His smile faded. “Prince John came through many days ago, and gave an urgent call for the knights of the shire to aid him in collecting the king’s ransom. The knights went. Two days later, men on horseback came at dawn. Their only goal was destruction, and they made neat work of it.” Rob’s throat worked.
“Were they knights?” I asked.
“Yes and no,” Rob said. “I’m fairly certain they were the same men, but they weren’t wearing colors or armor. Our few remaining knights tried to keep them out of the gate. It didn’t work, but it bought enough time, and people flooded to the castle, thinking I would be able to protect them there. The men started to burn the city, and then they came for the castle.”
“He got people out through the tunnel,” Much told me.
“The tunnel? I thought they blocked that,” I said, looking at Rob.
He lifted a shoulder. “Not well. I opened it while I was sheriff.”
My mouth tightened. Why would he have done that? I couldn’t guess, but it felt like it had something to do with me. With me being away from him.
“He sent word to me,” Much said. “And I got everyone from the villages to the forest before they could come for their homes too.”
People squished closer to one another at this, like being close would prevent it from being true. Or maybe from happening again. Or both.
“Who were the people on the battlements?” David asked soft.
“Two of the knights that remained,” Rob said. “The others were just people that didn’t come to the castle fast enough.” He shook his head, looking grim. “They just killed whoever they could get their hands on. Like life meant nothing to them.”
“They didn’t get their hands on many,” said another voice, coming through the gathered people. “Thanks to you, Sheriff.”
People moved aside to let Bess through, and I saw why. She were heavy with child, big and round and slow in the way she walked. Much stood, taking her hand and guiding her to him, and when she were close enough, he kissed her cheek. She gave him a gentle smile and sat down. He sat beside her, and she moved closer to him, leaning into his form.
Much’s eyes closed for a moment, like it were a joy to have her close to him. And then they opened, and looked at me. “You remember Bess, Scar?”
Loosing Rob’s hand, I stood and knelt by her so I could hug her. She touched my back to do it, and I stiffened but didn’t pull away. “You look—you’re . . .” I couldn’t. I had no words to say to her, when all I could see when I looked at her were John, dead in the snow.
“I’m Bess Miller now,” she told me. She fished a simple ring on a thread from around her neck with a smile. “I used to wear it on my finger but my fingers have gotten fat,” she told me, holding her hand up like I could tell it were thicker. I couldn’t.
Much took her hand, smiling at her, and it took me a breath to remember Miller were Much’s family name. She were Much’s wife. Much, who were bare a man. “Congratulations,” I said, stunned.
She covered my hand with a watery smile. “Thank you, Scarlet.”
“I’m sorry . . . I wish I had been here for the wedding,” I said, looking to Much.
He shrugged, and his throat worked. “You were dead, Scarlet,” he said. “Everyone said for months that you were. You’re not, and that’s more than I could have ever hoped for.”
“We have had enough of death,” Bess said. “Scarlet, please tell us your story. You cheated Death.”
A stone settled inside my chest, and I could bare breathe around it. Cheated Death—no, I brought death straight to their doors.
“There’s not much to tell,” I said, shrugging and going back to Rob.
“Not much to tell!” Allan laughed. “I’ll tell you her stories, if the lady won’t. First, the prince stole her from the gaze of the queen mother, hiding her in prisons round the country. Then he ordered for her to be killed in true, and her valiant knight, Sir David, fought them off—and nearly got her killed in London, where I saved her from hordes of rioters!”
David scoffed and rolled his eyes.
“Why did he change his mind?” Rob asked, quiet, looking at me. “Why hide you one moment to kill you the next?”
“Prince John is going to try to prevent Richard from coming home,” I whispered to him.
“What?” Rob asked, frowning.
“And then, determined to protect her father—”
“Enough, Allan,” I said sharp. Everyone looked at me, and Allan looked hurt. “These aren’t stories. This is my life. And I don’t—I want—” My breath caught, and my hands curled tight on Rob. There were so many things to tell him, so many things I didn’t want Allan to be the bearer of.
I found my breath wouldn’t uncatch. I couldn’t breathe, and I shook my head, standing. I leapt over the log and moved through the people. They let me go, stepping aside until I got into the deep, empty woods, and I couldn’t hear people around me. I kept going, not knowing where I were headed.
“Scarlet!” Rob called, surprising close. I halted, and his heat touched me before his hands did, warm on my waist. “Scarlet,” he said soft. “Where are you running to?”
I turned to him. “I’m not running. I’m walking. And I just . . . I just . . .”
“Needed to get away from us,” he finished. “From me.” He didn’t sound angry. He sounded like he knew what I meant. Worse, he sounded hurt, and his eyes told the same.
“Those stories aren’t meant to be told,” I said, shaking my head. “Not like that. Not like I’m some damn hero for murdering people. Not like I cheat Death when all I do is bring it down on the heads of others.” I put my hands on his chest, looking at them. “The thought of you, Rob—it was all that got me through. That got me back here. I’d never run from you.”
His head pressed against mine. “You’re alive. You’re here. That’s all that matters now.”
“Is it?” I whispered.
“Yes.”
“A lot has happened,” I told him.
