Sovereign's War

by Debbie Viguié

  Alan was sitting on a log, thoughtfully strumming his harp as he stared off into the distance with intense concentration. Tuck made haste to go and sit by his friend and forced himself to wait until the bard had ceased playing.

  It felt like he sat there forever before the harp fell silent. Alan shook himself slightly and with the motion seemed to come back from somewhere. He looked surprised to find Tuck sitting next to him, then he smiled gently.

  Where did he go, Tuck wondered, while he was playing. He very much wanted to know.

  When Tuck didn’t speak, the bard raised an eyebrow. Tuck glanced around to make sure no one was nearby then he leaned in close and whispered.

  “I just married Robin and Marian.”

  A look of surprise, then instant delight, sprang across Alan’s face and his fingers teased forth a happy chord from the strings they were touching. He turned and glanced toward the woods, as if expecting to see the happy couple emerge.

  “They wanted to be left alone tonight,” Tuck explained. “They plan to share the news with everyone in the morning.”

  Alan nodded his understanding, and a mischievous grin lit up his face. He made a kissing motion and touched his fingertips to his lips.

  Tuck nodded. “I would imagine. Robin is a lot of things, but I don’t think he’s stupid.”

  Alan laughed. It was odd to hear, sound came out but it was almost like a bray, just one note without a tongue to form others. Even if it didn’t sound like it had before, it was still good to hear, and a moment later Tuck found himself joining in, slapping his friend’s knee. They had been surrounded by so much death, it was a tremendous relief to celebrate life in any way.

  * * *

  The next morning, the people gathered round the two of them, all pressing close, some reaching out to pat their arms and shoulders in congratulations. Robin and Marian stayed close together, never more than an arm’s length apart, no matter how many of their people pressed in.

  Someone took up a bawdy wedding song, one found normally in a tavern among fellows deep in their cups, rather than on a bright cold morning in the forest. Nevertheless, the crowd joined in and sang along, becoming especially boisterous in the chorus. Alan strummed his harp and Friar Tuck began a clapping rhythm.

  Despite the raucous—nearly scandalous—nature of the lyrics neither of the newlyweds blushed. Robin took Marian in his arms and whirled her around, showing her off to the people who revered her dignity and honor and royalty, but found themselves connecting with her as a woman for the first time. Though separate, she was one of them.

  In that moment they became more than symbols and myth.

  They became real.

  * * *

  “I still cannot believe it,” Much said, a smile on his face.

  “Those two have been in that dance for a long time, son,” Old Soldier replied. “Longer than you’ve been living.” The creases in his face were deeper with a grin of his own.

  “I’m happy for them.”

  “And sad as well.”

  “How did you know?”

  Old Soldier looked deep at Much, into the marrow of him.

  “If you had a woman like Marian, you’d never leave her, even to save the king.”

  The moment it was spoken, Much knew it to be true—knew it so deep and pure in himself that it felt like an arrow shot into his heart. He found himself nodding, but when he spoke his words weren’t bitter.

  “If I had a love like that, I wouldn’t leave her to save Christ Himself.”

  * * *

  Marian’s head spun with the joy of the moment. Here in the forest of which she now felt a part, in the arms of the man she loved, her husband, and enveloped in the joy of people she cared about…

  It was as perfect a moment as could be.

  She should have known it could not last.

  They came around the main campfire and found themselves face to face with Sir Lawrence. He stood, watching them somberly, dressed in a dark gray wool tunic over leather pants tucked into sturdy boots. A dark cloak hung on his narrow shoulders, not concealing the long sword strapped to his side.

  “Sorry to interrupt your… celebration?” he said. At the sight of him, all fell silent, their joy dashed by the sour look of recrimination on Lawrence’s face.

  Robin straightened. “We’ve had little to celebrate of late,” he said. “We will not apologize for it.” Lawrence looked at him for a long moment before bowing his head slightly.

  “As you wish.”

