The knights stopped us, blocking us off. David, Rob, and I stood close together. I didn’t see Allan.
Prince John stood outside the gate, mounted on his horse, with a legion of men holding torches around him, beside him, behind him.
He rode in slow, looking at us with a smug smile on his face, and my heart slammed against my chest.
“Lady Huntingdon,” he said. “Earl Huntingdon. Now, tell me this. Why would my mother come to London, escorted by two noblemen and a legion of knights, and then send her precious ransom off with her granddaughter? Hm?”
I didn’t open my mouth.
“It’s strange, isn’t it? Meanwhile, my nattering wife says she has friends, friends that will stop me. There aren’t many people foolish enough to cross me. Except you two. So it could all be a rather strange coincidence, or perhaps it isn’t.”
Rob took my half hand in his.
“Jacques,” Prince John called, snapping his fingers. The knight who had taken our accounting stepped forward. “What did they do while they were here?”
“They dropped off the silver, my lord,” he said.
“Did you watch them do it? Pick it up, put it down, you watched every chest?”
He paused. “Yes,” he said. But he hadn’t.
“And you went through each chest? Matched the amounts, verified their contents?”
He paused longer. I tugged Rob’s hand to sit on the small of my back over the hilt of my knife, and his eyes met mine for one brief look.
“Go check the silver,” Prince John snapped.
He went. We only had moments.
Prince John dismounted. The knights parted for him, and he came into the circle with us with a wide grin. “Anything you want to confess, Marian?”
“Don’t speak to her,” Rob snapped. “You want to accuse her of something, speak to me.”
“Confess,” he said, stepping close to me. “And I’ll make up a good lie about how you died.”
“I’ll confess,” I whispered.
He stepped a tiny bit closer. “A little louder, Marian.”
“You used to be afraid to get so close to me,” I told him, and he met my eyes. “That was a good instinct.”
I slammed my knee into his crotch, drawing my knife as Rob pulled the other knife from my back. Prince John grabbed my hand with the knife, but I pushed back on his hold, forcing the knights to break the circle as he fell back.
Quick, I grabbed Prince John while he were off balance. I kicked at his knees and stepped fast to the side, grabbing his hair and jerking his head back as I moved behind him.
Two knights came for me, and I pressed the knife to his throat. “Stop!” I yelled.
I saw Rob and David fighting, and they looked at me. A knight hit David across the face, and he fell, and a knight wrapped his arm around Rob’s throat.
Rob stabbed his knife into the knight’s arm, and the knight dropped him. Another knight held out his sword to Rob, while the other knights were backing up, looking at me.
“Move away from him. Now,” I told the knight.
“Kill him,” Prince John grunted.
“I will slit his throat,” I told the knight.
“No, she won’t!” Prince John said. “Kill him! Now!”
The knight were looking at me, not Prince John. “Do it and he dies,” I warned.
“You’re under orders,” John told him. The knight met his gaze. “Kill him! Tuez-le maintenant!”
The knight drew his arm back, and I pushed Prince John aside, leaping over him to grab the knight’s arm and prevent it from moving forward. I buried my knife in his side.
Another knight pulled me off. He slammed his fist into my stomach, and I lost my breath at the burst of pain.
A hand closed on my wrist with the knife, and someone else hit me across the face. Then I were in the grass, on my back, and people held my wrists and feet; someone even had a boot on my stomach.
“Get her up,” Prince John said.
They dragged me to my knees. Rob and David were on their knees too now, and they pushed us into a line.
Our revolt had lasted roughly a minute.
With three against thirty, two knives between us, we’d never had much hope. Except for delaying long enough to let Kate get away.
“Do you men even know what you do?” David shouted. “You strike the daughter of the King of England! A princess!”
“A bastard,” Prince John dismissed. “Jacques?” he asked.
I looked at Rob. His mouth were drooling blood, and a cut on his eye were bleeding too.
“My-my lord,” he stammered. “Mon seigneur, il est vide.”
I didn’t speak French, but I knew what that room contained well enough.
Prince John picked up one of my knives from the ground. He came close to us and looked at Rob for a long while. Then he looked at me. “So. I need to know where my money has gone, and I need one of you two to tell me.”
We didn’t say anything.
“These things—information, and the ways we request it—they’re very simple. It’s a transaction, you see. For a fine woolen coat I would pay a certain sum. For boots, a different sum. So the question is, what sum will you pay to conceal the information I need? And what sum is too high a price to ask?”