HUNTINGDON CASTLE
SATURDAY, 14TH DAY OF MARCH
ARABLE HAD ONLY ONCE in her life witnessed the bizarre spectacle of an armed battalion, dressed and organized, rank and file, spread out across the countryside. For her, it brought a numbing sensation that made her want to slip even deeper into her own mind than normal. It was absolutely baffling that hundreds of other people had gathered for a single common purpose that she herself could never believe was important at all.
Sixteen years ago on a bright grey morning not unlike this one, it had been her father’s battalion, and the last time she would ever see him. He had summoned his loyal bannermen to rally in the fields outside the Burel household, back when it existed, back when it was a distinguished manor and not an overgrown dirt hill. Lord Raymond de Burel said no goodbyes to her that day, too consumed with his duties as a liegelord to remember his duties as a father. And besides, he expected to be back shortly—after joining the army of the Third Earl of Derbyshire, William de Ferrers, and his quick campaign to seize the castle of Nottingham.
That battalion had marched off into the distance, which Arable had watched from the front balcony of their estate, having no words to describe the feeling of loss that drained her as it disappeared.
This day she stood on a different balcony high up in the Heart Tower of Huntingdon Castle, looking down upon a different battalion, of larger size and scope. They marshalled in the distance, the smoke from their fire pits giving a dark and industrious face to the countryside. There was a similar sickening sense of being the outsider, that all of these humans had mutually decided the correct thing to do with their lives was to be here, at this moment, for Arable to gaze down upon.
But this battalion was coming, not going.
This battalion was not led by her father. This battalion was led by Lord Simon de Senlis, and he had come to take the things in life that he had decided were his.
“He has more support than I thought,” Lord Robert said glumly. It was heartbreaking to see the defeat in his face. As heavily as Arable had rolled her eyes at the earl swashing his rapier throughout the Senlis manor nearly two months earlier, she could not deny that his adventurous spirit was infectious.
Its absence practically deserved a funeral.
“They’re on the wrong side of the Ouse if they mean to attack,” the countess criticized, as if hers was the military expertise. It didn’t matter which side of the river they were on, because Huntingdon wasn’t going to mount a defense. There would be no battle. Lord Robert, to his own shame, knew he must hand Lady Marion Fitzwalter over to face charges of treason. And then he would, very likely, hand the castle over to its new owners.
And Arable would be unbound, again, left to the mercy of whichever cruel wind sought fit to blow her way.
“I don’t see the Chancellor’s banners,” Magdalena continued, every muscle in her face raging against the captivity of her bones. “They have no authority here without him. Who are these people? De Senlis has gathered anyone with an axe to grind, hoping to mask the vacancy of his argument with the sheer variety of his followers. I see the Earl of Chester for Christ’s sake, what on earth is he doing here?”
“It doesn’t matter, dear,” Robert grumbled. “We’ve lost.”
He made no further explanation, and simply receded from the balcony’s stone rail like a boat in a calm river. Arable felt a great sadness for that departure, but also a small admiration. Whatever the future held for him, Lord Robert was not shying away from it with futile delays. He had made his peace with his mistakes and was marching now to own them. Owning one’s failures, Arable had learned time and time again, was better than owning nothing at all.
“This is all Marion’s fault,” the Countess Magdalena snapped into the wind. “I told him we shouldn’t have welcomed her, and still he—”
“Shut up.”
Arable inhaled, deeply, hoping to capture a fraction of the resolve Lord Robert had in this, the moment of his decline. Rather than scratch and spit and complain about its unjustness like the countess, Arable meant to keep her head held loftily high, all the way to the gallows if need be. After all, she had imagined a moment like this a thousand times. There was always a someday when Lord Beneger de Wendenal or his men would find her, and exact his vengeance upon her for the crime of being her father’s daughter. She had proclaimed herself a Burel proudly for the world to recognize at the council, and she had no doubt that information had spread—especially now that there was nobody left to protect her.
If Simon de Senlis did not claim that easy prize for himself, it would come soon after.
Hopefully soon. She did not want to run again.
The lump seized Arable’s throat, her chest froze. There was a small but unmistakably horrible difference in facing persecution now, compared to the last sixteen years. That critical distinction had made her first kick in Arable’s belly only a few nights earlier.
