“What fathomable long game do you suppose I would have been playing at?” Guy laughed. As they talked it out, reason prevailed—as it was always prone to do amongst reasonable men. And by the end of the night they both apologized and drank themselves silly, raised their tankards to the fallen, and practiced the eulogies they could only dream of delivering for the Sheriff.

“To the Sheriff,” Guy slurred, “may the Lord be as wise in judging him as the Sheriff was himself.”

“To the Sheriff,” Simon drank deeply, dark gold leaking out into his beard, “to honor you, we hope to send a few of your favorite gerolds to keep watch over your soul.”

When morning came, with its usual unwanted gifts of pain and noise, Guy thought harder on what had prompted de Lacy to tell such a specific lie. Only the slightest tug on the thread, and a piece of the puzzle revealed itself that he hadn’t even realized was missing—Guy was the target.

“What if the plan wasn’t just to put Wendenal in power?” he asked Simon, who was dousing his head in a horse’s water trough. “What if it was to get rid of me?”

Simon spat water out. “You’re the captain, and a damned fine one. The fact that de Lacy made up lies about you proves they have nothing to use against you. The people love you, your men love you, no lie can undo that. Why the hell would they get rid of you?”

“Because they think I’m a threat.”

“Who’s they?” Simon asked, and Guy spelled it out. He had unfortunately made his enemies the day he married Elaisse Longchamp, who happened to be cousins with the man who had now risen to Chancellor. Theirs had been an entirely arranged marriage—his once youthful interest in marriage had died along with his first wife, Loren. Elaisse meant nothing to him. But the Chancellor had, by necessity, many enemies. Chiefest amongst those was Prince John, who had already clashed with Longchamp in only the brief time he had been back in England.

And Prince John was in Nottinghamshire, according to reports, and intended on attending de Lacy’s funeral.

“Damn it, I should have seen it earlier,” Guy cursed. “I thought I was simply collateral damage, when I’ve been part of their plan the whole time. It explains so much. Wendenal was antagonistic from the moment of his arrival, even though we should have been natural allies. We both wanted to stop the Sherwood gangs. Think on it—if his goal was only to take the sheriff’s seat, then befriending me as the captain should have been his first move. But instead he squeezed in, distancing me from de Lacy, and I didn’t realize it was intentional.”