  Robin studied the man through narrowed eyes, looking for even a trace of sarcasm or a sneer. Even a glimmer of it, and he would ride that man to the ground and put his knife against the pulsing vein in his throat.

  He found none, just a resignation and a weariness that was far too familiar. So he turned to Marian, speaking low for her ears, even though the cold crisp air would carry his words to the people near them.

  “I love you,” he said earnestly. “Now I must gather my weapons and go do my queen’s bidding.”

  “But what if she has changed her mind about sending you?” Marian’s eyes were dry but the slightest tremble was in her voice.

  “She hasn’t.” He smiled a wry smile. “She weighed her decision carefully. Despite last night’s events, she is not prone to whimsy and never known to recant.”

  “She sounds like a hardarse.”

  Now Robin’s eyes took on a twinkle, despite the sorrow at leaving her. He moved his mouth closer to her ear, close enough that even the winter air wouldn’t take his words.

  “Not hard, milady, but definitely firm.”

  He pulled his head back in time to catch the blush that painted her cheeks. Her hand was iron on the back of his neck as she pulled him in and kissed him with a fierceness that took his breath and made his knees weak. Then Marian pulled back, eyes wet like hard flint in a riverbed, and spoke through clenched teeth.

  “You return to me, Robin of Longstride,” she said, “or I will destroy the earth to find you.”

  “Yes, milady.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “Are you sure?”

  The Sheriff turned and reached out. His fingers, encased in the hard black gauntlet, ran down her cheek—not gently, she never wanted that from him, but precisely hard enough to feel yet not hard enough to bruise. It made her throat tighten.

  “He could not hide from me if he were to consider betrayal. He is performing the task he has been assigned and will be here in a moment.” Glynna nodded, trusting even with the knot of worry in her chest that made her heart thrum weirdly behind her breastbone. She’d had it since the moment she let her child go.

  The Sheriff turned back to the altar, lighting the candles with a touch of his finger. Glynna moved beside him, watching. The candles were thick pillars of wax taken from bees that had been fed on red clover and nightshade, the honeycomb pattern showing through their sides as they were lit. The wicks were the braided hair of hanged men, and each time flame leapt from the Sheriff’s touch she caught a whiff of their acrid smoke.

  Glynna had been married to Philemon in this chapel, in a ceremony of light and laughter, overseen by the Cardinal when he’d been a younger man. When he’d still been alive. Now the room had been desecrated. The crucifix behind her had been turned upside down, the head of the corpus sawn off and discarded to the left where it lay looking up at its former body with wide anguished eyes. The wood of the altar had been darkened by the spilled blood of sacrifice and divination left to dry and stain it permanently.

  To the right sat a jar of noxious yellow fluid—a mixture of urine and phlegm from the Sheriff’s stable of wizards and sorcerers, some of it hers—with a handful of the back molars of Saint Germaine, the relic that had been encased inside the altar.

  So much blasphemy.

  It thrilled what was left of her soul. She’d always been drawn to the darker path, the shadow side of the Old Ways, the Moon Road and spilled blood on stone, but since Nottingham had opened her eyes, opened her, it felt
as if she had found her true nature. The old her had passed away and become new in his light. She was a wineskin filled with his dark wine.

  In his other hand her love held the iron torc that bestowed kingship. After they had killed the little prince he had put it around his own neck. He had warned her that he could only wear it briefly and true enough within an hour’s time it had begun to burn him until he had to remove it. He had told her that their child would be just human enough to wear the torc.

  Our child will be king. A savage spark of pride raced through her. He would bring the whole world to his feet.

  The last candle sparked to life and the air in the room took on a charge, shadows growing from the corners of the ceiling despite the added flame light. The Sheriff reached for her and drew her close. She shivered at his touch and thrilled when he spoke the one word.

  “Anon.”

