Greenwode

by J Tullos Hennig

  He rolled from the bed with another hoarse groan and staggered over to the window.

  Relief. It wasn’t much of a breeze, but it tickled cool across his skin, lifted lank, sweat-damp hair from his cheeks and nape, breathed fresh into his lungs.

  Then he dragged on tunic and braies, made his escape. Such as it was.

  The night watch atop the gatehouse had become used to Gamelyn’s presence over the past fortnight. They had at first watched him warily, but now ignored him save with a quick tip of their helmeted heads and a polite, “Good evening, m’lord,” to their master’s youngest son.

  Gamelyn would usually not incur on their watch too long; he would walk the parapets just long enough to clear his head and breathe the winds—both mild and fierce—that would come down the valley from the River Don. Gamelyn had, ever since they’d first come to Blyth, loved this walk in daylight—he had come to realize it had its own magic at night, as well.

  Tonight one of the guards was well recognizable. Much’s blue eyes lowered as he dipped his head, kept to his steady, back-and-forth march along the narrow, gray-stone lane of the parapet.

  Gamelyn propped his hands on the outermost wall, shoulders rising up almost to the back of the skull as he leaned out into the breeze. Closed his eyes. Breathed it in.

  Anadlu….

  Jerked, eyes popping open, breath hitching in his chest, and saw it, just this side of the forest.

  The ivory stag.

  “D’you see it, m’lord?”

  Gamelyn started at the hiss just behind him, turned to find Much leaning on the parapet, gaze fixed on the tree line not a furlong away.

  Gamelyn couldn’t speak.

  “Aye, he’s there. Believe that, m’lord.” Much leaned slightly closer. He seemed more intent upon getting his message across than hesitant of Gamelyn. And why should Much be hesitant? Gamelyn was nothing, a lord’s late-gotten son, gadelyng, a wretched sinner who had gotten sodomy all woefully tangled with affection.

  More, Much was looking at him. Curious. Concerned, even. “You’ll have t’ go t’ him, m’lord. Iffen you don’t… he’ll not let you rest.”

  Yet… if I do go after him…. Gamelyn had never followed the dream so far. Had never shot the stag… never wanted to shoot the stag. And Rob….

  He looked down at his hands, surprised that he didn’t see blood smearing them. It made him want to bay at the moon like a lonely mad wolf. Would that moon, if not hidden by clouds, betray itself as a gibbous blood moon?

  “I can’t,” Gamelyn whispered. “It brings evil….”

  “Nay, m’lord,” Much protested. “Th’ only evil in Him is what you bring.”

  “What… I bring.”

  “The Great Stag is nowt of evil, or of good. That I swear to you, m’lord.” Much fell silent, dipping his head as a brace of soldiers passed by. Intent on their own conversation, they passed without so much as a glance at their lord’s son and his guard.

  “He’s a demon.”

  “Nay. We’re the demons.” Much met his eyes, sudden and entreating. “Lookit what we’ve done tae our selves, tae our world. I’m not smart as the likes of you, m’lord, but I know that much. We’re the demons, and the things we do make Him cry.”

  Like Jesus, weeping on the cross for the sins of the world.

  “Ask the si woman,” Much said, suddenly. “She knows.”

  “Eluned,” Gamelyn said woodenly.

  “You brought her here. You’re of Her, en’t you?”

  “Am I, then?” he murmured.

  “Surely she’ll give you what you need.”

  THE DREAM.

  He’d not slept well after, and bloody damn but his shoulder hurt as if it truly had been nailed by a crossbow bolt. It had been so real.

  The cross dangling over his head, and he can’t breathe around the bolt stabbing fire into his chest… helpless… and the cross melds into the black as the Abbess comes forward, picks him up, and strokes the hair back from his face. Motions to the hooded bowman—the one who shot him!—to come forward, tells him:

  “See? So easy. This is how a demon dies.”

  And the bowman steps forward, shrugs the hood back from fine, ruddy-flax hair, and Gamelyn’s green eyes are so concerned… curious, almost, as if he’d caught a rare-marked rabbit in a forgotten trap….

  The cross. The Abbess. The one image that stayed constant, no matter the trappings, and refused to go away though he kept trying to forget it.

