Greenwode

by J Tullos Hennig

  “With your permission, milord,” Eluned said, “I will prepare.”

  “And I will be happy to assist you, if you will allow,” Alais offered.

  “You are most welcome, milady.” Eluned’s words were to Alais, but her attention seemed absolute upon her patient. “’Tis possible that I will need to venture from the castle whilst I’m here—with your permission, of course, milord.”

  It was odd, seeing Eluned so deferential. There was still a calm, quiet pride to her, but it was leavened with lowered eyes and careful speech, with a wariness, and one that Gamelyn had never before witnessed.

  “Your people can order me mam to attend them like she’s a horse to be mouthed and paced and bought at market….”

  Another proof that Gamelyn had not managed to purge Rob’s presence so successfully.

  “You will have whatever you need, Mistress,” Sir Ian said quietly. “And my youngest will, of course, escort you wherever you need to go.”

  “So don’t go wandering, mind,” Alais teased Gamelyn, relieving him of the baskets.

  Sir Ian gave a snort.

  A hand, quite firm, touched Gamelyn’s elbow. He slid his gaze to see the Abbess had moved to stand beside him. “It would seem,” she said, soft, “that we are extraneous at present.”

  Nay, Gamelyn had merely thought that Eluned was unaware of him. Bent over her baskets and speaking softly to Alais, Eluned’s gaze slid first to Gamelyn, then the Abbess. Then she frowned, turned away.

  A frown on his face to match, Gamelyn allowed the Abbess to lead him from the solar.

  “YOU HAVE been wandering?”

  At first Gamelyn was unsure what the Abbess was referring to. He’d accompanied her in polite, if silent, escort thus far to the chambers she had been given.

  Not that it had been utterly necessary, since the gray-clad acolyte had met them, as if magically summoned, just outside Sir Ian’s solar. But it was the polite thing to do. His father would have expected it of him.

  “I beg your pardon?” Wandering… his thoughts were certainly wandering, as impossible to gather together as the litter of lively kittens that the stables’ prolific queen tabby had recently deposited in Diamant’s manger.

  “Alais mentioned it.” The Abbess was giving him the same penetrative stare she’d given Eluned.

  “Ah. Well, I do, on occasion, ride into the forest.” He shrugged. “You know that my situation here is sometimes… problematic.”

  “Of course,” she soothed as she gave a quick smile. “I sometimes wonder that the trial of living with elder siblings was not part of the reason I easily considered convent life. Of course,” she added, with a small genuflection upon her breast, “it was not the most important one.”

  The novice followed suit, and Gamelyn as well, if a little belated. “I understand.”

  “I think you do,” the Abbess concurred. “I have been making inquiries as to options for you. If you prefer to… wander, many of our holy brothers travel in their duties. Is that how you came to know the wortwife?”

  The abrupt shift back to the original tack was mildly unsettling. It didn’t help that it was getting altogether close to things he was in no disposition to discuss with an abbess. But not answering would be even more incriminating.

  And surely it was merely his guilty conscience that deemed her attitude akin to questioning a criminal.

  “It was,” he answered, purposefully light. “When I was younger, I was thrown from my horse in the woodland at Loxley Chase. Her son found me there with a split head, took me to his home where she cared for me.”

  “Does the woman have a husband?”

  He nodded. “He is head forester of Barnsdale.” He walked a few steps before realizing the Abbess—and her acolyte, of course—had stopped. Then he realized what he had said, and what connection it held to the Abbess.

  “The same forester who has surely, by now, delivered that sorcerous murderer to Nottingham, I presume?”

  Of course, she would have found out from asking anyone. So why did Gamelyn feel chancy, as though he were backing a half-broken and hot-blooded colt?

  “It would seem so,” he answered.

  “And is she a baptized Christian, this woman you have brought to your father’s bedside?”

  Again, it seemed an accusation. His gaze went to the Abbess’s, puzzled, and he gave the best answer he knew. “I don’t know.”

  “You should know, lad.” It was chiding. “Ill can linger in the fairest form. We are all susceptible to it, but a handsome young man such as yourself?” She shrugged. “You have a particular susceptibility.”

