Chapter 5 #2
“I don’t want it.” I fell backwards until I was leaning on the trunk of the oak tree, tilting my head to look at the sky, even as my vision blurred with tears.
“I don’t want to spend the rest of my life…
having everything we want while you hide me from your family like some shameful secret.
I won’t do it. I can’t do it. Did you forget the words we just said to each other?
‘Naught is not nothing when I have loved you’.
..I would rather have you and nothing else, Will. Can you say the same?”
“I won’t apologize for wanting to take care of you, May,” he answered, kneeling in front of me. I couldn’t find the words to reply, and the tournament trumpets began to sound in the distance. Will turned his head to listen, then looked back at me, his face a mask of pain and indecision.
“Please, don’t do this,” I whispered, brushing hair away from his face. “Please, come away with me. I’ll never hate you, no matter how hard it is. No matter how many nights we spend sleeping on a cold floor or working our fingers to the bone. As long as I have you…please…”
The trumpets sounded again.
“Will you be here when I get back?” he asked.
“If you cannot love me in broad daylight, Will, then you do not love me at all,” I said, holding his gaze.
“You can still choose me. I am begging you to choose me…” He leaned closer, wiping tears from my cheeks and cupping my face in his hands—a loving gesture that felt more like he was ripping my heart from my chest.
“I love you, May,” he said steadily, “and I’ve only ever wanted to take care of you. That’s what I’ll be shooting for—you, and our future. I hope you can forgive the path I take to get there.”
The trumpets blasted once more, and he pressed a brief kiss to my forehead, then picked up his bow. I watched him walk toward the bramble patch, where he stopped and looked back for a moment. Only when he was gone did I let myself fall apart completely.
How foolish could I have been? Why had I been so certain that he would come with me?
That he would leave everything he had ever known or wanted behind?
As dearly as I loved Will, I also knew him, and I knew, deep down, that he was a coward.
He had never been able to stand up to his father, and he certainly wouldn’t do it in front of Johar, with every eye in the city on him.
He would accept the Prince’s favor, and Helena’s kiss.
All I had to decide now was where I wanted to be when he returned.
There was no place left for me. Not with Will, and not at Locksley.
But as the understanding of my circumstances sunk deeper into my bones, it did not light a fire beneath me.
All I wanted was to lie down and let the roots of the oak tree consume me, so I did.
The grass was soft beneath my cheek, and another tiny green moth fluttered past my face to land on a root.
“Would you like to run away with me, little friend?” I murmured, choking on my own despair and isolation.
“Or perhaps…” I reached into my pocket and drew out the Devil’s coin, which still bore the images of a dragon and a donkey.
“Perhaps the Arden would be a kinder fate than this. If you’re listening, Devil…
I think I’ve grown weary of the world of men… ”
The insect did not reply, but the coin certainly did. It burned white hot, scorching my fingers and causing me to drop it with a yelp. When I sat up and found it beneath my skirt, I watched the image of the dragon slowly fade away. Carefully, I reached out and picked it up.
Blank.
Both faces, empty, smooth, and flat.
I staggered to my feet, chest heaving and panic overtaking my mind.
“Mercy, I didn’t mean right this very instant!
” I hissed into the empty air. Feeling as though I were in a fever dream, I walked over to the fountain and dropped the coin into the brown, brackish water.
It sank, but continued to glitter, as if it were mocking me.
“Please, just…let me say goodbye to Will, and tell him what happened…please…just in case…”
In case I never returned.
I left my satchel lying beneath the oak tree and walked out through the brambles, then jogged along the bailey wall.
A few straggling spectators were still heading for the tournament, mostly those who were so drunk they’d lost their way.
They were loud and lewd, but I hardly noticed any of it.
I felt like a deer cornered in a gully, and people pressing in on all sides only made it worse.
When I finally made it into the tournament grounds, I went straight toward the royal box, where I knew it would be easier to catch Will’s attention.
Squeezing through the crowd, I stood beside the outer wall of the box, corralled behind a fence and partially concealed in the green and gold velvet curtains.
On the archery range, the competitors were making last minute adjustments to bowstrings and arrows.
Once Will had finished his, I cupped my hands around my mouth to imitate the sound of a mourning dove.
It was something he did to get my attention when he had snuck around beneath my window, and it worked like a charm, causing his head to jerk up and his eyes to sweep the crowd.
He spotted me quickly, then glanced behind him before coming over.
“You’re here,” he said with a wide smile. “I knew you’d—”
“My debt is due, Will,” I breathed. “He’s coming for me.”
“Fuck,” he muttered, hand tightening on his bow. “Fuck, May! But surely he won’t come here, with all these people, and the Iron Fist. Surely, we have a little time…”
I shook my head. “I…I asked him to come…”
“You what?”
“What would you have me do?” I cried, then softened my voice to a whisper. “There is nothing left for me here, Will! Perhaps if I can pay my debt, then he’ll let me go…and then I can leave Nottingham.”
