Lord of the Forest

by Kay Berrisford

  Then his senses rushed back.

  What the hell had just happened? Had he been drugged, tricked? Some sick kind of humiliation or punishment?

  Cal struggled against his bonds, which still held him snugly. His stomach flipped with terror, and his thrashing grew desperate. He'd let the forest he hated fuck him, though at least the magic hadn't killed him…yet.

  *~*~*

  Robin ran from the glade to the pool and lifted several fairies from his path. One doubled over, clutching her stomach as she rocked with laughter. Another wailed and covered her eyes as he skidded along the bank to where the waters had been whipped into a tempest of splashes and foam.

  At first glance, Cal seemed to be tangled between the reeds and the willow branches, struggling and gasping, his skin drawn tight against his heaving ribs. Robin's horror burgeoned as he drew closer. The branches and bulrushes were alive, reminding him of the legs of the octopuses scooped up by the fishermen of Whitby. They slithered and shifted over Cal's pale flesh, entrapping him in a living net.

  Fear knotted Robin's stomach, compounded by anger—and rising disgust. As Cal twisted and writhed, he revealed a thick bulrush had pried between his arse. Another wispy green tip toyed with his vulnerable balls and his good-sized cock, which appeared not quite at rest.

  "This is most strange," said the Elfaene, drawing level at Robin's elbow. "Despite my daughters' flights of fancy, the forest tends to hang its traitors, not fuck them. And the reeds and the willows are usually servants of the Green Man, not Niogaerst."

  Robin had already drawn his bow from his back and nocked an arrow, hardly knowing where to aim. The Elfaene touched his elbow and whispered, "No." He nudged her away, not breaking his focus for more than a blink. He unleashed his arrow, which sliced through the spray-filled air.

  The point embedded in the heart of the willow trunk. Its guttural moan swelled in pitch, reverberating through the dell, setting the leaves rustling and the mud beneath them trembling.

  "You fool," muttered the Elfaene.

  The movements of Cal's captors grew jerky and convulsive; then they plunged him beneath the surface. Robin threw down his weapon, jumped into cool, crisp waters, and dived in the direction where Cal had disappeared.

  The grainy liquid stung his eyes. He forced them wide till he discerned a human shape sinking fast amid a tangle of weeds that now seemed lifeless as Cal. He hooked an arm about Cal, freed him with a tug, then burst back through the surface and pulled for the shore.

  The waters had stilled by the time he waded out, cradling Cal. He half expected the fairies to set upon them, but while the dell hummed with shouts of confusion and some of dismay, none drew near. The Elfaene clasped her hips and watched.

  Robin laid Cal down on the mud and pushed him onto his uninjured side. He thumped Cal's back with the flat of his palm till Cal gasped raggedly and choked. Robin slapped him again and rubbed between his shoulder blades.

  "It's alright," he said. "Stay with me."

  "If the spirits have judged him, you cannot save him." The Elfaene sounded doleful. "And you could have condemned yourself, Robin. The forest might seek vengeance."

  "Then we'll get out of the damned forest." He grunted. "Can anybody bring me a blanket?"

  To his relief, the ginger-haired lass who'd bandaged Cal before found him a sheet. It was coarse as sacking but sufficed to soak a little of the water from Cal's shivering skin. Robin wrapped it about him. As Cal's breathing grew steadier, Robin rolled him over, supporting his head. He brushed the muddied hair from Cal's eyes, which Cal flickered open.

  "Thank you. Again." Cal grabbed a shaky breath. "I knew there was good reason I preferred the company of men to females."

  "Women can be loyal friends and comrades, lad. But I'm starting to think you're right about fairies."

  Robin raked his sodden mane and scanned Cal's body. Thanks to the fair folk's healing skills, the gash on Cal's shoulder had knitted well, though it would need rebinding. There were no other obvious injuries beyond blossoming purple bruises that might have been caused by the earlier skirmish.

  He let Cal lie flat and tore a strip from the sheet to bind the wound. "What happened back there?"

  "I…I don't know. I just wanted to bathe, but I was grabbed. Set upon. The accursed pond weed wanted to kill me, and I swear the willow had me about the throat. I thought I was going to suffocate."