  Fair… handsome… susceptible…. For a smattering of insanely panicked seconds, Gamelyn thought, somehow, that she knew.

  The Abbess continued, and Gamelyn realized with a sick sense of not quite relief that she was speaking, not of Rob, but Rob’s mother. “Someone as ailing as your father is doubly vulnerable to such ill. We must assure that his vulnerabilities are protected, not taken advantage of.”

  “Mistress Eluned means him nothing but good. She did not have to come—”

  “She is a peasant upon your father’s lands. Of course she must tend him if asked. And I do not say a word against her, not now. Only that we must take care. Your defense of her is from a pure heart, and it does you credit, but you must take care that naïveté does not lead you astray.”

  Gamelyn stiffened, was absurdly pleased to note that he topped her by half a head. He was getting bloody tired of everyone telling him how young he was, how trusting and naïve… how stupid. “You underestimate me, Reverend Lady.”

  “Cousin, I assure you I do not.”

  “I assure you, I would not bring anyone to my father’s bedside to do him harm.”

  “I did not say that you would do so knowingly,” she replied, folding her hands into her sleeves. The novice did the same, but it was in a manner that suggested she was not truly present save for bodily reactions.

  For the first time, he felt not envy but discomfort. “I have known Mistress Eluned for some time. She is a good woman, respected in her croft. My father heard of her skills and requested she attend him. Her medicine has done him more good than what the doctor has prescribed. How is this a problem?”

  “We do not know anything, at present. That is all I say. But you must take care of your father, Cousin. Such women can be… dangerous. They do not keep themselves to a woman’s place, or often even to God’s plan. Any healer can be cozened with their power, but a woman who knows the secrets of healing is often privy to other, more insidious secrets.”

  Gamelyn started to protest further, but memory stole into his righteousness, pulled a slipknot over it and choked it close.

  “… In the right, even more, to heed some caution. Not every castle’s keeper would hear of a woman brewing potions and think ‘healer’ instead of ‘witch’….”

  His father, not so long ago in the stables, affirming Adam’s cautions.

  Gamelyn closed his mouth and inclined his head, all courtesy. “I understand, Reverend Lady. I will take your words to heart.”

  Her hand came beneath his chin, raised it so his gaze met hers. He’d seen its like—Rob, glowering down an arrow at nock. “That is all I can ask, Cousin.” Her hand then strayed to his shoulder; not for the first time, Gamelyn considered that her physical manner was overfamiliar for a woman wived so powerfully to God.

  And Christ’s blood, but his own conscience was creating apparitions! He was her kin, a possible compatriot in Christ’s worship—need there be any other reason for such familiarity?

  “Can I ask of you to let the stables know I will be departing on the morrow? I will, of course, see your father before I leave. And naturally, come back as often as he requires to see to his spiritual comfort.” A charming smile. “Brother Dolfin is a good and kind man, but he tends toward lenience. Your father understands more than most that a soul nearing Heaven needs firm guidance and powerful prayer.”

  FIRE WAS a powerful
thing, magical, a summoning scraped from rock and air, fed by tree and dried leaf. Cheering with a flip side of deadly, a bastion against darkness and predators. Surely his ancestors who had crouched in their deep, dark burrows had felt the same way.

  It was also capricious. Rob hunched beneath the overhang of rock and tree root, hood still pulled over his head, and contemplated the pile of as-yet-unlit deadfall he’d gathered. He well knew how to find burnable wood even during a hard rain, and the kindling and char-cloth were dry from his own bags. He eyed the dagger and flint in his hands; perhaps the flint wasn’t sharp enough. Then he shrugged, narrowed his eyes, and held the tools out over the wood.

  “Llosgwch,” he whispered, naming the burning then willing it, with another strike of his knife against flint.

  A blue spark was the only clue that any magical assist had been called into being, and the fire burst into hungry life. Soon he had tended it into a steady and nearly smokeless warmth, cheery and drying his damp toes.

