Oh, aye, he had. And the doubt, regrets, and misery that had lived beside it. And the dreams….
Cernun had warned that he’d opened a proper puzzle box. Rob peered at the healing scar on his left palm, knew that he’d none to blame but himself for it.
“And I could have found someone to accompany me to Blyth. One of your father’s other underforesters. Then you’d not have to—”
“Mam.”
Eluned fell silent, looked off into the distance. They’d long since left the thick woods of the Common behind and were now riding through lowlands. The smell of earth-rot and mold was heavy in the air; early summer was doing a full day’s work plus overtime in the bogs and fens.
“The Earl de Warenne needs the tally,” he finally said. “I agreed to take tally in Da’s place, since he sent word he’s not to be back from Nottingham for another se’nnight. The tally is to be done on the game and fish in Barnsdale between Conisbrough and…?” He raised his eyebrows, waiting.
“Blyth,” she supplied. Then added, “Don’t be giving me your lip, boy. I know perfectly well what your excuse is for escorting me. I also well know it’s just that. An excuse.”
“The work had to be done—”
“And had the work to be done in the Chase? Or Wakefield? Would you have leapt so eager-like, then?”
Rob rolled his eyes and his mother snorted.
“I’m on to you, lad. What I don’t understand is why you’re set on him. There’s plenty in Loxley that would see to your needs. That nice boy—the fletcher’s son?—for one.”
Bloody buggering damn, did everyone know about Simon?
“And more than a few lasses who would gladly be handfast to the young Hunter—”
“Mam!”
“You’re old enough to start wanting a wife, now. A wife would see to you proper. You and Marion both, mooning after what you canna have, and I only hope that time’ll heal your sister’s heart, but you… oh, Hob-Robyn, you’re butting yourself up against traditions older than time. And you’ll pay for it.”
He’d heard this one before. “Mam.”
“I know, I know. ’Tis the way of things that males will sometimes tup each other, dominance or play or inclination, but the Hunter doesn’t lie with his rivals, he defeats them. Like the king stag, he proves his prowess then takes the Lady to make the marriage and the quickening.”
“More little fawns to sing the Horned Lord’s name,” Rob murmured, somewhat sourly. Heard it. Heard it, heard it!
“Well, and you aren’t a fawn anymore, to be butting your head to play with such things. This is no game, son.”
“Neither am I nowt but fodder for a Lord’s reaping—be he nobleman’s scythe or the God’s horns!” Rob burst out. “Would you have me heartless, then? Have an act that should be meaning something be instead forced and dead? Aye, there’s a myth to set th’ Wode to blight worse even than the Christian god! That one would say the entire world is nowt but corruption to be mastered and laid waste, but are th’ Lord and Lady any better, if we offer them up nowt but a soulless hand-fuck? Which of us are scorning flesh and blood and passion th’ more then?”
Eluned was peering at him, stricken. Rob hadn’t meant to say such a thing to his mother, but it was done and said and no turning away from it even though the silence dragged out between them, punctuated only by the sound of hoofs on the soggy road and Willow snoring deep in her chest like she always did on a lengthy journey.
“You ask hard questions.” Eluned finally said with a sigh, and she looked off down the valley. There was a village coming into view over the horizon—fields plowed and planted, and people out in the wet to work them. “That’s the answer, ent it?” She gestured. “There. The sowing of seed, the harrowing and reaping, the seasons wheeling about us in their eternal return. What are we but fodder beneath it?”
“Then what’s the point?” He couldn’t stop asking it, even with the Horned Lord breathing hot down his spine and His hounds nipping at his heels. “What is the reason t’ any of it?”
“Reason?” She shrugged. “Is there reason to a lone tree? To a starlit night? Is there even truly any purpose to putting arrow to string? Or is it enough just to take aim?” She met his eyes with a quizzical half smile that seemed somehow familiar; he realized the expression was his own. “Perhaps we’ve all after a fashion lost our way, mired in what must be rather than what is. One thing remains: we give reverence to what sustains us. If we don’t, then we are dead. Dead, existing only to feed.”
“Is that what you think I’m doing?”
