Lionhearts

by Nathan Makaryk

  “What the fuck ya doin’ here?” Zinn screamed, stamping her feet. “You goddamn slag.”

  It was good to see her. It was good to know she’d survived after fleeing from the dockmaster’s office, when Will had surrendered himself for her life. Good to see she’d continued her habit of rising.

  Good to know Will was still capable of caring.

  “But she’ll get killed here,” Elena said, and demonstrated by stabbing Much through the neck.

  “I’m hoping you’ve seen Arthur,” Will said. “I’m here—”

  “I can’t fucking believe it.” Zinn threw her hands in the air, turned back to look at something Will couldn’t make out, before the fire. She flicked the tails of her coat out and flopped down onto a shelf of the rock, her shoulders slumped in defeat. “I’m sorry. I really am.”

  “Sorry for what?”

  “You shouldn’t’a come.”

  A larger shape came into focus now behind her, moving with a careful gait. “I do like being right,” came an older voice, male. Its owner’s name was only on the tip of Will’s memory, but his nerves recalled the danger of its tone. “And I knew you’d come.”

  “He’s been waiting for you here,” Zinn explained. “I told him to fuck himself, that you weren’t dumb enough to come here. Way to fucking prove me wrong.”

  “Oooh, I know you.” It snapped into place. Will squinted at the stranger. “Didn’t I put a knife to your neck last time?”

  “You did do that,” confirmed Lord Beneger de Wendenal. “Though I also put a fist through your face, so do you really want to gloat about last times?”

  Elena laughed at that. He hated that she was right.

  But Wendenal did not look like he had the strength to put a fist through anything at the moment. One arm was trapped tight to his chest in a sling, and his face was pale and sickly. “You’re a man eager to die,” the man said, “and yet you refuse to do so. I wonder if you’re still interested in that duel?”

  Will laughed, because every word the man said was truer than the last. “Oh, gladly.” His twins were long lost to some Nottingham armory, but there would never be a day when Will Scarlet needed a blade to take out an old man who was both one-armed and unarmed.

  A whistle to his right stopped that thought cold, as another figure revealed itself from the edge of the room. She held a bow limply in one hand, three arrows dripped from the fingers of the other, and the harsh orange light revealed only the dead half of her face.

  Will had spent most of his life taking his chances against impossible odds, but his gut sank into the floor at the prospect of going up against the Lace Jackal. The woman who had bested Freddy at the archery tournament, the woman who had threatened to let Zinn be gang-raped when last they’d met. The woman whose uncle died at Will’s hands.

  Elena covered Much’s eyes and withdrew to an alcove.

  “Zinn,” Will said with caution, wondering if he had any allies. “Are you hiding anyone else here who wants to kill me?”

  “Don’t blame me for steppin’ in yer own shit.” She clicked the heels of her boots on the ground.

  The Lace Jackal had barely moved. Her frame was at once full of energy, ready to spring at a thought, and impressively relaxed. Both her eyes were half-slit, one full of an unfathomable fury, the other with apathy. They were, Will could not disagree, the two most common impressions he left on people.

  “You’ll answer me first, though.” Lord Wendenal coughed. “Did you kill my son?”

  At that, Will could be surprised. “Your son? No.” He tried to recall his few interactions with the late William de Wendenal. “I met him a handful of times, can’t say I liked him much. But no. That was Robin. Far as I know.”

  “As a father, I beg you,” Lord Wendenal’s eyes were suddenly wet, “to tell me the truth. I’ve been side by side with many of your old crew this last week, and never asked them, not once, because I knew they would lie. Or protect you. I have come a long way to know this one thing, do not deny it to me. I ask again. Did you kill my son?”

  Will didn’t have it in him to bite or bark. “I did not. I swear it.”

  Lord Wendenal’s eyes closed, but he almost seemed to expect the answer. “I’m told Locksley did not go to the castle alone the night my son was killed. If not you, then who?”

  “John, and Arable,” Will answered, maybe too quickly. “But neither ever saw your son. Arable stayed outside the castle, and John got separated from Robin and retreated.” They had both recounted their stories a dozen times, for those who wanted to know what happened that night. “It was Robin—and Robin alone—that did it. And he’s dead.”