“How dare you.” The countess recoiled. Arable had already forgotten she’d told the woman to shut her mouth. “How dare y—”
“Rather easily,” Arable answered, not caring to hide her scoff. “That’s how I dare. It simply involves taking a risk, and bearing its consequences. You’re not really familiar with that sort of accountability, are you?”
She leveled her eyes on the countess, for once refusing to shy away from her gaze. Everything about the woman read as a shallow performance now, rather than a commanding presence. From the calculated angles of her shoulders to the flaking skin around her pursed lips, Arable recognized Magdalena as an empty vessel, driven by an emptier soul.
“You arranged the council,” Arable continued, “and let Marion hang for it. It was your idea, but you refused to back it for fear of your reputation. Well here it is, here’s the price of your vanity—it’s come to your castle walls to strip it away from you. You called for a rebellion you didn’t believe in, because you saw advantage there, never intending to do any of the real work. This is what happens when you have no convictions, Countess. You lose.”
The woman made noises, insolent exhalations, and then silence. Outside, on whichever side of the Great Ouse they damned well pleased, the battalion sounded its horns.
“Well,” Magdalena swallowed, “you lose as well.”
“I certainly do,” Arable answered. “But I’m used to it, because I’ve risked everything before, over and over in fact. Whereas this is something new for you, isn’t it? Talk to me in a decade, perhaps you’ll be halfway to a decent person.”
Down below, a small group was kicking up dust—a trio or so of riders from the battalion, approaching the bridge over the Ouse. The beginning of the end. Arable turned to leave the balcony, though she stopped one last time to study the desperate figure of Countess Magdalena de Bohun, arching her back as she clawed at the railing that, like the world, would not bend in her grasp.
“I realized something about you,” Arable said, not caring at all that this would be a petty insult. “You were wed to Lord Robert nearly twenty years ago, were you not?”
“I was,” she answered, turning her head just barely. “The moment I was of marrying age, my father—”
“Yes, you’ve told us a dozen times. The great Earl of Hereford, marrying his daughters out across the country to earls or their heirs. Lady Margery to the Earl of Warwickshire, Lady Maud to the Earl of Oxfordshire, and you … here.”
“To the Earl of Huntingdonshire.”
“Except he wasn’t earl then.”
The countess had absolutely no reaction.
“This was the Tower de Senlis then. Lord Robert’s father was just another bannerman to the de Senlis family. That’s what you were married into. I suppose you were wicked even then, weren’t you? Imagine, the legendary Earl of Hereford, his daughters a prize for any man to fight over, and he could find no husband for you more prestigious than the son of an unimportant marcher lord. Nobody else would take you.”
Magdalena swallowed. “I like to think my father knew that Lord Robert’s family was on the rise.”
“Yes.” Arable smiled. “I imagine you would like to think that.”
The air was split again by the sounds of horns, much closer now, announcing the arrival of the men below.
“You never belonged here,” Arable finished. “You’re finally returning to the life you deserve, one smothered in obscurity. The reason you’re afraid of losing everything is because you don’t have the skills to climb up again.” She opened the door to re-enter the castle, and descend to meet their enemy. “Which is precisely why I’m not afraid.”
THERE WAS A SINGLE complication.
“Lady Marion’s not here.” Friar Tuck folded his arms into his robes while John Little stood at his side, solemn as a stone angel.
“Good,” Lord Robert answered. The entire castle was gathering, come to crowd the front gates, which Lord Robert intended on opening to their opponent very shortly. “I’d prefer to speak with de Senlis before she arrives. I may just be able to negotiate her safety, if she doesn’t spoil it with any more nonsense of turning herself in.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Tuck replied. “She’s not in the castle, she left in the night.”
Arable was shocked, as were the others. “She ran?”
“Wasn’t her choice, so don’t blame her none,” John explained. “Sir Amon and the Delaney brothers took her, by force mind you. An’ I imagine she’ll take all the three of them apart the moment she has a chance. But they left, an’ wouldn’t say where they meant to take her, only that there’d be no point in you giving chase an’ that you’ll never see her again.”
Lord Robert looked positively devastated. “They abducted her?”
“For her own good,” John answered defensively. “But yes.”
On the other side of the gate, the herald horns sounded again.
For a few tense moments, Lord Robert stared blankly into the sky and Arable couldn’t guess how he would react. Arable felt untethered herself, not sure if she should be furious at Amon, terrified for the danger it put on the rest of them, or just jealous she wasn’t with them.
