Mark of the Black Arrow (36 page)

“It would work, save for the Hood,” John muttered.

“Regardless, it has failed,” the Sheriff responded. “Whether it is because of this outlaw, or because it was a flawed idea to begin with, we cannot know for certain.”

Prince John rose to his feet, feeling his face burning.

“Do not blame this on me,” he said. “If you have a better plan, then do not withhold it.”

The Sheriff smiled, his teeth stained red. “Need I remind you of my role in this?”

John fell back on his seat. “No,” he said. “No. I remember.”

“Then think of a new scheme, one that the Hood cannot spoil, and let us be done with it. I have waited long enough.”

Prince John put his chin in his hand.

Something the outlaw cannot affect.

He sat up straight.

“I have it.”

The Sheriff rolled his hand, indicating that John should continue.

“They say if a man doesn’t have his health, he doesn’t have anything. Disease is what we need, to thin the herd and break those who remain.” To John’s surprise, the Sheriff’s black eyes widened.

“Why, little prince, it may be that humans aren’t worthless after all. That is truly an inspired suggestion.”

“Thank you,” John replied, careful to hold in his delight.

“You should have started with it,” the Sheriff added wryly, “and saved us all these weeks of labor.”

Prince John waved away the insult. “Can you do such a working, on such short notice?”

“Harnessing the sorcerers in my care, we can conjure up something suitably effective.”

“Good,” John said. “Make certain we have just enough potion to keep a handful of us safe,” he said. “It will thoroughly demoralize our enemies more than anything we’ve done to date.”

“I will begin preparations tonight,” the Sheriff said. “Are you sure, though, that you have the stomach for this? That you feel not a whit for these people?”

John snorted. “Father banished me from England years ago. I have no love for anything here, and I’m happy to see its people dragged to Hell.”

The Sheriff smiled. “Soon enough, little prince.”

*  *  *

Will heard footsteps drawing close, and he moved away swiftly, losing himself in another part of the castle. His heart pounded in his chest.

What they were talking about… it was impossible, wasn’t it? He had never believed in magic or curses or the fairy folk who supposedly still lived in Sherwood. He had thought all the stories his grandmother told were nothing more than that. Fairy tales. Yet he himself had seen the burns inflicted on Marian by a cursed sword, that night of the first raid. Since then he had begun to doubt, to think that maybe magic
could
exist.

But a plague? That was something entirely different—so much bigger than a burning sword. Could Prince John and the Sheriff really conjure such a thing? They seemed to think so. So, either they were both insane, or it was possible.

Yet how?

A hand landed on his shoulder and he spun, startled.

Marian jerked back, hands up at his reaction.

“Damnation, Marian,” he swore. “You startled me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, it was not your fault,” he said, waving aside her apology. The truth was it was good that she was able to sneak up on him again. That meant her leg was healed, or nearly so. Until now she had been walking with a limp, favoring the burned limb. He took a deep breath, grateful that she seemed better. Then he looked her in the eye.

“I need to talk to you, and the others. Something is happening.”

*  *  *

Marian had known that both the prince and the Sheriff were evil men, but she had not dreamed they would contemplate something so profane. She prayed that such magic was beyond their reach.

After Will told her, he left the castle to warn the cardinal. She didn’t go with him. It wouldn’t be good for them to be seen together.

That night she stayed up praying until the dawn that God would deliver them from the hand of darkness that was closing around them. Champion had curled up in her lap, keeping her company, but was falling asleep on the watch. Still, stroking his fur brought her some comfort as she agonized through the long night.

*  *  *

With shaking fingers, Agrona lifted the lid to the black oak box beside her pallet. The dry must of bone wafted out, filling her nostrils, calming her immediately. It was joined by the sickly-sweet carrion scent of rotting meat. She’d only been able to save the shin of her sister and it lay inside, nestled with her mother’s bones as the meat attached to it broke down and began to fall away.

She shut the lid as the Mad Monk folded himself to a sitting position beside her. He bowed his shaved head toward her. Slick patches of scar tissue glimmered in the torchlight. His voice was a low tenor.

