And just like that, Gamelyn’s head was spinning and his legs didn’t seem to want to hold him up.
“Whups!” the demon lad said, and dropped the gray’s rein to grab at Gamelyn just before he hit the ground.
“Not good,” Gamelyn muttered. “Now you won’t catch him again.”
“Whatever are you on about?” the lad wondered, then, with a shrug, he muscled Gamelyn over to the pony. “Here. It waint be quite the climb, this way. Neither will she jump out from under you if the wind hits her ears. We need to get you to me mam, quicker’s best. I’ll ride yon Testicles.”
Had he really meant it to sound like some ancient Roman general’s name? Gamelyn shook his head, giving a tiny groan as it shook pain outward through his eyelids. “Nay, you can’t… can’t ride him.” Merciful Heaven, was that really his voice, so faint and wobbly? “He won’t let you.”
“I daresay he will,” was the answer. “There’s nowt I canna ride. I can trust Willow to take care of you. Anyway.” A sudden grin, like sun breaking over clouds. “I’m dying to step up in one of those fancy stirrups.”
There was nothing for it; the lad was already starting to muscle him over to the pony, and again Gamelyn was startled at how much strength those scrawny arms had. “Wait,” he said, then again, because it was a murmur and barely audible, “wait, wait… wait.”
The lad waited, again with that considerable frown. And waited. Finally, he said, “What?”
Gamelyn realized that he hadn’t said what he meant to. In fact, he wasn’t sure what he’d meant to say, so what came out was, “What’s your name?”
The brows gave another massive squinch, perturbed to puzzled. “Rob. Rob of Loxley.”
“I’m Gamelyn. Sir Ian’s son.” Somehow this last was particularly important, because he couldn’t remember the name of the castle his father had recently been deeded holding to.
“Aye, Sir Ian’s son Gamelyn,” acknowledged Rob and then, after a pause, “Can we go now, then?”
HE BARELY remembered Rob half lifting, half pitching him into the saddle of the little bay pony, didn’t remember much of the journey at all. But Gamelyn remembered, vividly, the look of dismay on Rob’s face as Gamelyn had pitched out of the saddle and into the dirt just as they arrived at a squat, cob-bricked cottage.
He also remembered the feel of cool hands upon his forehead, and cooler water….
Lurching from fog and fugue, Gamelyn blinked, tried to focus, found a figure bent over him.
He also remembered her. Those hands were still cool, soothing upon him, and she had Rob’s hair and eyes.
“So you’re back with us, youngling,” she said. “That’s a fair-sized knot you’ve gathered on your pate, so lie still, aye?”
She even sounded a bit like Rob, but her accent was thicker, more musical. Which was aptly demonstrated as Rob’s voice sounded from behind her.
“Hoy, Mam, is he back in the living? I didna kill him, did I?”
She smiled at Gamelyn, answered, “Nay, my Hob-Robyn. Not for lack of trying, though.”
Gamelyn blinked. He’d heard that name before, but never applied to any human. His old nurse had told him stories of such things: fey forest sprites, trees that walked like wild, wanton girls, and wolf-men that ate naughty little boys. And all of them, led by their feral master, Jack o’ th’ Green, the Hob, the Robyn Greenfellow.
What kind of woman would name her child such a thing, even in jest?
“I just figured I’d get him here however I could and you’d put him right.” Rob came into Gamelyn’s view and crouched by the bed, peering at him. It was a bed Gamelyn lay in, curtains pulled back and frame piled high with rushes and furs, one of several in the cottage’s back corner. Windows were flung open, letting in light and a cool breeze, and there was a hearth in the opposite corner. A girl—she looked to be nigh grown—was stirring something in a large kettle that hung in the hearth. A glint of setting sun caught her hair and it lit like fire, a fall of unruly copper twisting down her back.
Gamelyn had been told once that his own mother had been red-haired. It was a continual disappointment to him that his own hair seemed more rosy straw than honest red, even if the old priest at Huntingdon told him he’d enough red to be wary of. Red-haired children were Satan’s spawn, no question. It had been the first time he’d questioned the priest, but not the last—and the punishment had been worth it. His mother was in Heaven, in God’s grace, and had not been of any devil!
