, biting her knuckles, but she turned and ran. Three down, and now there was only her.
“Arable!” yelled a voice she distantly recognized, and she knew she should not have come. She’d wrecked the whole thing, and doomed the castle as well.
But she risked a glance back and the Delaneys were not fighting—instead they laughed, and the clatter of swords was not of steel on steel but of sheathing them away to safety. Arable was halfway out of the room before she realized it. It took a long, incredulous moment to register that the dirty, mismatched man was in fact Will Scarlet. And the grim Guardsman … Arthur a Bland.
Relief overwhelmed her, and she let herself pool down onto the ground and heave. She had only absently hoped they would be so lucky to find their missing people while in Nottingham, assuming it more likely that they’d long moved on to something else. Seeing both of their faces now was the most uplifting thing she could fathom.
Which didn’t last long. “Where’s David?” she asked.
Arthur’s eyes were only half-open—and they didn’t really look at her, but through her.
* * *
SHE NEEDED A MINUTE. She wept. She’d been fond of David, he had kindness in him, and humility, and so it was no surprise that the war would pluck him off the world. She knew he wasn’t the only one who died, but in this moment he was a surrogate for everyone she knew. Every bated breath worrying about every single last person, the tension of that dread all came out for David. She mourned him, yes, but also she mourned for those who might die still—Marion, Lord Robert, Arthur, Will, John Little, Tuck, anyone who had proven themselves to be made of stuff soft enough that the world would want to rip them apart.
That David’s death was so recent made it doubly difficult. If Will had led his men out of Nottingham a month ago and then died quietly in the forest after deserting them, it might have felt different. But David of Doncaster died defending the castle, and barely an hour earlier, while Arable had been crawling through the rocks to save them all. She wished she could have crawled faster. She could’ve taken fewer breaks, been stronger. It wasn’t her fault, she knew that deep down, but nor did she want to blame herself for anyone else yet to come. If she had the strength to stand, she swore solemnly, then she had the strength to keep going.
Arthur was a statue, who said nothing, and added very little to their reunion aside from existing. But Will was a relief to see, despite the torturous evidence of his latest hardships displayed across his face. He had bruises and cuts all over, and half his ear looked torn and burnt. She chided herself for staring at it. Too many people had stared at her own scars. Even though she knew Will would probably boast of each injury, she deeply knew that nobody should be made to feel an object of pity.
But there was not much time to catch up on all they’d missed. Arable explained about King Richard’s army, and the color drained from Will Scarlet’s face. After the full account, he just shook his head. “Fighting the Sheriff was one thing, but does this … does this make us traitors?”
“You might easily be tried as one, along with everyone else in this castle,” she answered. “That’s why we need to get to Prince John, and tell him what we know.”
“Well you’ll never get to him,” Will answered. “Nobody passes into the top bailey but his men. So unless you can scale the outside of that keep with nobody noticing, you’ll need another method.”
It said a lot that Arable actually considered it for a moment.
Will shook his head. “No offense, but you had the wrong plan. This is precisely why you need someone like me.”
“You have something?” she asked. “Another way in?”
“Listen, this isn’t sneakthieving—you can’t use tactics meant to keep you hidden when you’re trying to get to the very top. Not when the top is doing everything possible to protect himself. So work it out. There’s only one way up to the tower, so that’s what we have to use. And Prince John only lets things enter if he wants them to. So we have to be that.”
Arable didn’t follow. “We have to be what?”
“Something that he wants.” He nodded, scratching at his dark blond beard. “And thankfully, we are exactly that. We’re Robin Hood.”
It broke her heart to hear it. He meant for them to turn themselves in. If that was a reasonable plan, they could have done it before any of this, before the fighting even began. Everyone who’d already died would have been killed in vain if they did this. And they’d come so far, and were so close—literally yards away from the prince’s tower—just to surrender now?
“What if it doesn’t work?” She gaped. “That’s an all-or-nothing gamble. No going back, no second chances.”
He didn’t flinch. But he searched her eyes, and she could swear that his whole soul was there for the world to see. He looked tired, beaten—grieving. “You tell me. Is it really that important that we talk to the prince? Can we just sit this one out?”
Arable had been wondering the same thing all day. But David’s death had clinched it. “We can’t. Yes, it’s that important.”