  The grieving father of Nottingham stared, the muscles at the corner of his lips tensing. Eventually he inhaled a long unsatisfied breath, and withdrew. “He’s yours, then, Jacelyn. I envy you.”

  She did not respond to him, she’d simply been waiting her turn. “You killed my uncle.”

  It wasn’t a question. And this one, Will could hardly deny. Will hadn’t seen the Sheriff of Nottingham as an uncle then. He wasn’t anyone’s family, he wasn’t any one thing besides the reason Much was dead. He and Elena, they’d both buried their knives into Roger de Lacy’s chest half a dozen times, thinking they’d changed the world.

  “I did,” he said.

  The gesture was practically a flick, her two hands glanced apart like she was peeling an onion, but it sprung the first arrow from her bow and stuck it in Will’s thigh—high, just barely below his hip—and his leg crumpled beneath him. The pain of his kneecap hitting the rock floor was almost worse than the puncture, and he clasped both hands over the wound in agony. His muscles quivered as the sting made white lightning of his nerves, while he gave the arrow a gentle nudge and found that it could move. He eased it out of the hole in his muscle, thankful that its head had a leaf shape instead of barbs. He smashed his palm over the wound, wincing as blood came to meet him, while his other hand turned the arrow around and held it out at her, as if he were ready to fence with it.

  “F-f-fuck,” he said. He meant to say something else, something far more clever, but the pain was overwhelming. He’d never been shot with an arrow before, and it was shocking how deep the pain was. Any second now, he’d probably have another matching wound in his other leg.

  “Stop it!” came Zinn’s voice, and Will blinked away his shivers. Zinn stepped in front of him, blocking Jacelyn de Lacy’s next shot. Will tried to yell at her, but his throat was still clenched tight. “You said you weren’t going to kill him.”

  “No I didn’t.” Lord Wendenal’s head tilted. He exchanged a confused look with the Jackal. “We didn’t say that at all.”

  “Oh.” Zinn seemed surprised. “Well … don’t kill him.”

  “That’s … that’s why we’re here.”

  “Oh.”

  She let her little hook knife drop from her hand. It bobbed a few inches above the ground, held by the tether still wrapped around her palm. A twist of her wrist and it started a circle, slow, floating in front of her as if it might somehow intercept the next arrow.

  “Knock it, Zinn!” Will yelled, furious how difficult it was to breathe. “Get out of the way!”

  “Naw, they’re in my house,” Zinn replied. A twitch of her head sent her hair flopping over the shaved half of her skull. “They want to kill you topside, that’s one thing. But not down here.”

  Will spared a glance over to the other children, who had stopped their dance around the fire and stood closer now, watching.

  Elena stood up and bounded over to them. “Oh goodness, how many Muches get to die today?”

  She spun like a dancer in a minstrel show, a knife in each hand, slicing through their throats as she span, a great red ribbon of blood swirling around her as she moved until it became a sphere that obscured her, though her laughter only grew louder.

  “No!” he yelled, and against all good sense Will rolled up and struggled to his feet, keeping all his weight on his right foot. He threw th
e arrow at Zinn’s back, which tumbled uselessly but got her attention. When she met his eyes her lips parted, her weapon slowed. “No. Not you. Not any of them. God, what would be the point?”

  This last word he screamed, it came back at him from down the halls a few times until there was nothing in the room but the crackling throne.

  “They kill me, you kill them, they kill you, someone else kills them, again and again, it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t fucking matter! Where does it end? Whose revenge goes last? Fuck, the world doesn’t care, it just doesn’t. This war, this fucking war, didn’t give the first damn what we want from the world, not one hot goddamn. And soon as it’s over here we are again, pointing steel at each other and crying vengeance. Stand down, Zinn. I’ve got to die, that’s obvious. But let’s end it there. Let’s just … let’s just end it there.”

