CHAPTER Eleven
The morning were bright and cold, fierce and harsh. The castle’s deer park to the west had been cleared and made into tourney grounds. The field were
clear of snow and tree bits, and horses were all round the grounds, stamping the hard earth and pluming white breath like smoke from their nostrils,
their backs steaming with heat in the cold like they were ghost horses.
I were tucked in a great big chair plush with cushions, fur wrapped about me and servants with hot wine at the ready. And yet just across the grounds in
fair shaky stands that weren’t never cleared of snow there were the people of Nottinghamshire, shivering in their boots and bare coats.
How had I gotten to this side of the ground?
The knights went to their places, and I watched. Their phantom horses wheeled in the back part before the run. The flag dropped and the riders spurred
forward. The horses stretched, their legs massive and corded round with muscle and power, and the knight rode it, a chipmunk on the back of a dragon. But
the knights did have their own kind of grace. It weren’t much in the way of valor to play at fighting like it weren’t something that the people at
their sides had to do every day for their food and life, but the knights were a grand vision. Their armor were fitted in a way that made steel mock the
way the body could move, but still, the shining plates twisted and moved together and made the knight a faceless thing, a warrior.
And when they crossed, their heavy lances looked not for each other, like a sword might, but for the blank open space in front of a man’s chest. That
were the spot the lance longed to fill, a hard strike dead center. It were a strange game. In a knife fight, I worried first about what my opponent might
do with their weapon, but it weren’t so in a joust. It were as if you had to forget that the other might strike you; he became nothing more than a place
to land your lance, and you had to trust that you would either strike first or your stance would hold you through a blow.
I liked that. You weren’t never fighting an opponent. You were made to hit a target, and forget all else.
Sitting back, I thought I’d do fair well in a joust.
The crier, a silly little man that kept yelling titles and such, rapped his stick on the ground twice but didn’t shout. I looked up and noble ladies
ushered the queen mother to sit between myself and Isabel.
I stood double-quick and curtsied, though Isabel just gave a nod to the queen. The queen sat and her ladies tucked furs about her, and then with a wave
of her white hand they left and found other seats.
Feeling foolish, I got back into my chair, pulling my legs up beneath me and my fur over me.
“How are the fights?” the queen mother asked.
“Dreadful,” Isabel said. “I so wish during these times of war that England’s noble sons would not so mock the practice of it. Why, it is as if they
spit upon Richard’s Holy Crusade.” I saw her cast her eyes slight to the queen.
“Hm,” the queen said. “My lady Leaford, what do you think of the practices of tournaments?”
“I think it’s foolish and lovely,” I said overquick. There were probably a better answer, but it weren’t in my head.
“Oh?” she said. “Please explain.”
“Fighting like this is beautiful, in a fashion,” I said, slow now. “No one is hurt for true, and there is grace and power in it. The horses, the
riders, I even like the armor.”
“But you said foolish too.”
I swallowed. Fool tongue. “Yes, my lady queen. These ain’t—” I coughed hard, blood rushing my cheeks. “These aren’t the men that would ever be
called upon to fight. There is a war and they are not part of it. And the men that watch them, shivering from the far side, will fight and die as soon as
King Richard has need of them. And yet they do not have the money to practice, and not the money to protect themselves from such fates.”
She pulled her fur closer to her neck, and its hairs stood tall like the animal had its hackles up. “Such a difference is not just in the poor and
wealthy, Lady Marian. It is strange as a mother to see one son play at war while the other wipes blood from his face each night. But I can see the beauty
in a joust as well, and as a mother I wonder if this is what young men see when they dream of war. We women often don’t see what the appeal is, but they
crave it.”
“You know yourself in a fight,” I told her. “There’s no lying about your skills. About what you can do. It’s a good feeling.”
“You can’t feel if you’re dead,” Isabel said. “There’s nothing good about fighting.”
“Then you utterly mistake the role of women, Isabel. We fight for different things, but women are the most natural of fighters.” The queen inclined her
head to the princess. “Something I have liked about you from the first, Isabel, is that you have defiance and pride within you. That is a form of fight.
”
Isabel’s cheeks went to blush but I weren’t so sure she liked the compliment. “In my experience women don’t get to fight for what they want,” she
said, her voice low and careful. “We don’t understand war because we are not allowed to.”
“You can always fight for what you want,” I told her, overfierce, sitting forward. “Always. People try to take that from you no matter your station,
but you can always fight.”
She gave a snort. “If I were some peasant heathen I’m sure I could,” she said.
