Will and John had made several trips into Nottingham proper but this was the first that stranded them there because of a heavy storm. His aunt Matilda had seen to it that they had a place to stay at the inn while they waited for the weather to calm.
"Your father doesn't like us much," John said to Will as they sat at a table in the middle of the inn's dining room.
Will knew this. As sure as he knew his father, Will knew that Thomas resented John on some level. "He's not happy, anymore," he said. "His life and livelihood... our life and livelihood was stolen by a group of men upset at their lords and also by the lords who put us in peril. How would you feel if you were forced to ally with one of the men who helped to instigate such barbaric actions?"
John looked at Will and for the first time saw that Will held him partially responsible for the death of his family. "It wasn't I that set fire to your home, young Will," John said, attempting to reason with Will.
"No, instead you sparked men with weak minds to take action against a stronger lot of people with minds just as weak," Will said, "then acted surprised when violence erupted like a Vulcan furnace. The only difference between my father's view of you and mine is that I see how your loyalty can benefit me. I see how it's better to give you a chance to clear your conscious than to cast you down with the devils. Don't ever think for a minute that if my father decided to turn on you that I would take up arms against him in your defense."
John reacted in the only way a man can react when an eight year old tells you exactly how things really are, flabbergasted. After a few moments of not knowing what to say, John simply asked, "Do you hate me?"
"No. You're a good friend but you need to understand that things are far more complicated than just like and dislike. My family is gone. I've even lost my father now that his blood lust, which is something he's always dealt with his entire life, has been given purpose to be cut loose upon the bastard sons that call themselves nobles," Will dropped his boyish charm in an instant to clarify the magnitude of what had to be done for John to understand. "I plan on building strong minds, arming them with knowledge first and weapons second. They will understand the ramifications of a rebellion. Then they will pledge to make sure that no innocent people will be harmed in bringing down the monster that we've lived with for so long."
"You don't speak like a child," John said.
"I stopped being a child the moment my childhood home was used to set a flaming example."
Will had been looking around the room. He could hear words here and there that made his ears perk up. Words like: arrogant, bully, unjust, unstable and nobles. He was surrounded by people that were unhappy with their lot in life and were ripe for change. He pulled his knife out and began carving de Lacey's coat of arms.
"What are you doing?" John asked trying to cover Will's actions.
"Leaving a message," Will said.
After finishing the coat of arms, Will crossed it out. Underneath he wrote, "knowledge is power." It took him several minutes to deface the table but when he was done, he admired his own work.
"That ought to get their minds racing," he said as he covered the vandalism with his plate.
"If someone caught you doing that," John started but Will shot him a look.
"The time for surmising is over, it's time to act," Will began. "We need to start building our numbers if we are ever going to help my father kill the king."
Will and John waited for more patrons to enter the inn before getting up from their table and going to their room. They wanted there to be a bit of confusion about who made the mark on the table.
That night, Will listened from their room as the men let drink bolster their courage and guide their tongues. He could hear more clearly those key words along with new ones. Rebellion, treason, murder and war.
As sleep overcame him, Will and the fox played a game of chess. Will had never seen the game before but had read about it and understood the rules. He and the fox took turns, the fox often pointing out openings, showing where the vital strikes could come from any arrangement on the board.
"The best attack is the one that isn't seen," the fox said. "It isn't seen until after it's delivered it's lethal blow."
The following morning, Will and John went down to the main dining room. The inn keeper was frantically trying to scratch away the graffiti Will had put on the table.
"No breakfast this morning," he said to them without looking up, "I'm too busy trying to remove the work of some vandal."
Will and John noted that the inn keeper had supposed that a single person was responsible for the defacing of the table.
"Is it always so loud at night?" Will asked. "I could hear them, clear up to my room."
The inn keeper paused. "Not usually," he answered. "Last night this mess I'm cleaning up got the men into a fit. They think themselves rebels. They'll find that such ideas end at the chopping block."
"A man shouldn't be 'fraid to speak his mind," John reasoned.
