Will in Scarlet

by Matthew Cody

  “Well, you’re both spooking the other horses,” said Milo, eyeing the bribes master. Guy’s man was twice the stableboy’s size, and a head taller than Will.

  “Jenny, why don’t you come with us,” said Will. “We’ll sort all this out inside.”

  As she took a step toward them, the bribes master reached out and grabbed her by the wrist.

  “I’ll let bygones be bygones,” he said. “For a kiss!”

  Will started to protest, but Milo was quicker. The small stable hand rushed to Jenny’s defense, shoving the fat bribes master and freeing Jenny.

  “Get away from her!” Milo said.

  The fat man cursed as he stumbled backward, but he found his footing fast enough and swung his horsewhip at Milo, catching the boy across the ear with an ugly-sounding crack.

  Jenny cried out as Milo cowered beneath the man’s whip. Will caught the strong scent of ale on the man’s breath—he was still drunk from the night before.

  “You know who I am?” he asked. “I am William Shackley, nephew of Lord Geoffrey!”

  The man licked his lips nervously. “Aye, I know you,” he said quietly. “And since I don’t care to whip lordlings, why don’t you run along now.”

  Will could call out. He could call for help, and someone would come running. And then the bribes master would be hauled away to face Geoff’s justice. Eventually, help would come, but in the meantime the future lord of Shackley House would have just stood by and watched as this beast beat on a poor stableboy.

  Will imagined what Geoff would do in this situation, or Mark the sheriff. He looked around for some sort of weapon, a shoe iron, something, and found a scabbarded broadsword leaning against the opposite stall. How had that gotten there? No one left such weapons just lying about, but there wasn’t time to question his good fortune.

  He drew the sword from its scabbard—the handle was well-worn leather—and put the bribes master on guard.

  “I command you to stop!” he shouted.

  And he did. For a moment, the bribes master was frozen, whip in hand and eyes on Will’s sword. He didn’t like the look of that blade; his fearful eyes betrayed that much.

  But he didn’t yield. He let out a nasty laugh and swung the whip at Milo. And picturing wolves, Will swung his sword.

  He aimed for the bribes master’s arm but missed. The fat man shifted and Will struck the man’s thick thigh instead. The blade connected with something hard beneath the man’s furs, armor perhaps, but it also cut into something softer.

  With a cry, the bribes master dropped the whip and fell to the ground, clutching his wounded leg.

  Will stepped past the bribes master without lowering his sword. He hoped the man couldn’t see his knees shaking.

  “Milo, are you all right?”

  The boy nodded. His face was wet with tears and snot, his hands were a pattern of red welts, yet he made far less noise than the whimpering fat man.

  Jenny knelt next to Milo and pressed the hem of her dress against his bleeding ear.

  “Do you all know who my master is?” said the man, as he held his bleeding leg.

  “Do you know whose castle this is?” Will shouted. He suddenly wanted to hit him again.

  “This is the castle of Lord Rodric Shackley,” answered a strangely accented voice from behind them. “And you are his only son and heir.”

  Will turned to see Sir Guy standing there, watching them. He was dressed the same as he had been last night, in his hideous horsehide armor, but this time something was missing. His belt was empty.

  “And that is my man you just wounded. With my sword.”

  The Horse Knight smiled and shook his head. How long had he been in the stable, watching? Will wondered. And why hadn’t he stopped it?

  Something had happened here that Will wasn’t seeing. None of it made any sense. None of it.

  Why was Sir Guy smiling?

  “I think we should speak to your uncle about this,” said Sir Guy. “A stolen sword, a wounded servant … We mustn’t let lawlessness go unpunished, eh, Wolfslayer?”

  FIVE

  England is plots within plots.

  —LADY KATHERINE

  Will arrived at his mother’s chamber just as Milo was leaving it. The stable hand practically ran over the young lord on his way out. Milo’s bandaged hands looked painful, and his ear was red and swollen where it’d been tacked back together. But the boy’s smiling face was sticky with honey.

