Greenwode

by J Tullos Hennig

  Funny, how want could so easily slide into anger and sour, thwarted, in his belly. Rob should sooner reach for the moon than this nobleman’s son, and what had just happened was but proof of it. “Some of us ent got the say-so,” he said, dangerous-quiet, “of pleasing ourselves when and where we want.”

  “Rob,” Marion hissed.

  “I have a task,” he told her through his teeth, “laid on me. It’s a sight more important than any lark, and you know it as well as I.”

  It was not satisfying to see her pale, but she got the point.

  The look on Gamelyn’s face seemed, oddly enough, as frustrated and anxious as Rob himself felt. “I’m so desperately sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to… you’re right, with all that’s gone on, I should have known. Christ’s blood, Rob, I’m just so glad to see you’re both all right! I’ve had so many questions, I wanted to come as soon as I heard, but I couldn’t so much as step foot out of the castle these past days, guards everywhere and—”

  “Questions.” Rob had found his voice but it was flat, the sour, hollow, sick feeling in his belly sinking deeper.

  “Well, of course. What would you think in my place? It was an arrow just like the one in Marion’s quiver that killed him, and I was worried sick about her—”

  “Why? Did you think one of us had done it?”

  “Rob!” Marion growled.

  “Christ, no!” Gamelyn burst out. “What do you take me for? My brother said it had peacock fletching, and was used for conjuring, and the soldier dead….” He was stammering, and it was oddly satisfying. “I didn’t mean any such—”

  “Gamelyn.” Marion put a firm hand to his arm. “We know you didna mean to—”

  “He never means to, does he?” It burst from Rob, all to the sudden, and he couldn’t have stopped it, any more than he could have touched the moon and the stars. “But he comes and goes whenever he pleases, and never so much as a ‘will you?’ our way. Questions, he says, like we have any answer to owt we can give, here and now or ever!”

  Marion was staring at him. Gamelyn too was gaping like Rob was the crazy one.

  “Bloody hell, just look at you, wobbling your gob at me like a landed fish… while everything you say… you….” Just as abruptly Rob was stuttering over his words, confused and…. “You mix me up, make me not think straight.”

  “Rob—”

  “You want answers and I don’t have them, y’ see? All I can see right now, all I know is that there’s your people, and mine. Your people can order my mam to attend them like she’s a horse to be mouthed and paced and bought at market—”

  “That’s not what I was asking. I wouldn’t—”

  “But you just did. I heard you, Gamelyn Boundys, how your da is ‘insistent’ she come to him, and no matter there are people here who need her, or a house she has to leave—”

  “You’re taking everything and twisting it!”

  “—So my da has to come back to an empty house after going to bloody Nottingham so he can turn his best friend over to rot in the sheriff’s gaol for killing one of your soldiers what bloody needed killing—!”

  “Rob!” Marion grabbed his arm, and only then did the torrent stop, with a gasp of breath that sounded altogether too much a sob for Rob’s comfort. But it gave him his control back.

  “Why do you want to know about the arrow, Sir Gamelyn?” Every bit of soft mockery in Rob’s power went into the question.

  Gamelyn either didn’t notice or was ignoring him. “I told you. Marion had one, in her quiver. I was worried.”

  “Worried that our people did the pretty to your sweet little rapist of a soldier? Well, they have, and well done them!”

  “Sweet Lady!” Marion burst out. “Rob, you go too far—”

  “Stay out of this, Mari—”

  “Oh, lad, I’m in it to the hilt.” She put a hand to his chest, shoved. Hard. “And if I’m going to watch you two go at it, it had better to be for more reason than you looking for a fight!”

  It stopped the reply he’d whet on his lips.

  “I don’t know what’s got into you all to the sudden, Rob, but you’re acting mad as a buck in rut!”

  And that made him swallow the reply whole. It burned like acid in the back of his throat. Rob couldn’t hold Marion’s eyes. All steel and storms, they were, when he made the attempt and chased away. Gamelyn’s weren’t any easier; they weakened him with a mix of fury and, humiliatingly, yearning.

  “He wasn’t my soldier,” Gamelyn ventured, sudden and quiet. “Or even one of my father’s. What did he do?”

