“A woman trader?” I asked.
She gave me a slow, side-slung smile. “Not an entirely legal trader.”
This made me smile too. “You’re a pirate.”
“I’ve been called worse.” Her mouth tightened, and she looked down, like she were considering something. “I loot ships to feed people,” she said. “And I train the orphans to be sailors. England is falling apart, you know. With or without Richard alive.”
I stared at her.
“It isn’t just Nottingham. I wasn’t sure if anyone had ever told you that.”
My head dropped.
“Good night,” she said, shutting the door to the room.
Changing into a clean shirt were all I could bear to do before falling asleep.
CHAPTER
I slept like the dead. When I woke, it were to full, body-aching pain, but it were also to the sun. It came in through the window to lie over me like a blanket, and I didn’t move for a long while, looking at the light, feeling the heat of it on my skin. I trailed my fingers through it, wondering if I could just touch it, just hold on to it, maybe I could change everything else.
Shutting my eyes, I remembered it so clear—the feeling of waking up with Rob, his heartbeat under my cheek, making me feel that we weren’t so separate, that if we stayed like this long enough we’d melt into each other. Like somehow we could become unbreakable.
Standing from the bed, I put on the rest of the clothes that Kate had given me—boy’s pants and a thick tunic. Outside my door I found a clean pair of soft old boots, and I put those on too.
Downstairs, David and Allan were swallowing bread and bacon and hard eggs like men possessed. Kate were watching them, fair disgusted.
David saw me first. He stood from the table, and Allan swallowed a bite and did the same. David bowed his head to me, looking surprising less like a knight without his royal uniform. “Good morning, my lady.”
“Lady thief,” Allan said, mocking him a little. David scowled.
“Please don’t do that,” I told them both.
Allan sat back down, but David looked uncomfortable. “My lady, you’re a princess. I can’t—”
“And yesterday I were a prisoner,” I told him. “Please sit.”
“Yes, my lady,” he said.
“Yes, my lady,” Kate mimicked under her breath. I frowned at her, and she lifted her shoulders in innocence.
“How did the palace fare last night?” I asked, scared of the words.
Allan waved this off. “Very well. They never so much as got within the gates, and all the nobles had already fled.”
“They had?” I asked.
Allan nodded, pushing the bowl of hard eggs to me. I took one and a piece of bread. “The lot of them got out when the word about Richard first came; that’s why everyone thought he was dead.”
“So Eleanor isn’t at the palace?” I asked.
He shook his head. “She’s with most of the court at Windsor, last I heard.”
I frowned. “Could Prince John be there?”
“I don’t know, my lady. Why do you want to see the queen mother?”
I glanced at Kate. “When Prince John thought I were about to die, he told me that Richard had been captured and held for ransom—but he said that Richard would never set foot in England again.”
“That makes no sense,” Allan said. “The queen mother would happily raise any sum to retrieve her son, and she certainly has the will to do it.”
I nodded, raising my eyebrows.
“Unless he has some sort of plot in place to make sure that the ransom isn’t paid,” Allan realized.
“Or that Richard doesn’t live to see it,” I told him.
“Christ on a cross post,” Allan murmured.
“The queen mother will want to hear of this as soon as we can get to her,” David agreed. “And I shall relish reporting her son’s behavior to her besides.”
“Very well,” Allan said. “Eleanor first.”
“You shouldn’t go to Windsor,” Kate said, looking at me. “The whole royal court is there. Even if Prince John isn’t, there will be someone loyal to him. You’ll never get to the queen without being seen. And the longer you can stay dead the better, especially with this information.”
I frowned, but I couldn’t disagree.
“For what it’s worth, I’ll look to the sea. If he’s taking men or orders across the water, someone will have heard about it,” she said.
“What about my lord Winchester?” Allan asked.
Confused, I looked to him. “What about him?”
“Winchester Castle is little more than a day’s ride from here. We could send word to the queen mother to meet us there; his men would never betray you, would they?”
The Earl of Winchester had been the truest friend to Rob, and by virtue of that, to me. “No,” I said. “Never. Do you have some you trust to get a message to Eleanor?” I asked.
Kate nodded. “I do.”
“I’m coming with you,” Allan told me, his face serious for once. “I promised Robin that I would find you. I’ll see you back to him before I leave your side.”
My breath caught at the idea of seeing Rob again. How easy it would be to leave here, to slip from David and ride north until my body broke, until I found myself in front of Nottingham Castle.
I cleared my throat, wishing it cleared my head, and nodded. “Very well. And thank you, I suppose.”
“Thank you, I suppose,” Allan repeated, one eyebrow lifting up. “Well, from you, my lady, I’ll take it as the sweetest endearment.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Thank you.”
“You don’t need to apologize, my lady,” David insisted, meeting Allan’s eyes in challenge. Allan smirked at him.
“When can we leave the city?” I asked.
Allan and Kate looked to each other. “Before dark would be best,” Kate said. “Or tomorrow, but I think it’s better to leave before that.”