“Necromancer.”

“Sorcerer.”

He smiled. “I would love to have a morsel from your collection.”

They had done this dance for weeks.

Every day.

“No.”

“You have not heard my offer.”

“Nothing you have is worth what I possess.”

His hand slid into the sleeve of his robe. When it slid out it held a white feather with a red tip. In the center of the feather blinked an eyeball. It looked mostly human. The folds of the lid were wrong, and it was inserted into a feather, but it was an eyeball nonetheless.

She could feel the power of it pulling at her. Her nipples hardened.

“Is that…?”

“It is.”

She gaped at him in awe. “So the stories are true. You succeeded.”

He shook his head. The skin in the center of his tonsure was waxy. “Had I succeeded I would not be here right now. I did not catch the angel, but I did manage to pluck two of these.”

The eyeball blinked, and it jerked something inside her.

“Why would you trade that for bones, when you aren’t a necromancer?”

He smiled crookedly. “I…
knew
your mother when she was alive. I would like a keepsake of her.”

Agrona didn’t know what to say. The implication of his tone struck her. She would be sure to ask her mother about it later. She would never parcel her out in such a way, no matter what was being offered.

But now she had to find a way to acquire that feather. Before she could speak, however, the magic in the room shifted. It rolled across her.

The Mad Monk was on his feet, feather tucked away and out of sight.

She stood in one fluid motion and found the Sheriff in the center of the room. All the practitioners who were present had turned, and now watched him. He smiled at them and stroked the fur collar around his neck.

“My children, I have a task for you.”

A
fter three weeks, the monastery had run out of sheets.

Bodies were being wrapped in blankets, and soon those would be in scarce supply. Before long the dead would lay in the clothes in which they fell. They would no longer be faceless.

Friar Tuck laid a hand on the young man’s shoulders. The man’s neck twisted as he turned his face up, while his form stayed draped over the small body that lay perfectly still on the woolen blanket in which she would be wrapped.

The young man’s face had been sucked tight to his skull, made hollow by a lack of food, a lack of sleep, and a lack of hope. His eyes had sunk into his cheeks, the lids red and chafed from tears being rubbed out of them. He was a candle whose wick had been snuffed out.

The friar knelt beside him. His hand crossed his body and the young man mimicked him out of a lifetime of habit.

“What was her name, son?” he asked, keeping his voice low.

“Tessa.”

Friar Tuck looked down. Tessa’s face was serene, beautiful in her final rest. The pox had only marked her throat and just under her hairline. This close to her, he could see that the sores had closed, fading to the waxy pallor once the body ceased generating the fever that turned them angry and red. Dried sweat left a glistening of miniscule salt crystals that made her skin shine.

He prayed she’d been too young to be a mother.

“I need to perform the benediction, son.”

The young man didn’t move.

“Could you come back, Father?” he asked, his voice cracking a bit. “I know it needs doing, but if you don’t then it means she’s not really gone, and I need her to not be gone just yet.”

It was a simple request, spoken clearly.

He was commissioned by the church to care for the dead in the moment of their passing. It was his duty, sacred and undeniable.

Without a word he stood and left the young man with his Tessa.

*  *  *

“If I had known it would feel like this, then I would have suggested sacrificing
everyone
.”

“Don’t act giddy.”

“Is it unbecoming?”

“No, little prince, it is annoying.”

“I feel drunk.”

The Sheriff lifted a jeweled knife from the table, one used to break wax seals on missives and epistles. He turned it in long slender fingers, spinning it in a sunbeam from the window. The faceted crystals refracted the light, shooting it around the study in a dozen colors.

Prince John leaned forward. “Pretty.”

The Sheriff flipped the knife into his fist and drove it into John’s arm.

The finger-length blade punched through skin and muscle to strike bone. John stared at the knife protruding from his arm.

He sniggered.

Then giggled.

Then both of them laughed.

*  *  *

Cardinal Francis swayed on his feet. The world around him moved in jumps and starts seen through a haze of exhaustion.