“I ain’t no peasant,” I said hot.
“Just a heathen, then,” she said, peering past the queen to smile tight at me. “How does Guy put up with you?”
It took me a moment to remember Guy were Gisbourne’s given name.
“I’m not a heathen,” I ground out, careful to say the words right. Christ, I were out of practice with this. “And you bare seem to know what the word
means. I make no apologies for the way I talk—I only started doing it because nobles and men with power and heavy fists don’t bother with a lowborn
churl, and I chose safety over fancy words when it came to the streets of London. And I don’t look the part of some noble truss, but I spend my life
trying to help people that can’t help themselves. People hurt by the cruelties of their lords. Say that I’m a heathen like I don’t serve God, but all
you’re doing is making yourself look the fool.”
Her face went fair sour. “Oh, this is how you help people? From up here on your high chair in your expensive furs, watching your husband tilt?”
“Perhaps I ought to be lower,” I told her, standing. I dipped to Eleanor. “My lady queen.”
I heard Isabel make some tittery noise behind me, but I turned my cheek from her and walked down from the dais.
Stepping from the stage for nobles felt good, but there weren’t nothing normal about walking through people in skirts, in fine clothes, watching them
step away from me to let me pass. I couldn’t fade to shadows; I couldn’t not be noticed. I hated it.
“You look a little lost.”
I turned to see Much steps from me. He smiled under a big farmer’s hat in his crooked, half-sure way, and I hugged him.
He hugged me tight with a laugh. “John and Rob are awfully boring without you around.”
I mussed his hair with a laugh. “I’m certain they are. So what do you reckon, will someone make me a widow today?”
We went and leaned on the fencing that were meant to keep the common folk from the grounds. We were low, back, and to the side, and from there the whole
thing looked vicious and fierce, less like a game and more like gods stomping about for notice.
“I doubt it,” he said, honest as ever. “Gisbourne is a very good fighter.”
I rubbed my still swollen lip. “I know.”
“He slept, you know,” Much told me. “Last night, whole way through.”
This thrilled my heart like a holy fire. “It’s fair strange, talking about Rob like he were an infant or such.”
“It’s good news.”
I shivered. “It’s perfect news.”
“I’m scared for you, Scarlet,” he told me, nudging closer. “Those bruises aren’t all from Rob that night, are they?”
“No.” I slung a grin his way. “When were I ever afraid of a little bit of purple?”
“I’ll find a way to help,” he promised. “I’ll find a way to make sure you’re not alone.”
“I’m well enough, Much. Needn’t fret,” I told him. “Are the menfolk well?”
He nodded. “Yes. Hugh Morgan’s trying to make one of the knights wed Aggie after some improprieties, which is entertaining, but the food is almost
gone. We won’t last till Christmas, much less the rest of the winter.”
“You should see the feasts they have here. It’s enough to make you sick.”
He smiled at me. “It doesn’t take much to make you sick, Scar.”
It were meant to be funny, so I laughed.
“What’s it like, being one of them?”
“A noble?” I asked. He nodded. “I’m not, I don’t think. I don’t talk right. I for certain don’t look right. They all think I’m off and mad and
contrary.”
His grin sloped sideways in a silly way. “You are all of that.”
“Are we talking about me?” John asked, coming up my other side and wrapping his arm round my back. “Look at the little lady we have here,” he
laughed, looking at my clothes. “Where’s your knife?” he asked.
I frowned, shrugging him off, but I showed him the one I hid along my back.
Much laughed. “But where’s your second knife?” he asked.
Leaning on the rail again, I said, “My boot. But ladies ain’t supposed to show their ankles.”
John guffawed at this, leaning beside me and tucking his hat down low, and Much did to match. I wouldn’t never tell them as much, but with them on
either side were the closest I felt to right in the past days.
Thoresby were next up, and getting himself onto the horse he looked frail and old. He weren’t—he were bare older than my father, and I remembered my
father strong and young. But his armor were too big and his face were too grave, and my chest were strapped tight with fear for him.
The herald blew his horn and called out Thoresby’s name, and Wendeval’s came up behind it. I sucked in a breath.
“Not good?” John asked, raising his brow to me.
“If you knew how to joust, he would be a fair likeness to you,” I told him. “I saw Wendeval last night. He’s a big bruiser.”
John scowled. “I’m not just a bruiser,” he muttered.
The horn blew again and the horses launched forward. Thoresby didn’t sit well, didn’t hold the lance well, didn’t move well. “Christ,” I hissed.