  Rob gave a tiny shake of his head at Marion, but she frowned at him, answered.

  “He raped and killed a woman. We knew her. She was wife and mother to the two foresters.”

  “Merciful Jesus,” Gamelyn said, and when Rob peered at him, Gamelyn was white to the lips.

  “I can see how merciful that one is by the ones who defend his Church.”

  “Rob, you can’t—”

  Rob put up his hands, knew it was surrender and didn’t, at that moment, care. “I have to go.”

  “Where are you going?” Gamelyn asked, very quiet.

  Striding over to the paddock, Rob merely answered, “Hunting.”

  “I was hunting just yesterday.” It was still very quiet. “With my brothers.”

  Rob paused, then shook his head and kept going.

  “I saw a stag,” Gamelyn said after him. “In the forest.”

  “Fancy that. A stag, in the forest,” Rob sneered. Vaulting the small paddock fence, he bent to scoop up his bow and quiver. “Did he have horns, lad, or did you mistake a doe?”

  Gamelyn’s glare could have easily been behind an arrow at nock. “Pray give me some credit. Else how are you all that different from my brother who thinks I’m a bookish imbecile?”

  And that one hurt. Why, Rob figured he knew all too well, but he merely took in a breath, made as if to check the arrows in his quiver. “All right, then. A stag. In the forest.”

  “He came up to me. He was ivory, with golden eyes.”

  Rob flicked a glance at Marion. She was slowly curling her hands into fists, bunching up her dark green overkirtle. “A… white stag,” she said, meeting her brother’s eyes.

  “Crème-colored, actually,” Gamelyn said. “And it was no ordinary stag, particularly since Much was on his knees in front of it, blithering about what grace ‘He’ was giving me.”

  “Wait,” Rob said. “Much?”

  “My guard dog.” He jerked his head in the direction the soldier had gone. “Johan set him on me some time ago. But he’s been… discreet. No doubt he’s going to camp just east of here, since he’s more than once talked about not wanting to ‘offend’ the Hunter.”

  Marion sucked in a breath.

  Gamelyn’s eyes narrowed. “I see you recognize the appellation. I’d appreciate it if you’d enlighten me. Eventually. God save me from rushing you.”

  Rob crossed his arms. “It might be a sight easier if you’d speak plain English ’stead of all your fancy book talk—”

  “Spare me!” Gamelyn retorted. “I think you understand me well enough. So. Stag. White.”

  “Crème-colored,” Rob corrected, in his best plummy noble’s accent, and Gamelyn flushed.

  Ah, so you’re not totally in control of yourself, either.

  “As I said,” Gamelyn gritted, “he came up to me. Stood not as far away as you are. Breathed on me like he… knew me.” Even as he said it, Gamelyn was looking at them as if they’d string him up for even admitting something so fantastic.

  Because your people would string us up, Rob thought. Would you, then? Because I don’t know what I’m going to do, anymore, if you are like them.

  “I keep tellin’ you, lad,” Rob growled, “I’ve no time now to—”

  “Why do you keep calling me lad?” Gamelyn interrupted.

  “Because you’re actin’ like one, and a poncy noble’s son to boot, assuming what you want to know is
more important than owt or nowt I might have to do. But, ah, that’s right. You are a poncy noble’s son.”

  And there’s one for Loxley, Rob thought, satisfied, as Gamelyn’s cheeks pinked and he looked down. Rob hefted his knapsack. “I have to go on,” he told Marion. “I’ll be back tonight.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Gamelyn said firmly.

  “Nay,” Rob said, just as firmly. “You waint.”

  XIII

  THEY WATCHED Rob disappear into the green, and then Marion put a firm hand on Gamelyn’s arm and marched him into the house. Obviously she wasn’t following Rob, nor was she about to let Gamelyn do so.

  A small part of him resented it, wanting to follow, to make Rob see… something other than what he was obviously seeing when he looked at Gamelyn. But another, burgeoning part was relieved that he had an excuse not to, to stay with Marion as she went over to the kettle warming on the fire and gave it a stir.

  Marion was… safer.

  “Pottage?” she asked, and he nodded.

  “Unload yourself from all that gear. ’Tis warm enough without such things.” After some rattling and scooping, Marion brought over a bowl filled to the brim, sided by fresh bread.