  Zinn’s eyes widened as if she’d never heard that kind of idea before. Maybe she hadn’t. Maybe nobody had ever told her that you don’t have to fight back. Maybe nobody ever told her that a slight can go unpunished. Maybe nobody ever explained strength to her as anything other than a thing she didn’t have. Maybe she was raised thinking the only way to succeed was for others to fail, and that the reason she hurt was that other people didn’t. Maybe, just maybe, she would finally learn something new. With her nose in the mud of the Nottingham streets, she could only think in terms of left and right.

  Maybe nobody had ever taught her the direction of up.

  Elena touched Will’s chin, she drew him down calmly, she sat with her legs crossed and invited him to join her. So he did. It was an odd thing, knowing it was the last time he would ever sit down. It was the most relaxing feeling he’d ever known. His feet would never carry his weight—or the weight of all his mistakes—ever again. He crossed his legs, too, letting the blood flow from his wound. He smiled with Elena, whose eyes were full of tears. His thigh was numb, but his heart … his heart, damn it, for the first time in a while, it was joyful.

  “Hoping to make your peace?” the Jackal asked, a sneer in her lip. “Or maybe hoping I’ll think twice if you seem remorseful? I won’t. You stabbed my uncle to death in his office, wearing a Guardsman’s tabard. You’re the reason there’s a hell.”

  She lowered her bow to the ground and drew a curious weapon from her side, a heavy sword that did not end with a point but a wide, flat edge. This was not a blade made for fighting, it was designed for the singular purpose of separating a man’s head from his shoulders. Will shrugged. It was as good a way as any.

  Beside her, Beneger de Wendenal’s face was haunted, and Will knew why. “You don’t know how your son died,” Will said, with actual sympathy. “And you probably never will.”

  Wendenal shook his head, just barely. What a monstrous thing.

  “At least you were there for me.” Elena tugged Will’s fingertip. He had that. Elena had been in his arms, until the very end. And suddenly he wanted to apologize to Marion, too, who would never know how Robin died. He wondered what that had done to her, and whether he could’ve been more understanding. Too late now.

  “I’m sorry,” he said to Wendenal, and meant it. He looked to the Jackal. Jacelyn. “I can tell you, at least. It went quickly, for your uncle. He wasn’t scared—or if he was, he was scared for us. He tried to protect us. Even with his final breaths, he seemed more worried about what it meant for us than himself. I hated him then, you know. I thought he was the reason I was hurting. But it doesn’t really work like that.”

  Jacelyn exhaled from her nose.

  “What was he like?” Will asked.

  “Who?”

  “Your uncle. Roger de Lacy.”

  The muscles in her neck clenched. “I don’t know. I never met him.”

  It took a few seconds for Will to really understand that, and then he laughed.

  “I only knew him through letters,” Jacelyn continued, her voice oddly disconnected from her body. “And even still, he was my favorite of my family. He didn’t talk down to me. Every letter felt like we were … conspirators together. He didn’t pity me. Actually…” Her breath haltered. “Actually I memorized one of his letters. He said, ‘I have heard tell of your affliction, and I am truly sorry. I can think of no greater handicap in this world than to be related to your mother. What a cruel hand you have been dealt.’”

  Exactly half her face rippled with emotion.

  “Is it a burn wound?” Will asked.

  She shook her head, her focus on the ground. “Just born this way.”

  “And that’s why you liked your uncle? Because he never saw your face?”

  She didn’t answer, though she did look him in the eye.

  “Come on,” Elena said. “Stop talking. I’m waiting for you.”

  “My family didn’t trust him,” Jacelyn said. “I never had an opportunity to thank him for treating me with decency. That was my first regret in life. My second, was playing any part in releasing you from prison.”

  Will laughed again, thinking of that escape last November. Arable, bringing them the keys, fleeing Nottingham—victorious. No idea they were being followed. “We thought we were so clever. We thought we were free.”

  “Losing you was like losing him again,” she said, and twisted the heft of her weapon.

  “So … is having me here,” he asked, just on instinct, “like having him back again?”

  She stared at him for a long time, so long that he almost forgot which one of her eyes actually worked.

