Greenwode

by J Tullos Hennig

  “I do. You know I can never stay long, and….” A flush began at his neck, rose to his cheeks. “They’ll be expecting me. I shouldn’t have….” Again, he went silent, and Rob watched him, tried to read him and found it passing difficult, which was odd. Usually Gamelyn was an open book; now he seemed on guard, defensive.

  Ah. That was it. “I’m sorry,” Rob said. “I didna mean to just leave you here on your own. I should’ve known better, should’ve woken you.” He smiled, walked closer. “I wanted to, believe me. It was grand, you snugged up all close, and….”

  His words trailed off—choked off, more like—dismay curling tight fingers about his throat as Gamelyn retreated, nearly stumbling in his haste.

  “D… d… don’t!” Gamelyn stammered, and Rob stopped in his tracks as he saw that Gamelyn actually reached for his sword hilt. As if realizing the same thing, Gamelyn looked down at his hand, flexed his fingers. “Stay where you are,” he husked out as Rob started forward again. “Don’t come near me.”

  Confusion was not a comfortable emotion for Rob. Neither was the niggling, hollow sense of something faithless and fearful being offered up by every twitch of Gamelyn’s being. “What’s all this? What are you playing at, Gamelyn?”

  “What am I playing at? You can really say that, after….” Gamelyn shook his head, not looking at him. “That’s rich, coming from you. You’re the biggest trickster I know—”

  “Not with this.”

  Gamelyn blinked, peered up at him. Rob wanted to smack the look from his face, insecure in either its innocence or willful ignorance. Instead he clenched his fists, brought one of them to his breast.

  “My people,” he said, low, “aren’t about playing games with their hearts. I thought… thought that when we gave each other pleasure, it was… more than play.”

  Gamelyn seemed, for a moment, to be searching for words. Finally they came; not what Rob expected, low and curious, almost musing. “Your people.”

  Rob nodded, leveling his gaze hard against Gamelyn’s. Gamelyn didn’t drop his regard; again, he seemed to be searching for something.

  Whatever it was, he found it. But Gamelyn denied it with a hard shudder, tore his gaze away. For long moments, he was silent. Then, “It isn’t a game. Even if it was… I cannot play.”

  “Canna? Or waint?”

  “I don’t know what you’ve done to me, but—”

  “What I’ve done. To you.” A kick in the gut would have been easier to take. “You bloody-minded…. It’s all my doing, then, is it? And none of yours?” Rob clenched his teeth over all the things he could have said, would have said had his heart not been up in his throat, choking him. Finally he said, all too soft, “Liar.”

  The green eyes were shadowed, still cast aside. Gamelyn’s face was devoid of any expression. “It doesn’t matter.” It was dull. “I have to go.”

  Every sense Rob had was veering from anger to astonishment and back again. “I see.”

  Only in the end, he had refused sight. Let himself be cozened by a mixing of loneliness, mead, and despair into reaching for the one fire he’d bloody well should’ve known would torch him. Because from the first moment that he’d touched Gamelyn… touched him and been shaken just enough sideways to reach for what he couldn’t let himself trust….

  Reach for innocence… the meaning of sacrifice… be your undoing… ever your rival….

  But he had trusted. Gotten in too deep and then dove further, let Gamelyn’s innocence cozen him, let that lovely body and what Rob had thought was a heart laid open in juniper-green eyes crack open the carapace of his own heart. Just a crack. Just a possibility.

  Just wide enough to bleed him out.

  “Nay.” Rob flung the rabbits at Gamelyn’s feet, was gratified to see him jerk, surprised. “I didna see. I should’ve. I should’ve known I’d never be nowt but sport for some nobleman, in t’ end of it. And I never should have trusted that you were any different from your people.”

  Gamelyn was staring at the brace of rabbits. “It’s not so—”

  “Ent it, then? You’re so good with that bloody sword, so good at making war”—Gamelyn’s cheeks suddenly flamed, and Rob curled his lip—“so why should I be surprised that I’d be nowt but another war game. It’s flirting with death you’re doing, lying with me. You’re gaming me, a fine-dressed fool playing a daft game by lowering himself to root in the dirt with a peasant—”

  “Stop it—” Gamelyn snarled.