  “Your cooking is just….” Gamelyn reflected his true feelings with a smile and heart-meant sigh. “My brother’s wife is terrible in a kitchen.”

  “Well, pr’haps she’s never had to do on her own. Or cook for a perpetual round of harvesters during the gathering seasons.” She scooped a portion for herself and put it at the table, then teased, “Should we take a crock of this to your shy guard dog? Or should I be careful—’tis the shy ones that can bite you without a warning.”

  “Much? He’d not even bare a tooth to you. You’d make his day,” he said, truthfully enough. “His fortnight, probably.”

  “And you want to know why.”

  He stilled mid-bite and peered at her. “Does that mean you’re going to tell me?”

  Marion sat down with her own bowl. “I ent sure it’s mine to tell.”

  There was a shuffle of running feet hurrying up the stairs just outside and hurried breaths, and Eluned came bursting in the entry with her hat askew and her skirts tucked hastily into her girdle. Halted, panting.

  Gamelyn was sure he and Marion looked as startled as Eluned, food halfway to their mouths.

  Then Marion said, half rising, “Mam? Is everything all right?”

  Eluned’s gaze had come to rest on Gamelyn. It narrowed, and then she took in a huge breath and lowered her basket to the ground. “Is that soldier with you, then?”

  Gamelyn nodded, eyes wide.

  “Great Lord save me.” She shook her head. “I saw him, making himself to home on our grazing common, and I….” She trailed off, then, very obviously, made another attempt. “Well. I was worried.”

  Culpability twinged at Gamelyn. He had unnerved too many people without meaning to this day. Rising, he offered an arm to her basket; she smiled and let him take it, untying her hat. “On the counter, thank you, lad.”

  Gamelyn did not miss the querying look Eluned threw Marion as he turned away, but pretended he did.

  “Do you want some pottage, Mam?” Marion asked.

  “Please. We can all sit, you can finish your meal, and I can catch my breath.”

  “I’m very sorry, Eluned,” Gamelyn apologized. “My father insisted that I have a proper escort.” He pulled her chair for her, then Marion’s.

  “Your father knows you’re here, lad?” Eluned looked closer, seemed to consider his face. She waited until he’d seated himself once more, then said, quietly, “He’s taken worse, then.”

  The soft, matter-of-fact compassion almost did him in then and there. Gamelyn looked away, aware that his eyes were glinting in the dim, and nodded.

  “Well. I’ve several things to see to this evening. Marion, I’ll need you to take my place with Janet. Janet is from Loxley,” Eluned explained, turning to Gamelyn. “She’s very ill, and we’ve all been doing turns at nursing her until her daughter arrives from down river.”

  “How long, Mam?”

  “Ilene is supposed to come mid-night to spell me… well, you. You can sleep over or come back.”

  Gamelyn felt bereft for no good reason. Both Rob and Marion gone, and this strange tension between the three of them… and serve him right, for he shouldn’t be here for anything but his father’s need….

  “I’ll come back,” Marion said and took a drink from her mug. “Moon’s just away from full and it looks to be a clear night. A walk would be nice.”

  “Take your bow, mind. Wolves were seen passing through the west carr.”

  “I will, Mam. Shall I be off anon?”

  “Eat, first. And take some hand-work to occupy you; the old woman’s sleeping, mostly.” Eluned returned her gaze to Gamelyn. “The lad and I will get along just fine.”

  ELUNED WAS another who, like Rob, had grown past the boundary of absolutely safe. And, like Rob, what lay past that boundary was a tenuous affinity, a strange… lure, and one that he couldn’t quite put name to. Despite that, over the past year and a half in particular, she had become more… distant. Gamelyn would catch her sometimes, looking at him, her gaze daunting. As if she was sizing him up and finding a lack. And the more he tried to fill that lack, the more he would find her measuring.

  Eluned never forgot who Gamelyn was, even when he himself did.