  “No.” The blade returned to her side, she picked up her bow, and she walked away without looking back even once.

  Lord Wendenal called her name twice, but in a dozen steps she was out of the chamber.

  Will didn’t breathe until her footsteps were gone, until her presence might have just been a dream. Wendenal’s eyes narrowed on him, as if he were trying to calculate what the trick was. And then, with just as little warning as Jacelyn de Lacy, he turned away. He watched the flames in silence for a bit, oblivious that Will was still there bleeding on the floor, and then wandered off toward another exit, with absolutely no urgency.

  Will sighed. “Well somebody better kill me.”

  “I could kill you,” Zinn offered.

  She slapped his shoulder, and eased him onto his back, raising his foot up. She tore into his leggings with her knife and cut away to expose the wound, but Will could do very little besides stare up at the pulsing rock shadows on the ceiling of the cave. His thoughts were blank and patient.

  “Hurry up,” Elena begged him. “I miss you.”

  “I can sew this up,” was Zinn’s voice.

  Will doubted he’d be around long enough. His leg was cold, his fingers tingled.

  “I’ll fuck every man you’ve ever killed if you don’t come to me right now.”

  “No you won’t,” Will answered.

  “What?”

  “Let me go,” he told her.

  “You’re a job, old man,” Zinn said. Her hair tickled his nose. He didn’t even realize his eyes had closed. “I can’t believe you’re not dead.”

  “Give me a few minutes,” Will promised. “I won’t disappoint.”

  She laughed. “What, you think you’re dying? You took an arrow to the leg, you idiot. Stop being dramatic. And if you don’t want a limp for the rest of your life, stop fidgeting.”

  Elena shrugged. “What do I know?”

  “You should get out of Nottingham,” Will said, to Zinn. “Gangs won’t be safe for a while, they’ll eat each other up trying to fill the void.”

  “One step ahead of you,” she answered. “Gilbert said the same thing.”

  “Gilbert?”

  “Yeah, he’s down here, too. Me an’ him an’ a dozen of these runts. We weren’t planning on sticking around, so thanks for your brilliant old man advice.” She tied the strap around his thigh so tight he grunted. “Why’d you come, anyhow?”

  He opened his eyes to look at her, her and her beautiful, arrogant spite at the world, a costume that
was ready to crack open. Underneath all that snark, the real Zinn was waiting somewhere. “I came for you,” he said to that person.

  “Take care of him,” Elena whispered to Zinn, and took Much’s hand.

  Zinn rolled her eyes, momentarily full of that insolent rage of hers. “Please. I don’t need you to rescue me.”

  “No.” He reached out and caught her elbow. “You don’t get it. I need you

  to

  rescue me.”

  SEVENTY-THREE

  BENEGER DE WENDENAL

  NOTTINGHAM

  BEN’S RETURN TO THE castle was marked by a queer feeling, a sensation that Nottingham was muted to him. While commotion was everywhere, and every pocket was populated thrice-over more than would have been uncomfortable, Ben viewed it all as if through a tunnel. He’d left the traitor Will Scarlet alive, and in so doing had mentally turned the page on this city. The cobbled streets through which he had so recently led armed charges were now rendered a waste of his time. This city’s people would go on with their lives and heal from this madness, as would Ben. But Ben would do so in Derbyshire, and had every desire to leave as soon as possible.

  This city, to his shame, had beaten him for its third and final time.

  But there were requirements, of course. Tomorrow was Sunday, and King Richard would spend the day in a public council, meeting with all those who had grievances to bear. There were men who would receive punishments—others, laurels—and it was generally frowned upon to leave the city before the king had sorted it all out. But Ben was drawn to consider it. His only reasons for being here were gone, leaving him a stranger in a place he despised.

  He looked down at his arm, confined in the wraps of his sling. His entire hand was numb to sensation, and seemed to be getting worse. Ben had seen too many injuries in his life to hope that this would end with anything short of him losing the limb. The physicker had told him to give it a few days, and wait until it started to stink or turn black to make the decision. By then, Ben would be home, at least. Nottingham wouldn’t claim that piece of him.