  The tall twin doors of the chapel opened in unison and a humming chant crept into the sanctuary, vibrating in the atmosphere as the wizards, sorcerers, and necromancers filed in in twin rows, more than a dozen in all, stepping into the pews when they reached the front of the church. Their chanting stayed, a sonorous buzz of consonants and vowels and other sounds that were never truly meant for the human throat. It wasn’t a language they chanted but a phonetic song of magical intent, at once a summoning and a saining.

  Through the open doors swept a tall, angular man, his head shaved poorly with patches of dark stubble here and there among scrapes and cuts, as if he’d performed the task while drunk or during a seizure. The Mad Monk strode forward with long deliberate strides, his ash—covered robe flowing behind him. He was naked underneath, his anatomy spare and sparse, cut to the bone by privation so that it was apparent his joints did not work as they should, rotating in contortionist ways that made the viewer’s own joints ache.

  In his spade-like, swollen-knuckled hands he carried their child.

  He bowed to her and the Sheriff once he arrived at the altar and gently placed the offspring onto the bloodstained wood. The child rolled, looking up at her with a sharp intelligence that she supposed would frighten any sane person.

  Symbols traced in dark paint covered every inch of the child’s skin, the candlelight gleaming over them. The squiggles and marks ran together in her eyesight, wavering with sorcerous potential.

  The Mad Monk spoke. “It has been done as you have required, Master.”

  The Sheriff smiled. “Then let us consecrate our firstborn to the Dark Lord Of All.”

  It was the happiest day she’d had since giving birth.

  * * *

  “You have to relax and lean into it, son.”

  Much held tightly to the reins of the horse under him, legs locked tight on the crude saddle. He eyed his traveling companions with jealousy at their ease on the backs of the hell beasts they all rode. They swayed with each clop of hoof on the frozen ground, yet he jolted with each step of his mount, bouncing stiffly in the saddle. His entire body hurt in places he didn’t even know he had.

  “I’m not used to horses,” he said to Old Soldier.

  “Have you ever ridden before?”

  “No.”

  “I can tell.” The older man pulled close and reached out for the reins. “So can your horse. You’re making it nervous.”

  “I know how he feels.” Much looked down at the ground that seemed so far away.

  “She.” Robin trotted up. “Your horse is a female.”

  “I’ve never been good with those either.”

  The laugh that burst out of Robin was so sudden and sharp that Much’s horse jumped underneath him.

  “Your time with that will come. Never fear.”

  “Do you three not realize how serious this all is?” Sir Lawrence hissed. He pulled the reins of his horse, slowing enough that they were in line as close as the horses would allow.

  Much turned red. “I’m sorry—”

  “Don’t apologize,” Robin cut him off. He shifted in his saddle, turning to the thin, dour knight. “You will find us deadly serious when the time comes.”

  Lawrence merely grunted.

  “What is your issue?” Old Soldier asked.

  The man’s face twisted into a snarl. “My issue is that after all I went through to escape capture, I am sent back with an arthritic old man, a stripling who cannot ride a horse, and a fool who laughs and dances because he has no idea what danger is.”

  Much’s vision went red.

  All he could see was the shape of the man mocking Robin and Old Soldier, the two men he respected more than anyone in the world. Everything fell away—his anxiety over riding, his fear at being off the ground—all of it narrowed to just the shape of Sir Lawrence in a field of crimson.

  He moved, not thinking, just moving, working from the animal base of his brain, pulling his legs up and getting them under him on the wide back of the mare. He launched himself from horseback, issuing a strangled war cry.

  * * *

  There was no time to react. One second Robin was opening his mouth to answer Lawrence’s accusation, the next Much dove into the man, tackling him off the horse he rode and driving him to the ground. They landed in the frozen mud, both their mounts rearing and spinning away.

  “Grab the horses, we need them!” he yelled to Old Soldier. “I’ll handle this.”

  The older man wheeled and moved after the two animals as Robin slid off his horse. Much sat on Sir Lawrence’s chest, pinning the man down. The young man’s fist was back behind his head, ready to fall like swift sure lightning and strike the other man in the face. Already the skin over Lawrence’s eyebrow had split and bled freely.