“Nottingham burned,” he whispered to me, his voice rough. “Nothing will be the same as it was yesterday. So whatever happened for us both, we’ll get there.” His hands slipped onto my back, pulling me closer to him, and his lips lightly pressed over mine, bolting me through with lightning. “Come back, and rest, and we will start again in the morning.”
Nodding, I let him lead me back to the camp.
CHAPTER
Rob were right—it started to rain not long after sundown, and the heavy pour felt like Thoresby Lake had swept up over me, pulling things off me. Memories. Feelings. Wounds and blood. I wanted it. I wanted the rain to take everything I were away from me and leave something else in its wake.
It forced all the people into the caves, and I went with the younger women, lying down on a stuffed pallet in an echoing room full of people.
I couldn’t sleep. Not with so many thoughts turning in my head, so many people and thoughts keeping me awake. I snuck out of the caves once the rain stopped, only to mount my horse and take the precious secrets in the saddlebags with me.
I went to Huntingdon House. After Prince John declared Rob’s father—the old Earl of Huntingdon—a traitor, Richard had given the lands to John and though he rarely came to this house, there were servants who lived there to maintain the place and keep the farmlands running. The properties I now owned made a tidy profit, and in the next few months I’d be a wealthy woman once it all started coming to me.
Riding up to the house were fair strange. I’d been there once before as a girl, and I remembered the road leading to it, but not the house itself. I’d been young.
The road led to a gate, and I saw two guards there, playing dice between them, not expecting any kind of company. They saw me and frowned, coming away from their game. “Move along, sir. The keep isn’t receiving visitors.”
“Good,” I said, dismounting. I fished in my saddlebag for the paper from my father, and it came out with SCARLET, 132. “This is my keep now. And I
’m not a sir. I’m Lady Huntingdon.” I handed one the letter of creation.
They both gawped at the official paper with its loose hanging seals. They looked to each other, and to me.
I got back on the horse. “Open the gate, please. And send word out to all Nottinghamshire knights that they are to return to their garrison immediately.”
They obeyed.
Because I were a powerful lady now, and more than that, I were a princess. Like it or not, people would obey me now.
Servants hurried to prepare a room for me, to feed me, to offer their obeisance, and I sent them away, lying in a bed that didn’t feel like mine, and tried to sleep.
The next morning, I went to Nottingham early. I’d wrapped my hands, thick enough that the burns and cuts didn’t bother me. I wore fresh clothes—slightly crumpled from my saddlebags—and tied my hair back, still looking every inch a boy. If the servants in the keep noticed, they didn’t comment on it to me. I didn’t want to be the sort of lady that were feared, but at the moment, silence were easier than trying to earn their love.
I rode my horse to the castle. The rain had cleared much of the haze, but now there were a new smell, like water and death mixed together and left to rot.
“My lady!” David called, seeing me in Nottingham. “Where have you been? We couldn’t find you this morning, your horse—”
“Investigating my holdings in Nottingham,” I told him. I saw Rob at a distance. “I don’t—I have to find a way to tell Rob,” I told him. “It has to be me, not you.” I frowned. “Especially not Allan.”
He nodded. “Of course, my lady.”
“Thank you.”
Everyone that had been in the forest came, even Bess, bare any help at all in her state. It didn’t matter. This weren’t about pitching in, it were about being solid. United. Bricked up together like a wall so they could feel for a second like this might not be done to them again.
Of course, I wouldn’t let that happen. I could protect them now, like I should have before. I were Lady Huntingdon, and I answered only to the king. Prince John had no business here.
We started to tear down all the burned things that were wrecks. Wood that could be salvaged were separated from wood that couldn’t be. Every few houses, we found another body that had been trapped. The third one we found were a child, a little boy. When his mother found him, she broke apart. She dropped to her knees and picked him up, holding the misshapen, small charred body against her. His body made a sound like something cracked, and she wailed this horrible keening sound.
Women went to her. Some knelt in the rubble of her ruined house, some crowded behind her. They reached out their hands to touch her and pass on their love.
“Lully, lullay,” one woman began to sing.
“Lully, lullay,” the others answered.
“The falcon hath borne my make away,” they sang together.
Men joined in. We all knew the song from Mass, but it made me tremble to hear it here, outside the walls God watched over.
Monks came forward too.
“He bore him up, he bore him down. He bore him to an orchard brown,” they sang.
“In that orchard there was an hall
That was hanged with purple and pall.
And in that hall there was a bed:
It was hanged with gold so red.
And in that bed there lay a knight,
His wounds bleeding by day and night.
By that bedside there kneeleth a maid,
And she weepeth both night and day.
And by that bedside there standeth a stone:
Corpus Christi written thereon.”
As she continued to weep, slowly the voices got louder, covering her grief over and letting her cry in peace as the rest tried to bear her son’s soul to God’s hands.
I pushed tears off my face and turned away from them. I wanted to honor her grief, but my pain didn’t belong here. Instead, I turned and went up to the castle.
My castle now.
Memories flickered behind my eyes. I remembered when Gisbourne dragged me back from the gate when the people had been rioting, when de Clare near cut the hand off a young girl. I remembered walking, slow and numb, from the snow-filled bailey where Gisbourne’s body hung, where John bled bright red onto the white snow.