  Rob pitched a bit of dried meat onto the flames. He’d brought it with him—it was never wise to go recklessly hunting outside one’s own territory, even when invited. His gaze followed the flames as they flared, devouring the meat; Rob kept a keen eye on the smoke until it abated. It was also never wise to make unnecessary announcements of one’s presence. Yet it was greatly unwise to skimp on an offering of thanks. His mother was right, there—anyone who thought to use a power without giving due to what sustained it would forfeit more than the whisper of soul-breath it took to call such magics.

  He wasn’t so sure he wanted to agree with her on other points, though.

  One of the nearby trees started to shimmy and sway; Rob alerted, but only for the few seconds it took to peer around the caverns. Arawn had managed to creep in his hobbles over to a large and likely tree and was scratching his arse against it. Rob smirked. He’d cut plenty of fodder; just before sunset he’d unhobble Arawn and picket him closer to the fire—safest in case wolves were sneaking close by.

  He leaned back against his saddle and wondered how things were going in the castle. He’d watched them welcome his mother at the gates, made sure she nodded to him before turning his horse and heading upland, to wait.

  Had seen Gamelyn, tousled and sweated and looking altogether shaggable.

  It wasn’t fair.

  “You’ve got plenty, you tightfisted old trout,” he told Gamelyn’s god. “Leave this one to me.”

  Like that one would listen to the likes of him, anyway.

  But then, Gamelyn had seen him, as well. Gotten all fumble-fingered and stammery, helping Rob’s mam unpack her simples. A smile touched Rob’s mouth. He took off his boots, spread clammy toes against the heat of the flames. His smile sobered.

  Aye, Gamelyn had looked. Only the once, and not again after.

  You could bring him to you. It would be so simple.

  Rob didn’t have to look to know He was there. He’d been aware of Him even at the castle gatehouse. Felt, all along, the tingle of dread and exhilaration commingling in his belly and tightening his breath.

  It would be as easily done as the fire-making. Maybe three breaths given, four… he would come.

  Rob wasn’t so sure. “I thought you said he had his own power.”

  The Horned Lord gave a snort: challenge and dismissal. Denial is not power.

  Again, Rob wasn’t so sure. Gamelyn’s denial was certainly bludgeoning into him with all the force of a well-plied quarterstaff.

  You hold part of his tynged within you. You saw it winding about you, recognized it, drew it close as you coupled. Being what you are, such magic is more powerful than any herbs or mommets.

  Rob was even less sure of that. He took another bite of venison, stared into the fire. It still had flecks of white-blue, tracings of the magic still inhabiting it. Rob grimaced; he still didn’t quite have the habit of control, yet. He would have to sprinkle the ashes with salt. It was dangerous to leave such things lying about, careless. “He’s seen you, hasn’t he?”

  Not this form. You are the only one for…. A rumble of breath, considering. It has indeed been overlong since I have roamed the woods with these eyes, and for that I thank you, Hob-Robyn. But yes. The sapling Oak has seen me, not only dream but flesh.

  “A white stag, he said. Crème-colored,” Rob corrected, with a curl of lip that was both snarl and smile.

  He was ripe for the touching when first I met him in these very woods. I gave him my breath upon his hands as a promise; not long after, he followed your steps. You took my breath from him, gave your own promise of it. Another snort, but this with muzzle/face lifted, testing the air. He dreams. Every night.

  “Of me?” The thought gave him a not-unpleasant shiver. Conversely, it warmed the cool and wary attentiveness that the Horned Lord’s manifestation laced within him, taut as a bowstring.

  A manifestation which seemed lately to appear all the more.

  Of us. Make him come to us, young Hunter. Breathe the spells and bind them… bind him. It is time.

  The weight of the demand was thick, coursing through him, blood and breath and bone. Unrelenting. Rob gritted his teeth, said, “And would he ever forgive me if I did such a thing?”

  He already thinks you have bewitched him, Hob-Robyn.

  “But I have not. That truth will win out—”

  Will it?

  “I have to believe it will. I have to believe… in him.” Perhaps it was as simple as that, after all. “I don’t want him to… to hate me. I can wait.”

  Child, child. The great head shook, slowly. Struggle or surrender, it is all one in the end. One young as you has no concept of waiting. I have waited centuries.