  “But you’re not minding if I tongue your knob, are you? On my knees, like a proper villein.”

  “Stop it!”

  “But I’m not one of your villeins, Gamelyn Boundys. If I lie with you, it’s because I choose it. I’m a free man and no one’s property, not even yours—”

  The swing came so fast Rob barely saw it; instinct alone bade him duck. But he wasn’t as lucky with the second one, right on the heels of the first—a shove to his chest that propelled him backward and onto his arse in the dirt.

  “Do you think I’d risk Hell if you were nothing to me but property?” That too burst from Gamelyn, no less catapulted incendiary than Rob’s own angry pain. When Rob tossed the hair from his face and peered upward, there was the swollen backwash of unshed tears behind the green eyes. “We’re talking plenty of if I value you! What about if you value me?”

  Anger scrambling into abrupt confusion, Rob scrambled to his feet. “Value you for…? What are y—?”

  “I cannot do this, Rob. We cannot do this again. It was an… error in judgment. A mistake.”

  That hurt, with a bewildered pain beyond any manner Rob had yet endured, from whip or gauntleted hand or nobleman’s edict. It would have likely been easier had Gamelyn drawn his sword and run him through—certainly more understandable. “A… mistake. You cold, misbegotten son of a—”

  “I’m not—!” Gamelyn audibly gritted his teeth. “And you say I’m daft. We’re both fools. You were wrong to tempt me and I was wrong to… to want… Christ’s blood! Don’t you even see what we’ve done?”

  Surely Gamelyn must be speaking Frank, or some other language he’d learned from his books that sounded like English but wasn’t, because Rob couldn’t comprehend any of it. “So now you’re at least admitting it was we, not just me. So what have we done?”

  “What we’ve done”—each of Gamelyn’s words fell like stones, crushing—“is sin.”

  “Sin?” Rob repeated, incredulous; the word even tasted bad on his tongue. “I don’t understand how—”

  “And that’s where you’re daft, Rob Loxley. You’re right. This is no game, not at all. Our Church and Crown call it sodomy, what we’ve fallen to, and what our families would do to us if they caught us is nothing—nothing, I tell you!—compared to what punishment God will bring down on us!”

  Rob said the only thing his mouth could shape. “Sweet Lady, what kind of god do you have?”

  “He’s your God too!”

  “Nay. Nay, he ent, and—”

  “Stop it!” Gamelyn strode over, gripped his arms. “You can’t possibly—”

  “You canna possibly think evil has owt to do with what we gave each other!”

  Gamelyn’s face was white as the chalk Cernun used to mark rune-wards upon the entry to the caverns. “And we can’t do it again. We’ll be damned, if God hasn’t already turned His face from us—”

  “You keep saying ‘us’, but this I’ll have no part of. This… whatever it is… I’ll have nowt to do with any god cruel as yours—”

  “Don’t say that!” Gamelyn’s fingers turned into iron, shook Rob like a terrier slaughtering a rat.

  “And you say your god is love… while all the day his people spread nowt but hate and horror! What kind of people could let a god’s son die for ’em, then betray him by throwing his gifts back in his face?”

  “Gifts? More like damnatio—uh!”

  Rob snatched at Gamelyn’s wrists, pressed thumbs into the tendons, swift and brutal. Gamelyn gave way with a sharp ga
sp, and Rob leaned in, covered that gasp with his mouth. He grabbed Gamelyn’s hair when he tried to pull back, pushed him up against the oak and kissed him, hard and thorough.

  Gamelyn tried to shove him back, but Rob used every bit of pub-wise trickery and leverage he’d ever learned and refused to give way. He merely pressed closer, ground up against Gamelyn. A strange noise came from Gamelyn’s throat; his hands, solid against Rob’s chest, quivered then softened, shot upward to tangle in Rob’s hair, insurrection and submission both. And Rob courted both with lips and teeth and agile tongue, with breath and pressure accepted them.

  They were both shaking when Rob broke the kiss with a huge gasp.

  “If that’s what your god calls damnation,” he breathed against the taut cords of Gamelyn’s neck, “then damn me, love, because I’ll not turn from it.”

  “You don’t understand.” Gamelyn’s reply was hoarse, nearly a sob. “You can’t. You won’t. Do you think this is…. Do you think I want…?”

