NOTTINGHAM WAS full of smells. From the moment they left their exhausted horses at the stable set just inside the city’s walls, Marian was overwhelmed. Every street seemed fuller than the last, an endless landscape of strange people wandering about, oftentimes in groups of two or three, chattering away. They hauled loads of vegetables—carrots and potatoes and turnips as big as Papa’s fist—and carts of horse dung. Marian retched at the first one they passed, and after that kept her arm held across her nose, her other hand jammed firmly into Papa’s grasp. People called out to Papa as they passed, offering him cakes of soap—“Scent of lavender for your pretty girl!”—and paper cones filled with bits of honeyed dough. Still others leaned out windows and fastened clothes to the lines that stretched overhead like kite strings. To Marian’s amazement, some of the people they passed seemed to know Papa, calling him by name and slapping him on the back and asking after his—
“—pretty young lass?”
“My daughter Marian,” Papa said, but he didn’t slow or offer to make proper introductions. Marian was glad of it. Her borrowed boots were ill-fitting, and two days of riding had done little to cure her tunic of the scent of smoke. Her hips felt as though they were fitted together with bits of rusted metal.
Deeper and deeper into the city Papa led them, winding this way and that. The crush of bodies grew thicker and more unbearable, pressing in on all sides until Marian thought she’d be forced to climb up on Papa’s back and hang there like a bit of old laundry. Then, without any warning, they stepped out of the lane and into a sprawling courtyard. Marian stumbled as the ground beneath her changed from the rutted and uneven dirt of the lanes to the flagstones that unfurled before them.
The air still smelled brown in the courtyard. The scents of horse shit and mud and wet wool and sweat rising off the knot of warm bodies still lingered inside Marian’s nose, but at least she was no longer in danger of being trampled to death. Where the sun had been dappled before, broken up by the clotheslines that hung overhead, it blazed endlessly now, burning Marian’s eyes. She lifted the hand she’d had over her nose, still unwilling to let go of Papa, shaded her eyes, and had her first glimpse of Nottingham Castle. She caught the enormous shadow of it first—half as tall as it was long, draped across the far side of the courtyard like a blanket. It might have been the middle of the night for how dark that side of the city was, cloaked as it was in shadow. Marian’s gaze traveled to the place where the shadow of the castle became the thing itself.
Nottingham Castle was bone-white and massive. If she were given all day, Marian didn’t imagine she could count all of the windows in it winking down at her. They were stacked upon each other, stretching endlessly toward the sky, filled with panes of glass that were so colorful they might have been made of rainbows that had been shattered upon stone, then gathered up and welded together. Rich red banners draped the balconies and flew from the turrets, whipping in the wind.
Marian’s breath left her in a rush as she gaped up at it, unable to grasp the magnitude of such a thing.
“What do you think?”
Marian shook her head, her mouth hanging open. “Heaven and earth,” she muttered, dropping her hand to her side. She had never seen such a thing—had never even imagined such a thing.
Papa chuckled. “You hungry?”
Marian wasn’t, not really, but she wanted out of the sun and away from the castle, which made her feel terribly small. She nodded and squeezed Papa’s hand.
He led her across the courtyard and through a door carved with a boar. Inside was a long bar, crowded with wooden stools and people: enormous men with big red faces, handsome men draped in cloaks, old men stooped with age. A few women were scattered about, carrying big copper mugs that dripped foam all over their fingers. One ancient woman sat in the corner with a basket of cloth and a large linen sheet over her lap. With crooked fingers and a flashing needle, she mended a hole in the cloth.
“Who’s this, then?”
Marian swiveled to see that Papa had led her to the bar that ran the width of the room. He sat down on one of the stools, and Marian slid in beside him, trying not to gawk. Behind the bar stood a man as wide as two of Papa. His beard was orange and hung halfway down his chest. Marian stared at him with wide eyes and snapped her mouth shut.
“My daughter, Marian,” Papa said. His voice was different than it had been to the people in the city lanes—warm and proud. It reminded Marian of the way he spoke to their friends back in Abyglen, and she sat up a little taller and straightened her shoulders, pushing the tangled strings of her hair behind her ears. “Marian, this is Lucas.”
