Robin Hood is dead, long live Robin Hood.
If you’re starting this book without reading its predecessor, Nottingham (or if it’s simply been a while since you read that book), you might need a quick recap of its events. After all, there are a handful of significant events you should know about—and the only characters who know the truth are dead.
In 1191, King Richard took all of England’s men and coin away and named his mission a “Holy Crusade” because “A Really Wretched Idea” was just a hair too accurate. When critical supplies from home failed to arrive, he sent his two personal body doubles—Robin of Locksley and William de Wendenal—back to England to investigate. Their search led them to “Marion’s Men,” a group of outlaws and destitute peasants organized by Lady Marion Fitzwalter, who were living in the Sherwood and stealing supplies to survive.
Robin and William split up to effect a peace: Robin stayed with Marion’s outlaws and tempered their outright stealing toward more gentlemanly thievery, gaining them the love of nobles and peasants alike, while William went to Nottingham to pacify the High Sheriff of Nottingham, Roger de Lacy, and the captain of the Nottingham Guard, Guy of Gisbourne. For a short but unsustainable time, things were slightly less terrible.
In that time, William was reunited with an old flame: Arable de Burel. The Burel family had once been prominent in Derby, until the Kings’ War of 1174—in which the Burels followed the Earl de Ferrers to war, while the Wendenals refused. As punishment, William’s brothers were kept as hostages in the Burel estate, where they were accidentally killed trying to escape. William’s father, Beneger de Wendenal, blamed the Burels and destroyed their household—which obviously ended William and Arable’s youthful romance, and sent her into exile. Now, seventeen years later, they could rekindle that relationship.
Violence ignited when Marion and Robin’s crew tried to raid the Nottingham Guard’s supplies in Bernesdale. Two Guardsmen were killed, and Captain Gisbourne unintentionally killed a young boy named Much. In revenge, two of the outlaws—Will Scarlet and Elena Gamwell—went rogue, snuck into Nottingham Castle, and assassinated Sheriff de Lacy. They were captured and sentenced to death.
In the aftermath of this, Robin embraced the persona of “Robin Hood,” while William managed to claim the vacant Sheriffcy. When traditional methods of capturing Robin Hood failed, Captain Gisbourne devised a devious plan: he assaulted Arable and tricked her into releasing Will Scarlet and Elena Gamwell from prison, and then trailed them back to Robin’s camp. He also convinced Elena to poison Robin, but she mistakenly killed her friend Alan instead, and then drank her own poison in remorse for the betrayal. A brutal fight ensued, ending with the deaths of Gisbourne and most of his Guardsmen.
A few other notable names include: Lady Margery d’Oily and her husband Waleran de Beaumont, Earl of Warwick, who befriended Arable but eventually turned on her; Gilbert with the White Hand, a violent killer who left Marion’s Men to join the Nottingham Guard; and a Guardsman named Bolt who abandoned Nottingham after his best friend Reginold was killed.
In the end, Arable guided Robin back to Nottingham Castle to confront William and save Marion, who he believed had been captured against her will. In reality, Marion had arranged her own wedding to William to increase both their power, in the hopes of creating a lasting peace. In the Sheriff’s office, Robin and William confronted each other. Seeing no alternative, William killed Robin, but was immediately poisoned by the young new Earl of Derby: William de Ferrers. Ferrers seized the Sheriff’s seat as his own, and publicly claimed that “Robin Hood” had killed Sheriff William de Wendenal.
In the Sherwood, Will Scarlet took on the mantle of Robin Hood, vowing to continue the fight against the new Sheriff alongside Marion, even as winter begins.