  “Then don’t leave me.” It was a quavering whimper that sounded more like the lowliest wolf in a pack crawling on his belly—bred to it, you are, nowt but a drudge, a villein, a slave—showing throat to his betters. It was a plea… begging… humiliating, and Rob couldn’t halt it. Couldn’t stop himself from begging further, a whimper against Gamelyn’s temple. “Please. Don’t go.”

  This time, Gamelyn didn’t just shove; he twisted, slammed an elbow into Rob’s ribcage, then up against his jaw. There was a creak and pop—his ribs, Gamelyn’s arm, Rob wasn’t sure—but it felled him like a hammered ox. Pain flashing behind his eyes, Rob rolled over, tried to stand, failed.

  And by the time he could, Gamelyn was gone.

  GAMELYN HAD run halfway back to the foresters’ cottage before he realized what he was doing, and then it took every ounce of will and strength he had to force his feet to a more sedate pace, and not let every least sound impel him.

  Now that he’d slowed, his breath heaved akin to a smith’s bellows, setting off the same sort of inferno in his chest. His face stung from the branches he’d fought through. His unlaced tunic was half off his shoulders, held on merely by his swordbelt, which was all kinked sideways. Every other stride his sword was thwacking his arse. His boots were knotted with slender, greenstick ropes, vines and bracken he’d mown through, not thinking.

  He’d panicked.

  It was the ultimate humiliation.

  So how much more humiliating was it that he fell to his knees then forward onto his hands, clutching at the earth beneath him, beseeching strength. For he had none—that was certain. Not even strength enough to weep.

  Get up, he told himself. Go back, was his second thought, and it sent a wave of heat and horror commingling through him. It all but set the panic off again, nearly made him lurch to his feet and run. Again.

  Instead he forced himself to stay, dug his fingers in harder, lowered his forehead to the earth.

  He’d left his knife behind. Stuck in that sodding tree. He was not about to retrieve it. Not now. Perhaps not ever.

  Instead he prayed, with every fiber of his being, for release from this… this thing.

  Damp heat teased at his hair, wafted down his exposed nape, and he sucked in a breath to cry out, lurched up, looked up. The breath hissed out between his teeth, impotent.

  The pale stag stood above him, mild, gold eyes regarding him.

  And Gamelyn hadn’t heard a thing.

  The stag extended his neck, massive tines glinting pewter and ivory in the dappled morn, and nuzzled at Gamelyn’s hair.

  I’d expected better from you, boy.

  Gamelyn shuddered as the voice permeated every sense he had. Kneeling there in the dirt, he wondered if he had, finally, lost what reason he still had.

  Much better. After all, don’t you know who you are?

  No, he really didn’t. Not anymore.

  When you follow an intention, you cannot be surprised if it completes itself. To flee from what you have yourself helped set in motion… once is foolishness. More than that is cowardice. You are seldom a fool, Gamelyn, and perhaps that is part of your problem. Yet you are no coward. You are better than this.

  Intention. He hadn’t gone out into the forest intending to… to…. He hadn’t. He’d taken leave of his reason, that was what had happened. Had wandered beyond any pale, had, with every step into the primeval depths of the forest, let some underlying malevolence creep up on him, and take his senses from him….

  Give his senses to him, more like, in a wretched and beautiful agony.

  “So it’s all my doing, then, is it? And none of yours? Liar.”

  Gamelyn put his palms to his eyes, scrubbed as if to lave away every memory, every sight, every feeling. That was the worst, the knowledge that it was a lie, that it couldn’t be just Rob. Rob hadn’t changed. Something did lie, gnawing at his own heart. Some sort of sickness had sunken soul deep, making him privy… weak… to beguilement.

  And not just any beguilement.

  The stag was a demon. It must be. It had to be. Gamelyn clenched his hands together against his forehead, started to pray aloud.

  Will it away. Beseech it begone, cover it in another intention—God’s intention, God’s wrath…

  What exactly are you praying for, boy? And to whom?

  “Why are you still here?” Gamelyn cried back.

  A small chuckle tickled up against his senses, and the stag’s head bobbed up and down. The pride in you! The arrogance! You yourself have opened the door, Gamelyn, and you will not find it so easy to bung me back in.