“No!” she retorted fiercely. Then, softer, “Nay, son. Sometimes our hearts are contrary things, and they’ll go where they will, not as we’d tell ’em. If I seem… well, frustrated? It’s only that I’m your mam and I worry after you. It’s not only that the lad’s a lad, it’s that he’s not our kind and I canna see this path you’re on ending in owt but the same sort of unhappiness you’ve been rolling in the past se’nnight. And,” Eluned shrugged, a tiny smile tucking into her cheek, eyes glimmering, “maybe I want grandchildren.”
“Oh, Mam.” The anger broke in him, and he let out his breath in something between a sigh and a chuckle.
“The worst of it,” she furthered, very soft, “is what potential that lad has. Squandered.”
Squandered potential, innocence lost, lies clung to even if they scorned and scored… and she didn’t know the half of it. Didn’t see it, perhaps even refused to see it. The possibilities, fevered and brackish, that Rob had himself glimpsed. Not for the first time, Rob wanted to ask his mother what she had Seen in the runes and the fires. And, not for the first time, he fell silent, confused.
“He’s not of us.”
He is. He’s of me, canna y’ see?
No. She couldn’t.
Eluned shook the damp from her hood and pulled it closer to her forehead. The rain was growing more steady. “I just wish you didna have to go to the castle.”
“I ent staying.”
Eluned slid a glance to him, curious.
“I’ll see you to the gate, right enough. Make sure of your welcome. You said Sir Ian would extend every courtesy, but if he doesn’t have someone to escort you home, then?” He shrugged. “I’ll be near.”
Eluned’s eyes narrowed. “What are you up to?”
“Waiting.” Rob looked at the village, beginning to fade behind them in the rain and mists. On the edge of it, a dark, mist-shrouded figure watched them, seeming to suck all the light as he moved forward. Only tines gleamed, lit with gray and rain.
Rob took in a shallow breath, blinked.
It was still there. Still following.
Did you think I have less stake in this than you, little lovelorn son?
I’m not… lovelorn.
Lust, then.
It’s not that simple.
Make up your mind. Fight him or fuck him, but I will see it through with you.
“Rob?” The sharpness of Eluned’s query suggested it was not the first time she’d spoken.
“I’m sorry,” he said, quickly turning to her. “What?”
“I was wondering,” she ventured, slowly. “What if that lad wants to know why you didna come along?”
“But I did come along, Mam,” he said and smiled. “Just not inside the castle.”
His mother was frowning. “And if he asks after you?”
“He waint.” Because that would be admitting something, wouldn’t it, Sir Gamelyn? But did you ever think that to say nowt is admitting all the more?
Hot breath, singing against his ears as if the Horned Lord rode beside instead of behind him, and the memory of challenge ever present: It is not… unthinkable. The ebon spirit was still there, creeping over the horizon. The question remains: Will he submit or will he fight?
Why did his mother not seem to sense the Horned Lord’s presence?
She cannot See your future. And that is me.
Her own son was a great rent of nothingness… Gamelyn was a dista
nt threat. The spiral dance of tynged spun out around him, spokes of scattered fates and futures, and sometimes he could scarcely see what was around him for what he Saw before him. Was it a kindness for her? Torture for him? Both?
They rode a long while in silence. Rob was the one who broke it, purposefully. “Mam?”
“Aye, pet?”
“Talk to Marion about the grandchildren. She’ll be more… receptive.”
Eluned smiled, then bent over in her saddle and laid a kiss on his cheek. “Mayhap I’ll mix a little potion for young Gamelyn while I’m there.”
“Mam.”
“Or give him a kick in the arse.”
Rob grinned. “That I’d pay good marks to see.”
“E NOMINE patris, et filii, et spiritu sancti….”
It was a woman’s voice Gamelyn heard as he approached his father’s solar, fresh from sparring practice with Roberto. Then a soft “Amen,” as his father’s answer, with the female voice… not Alais. And no maidservant would be praying with her lord.
Gamelyn hesitated, peeked in.
