Scarlet

by A. C. Gaughen

  I nabbed some silver and food from the keep and were leaving at dusk when I heard someone making an awful racket. I ducked down one of the alleyways of shacks that made up Nottingham’s town, and sure enough, right by the castle wall, I found a girl in a pretty red dress crying her eyes out.

  I came over to her and looked down the way, making sure there were no one to bother her. “Come on,” I told her soft. “I’ll get you home.”

  She looked up at me, and my heart kind of stuck in my throat. It weren’t Joanna by any stretch, but she had yellow hair and blue eyes, and for a second it looked like her. My hand were already out and she took it. “Thank you, sir.”

  I helped her stand up, and she leaned on me. “What’s your name?”

  “Alice.”

  “Where’s your home?”

  She shook her head. “I live inside the castle. I’m one of the maids.”

  “Why you crying, then?”

  She burst into tears again, and I didn’t know what to do. “S-s-sh,” were all she managed.

  “Hush,” I told her. I pulled out a roll from my pouch. “Here, eat something.”

  She took the roll and managed a few bites of it. “’S terrible work,” she said. “Me and the girls all know. It’s better if the sheriff takes a shine to you, you know? He’s kinder then. Gives you money and lets you skip some chores and feeds you more too. It’s not so bad. And he was so nice to me—I thought he really loved me. But I t-told him it’s his baby,” she said, pressing her hand against her tummy. The breath whooshed out of me. “And he hit me!” she wailed, fizzing up into tears again.

  “Listen,” I said, thinking quick. “I know someplace you can go. The keep won’t mind you having one on the way, and the work’s not too bad. You’ll be right as rain.”

  “Are you mad?” she cried, pushing away from me. “You think I can leave this place? I can’t, not ever. He’d send Gisbourne to kill me, he told me.”

  “Gisbourne’s a thief taker, not a hireling. The sheriff can’t order him about as he pleases.”

  She shook her head, turning back to the castle. “You’re a stupid boy. You don’t know anything of how the world is.”

  I shook my head too, watching her scamper back into the castle.

  I waited as long as I could to meet up with the lads, going up by Thoresby Lake and waiting till stars popped out overhead. Too many thoughts were rolling inside me, thoughts of Joanna and London and those last final days that I never liked to think of much.

  When I thought of Joanna, there were days I wanted to remember. When we first ran away to London, we still had money in our purses, and it felt like the world were opened up wide to us in a single breath, like we never had to listen to no one again and everything would be perfect. Like we had cheated fate.

  ’Course, fate were right around the corner, waiting. Fate never stopped following me—not now, when just as I thought I were free Gisbourne came blazing back into my life like a hell beast, and not then—in those terrible days in London when the money were gone and Joanna and I both turned our own kind of desperate.

  That were why it were no use to think on Joanna. Everything ran back to London, to those last days.

  I were right tired, that were all. The sheriff’s poor Alice weren’t no Joanna and I couldn’t fix neither of them, and I had no business thinking of such things anyway. People who wanted my help needed it tonight.

  I saved one roll for myself, chewing on it slow. Maybe if I could just eat I wouldn’t get stuck on the past quite so much.

  The quiet night were falling, so I went to Tuck’s, but it were a slow sort of going.

  I walked straight into a storm.

  The boys were waiting for me outside Tuck’s, and Rob nodded me forward, walking off into the night toward the cave.

  “The sheriff caught Godfrey and Ravenna,” Rob told me.

  “Caught?” I asked.

  “Lady Thoresby told us they’re accused of trapping a rabbit.”

  “That’s not poaching!” I protested.

  “I think the sheriff is punishing Godfrey because he didn’t get us. Sheriff thinks he lied to him.”

  “He didn’t promise them us,” I argued.

  “The sheriff doesn’t give a damn!” Rob snapped at me. “And he’s going to hang them with whatever thieves Gisbourne can round up.”

  I felt my cheeks blush. I hated when he yelled at me.

  “We’ll have a few days yet if he wants a big hanging,” John said.

