NOTTINGHAM CASTLE
QUILLEN PEVERIL WAS THE greatest failure of a generation.
He had come to Nottingham for one singular reason—to determine if it was so unstable as to require intervention. Quill had known in his heart that it needed help, but he’d been too worried that his father would equate that failure with Quillen. He had selfishly hoped he could fix it himself via empty little acts like spying on Gilbert or stopping noblemen from shitting in the streets. He’d thought that sniping sarcasms from on high counted as a contribution.
Nottingham Castle was now eating itself alive, and Quill was the one that let it get this bad.
Swords were drawn, Guardsman against Guardsman, and absolutely nobody had any firm grasp of what was happening. In the middle of one group was Prince John and his handful of sentinel men, trying very desperately to remove themselves from the battlements to the safety of the higher keep. But between him and his destination was a red mountain of rage called The Simons, who had literally spent his entire life teaching people how to kill each other.
And half of those very people were on his side, screaming for vengeance for the quartermaster’s murdered daughter.
The only reason the prince had not yet been torn to pieces and thrown over the walls was that there were just as many Guardsmen on his side. They weren’t necessarily loyal to the prince; they simply happened to be nearest him when the riots began, and naturally obeyed when he started calling for protection. Those Guardsmen didn’t know they’d be instantly squared off against their own friends. But they definitely knew that the prince’s sentinels carried crossbows, and any Guardsman who tried to switch sides would undoubtedly have his morality rewarded by a quarrel in the back.
The reason Quill knew they thought all these things was because—of all the damnedest luck in the world—he was one of them.
“Stand down!” and “Move aside!” and “Get out of the way!” were all shouted liberally by members on both sides, and under any other circumstances they probably could have all calmed down and discussed things rationally. But Simon FitzSimon was screaming murder more primal than any animal, clawing his way through the men, forcing them to surge forward. Meanwhile, Prince John was prodding his crossbowmen to make progress as well, forcing both groups to roll and swell toward each other until the gap between them disappeared and Quill let out a masterful shriek.
The only saving grace now was that the Guardsmen, for the most part, didn’t want to kill each other. Rather than a clash of swords, every man became a peacock—their arms and weapons brandished wide in a hopefully empty threat. But the distance between them shrank quickly. Someone’s hand found Quill’s face and he did his best to return the gesture, but the throng was compressing them together, and within seconds Quill had a mouthful of knuckles. Somewhere there was a guttural scream, perhaps the first legitimate injury, and the entire crowd flinched and rattled, and Quill did not want to die this way.
“Swords up!” he screamed, as soon as he maneuvered his mouth away from the stranger’s fingers. “Swords up!”
He thrust his own tip to the sky, the only direction that was safe. There was not even elbow room enough to resheathe his weapon, but straight up there were no comrades to accidentally skewer.
“Swords up!” repeated the man whose fingers he’d tasted, mimicking the act, glancing his eyes around nervously to see if he would be killed for it. But thankfully, and against all recent precedent, the call for civility spread and weapons rose, rippling away from Quill. The brawl settled, if only slightly; the shouting was replaced by the long harrowing wail of Simon FitzSimon, trapped in his sea of students, lost to a world of grief.
“Guardsmen!” came a deep throaty roar, though Quill could not see its owner. “Stand down, fall in line!”
Finally their numbers spread out again, though the sounds of fighting did not abate. It came from below, over the lip of the battlement wall. Despite their orders to fall in, one by one their group realized what was happening in the archery field and they gathered at the ledge to watch. Whatever frenzied massacre they’d just avoided up here was already happening twentyfold throughout the lower bailey.
“Simons, I swear to you, you will have justice,” came the voice again, and now Quill could see its owner, Captain Fulcher de Grendon, running to join them. He passed Prince John and his entourage, hurrying unmolested for the staircase to the highest bailey. “But first we have to get this castle in order! The prince has commanded a full lockdown of every castle gate and the city as well, and there are people killing each other down there!” He accentuated this point by thrusting a finger over the ledge at the mob that had converged at the outer castle gate. The Guardsmen normally posted there had retreated within the gatehouse’s chamber, and were very likely praying that the doors would hold.
“You can fight each other tomorrow if you want.” De Grendon pulled his hair back to fix its tail. “Right now, we have the Lord’s work to do.”
LATER, QUILL WOULD REMARK that “we have the Lord’s work to do” was at once both a criminal understatement, and an insultingly accurate one. The work that needed to be done could only possibly be accomplished with divine intervention. There were few orders given as to exactly what form their work should come in, but the mutual recognition was that there were dozens of Guardsmen trapped in the lower bailey who’d been stationed there for the St. Valentine’s tournament, and that they should be rescued until cooler minds prevailed.
Jacelyn de Lacy was one of them, Quill knew. She’d played her part in the tournament to perfection, but the prince’s unexpected decree had fallen shortly after her final bout. Her persona of the Lace Jackal had likely earned her both admirers and haters, which put her in real danger. Quill only had loyalties to a few people in the Nottingham Guard, and she was one of them.
If Lord Beneger was accounted for, Quill would likely take whatever commands that man had to offer instead. But left to his own devices, Quill’s brain somehow thought that his underweight, self-absorbed little self was the appropriate person to rescue a woman who was very likely impervious to even the concept of needing rescue.