Now that he considered it, he’d like to hear that priest say such a thing to this peasant girl’s face. Or her mother, seated all poised in her chair. Both of them looked like they’d have something to say back.
Setting sun? It hit him, abruptly. Had he been out so long?
“Will he be all right, then?” Rob peered at him, and Gamelyn wasn’t sure it was as friendly as the query seemed. Rob’s mother reached out and gave a tug, fond but purposeful, at his tangled hair.
“Son, I’ve seen wolves with less baleful stares than you.” Rob shrugged, but lowered his gaze as she continued, to Gamelyn, “I’m Eluned, wife to Adam of Loxley. My bold Rob here,” she said as she reached out and gave another tug, “said only that you were Sir Ian’s son Gamelyn.”
“Would that be Sir Ian Boundys, newly granted mesne lord of Blyth Castle?” A deeper voice, male, and a tall, broad figure striding through the door. “I see our young guest is awake. Welcome to our home, lad.”
This, then, must be Adam of Loxley.
“Here you go, young sirrah.” This from the girl who, as she approached, was revealed to have a bowl in her hands that steamed and smelled positively mouthwatering.
“You never let me eat in bed,” Rob protested.
“You ent as handsome as our visitor,” the girl quipped.
“Bugger, she’s off again—” Rob rolled his eyes.
“Rob.” His mother, stern.
“Dinna mind him, he’s a mouth like a piss pot,” the girl told Gamelyn, almost at the same time.
“Marion.” Eluned’s tone had not changed.
“Well, he does, Mam.” The girl—Marion—shrugged. “Can you sit up, then, Sir Gamelyn?”
“Nor is he a ‘sir’, just son to one—”
Adam calmly went over, wrapped a beefy arm about Rob’s head, and clapped a hand over his mouth. Rob struggled; Gamelyn watched in abrupt anxiety until he saw Rob’s eyes were crinkling with laughter.
Gamelyn sat up, was surprised that he no longer felt as if a rabid warhorse was tromping through his head, and then was further surprised when Marion sat next to him—on the bed. She began to shovel up spoonfuls of whatever it was toward his face. Gamelyn opened his mouth out of self-defense.
The pottage was as delicious as it smelled.
“Da,” Rob was whinging, “dinna I get to eat too?”
He had seemed so mature, out in the forest. It was passing strange to see that Rob might be younger than Gamelyn himself.
“Have you seen to the horses?”
Rob looked affronted. “Of course.”
“Then, aye.”
A good tilting horse didn’t have a quicker start than Rob toward the cauldron. It was beyond passing strange to see him not get clobbered for whinging. Otho didn’t mind the occasional whinge, and their father ignored it. But Gamelyn’s eldest brother, Johan, was not so forgiving.
Adam was speaking, a low, unflappable voice that seemed to radiate calm. “I’ve business east; no bother to see you home proper, help you make your apologies for worrying your folk.”
“My brothers won’t miss me, they’ll worry more after the horse,” Gamelyn muttered. Then, as Adam and Eluned exchanged a meaningful look and Marion cocked her head and stopped shoveling food at him, Gamelyn furthered, “My father’s away to York, doing the pretty as guest of the sheriff.”
Eluned’s eyebrows arched upward, altogether too canny for Gamelyn’s peace of mind.
“Doing the what?” Rob inserted from over the cauldron, huddled over a bow
l. He abruptly gave a hiss and sucked at his thumb like he’d singed it. “No wonder our visitor is so quiet. You’ve burned his mouth shut, Marion.”
“Eat, then. Maybe it’ll work on you.”
“You canna be traveling in the dark, at any rate,” Eluned told Gamelyn. “You’ll stay here with us ’til the morrow.”
“I DINNA like him.”
“I do. Nay, really, Rob. He’s nice.”
A snort in the dim, quickly muffled into the bedclothes—or by Marion’s cushion over Rob’s face, Gamelyn discovered when he peeked.
Gamelyn, as he’d found out, was in Rob’s bed. Rob was tucked in with Marion. They’d been quiet for so long that Gamelyn was sure they slept. But no, perhaps they were just making sure their parents were sleeping.
