“Stop!” I roared, running in front of him and pushing him back.
He dropped the whip and drew his sword fast, arcing it down at me. I dropped to one knee and drew my knives, crossing them to prevent his sword from crashing into my head. I pushed him off and jumped up, twisting and striking out with one knife and the next until he jumped back. David went behind me and untied the man.
D’Oyly swung again and I twisted as David helped the man up.
Boy. He were a boy, fifteen at the most. This tyrant had been beating a boy.
I bare knew my next moves. I swung my knives fast, furious, throwing him off balance and stepping in close beside him to drive my elbow under the blade of his shoulder, and he dropped his sword. I recoiled and drove my elbow into his face, and he dropped.
A noise grew louder, over the pounding of my heart. I heard the rattling metallic stomp of armored men. I backed away from him as knights came into the city center, and the people looked terrified. Well and truly terrified.
Walking through the knights were a man without armor, his hands clasped behind his back. His cruel, sharp face twisted into a familiar smile, redness flooding into his cheeks.
My heart froze.
“Lady Leaford,” Prince John snarled, his face mottled red with anger. “How nice to see you still alive. I had heard the very worst things about your fate.”
I stood still, my knives in my hands.
“And you,” he said, looking at David. “You look familiar.”
“It’s Lady Huntingdon now, Prince John,” I told him, trying to draw his attention back to me.
That worked. His glare were sharp and heated. “You’re mistaken. Huntingdon is mine,” he growled.
“Not anymore,” I told him. “Not according to King Richard. Who also saw fit to pardon me for that . . . misunderstanding between us.”
I saw his mouth tremble, his rage bare contained. “When you tried to kill me, you mean.”
“I think you know more about trying to kill people than I do,” I said, turning my knife in my hand. “When I try, I don’t fail.”
“You’re interfering with my justice again, Marian. You have a rather nasty habit of doing that.” He lifted his shoulders. “Come along. We shall chat in private.”
“She’s not going anywhere,” David snapped, a few feet away, watching D’Oyly, who had recovered his feet, and the knights too. Watching my back, as it were.
The prince chuckled. “I only wish, my lady, that you would let my vassal continue his task.”
I glanced at D’Oyly, wiping his mouth. “His task,” I repeated.
“Yes,” Prince John said cheerful. “These people won’t pay their taxes. They need to be reminded what fate lies before them if they fail to pay.” He looked at me, and I could see his thoughts coiling behind his eyes like a snake. “Unless you feel that they should not have to pay. That they should not help bring my brother home to his throne.”
“How do you know that they can pay?” I demanded. “If they can’t pay, it’s a failure of their lord, not the people.”
D’Oyly shrank back.
“I’m trying to inspire them, my lady. Isn’t that what you’re so good at?” he sneered. “Inspiring people to act? Even when it leads to their deaths.”
Hate pounded through my heart and it made me feel overstrong.
I could kill him. I could kill him right here.
I stepped forward and halted.
But how many others would die, would be hurt, in my wake?
I looked at the people—men, women, children bare old enough to have had their first kiss—waiting to be whipped. These people didn’t need my vengeance. They needed my protection.
“I won’t let you hurt any of them.”
He laughed, and his eyes glittered. “Fine, Lady Leaford, I’ll offer you a bargain. If you are so willing to stand for the people, then you can kneel for them as well.”
Everything went silent. A knight shifted and his armor creaked with it.
“Kneel at the post, Marian, and be the martyr you seem to believe you are. Take their lashes and I won’t hurt them.”
The people kneeling on the ground looked up. The first time they had raised their heads, and they looked to see if I would take their pain away from them.
“You will not touch her,” David growled. “She is protected by the queen mother. She is the Lady of Huntingdon!”
Prince John’s smile turned into a snarl. “I cannot force it upon you, Marian,” he said, with what sounded like deep regret, “but volunteer and it is the only way I will spare their pain.”
I dropped my knives. I cast off my hat and let my hair run over my shoulder the bit that it could. People gasped—which were fair odd, since Prince John had been calling me a “she” for a long while—and I pulled off the stiff tunic.
Prince John looked angrier still.
“My lady—” David protested, gripping my arm. “You can’t—”
I threw him off. “Look at them, David. Of course I can.”
“I will take her place!” David yelled, throwing down his sword. “Punish me instead!”