  Staggering to his feet, Gamelyn shook his head and backed away. The stag merely took another step toward him.

  Gamelyn ducked to one side and fled.

  But even distance could not stop the stag’s voice from following: Have you not spent enough time denying what you are?

  What you are….

  What he was, was weak. Sinful. An arrogant, prideful sodomite.

  He didn’t stop until he’d gotten to the barns, and Diamant’s box. Gamelyn forced himself to some calm, took a deep breath, and walked into the box. Diamant wheeled an eye at him, rolled a snort through his nostrils; Gamelyn patted the thick, ivory neck, tried to utter something soothing, or cajoling.

  He wound up collapsed on his arse end, curled up in the straw with knees to chest, head falling back against the stall’s wooden partition.

  And Diamant didn’t play up, or try to step on him. Instead, the stallion bent over him, gave a soft, throaty whicker, then nuzzled his face. Warm breath sifted his forelock, down over his cheeks and breast.

  Like the stag….

  The tears came, then.

  “MOTHER SAYS you forgot these.”

  Gamelyn turned from where he was saddling up Diamant. Marion stood in the doorway to the little stable, one hand held out. In it were the stoneware flasks with the medicines for his father.

  The sight of those two small bottles nearly made him lose control again. He’d meant to be gone before they’d risen, but it had taken some time to regain his composure and by then he’d heard the sounds from the house. Still, he’d forgotten. This was what he had come for. This, not….

  He was going to Hell. There was no longer any question in his mind.

  Marion came in, kirtles tucked up and in one side of her belt, a shawl flung over one arm and curls flickering muted flame from the streamers of sun beginning to creep over the treetops and through the openings on the eastern wall. She was as slender and graceful as a birch, as lovely….

  As her brother.

  No. Rob was not… not lovely, not like that. It had been a lapse in judgment—in sanity—to go after him and to… to do what they had and… and Gamelyn would not allow himself to do this.

  Gamelyn took the flasks from her, grabbed some straw to pad them, and started tucking them in his saddlebags. “Thank you.” It grated, too high, past the sudden tightness of his throat.

  This was, he realized, good-bye. He couldn’t c
ome back. He’d never see her again.

  “And you left this on your bed.” What Gamelyn had thought was a shawl over Marion’s arm was instead his cloak. She draped it across Diamant’s dappled croup, her gray eyes seeking his. They were so transparent, uncomplicated… and all too perceptive. As if she somehow knew everything that had passed in the forest between him and her brother.

  No, she couldn’t know. Couldn’t. And why couldn’t he have wanted her instead? It would have made a sordid thing out of one of the clearest lights in his life, yet would it not have been better, had he determined to sully friendship with lust, to…?

  No. No. Oh, God, what was he thinking? He had lost his reason, lost his way.

  “Gamelyn?”

  He nearly leapt out of his skin as Marion touched his shoulder. Her gaze, thank all the saints he could name and some he couldn’t, no longer seemed so knowing, only concerned.

  “Gamelyn, are you all right?”

  He looked away and took Diamant’s rein, shook his head, a tight, useless gesture. “I… don’t feel well. But I have to go. Now. My father is waiting.”

  “I understand. I’m sure the medicine will help him.” She smiled, somewhat rueful. “I’m sorry we couldn’t spend more time together. Next time, eh?”

  Next time. It felt like a sword thrust to the chest—not a heart wound. Nay, this would bleed out for a long, long time. “I… I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

  Marion smiled. “You never do.”

  And why was he hoping that she would try to stay him, beg him to stay?

  Rob had begged him. Rob had. Begged him. Yet he had run from it like the craven little rabbit Johan was always calling him.

  Marion wasn’t Rob. She leaned forward and kissed his cheek, then stepped back as he led Diamant outside.

  ROB CAME back after luncheon, in a foul mood but with two coneys for the dinner pot. Eluned’s pleased comments only prompted several monosyllabic grunts—yet she didn’t, as was her wont, query her son as to his whereabouts during the night.

  That wasn’t like her, surely. Marion gave her mother a puzzled look. Eluned never let them wander o’ nights or sleep anywhere but in their beds without some sort of interrogation.