This was where Elena and Will had first met Lord Walter. A year after leaving the Red Lions to make their own life, a year of discovering the world beyond the reach of Nottingham. But after a year they were tired and hungry, and followed the rumors of a generous nobleman looking for talent she and Will could provide. They had never thought of themselves as poor, but arriving empty-handed made it impossible to pretend they were not beggars. Elena didn’t quite know how to beg, and she’d only gotten on one knee before Walter picked her up. He asked her how she was best suited to help, then made both of them promise to never drop to a knee again.

“Not just to me,” Walter had smiled, “but to any man. You kneel to show that you are less of a man. I don’t allow half men here.”

“I’m not a man at all,” Elena had replied.

“Good on you.” Lord Walter had smiled. “A wise choice.”

A month later, there’d been a cripple at the castle who was missing a leg and was too weak to use crutches, pushed around in a small wheelbarrow by his wife. Walter nursed him to strength again, and found him suitable jobs that restored his dignity. In poor taste, Elena reminded Lord Walter of his own words. “I thought you said you didn’t allow half men here.”

“Luther is ten times the man of any I’ve ever met. You could get on my shoulders, and I on King Richard’s, and we’d barely reach Luther’s knees.”

Before that, Elena hadn’t even known the cripple’s name. That night the dining hall had smelled of cheeses and wine, of heavy roasted boar, and of people. Tonight it carried sulfur on the cold wind.

Three months ago, it had carried fire.

The memory of the sheriff’s men in this place was not a kind one. They had arrived unannounced, and old instincts told Elena and Will to hide. The familiar blue tabards of the Nottingham Guard had always meant trouble, and usually a night or two locked up in Sinner Mary’s. The Nottingham Gords had a smaller presence outside the city, but there was still no avoiding them. That night in Locksley, the gords and their captain had been greeted kindly, stabled, fed. John Little had even encouraged Elena to help tend to their belongings, insisting that they were “people too.”

Ultimately, he was right. But they were the terrible type of people.

“My father?” Locksley asked, at last.

Nobody spoke, which was all the answer he needed. A bird flew through the hole in the roof and burrowed into a nest high above, some twigs fell silently down and were absorbed by the ash.

Will said it. “They burned him.”

“That’s not how it happened.”