THE KENNELS, NOTTINGHAM CASTLE
THE DOGS BARKED, BUT Charley Dancer touched his fist to the cold cage bars, and their bared teeth and riot quickly turned to whimpers and wet noses on his knuckles.
“You remember me,” he cooed, slipping his hand between the iron to stroke their ears. He’d often taken his dinner down here when he wanted to get away, and would throw scraps to the hunting dogs. Back when he was a Guardsman. Dogs didn’t care what was happening now, or what had happened since. They welcomed him back blindly, slapping their tongues into his palm, letting him grab back and tug them around playfully. Good girls.
With their barking settled, the sounds of war still raged in the background. Sharp snaps of stones shattering against the bailey walls. The permanent rumble in the ground, in the bones of the castle. Companies of crossbowmen and archers, repositioning and loosing volleys as the invaders below vied for advantage. Horns in the distance.
Charley scratched the pup’s black fur, all around her ears. He used to know each of their names, but not anymore.
“Charley?”
Good pup, though, she deserved to be scratched.
“Charley, is that you?”
Iron on iron in the next kennel over, where Arthur a Bland was kept. Rusted manacles bound his hands behind his back, and to the cage wall. Restraints that hadn’t been used as long as Charley had been in the Guard. Their only real purpose was to keep a prisoner from taking his own life. But for men like Arthur, no precaution was too much. Manacles it was.
“They’re preparing,” Charley said, giving the dog his last attention. “Prince John is going to go out in the morning. I don’t know how you convinced him, but I think we did it.”
“Arable did most of it,” Arthur said, heavily. “Don’t know what happens to us afterward, though.”
“Don’t know,” Charley confirmed. “Maybe the King will show you mercy, for helping to stop this. If it works.”
Arthur’s feet shuffled. “I doubt it. What about you? Are you … are you in the Guard again?”
Charley looked down at his stolen tabard, tugged at it with one of his hands. It was the same size as he’d always worn, but it didn’t fit anymore. “You’re not surprised to see me like this,” he said.
“Arable told us,” Arthur confirmed. “Before we met the prince.”
After that meeting, Arable and the others had been separated, held now in three different places. In case they were “conspiring something.” Arable in the high tower, Scarlet in the Rabbit, and Arthur here in the kennels. The rest of the castle was at work—mitigating damage, preparing for tomorrow—and the kennel master had broken a leg in the siege and lay in the infirmary. Charley had all the time in the world here, nobody would come to check on the dogs at a time like this.
So he dug in his pocket, pulled out the key to the cages with two fingers, displayed it proudly.
“Holy fuck me, Charley.”
The cage door opened with a shrill creak after the lock gave, and Charley swung inside and shut it behind himself. Sat down on the muck and straw floor, Arthur opposite him. It smelled of piss and shit, the straw hadn’t been changed in a while. Arthur twisted and nodded his head at the manacles that bound his hands behind his back, as best he could. As if Charley had simply forgotten that he was still locked in place.
But Charley hadn’t forgotten.
If there was any point to all this, it was that he hadn’t forgotten.
Charley clicked his tongue. “What did Arable say about me?”
“Hm?” Arthur grunted again. “A bit. Said … you used to be a gord, but you ran away from them and joined with us?”
That was kind of her. She could have said so much more, but she’d hidden the worst parts. A large part of him thought maybe he really could join the Guard again. After revealing himself to Morg, so many of the old Guardsmen had already accepted his return. But once this was all over, once things settled down, they’d ask exactly where he’d been for months. How he came to be back. The same old battle lines would return, and what Charley’d done could not be overlooked. Joining the outlaws in the forest, for longer than he could justify as an act of conspiracy. And frankly, longer than he himself could pretend was an act. And then the manacles would be for him.
He wished he could stay, he did.
He missed Nottingham, and those familiar faces in the Guard, he did.
But it was also no lie, what he’d told Arable. That he’d grown fond of Marion’s Men. Touched, by outcasts who’d accepted him without questions. The great fatherly John Little, protector and guide. The endless help of the Delaney brothers. And of course Arable. Charley was now a man ever between two worlds, very likely welcome in neither. But the better odds were with the outlaws, who might still take him. Might. Begrudgingly.
“I get it,” Arthur said, once it was clear Charley was not about to unbind him. “Not sure, are you? If you set me free, you’ll get in trouble, right? Not sure you want to make that choice?”
Charley had to laugh at that. There wasn’t really a choice to be made.
“I was in the Captain’s Regiment,” he explained, as if Arthur could understand what those words meant. Charley had to fight an iron choke in his throat to get the words out. “We’re the ones that fought with you at Locksley Castle last year. And then again at Bernesdale.”
A moment of silence.
“No shit?”
Charley nodded.
Or maybe Charley’s head alone remained motionless, in a world that at last nodded to him.