  Rob gave a shudder, deep down from toes to nape, and threaded his pack strap over his head. Ensuring it lay, snug and comfortable, off the sore shoulder and against his ribs, he took up his bow and hung his quiver beside the pack. He had a ways to traverse, today, a duty to perform.

  Looking about the little cavern overhang where he’d sheltered last night, he decided any traces were well-hidden, secure. Rob had spent some debate into the wisdom of staying—he’d been seen, after all—but it was likely the girl would tell a tale that would more keep others away than draw them. This was a good place, comfortable enough. Convenient to the territory he had to scout and tally, convenient to the broad, flat rock nigh to a stand of rowan where he and his mother had agreed to leave any communications.

  Convenient to the lad.

  The breath stole through the cavern, caressed his nape. Try as he might, Rob couldn’t deny the whisper’s statement. Nay, Gamelyn possessed all the denial, enough for five.

  I told you, my son. He dreams.

  Had it been so thick of him, Rob wondered, to hope that Gamelyn’s dreams were of kisses, of gasps against sweat-slicked skin—not betrayal, an executioner’s rite of blood and death?

  One leads to the other, and back again. Summer melts Winter’s ice to streams and rivers, and Winter covers Summer in chill and quiet, holds him sleeping for the Lady to wake. For aeons has the struggle been joined. Sacrifice, final or in little gasps and moans, is what you must do. I care not which you choose. Or which of you will wear the Hood.

  “I chose.” His growl, Rob realized, was altogether close to being a hysterical sob. He regained control—had to, as he picked up his saddle and bridle and headed over to Arawn. Terror could still swamp him in the Horned Lord’s presence. But, as always, Rob’s terror would so easily turn to the one thing that sustained him, kept him from quailing beneath that inhuman gaze….

  Fury. How dare you play me like this? Demand of me like this? Invade me like this?

  And the triumph: that not every thought Rob possessed was in turn possessed by an immortal presence. The Horned Lord did not respond to his anger, merely stated, You think you have chosen. Whilst your rival flails in a mire of indecision. The horn glinted as the great head shook. Dismal. Most unsatisfying.

  “Then go haunt him for a while!”

  I am, believe me. Until one of you acts, I have no choice.

  Rob hesitated, then clenched his teeth, shook his head, and threw the saddle over Arawn’s broad, black withers.

  “AND THE Holly King, Green Lord, Green Hob, found a young Lord sleeping beneath the leaves of the Oak, and waked him by tugging at his ear.”

  “Was he beautiful?”

  Gamelyn heard them before he saw them: voices coming from the bailey, clear as bells on the morning air. He recognized Eluned right away, the lilt of the Welsh Border Marches unmistakable. The other voices were high, mingled with giggles. Children.

  He had attended Matins, felt rejuvenated—cleansed—from the rites. The Abbess had directed prayer, and in the cadences and stops of the Latin, her voice truly was akin to an angel’s.

  But the little ones’ voices… it was the type of magic that angels would surely sing for. And Eluned was weaving it as surely as she wove her story. Gamelyn espied the little group all gathered on the front stoop of the weaver’s cot: a mother with an entire bevy of acquired children—and more than a few adults, as well.

  Children. A family. One more thing Gamelyn would leave outside Church doors. It gave him a strange, displaced pang. H
e had never thought upon it before, never contemplated upon what he would not have, only what he would escape.

  “Lads aren’t beautiful!” One of the youngest lads protested, and an older lass tapped him on the head with her fingers. “Well, they aren’t!” he insisted.

  “Aye, but this one was,” Eluned said. “Fair and golden as a summer afternoon, lovely as to break the heart of many a comely maiden.”

  Another child spoke up. “And he did, aye?”

  “Who’s tellin’ this?” an older woman chided. “Your smart mouth, or th’ Mother?”

  “’M sorry.”

  Eluned laughed. “You’re right, lass, he did. But it wasn’t the Maiden’s heart he broke, it was the Hob’s.”

  “Tell us of Hob!”