Abbess Elisabeth was leaning at Sir Ian’s bedside, listening. It looked too much like the end of a last confession for Gamelyn’s comfort. He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised the Abbess had come, nor that he’d been so preoccupied with his own… whatever-they-weres… to heed that they’d received an important visitor.
He’d spent the last se’nnight either riding out on business for his brothers, working out his frustrations in the armory, or praying in the chapel. His knees perpetually ached. And only occasionally did it sublimate… other things. Which ached even more. And while swordplay oft wore him out and took the edge off his aggression, the sheer physicality of it also had the unfortunate possibility of fueling it.
Otho and Johan were mildly surprised at his efficiency, Roberto was best pleased with his practice, Brother Dolfin was understanding and didn’t shoo him out as he well could have….
“Gamelyn!” It wafted from downstairs at the end of their hall; also feminine, but recognizable. Alais. “Gamelyn, are you up there?”
He quickly backed from his father’s entrance and padded down the hall, bare feet sticking, sweaty, to the paving stones. “I’m here!” he called down the stairwell.
Alais met him halfway up, skirts tucked in one hand. “There you are! She’s here, asking for you or Papa.”
Gamelyn frowned. “What? Who?”
“Your wise woman from Loxley.” Alais smiled. “She’s come to see Papa.”
He stood there, frozen on the stair for several slow, jerky heartbeats. Before any thoughts, warning or otherwise, could form, Gamelyn lurched forward, down the steps two at a time.
Alais tangled her fingers in his hair, and he gave a yip.
“For the love of Christ, Gamelyn, at least go and put on a tunic and boots! You look like you’ve been beating up the straw men in the armory. And losing!”
A QUICK toweling off and Gamelyn still wasn’t thinking clearly. He got down the stair before he realized his tunic was wrong-ways out, nearly tripped on the bottom step with his head enfolded in fabric, and then spent more time untangling it since it was sticking to his still sweated torso. Once he could see again, he kept going.
He ran across the bailey and came within easy sight of the gatehouse before he realized that his alacrity had just laid waste every intention, every vow he’d made standing, seated, and kneeling, of never seeing them again… never seeing Rob.
He should turn around, right now. Not go anywhere near this. He was repentant. He did not want to sin again.
“Surely you did not come all this way alone,” Johan was saying. “The forest is no place for a woman to be wandering alone.”
“But then I was not wandering, milord. Do not forget that my husband”—a slight emphasis, which, judging by Johan’s manner as he leaned up against the gatehouse stones, was well reminded—“is head forester to Barnsdale and the Peak. I well know this area. Neither,” she smiled and tipped her head, “did I come alone. My son gave me escort to your gatehouse.”
Something like longing but altogether close to terror rose up in Gamelyn’s throat, choked him, then slid down to hit with a great, hollow thud in his belly.
He was here? Oh, God, Rob was here?
“Your son wants manners, then, to drop his lovely mother off at the gatehouse and just leave her there.”
“Well, you know how young men are.” The chide was inclusive of Johan; he either ignored it or was oblivious. Suspicion was high with the latter.
Gamelyn didn’t see Rob. Rob had left his mother at the gatehouse.
Eluned turned and saw Gamelyn’s hesitant approach. “Gamelyn!” A lovely smile, then she walked over, gave him a quick embrace.
It surprised him. Eluned had never been all that demonstrative before. Yet there was some advantage; he could cover his own confusion by hugging her back, and…. Was it all that wicked to give an inward snicker at the thwarted surprise in Johan’s face? Obviously Johan was under the mistaken apprehension that his baby brother had just stolen this lovely peasant woman out from beneath his nose. And Gamelyn wasn’t too keen on correcting him.
Neither, from the sly look upon Eluned’s face, was she.
“And here I thought it was the daughter you were after, petit lapin.” Johan made a stinging bid to reassert his own superiority. “I must say my brother’s slovenly manner of dress does not match his unerring eye for a lovely woman,” he told Eluned. “I hope to speak with you later, of course, but for now, let my little brother take you up to our father.” His gaze strafed Gamelyn. “Don’t keep him waiting long.”
Gamelyn was ripped in twain by conflicting impulses: one to plant a boot in Johan’s buttocks as he strode away, the other to look past him to see if Rob had even come past the gatehouse….