  Though it had been hard to judge amid the wriggling mass, he'd not observed the foliage throttling Cal. "Are you sure that's what it was?"

  "Yes! Please, I can't survive here much longer. We've got to get out of this place."

  "I'm with you there." A light leaped in Cal's eyes, tugging an unheeded smile from Robin's lips. He suppressed an urge to run his thumb along the crystal-cut line of Cal's cheek. To pull him close and claim the lips that Cal held as stubborn as his delicately pointed chin.

  Then again, why shouldn't he embrace Cal? After all, fate, or some force stronger than either of them, kept throwing them together.

  He suppressed a cringe.

  Destiny had nothing to do with it. His carnal longings and that tender heart noted by the Elfaene drew him to Cal. But Cal was still a forester who continued to lie or at least hide truths, though Robin couldn't blame him for not wanting to talk about his recent experience. The bulrushes had not strangled Cal. They'd fucked him, a notion that revolted Robin just as much.

  His resolution to get this man out of the Greenwood had him gritting his jaw, steeling his resolve.

  "You think you can walk?"

  Cal pushed up onto an elbow, impressing Robin with his fortitude once again.

  "Yes. But what's the point? They won't let me leave."

  Looking about, Robin wasn't so sure. The Elfaene swung on her hammock and chanted in an ancient language he possessed no knowledge of. Her daughters crouched around her in a circle. He suspected they were the perpetrators of the hissing that filled the air. Whether they brewed magic for good or ill, he was in no mood to know more of it.

  He pulled Cal to his feet. "My gut tells me they've had enough of us."

  "This time I'd like to trust that gut of yours."

  He grinned and slid his arm about Cal, who leaned into him as they trod around to where Cal had left his clothes. Robin's flesh sizzled where Cal's cool body pressed against him, belying the layer of damp fabric between them. He resolved to keep future contact to a minimum.

  Once Cal had dressed, Robin chose the path they must have arrived along, toward the waterfall at the mouth of the ravine. He helped Cal only when he stumbled. When they reached the top of the slippery path, the Elfaene shouted after them.

  "My prayers for you could prove powerless, Robin. They might hold the foul spirits off for another day, but a death sentence on a traitor is a Greenwood promise."

  "She's let us go with her blessing," murmured Robin.

  "Yes," said Cal, "and any second she's going to change her nasty mind—Oh God!"

  Lightning split the sky. Cal fell forward into Robin's outstretched arms, and Robin enfolded him. Two curtains of black cloud clashed above the trees, and darkness slammed down like a coffin lid. Cal's breath pounded Robin's throat. They might as well have been blindfolded again. Their vision had been reduced to nothingness.

  "Nobody must ever see the way to or from their heortland." Robin sighed.

  "Great," snapped Cal. "How the hell are we supposed to escape?"

  "By forging on like blind men. We've done it before. We can do it again." Besides, it might be easier without some fairy leading him. Robin had tracked forests by night since he was a boy and could glean clues as to the best direction from the touch of the wind, the lay of ground, even the cries of the beasts and the scents of the trees. Pushing his senses onto high alert, he found Cal's hand, which was cold and trembling. Cal would never get out of this forest alone.

  Curse the boy, Robin liked being needed again, though he gripped Cal over the fabric of his sleeve. That would be safer.

/>   "Come on."

  *~*~*

  When Cal blinked up and discerned a faint smudge of light above the treetops, they had been walking in the blackness for at least an hour. He still felt battered and dazed, his thoughts awhirl.

  What had happened back there in the waters? While his fantasies about Robin seemed natural, the willingness with which he'd yielded to the machinations of the forest made his stomach churn. No magic, good or foul, could have benign intentions toward him.

  The howls of beasts and the whir of bat wings in the darkness made his pulse skitter. Having Robin close turned out an equal torture. Robin never let him drop, reassured him that wolves were not nearby, that the ground he was about to tread was even and firm, and that they ought to be out of the darkness soon. Despite threats that should set him quailing, Robin made him feel safe.

  He should hate Robin. It would be so much easier. Yet Robin was good and kind and lived up to his legend, and it twisted Cal up inside. Cal was weak and no good, and now it seemed his fate had been inscribed in his rotten core from the start. He was a traitor to the Greenwood, and mayhap to Robin Hood.

