Chapters (76)
- Title Page
- Copyright Notice
- Dedication
- PROLOGUE
- PART I
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- PART II
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- PART III
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- INTERLUDE
- PART IV
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- INTERLUDE
- PART V
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- PART VI
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- FORTY-THREE
- FORTY-FOUR
- FORTY-FIVE
- INTERLUDE
- PART VII
- FORTY-SIX
- FORTY-SEVEN
- FORTY-EIGHT
- FORTY-NINE
- FIFTY
- FIFTY-ONE
- FIFTY-TWO
- PART VIII
- FIFTY-THREE
- FIFTY-FOUR
- FIFTY-FIVE
- FIFTY-SIX
- EPILOGUE
- AUTHOR’S NOTE
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- Newsletter Sign-up
The Young Bear finished the plot. “With your permission, I would that my men and I be in charge of the executions. Baron de Lacy was a good friend of my father’s, and Warwick has a keen interest in seeing his assassins put to justice.”
Wendenal made a poor pretense of thinking about the proposal before agreeing, and so it was set. Waleran the Younger would capture Locksley’s men when they tried to save Will Scarlet at the executions, and thusly promote himself to Captain of Nottingham’s Guard. Guy would be damningly absent. Locksley would be discreetly shipped back to the war, his mission here complete. Both Sheriff and Captain replaced with the Chancellor’s enemies, and the people tricked into supporting them both. Nottingham was effectively under assault by a hostile power, attacking from within. What Prince John meant to do with his victory, Guy did not know. But Guy himself was presumably to slink off in defeat and accept how miserably he had been outsmarted.
There wasn’t a single inch of his body that was interested in that plan.
It might have been tempting—to let it happen, to stop this endless fighting against men and politics. The farther Guy rose in life, the farther he was from the simplicity of right versus wrong, from the justice that had first drawn him to join the Guard. He could simply surrender to these schemes and fall back into the beautiful ignorance of an unempowered life. If not for those it would hurt. If not for the common people, who would suffer at the rule of increasingly corrupt men. If not for Jon Bassett, still missing. Devon of York. Reginold of Dunmow. Brian Fellows. George Sutton. Bolt, lost to the world. Morg, sitting in prison. Men who had suffered or died for no reason but the plots of more powerful men.
And the boy. That tiny limp frame in Guy’s arms.
These were the voices that urged Guy to keep fighting, and they were considerably louder than the siren call of laziness.
“GROUPS OF TWO TODAY,” Guy called to those who had not yet left, scattered about the stables. “And leave your blues behind.”
“We finally getting blacks?” Eric of Felley answered, starting to tug off his uniform. “Been confusing people, wearing blues and calling ourselves the Black Guard.”
“Later,” Guy responded. “What I mean is, no uniforms. Dress down.” It wouldn’t be a popular order. Ludic and Marshall nodded and tugged their tabards over their heads. They had been Guy’s first recruits to the Black Guard—long loyal men suddenly deposed of duty when Wendenal gave his Derbymen control of the prisons. Guy unbuckled his own doublet, pulling its hoops until they gave, and handed its weight to Ferrers. “We have less than a week to find them, and our current strategy is not working.”