I nodded. “Where can we get horses?”
Allan just smiled.
We stole the horses. Sort of. They were horses that the mob had stolen from the palace the night before, and it were a simple thing for Allan to start a brawl until those that stole them were all a bit busy.
And yet, if my blood were to be believed, I were at least in part the rightful owner of those horses.
Which were fair stranger than stealing them, in truth.
Kate gave me a cloak, and her father gave us a sack of food for our travels. We rode at a much slower pace than David and I had the night before. The roads were full of people now, traveling to and from London. It weren’t a happy sight—people were worn and broken, tattered and tired. I felt foolish to be on a horse.
And yet I were worn and broken too. Every bump in the road were agony to my bones, and beyond any pain, I were just weary. Weary and so aware that the only place I wanted to be were in Nottingham, and this road were taking me in the wrong direction.
We passed by Windsor, and I kept my cloak up and my head down. Not like any of the nobles were on the road with us—God knows there would have been a bigger fuss if so—but still.
When we went through Runnymede, a gorgeous piece of royal forest that the road slashed across, all bright green hills and sun dappling through gray clouds, a troop of knights came galloping through. People dashed to get out of their way, and I led my horse off the road, sliding off his back as they passed. Their cloaks snapped out behind them, and I saw the royal banner on their clothes.
They might have been Eleanor’s knights. But they might have been Prince John’s too.
So I kept my head down.
We got to Silchester just before nightfall. It were a large town but not large enough to be called a city; it stood at the crossroads that led all over England, and they were very particular about closing their gates at nightfall to keep out vagabonds and unwanted travelers. We managed to shuffle into the town with a large group as they began to lower the portcullis.
It weren’t until the gate were full shut that I saw the royal knights, and my heart seized in a panic.
“Stay close, my lady,” David said.
I nodded, and Allan nodded once at me.
There were two knights, and they were directing people to the well in the center of town. There were a man there, standing on a small box and holding a parchment with seals flapping off it. I frowned.
“The King of England, Richard the Lionheart, has been captured. For the release of our noble king, the Holy Roman Emperor has demanded a sum of 65,000 pounds of silver.”
I gasped, and I weren’t the only one. The amount were ungodly high.
“To pay for this, the queen mother has instituted a tax on the people of England; one quarter of your income and the value of your holdings is now due to the Crown of England.”
I could bare hear him. People started to cry, to shout and wail. The knights banged on their shields until people began to quiet. “Good God,” I breathed.
“Your overlord will collect this tax from you,” he shouted. “And they will in turn pay that money to the Crown.”
He stepped off the platform and people’s voices began to rise, protesting and yelling and crying.
Two knights began to shuffle him out, around the people, paying no mind to the violence that were about to start. “Where are the nobles?” I asked Allan.
His shoulders lifted. “Not here.”
Someone threw something at one of the knights that were still standing by the well, and he rocked backward—it were a clod of dirt, and other than leaving a smear on his armor, it didn’t do any damage.
The knight beside him drew his sword and stepped into the crowd. The people parted, and a hush spread, making it loud and awful when someone screamed.
I pushed forward fast and hard, but the people were a solid mass, and I couldn’t get far before David grabbed me, hauling me back.
“Let me go!” I yelled at him. “Let me—”
David clapped his hand over my mouth. “You’re dead,” he told me. “Do not let yourself be blinded by the suffering of one person, my lady. You must think of the suffering of England itself.”
He swung me around so I couldn’t see, but people gasped as the screams changed to deep, awful sobs. I clawed at his hand on my mouth until he trapped my hands as well.
“Stop, my lady!” he growled.
“Please!” someone yelled, and I turned. There were a priest there, and he were ushering people to the church. “Please, let us turn to God!” he cried.
People moved. People started going into the church, quiet and frightened now, and I saw what had happened.
There were a young man lying in the dirt, blood pouring out of his throat still. A woman knelt over him, sobbing and rocking back and forth, and the knights just stood there, watching.
David’s arms loosened a little. “There’s nothing we can do. The boy is dead,” he said quiet.
Allan looked about. “We should go to the church,” he said.
“I could have helped him,” I told David.
Allan shook his head.
“You think I shouldn’t act for one boy?” I demanded. “You think that England is some higher thing? One life is England. Every life is England.” Shaking my head, I spat at his feet. “You didn’t choose England. You chose my life over his.”
“He was already dead—” Allan started, looking at the church as if staying out too long would hurt us.
“Yes,” David said. “I chose your life over his.”
I covered my face. “The people can’t survive this,” I told him. “They can’t pay a tax that high, not when they’re still starving from the last one.”
David met my eyes heavy. “And if they can’t, King Richard won’t survive either. And what will England be then?”
I shook my head. “Even if they pay the tax, royal knights can’t do this. They can’t just kill people in the name of the Crown.”