  Robin slung the bow off his shoulders, letting it slide in his palm until he had the stout yew wood by the notch where the string was anchored. He lunged and hooked Much’s hand with the other end of it, jerking it against the lad’s elbow and pulling him off the fallen knight. Much tumbled back toward him, and Robin reached out and pulled the young man up by the heavy shoulder seam of his rough wool tunic.

  “Easy, now, easy.” Robin kept his voice low and deep, like he would to soothe a spooked animal. Much flailed for a second and then calmed as his back was pressed against Robin’s chest.

  Lawrence was up, sword out in his hand, and his face twisted in rage. He took a step toward them, knuckles white on the hilt, intent raw on his face. Suddenly he was stopped short by the edge of the dagger Old Soldier pressed against his throat, the old man reaching from behind, arm up and locked tight under Lawrence’s own.

  “Easy, now, easy.” Old Soldier echoed Robin’s words in Lawrence’s ears. The knight stopped cold, not moving even a fraction of an inch lest the keen blade part the skin and allow his blood to spurt free, to steam in the winter air.

  Much shuddered in Robin’s grip. Robin felt him come back to himself, so he let him go and the young man stepped shakily away.

  Robin cocked an eyebrow toward the knight.

  “Seems you may have misjudged your words.”

  Lawrence nodded, just a fraction. A trickle of blood sprang against the blade at his throat.

  “We are not fools, children, or doddering old men,” Robin continued calmly. “We are men born of war. Underestimate us at your peril.” He slung the bow back over his shoulder as Old Soldier lowered his dagger and stepped away.

  “Do not make the same mistake twice,” Robin concluded.

  “I will be sure of…” Lawrence broke off with a groan, folding in at the waist. He leaned forward, swaying on his feet and holding his side. His skin sheeted with sweat and went waxy. Instantly Old Soldier grabbed the man’s elbow to steady him, keep him from dropping to the ground. The motion pulled Lawrence’s hand from his side, revealing a spreading red stain.

  “You’re wounded,” Robin said.

  “Aye,” Lawrence replied through gritted teeth as he was eased to the ground. “I am. It will pass.” Nevertheless, Old Soldier pulled at his tunic. Lawrence pushed his hands and Old Soldier clipped him lightly on the
cheek.

  “Sit still and let me have a look.”

  Lawrence stopped fighting and leaned back.

  The tunic lifted to reveal a raw, ragged puncture a few inches above Lawrence’s hipbone. The wound seeped with watery blood, the heavy scab on it broken.

  Much loomed beside Robin. “Did I do that?”

  Robin shook his head. “It’s an old wound.”

  “It was received in my escape,” Lawrence said as Old Soldier assessed the injury.

  “Go fetch the wound kit from the leather knap on my mount,” the older man instructed. Much moved off, assuming the order was for him.

  “It will be fine,” Lawrence insisted, his breathing calmer. “I crossed the wilds and then England, interrogated the villagers, and then found you people in Sherwood—all with this wound. I will make it the rest of the way.”

  “Don’t make me clip you again, son.”

  “You won’t out stubborn Old Soldier,” Robin said, “and no one knows more about dealing with a swordthrust than he.”

  “Got two of them myself,” Old Soldier said.

  “Let him dress your wound, and we can get a few more miles out of you,” Robin added. Lawrence lay back as Much returned with the kit.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Friar Tuck pondered Thomas as the two of them stood talking in hushed tones with Marian. The young man was tall and stood ramrod straight. He looked as fit now as he had the first day Tuck had laid eyes on him. Fitter even. The privation of the forest, cold air, and sleeping underneath the sky seemed to agree with him. His eyes were bright, his breathing deep and regular, and he moved with an ease that the friar found himself envying.

  What he didn’t envy was Thomas’s cooking skills which, as it turned out, were non-existent. It had been with a great deal of relief that Tuck had discovered that Jansa would be taking over those duties. Already he found himself far more comfortable and less irksome, thanks to the improved quality of the food.