Ferrers!—Quill cursed, pouring all the blame for this on the Sheriff’s incapable shoulders. Quill had originally predicted that his archery tournament plan would be a failure; but that doubt had faltered a few days earlier when a beastly associate of the Red Lions surrendered himself to the Nottingham Guard. He asked for refuge in exchange for his firsthand knowledge of every gang member competing in the contest. Between him and the other informant, Rob o’the Fire, it seemed pretty clear that the Red Lions’ ship was sinking and the rats were bailing out. So while the Nottingham Guard had already implemented a handful of tactics to weed out legitimate archers from victory, this Will Stutely fellow had sat on the battlements with Quill, singling out his old crewmates. De Grendon had been prepared to arrest them all, after their leader was publicly humiliated by Jacelyn de Lacy.
Until the prince surprised everyone by taking over.
And announced whatever abominations he thought proper.
And now, there was no telling up from down, much less right from wrong.
Upon arriving at the barbican down to the lower bailey, Quill instantly knew the job ahead of him was a nightmare—a horrified throng of people lay on the other side of the double portcullis. Normally left open for passage between the baileys, both gates had been lowered to keep the rabble out of the castle proper.
“Open the inner gate!” Quill demanded once the men at the wheels noticed him. He snapped his fingers to gather six or seven of the nearest Guardsmen to join him, to help in whatever madness lay on the other side. “We’re going down, but only open this gate enough for us to crawl under, you understand?”
The gatemen’s cowls bobbed, and a moment later the iron gates groaned under the turncock’s latch, rumbling up foot by foot until Quill’s group could scramble into the antechamber between the gates. Then the teeth of the portcullis bit down into the ground behind them.
What am I doing? He felt like a gladiator, awaiting his entrance to an arena where he was destined to die.
“Back away!” He slapped at the fingers of the citizens who were hoping to find some sort of escape this way. Their crowd retracted at the sight of the Guardsmen’s weapons, then farther and farther at Quill’s commands. As they stepped back, one figure stepped forward—her unmistakably broken face a welcome relief indeed.
“Jac!” he gasped, waving her to approach. “I’m so glad to see you.”
“Do you have Will Scarlet?” she asked, her good side as dead as her right.
“What?”
The second gate complained heavily against its counterweights, but jolted up, sliding between them. As the antechamber emptied of its men to go help below, Quill crouched and tugged Jacelyn de Lacy to join him on this side of safety.
“What do you mean?” he repeated the question.
“I mean, do you have Will Scarlet? Did he make it to the prisons?”
“I don’t know…” They’d left him in Lord Beneger’s custody after his capture, hastening to the archery tournament for the day’s event. “Where else would he be?”
“He could be anywhere, until we find Ben,” she huffed. “I’m going to check the prisons.”
“No time for that,” he urged her. “If he’s there, he’s there. If he’s not, nothing you can do about it now. We have more important things at stake. Ho!” he called, noticing two injured Guardsmen limping up the lower bailey’s ramp, trying to maneuver through the commonfolk. Quill looked up through the barbican’s murder holes to shout at the men at the wheels. “Open the gate again, let these two in!”
Once more the iron groaned, up only a few feet, as Jacelyn and Quill both knelt to bring the two men into the antechamber. One had long blond hair and a look of absolute panic, the other boasted a vicious gash across his forehead and was covered in blood.
“You’re safe,” Quill said, trying to get a good look at the gash. “Get to the infirmary. You’ll need some honey and egg whites to wash that out.”
They nodded and huddled together, and Quill shouted again at the murder holes. “Open the inner gate, get these two some help!”
There was no response.
“Ho, is anyone up there?”
A moment later a silhouette covered the grate. “You, too, Peveril, get back up here.” It was Captain de Grendon’s voice.
“Just these two, Captain. I’m going down to help.”
“No you’re not,” the captain responded. “Prince’s orders. Nobody goes in or out.”
“Not even Guardsmen?” Quill was incredulous.
“Nobody. He was extremely specific.”
Quill looked back out through the bars, and the crowds of people trapped below, still rioting, still at each other’s throats. He felt a sickening lurch of sympathy for the Guardsmen who had just crawled under that gate, now as trapped on its other side as the rest.
“Well you two are damned lucky then,” he told the injured men, as the inner gate started its ascent. “What are your names?”
“Norman,” they both answered in unison.
Quill had not expected that. “You’re both named Norman?”
They stared back absently, as if the question were some sort of monster. Then a glance at each other, then back to him. Again, simultaneously, “Yes.”
Probably new recruits. Probably wouldn’t last the week. But right now, every man was worth his weight in gold. “Alright, Norman. Get Norman here taken care of, then get back out here. We need every able man we can get.”
The less-injured Norman nodded, but turned back after only a few steps. “What about the postern door? We were … we were told to help guard it.”
“Locked down tight,” answered de Grendon, climbing down from the wheels. “Prince’s men have everything.”
“This is insane,” Jacelyn answered. “The prince is insane.”
“He might be.” The captain nodded grimly. “But he’s the prince.”