“Ah,” Lucas said. “Quite a pretty little lass you’ve got there. Looks like her mother, does she?”
“The very image.”
“Go on,” Lucas said, winking at Marian. “You two been in the city long?”
“Just got in,” Papa said. “Been walking for hours, seems like. Haven’t even knocked the dust from my shoes.”
“Let’s get something for you two to eat, then, yeah?”
“A bit of pie, I think,” Papa said, glancing at Marian for her approval. She shrugged, eyes still wide.
“Wasn’t your company with the king, God save him?” Lucas asked, slopping two tin plates onto the bar in front of them. They were loaded with some sort of pie with mash spread all over the top. Marian poked it with her finger and swirled the potatoes around in the gravy. “Word down the lane is he was caught up in some trouble with bandits.”
Beside her, Papa stiffened. Marian scooped up a fingerful of pie and put it in her mouth, hardly tasting it. No one had mentioned the bandits the entire time they’d been on the road, at least not when Marian was close enough to hear. Not that she’d paid much attention. She waffled between sadness and unbridled fury at Johnny, at the bandits, at Papa, at King John, and at God himself, and had no desire to speak of any of it to anyone. Papa had steered a wide berth around the subject, instead talking to Marian about how much she would love Nottingham, how much there was to entertain in the city. Dancing lessons, he said, and drawing. She could learn to read. A tutor to help her with her music, never mind that her lute had burned with everything else.
“The king is well and unharmed,” Papa said, which wasn’t any sort of answer. Marian accepted the spoon the big man gave her and plunged it into her pie. “Have you got a room for the night?”
“Not bound for the boarding house?”
“Not with this one,” Papa said, jerking his head at Marian. She chanced a look at Lucas; he was stroking his beard and nodding.
“Aye,” Lucas said. “Go on, eat your supper. Let me see what I can rustle up.”
After they’d finished their pie, Papa helped Marian up the steps to the small room they’d taken for the night. She was exhausted from travel, and even the act of trudging up the steps was enough to make Marian want to cry. Papa led her up two flights of stairs and down a long corridor to a door with a heavy latch.
“Home for the night,” he said, pushing the door open.
Exhaustion overcame Marian’s curiosity, and she fairly collapsed into the room, flopping down on the hard floor. Papa snorted with laughter. He dropped their things, then bent down and scooped Marian up as if she weighed no more than a feather. “Come on, child,” he said. “You’ll catch your death sleeping on that floor.”
“You can’t catch your death in the middle of summer,” Marian mumbled, but she turned obediently into Papa’s arms and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Is it nighttime?”
“Near enough.” Papa deposited her on the bed, then sat down beside her to tug her boots free. “We’ve a long day,” he said, and he pulled the rough blanket up over her shoulders. Marian was asleep before she could do more than turn her face into the pillow.
WHEN MARIAN woke the room was quiet and hot—the dry sort of heat that seeps into a person’s head and makes it feel hollow and achy. Marian sat up and rubbed her gritty eyes with the heels of her hands, dumb with sleep. She looked around the room—small with bare wooden walls, a floor that buckled near the tiny fireplace in the corner, and a low ceiling she probably could have touched had she stood on the bed and stretched. The only furniture in the room was the narrow bed Marian had slept on, a small table, and an uncomfortable-looking chair against the opposite wall. The room was barely wide enough to hold it all.
Papa was asleep in the chair, his head tilted forward so his chin rested against his broad chest. A blanket lay puddled on the ground at his feet. Thin, watery light had only just begun to creep through the singular dirty window slapped into the wall.
Marian wrinkled her nose; the room stank of sweat and dust and the sickly-sweet stench of old vomit. Even so, she found herself casting around, devouring everything in her sight. It was an awful room in a shabby, second-rate inn, and it was about as far from the wide-open fields of Abyglen as anything Marian could have thought up in a million years.