"In a good world, you're right," the keeper offered, "but we live in a world where the only justice is one delivered by a lone man with a bow."
"What?" Will asked.
The inn keeper looked at John, "This isn't news for the young."
John looked down at Will. Will played his part and went outside.
The inn keeper continued his story, "Those men that the Red Wolf killed were the ones that razed all those farms in Loxley. You ask me, they should give the Red Wolf a seat near the throne. That man, the one that the Red Wolf let bleed to death in the streets, I suppose he was a warning. You don't let a man die in a pool of blood without it meaning something. You come in here with that boy and you seem to mind your own business but you should know, word is things happening. Things that won't be the same after. I suppose if you want to keep him safe, you should take your son and go to another county where things are calm."
"You feel that strongly about the Red Wolf?" John asked.
"I plan on changing the name of the inn from the 'Broken Yolk' to the 'Wolf's Den'," the inn keeper admitted. "He'll be welcome here anytime. Maybe he can kill the man who damaged my table."
The inn keeper went back to scratching out the graffiti that Will had done the night before.
Once outside, John informed Will, "He's right upset about what you did. He thinks the Red Wolf should hunt you down and kill you." John said the last bit with a smile.
Will smiled back. Perhaps the seed was already planted by the massacre at Loxley and all Will did with his impromptu artwork was galvanize the men. Now all there was to do was finding the strongest and invite him into the fold.
Will went back into the inn. He stood next to the inn keeper a moment before the keeper acknowledged him.
"What?" the inn keeper asked.
"I'm sorry," Will said as he took the abrasive stone from the inn keeper and took over cleaning the graffiti. "I'm sorry but the Red Wolf doesn't work alone and he's looking for volunteers."
The inn keeper stopped. He was stunned at Will's sudden revelation.
"Can he count on you?" Will asked.
"You bet," the inn keeper swore.
It had been several months since Thomas had killed Cornelius and the other men and it was the first bit of news regarding anyone from the list that Matilda had been able to share with him. She had learned that Guy's personal squire and page, Tybalt, had been given permission to use the hunting cabin deep in the forest. The information she had sent to Thomas simply stated Tybalt's name, rank and where he'd be via a map.
Thomas had found the cabin easily. He was a full week ahead of Tybalt's planned arrival and spent time perusing the cabin. It looked as if it were used often. Thomas found it easily entered with the use of a key he found hidden under a stone near the cabin's base.
The cabin was divided into three rooms. The main room was a common area and there were two smaller bedrooms immediately to the back. Thomas noted the walls ordained with trophy heads. He looked behind them and behind the head of a fox he discovered a hidden cubbyhole. In it was a knife and four gold pieces. Thomas took the items. He looked around the room some more and discovered a loose floor board. It wasn't a hiding spot but instead was simply a weak spot in the floor.
Thomas carefully pulled the board up. He reached his hand in to the hole and discovered that the ground was a full two feet down. He carefully pulled up several more boards, being sure to leave no mark on the sides that were visible. He dropped into the hole and crawled around the outside wall, looking for a weak spot. On the side of the cabin, the wood had slightly weakened due to rain. Thomas carefully pulled at it until it broke.
Thomas left and returned with bits off of his wagon. He used the spare wood to make a backing to the floor boards so that he could lift them out as one solid piece. He did the same to the lumber that made up the outside wall. Thomas left a knife, sword and some rope under the trap door.
After tidying up Thomas locked the front door back and replaced the key to its hiding spot.
Thomas then found a hill to practice his archery on. Over the next three days he took his time getting the rhythm right. He would take three of the blunt tipped arrows and quickly launch them so that they fell in a quick tapping rhythm at his target. From nearly fifty yards, Thomas could have all three hit within an area no bigger than a foot square. He timed them by launching the first one at a high arc and the other two in arcs of decreasing order so that his last arrow hit first and hardest and the first arrow shot, would hit last with least impact.
Thump, thump, thump. Thump, thump, thump.
Thomas thought it was very similar to a heartbeat. He thought that was quite poetic since it was the last sound someone was going to hear.
The wolf inside smiled deeply.
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