  Watery red dusk bled through the trees, and Robin's sturdy silhouette seeped into focus a step ahead of Cal. The rustic hues of his garb blended with the glade of beeches and chestnuts through which they passed, and the sight of him lightened the worst of Cal's mood. Cal smiled. He just couldn't help himself.

  After a few more steps, nuts crunching beneath their feet, they shook off the last lingering cloud of darkness. Robin paused, letting Cal go and sending a wave of weariness and desolation rolling through him that made no sense at all. He wondered if his wound had festered and he was sickening. If a fever felled him before the spirits, it might be a mercy.

  Robin stared up at a waxing gibbous moon.

  "We're not going to get out of here before nightfall, are we?" asked Cal. "I mean, proper nightfall."

  "Doesn't look like it." Robin gathered up some of the plumper sweet chestnuts and stuffed them into his pack. "We've been forging southward, deeper into the forest. I'd hoped we'd been heading west."

  "Why west?" Eastward would have been better for Cal, so he could emerge nearer the London road.

  "There's an abbey in the western parts of the Greenwood."

  "Oh, yes. Beaumont. I've heard of it." Cal leaned back against a reddish trunk and forced his brain into action. If he could get to Beaumont Abbey, the monks might have a vault in which to imprison an outlaw. Then he'd send word to Westminster he'd taken Robin Hood, and…

  Could he go through with a plan like that, especially after Robin had saved him twice? That kind of betrayal was cold even for Cal.

  "You might have sought refuge from the spirits there," said Robin. "The lands are open near the abbey, less thickly wooded, but we'll just have to stay as safe as we can here." He flashed a grin, warm and boyish. "Let's keep moving till we find some sort of clearing."

  Robin stretched out to him, and Cal admired the dark hairs on the back of Robin's wrist. Robin was so kind that even the notion of plotting against him made Cal feel like a toad. "God's teeth, what's the point?" he snapped. "It's still the Godforsaken Greenwood. There's nowhere to hide."

  "I'll warrant it's best to keep away from the waters," said Robin, withdrawing his proffered hand. "And if we can, from the trees."

  "We're going to try and hide from trees in a forest?" Cal clonked his head back against the bark. "Kill me now, because I'm ready to drop."

  "The spirits could well be dropping you into the realm of Niogaerst if we don't keep going."

  Cal glared. As if he didn't know. Robin started onward, and Cal followed behind.

  "Are we allies now?" asked Cal, a soft carpet of moss putting spring in his step.

  "Till we get out of this forest, lad. When we reach the borders, we go our separate ways."

  Cal upped his pace so he could walk at Robin's side. "So you're going to return north to muster an army of outlaws."

  Robin thinned his lips.

  "Or you could let me help you," continued Cal. "I told you, I can get close to Odo."

  "Odo?" Robin's eyes glazed. A muscle twitched along his jaw. "Could you kill him?"

  Cal concealed a disturbing quake in his serenity. "I could try."

  Robin furrowed his brow, stern lines aging him. Then his face smoothed, and he shook his head. "No. All we can aim for together is getting out of this forest alive."

  "You can trust me. Just tell me what to do to prove myself."

  Once again, Robin gave no answer. Cal rolled his eyes. He couldn't cheat his way through any trial of honour if Robin refused to set one. Yet as they trudged onward, one matter remained clear. His irritation didn't diminish the warmth he felt toward Robin, equalling his keenness to investigate that impressive body. Could this be what those stupid young knights felt after they'd battered each other off their horses with their training lances? Could this be friendship? His heart squeezed at a final question. Despite Robin's determination they must part, did Robin feel it too?

  As they passed through groves of sheltering ash, Cal's loathing for the forest relented a little. The earthy scent, as strong as burning cherry wood, seemed reminiscent of his mother and of his early childhood, though no specific scene or event sprang to mind. Soon the aged oaks thinned out, and they broke into a clearing. A grey ruin loomed ahead, the crumbling carcass of a stone hall with its thatch half caved in.

  Robin surveyed the scene, apparently satisfied. "This will do for the night."

  "Can't we press on for something better?"

  "It's this, or we sleep among the oaks. Your choice, lad."

