GRAFHAM, HUNTINGDONSHIRE
THE GUARDSMEN REPOSITIONED TO defend their lord, while the earl Robert leapt down a side passage that led to the manor’s central courtyard. Marion was dragged along, leaving Arable standing by the reinforced door with Peetey, John Little, and the appropriately scrutinizing face of Lord Simon de Senlis.
“Was that … the earl Robert?” he asked, using the condescending tone a parent uses with a lying child.
“Hard to say,” John improvised. “Given the hat, and all. Could be.”
Lord Simon directed his attention upon Arable, and she found that she could not lie. She offered a silent frown, and nodded in concession.
“You want us to stop them?” a heavy Guardsman at his side asked.
“I couldn’t possibly say,” mused the lord. Again he turned to Arable for confirmation, but she could give nothing other than a half shrug. Simon copied it for his Guardsmen. “Sure.”
Off shuffled his men with little urgency, past the delicate decorations of the Senlis manor, following the inner path and mumbling orders to each other. The ruse was obviously over, but there might still be some diplomatic way of salvaging the situation. The Lord de Senlis did not seem a man taken to overreaction.
Arable opened her mouth. “So—”
“No.” He spared her no look this time, just a raised finger. “I don’t … no, I don’t have any interest in a single word of what you were about to say.”
“But—” John Little tried.
“Just…” The man was a father, more disappointed than angry. “Just no.”
There passed a terrible amount of inactivity so awkward the hallway itself seemed likely to slink off for mercy. The only sounds were the echoes of the chase going on throughout the manor, floating back to them through the hallways but impossible to hear distinctly.
“Is he dangerous?” Lord Simon asked at last.
“No, no,” Arable answered instantly.
“There’s that, at least.”
He clicked his tongue.
The earl Robert took this moment to burst from a doorway halfway down the hall, whipping his needlelike blade in front of him and aiming it theatrically at Lord Simon. “A ha!” he exclaimed again, clearly short of breath. Then he vanished into another side room.
“I didn’t see Nick,” Peetey Delaney muttered.
Lord Simon sighed. “Should I ask who Nick is?”
“His brother,” Arable answered. “Hopefully he’s still watching, outside.”
“Hm.” De Senlis cocked his head toward her. “How many of you are there?”
“Just six, that’s everyone.”
Another long silence stretched, in which Simon de Senlis seemed to digest every bit of what was happening.
“Maybe I ought to go look for him?” Peetey offered.
Arable exchanged an apologetic look with de Senlis. “Would you mind?”
“Of course, how could I…” He blew out his lips, then took in a sharp inhalation. “I mean, what’s really the point in trying to…” He ran out of words again.
“Thank you.”
“I’ll send some men after you, of course.”
“Of course.”
Arable motioned for Peetey to leave, which he hesitantly did. Lord Simon threw a limp gesture to his last few remaining Guardsmen to accompany the man, though they did not seem certain if they were supposed to chase him or help him.
“I really am sorry about all this,” Arable said as the three of them stared blankly down the hallway.
From somewhere far off, the sounds of an entire kitchen being dumped upside down let them know that Lord Robert was still having fun.
Eventually Lord Simon resigned himself to the fact that he would have to get involved. “I suppose we ought to go find him. Did you have … was there an escape plan?”
Arable shook her head and started walking. “There was never any plan.”
They traveled at leisure back to the main reception hall. Along the way they were met with the echoes of shouts and vague insults, doors belched open here and there and eventually a bell rang out its dull dirge. This seemed to awaken everyone in the entire manor who had not already been roused by the clamor. It was hard to tell if Lord Robert and Marion were being chased, or if his reckless warscreams meant he was now on the offensive. There were a few moments when Arable was almost tempted to smile, to enjoy the sheer audacity of it, but instinct kicked away that urge. Life had recently conditioned her to recognize there were always consequences to frivolous misadventure.
Along the way, John Little tore savagely at the balloons of fabric on his shoulders. “Didn’t like the color,” he explained.
The main hallway followed the great square shape of the building, and eventually spat them back onto one of the three balconies overlooking the original reception hall. To their right was the entrance foyer, where Peetey had already found his brother, Nick, and apparently a few more of Lord Simon’s men. The doors behind them were, impossibly, wide open and unguarded.
“He’s insane,” one of the brothers was telling the other. “We have to get out!”
To the left, an eruption of noise announced Lord Robert and Marion, popping onto the adjacent balcony. Robert spun and slammed the double doors behind him, then whipped out a long purple sash with which he bound the handles together. Seconds later the doors swelled but could not open, and he took a moment to catch his breath.
His efforts were in vain. Across the room—from the fourth and final doorway—a host of Guardsmen and servants alike all poured into the sunken gallery, armed with swords and knives and improvised weapons. At least thirty or forty bodies flooded down into that receiving hall at the foot of the staircases. The arrivals quickly assessed the situation and arranged themselves in obvious defense of Lord Robert’s only path to the front exit.
Arable had no idea what to do, so she waved a greeting to Nick Delaney, who waved back.
