“That would be much easier,” Gisbourne countered, “if I had more men.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” de Lacy reeled, and turned his attention back to Arable. “Fetch me a carriage, Arable. If we’re going to go round in circles all morning I might as well be comfortable.”
She laughed and excused herself, lingering just long enough for him to give her a warm smile. She closed the door carefully, and it was not until she climbed down the first set of stairs before she paused, contemplating the dented pewter tankard in her hands. Spying on the men in the cellar was one thing, but doing this was a choice to get involved. To be noticed. For nearly half her life she had done everything she could to avoid attention, to hide her name. She had finally saved enough coin to travel south, once she knew where to go. But that depended on her staying hidden. Now she risked losing that, and for what?
But she understood enough of their conversation to recognize the danger. If debtors were being arrested and given Guard duty as a sentence, they might naturally start to conspire against the men who arrested them. She thought of Reginold and Bolt, the near-brothers in the Captain’s Regiment who always included her in their jokes. She thought of the sweet mountain Morg, the size of a bull with a heart of kindness. Even Jon Bassett, the incorrigible flirt, did not deserve a knife in the back. She couldn’t stand the thought of someone hurting them, not if she could stop it.
A flurry of footsteps came from above, and suddenly Captain Gisbourne nearly barreled into her. “Arable, thank goodness. Not a word, yes? Not a word of what you heard, to anyone. About the gaols, you understand? I spoke out of turn.”
I’m not an idiot. “Of course,” she said.
“You can understand why that must remain secret, yes?”
Again. “Of course.”
“Good girl.” He touched her shoulder with a surprising sincerity, his grim countenance replaced with a reassuring smile. “I’ll watch for you tomorrow night. Thank you.”
SIX
ROBIN OF LOCKSLEY
ACRE
THE SIEGE WAS OVER, the city was taken. While the losses had been fewer than Robin’s prediction, they were still profound. Now they were faced with regrouping and securing an angry city, before they could continue the war forward to Jerusalem. But worse than any of that, Robin’s muscles were simply furious with him.
He’d been in the mix of it, by William’s side in the thick of the fight, but now that recent memory was almost a dream. War was like that, too impossible to believe afterward. From a purely logical point of view, it didn’t make sense that such carnage could actually happen, so instead Robin focused on today’s tasks. The procedural things that had to happen next. So, as ludicrous as it was in the wake of days of brutal bloodshed, climbing this staircase was the hardest thing Robin had ever done.
Some backward mason probably thought the staircase was well-crafted. The only thing that distinguished it as a staircase and not a curiosity of landscape was that it led somewhere useful. It was a cliffsedge, really, wrapping around the outer defensive wall of Acre up to a stronghold overlooking the sea. Each step angled slightly down in a way that invited a man to take a casual tumble and die in the ocean below. It was probably designed for a king’s desperate escape, but Robin was using it to haul the massive bundle of swords on his back into the fortress, for a bunch of soldiers who apparently couldn’t be bothered to do it themselves.
The cool relief of shade devoured him at the top of the climb, where an unnatural opening in the stone wall brought a chance to drop pack and stretch his arms. The ceiling of the storeroom was rotted and weathered by the sea air, letting in shafts of light from the wooden ramparts above. It was a welcome break from the merciless sun. Robin’s pack clattered angrily to the ground, practically all steel. Swords, knives, a few of the curved Saracens blades, anything he had been able to carry. It was a drop in the bucket, a tiny bandage on the disorganized war effort.
Robin lowered himself to the ground to massage his calves. Though the hostilities in the city had ended, the aches in his body were still very much at war.
Three days earlier, a lucky trebuchet shot had shocked them all. A single weak point had cascaded into a massive collapse of a section of the city’s wall, and the English army surged eagerly toward the hole. But King Richard had caught a sickness one day prior, and was in no condition to manage the assault. So even though neither of them had doubled for Richard since the day of the messenger’s visit, William claimed the king’s warcrown—to Robin’s shock and admiration—in order to command the troops.