Will just growled, “Gods be damned, May, what were you thinking?” Desperately, he looked around, but spotted his father across the archery range and dropped his eyes. “Just…stay here. Don’t move. Stay where I can see you, and…and…”
“And you’ll do what?” I asked. “Refuse Helena? Stand up to your father and the Prince?”
“I don’t know!” he groaned. “I don’t know, but please don’t leave, May…please stay…”
“I’ll stay as long as I can, Will,” I said gently, squeezing his hand.
“I love you.”
I could not bring myself to say it back. He squeezed my hand in return before returning to the other archers, and I was left caught in a vice grip between fear and hope, anticipation and apathy, love and anger.
Yet another chorus of trumpets sounded and the crowd rose to their feet.
From the back of the royal box, Prince Johar and his wife, Lady Rinelda, emerged.
The couple were visual opposites—tall, lean, dark Johar and short, curvaceous, blonde Rinelda, who always had a loving smile for her husband no matter what atrocities he was committing.
He always seemed to have a look of affection for her as well, and I often wondered how a man so seemingly heartless found it in him to love anyone at all.
Once Johar and Rinelda were seated, the crowd began to whisper and titter wildly.
I had to lean forward in order to see that Lady Helena had entered the box, wearing a voluminous scarlet gown.
I gritted my teeth as she took the seat beside her father and blew a kiss in Will’s direction.
He plainly saw her and turned away, but I couldn’t help watching her for a moment.
She was not at all unfortunate looking—blessed with cascading, yellow hair and blue eyes that would make a sapphire envious.
The only thing stopping me from being consumed with jealous rage was the fact that Helena was well-known for being cruel, obnoxious, and entitled, with a gift for acting and manipulation.
In hushed tones, she was called ‘the Prince’s Shrew’, and was the only one of Johar’s four daughters to still be unmarried at nineteen years old.
Rumors swirled, of course, since her sisters had all been married off much younger, but Will had informed me that Helena had more of an appetite for stable hands and men-at-arms than for the high-born suitors her father threw at her.
Behind Helena came Will’s mother, Sadrine Scarlett, a woman who had clearly once been beautiful, but then been drained by something.
She had apparently clawed her way through the ranks of minor nobility where she’d been born, aiming for the crown, and Will told me stories about her that made my skin crawl.
But rumor had it that Sadrine was too cold even for Johar, who preferred her sweeter, more malleable friend, Rinelda.
In an effort to secure the loyalty of Nottingham’s chief lawman before he began his war, Johar had practically sold Sadrine off to Osric Scarlett, whom she matched for sheer ruthlessness, even if she outpaced him in intelligence and ambition.
As Sadrine took her seat, the Prince stepped to the front of the platform and raised his hands.
The crowd fell silent, and I swept my eyes over it again, searching desperately for Tuck and wondering if now would be the time for me to tell him what I’d done all those years ago—what I owed the Devil of Arden.
“Another year gone by, and another successful harvest throughout our great kingdom!” Johar called out.
A low rumble swept through the gathered citizens.
The Prince’s new tax regime had severely affected the amount of harvested crops people were permitted to keep for themselves, and I could almost smell the bitterness in the air.
“Unfortunately, our dear Archbishop Piers is ill today, and could not be here to pray with us. In his place, I will only ask that the Holy Family continue to protect our beloved city from the plague of heresy and magyk, which grows ever more malicious. Know that I, as your Prince, am doing everything in my power to stamp it out.” Johar cleared his throat, smiled, and clapped his hands together, shifting into a more celebratory tone.
“It has long been my tradition at our harvest celebration to offer the champion of one event a favor. A boon, from their Prince. This year, my lovely daughter, Helena, has decided that she will outpace my generosity: a single kiss, and an invitation to dine with my family, for the winner of the archery contest. Good luck to all!”
There was a polite smattering of applause and across the range, I locked eyes with Will.
Before turning away to face the archery range, he pressed his fingers to his lips, then over his heart.
I could not pretend, so I merely gave him a strained smile and continued searching for Tuck.
But when my eyes drifted up to the royal box, I realized that Lady Helena was watching me with narrowed eyes.
As much as I would have liked to make a rude gesture, I simply took a step backwards, fully concealing myself behind the curtains.
A herald stepped onto the range next and held his hands up to silence the crowd once more.
“The archery contest will consist of five rounds! Each round, three competitors will be eliminated. In the final round, whichever of the three remaining men shoots best will be declared the winner. First arrows, ready!”
I held my breath and the iron medallion around my neck out of habit as Will drew an arrow and fitted it to his bowstring.
He closed his eyes for a moment, turning his face into the slight breeze and making his adjustments before drawing.
I had watched him do it a thousand times, maybe a million, but never with so much weight on his shoulders.
If any part of me hoped that he might throw the contest for my sake, or refuse Helena in front of everyone in Nottingham, I silenced that voice.
No matter what happened now, the Devil of Arden was coming for me, and I belonged to him.