There were a young man lying in the dirt, blood pouring out of his throat still. A woman knelt over him, sobbing and rocking back and forth, and the knights just stood there, watching.
David’s arms loosened a little. “There’s nothing we can do. The boy is dead,” he said quiet.
Allan looked about. “We should go to the church,” he said.
“I could have helped him,” I told David.
Allan shook his head.
“You think I shouldn’t act for one boy?” I demanded. “You think that England is some higher thing? One life is England. Every life is England.” Shaking my head, I spat at his feet. “You didn’t choose England. You chose my life over his.”
“He was already dead—” Allan started, looking at the church as if staying out too long would hurt us.
“Yes,” David said. “I chose your life over his.”
I covered my face. “The people can’t survive this,” I told him. “They can’t pay a tax that high, not when they’re still starving from the last one.”
David met my eyes heavy. “And if they can’t, King Richard won’t survive either. And what will England be then?”
I shook my head. “Even if they pay the tax, royal knights can’t do this. They can’t just kill people in the name of the Crown.”
Allan looked frightened. “The Crown doesn’t stand for justice in England, my lady Princess?” he asked. “You’ve shocked me to my core.”
They nudged me toward the church, and I went, staring at the boy.
I hadn’t saved him. I couldn’t save him. And I didn’t know what were left for me if that were true.
CHAPTER
We stayed in the church with the people of Silchester all night long. The knights left when things were calm again, and the people sat together in the pews, crying, raging, sharing their stories of how they couldn’t possibly pay.
I wondered if this were what it had been like in Nottingham after I left, when John Little’s body lay bleeding in the courtyard. Were everyone shocked into stillness and silence, or were they wailing, unwilling to move from that spot?
David helped the priest to lift away some of the benches and make room for people to sleep, carrying whatever materials he could. Allan found some sort of instrument with strings and he were playing it with charm.
I sat in the corner, listening. I didn’t have anything to offer them. I didn’t know how to steal this tax for them. I didn’t know how to help.
If you embrace who you are, you might find a great many tools at your disposal. They had been some of Eleanor’s last words to me, and they haunted me.
If I were some strange version of a princess, would I have been able to stand up there and tell the knights to stop? Would they have listened?
It wouldn’t undo the tax, though, nor the fact that England needed Richard, if only to protect Her from Prince John. I wouldn’t change anything.
Besides—I were dead. I had to stay dead.
We left at first light, slipping from the town. A hush had come over them all, this sad kind of accepting. There weren’t no other choice; that had been made clear to them fast and swift. The boy’s blood were still in the dirt by the well, making it rich and black.
I wondered if John Little’s blood were still in the courtyard at Nottingham, staining the stones where Prince John had killed him to get to me.
There were more people on the road. Maybe they thought if they left their homes, if they traveled somewhere else, they could avoid the tax. Maybe they had somewhere safe to go, but it all felt desperate and sad.
We made Winchester late in the day, and city guards were turning people away at the road before they even got to the city gates. “No visitors!” they shouted. “No visitors!”
David nodded once to us, going over to one of the nonshouting guards. I saw him speak with him, point at me, and speak with him again. The guard shook his head, and then shook his head again. David’s face got grim looking, and he came back to us.
“I told him the earl was expecting you,” he said. “They won’t let us in.”
My stomach dropped.
“But he said there was someone they could send with a message, but he got angry when I wouldn’t give your name. What can we tell him, my lady, that won’t betray you?”
“Huntingdon,” I told him quick, the title that should have been Rob’s rolling fast off my tongue. “That’s the only word he’ll need to hear.”
Allan glanced at me, but David nodded, not questioning. David told the guard and the guard went off to the castle.
We moved off the road, going to a tree and sitting in its shade. The spring day weren’t overwarm, but the sun made me feel weaker.
“This is because of the tax, isn’t it?” I said.
Allan nodded. “Winchester has the reputation as the very best of overlords, my lady. He won’t let his people suffer for this tax. I’m certain many people want to be counted amongst his vassals right now.”
“Ourselves included, it would seem,” David said. “How are you feeling, my lady? You should be able to rest for a few days here.”
“I’m fine,” I said quick, but Allan looked at me.
“You’re ill?” he asked.