“It’s a damn wonder he’s riding in a straight line.”
“And this is our champion,” John said.
I hit him.
They crossed lances, and Thoresby’s lance glanced off Wendeval’s shoulder, shooting up and launching from his hand.
Wendeval’s lance struck Thoresby’s ribs, ringing with the impact but glancing rather than holding. His lance dropped, and pages ran out to get the
fallen weapons.
The riders trotted back to their places and were handed up another lance.
“He’s going to lose,” John said.
“Shut it,” Much snapped at him as the horn blew.
John shrugged, and my fingers curled into the wooden fence as the horses’ strides shook the ground. Wendeval’s form were stronger, better, his arm high
and lined to his shoulder, his body balanced over the horse.
Thoresby, if anything, looked worse.
Several more pounding hoofbeats and they met on the field. Wendeval leaned out and struck, his body like a strange, stretched version of John throwing a
punch. Thoresby moved late, the lance hurtling toward him overfast, like he were fixed and couldn’t much move.
The ball head of the lance struck dead in the center of Thoresby’s armor, not with the clangs that the glancing blows made but with a low, hard boom.
The horse thundered on, but Thoresby were still, hanging in the air for breath after breath as his horse charged forward without him. Then his body
twisted, light flashed from his silly, useless armor, and in a spinning mess he clattered to the ground, a still, twisted heap.
I ducked under the fence and ran.
Thoresby weren’t moving when I got out there, a healer a breath behind me. Thoresby’s arm were tucked under him at an ugly angle, and he uttered a
groan.
My heart lurched to life in my chest. Jesus. He were alive.
The healer rolled him over and started checking him, and I sat by, kneeling on the frozen ground as more people clustered round. The crowds parted for
Lady Thoresby, and I stood to meet her.
She were looking at her husband. “It’s done, Scarlet,” she whispered to me. “He can’t fight with his arm like that.” She glanced at me, her blue
eyes full of water. “And I won’t ask him to.”
A cold, empty chill snaked round my spine to pool in my belly. I gripped her hand. “I know. I know. I’m sorry.”
She gripped back. “Find some other way, Scarlet. You always do.”
Her hand fell from mine, and she went forward with her husband. The crowd shifted and moved as my chest went tighter. Gisbourne would be sheriff, and all
these people … all these people would suffer for it.
There wouldn’t never be no relief, for none of them. Certain not for me.
“Scar?” John said low, catching my arm. “You all right?” He pulled me over to the side, and I went, leaning on the fence as the people started to
clear from the field and Thoresby were carried off it.
“He’s done,” I told them. “We’re done.”
“You’ll find another way, Scar,” Much said.
My hands trembled with the damned desperate need to push him till he lost his feet. “Me,” I growled, but I were dangerous close to wanting to cry. “It
can’t always be me. I can’t figure it out.”
“Scar—” Much said soft, touching my arm.
“Scar,” John grunted, raising his chin. I looked past Much and frowned.
“I don’t think Gisbourne would appreciate his wife mixing with the common element,” de Clare said, walking close, his armor clattering and making me
jump, though it looked fair foolish on him. “It doesn’t look good for a man of his, well, uncertain stature.” De Clare were inches away, and with my
back against the fence the space felt oversmall.
I slid my sore hand behind me, keeping it from him, but even though every muscled bit of me were screaming to step away from him, I wouldn’t do it. I
wouldn’t never run from a bully.
“His wife’s fair common herself,” I said. “And between the two of us, you’re the only one looking foolish.”
De Clare’s lip curled. “You brazen little animal—” he started, but John laughed. John were leaning on the fence with me and Much, looking easy
enough, but his jaw were bunched with muscle and his neck looked like a sailor’s rig with all the lines running to and fro. “Something amuses you?” de
Clare asked John.
“Begging your pardon, my lord,” John said with a dash of his head. “By all means, keep talking. I would dearly love to see your face when you see how
I—and all these menfolk behind me—take to you insulting her.”
De Clare smiled at John. “Yes, I’m sure you’re quite interesting to tangle with.” He sneered. “Quite the brawler. Don’t worry, you lowborn churl,
she may be safe out here with your kind of rabble. But I can find her in the castle, alone, vulnerable. I can do whatever I want to her, and you won’t—
”
He stopped yapping, most because there were John’s fist crashing into his mug—the one bit of him that weren’t covered in shiny metal. And, like a toy,
he spun a mite bit and fell back, dropping onto the ground.
“John, go,” I told him as everyone began to look over. “Well put, but go.”
