It had been a merciless few days since he had returned to Nottingham, despondent and empty-handed. But he had learned one useful bit of information in his extra time away. He had called upon some of his old informants from the city in the desperate hope they might know anything about the woodland rebels. Instead he learned something about the girl who had put a sword to his throat, Elena Gamwell, and her lover, Will Scarlet. Something even Devon of York hadn’t been able to tell him.

They were Red Lions.

Guy followed the wharfside alleys rather than the Long Stair. He wanted the grime of it. His feet led him to Red Lion Square, the fishmarket by the river Trent that had been long plagued by the worst of the city’s gang activity. The market was deserted now, the fish pool had been drained, the stalls dismantled. His men had erased it from the city, and would not allow any reminder of its presence.

Instead they would feel its absence. They would realize they had lost something. They would feel the consequences of what it truly meant to steal. If the Red Lions were involved with the criminals in the Sherwood, then they were responsible for anything that happened to Jon Bassett as well. This message would get back to them. If you take something of ours, we can take something of yours. If the forest outlaws were supplied by their counterparts in the city, they’d feel this right in their bellies. For two straight days the Guard had swept up every last trace of the river gangs and doled out justice.

Yet so far, there were no leads. Nobody offered even the tiniest knowledge of what had happened to Jon Bassett.

It would come. It had to come.

Guy knelt and said a prayer at the base of the stone ring. Any other day this would be a bustling market, where a prayer would seem comically misplaced. But this day it was a promise that the Nottingham Guard was untouchable. There could be no mercy for the filth of the city who would target a Guardsman. The rest of his boys were busy with the gaols, sorting the people they’d arrested, but Guy wanted a short time to himself, in his streets. In a city at peace.

The baron had decreed that no one was to be harmed, and no one arrested. Guy had chosen something that was the opposite of that. Not blindly, though. He would accept the punishment—he just wanted a little bit longer.

The sixth runner was not a single man, but his entire regiment.

Reginold and Bolt, Eric, Morg, even Devon of York arrived with solemn faces. The symbolism was ham-handed, that the baron could turn Guy’s own men against him if he so wanted. They apologized, of course, but said nothing else. Their missing member was too obvious.