  Cal followed Robin, picking his way through the brambles toward the shack. Robin ducked under an arched entrance and looked inside. Dim light revealed the remains of a hearth in the middle of a floor spread with dirty, wet straw and tumbled rafters. At one end, some remnants of the roof remained, though Cal feared a strong breeze would rip this last semblance of shelter asunder. Even so, he couldn't bring himself to abhor the place. Like the air in this part of the forest, it felt familiar.

  "Help me clear the fireplace," said Robin.

  Cal nearly answered, with pleasure, but bit his lip. He touched Robin's arm. "Do you think… Do you suppose this place could be the manor of Carseald, my mother's house? It's the only large dwelling deep in the forest, and if so, I was born here."

  Robin shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. Stranger things have happened in the Greenwood than a man stumbling upon his old home."

  "You don't have to keep reminding me of that," Cal snapped and felt better for it. The place should disgust him. The building was a dozen yards long and half that distance across. Even if it were a palace of gold, he couldn't imagine who'd choose to live here, lost in the woodlands.

  They built a fire from fallen beams, which were less damp than the wood they gathered outside. Robin demonstrated great skill cultivating flame from flint and tinder, and they soon sat shoulder to shoulder, leaning against Robin's pack and watching the chestnuts blister and crackle. The rich scent rose with the spiralling smoke. Cal pointed to the little gap left between the remaining rafters, designed to allow the fumes to escape.

  "'Tis hardly necessary now," he said, "with half the damned roof fallen in."

  "It's more of a roof than I've often known." Robin grinned at him sidelong. "I've sheltered from a month of snow under nothing more than a weave of rushes. This place is luxurious."

  "It's repugnant." Despite the fire, Cal shivered. "I can well believe I was born here. No wonder I've been searching for someplace warmer all my life."

  "Warmth is found in bodies, not stone."

  Cal caught his breath. Could this be his chance?

  "I suppose so," he said. "At least we have each other."

  Robin stared ahead, firelight gilding his profile. Cal wondered about the slight Roman ridge to his nose, somehow handsome as hell to Cal. Had Robin broken it in battle? Striving to save a friend?

&nb
sp; Robin smoothed his lips, and Cal's throat tightened. So did his groin. His skin smouldered where they touched. His hunger for Robin overwhelmed him, as did pathetic desperation. He desired Robin to want him back. Not his face, nor his body, nor his talents for arousing a man's cock.

  Him. Cal.

  The regent's spy. No, dirty whore. Oh, who cared?

  He drew in a lungful of thick air, then coughed. He must keep calm. The fire, the moon and stars, and his physical closeness to Robin all worked in his favour. He and Robin would take pleasure in each other's bodies this night, but he must seduce Robin with care or risk his chance of a valuable alliance. If things went well, mayhap he wouldn't have to betray Robin. He wondered if there was some path they could tread together. There might be profits to be gained from an outlaw's life, though he daren't inquire now.

  Lord, Robin's placid silences set his nerves jangling. Cal grasped for more appropriate topics of conversation, of knights and chivalry, or ballads of loyalty and love, anything to tip the mood in the right direction. Yet the notions whirled about his mind, as formless as the smoke.

  "I don't want us to part," he blurted. "It would be an honour to walk at your side forever, Robin Hood."

  Chapter Seven

  Forever.

  Each time Robin allowed his heart to soften toward Cal, he confirmed his dishonesty with hollow vows.

  Robin snapped some tinder and threw it into the flames. "You don't know what you're saying."

  "I do. I want to be your friend. Robin Hood has many friends, so the ballads say." Cal rubbed his thin hands together and held them up to warm them. He slid his razor-sharp gaze onto Robin. "Many friends—and no family?"

  Robin's answer was stiff. "I'd love to say I had sired a child, but it can never be."

  "I'm sorry to hear that." Cal curled his legs in front of him, as neat as a cat. "What about your parents? Do they still live?"

  Robin shrugged. He knew what was said. Some storytellers proclaimed his birth noble, that he'd been a knight returned from the Crusades forced to rebel when he'd discovered his lands seized by a sheriff. A soothsayer once swore to the devil that Robin Hood's mother had been a Saxon princess. Robin suspected his real origins were humbler.