Jennifer Roberson - [Robin Hood 01] by Lady of the Forest

John smiled. “You were not re appointed, Sheriff. You bought your way back to the office by paying my brother a predetermined sum.”
    DeLacey sat very still. “Crusades are costly, my lord. The king required money.”
    “And to get it, he sold off half the kingdom.” The chain was dropped again with a chime of finality. “Oh, don’t be so concerned, deLacey!—hundreds of others did it, as well. It was my brother’s idea . . . as you say, crusades are costly. The warrior-king was more concerned with the state of the Infidel’s soul than with the state of his own realm.” John’s color was high. “But he gave me Nottinghamshire, along with a few other counties—generous of him, was it not? To give the poor youngest son a pittance?”
    Pittance indeed. John had married into property via Isabelle of Gloucester, and Richard had given him more: six great counties—Nottingham, Derby, Dorset, Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall—not to mention the honor of Lancaster. No more Lackland was John. Just as Henry was no longer king.
    The Count of Mortain shifted in his chair. “Why did you not buy a higher office?”
    DeLacey smiled thinly. “I couldn’t afford it. I bought what I could with my late wife’s portion.”
    “Ah.” John laid seige to his other thumbnail. “But why this office? Why not another one?”
    Tell him no more than you must. He knew it instinctively. “I am known here, my lord. My policies are established. It seemed the sensible thing.”
    “Sensible thing.” John smiled, spat nail. “And are you a sensible man?”
    “I believe so, my lord.”
    John grunted. His gaze, despite the wine he’d imbibed, was unclouded. “What do you want, deLacey?”
    The sheriff tilted his head in quiet deference. “To serve you, and Nottinghamshire.”
    John’s eyes lidded. The tautness of his body slackened even as the hard line of his mouth softened, hooking cynically. “Not precisely the answer I wanted. But for now, it will do.” He waved a dismissive hand. “Leave me, deLacey. And send Gilbert de Pisan here.”

    De Pisan came and shut the door behind him. “My lord?”
    John shifted in the chair. The glitter in dark eyes was unmistakable. Much wine had passed his lips, but the brain was mostly untouched. De Pisan had learned that John, whose tolerance for wine was higher than most men’s, often played the drunkard as a ruse to lure careless comments out of allies and enemies. De Pisan was neither: he was the prince’s seneschal.
    “Well?” John invited. “What have you learned?”
    De Pisan inclined his head. He was older than John, silvering, spare of frame and words. But he knew what he knew, and shared it freely with his lord. “The earl is far wealthier than even we suspected, my lord. To build this castle another man might have beggared himself, yet Huntington’s coffers appear untouched.”
    John hitched a single shoulder. “He could have borrowed it all from the Jews.”
    “The Jews have suspended much of their moneylending, my lord. Just now, few men can borrow coin.”
    Dark brows snapped together. “I had heard no such thing.”
    De Pisan smoothed velvet and brocade. John allowed him luxury, so far as it did not exceed his own. “There is talk the Jews intend to raise much of the king’s ransom. Instead of lending coin, they gather it for that purpose.”
    “Do they?” John slumped back in the chair, chewing absently on a fingernail. Both thumbs were barren. “What do they want of Richard? He’s no friend of the Jews ...”
    It was rhetorical. De Pisan held his tongue. Others, he knew, might name John less of a friend, but he was not the man.
    John grunted, dismissing it, and looked more intently at his steward. “What else?”
    “The earl is in constant touch with others of his ilk, my lord. The barons are displeased.”
    “With me? Are they? Damn them.” John leaned forward and scooped up the cup of wine. “Can’t they see I am king in all but name? Kings need