  “Possibly even a week or so,” Much agreed.

  “I’m sure we can wrangle something up to keep him busy for two weeks, can’t we Scar?” John asked with a smile.

  I looked away, and I felt Rob’s eyes burning holes in me. “Let’s just break them out of the prison tonight and make no bother of the lot.”

  “Get it done. I want this done,” Rob said. He rubbed his head. “And we all need sleep before we do anything. Even you, Scar.”

  I shrugged. I were fair tired, anyway. We stayed quiet till we reached the cave, and once there, Much handed out some bread to all of us. I took mine and went to sit on top of the ridge above the cave.

  “Scar,” John called. He bounded up the ridge and sat beside me.

  “You aren’t fixing to watch me eat, are you?”

  “No,” he said, biting into his bread. I bit mine. “How you feeling, anyway?”

  I lifted my shoulder, not bothering to talk. Awful. I felt awful.

  “What’s your plan for the prison?”

  “Don’t know. Need to think on it. Whatever we do, we can’t never use it again, because Gisbourne will figure it out and fix it. Think maybe we should save the tunnel for later.”

  “How do you reckon to get in, then?”

  I grinned. “I got ways, John Little.”

  His eyes looked me over in a funny way. “You don’t need to tell me, Scar.”

  My cheeks went hot without me knowing much why, and it were light enough that he could tell, which made the whole matter worse.

  “You ain’t half bad when you blush, Scar.”

  “What happened to me being a coward?”

  He shrugged. “I think I’m starting to figure you out. You steal all this food and eat none; you had a friend that you loved. Really, I’m starting to think you’re pretty tough—but with a bit of a soft belly.”

  “What friend?” I asked. I never loved any friend of mine. Never much had a friend.

  “That Leaford girl. When you talked about her, it was obvious how much you cared about her.”

  I felt the blush slide right off my mug.

  “You don’t like to talk about much, Scar, and don’t worry, I’m not asking. You don’t have to talk about your friend. But yeah, I think I’m figuring you out. Slowly, of course.”

  I smiled a little, but not a real sure smile, and stared off into the night. I waited until everyone else went to sleep, and when I went into the cave, I mounded my bed far from John. Were this his way of shining on me? After all this fighting?

  I slept, but it weren’t a real restful sleep.

  I went to have a lookabout round the prison the next afternoon, and Rob said he’d come with me. I nodded, waiting for him to run up ’longside me. He had his dark hood up, and I had my hat down low.

  “You angry at me for something?” I asked him after a little bit.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Usually you talk. And you yelled at me last night.”

  He turned to look at me, but I didn’t look back. “I hate what’s going on. Can’t believe they arrested the twins; Godfrey was only trying to keep his sister safe, and they throw him and his sister in prison—and she had nothing to do with it.”

  “I’ll get them out,” I told him.

  “It’ll be years until Richard’s back. It took him as long as I was there to conquer the city of Acre, which is miles outside the Holy Land, and he won’t come home until he takes Jerusalem. How can we fight back this flood for years more? Ho
w can this situation continue?”

  I crunched a branch underfoot, sneaking a look at him. I knew my heart weren’t never too sure ’bout many things, but if I ever could, I wanted to be sure for Rob. That way when his heart stumbled, I could be sure for the both of us. “It’s like you said, Rob. We do what we do because there’s something we can do about it. Things like ‘how long’ and ‘what if’ aren’t part of that. It’s about the hope, not the horror.” Thoughts of London welled up in my pipes but I kept going. “And for that matter, you know all about the horrors, just like I do, just like John does, just like Much. We shoulder it so these people don’t have to know it too. And I know this because that’s what you say. And when you say it, I believe you. And when I believe you, I’ll follow you anywhere.”

  His eyes closed, and he nodded. “You have more faith in me than I do for myself sometimes, Scar.”

  “Well, that’s right as rain,” I told him. “You don’t need to be sure of yourself all the time. Fact, it’s a little more bearable when you ain’t.”

