Will in Scarlet (11 page)

“We’re glad you’re feeling better,” Gilbert was saying. “Who knew that little Much had such skill as a surgeon?”

A few of the men laughed at this—the fat one known as Stout, in particular—but most stayed quiet.

“So it’ll grieve me greatly if we have to kill you,” Gilbert said.

“That’s two of us,” said Will.

That earned a grin at least from the bandit leader. Will had guessed that these men would expect a lordling to weep and beg for his life, but Will wouldn’t give them that. His insides were all twisted up in fear, and he was wishing he’d had
time to use the chamber pot first, but he did his best to appear calm. If they were going to believe his story, then he needed to remain collected.

“Much here tells me you’re named Will Scarlet,” said Gilbert. “Can’t see how the name Scarlet profits us in any way.”

“It’s not my real name,” said Will.

“Really,” answered Gilbert dryly. “What a shocking confession.”

Will took a deep breath. He could feel Much standing next to him, the tension in the boy’s body. He’d been practicing what to say all morning long.

“My father’s name is Hugo Blunt, steward in service to Lord Rodric Shackley. But that is not my name because my father never married my mother. He raised me on the grounds of Shackley Castle, but I have no claim to his property, or his name. They called me Scarlet, after my mother.”

Gilbert seemed to be considering this as he scratched his pockmarked cheek. Will had heard once that the best lie was the one closest to the truth. The man who’d told him that was Sheriff Mark Brewer, and he should know, since he turned out to be a traitor and a lying coward in the end.

“We heard what happened at Shackley Castle,” said Gilbert. “How the lord regent there was exposed in a traitorous plot to kill Prince John.”

“That’s not true!” The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. It was dangerous defending his family too fiercely, but he couldn’t let Guy’s slander stand unanswered, not even before a band of thieves. “The Sheriff of Nottingham allowed Sir Guy’s thugs into the castle, and Lord Geoffrey was murdered by Guy himself because he wouldn’t support Prince John against King Richard. I saw it happen!”

Gilbert shrugged. “The way I hear it told, he was killed in
a brawl in his own courtyard. Insulted the prince’s good name and started a fight he couldn’t win. Prince John’s since given the stewardship of Shackley Castle over to Sir Guy. But the truth of the matter is, I don’t care. John, Richard, or King Fart the Great, they’re all the same to us out here in the wild.

“Now,” he continued, “where’s your father? He alive or dead?”

“Dead,” answered Will, and that was partly true at least. Hugo was dead, and Will didn’t have to fake tears to mourn the man who’d served him so bravely, but Will’s real father might still be alive, somewhere.

“Dead,” said Gilbert. “Shame. Dead men don’t pay for bastard boys.”

Will could see the ice in Gilbert’s eyes. He heard the rustle of movement nearby, perhaps a knife being drawn from its sheath.

“You’re right that no one’ll pay my ransom,” Will said quickly. “But I can help you. I know how you can be rich men!”

“I know,” said Gilbert. “I’ve heard the sermons. Work hard, love and fear our good king what’s-his-name, and we can all be rich in heaven! No thank you.”

“Shackley Castle still stands, and there are real riches inside!” said Will.

“Lovely,” said Gilbert. “I’ll ask Sir Guy to show them to me the next time I pop in for supper!”

“But I know a secret passage into the castle!” Will said. “It was known only to the royal family and my father. Guy can’t have discovered it.”

Gilbert held up his hand. No one moved while the bandit leader stared at Will, judging him. Weighing his life against the trouble it was likely to cause.

“I still suspect that half of what you are telling me is pure
manure,” said Gilbert at last. “And if this half turns out to be the lie, I’ll run you through myself. But if you can tell us the location of this passage, you might just live to see the morning, Will Scarlet.”

Will let out a long breath. It could have been his imagination, but he thought Much did the same.

“I’ll do better than that,” said Will. “I’ll take you there myself.”

A fallen lord. A plot to steal the throne of England. A hidden treasure at the end of a secret passage. It sounded like one of her father’s bedtime tales. When Much had told Will to think carefully about what he could say to stay alive, she hadn’t expected this load of dung. What a soft-skulled idiot.

