I snorted. “I’m certain.” I came forward and sat at the end of his bed, careful not to jostle my back. “I’m hoping it’s to tell me that you didn’t get stone drunk with no reason and there’s some plot in all this.”
He sat up full with a groan. “Christ Almighty, Lord, I don’t deserve such a pain in my head.” He touched his face and then his eye, wincing. “And I think I’ve been beset by ruffians.”
“That was me,” David grunted. Allan looked wounded. “You had the audacity to make light of how he injured her,” David seethed.
Allan’s face dropped. “My lady, I didn’t—”
I waved my hand. “I’m hardly concerned with drunken prattle, Allan. But I still believe there’s a method to your particular idiocy, so tell me now if I’m wrong.”
He rubbed the uninjured half of his face. “There’s a reason for sure, my lady. I’ve learned well that men are never so unguarded as when they think there’s a drunkard around. I caught a string of gossip, and I followed that thread as far as I could.”
David seemed even more angry by this. “So you-you-you drink to find information?” he sputtered. “That makes no damn sense—you don’t even remember me punching you. How can you remember anything else?”
Allan’s eyebrow lifted. “It’s a hard line to walk, to be sure, but someone has to do it.” He leaned toward David, his eyes narrowing. “And you’d be damn surprised what I remember, sir.”
David shook his head, standing and going to the wall, farther from Allan.
“Information, Allan,” I reminded. “If you two wouldn’t mind keeping your antics till later?”
Allan sighed. “I can’t confirm it—I was in the middle of doing just that, but I was quite rudely interrupted. But if it’s true, it’s bad. It’s exceptionally bad.”
I waited.
“One of the lords loyal to the prince—he was with him at Nottingham, my lady, and if I remember he wasn’t particularly fond of you.”
“Who?” I asked.
“De Clare, the heir to the Earldom of Hertford. He and the prince have been thick as thieves since Gisbourne’s death, and he started mouthing off when a barmaid wouldn’t have him. He said that within the year, he’d be the right hand of the king—of the new king.”
I frowned. “That’s hardly news, Allan.”
Allan looked at me. “I know. Someone praised you—the daughter of the king—at that, and he laughed. He said Richard wouldn’t come home and you would be shown your place. Someone challenged this, and he said there are ways to kill a person without ever laying a finger on them. He said all you have to do is murder their heart.”
I sat back, my chest tight.
“What the hell does that mean?” David said. “That doesn’t even make sense.”
“We have to go,” I whispered.
David looked to me.
My shoulders twisted up. “He doesn’t mean me. He means Nottingham. He means Rob,” I said, and my voice broke to say his name.
“I feared the same, my lady,” Allan said low.
“We’re still days away,” I said. “We have to leave now.”
David stood. “Yes, my lady.”
I gathered my things as fast as I could, making half excuses to D’Oyly and Essex. We rode all night, and I weren’t sure I were breathing the whole way there, or blinking, or had blood rushing through my veins. I were terrified of what would be at the end of this road, and strangely I were eager to meet it as fast as I could.
We stopped only for the sake of the horses, and when we dismounted to let them rest and drink, I were shaking. David and Allan were watching me close as we ate and drank and let the horses do the same, but they didn’t question me. There weren’t nothing to say if they did.
I opened my saddlebag, my fingers shaking as I pulled out the now creased and crumpled letters that I hadn’t the will to open. SCARLET, 132.
My heart strummed loud through my veins as I touched it, the thought of opening it—of being with him in some small measure—thrilling through my blood.
I pushed it back inside. Not yet. I couldn’t do it yet. Especially not if there were some chance he weren’t alive in Nottingham to be found.
We smelled it long before we arrived. It were like the time we near lost Major Oak; even if the burning were through, it hung in the air, resting like ghostly fingers around the trees, the brush, anything it could hold on to.
Smoke.
The cloud of it were hanging in the air like a canopy, and it made my eyes sting and water. We rode forward, slowing as we neared the gates of Nottingham. David called my name and mimicked using his cloak to cover his mouth. I copied him.
The city gate were open, unguarded.
My heart hammered in my throat as we went slow into the bounds of the city. Nearest to the road, the houses and shacks that crowded to be counted in the walls were heaps of charred black.
Burned.
Prince John brought fire to my city.