Lord Robert may have been trapped on his balcony, but he made it clear he was not interested in company. He drew his rapier in front of Marion and sliced the air at the top of the staircase in dancing little sweeps, then perched one foot on the railing and called across to Arable’s balcony. “Lord Simon! Stand down, your men are surrounded!”
Lord Simon took the bait and walked forward to his own rail, openly laughing. “Oh, Lord Robert, what a gift you’ve given me by coming here today. Lay your weapon down, and perhaps I’ll treat your people with kindness.”
“I’ve come to take that which is owed,” the earl flourished. “And I’ll keep you in fetters one day for every shilling short!”
“There are but six of you, and you’re the only one that seems armed. Whereas I have twenty trained fighters, and fifty more who could stop you with a dishcloth. One is something smaller than seventy, Lord Robert. If this is your proficiency with numbers, I’d rather not rely on you to do any more of my accounting.”
“Your seventy is meaningless,” the earl laughed. “You can come one by one up this staircase and I’ll dispatch every man. Which of you below chooses to throw away your life first for your rebellious lord? And Lord Simon, will you stand there on your balcony and watch your vassals die for you before turning over the first coin you rightfully owe your king?”
Lord Simon’s body tensed at that, and he lowered his voice to a man standing near him. “Clarence, do we have bowmen?”
“We do…” the moustached man answered. “Do you mean to let loose upon the earl within the manor?”
Simon’s face contorted, as if he were struggling to find the downside of this choice.
Posturing. Preening. Neither man would back down, until one was forced into something foolish. Then this light-hearted romp would end in someone’s tragedy. Arable took a brief moment to consider how incredibly easier her life would be if not for men and their need to be men. Every damned second of the day.
Across the expanse, behind Lord Robert, a single sword thrust through the thin opening between the bound doors and started to saw at the sash.
“Marion!” Arable exclaimed in warning, surprising herself.
Once the two saw the sword, Robert gave it a sharp kick that successfully snapped the blade clean off. But its owner realized that the jagged broken edge was actually more effective at cutting. Lord Robert spun around, his head looking in every direction at once for an exit. Then he whispered his rapier away and jumped onto the thick railing where it joined with the stone wall, his hands finding an iron ring lashed with ropes.
Arable’s eyes followed those ropes across the ceiling of the gallery, where they pulleyed down to hold the great chandelier that hung over the crowd below.
Good God, nobody could be so idiotic …
With both feet planted against the wall, Lord Robert heaved away, and the iron ring wrenched off the hook moored to the stone, and the chandelier’s weight sent it screaming down. An epic crash split the air accompanied by horror on all sides, and Arable flung her attention over the balcony’s lip to see the damage. But Lord Robert was not finished—he had kept ahold of the ring during its crash down, dragging him to the very edge of his balcony but no farther. There he slipped his foot into the iron circle, wrapped his arm around Marion’s waist, and—Arable gasped aloud—he pushed off from the balcony’s ledge, swinging over the trapped throng of guards below, his arc ending exactly on the opposite ledge where the Delaneys could receive him. He released the rope at the peak of its arc, landing in a deft roll, he turned and—
—“COMPLETE BULLSHIT,” THE Countess Magdalena interrupted. “I won’t hear another word.”
“It’s all true, dear.” Lord Robert smiled, tracing his hand down his wife’s back, but received nothing in return. “At least, the parts of it that were true were true.”
Admittedly, they had all exaggerated their bits of the story. But the really shameful thing was they had not elaborated by much. Their participation in the tale was another favor Lord Robert had requested of them during their long defeated trek back to Huntingdon Castle from Grafham. They had spent the night in the city, too proud to take Lord Simon’s extremely charitable offer of housing them in the manor they had meant to burgle. By midday they were back in Huntingdon, explaining their absence to the countess.
“How much of that was a lie?” the lady asked, then shook her head in a fit and flurry. “No, I don’t even care. I don’t want to know.”
John Little bowed his head, the rolls of his neck bulging out. “Apologies.”
Lady Magdalena buried her face in her fingers.
“It was always a longshot,” Lord Robert crooned, stroking his wife’s hair. She flinched, but let him. “I can hardly make Simon de Senlis hate me any more than he already does. And perhaps my other bannermen will hear of it. If they think I’m a little wild, a little unpredictable, then maybe they think twice of following de Senlis in this embargo.”
Lady Magdalena met his eyes coolly, but sighed. “It doesn’t matter.”
That much, at least, was true. Their escapade had gained them no surfeit, no advantage.
“It matters for my people.” Marion’s tone was soft. “Countess, we upheld our end. We did everything we could to help—”
“Oh stop it,” the countess cut her off. “Consider, for once, that there is a world beyond the petty things that only you care about.” A tiny gulp escaped Marion’s mouth, which Arable could not identify as relief or shock. Lady Magdalena continued, “I say it doesn’t matter, because it simply doesn’t. It wouldn’t matter if you brought back every penny that Simon de Senlis owes us. It wouldn’t be enough, not even close. While you were out galivanting, dear husband…” she somehow said with only a slight tint of bitterness, “… I took a closer look at the ledgers.”
