Nottingham: A Novel (Nottingham, 1)

by Nathan Makaryk

Greetings! Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this book, please know that its sequel "LIONHEARTS" is available. Also, you can write-in LIONHEARTS for your favorite Historical Fiction book of 2020 by going to Goodreads and voting in their Choice Awards. In 2019, write-in votes got NOTTINGHAM into the semi-final round, which is fantastic exposure. I'd much appreciate your vote!

Richard gave it. “Let’s war.”

This novel went through many, many changes over the years, but this prologue has remained almost entirely intact from the very beginning. Before I wrote this novel, this story was a theatrical play that I wrote and produced, which I then chose to expand into a novel. Part of that expansion was to do a lot more historical research, and learning the truth about King Richard made this prologue an obvious choice. I think most people instinctively think King Richard was a pretty good king. After all, he's called the Lionheart! And almost every Robin Hood story involves him coming home at the end and magically saving the day. But in reality, he was a truly awful king. He sold everything he could to fund his war, he barely spoke English, and he spent almost no time in England at all. Starting this novel off with a chapter that reveals him to be a petty, vindictive, arrogant coward was the exact message that I wanted for the whole book, which is: don't believe the stories you've heard, good people can have flaws and bad people can have merit. And this is *not* the Robin Hood story you have come to expect.

Vivian’s death was the first to darken Locksley’s door,

I can't claim to remember why I originally chose to spell Marion's name with an "o" rather than the traditional "a", but I do know why I named Marion's sister Vivian. I have a friend named Marion, and her sister's name is Vivian, so I just stole her name. It wasn't more complicated than that. I'm pretty sure my friend Marion has not read this book, or else I think I would have received, at some point, an angry message from her along the lines of "You killed my sister!"

the siege machinery. Two lonely trebuchets were finally complete,

If you've never seen a trebuchet launch in real life, I highly recommend it. I'd suggest Warwick Castle, which is an easy day-trip if you're visiting London. Warwick Castle is a really excellent blend of being a genuine historical museum as well as being an entertaining day where you can see archery, falconry, sword-fighting, and ... yes, a trebuchet. They make a big production out of if which is very engaging, although I understand they don't launch any boulders on fire any more, ever since they burnt down one of their own buildings ...

but it seemed they were slightly more fucked than Robin had guessed.

Uh-oh, Robin just dropped the first F-bomb. First of all, spoiler alert: if you're offended by vulgarity, this book isn't for you. That's fine! You're only 25 pages in, you can walk away now if you like. But let’s talk a bit about it. I’m going to use some language in this book that is not historically accurate. “Fuck” and “shit” date back to around the 1400’s, but probably not to 1191. However, those are hardly the only anachronistic inclusions you’ll find. The character of Marian was not a part of the original Robin Hood stories; she was added hundreds of years later. Friar Tuck would almost certainly not have existed at all. Not to mention that I treat women in this novel as humans and not property (gasp!). I wasn’t interested in writing a strictly historically-accurate version of Robin Hood. Instead I wanted to revisit the legend … with an eye on history, yes … but also through a lens of relevancy for today. So I’ve given the women agency, I’m ignoring some major religious influences of the period, and I’m letting my characters speak with somewhat modernized sensibilities, humor, and vocabulary to make them feel more accessible. Real people use foul language, especially when they’re emotional—so my characters do, too. (And since the chapters written from their POVs, that language will sometimes even seep into the narrative, rather than just the dialogue). You probably won’t see Marion doing it because she’s more eloquent (okay, maybe once), but part of what I want to do with the Robin mythos is to break him down from this theoretically-perfect hero into a very imperfect guy, like any of a hundred guys you probably know. So … break out the swear jar!

Gunny gave her a sad pout, waving her over to brush her hair back.

Poor Gunny. I think that might be the first and last we see of her. This novel went through a few massive revisions, and Gunny used to have a much larger role, including her own POV chapters in both this book and the sequel. Eventually her plot was combined with Arable's until she was really just an extraneous character who didn't escape the chopping block. RIP Gunnore le Fullere.