There was only a single lantern in the space, on the front side of the cages, throwing deep black shadows across the stone walls and Arthur’s face. Even half devoured by the black, his pupils shined. What those eyes had seen. What those hands had done.
Charley continued. “Last year in Bernesdale, I was standing guard at the south road, where you and your group arrived. I was with my friend. My only real friend. He went into the woods to relieve himself, and then a little boy appeared in front of me. I hobbled down from my ox cart to see who he was, and then I woke up an hour later. You had ambushed us.”
It sounded so simple when he described it that way. Frankly, the details were still hazy. It was like remembering a dream, he could barely even recall the boy. He had no memory of being attacked.
“You did a good job of it.”
More silence. Maybe Arthur knew where this was headed.
“My friend,” Charley continued, “you killed.”
Reginold of Dunmow.
Charley didn’t say his name, he knew it wouldn’t make a difference. Arthur didn’t know the name. None of them did. He was just a guard, just some guard. A gord, as they joked. They bashed in Reg’s skull while he was shitting in the woods.
Charley had seen what was left of him.
His pants around his ankles, sitting in his own shit, his cock out, the most embarrassing way a man could die.
His forehead, caved in.
His fingers, still twitching.
Reginold was the smartest man Charley had ever known. Even when they were both young men, Reg had been unusually sharp. He liked to play with words, move them around, break them apart to find their secrets. He was fascinated by their origins, by Latin roots and bastardizations. He could dissect a word into pieces and build new ones, better ones, that made more sense. The two of them would use those with each other, a private little language only ever spoken by two people, now lost to the world.
Charley’s years in the Guard were often marked by abuse—he’d been smaller than most, weaker than most, and his lame leg somehow made people want to push him down rather than lift him up. He’d never understood that instinct. Charley had only ever wanted to help people, it was why he put up with it all. Reginold of Dunmow had stood between him and every hurled insult, every unwarranted shove in the dining hall. Though they’d risen the ranks together, Charley always knew it was Reginold doing the rising, Charley just holding on. After Gisbourne invited them into the Captain’s Regiment, the insults stopped. But Reg never stopped protecting him.
He’d been the one to give Charley the name of Bolt. He knew that both Charley and Dancer were “weak” names, and there were already too many ways for others to make fun of him. His size, his leg. But Bolt was a weapon, fast and sure. Bolt was a sudden strike, never expected. Bolt was a threat, a warning. Bolt said you have misjudged me. Bolt said surprise.
“Surprise,” said Bolt.
Arthur’s mouth opened. “Life’s shit sometimes, innit?”
Said the bully, when he was finally cornered.
Said the strong man to the weak one.
“So you’ve been hiding this…” Arthur’s eyes calculated. “You’ve been with us for months.”
“I just wanted to be sure.” Charley’s neck seized with laughter. It sounded silly now. “I wanted to be sure I killed the right person. Took a long time to find out for sure. Hard to get any details about Bernesdale, nobody would talk of anything but Much. Nobody cared about the Guardsmen who died there.” Every time he’d brought it up with Will Scarlet, or John Little, they’d avoided it. But one by one, he’d narrowed it down. “For a long time I was afraid it was Elena, or Alan. If it was them, I’d never get to do this.”
A deep breath, to enjoy it.
“But it wasn’t them,” Charley finished. “It was you.”
He’d been anticipating this moment for a long time—too long, far too long—but had never actually let himself visualize it. He didn’t want to daydream about the way he’d do it, he knew the fantasy would taste too good, that it would dull his drive. He didn’t want it if it wasn’t real. In his imagination, things only ever led up to this point. When he confronted Reg’s murderer—and then he pushed the thoughts away, to black. To numb. A block he’d built, so the real thing would have nothing to compare to.
He didn’t want any chance of this being disappointing. If Arthur didn’t beg for mercy, if he didn’t profess his dying rage, if he didn’t cry like a baby. Charley had no expectations, no demands. This would be exactly, and everything, that it was—and nothing that it wasn’t.
But in all his planning, he’d never dreamed of anything as convenient as this. Arthur, hands already bound, chained to a wall, in Nottingham. It was poetry. Charley didn’t have to overwhelm him, or attack in his sleep, or use poison. He wasn’t strong enough to beat Arthur in a fair fight, he knew that. But here he was, wrapped up like a gift. And nobody else around. Nobody else waiting. Nobody who cared.
“I told Arable that I originally joined with Robin’s gang hoping to get revenge, and that was true,” Charley explained. “I also told her that my desire for revenge disappeared after I spent time with you all. That … that was not true.”
Charley’s hands went to his belt, his thumb fingering the hilt of the knife he’d carried with him for months now. Reg’s knife.
Maybe Arthur realized why he was still chained to a wall. Why he wouldn’t get a chance to fight, or defend himself. At least he would know why he died. Reg never even got that.
God, it felt good—the look in Arthur’s eyes—when Charley unsheathed the knife.