  “Well, Hob. Everyone knows Hob; he can be young or old, handsome or plain, your faintest, fondest dream or a harrowing nightmare. He’s tricky, and clever with his hands, a thief and a rogue. A pwca, one of the fae who’ll lure you into the green Wode and wrap you in his spiderweb, keep you there all young and fresh whilst everything in the real world goes on without you.

  “Hob. He was the Maiden’s consort, y’see. He blew the ice onto the leaves, and wrote her name in the frost. He wore the horn-crown and she would twine it with ivy and holly. He made ice for Her to slide on, and snow’s fall to nestle in Her curls—”

  “He shouldna woken that fair young man!”

  “Well, some things are meant to be. Sweet Green Hob knew the price of waking the Oak King, knew he’d have to chase after his own tynged.”

  “That’s a funny word,” a young one said, and Gamelyn had to agree, surreptitiously creeping forward. He’d heard it, not only waking but sleeping, and perhaps Eluned would say what it truly was.

  “Mm. No more than any other word, and it means many things. Destiny, path, dreaming… all of it and more. If you can catch even a glimpse of tynged threading out before you, then you’re a fortunate one.”

  “What of Hob and the Maiden?” a lass asked. “And the young Oak?”

  “They belong together, all of them; they love each other with a passion to fill the world. Summer and Winter will die for their Lady, and each for the other, aye?—but they canna live side by side. They are rivals, and one always must die at the other’s hand, one must give his blood to the land.” Eluned’s eyes flickered around, seemed to spark upon Gamelyn, then went behind him, turning flat.

  Gamelyn frowned, shifted, and peered over his shoulder. There, in the recesses, was the Abbess’ seneschal. Sister Deirdre was watching—not Gamelyn, but Eluned—with piercing eyes and set lips. It was… unnerving.

  A young boy’s skepticism regained Gamelyn’s attention. “Is all that true?”

  Eluned’s gaze left the nun, slid to meet Gamelyn’s, and held as she continued. “If they were, what a world that would be, aye? Wild, chancy. Who could trust such a world?”

  “I would!” another child stated.

  “Nay, you canna trust chaos, canna shape order out of the wild. Love it? Aye. Trust it? Maybe temporarily, like this castle.”

  “Blyth has been here a long time,” Gamelyn found himself saying, and the group around Eluned, nearly as one, started and began to murmur uncomfortably amongst themselves.

  “Not that long, milord,” Eluned replied. “But what I mean is, what would stay, did every person vanish? Not this castle. Not any castle. The forest would take it, lay it waste, wear it down to a pile of stone. Nowt we make stays, not even us.” And she smiled, reached forward and tousled the hair of a girl who had crept close. “But while we are here, we can tell stories. And hold to each other. Aye?”

  There was a smattering of agreement, many of the gatherers hesitant now that they knew of the presence of their lord’s son. They started to disperse, and Gamelyn sighed, shrugged at Eluned, then turned to head back the way he had come.

  The alcove behind him was empty. Sister Deirdre was no longer there.

  “MUCH SEEMS to think you might turn him into a toad.”

  Eluned gave a little “Ha!” beneath her breath; it sounded triumphant. Gamelyn wasn’t sure if she was answering him or not, discovered the latter as she dropped to her knees.

  “Another month and this would be harder to find,” she said, gesturing to a plant that, to Gamelyn’s eyes, looked little different from the others near it. “Fresh is always better for this case. ’Twill not give your father more time, but I can give him ease and his wits about him.”

  Harder to find? They’d already spent most of the time between breakfast and lunch looking. Gamelyn would hate to see what Eluned defined as “harder.”

  Not to mention, he was staggering from lack of sleep and his stomach was beginning to feel as if he’d drawn his sword and cut his throat. Some lookout he was proving. If a barbarian horde appeared on the horizon right now, the most Gamelyn could do was yawn at them.

  As if to belabor the point, his stomach growled. Loudly.

  “I told you to bring a bite, lad,” Eluned said, taking a dibble from her basket and beginning to poke around the plant’s base. “A toad, eh? I think that just might be beyond my abilities.”

  “He seems convinced. He steps carefully about all of you.” There. He’d said it but hadn’t actually said it.