  At first Will wondered what business his mother would have with Milo, but when he saw his friend’s sugary face, he realized—Lady Katherine had been plying him with sweets.

  His mother wanted answers; she wanted to hear Milo’s side of the story, away from the intimidating lords and the shouted accusations. A smart move. She’d probably interrogated Jenny as well. After a day of Sir Guy’s rather public hysterics and cries for justice, Lady Katherine was conducting her own investigation into the matter.

  The day had been dizzying, dreamlike, ever since the fight in the stables. Though he’d been so calm and cool in the stables, when Guy went before Geoff to air his grievance, he transformed. His bribes master had been taken to Guy’s room, where the physician stitched up his leg, and Guy carried the man there himself. When he returned to Geoff’s hall, he hadn’t even bothered to wash the blood from his hands. He was the perfect picture of a lord offended, and in front of everyone, he condemned the lawlessness of Geoff’s halls and Will’s thuggery. His man had been wronged, and therefore he had been wronged. Will hadn’t seen a better performance.

  Geoff had endured Guy’s raving with a clenched jaw and barely concealed fury. On the thievery charge, Will knew he and Milo might be suspected—everyone in the castle knew their history of mischief making. But not a man or woman would believe that he and Milo had physically attacked the bribes master unprovoked or that Jenny was somehow involved. That lie went too far.

  Will would’ve liked a moment alone now with Milo himself, but the door was open and he could glimpse his mother inside waiting for him.

  “How are you feeling?” Will asked his friend.

  “Hurts,” said Milo, holding up his fingers. “But your mother’s surgeon stitched me up properly. Says I’ll heal well enough.”

  Will smiled, and as he brushed past his friend, Milo whispered, “Think we’ve really stepped into it this time, Will.”

  The fire was roaring inside Lady Katherine’s chambers, and the air smelled of honey. Two chairs were set at the front table, and honey rolls and a bowl of sweet cream sat in between them.

  Will’s mother ignored the desserts and pointedly did not invite Will to help himself, which was a shame because it was the first food he’d spied all day that set his stomach to rumbling. Instead, she sat on her cushioned stool near the fireplace and took up her embroidery.

  Will was left to stand.

  “Um, am I in trouble?” asked Will.

  His mother did not look up from her stitching. “Will, you are the heir of Shackley House, and you are too old to be afraid of a scolding from your mother.”

  Will let out a breath. “Oh, I thought that—”

  “That being said, yes. You are in trouble.”

  “What? Mother, that’s not fair!”

  Finally, Lady Katherine looked up from her embroidery. Her face was full of exasperation and something else. Her blue eyes had made her worthy of many portraits in her youth, and she was still considered a great beauty. But tonight those eyes were bloodshot, puffy. Had she been crying?

  “Sit down, my son. We need to talk.”

  Will pulled a chair over to the fire. He lingered near the sweet cream for just a second but left it, sadly, untouched.

  Once he’d settled into his seat, his mother watched him for a bit, saying nothing. Will knew better than to interrupt whatever thought she was mulling over, but he did wish he had a nice plateful of cream and perhaps a honey roll to pass the quiet. Maybe this was a part of his punishment, this torture by pastry.

&n
bsp; “You look like your father when you sulk,” she said, smiling slightly.

  “Father?”

  “What?” she said. “You think a great lord of men doesn’t know how to pout? Not when he’s holding court, to be sure. But you remember the year when he wasn’t allowed to journey to France to ride in my father’s jousting tourney?”

  Will nodded. “He twisted his ankle, and Geoff rode in his place.”

  “And Lord Rodric Shackley sat in that very same chair and grumbled for weeks. You have his frown.”

  Will squirmed uncomfortably, adjusting the cushion beneath his bottom. He hadn’t been frowning, had he?

  “But you have something else of your father, too. You have his instinct. His sense of justice and fairness. It’s lordly and you wear it well. I’m proud of you for standing up for your friends, Will. You should know that.”

  He kept his eyes on the fire. He hadn’t been expecting praise and wasn’t sure what to do with it. Was this part of her interrogation?