Much had listened quietly as Will told them all his fairy story of hidden treasure, and like children they believed it. Truth was, the camp was filled with enough desperation and frustration that they’d have believed anything. Times had never been good, but they’d been getting steadily worse, and once Gilbert discovered that there was no such passage and no hidden treasure, he’d have Will killed in the worst way he could imagine—and Gilbert the White Hand was a frighteningly imaginative man. And if, during the slow process of the boy’s dying, it was revealed that Much had encouraged him to lie to begin with, then she’d likely be next.

But for today at least, the camp was abuzz with talk of treasure. The Merry Men couldn’t care less about Will’s story of the murder of Lord Geoffrey Shackley. What mattered most
now was the prospect of silver, and something else—the attack on Will and his father. The two of them had been ambushed by bandits, which was nothing remarkable in these parts. What was remarkable was where the ambush had taken place—the South Road, the Merry Men’s road.

Someone else was poaching on their territory.

There was little debate as to who it was. Crooked’s Men had threatened incursions before, and the sheer brutality of the attack was Tom Crooked’s style. The Merry Men were scum, thieves of the lowest sort and proud of it, but Crooked had assembled a band of vicious cutthroats. Crooked’s Men had a saying: “Silver glitters more sweetly when it’s painted red.”

The ambush was Crooked’s work, of that they were certain. What they should do about it was still unsettled. Few were happy about ceding territory to a rival band, but even fewer were eager to start a war with Crooked’s Men. Of those that wanted to pay Crooked back in kind, John’s voice was the loudest (in part simply because the giant’s voice boomed as a general rule). Even more than the slight against the Merry Men, John was offended at the act itself. If Sherwood became known for wanton murder, merchants would find another way around it. As it was, folks took their chances on the South Road because all they were risking was their property, and maybe a bruised pate. Often, hired guards didn’t even put up a fight, because they knew that if they simply surrendered, they would live to see their wives and mistresses again. Men were easier to deal with when they were fighting for coin instead of their lives.

For her part, Much preferred to let the matter be. The reason Crooked had started poaching on their territory in the first place was that he had more men. Meaner men. She’d come to Sherwood to thieve, not to march to war. She’d come to Sherwood because she was running away. She’d stayed because
there was nowhere else to go, and in time she’d discovered things here worth staying for.

Bloody Will Scarlet. The boy was trouble.

The men in the camp wanted it both ways—they wanted Will’s promised fortune, and they wanted to send a message to Crooked. Gilbert devised a plan that would accomplish the two goals at the same time, or so he boasted. But Much had learned long ago that when men resorted to boasting, it was time to start worrying.

As Much packed up her gear, the hunting party assembled outside. In the privacy of her own tent, she changed her shirt and redressed the long bandage she wore wrapped tightly around her chest. As the months passed, it was getting increasingly uncomfortable to wear the wrapping, but she needed more than just a baggy shirt and short hair to pass for a boy these days. It hadn’t always been that way, but her body was changing and the truth was getting harder to conceal. The men knew better than to come into her tent unannounced (more than one had earned himself a shoe to the face that way), but she still changed quickly and with her back to the door.

Once properly dressed and disguised, she added two long knives to her belt, plus a smaller blade tucked into her boot. She slung a pack over her shoulder loaded with several days’ rations (hard bread and acorns boiled enough times so as to be edible, if not particularly tasty). Lastly, she brushed her bangs down over her eyes. She kept the rest of her pretty face well hidden with filth, but she’d inherited her mother’s almond-shaped bright green eyes, so fetching on any other girl her age and so dangerous for her. It was annoying to always have her hair dangling in her vision, but it couldn’t be helped—there was no way to dirty up her eyes.

When she stepped outside, she found John waiting with Will. Rob stood off a ways, getting sick in a bush.

Spotting Much, Will gestured angrily at Rob.

“I can’t believe that drunk is coming with us!” he whispered.

“He’s quite the fighter when he sobers up,” said Much.

“But
can
he sober up? For longer than a few hours, I mean?”

John obviously caught the gist of their whispered conversation, because he answered with a laugh, loud enough for Rob to hear. “Rob’s a useless pain in the arse when he’s like this, but there’ll be no wine out there on the road.”