Fortunately, Acre’s defenders had been equally surprised. The shortage of shortarms had not crippled the English battalions as much as Robin predicted, but mostly because a bulk of Saladin’s army had apparently already withdrawn from Acre to Jerusalem. But even with those advantages, the invasion was hardly easy. Robin had marveled at William, who somehow flourished under the pressure of chaos. Nobles study war scholastically, or command from the back ranks, but William seemed to know it by its first name. He knew the frenzy and confusion, the sweat and blood and horror of fighting for your life and for the lives of those around you. Taking a city isn’t about well-ordered soldiers in rank and file, it’s all elbows and corners and nobody knowing anything. It’s a blur of noise and action, more than most people can handle, which is why so many soldiers get killed by a friendly blade, and innocent people get butchered.
But that had not been this city’s fate. William had earned the name of Lionheart that day, and the city was rightfully his. Robin had been at his side, protecting him, but the victory was William’s.
The King had neither commented nor chastised William yet for his decision to don the warcrown, and returned to his new aversion toward their doubling, even despite his lingering sickness. But William currently lounged in the safety of the opulent tower Richard had seized for himself, which seemed like approval compared to Robin’s role of carrying weapons up the staircase. There were several degrees of bullshit at play there. Protecting the king still had its benefits, but Robin had to admit he missed the weight of the crown.
Kings, after all, didn’t have to haul lost weapons.
The slatted ceiling beams groaned and creaked, as the movement of men above scattered the light to dance about the cluttered room. Its musk was of grains and vegetables, a storage area for those on guard. The rest of the room was all structural, holding up the walkway above, providing plenty of nooks and shadows that concealed the boy with the knife with whom Robin casually found himself locking eyes.
Neither moved for several heartbeats.
It took Robin that long to register he wasn’t alone. The boy was probably six or seven, dark tan skin, hair cut short—the boy attacked. Noiselessly, the child barreled out of the darkness with a knife held out in both hands. Robin instinctively pushed backward, but he was already against the rock wall and he barely managed to snap a solid kick into the child’s ribs. If either the knife or the arms holding it had been longer, the tip would have punctured Robin’s chest rather than skid across the floor. The boy grunted, and Robin rolled quick to pin his tiny body down. Eyes wide with terror, the boy was not fighting back so much as flailing. Robin put his hand over the boy’s mouth—if the soldiers above came down to investigate, there was no telling what punishment they’d see fit to give. There’d already been plenty of dead younger than this one, and rushing a soldier with a weapon was death sentence no matter the age.
Eventually the stabhappy boy stopped struggling and went completely limp—not dead, just resigned to die, if he knew what that meant. Robin imagined this boy had already seen more death in the last week than he ever should, had likely lost much or all of his family. Stealing rations, and likely the knife, too. When it seemed safe, Robin asked, “Do you speak English?”
The response was a renewed struggle, which Robin quickly stopped with a firm slap across the boy’s face.
“Stop it. Stop it.” Obviously, he said it twice since the boy didn’t sp
eak English. “What’s your name?”
The boy eventually went limp and stared, blankly, at something in the back of Robin’s skull. This boy didn’t have a clue what was happening to him, or the city, or how to react to anything.
“Alright, listen you. I’m Robin. Robin. That’s my name,” he pointed to himself, and then to the boy’s chest. “What’s your name?”
The boy seemed to understand, and answered, but whatever language he used was full of noises Robin’s brain couldn’t re-create. A few of the strange syllables sounded very much like English profanity.
“That’s your name?” Robin gasped, stifling a laugh. He couldn’t repeat back to a child the vulgarity he’d obviously misheard. “I can’t call you that. How about Stabhappy, that seems to describe you well enough. So listen, Stabhappy, I’m not going to kill you, alright?”
He mimed stabbing the boy in the chest and then shook his hands as if this indicated his peaceful intent. The boy didn’t react well.