  “But you haven’t been caught stealing from Nan’s larder this time,” she said. “Sir Guy is a favorite of the prince, and while he was enjoying the hospitality of our castle, his man was wounded. By the Shackley heir himself.”

  “But I’ve already told you I was protecting Milo and Jenny. That man would’ve whipped Milo to shreds!”

  “Yes, but Guy refutes your story. He claims that his sword went missing in the night and that he sent his man out to search for it in the morning. And that his man found the three of you playing with it in the stables. When the man tried to retrieve his master’s sword, you turned on him. He defended himself with his horsewhip, and you cut him down.”

  “That’s not true!” said Will.

  “Can you prove it?”

  “I have witnesses!”

  “Co-conspirators, Guy calls them.”

  “Mother! I’m innocent!” Will found himself shouting, while all the while his mother sat calmly before him, her voice level and her stare hard. Did she really not believe her own son?

  His mother took a deep breath as a sad, small smile cracked her otherwise stony expression.

  “Oh, my son,” she said. “Of course you are. No one believes Sir Guy or his repulsive bribes master. But innocence and guilt have nothing to do with this now. Sir Guy wants to take you to Westminster. To be tried by the royal court there.”

  “Westminster? Why, Mother?” asked Will. “Couldn’t we summon the sheriff instead? Why must I travel to London?”

  “You won’t,” she said. “Geoff won’t allow it. He’ll let Guy shout himself blue, but he won’t give you over to Prince John.”

  Prince John? What does the prince have to do with a brawl in Shackley Castle?

  His mother must’ve seen the look of sudden understanding dawn upon her son’s face, because she nodded. “England is plots within plots,” she said.

  This wasn’t about a wounded servant at all.

  “The prince wants me in London so that Geoff will be forced to support him,” said Will. “The prince wants a hostage.”

  “Yes,” said his mother. “He’ll lock you up in the Tower while he delays the trial for weeks—months, if need be. Just long enough to pressure your uncle to back his bid for the throne.”

  Will felt his legs go wobbly. If he hadn’t already been sitting, he might have fallen over. There were stories of lordlings who went into the Tower of London and never came out. How had this all happened so fast?

  “He’ll lock you up in a room befitting your station, of course,” said his mother. “A well-furnished prison, but a prison nonetheless.”

  His mother rested her hand upon Will’s arm. “But Sir Guy and the prince miscalculated. The royal court is not a place to try a lord for brawling with a servant, no matter how favored that servant may be. No crime has been committed worthy of Westminster, and the rest of the lords would see through the prince’s ploy easily.”

  Will looked into his mother’s eyes. “So I don’t have to go?”

  “No, my son. Geoff has already sent for the sheriff, and Mark Brewer will ask that we pay Sir Guy a fine for his troubles and offer up an apology. Such an apology will stick in your uncle’s throat like a chicken bone, but he’ll do it. Then we’ll send the Horse Knight on his way and pray he never darkens our door again!”

  Will let his head fall into his hands. He was relieved beyond words not to have to make the journey to London, but at the same time he felt his cheeks burning a bright red with the shame that his uncle would have to formally apologize to Sir Guy for a crime that Will was not even guilty of. It made Will so sick that even the sweets laid out before him lost their appeal.

  “How are you sleeping?” his mother asked after a moment.

  “How did—”

  “I’m your mother.”

  Will sighed. “I have bad dreams. Ever since the wolves.”

  “Your father never sleeps well, either. And he dreams of worse than wolves, I’m afraid.”

  Will’s mother reached out and took him in her arms, hugging him close. “Oh, Will, how I wish you didn’t have to grow up yet. I’m not ready for it.”

  “Honestly, I don’t know if I am, either,” said Will, his voice suddenly thick in his throat.

  Lady Katherine released him. “But we don’t have a say in the matter, my young lord William. The time has come.”

  Wiping at his eyes, Will stood and headed for the door. He was glad Geoff wasn’t here to see this.

  “Will?”