Stabhappy,

Ah, Stabhappy. This is my first novel, which meant of course my first time working with a professional editor. I think a lot of people (especially writers) have an incorrect idea that an editor either makes all kinds of changes to the novel on their own, or makes ridiculous demands like insisting on adding a love story or sidekick where they don't make sense, etc. My experience with my editor, Bess Cozby, was nothing short of wonderful: instead of making demands, she was simply very good at asking the right questions, or asking if it was possible to see more of certain interactions/themes, etc (as well as things like pointing out when I'm being repetitive or can trim paragraphs or run-on sentences like this one). But she never drew any lines in the sand, and was always quick to remind me that the book is mine first and foremost, and that I shouldn't make any edits I didn't agree with. Except for Stabhappy. This was the only fight I definitively lost. Stabhappy's original name was ... decidedly more profane.

Craton?”

The first version of this story (which I'll probably mention many many times in these notes) was a play I wrote and directed in 2012 called "THE LEGEND OF ROBIN HOOD." When I started transforming that theatrical script to a novel, I knew I needed to dig far deeper into my research. A friend of mine from the theater named Cole Craton got me in touch with a couple of history professors at the nearby state college, and in thanks I told him I'd name a character after him. This was *years* before I told anyone I was writing a book so he assumed it was a character in a play. I was working on this chapter the next day, so there's Craton. Incidentally, the description of him on the next line is probably pretty accurate.

None of these people would fight until their dying breaths.

This is easily one of my most hated tropes. As I'm sure you'll see as this book progresses, I hate the idea of nameless faceless guards that can be killed off indiscriminately. Coupled with that is the idea that every single individual fighter is always willing to go all in against the hero. Even after watching dozens of teammates dispatched effortlessly, every last henchman still seems to think they can take on the good guy. Suffice it to say, that drives me crazy. It happens in every action movie. A wonderful exception to this rule is in Iron Man 3 when Iron Man takes out a whole room of henchmen and the last one throws his hands in the air and says "Honestly, I hate working here, they are so weird." Hats off to that moment, we need more of that.

TO ROBIN’S DISMAY, IT even smelled more like home.

"It even smells more like home" was the first line of the original play that I wrote years before this book. The action started here, with Robin and William walking through the Sherwood. Obviously this novel is *much* longer than the play was, which really only covered Robin's half of the story from this point forward (and with several major plot pieces absent). Turning it into a novel meant I was able to flesh out the other characters, the other half of the conflict, and explore everything that happened in Acre before this point. Written to be performed on a small stage, I had to consider the limitations of scenery ... so scenes in a forest are possible, but a full city siege - not so much.

the horses were missing.

Why were the horses stolen? Why, because in the original play, I couldn't exactly put the actors on horses. So the first bit of dialogue was as follows, in which they complain about how they got their horses stolen, to explain why the two of them are *walking* through the forest when they should clearly be riding. I suppose I could have changed that in the novel, but taking away their means of transportation meant they'd be trapped when ... oh, well you should probably just keep reading.

Will returned, flicking his tongue about needlessly.

In the closing few weekends of the original play, the actor who played Will Scarlet (whose name is Jaycob Hunter) started flicking his tongue around every now and then as sort of a character tick. We all made fun of him for it. Here I am, still making fun of him for it. (Don't worry, Jaycob's a great guy, he can take it)

“How is Warwick?” de Lacy asked. “The pride of England, when I left her,” Waleran boasted.

They say that 95% fo the research you do for a book will never make it to the page, and here's a good example. I mentioned Warwick Castle earlier as a great stop if you're ever in the area, but I should also mention that I wrote an entire chapter of Waleran's life in Warwick Castle while I was there. Sadly that chapter got cut eventually, as does a lot of Waleran's history ... for now.

“An excellent day for a ride. I certainly hope we don’t get mauled by a bear

This was an improvised line in the play by Will Scarlet (Jaycob Hunter), which changed every night. This scene, with Robin's crew practicing their thievery skills, exists specifically because of the limitations of the stage. When I was first writing the play I knew we needed to see a "typical" Robin Hood robbery take place, in which they very gentlemanly stop a carriage on the road and rob its owners of their valuables. But again, on a small stage there was no way of having a horse and carriage enter, which meant I had to get creative. I originally thought of only telling about the robbery after the fact from its victim's point of view, but eventually decided on seeing them pantomime their robbery in practice, which required no extra sets or actors, and opened up the scene for a lot more levity.

STUTELY WAS DREAMING OF beautiful women riding white bears when Robin Hood showed up in Thorney.

This is a nod to the actor who played Will Stutely: Ryan Young (who has a tattoo of a polar bear). The character of Will Stutely was originally nothing more than "Villager #1", but when I cast Ryan Young I instantly wrote some more for the role to match Ryan's bombastic personality. He created this lovable braggart loudmouth out of a role that only had a handful of lines, which I knew had to get a little bit more spotlight in the novel.