“Go bite yourself,
Little John
,” moaned Rob from his doubled-over position.

Much started to laugh, but John caught her eye.

“Don’t,” he warned, pointing a thick finger at Much’s face. “Don’t encourage him.”

John walked over to Rob and, ignoring the man’s curses, helped him onto his horse.

Much leaned over to Will.

“You see, John’s family name is Little,” she explained. “So Rob calls him—”

“Little John. I get it,” said Will, cutting her off. “Why haven’t we left yet?”

“We’ll be on our way soon enough.”

“Not soon enough for my taste,” Will said, folding his arms and glaring at nothing in particular.

Much recognized the look, because she’d used it often, back when she’d had the luxury of doing so. Back when she’d still been a miller’s daughter instead of a miller’s son. Will was in a pout, and he expected it to actually accomplish something here in Sherwood Forest. The boy was a spoiled fool, as well as a troublesome one.

“You do realize you’re lucky to be alive, don’t you?”

Will answered without looking at her. “I’m a prisoner.”

“Better a live prisoner than dead target practice. Which, by the way, is what you’ll become if this secret passage of yours doesn’t exist. I hope you’ve thought that far ahead.”

“Have
you
?” asked Will, finally looking at her.

“What? What do you mean?”

“I mean, if it turns out I am lying. If I’m more trouble than I’m worth, have you thought about how you’ll kill me?”

Much opened her mouth to protest, but no words came out. She’d never intended to do it, no matter what she’d said to Gilbert. But how had Will learned of it?

“Will you knife me in the back then and there, or will you wait until I’m sleeping and just cut my throat?” he asked.

“Neither,” said Much. “I don’t know who you’ve been talking to, but I wouldn’t do that.”

“Never mind,” said Will, turning back away. “The passage is real enough. I’ll get you all into the castle, and you can ransack the place as long as you stay out of my way. Once my work there is done, I don’t care what you do to me.”

Much swallowed her shame, and it went down like a bitter pit that stuck in her throat. Will thought her capable of knifing him in the back, and there was no way to make him believe otherwise. And why should he? Since coming to Sherwood, he’d been attacked by bandits, then nursed back to health by even more bandits, only to learn that he was nothing more than ransom. She’d been the closest thing he had to an ally in this camp until he learned she’d been assigned to be his assassin.

It would be pointless to keep arguing, which was why Much was almost relieved to see the two men she despised most—Stout and Gilbert—approaching. Stout was wearing a smug
grin (God knew why—it just made him look more like a dimwit) and carried a bright red coat in his hands.

“A change in the plan,” said Gilbert. “Stout’s going with you.”

Stout hooked his thumbs into his belt like he was a man of importance. “Better odds with Stout along, eh?”

“Stout’s more muscle, should things turn ugly,” said Gilbert.

Much started to protest. “But another man will just make it all the harder to—”

“It’s done,” said Gilbert. “Done is done. And since young master Scarlet here is wearing clothes that smell like a dead cat, we scrounged up something a bit fresher.”

Stout tossed the coat at Will. It was a gaudy thing, the garish coat of a foppish gentleman, dyed dark red. Tassels hung about the buttons, and lace cuffed the sleeves.

“Fitting, don’t you think,
Scarlet
?”

“I’m fine in my own clothes, thank you,” said Will.

“Wear it,” said Gilbert. “It’s not a request.”

With a sigh, Will removed his shirt and pulled on the coat. He didn’t look nearly as terrible as Gilbert had hoped. It actually fit him quite well, although the lace and tassels needed to go. And Much would be relieved not to have to smell his old shirt any longer.

Then Will surprised her by stepping forward and standing face to face with Gilbert, despite his dandy new attire. “I want my sword back.”

Gilbert frowned, his hand going to the pommel of that very same blade.

“Well, as I see it,” he said, “the Merry Men here saved you out of a sense of Christian charity and neighborly affection! Could’ve let you die out there on that road, but instead we took you in. Fed you. Sheltered you.”

Gilbert smiled as he patted the sword’s pommel. “Let’s just call this recompense, shall we?”