Robert sighed. “We have been over this, my dear.”
“No, we haven’t. You regurgitated to me what your coinmaster told you, but I wanted to see the numbers for myself. Our new friar has a head for mathematics, I don’t know if you knew that. There’s no way we can raise enough coin to pay what is being asked of us, it’s not possible. The king’s ransom would bankrupt us twice over. It simply isn’t there.”
“It’s true,” Friar Tuck said quietly from the far end of the littered table, his bald head reflecting the room’s fire. By the look of him, spending the last twelve hours with the countess was as difficult as their trip to Grafham. “The taxes, the war tithe, and King Richard’s ransom, there’s no way to pay them all. We’ve been over everything.”
He raised some pages loosely in his hand and let them tumble back to the table.
“I’m sure you mean well,” Lord Robert gave Tuck a cute smile, “but I have men whose sole purpose is to manage my coin. They’ve told me—”
“They’ll tell you what you want to hear,” Tuck cut him off. “To keep their status, and their position, because the numbers tell them the same thing they tell me. Numbers, Lord Robert, numbers can’t lie. Your worth on paper is far higher than what you actually have, and that discrepancy cannot be bridged. You can’t pay your share of the ransom, not by any rational means.”
“Short of indiscriminately burgling every single one of your bannermen’s estates, which I trust is out of the question…” Lady Magdalena eyed the room heavily to ensure the severity of that choice, “… then our only option, dear husband, is to not pay. And that, at least, is something we have discussed.”
Arable hoped Lord Robert felt as foolish as he should, returned home in defeat on a quest that was doomed from the beginning. Like a child, come home from slaying invisible foes in the forest to the harsh reality of survival. He fidgeted, unpinning the cape from his shoulder and letting it fall onto the table. Perhaps it was that easy for him to transition from an adolescent perspective to that of an adult.
Arable didn’t know the details of how much money Lord Robert had given to Robin Hood’s crew before her time with them, but it undoubtedly made a difference in his ability to pay his royal dues now.
“What is your option, then,” Marion asked, “if not to pay?”
Robert did not answer, so Lady Magdalena took the reins. “We should stop referring to it as the king’s ransom. It is not Richard who demands it, but Chancellor Longchamp—and he is a fool to do so. Or, more likely, a tyrant.”
That word tiptoed around the room, stealing breath and raising eyebrows.
“We are not the only ones who have come up short. Chancellor Longchamp has abused the king’s power, and thrown the country into poverty. These laws, these taxes, this ransom … they are beyond any reason, they are an overreach of the blindest kind. The punishments for not paying are extreme. Longchamp claims lands and titles he has no right to, he takes property and livelihood with equal apathy. He’ll take this earldom from us, my dear, without a thought. He’ll replace us with anyone who promises to take more drastic actions. The chancellor’s grasp at power while King Richard lies in captivity is the ruin of us all. The solution is not to find clever ways of paying these outrageous demands. The rules are rigged, so it’s time to change the rules. And it’s time to change the man who makes them.”
The room expanded. Arable’s skin shrank. She suddenly longed for the smaller, sillier world she’d been living in seconds earlier.
“You’re talking rebellion,” she said.
“It was only talk,” Robert defended it. “Consider it a war game. We were speaking hypothetically, weeks ago. Any good leader would be wise to prepare for the worst scenario.”
“Which is where we now find ourselves.” Lady Magdalena touched his shoulder. “It is not rebellion to discuss our options. We made a list of those of similar mind that we might rally. My father has spent a generation building alliances of barons and earls from all over England of sympathetic ear, who have no direct ties to the Chancellor. My sister’s husband, Waleran, has a similar network of loyalties we can call upon. If this is not the moment, I don’t know what could be. Our king, captured—and our country ruined from within. The need has never been more dire, and the opportunity never more tangible.”
“You’d hold this … rally … here?” Marion gasped. “It’s too dangerous—”
“I did not ask if you had objection,” Magdalena barely said. “Your agreement is not required.”
Arable was shocked to see Marion cow herself, biting her lip rather than fighting back. Her own instincts screamed the same thing, but she was in even less of a position to object than Marion was.
After watching Lord Robert run childishly through a manor all night brandishing a sword as if there were no consequences in the world, she suddenly now had to wonder if his half of the marriage was truly the reckless one.
The Earl of Huntingdon touched his fingertips to the table, a calculating demeanor now that bore no hint of his earlier levity. “Suppose I were to agree with you. We would have to proceed very cautiously.”
The countess kissed him on the cheek. “Oh darling, your agreement is not required, either.”
He stammered. “Maggie … we need to discuss this further. If we wrote invitations … well, talk is empty air, but putting ink to paper is taking a stance. I do not think—”
“I penned the invitations weeks ago.”
Robert’s jaw was not the only one to drop.
She smiled. “As you said, dear, to prepare for the worst.”
“To even have those letters in our possession is criminal. You must burn them at once.”
Her fingers wrapped around his. “I sent them out this morning.”