Allan looked frightened. “The Crown doesn’t stand for justice in England, my lady Princess?” he asked. “You’ve shocked me to my core.”
They nudged me toward the church, and I went, staring at the boy.
I hadn’t saved him. I couldn’t save him. And I didn’t know what were left for me if that were true.
CHAPTER
We stayed in the church with the people of Silchester all night long. The knights left when things were calm again, and the people sat together in the pews, crying, raging, sharing their stories of how they couldn’t possibly pay.
I wondered if this were what it had been like in Nottingham after I left, when John Little’s body lay bleeding in the courtyard. Were everyone shocked into stillness and silence, or were they wailing, unwilling to move from that spot?
David helped the priest to lift away some of the benches and make room for people to sleep, carrying whatever materials he could. Allan found some sort of instrument with strings and he were playing it with charm.
I sat in the corner, listening. I didn’t have anything to offer them. I didn’t know how to steal this tax for them. I didn’t know how to help.
If you embrace who you are, you might find a great many tools at your disposal. They had been some of Eleanor’s last words to me, and they haunted me.
If I were some strange version of a princess, would I have been able to stand up there and tell the knights to stop? Would they have listened?
It wouldn’t undo the tax, though, nor the fact that England needed Richard, if only to protect Her from Prince John. I wouldn’t change anything.
Besides—I were dead. I had to stay dead.
We left at first light, slipping from the town. A hush had come over them all, this sad kind of accepting. There weren’t no other choice; that had been made clear to them fast and swift. The boy’s blood were still in the dirt by the well, making it rich and black.
I wondered if John Little’s blood were still in the courtyard at Nottingham, staining the stones where Prince John had killed him to get to me.
There were more people on the road. Maybe they thought if they left their homes, if they traveled somewhere else, they could avoid the tax. Maybe they had somewhere safe to go, but it all felt desperate and sad.
We made Winchester late in the day, and city guards were turning people away at the road before they even got to the city gates. “No visitors!” they shouted. “No visitors!”
David nodded once to us, going over to one of the nonshouting guards. I saw him speak with him, point at me, and speak with him again. The guard shook his head, and then shook his head again. David’s face got grim looking, and he came back to us.
“I told him the earl was expecting you,” he said. “They won’t let us in.”
My stomach dropped.
“But he said there was someone they could send with a message, but he got angry when I wouldn’t give your name. What can we tell him, my lady, that won’t betray you?”
“Huntingdon,” I told him quick, the title that should have been Rob’s rolling fast off my tongue. “That’s the only word he’ll need to hear.”
Allan glanced at me, but David nodded, not questioning. David told the guard and the guard went off to the castle.
We moved off the road, going to a tree and sitting in its shade. The spring day weren’t overwarm, but the sun made me feel weaker.
“This is because of the tax, isn’t it?” I said.
Allan nodded. “Winchester has the reputation as the very best of overlords, my lady. He won’t let his people suffer for this tax. I’m certain many people want to be counted amongst his vassals right now.”
“Ourselves included, it would seem,” David said. “How are you feeling, my lady? You should be able to rest for a few days here.”
“I’m fine,” I said quick, but Allan looked at me.
“You’re ill?” he asked.
I scowled. “No.”
“She was imprisoned,” David grunted. “For three months. That takes something out of th
e body, sir.”
“Weren’t you her jailer?” Allan asked.
David met his stare. “Yes. And I took the best care of her that I could.”
I patted his arm. “I’m very well, David.”
“So what does that entail?” Allan pressed on. “He let you eat occasionally? Didn’t beat you quite as badly as he was meant to? You must tell me more so I have new fodder for a grand song about your brave and valiant acts, Sir Knight.”
David stood.
“He killed another man to save my life,” I said, looking at Allan. “And I won’t let you mock him for that.”
Allan sighed, lying down in the grass. “Fine. I’m too pretty for all this serious business.”
“I can make you a little uglier, if you wish,” David said.
Allan lifted his head. “So you agree—I’m pretty,” he said, smiling.
“Christ,” David muttered, putting his head in his hands.
It took a while for the guard to return with a letter in his hand. I opened it.
My lady M—
This guard will take you to my private hunting lodge outside the city. You will not be safe within the walls. I will join you as soon as I’m able.
—W
I handed it to David as the guard tapped two others and came back over to us. He bowed. “We are fetching horses, my lady. My lord instructed us to take you to his lodge. Forgive our earlier mistake.”
“Hasten your efforts so the lady might forget the slight,” David snapped. I frowned at him, and David gave me a tiny hint of a smile.
The horses appeared in short order, and we mounted ours as the guards readied themselves. They led us down the road and into the forest near the walled city, to a guarded but modest manor house.
We’d bare set foot within the manor wall when the doors opened again and Winchester appeared, the same tall, handsome young lord I remembered. He saw me and stopped, drawing a deep breath.
Shaking his head, he came to me and bowed. “My lady Princess,” he said quiet. He kissed my good hand. “I never thought to see you alive again.”