John Little held his hands up. “We didn’t have a hand in it, my lord.”
“I know,” Robert answered, with no outburst at all. “I just would have liked to say goodbye to her. I’m glad she’s safe. It’s not as though de Senlis really cared about capturing her anyway. She was always just a means to get to me.” He directed his men stationed at the wheels beside the gate. “Go on, open it. If nothing else, I’ll get to enjoy the look on his face when I tell him he can’t have his little prize.
“Oh! And also,” he stuttered, realizing he had more profound responsibilities to deal with. He turned around and tried to address the crowd as one. “I apologize deeply for what is to come. You have all proven yourselves with distinction. It has been my deepest privilege to lead you, and my shame to have led you where I did. I seek nothing for my own well-being, but will negotiate for each of yours. You have my word.”
He nodded once, twice, as if deciding those words were good enough. The crowd gave him little reaction, though not from any lack of sympathy. Eventually, Robert connected again with the gatemen, nodded, and the castle opened its mouth.
Slowly revealed before the entrance of Huntingdon Castle were six men on horseback. Arable took a moment to memorize it, knowing she would likely think back upon this image for many years to come, were she lucky enough to live so long. The riders were silhouetted by the glowing sky, one endless luminescent cloud with no distinction. Behind them, the makings of their war littered the countryside in the distance. The horses bore the sigils of Derbyshire, of Cheshire, and of Huntingdonshire—an insult that Lord Robert must surrender to a man bearing his own livery. But more than these facts, Arable remembered the disappointments. What ought to feel like an unforgettable grandeur was marred in the mundane. The gates wobbled as they caught upturned clods of mud. One of the horses sidestepped and tugged at its reins, and had to be led in a circle to return again. The ecstatic shriek of a young child playing within the courtyard, who did not understand what was happening. A flurry of gnats that hovered briefly by their heads, which they swatted away.
Historic moments were full of these, Arable had no doubt. The world continued in their midst, like the cloud of gnats, no matter what happened to the largest pieces.
“You’ve returned early, de Senlis!” Lord Robert bellowed, one last grasp at his showman’s routine. “And brought so many of your friends! Hardly necessary.”
“They’re not here for you,” de Senlis’s voice returned, but not from the lead rider. As the horsemen made their way into the courtyard, Arable realized that de Senlis was at their edge, not their middle.
“I regret that the Lady Marion Fitzwalter is—”
“They’re not here for her, either,” de Senlis continued. “The Earl Robert of Huntingdonshire, may I present to you the Fourth Earl of Derbyshire, and High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, and her Royal Forests…”
Arable gasped.
“… William de Ferrers.”
The lead horse took a few extra steps forward, from which descended the same pockmarked weasel that had lurked around every one of Nottingham Castle’s corners. The wretched son of the man who had led her father’s army to their doom. Ferrers had claimed the title of Nottingham’s Sheriff after William’s death, a replacement so despicable that it boiled Arable’s blood just to think upon. Now here he was, draped in a mud-splattered ivory cloak, extending his hand out in greeting to Lord Robert.
“Earl Robert, thank you for having us,” he said, which were not at all the words that ought to precede a castle’s seizure. “I wish that I could have sent word ahead of time, but when I explain our presence I’m sure you’ll see that it was not an option.”
Robert’s lips sealed together, his neck clenched, and he shook Ferrers’s hand. He stared until it was awkward that he had not responded, then his eyes flitted back to see if anybody else had any better idea how he should do so. Arable had nothing to offer. Robert settled for a wetting of his lips and a drawn-out, “Oh?”
Ferrers laughed. “I hope we did not alarm you, though I imagine no one enjoys waking up to the sight of an unannounced army outside their walls. I come to implore your aid, as one earl to another, and for your family’s reputation specifically in capturing castles that would otherwise be considered impenetrable.”
Lord Robert blinked. “You want me to show you how to capture my own castle?”
The Sheriff flinched slightly in confusion. “Not at all. I need you to capture mine.”
That confusion infected the entire crowd now.