He’d spent the last several days first at the infirmary and then moving through the courtyard and various hallways that had been used when the sick began coming in droves. He did what he could to help with the physical burden of caring for the sick and dying, and spent much of his time making hard decisions about distributing provisions.

Francis did not want to attend this secret meeting. It was the least of his concerns in the face of such suffering. Yet Will and Marian had been insistent, and so he now made his way to the cell they’d been using for months.

Looking left and right, up and down the hall, he entered the room. Everyone was there before him, already seated.

No one stood as they normally did, and exhaustion was stamped on every face. Friar Tuck pulled the chair out beside him, gesturing for the cardinal to sit. The rotund monk had been in the thick of caring for the sick, and it showed in looser-fitting robes and the dark circles under his eyes.

Marian had spent her days here, as well, doing much the same as the rest, providing comfort as best she could and assistance to the brotherhood. The exertion had made her paler, her skin nearly ivory white and stark against the dark of her tresses. Darkness smudged under her eyes and gave her beauty a haunted quality.

Alan’s body curled, weary of being straight as he’d spent every moment combing through the nearby parts of Sherwood, using his vast druidic knowledge to locate any medicinal plants to be had, attempting to replicate a healing elixir mentioned in the legends of the land.

Robin had grown darker still, pulled into himself. Any time not spent holding Longstride Manor together was devoted to hunting like a fiend, trying to help provide nourishment to be given to the sick. He’d driven himself to the brink of his prowess, but had no ability to stop. He scowled, arms crossed, looking eager to be gone again.

Only Will Scarlet showed no sign of stress or strain—if anything, the troubled time had burnished him like a coin in a pocket. He leaned forward.

“This is the prince’s fault.”

No one spoke.

“Did you hear me?”

“We heard you,” Friar Tuck said.

“And?”

“And there’s nothing we can do about him right now.” The monk pushed away from the table. “We all have tasks to perform.”

“Wait!” Scarlet said. “Hear me out. He is behind this plague, he and the Sheriff. Perhaps if the prince was… gone… the plague would be lifted.”

Friar Tuck rounded, slamming his hands on the table and leaning over it.

“This is a plague, Will Scarlet. No matter how it started, I don’t think it can be stopped by… what? By killing a man? Even if he is the one responsible.”

The cardinal laid his hand on Tuck’s arm.

“Listen to him,” Marian pointed at them. “He’s not being foolish. We know from the prophecies that Cardinal Francis has shared with us that an evil splinter will poison the land. Perhaps it is time that splinter was plucked out. Perhaps, as with any splinter, once it is removed then the flesh can heal.”

Friar Tuck sat back down, and Scarlet continued.

“I have overheard even more conversations between the prince and the Sheriff,” he said, his words carefully measured. “This pox isn’t their ultimate purpose. It is evil magic they have made to destroy the spirit of the people. They have something even more terrible planned. I am sure of it.”

Francis blinked the exhaustion from his mind. “Did you hear anything about how to stop this sickness?” he asked. “Anything about its nature that may help us?”

“No.”

“Then we are doing all that we can.” He stood. “We must continue our efforts.”

“But if they are responsible, then surely this can be stopped?”

“That may be true,” the cardinal replied, “so it becomes your task to find out how. You remain in their confidence. Until then, we can only carry on ministering to those who have been stricken. We dare not make a move against the prince. Not now. We have too much else to worry about. And I can’t condone murder, no matter what type of monster he is.”

“But…”

“Will Scarlet!” Francis roared. The younger man’s eyes widened. “People just outside that door are suffering. Either they are dying, or losing someone they love dearly. Do not call us back here until you have found a way to stop this.”

“I did not mean…”

Robin stood, cutting his cousin off.

“You’ve spoken your peace, now go back to the castle,” he said. “We have work to do.”

He walked from the room without a second glance.

*  *  *

“It does not work. We might as well be pouring water down their throats.” Friar Tuck pulled his fingers from the neck of a man growing cold in death.