“Did he call me a son of a bitch?

Another happy accident from the play. Every time John Little (played beautifully by my dear friend Larry Creagan) walked away in this scene saying the line "He's the son of a rich land owner," it sounded like he was saying "He's a son of a bitch." I had him change the line to "He's the son of a *wealthy* land owner" in the play, but kept this interaction in the novel.

Stop and listen, gentlemen, That be of freeborn blood, And I shall tell of a goodly man, His name is Robin Hood. Robin was a prude outlaw, And against the law he fought, So courteous a leader as he was one … Whether he wants to be or not!

Deep Robin Hood fans might recognize these verses as only slightly deviations from one of the oldest surviving recorded stories of Robin Hood, "A Geste of Robyn Hode," and yes I am 100% suggesting that Friar Tuck wrote the original versions.

Fire, Crimson Tommy,

In the earliest version of this novel, Robin and William had a third companion in Acre named Thomas Rigby. My plans for Thomas involved him returning from the war with King Richard in future books, and trying to track down his old friends Robin and William. Somewhere along the way we would have learned that he grew up in Nottingham in the gangs, under the name Crimson Tommy. Alas, he was left on the cutting room floor, aside from this mention.

“Death to the Sheriff?”

True story, my son Ryland (who is three years old at the time of writing this) enjoys sword fighting with me in the house (foam swords, of course). He has been trained to yell "Death to the Sheriff!" whenever he makes a sneak attack.

“I’m sorry. The adults are speaking. Surely you’re missed, at your mother’s teat.”

If you haven't figured it out yet, I'm a big fan of calling out Robin Hood tropes and stomping all over them. The archery contest shows up in many different Robin Hood stories, and it's always baffled me how anybody could think it's a solid plan to catch him. Incidentally, this line "Surely you're missed, at your mother's teat," was only spoken once in the original play, on closing night. I gave the Sheriff (played with excrutiating care by Glenn Freeze) an instruction to change the normal line (which was something far more boring) to this, because part of the fun of small theater is to throw monkey wrenches at your friends to see if you can get them to crack on stage. Nobod else in the scene knew about the new line, but most had to bite their lip or turn away to keep from laughing when Glenn delivered it.

“Wait.” Tuck put his hands out. “This is out of the realm of our capabilities.” Stutely’s eyebrows smashed together. “Out of the … realm … of your … capabilities?”

I mentioned previously that some of the joys of smaller theater (and having a close cast that works well together) is throwing monkey wrenches at each other just to keep them on their toes. Tuck's original line was something simple like "Wait, this is beyond us." But the actor (Gabriel Robins) decided one day to make the statement more elaborate, just to see if it threw anyone off their game. The audience never knows, of course, but it's something to laugh about back stage afterwards. So I kept this improvised line for the book, too.

I don’t intend on winning. I told him. I don’t want to be king. England needs a good king, not me, it needs my brother. Not ever me. If we start making England a better place, then Richard has no reason to come back. “But if England burns,” John continued, taking the quill, “then he has to come back. He simply has to.”

This chapter with Prince John is intended as something of the opposite of the prologue with King Richard. Both of these men have some rather large reputations - Richard the glorious "Lionheart" king, and John as a cruel, conniving, power-hungry monster. In the same way that much of this book exists to analyze the many Robin Hood tropes and see which have merit and which deserve ridicule, I wanted to do the same thing with Richard and John. Richard is inarguably *not* the glorious king that he often gets credited as, so it wasn't much of a stretch to turn him into a self-absorbed manipulator. But Prince John was legitimately terrible, and would go on to be an even worse king. Still, I wanted to pull his reputation back from the brink, and maybe find an alternative (even revisionist) explanation to why he is remembered as being so bad. So rather than a wicked thing, I pulled him more into the light-hearted playboy world, who enjoyed his prestige but hates his power ... and perhaps misguidedly does some terrible things in order to *avoid* becoming king, rather than the opposite.

KYLE MORGAN

Here's another nod to the original cast. The character of Morg was something of a throwaway role in the stage play, who got a few laughs for being a bit dumb but I don't think he even had any lines. The side plot of him killing the Gerold did not exist in the play either. He was played by a wonderful man named Kyle Hawkins, whose name I borrowed for his given name here (and whose last name I borrowed for the name of the man he killed earlier).