But then Marian’s stomach rumbled unhappily, from hunger as much as from the miserable smells baked into the room, and she pushed the blanket off the bed, standing up. The pie she’d eaten for supper the night before was a distant memory. She shook the dust off the blanket pooled at Papa’s feet and pulled it up over his lap, then found her boots and tugged them on, wincing when they scraped against her blisters. Her ribs still ached, and moving was a struggle.
The hall was quiet. It was probably far too early for anyone else to be awake. Marian trailed her hand along the wall as she followed the sloping staircase that led down to the big room where she and Papa had eaten last night. The room was empty and quiet, but a quick trip through the swinging door that led to the kitchen revealed loaves of bread and big baskets of root vegetables. Marian tore off a chunk of bread and ducked out of the kitchen. She didn’t go directly back upstairs but instead made her way out into the courtyard just beyond the front door. It was so quiet, so still and empty, it might have been a different place entirely.
Nottingham Castle towered above the empty courtyard, tall and proud. A chill ran through Marian; she shoved the last of the bread into her mouth and wrapped her arms around her middle. It was strange to think something this magnificent had existed just outside her reach for years now and she’d never even really realized it.
The door swung open, nearly smacking Marian in the backside. Papa stepped outside, looking around frantically.
“Marian?” he called. “Are you out here? Marian?”
“Right here,” Marian said. She stepped around the door so Papa could see her. He sighed and slumped forward, hand resting on the door.
“Marian, good heavens. What are you doing out here? You can’t just wander off as it pleases you.”
“I was just having a look around,” she said, frowning. “I wasn’t doing anything wrong.”
“I know,” Papa said. “But you can’t wander off. I nearly had a spasm when I woke up and you were gone.” He rubbed the back of his neck and winced. “All right?”
“All right,” Marian said. “But you shouldn’t have slept in that chair.”
“I didn’t much fancy the floor. And you’re getting too big to share a bed with your old dad. Are you hungry?”
“A bit,” Marian said, shrugging. What she really wanted was a bath and a change of clothes.
“Let’s get some food and wash up,” Papa said. “You need new clothes and boots. We’ve much to do today. There’s no use letting the grass grow under our feet.”
DESPITE HER misgivings, Nottingham soon captivated Marian. Her heart ached to think of Johnny, so she made herself not think of him at all. Instead she filled her head with the letters Kitterly, the innkeeper’s wife, taught her, and with exploring the city.
There were endless places to investigate and so many people to watch. Marian’s favorite was the blacksmith. She was a beautiful young woman named Alisa. Alisa had dark skin and lovely black curls that always seemed to be escaping from her cap and trailing down her back. Upon discovering her forge, Marian had sat for an entire afternoon watching her work. Alisa could easily have grown frustrated at Marian’s endless questions, but she simply answered them in her soft-spoken way and allowed Marian to come closer to the fire to see more clearly. Marian watched in fascination, trying as hard as she could to remember everything.
But most fascinating of all were the Trials. Papa had taken her to them their first afternoon in Nottingham, after they’d spent their morning going through the marketplace, trying to replace what Marian had lost in the fire. It was hard not to get swept up in the grandeur of it all, hard not to run her hands over and over the fine fabric of the dress she’d swapped her borrowed tunic and leggings for.
Papa led her out past the castle to the fields that sprawled out behind it. A dozen men in armor and mail were locked in various battles while scores more stood nearby, their helmets tucked under their arms, their swords flashing in the bright sun. They were boxed in on all sides by men and women sitting on blankets, laughing and calling out as their children dashed about between them, fighting one another with sticks.
Beyond the fray was a raised platform draped in red. An empty throne sat upon it.
“Who are all these people?”
“These are the Trials,” Papa said. “Every summer, those who wish to join the army of the king, God save him, come to Nottingham and showcase their skills. The men who last until the end will join the king’s service. Today they’re fighting with blades. They’ll do archery and hand-to-hand combat as well.”
“Are they knights, then?”
Papa laughed and handed Marian a bundle of food Kitterly had packed for them. She sat down, careful of the grass and her dress, and unfastened the bundle. Bread, dried meat, and a flask of cider tumbled out. “No, they’re not knights. They’re soldiers. His Majesty only knights the strongest and bravest of his men.”