  Eluned set to digging up the plant with sure, capable motions, cut it in two, then put half into her basket and re-earthed the remainder. Only then did she look up at him. “It’s a bit far from the river, lad.”

  Gamelyn blinked.

  “If it’s fishing you are indeed doing,” she clarified. “Are you hoping to land me, or my son?”

  Think fast, Gamelyn. Fast. “I was wondering what you were going to do for an escort, when you leave for Loxley.”

  “Rob will come for me, should I need him. I think he was hoping your father could see to an escort for me.”

  Gamelyn looked away

  How will he know? Is he watching?

  Waiting?

  He was not going to ask. Not.

  “Y’see, the master of Conisbrough asked my husband to do some tallies on the game and fish between here and his keep.” Eluned straightened up and gave a stretch, pressing one hand to her lower back. “My, but the ground gets further away every year. Truly a predicament for one as short as I.” She smiled at Gamelyn, who was puzzling over the seeming change of subject. “Adam would not return from Nottingham in time, so Rob is doing those tallies in his stead. But your father was aware of the tally and has kindly agreed to have several guards escort me home so Rob’s duties will not be interrupted.”

  He was still here, then. Somewhere.

  “Your paxman, Much, I do believe, is one of them, as Sir Ian mentioned he has a guard who has traveled to our croft before. Your father apologized,” she added, “for not sending you. But he seems to think that you are infatuated with my daughter, and does not want to have you tempted more than necessary.”

  Gamelyn felt his cheeks heat. “My father worries over nothing. It was only that Johan misconstrued my reasons for coming to Loxley. It’s not true, that I swear to you.”

  “No need for any swearing. I know it’s not true.” Eluned started walking. “Though I will admit there was a time when I thought otherwise, it’s quite obvious you have no more interest in Marion than she in you. Nay, lad, it’s my son who fascinates you, not my daughter.”

  Gamelyn froze in his tracks.

  “I told you.” Eluned kept walking, scanning the ground. “I told you what would happen, but still you followed him.”

  “I never… I don’t….” You didn’t tell me that! Gamelyn almost babbled, but at the last moment gritted his teeth so hard that sparks of light flared behind his eyes. Tried again. “Eluned. Please.”

  She stopped, peered over her shoulder at him. “Please what?”

  Ask the si woman, Much had said. He’d thought to ask her yester’s even, after she’d told the story….

  You know that story, don’t you? You’ve never heard it before, but you k
now it, deep in your heart….

  “What I said, about the toad. I was just…. It’s only that, well, Much calls you the si woman. He’s not the only one. The peasants here seem to… know you. Like yesterday in the bailey. Even the Abbess, she thinks you’re—”

  “A witch?” Eluned said, very quiet.

  “No! And if she does, she’s wrong!”

  “You say that as though it might be the most horrible thing you can imagine. Even,” Eluned crossed her arms and peered at him, “more than your ‘sins of the flesh’.”

  “She’s gone,” Gamelyn said. “Left this morning, so it doesn’t matter what she thinks. You… he… your family does not see things in the same way I was raised to see them. But I don’t think… can’t think… that what gifts you have make you into something wicked. The Abbess doesn’t know you like I do.”

  “Maybe she knows more than you think. I surely know her and her kind.” She shrugged, and the odd acceptance of it unnerved him.

  “I don’t understand, Eluned.”

  “I realize that, lad. But I think you also don’t want to understand.” A slight frown was twitching at her brow, but otherwise Eluned’s face was expressionless.

  “That’s not…. Please. I’m trying to understand. You were the one who once told me that things were not as simple as I would have them. That—”

  “Enough, Gamelyn.” She shook her head. “I’ve told you what I can and more than I should. I am very sorry you’ve no mother to rely upon, but do not look for one in me. You are not of my people, and you are not my son. You’re the one’s breaking my son’s heart.”

  For all its quiet, the reprimand lashed like a whip. Gamelyn shut his mouth and did not open it again.

  ROB HAD spent a long, hot and exhausting day, both a-horse and afoot. He was more than ready to strip down and stretch out in the cool little cavern for a good night’s sleep. It was so sticky-hot that food didn’t even sound pleasant—much less the effort to catch and prepare it.