“You’re small, I’m not going to kill you. You’re going to grow up, see, you’ll be as big as I am someday, and strong, too.” He flexed his muscles, but was only rewarded with a confused stare. “Yeah, that’s you. You’re gonna be this tall and this strong. Little Stabhappy’s going to be Big Stabhappy. And then. That’s when I’ll kill you. But not today, alright?”
He picked up the boy by his scrawny shoulders to get him on his feet, but the boy started running toward the wooden doorway that led out to the battlements.
Robin redirected him back around. “No, not that way. They’ll kill you that way. Go down the stairs, see? It’s genuinely horrifying, but you’re small, you’ll be fine.”
The boy hesitated, until Robin realized he wanted to reclaim his knife.
“Hey no, fuck you, you don’t get that back.” Robin picked it up. But by the look of it, it wasn’t English. More a tool than a weapon. It wouldn’t matter in the long run. “Never mind, take it, just don’t let me see you again.”
He handed it hilt first to the boy, who coughed out some more utter gibberish and disappeared down the cruel staircase, practically running, but not missing a single step. Robin had seen boys like that butchered, too recently. They see their fathers and brothers fighting in a war and they think they’re supposed to join in, and most soldiers don’t even flinch. A quick blow to the head with a sword hilt, or a shield, and that’s one less enemy to worry about in ten years. But a little kindness might change that boy’s mind, it might stay with him longer than any of the death.
That, at least, was something Robin was proud to have within him, and to know was instinctive. Not the intellectual mercy philosophers could argue endlessly about. Knowing the theory of mercy is easy. Anyone can tell you not to kill children. Nobody wakes up and thinks, Today’s a right day to kill some babies. But in the moment, nine out of ten men outside this room would have skewered little Stabhappy before knowing to stop. Mercy isn’t learned, it either lives in the bones or it doesn’t.
Other people would have killed the boy. Robin didn’t.
He repeated that to himself with pride, and tried not to think of Edmond.
* * *
THAT EVENING, ROBIN RETURNED to Richard’s terraced new residence in the greatest part of the city, hoping to share his story with William. The room was filled with colorful silks and curious tapestries, but its only occupant at the moment was the Earl of Derby, William de Ferrers. Robin was predisposed against the man based on William’s warning, but the earl stopped Robin before he could excuse himself.
“Locksley, might I ask a strange question of you?”
“Well I don’t suppose I can say no now,” Robin answered cautiously. “Though I may have strange answers.”
“Does the King ever mention me?” the earl asked, with only the faintest taste of embarrassment. A loneliness swam behind his eyes. “Does he hate me?”
King Richard hates everyone, Robin almost answered. It’s why he’s king. Instead he kept it diplomatic. “I can’t speak for the King.”
“Can’t you?” Ferrers mused with a sad smile. “That’s part of your job.”
“I can’t speak for Richard,” Robin corrected, but could tell that his evasion would not satisfy. There was a naked and humble quality about the earl’s face. Skinny, and unassuming. “Have you given him cause to hate you?”
Ferrers bent backward, laughing deeply and honestly. “I would think I’ve given most of the world cause to hate me by now. You can’t rise by making people like you.” His lips twisted to say more, but something wistful crawled up and seemed to choke away his focus. “I was hoping he might allow me to negotiate the surrender of the city, but when I asked him, he … seemed absolutely baffled at the prospect, and gave it to Goddard of Leicester instead.”
“If you’re asking me to … put in a word…?” Robin stammered.
“No, no,” Ferrers replied. “I’m just … forgive me. It has been a taxing few days. I’m a bit out of sorts.”
“Think nothing of it.” Robin moved to leave, but frankly had nowhere to go. A warm night air meandered through the room’s open space, bringing the strange sounds of exotic instruments in from the city. He considered the earl a second time. “Why did you want to negotiate the surrender?”
“I think I’d be good at it,” he answered quickly. “Kind, that is. To the other side. I’ve had to surrender an army before.”