  “Then another fortnight should make no difference to y—”

  A rustle, from off to his right. In one swift, silent motion, Rob rolled to his feet and snatched up his bow. Stringing it with a soft grunt, he put arrow to nock and stepped in front of the fire, concealing his face from the light and letting his eyes adjust to the dim.

  A young peasant came padding gingerly from a thick stand of bushes. A lass of no more than ten or twelve, she had a basket on her arm and a loose braid of pale hair that gleamed in the dying light. She knelt at one spot, grubbed about for a moment or two, then rose, brushing her fingers on her skirts and shoving the hair from her face. Rob frowned—daft girl-child, to be out this close to nightfall!—and started to lower his bow, speak. Then she turned, saw him. With a not altogether welcome incursion of senses, Rob saw through her eyes—Saw what she did, and had….

  At first, nothing special: a lean young man muttering to himself for no good reason, a fire that did not smoke, and shadows in the small cavern. He did not look up, so she had kept up her mushroom gathering. Then alarm started licking at the back of her throat, and her feet had grown clumsy. The man had risen, drawn his bow and looked right at her, hooded and backlit by the fire, with shadows forming behind him into a black shade with pale horns and glittering embers for eyes….

  The basket dropped to the ground. The girl let out a small, breathless wail, then turned tail and fled.

  Rob watched her go. So much for hiding.

  “Bloody sodding damn,” he growled, and lowered his bow.

  The basket, at least, had a goodly pick of mushrooms.

  XVIII

  HUNTING.

  No beaters, no tat of hunting horns or clap of wooden staves to drive the game: Gamelyn is alone with his quarry.

  And a merry chase it leads him, over wooded hills, through bogs that squeak and burble with covert threat. Yet he never catches up, never catches more than a glimpse of ivory hide.

  Yet this time the forest clears, opens in front of him. The stag is there, pale hide gleaming copper from the low-lying blood moon, golden eyes blinking. Waiting.

  As Gamelyn watches, it begins to change… to fade then swirl then drift like smoke into darkness… darkness that would suck all the light from the world and from his heart.

  The stag has vanished
. In its place stands a tall, ebon shade—a hooded man-shape, but not merely that, for it has ivory horns a-tangle with holly and ivy. They branch from a brow Gamelyn cannot see and beast eyes shine, dim jewels, from a face the hood obscures.

  It is… terrifying and lovely, young and vibrant yet older than the oldest thing of man.

  It must be… has to be… evil.

  And as if the thought has changed the shape of his existence, Gamelyn no longer holds a staff in his hands, but a crossbow. While part of him screams in horror, another part of him screams for blood, and he raises the weapon to his shoulder. Whispers words—alien, twisting on his tongue—he does not know them, yet cannot help but utter them:

  “Anadhlu. Marwolaeth at eich… tynged.”

  They echo, as if the forest itself twists them back into his own tongue: Breathe. Death be yours...

  And he shoots.

  A scream, shrill, and wind roars through the clearing, buffeting him. An ivory stag leaps into the air, stumbles… and as it stumbles it is once again a hooded figure, falling forward, limp, with a crossbow bolt through his chest.

  Gamelyn lurches toward it, but as he advances his steps become smaller, more hesitant.

  Horrified, he falls to his knees beside it. Beside him.

  Black hair spills out from the hood, glinting red beneath the blood-moon. There is blood gushing from Rob’s mouth, and blood soaking Rob’s tunic where the bolt has gone in. Ebon eyes take Gamelyn in… surely it cannot be with… satisfaction?

  “I’ve been waiting,” Rob whispers, coughs, shudders. “But I never thought t’would end like this….”

  Gamelyn shot up with a hoarse shout, rocked into a crouch before he realized where he was, and what it had been.

  Another dream. Only another thrice-damned and unholy dream.

  Only this one….

  “No.” It was a groan from some deep, shattered place he’d barely known he had. Gamelyn put his hands over his face and hunched there, quivering.

  Presently he became aware of the clouded, starless night just outside his window, and the faint breeze that came in from it and swirled just inside, as if it dared go no farther into the stagnant air of the castle. Gamelyn had several nights ago kicked his coverlets to the bed-foot, but the bottom linens of the feather tick clung to his buttocks and the back of his thighs, sucked him down.