He couldn’t sleep. His head was throbbing despite the potion Mistress Eluned had given him. The moon was full and overbright, the illumination coming directly over the bed in a manner he wasn’t at all accustomed to. And the bed was nothing like he was accustomed to, either. It smelled of horse, boy sweat, and deer must.
“He’s one of them.”
“Everything with you is ‘us’ and ‘them’. What about ‘we’?”
Another snort, softer, and Rob hissed, “You know the only ‘we’ that matters to his kind are those born on the proper side of the blanket.”
“You’ve been listening to Will Scathelock too much—”
“Will’s mam was killed, after they—”
“I know what happened to her.” Marion’s whisper was suddenly odd and flat. “They’re surely all not like that. You canna hem people into one garment, little brother. This one, this Gamelyn Boundys. He’s seen some hurt, too.”
“Did the fae tell y’ so?”
“So you’re the only one allowed to travel along the Barrow-lines?”
Barrow-lines? Fae? What an extraordinary way of speaking. It might have been another language for all the sense it made.
“Aye, me and Mam. Your hair’s too red.”
There was another whump of cushion against flesh, and Rob was… giggling?
“You just like that lad,” this between giggles, “because he’s towheaded.”
“I’ll pitch you from this bed, see if I don’t.”
“Pax, then.” A loud creak of leather and cord; through slit eyes Gamelyn saw Rob sit up. “You kick like a jenny ass even when you’re not set t’ boot me. I’ll go up top.”
Marion merely said, “Take a fur, then,” and rolled over. The moon’s light glinted over her like cold forge fire.
Rob, on the other hand, seemed to swallow the moonlight. He was a shadow, silent once off his sister’s cot; so silent that Gamelyn, closing his eyes against the moonlight and discovery, didn’t hear Rob until he was close enough so his breath stirred Gamelyn’s hair.
“I know you’re awake,” Rob whispered against his ear. It gave Gamelyn a sudden, deep-set shiver. “Spyin’ on people’s no way to make ’em trust you, neither.”
Gamelyn opened his eyes wide, affronted. Rob’s narrow face wasn’t a handsbreadth from his, a thin skim of moon frost on his cheeks and a tiny glitter in those dark eyes.
“I know your kind,” he murmured. “Stay away from my sister.”
A frown gathered at Gamelyn’s brow. The expression stung his injured skull, but not half as much as Rob’s words had. “Grotty peasant,” Gamelyn growled, sotto voce, before he had a chance to rethink the wisdom of brassing off someone whose bed he occupied. “I’m not ‘after’ your sister.”
The dark eyes widened.
“And I’d not be so ill-mannered as to take advantage in a house where I’m guest!”
Rob blinked. Then inexplicably grinned, a flash of white teeth in the dim. “Aye. Well. All right, then.”
And, still silent, Rob backed away from the bed and mounted the rope ladder leading to the loft.
III
“WHEN’S THAT one leaving, then?”
Marion peered at her brother. He had flung the question all nonchalant, but seemed preoccupied. Rob bent the yew bow skyward instead of in line with the target, rolling his shoulders in their sockets as if they were stiff. “You did get tossed yesterday,” she insisted.
“’M always hopin’ for a good toss,” Rob smirked. “Ow!”
“You know what I mean, you little… tosser! Willow dumped you. On your arse.”
Rob flipped the forelock from his face and took steady aim. A small waft of wind played at his nape hair; he waited until it had stilled then let fly.
Their target, a small drinking skin hung by a narrow rope some ells away, jerked and fetched as the arrow hit it square.
“Good shot.”
“Aw.” Rob gave a forbidding squint at his string, plucked at it with his fingers. “I was aiming for the rope.”
They had tried to get him to draw with his right arm, but it had been disastrous. From the moment he had aimed a bow, the ease with which he drew to the left was only matched by the clumsiness of trying to achieve a proper right-armed draw.
Their father said it simply meant he sighted stronger with his left eye, but then Rob was left-handed as well. Neither were good omens to Christian or Heathen; Eluned was not altogether happy with her son’s leanings. Marion was more pragmatic. Her father had a point—what mattered was accuracy and speed. Rob’s ability with the bow was already prodigious for his age; if he could put people off with an uncanny technique, then the advantage was his, surely.