“Then this is the only way.”
&nb
sp; Will turned to Arthur for approval, who made no noise, no reaction. His face was dead.
“Hell, I wasn’t going to last much longer up here anyway.” Will shrugged. “Down in the lower bailey I had more of a chance, but too many gords up here know my face. If I’m going out, let’s make it worth it.”
Arable bit back a tear, and shifted to the Delaneys. “I’ll go, but not you two. Stay hidden, if you can. If we fail, at least you can…” She was going to say try something else, but she was already certain this was the last option. “At least you can tell the others we tried.”
Nick and Peetey chewed their lips, but consented without argument.
Arable reached out for Will’s hand.
“I’ll go, too,” came Arthur’s voice. “For David.”
SIXTY-SIX
JOHN LACKLAND
THE HIGH KEEP, NOTTINGHAM CASTLE
THURSDAY, 26TH DAY OF MARCH
THE BREAD, BEING HARD as a rock, would suffice. John gave himself a running start and threw the inedible chunk as far as he could, only slightly hurting his arm in doing so. The ominous cocket flew out the window and into the world where nobody could ever break a tooth in trying to eat it, soaring and falling for ever and ever. If he closed one eye and ignored the scale, perhaps its unforgiving crust would land on King Philip’s front lines and smash them to pulp. The bread that ended the war. Le pain of pain. It was only fair, after all—Philip had been throwing rocks at John’s castle all day long, the least John could do is throw one back.
There were three French mangonels now, constructed overnight, that launched their stones at Nottingham’s upper walls. John had been doubly and triply assured by several men that the French could batter the middle bailey for a month and still it would not help them claim it. But a third of the castle had been lost in a single day, which made John want to throttle the necks of people who made assurances until they were a bit deader than he started.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
In rapid succession the latest barrage hit, which John watched from his window. The siege machinery rested on the hill north of the castle, in the middle of the French camps. They were close enough that John could count the banners, if he were more inclined toward boredom. He had to admire the audacity of the tactic—pretending that they were Richard! With fake sigils and everything! It was a lie so bold it might have worked on someone less inclined toward outlandish pranks himself. But John could see through the ruse, so now the French apparently intended on taking Nottingham down, three stones at a time.
The faces of the walls had taken the brunt of the assault, causing rubble to fall down into the lowest bailey where Philip’s men were easy targets for the archers above. Some buildings in the second bailey had taken damage as well—the castle garrison was currently clearing away the ruins of a collapsed wall of a stables. The only casualties were little more than broken windows, chipped edifices, endless annoyance, and lost sleep.
The fires below had petered out over the night into grey wisps in the morning, now fully exhausted. There were more oil casks in their arsenal, but John had ordered his sergeants to save them for the next time Philip tried to raise larger siege ladders all the way up to the middle bailey catwalks. At this point, it was simply a game of numbers. If Nottingham had enough resources to survive a prolonged siege, then Philip would give up when his armies became too burdensome to feed. Otherwise, John would end up as one more name on the list of his dead brothers who had never been king.
“Which is fine with me,” he said to the open window. “God keep me a prince. Still, a living prince would be preferable…”
Crack! Crack! Crack!
The top of the chapel in the second bailey took a stone and slumped onto itself, which seemed an appropriate response to John having used the word God. He reminded himself to pray to himself instead, as he was ever more reliable at delivering the things that made him happy.
He took an early dinner at the urging of the bishop Hugh de Nonant, whose resolve might have been the day’s only real loss. The brothers from Worcester had livelier spirits but were both uglier than the other, which made it difficult to enjoy any conversation with them that required eye contact. The proud Roger de Montbegon remained his stuffy self and insisted on making stuffier reports about the casualties, the diminishing reserve of arrow sheaves in the armory, and dire predictions of how long their food would last. None of it was much fun to listen to.
“Did you see the gallows?” asked the bishop, his voice whisper thin as if the thing were a beast that might be lurking behind the door.
“Of course I did,” John replied. It had been erected just out of arrow’s range to the north, where the French commanders had hanged men captured from the previous day’s sortie. “And by blanching so, you play into their hand. Philip hopes both to entertain his men, and intimidate us. By being intimidated, Nonant, you do their work for them. So smile and choose—as I do—to find it entertaining as well, before I punish you for being a French sympathizer.”