  He smiled a little, looking at me. “You think I’m unbearable?”

  I shrugged. “Sure. You ain’t like nobody else. Sometimes I don’t know what to make of you at all.”

  “This coming from the thieving, knife-throwing outlaw girl. As if there were anyone like you in the wide world.”

  “Yeah, but you see right through me.”

  “It’s not that I see through you,” he told me. “It’s that I see you. You don’t want anyone to see you, but I do.”

  I nodded, and my old bruise started beating under my hat. “Wish you didn’t, sometimes.”

  He sighed. “Sometimes I wish I didn’t too. It would certainly be easier,” he said soft.

  That knifed into my belly like a hot ax. I knew that, as far as souls went, mine were black as tar and, like my face, it were strange and scarred. Somehow, some part of me always thought Rob saw me as different than all that, though, saw the good bits of me as better than the ugly bits.

  That weren’t the way of it at all, clear as day. Rob saw the tar and the scars and wished he never peeked at all.

  I didn’t look up or speak the rest of the way there.

  We spent several hours in Nottingham, which were tough for Rob. People could recognize him there, so he stayed out of the castle proper while I found a way in.

  When I met up with Rob again, it weren’t with good news.

  “Gisbourne is fussing with everything. He’s changing the guard shifts—he’s doubling them on the prison and on the gate and ordering them to move around at night. He knows I can get in but he don’t know how.”

  “How many ways do you know?”

  “The tunnel’s my best way in. I can get over the wall in a trice without them seeing me, but the tough bit is getting others over.” I stopped, my eyes going wide. “I know what we can do.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Well, they’ll be expecting us to break Godfrey and Ravenna out, won’t they? They’ll be guarding the prison extra just for it.”

  “So?”

  “So let’s give them what they expect.”

  His eyebrows pulled together tight. “You want us to walk into a trap? Or, rather, a heavily guarded prison that might as well be a trap?”

  I grinned, setting off. “Nail on the head, Rob!”

  “Wait, Scar, that makes no sense.”

  I kept walking.

  “Scar!”

  “You’ve gone completely mad,” John told me, again. Again and again. And again. Rob and Much said nothing, but they were with me too.

  “Stop saying that. It’s bad luck.”

  “You don’t need luck—you need to not go in there.”

  “Since when are you antsy about scaring up some trouble, John?” Much asked.

  He glared. “Since she’s taking far too much risk on her shoulders. They’re little shoulders, if you lot haven’t noticed.”

  “She’ll be fine, John. It’s a good idea,” Rob said, rougher than I would have thought. Honestly, the lug were just worried.

  “I’m holding you responsible, Huntingdon,” John snapped. “Remember that you’re the one who agreed to all this.”

  I slapped John’s stomach. We never called Rob by his title. “In case you forgot, John Little, we don’t look back once we agree on a plan. Stop casting bad luck round.” I spat on the ground; it were supposed to send off bad spirits.

  I looked up at the sky. It were a dark, clouded sky without a moon, like a better thief than me stole the light to help us hide. We climbed the wall, scaling the rough stone by moving quick and never searching out much of a foothold. Only Much couldn’t fair get it, and John climbed back down and did it again with Much on his back, like he’d done Freddy the other time.

  Rob and I went over the wall to the parapet, looking for the roving guards. One came through and we separated, each flipping over the side of the guard’s walk at the top of the wall to hide in the dark. The side I flipped over, of course, left me dangling above the castle residences. I lowered myself onto one careful, hiding on the back of the roof.

  Rob came down, and then John and Much came a few minutes later. Once we were all there, I dropped down into the central courtyard, looking straight into Gisbourne’s chambers. The room were lit, but he weren’t there, and that chilled me a little.

  One by one we dropped down, then ran across the upper bailey and down through the gauntlet. There were more guards on, and they were moving, but they still tended to group together and leave areas unprotected. We knew how to move in the darkness unseen, but I knew the Mason twins wouldn’t be so good at it.

