BooksBarbecue
Back Nottingham
Chapters (76)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Notice
  3. Dedication
  4. PROLOGUE
  5. PART I
  6. ONE
  7. TWO
  8. THREE
  9. FOUR
  10. FIVE
  11. SIX
  12. SEVEN
  13. EIGHT
  14. NINE
  15. PART II
  16. TEN
  17. ELEVEN
  18. TWELVE
  19. THIRTEEN
  20. FOURTEEN
  21. FIFTEEN
  22. SIXTEEN
  23. SEVENTEEN
  24. EIGHTEEN
  25. NINETEEN
  26. PART III
  27. TWENTY
  28. TWENTY-ONE
  29. TWENTY-TWO
  30. TWENTY-THREE
  31. TWENTY-FOUR
  32. TWENTY-FIVE
  33. TWENTY-SIX
  34. INTERLUDE
  35. PART IV
  36. TWENTY-SEVEN
  37. TWENTY-EIGHT
  38. TWENTY-NINE
  39. THIRTY
  40. THIRTY-ONE
  41. THIRTY-TWO
  42. THIRTY-THREE
  43. THIRTY-FOUR
  44. INTERLUDE
  45. PART V
  46. THIRTY-FIVE
  47. THIRTY-SIX
  48. THIRTY-SEVEN
  49. THIRTY-EIGHT
  50. PART VI
  51. THIRTY-NINE
  52. FORTY
  53. FORTY-ONE
  54. FORTY-TWO
  55. FORTY-THREE
  56. FORTY-FOUR
  57. FORTY-FIVE
  58. INTERLUDE
  59. PART VII
  60. FORTY-SIX
  61. FORTY-SEVEN
  62. FORTY-EIGHT
  63. FORTY-NINE
  64. FIFTY
  65. FIFTY-ONE
  66. FIFTY-TWO
  67. PART VIII
  68. FIFTY-THREE
  69. FIFTY-FOUR
  70. FIFTY-FIVE
  71. FIFTY-SIX
  72. EPILOGUE
  73. AUTHOR’S NOTE
  74. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  75. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  76. Newsletter Sign-up

By night’s end, the two of them stole away to the edges of the otherwise furious tent, exhausted. They traded a few derogatory comments at the expense of the more useless advisors in the room, hoping to forget about their predicament. “You were awfully prickly with the earl, Ferrers, earlier,” Robin noted. “What was that about?”

“The Earl of Derby is my father’s liege lord,” William explained quietly, “and there is some dark history between his house and mine.”

His tone spoke to the quality of that history. But Robin knew better than to probe farther. William did not keep much to himself, so his short answers meant he did not care to say more. “Ought to make you happy, then?” Robin asked lightly. “Giving Ferrers a hard time?”

“No,” William’s mouth twisted. “Ferrers has had a long and difficult life, full of wrong decisions and failures. We are all only a few desperate decisions away from ending up like him.”

Robin put his hand on William’s leg and shook it meaningfully. It was a rare thing to find a topic the two of them could not joke about. But it was war’s eve, and that always led some to grim thoughts and regrets. Robin let his friend to his contemplation, preferring a night of levity himself. About the command room, the lords of England’s favor sought to distinguish themselves in front of King Richard by inventing elaborate solutions to their unfixable problem, and Robin watched in bemusement. Many of the lords and earls who had followed their king to war were determined to be rewarded for their fealty, and thought Richard cared only about how quickly and deeply they bent their knee. The truth would have shocked them, that the man they called the Lionheart took their obedience with contempt. Not a single lord in the army understood that King Richard would never reward naked ambition with power.

Neither Robin nor William were interested in the glories of prestige, which was precisely why Richard trusted them. And tomorrow they would launch the first volleys of war together, incessantly throwing pebbles to bounce off the walls of Acre until the world was Holy again.

Robin laughed himself straight to sleep.

THREE

GUY OF GISBOURNE

NOTTINGHAM CASTLE
SUNDAY, 30TH DAY OF JUNE 1191

THIS SORRY LOT WAS worse than the last sorry lot, which was precisely what he had thought about each previous sorry lot. With uncomfortable effort, Guy reminded himself that the most reliable men in the Nottingham Guard had trained in similarly sorry lots. Some of the least likely recruits had proven themselves with years of unerring service, while some of their more promising classmates had turned coward or deserter within months.

That didn’t make this lot any less sorry.