Another advantage—or maybe not, Marion considered, since she often bore the brunt of it—her baby brother didn’t give up easily. “So,” Rob persisted. “When’s His Lordship taking his leave?”
“As soon as Da returns. You were awake, you saw old Gareth come for him and Mam.” Marion nudged him over, took an arrow from the quiver at their feet, and inspected the fletching out of pure habit. “We’re to tell our guest Da will see him home after lunch. ’Twill give him a bit more time to get his head back on his shoulders. And he’s named Gamelyn, y’know.”
“I know what he’s called, the way you carried on over him.” Rob pitched his voice even higher. “‘Sir Gamelyn’—”
“Oh, belt up. I’m carrying on over nowt. He’s too young for me and you look ridiculous all puffed up like that. Like a cornered badger, all full of air.” Marion gave a hard poke to Rob’s solar plexus; predictably, the breath huffed from him. “You surely have your braies twisted this morn.”
He gave a small scowl, looked aside. “I didna sleep much.”
Marion peered at him. “Are you having those nightmares again?”
A shrug. Marion gave a narrow look; Rob returned it with a rather forlorn twist of brow and another shrug.
“Have you told Mam and Da?”
Yet another lift of the bony shoulders, with a twirl of his bow end in the moist grass as punctuation.
“Mm.” Marion stepped to the mark. This was happening more and more to her brother. She remembered the feeling all too well. Over three years ago, it had been, when it started in on her. He didn’t look as though he was starting his time, but then lads surely showed it different than the lasses. A girl became a woman with her own blood; boys often approached manhood upon the blood of others.
“I got the horses fed.” Rob gave a flicker of a grin. “A good thing too, since Da and Mam had to leave so early. And Testicles has bred Willow thrice already this morn.”
Marion chuckled, put arrow to string. “I’m sure that stud also has a proper name.”
“Mayhap we should let His Lordship sleep the day away to see she’s properly caught…. Hoy, Marion, that was brilliant!”
The arrow loosed, a mere half second later the bag had fallen to the ground, its rope severed.
“Merciful Heavens!”
The new voice made them both start and whirl about to see Gamelyn standing several lengths behind them. His pale hair was sticking at odd angles from the bandage still wrapped about his head, but he looked better. Had a lot more color, certainly, tha
n when Rob had brought him in, half wilted over Willow’s withers. “That was… amazing,” Gamelyn said, eyes still on the arrow’s path.
“Hullo, Sir Gamelyn!” Marion greeted, letting the smooth wood slide through her hands to rest on her boot. “You step quiet for someone still not too steady on his pins.”
He had a nice smile, rather shy. And eyes green as grass—she wasn’t sure she’d seen anyone with eyes that green. Or maybe it was the flush in his cheeks that played them up.
Cute lad. If he was older than her brother, it wasn’t by much. “Me da said to tell you he and me mam had to deal with a wee predicament this morn,” Marion offered. “But he’ll be back to see you home.”
“I know,” Gamelyn said, sliding his gaze to take in Rob. “I heard.”
Rob had the grace to flush. Marion smirked.
“Your turn,” she pointed out. “I’ll go reattach our target, shall I?”
She noted that Gamelyn was creeping closer, interested. Quickly Marion retied the bag’s knot, then grinned. Gave it a push.
At the end of the sight line, Rob’s eyes had gone wide. Gamelyn’s mouth had dropped open.
“You must be good,” he said to Rob.
The edge on the glare Rob shot Marion could have cut steel. She kept grinning, sauntered over, and grandly flipped her hand toward the bag.
“Sod you,” Rob hissed her direction.
The thing was, she knew he could do it. He just didn’t know it yet.
Having an audience had never put Rob off; now was no exception, save that this time he didn’t pull skyward. Marion saw the whipcord muscles in his arms and back quiver protest.
“Willow dumped you,” she whispered.
Black eyes slid her way, promising damage, settled instead for sighting down the arrow and loosing it with a tiny snarl of breath.
The sack wobbled mid-swing, then dropped to the ground.
“Holy Mother of—” was Gamelyn’s truncated exclamation.
“You did it!” Marion let out a whoop and leapt into the air, came down pummeling Rob’s shoulder. He gave a hiss and leapt aside, rubbing his shoulder and eyeing her reproachfully. Then he grinned.
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