If he had, it was no concern of Gamelyn’s. It couldn’t be.
But his eyes were not his own. And they quickly found what they sought. A horse and rider waited just inside the gatehouse, hugging close to the stones, biding in the shadows as people came back and forth. The horse was tall, long-limbed, black. The rider was wearing a hood; not a hint of light touched his face.
Dreams. There was a hooded figure in his dreams.
The hood dipped in a tiny bow. Acknowledgement? Challenge?
Was it even Rob?
Gamelyn knew. He could feel the familiar gaze all but burning his skin.
“Can you help me with these, please?”
He started and turned to see Eluned removing her pannier baskets from Willow. Gamelyn’s heart gave an absurd lift as he saw the little jennet, then plummeted as he saw who had sneaked up, quiet and eyes downcast, to take Willow’s bridle.
It was the wiry little stable lad who’d pinned Rob to the stable wall and given him the same as Rob had given Gamelyn against a tree in the green Wode shadows….
Oh, God!—was it always going to be like this? Was Gamelyn going to have a lean, dark-haired ghost haunting him in every corner?
The stable lad was obviously not at all affected by Gamelyn’s predicament; he didn’t so much as raise his eyes, merely led Willow away once Eluned finished offloading. Against all sense or sanity, Gamelyn found himself looking over to the gatehouse.
The horse and rider were no longer there.
“Surely I’ve not been paying attention,” Eluned said, looking up at him from where she’d knelt beside the baskets. “It’s been barely a se’nnight, yet I think you’ve grown up while I wasn’t looking.” Her eyes—Rob’s eyes—skirted over him, made due note of sweat-wet hair, quickly donned tunic, and the sword still athwart his left hip, and… was that disparagement he saw?
Courtesy, and the ritual of welcome, was an abrupt save for his sanity. “I must apologize at greeting you in such a state. I’m fresh from sword practice and was on my way to change.” Gamelyn bent down and took two of the three baskets—she had already taken one—and offered her his arm. Bemused, she took it.
“Sure
ly you could’ve kept me waiting, milord. Your brother is quite the charmer.” A tiny smile tucked into her lip, she looked over her shoulder to where Johan had turned to watch after them and murmured, “Or so he thinks himself.”
Gamelyn couldn’t help but smirk.
“I’m sorry it has taken me so long to journey here. We’ve had our share of worries. But I’m sure you know that.” Eluned’s expression was unreadable but not exactly affable. “Even had you given the medicine in overlarge doses, though, you should have been well enough. Has it been helping?”
“Aye, it has. He’s been sleeping better.”
“But not over much?” She nodded as he affirmed her guess. “Good. ’Tis always tricky, the dosage, when you’ve not seen or smelt the one who needs it. Take me to him.”
THE ABBESS was still there, but confessional was over and Alais was also there, with Donall, tidying and readying Sir Ian. As usual, he was growling at all the fuss, but his face brightened as he saw Gamelyn, and he didn’t wait for introductions.
“Gamelyn. This lovely woman must be the maker of that remarkable ointment, and the mother of the lad who tended it upon you.”
Ingrained manners and courtesies came in quite useful, disguising all sorts of uncomfortable moments. “Aye, Papa. This is indeed Mistress Eluned of Loxley,” Gamelyn said, handing her in. “Mistress Eluned, my father: Sir Ian Boundys, Lord of Blyth and the Boundary lands, noble vassal to Huntingdon and King Richard.”
“It is an honor to serve, milord.”
“An honor to accept your service, Mistress Eluned. Gamelyn, if you please?” He waved a thin hand at the others, and Gamelyn nodded, continued his introductions.
“My sister by marriage, the Lady Alais. This is Donall, my father’s body servant. And our honored cousin and guest, the Most Holy and Reverend Abbess, Elisabeth of Worksop.” Gamelyn tipped a bow to the Abbess, who gave him a brief smile then continued to examine Eluned with the same gaze she’d give a body insect. Eluned returned the favor, but gave the same polite dip of head and knee she had tendered the others.
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