I remembered how my knees hurt, being made to kneel before the prince in the snow, on the stone cobbles.
I remembered rage and hate and pain and death.
And I felt so weary of them now. Of the pain that never ended, of the death that never stopped taking, of the rage that didn’t help anyone.
The prison where I’d almost lost Rob. The hall we’d tumbled to the ground, where I’d married Gisbourne, where I’d first met Eleanor.
I went up to the room I’d shared with Gisbourne, but all I could see were the way he threatened me, slammed me against the wall, trying to raise my skirts, trying to force me. I couldn’t even cross the threshold, and tears were starting in my eyes.
Refusing to let them fall, I went down to one of the low rooms, nearest to the prison. The last I’d been here, Rob had been living in these rooms, waiting to fight, taking the punishment that Prince John passed down and rising triumphant and unscathed, like something God himself had ordained. Like a phoenix.
And now the city were a pile of ash, and I would give my people a way to rise again. Somehow, they would be whole again.
I sat on the bed, letting the unwrapped fingertips of my hand skim slow over the pillow.
“There you are,” Much said, coming through the doorway. He went to the window, looking out for a minute before hopping onto the sill, looking at me. “Saw you come up here.”
I looked at him, seeing the changes again.
He chuckled. “You’ve gotten very surly, Scar.” I made a face, and he considered. “Well, I suppose you’ve always been surly. You’re just quieter now.”
I took a breath, looking at him. “I haven’t any idea what to say, Much. To anyone.”
He nodded solemn. “I understand that.”
“You and Bess?” I asked.
This made him smile. “Yes. I couldn’t do that to John—let his baby be born out of wedlock. It were Rob or me, and I couldn’t let Rob do it.”
This struck like ice in my chest. “Rob wanted to,” I said.
He shook his head, frowning at me. “Really, Scar? Of course he didn’t want to. When will you believe that he loves you?”
“I believe it,” I said, touching the bed again. “I just don’t know what it means. I think him loving me will always make Prince John hate us both. I think it’s hard to act for love when you know there can be consequences.”
He shook his head again. “Consequences,” he scoffed. “Our overlord just ordered our city burned, and we have to pay a tax so high to bring our king home that we can’t eat. And without our king, that overlord will probably manage to be the new one, and then what? What is ever without consequences, Scar?”
I looked at him, helpless.
“Nothing,” he answered. “So don’t be a fool and cast stones into a path that isn’t meant to have them. Love Rob. Be with Rob. Keep each other safe, and keep each other happy.”
I looked at him. “Is that what you’re doing with Bess?”
He looked so sad as soon as I said it. “Yes, but I’m the stupid one there. She loves John—she always will. And I love her. And unfortunately, the best I can do is protect her and raise John’s baby and make sure no harm ever comes to them. That’s the only way I can love her.”
Reaching out, I took his hand in my wrapped-up paw. “You’re kind of hard not to love, Much. You’ll win her yet.”
“Maybe,” he said, but I could tell he didn’t believe it. “But you need to see to Rob, Scar. He’s the sheriff of a city that just got slaughtered. And more than that, for once, and I thank God for this, he didn’t run into the fray like he always has. He didn’t put his life at risk. He put the people first, before his sometimes misguid
ed sense of heroism, before his need to defeat an enemy. And while it was the right thing to do, I can’t imagine that was easy for him. And losing you—Christ, Scar, that has not been easy on him.”
I shuddered.
He rubbed my arm. “And I’m sure it hasn’t been easy for you either. So why don’t you take the tiny amount of solace that God offers you and stop being stupid and just be in love with him?”
I nodded. He were right about that, at least. “You’re always the best of us, Much.”
“Now that I’m not the only cripple, I might start to believe you when you say things like that,” he said, holding up my half hand in his.
“Come on,” I told him. “People need to eat. Let’s raid the kitchens.”
He stood and pulled me up by my hand, and I smiled.
“Turning into quite the gentleman, Much.”
He lifted a shoulder. “I do my best, m’lady.”
I opened my mouth, ready to tell him—him, if anyone—about my title, about being Lady Huntingdon, but I stopped. I just wanted to be Scarlet a while longer.
“What?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Nothing. Come on.”
We brought food, and several women went back into the castle to cook more food. I tried cutting salted pork, but it were clumsy and awful with my hands wrapped up. Hissing in frustration, I froze when familiar arms came around me and covered my hands. “Want me to do that?”
I shut my eyes, leaning my head against his for a breath.
Rob’s head leaned against mine. “We need to talk, Scarlet.”
With a sigh, I nodded. “I know.”
“Let me,” he said, nudging me aside.
I moved, leaning my hip on the table to look at him still. I crossed my arms. “I bare know where to start, Rob.”
“Start where you left,” he said, lifting his eyes to mine. “When I saw you last.”
I drew a breath. “Prince John sent my carriage away from the others. He hid me, imprisoning me in castle dungeons. I never knew where I was.” I stopped, the word feeling strange on my tongue, here with Rob, where I thought my hen-picked way of talking were the real part of me.