“Like you?”
Papa shrugged, his face coloring.
It was strange. Papa had been in service to the king for longer than Marian could remember, but until now, her exposure to it had been limited almost entirely to the pride she felt when Papa rode through Abyglen with the king’s company, the king’s banner flying above him.
That was a parade; this was a battle.
“Don’t they get hurt?”
Papa tore off a chunk of bread and handed it to her. “Sometimes,” he said, “but the purpose of these isn’t to wound. It’s to show off your strength and skills. It’s as important to know when to drive your opponent to fatigue or to disarm him as it is to know how to kill him.”
A cheer rose up from the crowd as one man went down to his knees, his sword falling from his hand. He pitched forward so he was on all fours, gulping in breaths. The man he’d been fighting raised his arms in triumph. Marian tracked both of their movements carefully.
“Papa,” she said once he had stopped shouting his approval. “Remember how you said we’d find tutors for me here in Nottingham?”
“Of course,” he said. “Dancing and painting and music. You’ll be as accomplished as any other lady in the city.”
“I wonder…,” Marian said slowly. “Would it be all right if I learned to fight?”
Papa looked at her sidelong, his eyebrows drawn together. “Fight? Whatever do you mean?”
“Like that,” Marian said. She waved her hand at the field. “Well, not exactly like that, but if something were to happen….” She knitted her fingers together and pressed them into her thighs. She hadn’t told Papa of the man who had tried to attack her on the night of the fire. When she thought of how helpless she’d felt under him, how she’d needed someone else to rescue her, it sickened her.
“Marian,” Papa sighed. “I know what happened in Abyglen was scary—”
Marian raised her eyebrows.
“—all right, more than scary, but I’m not sure learning to handle a blade is the answer.”
“It doesn’t have to be a sword,” Marian replied. “But something.”
“Would it make you feel safer?”
She nodded and plucked a blade of grass from the ground near her legs.
“Do you think you’d sleep better?”
Marian’s head snapped up. She hadn’t realized Papa had known she spent the nights tossing and turning, unable to get the smell of smoke out of her nostrils.
The blaring of a trumpet cut through the afternoon. Marian craned her head over her shoulder to see King John coming down the hill with so much fanfare you’d have thought God himself had descended to the ground.
“I must attend to the king, God save him,” Papa said. He squeezed Marian’s forearm. “Kitterly will expect you for dinner. We’ll discuss this later.”
With that he was gone. Marian uncorked the flask and took a deep drink of cider. King John was already surrounded by women in fine dresses and soldiers in red capes. What did he need Papa for?
She was of a mind to go back into the marketplace and look at the swords in the forge, but then she noticed a girl nearby with long, tangled curls the color of fire. She was alone, dressed quite shabbily, and so focused on the fighting that she didn’t even notice two boys tussling in front of her until they collided with her legs and knocked her over.
Marian covered her mouth with her hand.
“Urchins!” the girl shouted. She stood and wiped her hands off on her leggings as the boys scuttled away, laughing.
“Are you all right?”
The girl whirled around, her green eyes flashing. “What?”
“Um, I asked if you were all right?”
“Do I not look all right?”
Marian shrugged. “I’m Marian.”
“Well, bully for you,” the girl said. She shifted her weight and looked back at the field.
Heavens. Did they not teach manners in Nottingham? Laura would have had her scrubbing out the barn if she spoke to someone like that.
“Would you like something to eat?” Marian asked.
The girl looked at Marian in confusion. “What?”
“Food.” She held out the bread. “Are you hungry? I’ve got bread and dried meat, and cider if you’re thirsty.”
The girl looked at her distrustfully, her gaze flitting between Marian and the proffered bread, her long red curls swinging over her shoulders. But after a moment she nodded and reached out to take the bread from Marian’s hand. She sank down onto the grass, crossing her legs beneath her. “What did you say you’re called?”
“Marian. Marian Banner.”
“All right.” She stuffed the bread in her mouth, then tore off a strip of the dried meat. “I’m called Robin. Robin Hood.”