  He stopped at the door and turned to her. She was staring at the fire again, her back to him, the embroidery forgotten on her stool.

  “Yes, Mother?”

  “Bad things are happening in England right now, and we both miss your father terribly, but we must not lose faith. We must never, never lose faith.”

  “Yes, Mother,” Will said as he tried to find a smile to comfort her with, but it was difficult. As he shut the door behind him, he thought he could hear his mother crying.

  That night exhaustion and worry finally overtook him. He slept fitfully, and it was late the next morning when he was woken by Hugo banging on his chamber door.

  Groggily, Will opened up.

  “Yes?”

  “Geoffrey has asked for you to come at once, my lord.”

  “Why? Has something happened?”

  The thin steward swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing along his throat like fish in a stream.

  “The sheriff arrived this morning with soldiers.”

  “Well, good,” answered Will. “They can escort Sir Guy from the castle.”

  “My lord, the man you wounded, Sir Guy’s bribes master … he’s dead.”

  Will felt the floor shift beneath his feet, threatening to drop away. Somewhere on the edge of last night’s sleep, the wolves howled.

  SIX

  Shall I fetch his corpse?

  —SIR GUY OF GISBORNE

  Will followed Hugo through the halls of Shackley House as panicked servants bustled back and forth. Everyone seemed to want something to do, but there wasn’t anything. The gates had already been opened to permit the sheriff’s entrance before the news of the bribes master’s death had spread. And now the sheriff was inside the castle with a score of armed men.

  As Hugo led him past a window overlooking the courtyard, Will spotted Geoff, Osbert, and the rest of the castle guards assembling before the sheriff and his men. Luckily, no swords were drawn. Yet.

  Hugo led Will to a door that he recognized. To most of the house staff, it was an old unused storage room, but Will knew the family secret. At the back of the closet was a hidden passage that led down to a tunnel. That tunnel would take you beyond the castle walls to a secluded copse of trees and safety. An escape tunnel for the lord’s family.

  “Come,” said Hugo. “I’m to escort you and Lady Katherine to safety. She’s out there already, waiting for you.”

  “Leave?” said Will. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Mother wants me to run away
?”

  “My lord, these are your uncle’s orders.”

  Geoff. For all his talk of making a man out of him, here he was treating Will like a boy. Hiding him away with his mother until the danger had passed.

  But this danger was Will’s fault, and he would face it with the men of his house. He hadn’t run from the wolves; he wouldn’t run from the sheriff.

  He would, however, run from Hugo. He knew the family’s steward wasn’t above dragging Will into that passage by the ear if that’s what it took to follow Geoff’s order, and though the man was skinny, he was still a good deal stronger than Will.

  Will made a show of peering into the dark storage room.

  “How will I see inside that passage?” he asked.

  “There’s a lantern on the wall there.”

  “Where? I don’t see it.”

  “Here,” said Hugo, stepping past Will and into the room.

  And that’s when Will slammed the door shut behind him. Then he turned and sprinted back down the hall, even as he heard Hugo shouting and fumbling for the latch in the dark. It wouldn’t keep him long, but it gave Will a head start.

  Past the worried servants he bolted, the groups gathered at the windows and near the doors, round to the front doors and straight out into the courtyard.

  When Geoff saw him appear, he shot Will a look that promised daggers, but Osbert gave Will an approving nod. Will tried to catch his breath and walk calmly to join his uncle, as a true lord of Shackley would.

  The sheriff watched Will approach and smiled. Sir Guy stood off to one side, watching as well. He was unarmed, which Will took for a good sign, at least.

  “My lord William,” said the sheriff. “I am glad that you’ve joined us. And I hope that you can talk some sense into your uncle.”

  “I am regent here,” said Geoff. “The boy’s protector. And I have said my piece. He isn’t going anywhere.”

  The sheriff’s smile faded. “Geoff, be sensible!”

  “Yes, Mark? Are we dispensing with titles now? You come into my castle with armed men and suddenly I’m your friend again, is that it? And who are these men? They wear your colors, but I don’t recognize their faces.”