“Entertaining?” The man huffed and heaved himself into a stupor. “You find the execution of our men to be a source of amusement?”
“I find everything to be a source of amusement,” John answered dryly. “The alternative must surely mean I am less like me and more like you, and there is already too many of you in the world by one.”
The bishop’s mouth puckered, a dying fish. John, in a rare moment he hoped never to repeat, regretted his words. These men were his allies, and he had precious few of them.
“Settle,” he laughed, refilling the man’s wine. “Do forgive me my black humor. It’s my way, as it were—last son of the king, humor was the only distinguishing mark I could make in the world. I’m unaccustomed to having the weight of the world revolve around whether or not I’m alive, especially when so many people involved apparently wish I were not.”
“As you say, Your Grace.” Montbegon made a curt end of it, and revealed a ledger that meant he was prepared to vomit out more numbers that John could not possibly do anything about.
Crack! Crack! Crack! They all turned their attention slightly to the window, but not a single boulder smashed through it to pulverize them to gore and gristle. Instead, a great sigh of disappointment came from below, and John wondered what was crushed to cause such a curious reaction. “We need to relax for a bit. I doubt there are any actors or musicians in the castle, but are there at least any matters to tend to that have any importance less than the death of all things?”
“In need of a distraction?” asked the ugly Worcester brother. “Is that why you emptied your wine out the window earlier today?”
John was flattered. “I didn’t realize anyone noticed that.”
“I did,” said the other brother, the ugly one. “It landed in your nephew’s camp! He was furious, he thought you were mocking him!”
“Oh.” John winced. Gilbert de Clare was his wife’s nephew, although John loved Isabel just as much as he’d loved the wine he’d thrown out. But family was family, so the good Earl of Hertford had brought a small complement of men to help John defend Nottingham. “I’ll make it up to him someday, if we all do a good job of living so long. If it makes a difference, I was trying to hit King Philip.”
“With wine? From the high keep?” gasped the first Worcester brother, the ugly one. “And here I defended you when they said you were mad!”
“Don’t bother.” John waved his fingers with some intentional mischief. “Let them think that. Keep me mad, keep me mad. Until Richard returns, heaven keep me mad! The last thing I need is more people wanting me to be king!”
It was a perilous game to play. The French wanted to kill him, that Arthur Plantagenet could be king in Richard’s absence. John needed to avoid that, but not at the price of becoming king himself. He didn’t want to become the lesser of two evils, he had to be exactly as unfavorable as a French invasion force.
Perhaps I should actually go mad, he thought. It would be a lot easier than pretending at it.
>
“I may have a good distraction for you, Your Grace,” suggested William Brewer. The loyal Sheriff of Devon had come a long way for his promotion to High Sheriff, and he might actually keep it if Nottingham stood long enough. “My men captured a trio of saboteurs yesterday, who claimed that they were—collectively—Robin Hood.”
John wrapped his mind around the logic of such a statement. “Contortionists, then? What of it? I thought we had lanced that particular boil with the archery tournament. How can there still be any of them left?”
“Well, the curious part is they turned themselves in.” Brewer’s tone implied he legitimately found it intriguing. “And more—in exchange, they only wanted one thing. Which was to parley with you. We denied them of course, and locked them in the kennels. I only bring it up now because we were having a laugh about it last night. If you’re in need of entertainment…”
“Perhaps.” John considered it. They likely wanted a parley just to piss and moan about what John had done at the tournament.
Then again, watching other people piss and moan about things he’d done was a fairly delightful thing to watch.
“After dinner, if there’s time,” he said.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
* * *
“IS IT A GAME?” John clapped his hands together, more delighted than he ought to be at the arrival of these three dour strangers. He wished he could blame the wine, but there had not been nearly enough of the stuff—which tasted too strongly of vinegar, anyway—for him to be drunk. He’d long ago calculated the volume of wine it took to make him slap-happy, which was exactly one glass more than a lot and one fewer than a shit lot. He had not come even close to that number tonight, so he regretfully agreed that he might just be the sort of person who gets giddy at the thought of games.
“I’m to unpuzzle which one of these is really Robin Hood?” he asked, giving each of the captives a cursory glance. Not the girl, obviously. He’d met the original Robin Hood once, and—
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