“Have you not heard?” Ferrers turned about, incredulous. “Prince John is mad. He’s taken complete control of Nottingham, he’s summoned his supporters from halfway across the country, garrisoning it for war. He’s locked all entry and exit from both the castle and the city. My Sheriff’s Guard have been practically deposed and thrown in with the commonfolk, starving and fighting in the bailey and the streets. I had to risk my life just to escape myself, and start gathering supporters to rise up against John’s coup. Cheshire and Derbyshire stand at my side, and I’m hoping I can count on Huntingdonshire as well.”
It was the sketch of the rabbit and the duck again. They had thought they were in the bottom of a pit, only to somehow realize they were actually on top of a mountain.
“You want us to fight against Prince John?” Robert asked.
“I’ve heard all about your council here,” Ferrers explained. “And that Prince John labeled you all traitors for doing so. You have, so it seems, already rallied all the supporters we might need to take Nottingham back from him. You will need to mobilize at once. The longer we wait, the more he’ll be prepared for us.”
“You don’t have enough…” Lord Robert struggled with the logistics, “… not to take Nottingham.”
“What you see out there is merely a third of our forces. Earl Ranulph’s forces in Cheshire are marching already, at his son’s command, to match Derbyshire’s host and then march on to Nottingham. Meanwhile, we’ll convene with Rutland at Belvoir Castle, and then march west, to approach the city from opposite sides at once. How much time do you need to call your bannermen?”
Lord Robert appeared as stunned as he should be. A few minutes ago he had been prepared to surrender his life, and he was now asked to, effectively, lead the rebellion.
If Sir Amon only knew what he had dragged Marion away from, he’d feel awfully stupid.
Arable also suddenly regretted leaving Countess Magdalena with such harsh final words. She had been under the obvious assumption that they would never see each other again. But tomorrow’s awkward apology was nothing compared to the prison cell she previously thought this day would hold for her.
“Two days,” Lord Robert answered after deliberation with his captain. “We can send men to every major house by sundown, and they should need no more than a single day to rally their men and meet us here the day after tomorrow.”
Ferrers’s smile was not a weasel’s grin, but some strange expression of genuine gratitude that Arable had never seen on him before. “Two days will suffice. Ranulph and I would beg your hospitality in the castle these two nights, and some of our entourage. Beneger, I assume you would prefer to stay with your men?”
The name reached across the empty air and stabbed Arable in the chest.
She had not even looked at the other riders, she’d been too shaken by Ferrers, and his news.
Now her blood turned to ice as she looked them over, and recognized every line of the face she had once considered as kind as a father, and then as cruel as the Devil’s heart.
Lord Beneger de Wendenal.
Did she gasp? Did she scream? Did her soul tear itself from her body and flee, knowing the endless void was better than what must come now? What noise did she make that gave him cause to stare so directly back at her, his eyes wide, knowing, understanding not only who she was but how magnificently she’d been trapped?
Arable turned, and ran, though time slowed to a crawl and the air into tar. She couldn’t breathe it, she couldn’t move through it. Her foot dug into the mud, the strain of it was enormous. She was not pushing herself off the round, no, her muscles pushed the entire world down and away.
She had imagined this moment a thousand times. She always knew he would catch her. She should have fled to France, she never should have stayed. She should have gone with her brothers, who had probably fallen at his hands years ago. The last of the Burels, here before him, the end of his vengeance for his insurmountable rage.
He followed, he practically pounced down from his mount.
Was she moving? Had she even made it a single step yet? There was nowhere to flee to, but she didn’t need a destination. She could fly up, back up to the Heart Tower, to the same balcony she had stood at that morning. And she could keep flying after that. It would be better, at her own hands, than his. And better for her daughter, unnamed, unborn. Her death would not be his to claim, there was no hell cruel enough for such a thing to be.
She did not look back, instead she saw the story of what was happening in the faces of the people in front of her. Their wide-eyed horror, they backed away from her, cleared a path. Their eyes told Arable how close he was. That he was gaining. That he was upon her. That it was over.
Hold her head loftily high, she had told herself so recently. To the gallows with dignity. Instead she wept, ugly and feral, when his massive arm reached around her and caught her across the chest, stopping her flight, yanking her backward into death. She screamed now, yes, she screamed everything she’d ever known, every regret and love and fear came out at once, though she could not hear it, the only sound was her own heartbeat, thundering through her blood like a mountainslide, every beat the last one she’d ever have.
And somehow, after this endless expanse of nothing, she was still there.
“Arable, my God, Arable…”
His arms around her.
Hugging her. And he, too, was crying.