He smiled and grabbed Much, and the townfolk stood and covered them as they went. The nobles were all looking over and staring at me.
“Marian?” someone said, and it took a breath to realize it were meant for me. I turned and Gisbourne were there, in only a bright chestplate, his black
hair wild and wet. He reached over the fence and pulled me to him, and even with a giant beam between us, it were surprisingly close in a way I didn’t
much like. “Did he touch you again?” he snarled.
“Why, he threatened her life!” someone said. “Her life and all her future progeny! Awful!”
I turned to the voice and saw Allan there, looking overbright in a red cape. I frowned at him.
“And one of the townsfolk stood up for her, he did. The beloved jewel of Nottinghamshire. Never fear, my lord Leaford, for no true harm would come to
her while these good people can prevent it.”
Gisbourne glowered at him. “You sound Irish, minstrel.”
He gave an elaborate bow. “Well spotted, my lord Leaford.”
“Then how have you any idea what these people will do?”
Allan sprang up, unruffled. “Tis clear, my lord. Your wife—and for certain yourself, by your nearness to her—is adored by these people.” He bowed
again.
Gisbourne grunted an oath under his breath. Other men were helping de Clare up, and he were muttering without making much sense. Gisbourne shook his head
and ducked under the fencing.
“What are you doing?” I breathed, stepping back from him.
Muscles in his jaw rolled like wagon wheels, and he stepped forward, taking my arm. “Come, Marian. I’ll see you back to the dais.”
“Gisbourne,” Winchester called, coming from the noble’s side. “You’re up in the lists. I’ll escort your wife, if you wish.”
Gisbourne swept down his head so beads of sweat flew off. “Your Grace.”
Winchester ducked under the fence. He had no armor on, and his arm were warm as it held mine. “Not tilting today, your Grace?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I have all the favor, money, and glory I require. I don’t see the point in it. Besides, then how could I rescue young ladies?”
I looked back at de Clare, who had just bare found his feet. “Who or what were you rescuing me from?”
“A treacherous walk back to the dais, clearly. And myself, from boredom. I did so enjoy seeing de Clare flat on his back. Your friend has excellent aim.
”
“You have no idea,” I told him. “It is fair strange that I’ve found myself unable to do my own defending.”
“You have a broken hand,” he told me. “And yet I’m sure, without so many men eager to prove themselves around you, that knife you have along the
small of your back would have been marvelously well employed. Your seat, my lady.”
We had reached the dais and my empty chair. He held my hand until I were settled into it, and I stared up at him, fair shocked.
He bowed over my hand. “My lady. Your Highness,” he said, and I turned.
Eleanor inclined her regal head to him. “Winchester.”
Winchester left, and I drew a breath. I didn’t much know what to say to a queen.
“You have many friends,” she noted. “It seems they are a more common equivalent of my loyal knights.”
Looking at Isabel’s seat, I sighed. “I reckon I have more enemies than would-be knights.”
“You know,” the queen said, her voice thoughtful and quiet. I went fair still, listening. “When I was made Louis’ wife and queen of France at
fifteen, my husband’s court thought me … wild,” she said slow. “I spoke my mind, and I loved to dance more than they thought entirely appropriate.
They called me such names.” Her cool, austere face curved with a regal smile. “I won them over, in time. They shouted my name and threw roses at my
feet.”
I stared at her. “I always heard you were unhappy in France.”
She nodded, not looking at me. “Yes. Well, becoming an English queen after being a French one does call for some revision in history, doesn’t it? And
in the end, Louis’ betrayal was perhaps the worst I have suffered.” She lifted her shoulder. “But it led me here, to England, to my children.” She
chuckled. “Louis and I never fought quite so viciously as Henry and I did, though. Marriage is complicated.”
I looked out over the field at Gisbourne’s black-clad form. “Quite.” I looked at her. “Is it true you fought in the first Crusade?”
She laughed and stared out over the field with a glow like a moonbeam. “A queen cannot reveal all her secrets, my dear.” She tapped her lip with her
finger, then continued to watch the jousts without saying another word.
My husband tilted in that round and won after a series of broken lances. His next contest were against de Clare, and he rode again, slamming a blow to
the middle of de Clare’s chest and unseating him with the first ride. When de Clare’s helmet rolled loose, Gisbourne scooped it up with his lance and
brought it to me on the platform like a trophy.
I took it. I stared at it, wondering if, without Thoresby in the race, Gisbourne had just won the whole of Nottinghamshire and didn’t much know it yet.