Robin nodded. Ferrers had sided with Henry the Younger in the Kings’ War, and lost nearly everything for his failures. Now he scratched for meaningless diplomatic laurels. “I think William hates you,” he said, as if that might be a more satisfactory answer.
“Wendenal.” Ferrers tasted the name like an expensive wine. “I would think you’re right. But that one, at least, I don’t carry on me.”
“Carry on you?”
A terse smile. “You’re young. Relatively,” he added after seeing Robin’s raised eyebrow. “All the decisions you make when you’re young, you think they’re building to something. Some perfect version of you, that you’ll eventually … finally get to be. But you never get there. Eventually you start looking back, rather than ahead, wondering where you missed your chances. I have a lot of regrets, Robin. But what happened with the Wendenals and the Burels isn’t one of them. I would not have done it differently.”
Robin felt his will soften. He did not know what compelled the earl to speak his mind, but he guessed it was alcoholic. Still, he could tell the man was in need of human connection, and Robin knew the feeling. “Regrets are hard. Avoiding them takes a lot of work. Have you ever killed anyone?”
The earl gave a small nod.
“Most men,” Robin explained, “will tell you stories about the first man they ever killed, and how it sticks with them the rest of their life. They think that taking a life is a hard thing.”
“Isn’t it?” Ferrers kicked back, seemingly happy for the change of conversation. “I certainly remember the first man I killed. Some poor farmer defending his lands. He was there, and I was the closest one to him, and I swung my sword down and it just took his face off. Right off.”
“That’s the point, that it’s not hard.” Robin replayed some of the last few days over in his mind. Bodies under rubble. His sword, red down to the hilt. Men, crippled, begging for mercy. “Dying is much easier than living. Prick a man in most places and he just bleeds out. Pick the right place and he’s dead on the spot. Everything he ever lived for, gone. This thing, this you, that you say your life is building to … it’s the easiest thing for someone to steal that from you. Gone. Your story ends with a quick slash of someone else’s sword. Thirty years of a complete waste of everybody’s time.”
“Or sixty.” Ferrers spread his fingers wide.
“Or sixty. What’s more important,” Robin raised his finger, thinking of his curious little Stabhappy, “is when you save a life. When you restrain yourself.”
“And do you remember the first person you saved?” Ferrers asked.
; “No.” But he remembered the first person he didn’t save.
That heavy silence seeped into the air a bit, threatening to end the conversation, until an errant breeze flapped the silks against each other and broke the moment. “Some people would argue,” the earl stood to search for his wineskin, “that if you commit yourself to noble acts in this life, you’ll be rewarded in the next.”
“Some people will believe anything,” Robin laughed. “They only say that so we, the living, don’t feel so bad when they, the dead, get all dead.”
Ferrers smiled, but it was a courtesy. “You don’t have any children.”
Robin shook his head.
“Not married?”
“There was never anyone worth it,” he lied. He was neglecting exactly one person from that assessment.
“Once you have someone to pass your life on to, then your actions are for them. And though you die, you live on in a way, through your lineage.” Ferrers scratched at the wispy little hairs that had escaped from his chin, awaiting a reply. The natural response was a place Robin didn’t care to go, and Ferrers seemed to guess that. “I’m familiar with your family’s history, if not the details.”
Robin ground his teeth. “Then there’s no reason to speak of it.”
“You talk like him,” the earl said softly. “Your father.”
“I’ll consider that an insult, thank you.”
“You talk of saving people. You don’t think you got that from him?”
“I talk about judging people, so that you know when to save them. So you know who deserves it, and who doesn’t. My father would let one hard worker starve so two useless skivers can each have half a meal. That doesn’t save anyone. That hurts three people, rather than two.” Memories of his father, memories of her, they were better left untouched. It was easier to talk of them when they were so far away, they had the same surreal nonexistence as the war’s violence. “You have a son though, yes?”
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