The armsmaster grunted as the barracks doors groaned. Guy gave the man control of his yard, and moved to its perimeter. There waited Guy’s ever-subservient shadow of an attendant, William de Ferrers. Guy slung his black cloak from his shoulders and handed it to the young Ferrers, who carefully folded it over his arm and kept his eyes on the ground. The heavy ivory cape he wore himself was the only thing that distinguished him from any generic stableboy. Ferrers was, in Guy’s estimation, a tangible demonstration of political failure. His father was the Earl of Derby, but none of that prestige had made it into the son. The elder William de Ferrers had lost nearly all prominence fifteen years ago when he sided with Henry the Younger in the Kings’ War. The earl brought his army to Guy’s city to claim it for the usurper, and failed. Quickly thereafter ended the rebellion, the earl’s claim to everything except his title, and any possibility of his son making any mark on the world. Guy himself often forgot the young man was even there, so flaccid was his presence. He had taken the assistant as a favor, though privately he saw the young Ferrers as something of a trophy. In the Kings’ War, Guy had helped defend his city from the elder Ferrers, and his prize now was to keep that earl’s useless son as a nameless servant.

The word ferrers itself had become slang in Nottingham for a traitor. This young Ferrers was a cautionary tale, a warning of how easily one’s life might become a joke simply by picking the wrong side.

The Simons’ Yard was now filled with ferrers and gerolds.

Within an hour, the yard was thick with sweat and stink. Put a straight birch branch in a man’s hand, tell him it’s a sword, and he turns into an epic hero every time. They picture themselves in full plate mail etched with elaborate engravings, miraculously not slowed by the weight. The fairest of women swoon at their fantastic display.

In the real world, the fairest women Guy had ever met weren’t very fair at all, and wouldn’t be caught dead around the stank of The Simons’ Yard.

Simon could correct their form, but it was Guy’s duty—and pleasure—to bring this army of would-be knights back down to reality. He perused the crowd—there were forty or fifty hopeful recruits here, and half would probably be rejected at the end of the month. He couldn’t know for certain if Arable’s five conspirators were in this group, or if they were from a previous class that had already graduated to common patrol.