  Now was no different. Marion had left not too long ago, with a knapsack of mending to occupy her vigil and a crock of pottage sure to befuddle Much into not speaking for a se’nnight. From across the table, Eluned asked Gamelyn questions about his father’s condition, quite detailed in spots, some that he couldn’t answer and others that he could. Once satisfied, she rose with a nod and set herself to her simples, muttering to herself as she sorted, set things to brew over the fire, mixed and measured. Gamelyn tried, more than once, to start a conversation—Eluned either answered in short, preoccupied sentences or, immersed in her task, not at all. Finally Gamelyn settled himself on the floor and began tending his steel with whetstone and oiled cloths.

  He’d honed the sword to a bright edge that cut a strand of hair run across it, and started on his quillion dagger next. It had been his first acquisition with his own means; he’d traded a mail cowl and several otter pelts for it. Johan had scoffed, saying Gamelyn had been swoggled by a new bladesmith and the dagger was too fancy to be of any use, but Gamelyn had been adamant, impressed by the art of the man’s work. Time had proven the bladesmith’s skill and Gamelyn’s instincts—the dagger was as deadly as it was delicate, as long as his forearm with a grip of oak-tanned leather and gold filigrees on the pommel and guard.

  A shadow moved over him. “That’s a pretty thing.”

  Gamelyn blinked, looked up, realized his legs were tingling and his hands greasy… and he was working in near dark, as the sun was setting behind the trees past Eluned’s garden. “Sorry?”

  Eluned was wiping her hands on her apron, looking at the dagger. “You’d best not show that to th’ Hob-Robyn; he might not let you go home with it. All you lads, mad for pointy things.” She began walking about the little cottage, lighting the oil lamps. Warm gold spilled across Gamelyn’s lap, setting the well-oiled steel cradled there a-glint.

  “I’m guessing that you’ve come here, escorted and all, to see me to your father’s bedside.”

  It sounded as severe as Rob’s earlier accusations, no matter that she didn’t cease her motions. Gamelyn took a considering breath, then said, quietly, “I don’t mean to… compel anyone. I was merely hoping”—and damn, but his throat was getting all tight again—”that you could help.”

  She came over, knelt before him, and took his greasy hands in hers, held tight. “Lad, I’ll be frank with you. From what you’ve told me, there’s not much help for your father.”

  He looked away, gritted his teeth against the knot growing in his chest. It was what he had expected, but it was cursed hard to hear it spoken aloud
like that, even through the genuine compassion in Eluned’s voice.

  “I’ve been mixing up several draughts for him. The one is strong and sovereign, ’twill ease his pain and help him sleep through the night. The second is for strength, so his mind and body waint crumple in on him. That’s the worse of it, for a man. He’ll want to be a man ’til he goes, as much in his mind and on his feet as possible. Both will work together, give ’im that.”

  “You’re not coming.” Surely he shouldn’t feel this desolate.

  Eluned must have seen it, for she squeezed his hands again. “I will come. I promise you, lad, I’ll come, see t’ him. But I’ll no’ be able to leave with you right away. If it was dire, or burning needful, I’d come with you at sunup and never fear. But as it is, I’ve several in need who’re countin’ on me for several days hence, and my man’s due to return, either on the morrow or the day after, from Nottingham. Do you understand?”

  He did, that was the worst of it. No doubt Johan or Otho would cart her off, will-she-nill-she, as if it was their right to break in and disrupt a life because of will or whim, but Gamelyn couldn’t. Wouldn’t.

  If he did, he’d be just what Rob accused him of.

  “I’m sorry, lad. For all of it. Please believe me.”

  Gamelyn nodded, kept looking away, gritting his teeth to keep the lump in his stomach from rising to his throat and choking him. “Adam went to Nottingham with the forester who killed the guard, didn’t he?” As subject matter went, perhaps it was chancy, but better than what was bidding him to break down and bawl like a bairn in the middle of his host’s cottage. “I’m sorry, too. For what happened. Rob and Marion said he was your friend.”

  Eluned released his hands and rose, wiping the oil from her hands. “They both were. But they broke the law, and Adam must uphold that law.”

  “Marion said that the soldier had killed the man’s wife. Why did he not seek the law’s protection?”

  Turning to him, Eluned twisted her brows in an expression so akin to Rob’s it gave Gamelyn a tiny, incomprehensible flutter in the pit of his stomach. “Gamelyn,” she chided. “Surely you’re not so naïve to think the law works same for your people as for mine?”