  Once we got to the prison, I went round the side of the lads while John came in from the front, bumbling like a drunk. The two guards from the front threw their gaze to him, and I slid in behind them. I heard John shouting at them as I ran deep into the prison.

  The rough rock walls gave way to cells, a lone candle guttering in the front to cast light over the place. I could see the cells and the people within, and I stopped dead.

  Something were wrong. ’Ever I set foot in the prison, they’d all be whispering and calling to me, begging for help or helping me find who I needed. They were all dead quiet, and I didn’t flatter myself that they couldn’t see me.

  I stopped at Jack Tailor’s cell. We had tried once to help him get out of there, but he wouldn’t go; he didn’t want no backlash on his family. He said it weren’t worth the price of being free. That were a few months ago; I wondered if he might change his mind if he thought there’d be some hangings soon.

  He came to the front of his cell, meeting my eyes and then looking over toward the back of the prison. I drew my finger down between my eyes, trying to ape the nosepiece that were on the guards’ helmets.

  He shook his head.

  I nodded. It weren’t a guard, then. That meant it could be someone I didn’t need to bother ’bout none—or Nottingham. Or Gisbourne.

  Either way, I had to move quick. “Mason?” I mouthed. Tailor pointed to a cell farther down. I would have to be quicksilver. I nodded my thanks and moved into the darker end of the prison.

  I could feel someone there. I could hear soft breathing, measured and even, and, worse, I could feel his eyes on me. Watching me. Hunting me. Somewhere in my gut, I were sure it were Gisbourne, standing in the shadow just beyond me like he’d always done.

  Didn’t matter none. Couldn’t turn back now.

  I slid the package from my back. It would fit through the bars. I moved quiet along the cells, looking for the twins. My heart were drumming up a storm. I just had to be steady, I kept reminding myself.

  It were nineteen paces and six cells in that I found them. They rushed forward and I pressed the package through the bars. “Have faith,” I whispered, gripping Ravenna’s hand on the bar and meeting her eyes, trying to somehow show her everything that I couldn’t tell her and her brother.

  A huge hand came out and grabbed my neck, ripping me back from the bars. I
fell back against the other cell across the row, and even in the dark I knew the Devil when I saw him.

  “Gisbourne.”

  He pulled back, surprised that I knew his name, and I didn’t sit around gawping. I bolted. “John!” I barked as I cleared the prison gate. He threw off the guards and snapped a couple quick punches, and we set off running.

  Rob were running ahead of us, and Much were on the roof, waiting to grab him with his good arm and toss him up. Then Rob hauled John up while I scrambled up the wall. We were over the wall as archers started setting in.

  The archers shot, but there were big brass bowls full of fire right on the parapet, and they couldn’t see into the dark beyond that. We skittered right down the wall and scampered quick into the forest.

  We ran for a while, and Rob called us all to stop by a stream. We drank, and I pulled onto a tree branch. “Well?” Rob asked.

  “Went perfect,” I told him. “Now that they think we’ve tried and failed, we’ll be set to get them out tomorrow. Got the package in, so they’ll think we’ve been getting people out dressed as guards. And they did keep a man inside, like I thought they might.”

  John sighed. “Christ, you had me, Scar. When you came running hell for leather, I thought everything was done.”

  I shrugged. “It were Gisbourne. But the twins looked hale and hearty, and we’ll get them out tomorrow.”

  Rob nodded. “So far, your plan is flawless, Scar.”

  I started to smile, but him saying he wished he never saw me popped into my ears. I looked down instead. “We’ll know tomorrow.”

  He nodded again. “We should all get some sleep. Tomorrow will be complicated enough.”

  When we rose, my heart were unsteady. Seeing Gisbourne’s face so close had rattled me sure, and though it had been dead dark, there were some tiny terror in me that he’d known me.

  He couldn’t have known me. It were too dark, and besides, I’ve changed.

  ’Course, there were the eyes. He could know the eyes. And the scar.

  But the light were too low for him to get a fair look at either. He couldn’t have known me.