Men of Sherwood (A Rogue's Tale Book 1)

by Sarah Luddington

  “He called Guy of Gisborne by any chance?” I asked.

  She frowned. “How’d you know his name?”

  “We had a run in with him,” I said.

  Warm hands covered mine and squeezed my heart. “He’s a dangerous man, Will.”

  “I know. Robin fought with him in Palestine.” I sighed. “Does Malcom want me to leave the inn? I wouldn’t blame him.”

  She rubbed my hands, smearing flour all over them. “Don’t be daft, Will. This is your home. But I’m not sure it’s wise you play tonight. Just help out in the inn and I’ll pay you, but let’s not draw too much of a crowd. I don’t want any tall tales of men standing up to their betters – you got that, boy?”

  I nodded. The rest of the day passed with Malcom giving me orders to help with the tavern, me walking between the bar and kitchen, serving what food Bess had managed to produce and keeping my head down. Things were too dangerous for me to go near the castle and I had to shelve all plans to recruit another spy for us to use. Things beyond Sherwood were far more dangerous than we knew and I had to get information back to Robin. Maybe we should stop attacking the sheriff’s men long enough to let Nottingham return to some kind of normal. Just the thought of my actions causing deaths in the city made the sick feeling in my stomach bloom into a full scale episode of self-loathing.

  In the middle of the evening and my downwards slide into misery the door to the inn opened and a tall, slim figure slipped through out of the rain. He didn’t tuck his hood back, to shuck off the water, simply pulled it further over his face. I watched him come to the bar.

  “Drink, ale,” he said in a sharp, slightly accented voice.

  I swallowed hard. I stood in the shadows and he hadn’t noticed me yet but I knew whose face I’d see under that hood. A hand with long slim fingers took the ale and the man moved towards the fireplace. He took a table away from the soldiers who ignored him but it meant he’d have full view of the taproom. I couldn’t move without being noticed and he’d sure as devils live in Hell, remember me.

  Running seemed like an option. I could be out of the back door before anyone could identify me for certain, but Bess and Malcom would then be dragged to the castle, tortured until they talked…

  The thoughts left me paralysed. Bold. I had to be bold. He’d admire bravery and I had to protect my family, the ones in the forest and the one in the city. If that meant I had to sacrifice myself to do it, I would.

  I stepped out of the shadow. The hood turned in my direction. A wild cat’s perception of a mouse washed over me. I took a deep breath and walked directly to the table. “Would you like food, sir? We have a good stew and fresh bread out back. Two coppers though. Times are hard.”

  “Sit,” he said. Other than that word he didn’t move and he didn’t call for the soldiers at the nearby table to arrest me.

  I sat, my knees too weak to carry me anywhere.

  “I’ve been looking for you,” he said. “The day’s lists said a minstrel had come into the city. You aren’t playing?”

  “Didn’t think it wise.”

  “It isn’t.”

  I could see his eyes, the grey a dance of silvered mist. “You going to kill me this time?” I asked, my voice betraying me with a fear I’d not felt since Robin’s arrival and protection in my life.

  “Tempting, but I have the feeling Robert would tear down the keep to get at me if I even considered it a possibility.” He sipped his ale and pulled a face. “Why can this country not provide a decent wine?”

  “You could always go home and get some,” I said.

  A small smile shifted the colours in his eyes again. His handsome face took my breath away. “I think I have to teach the peasants here to grow good grapes,” he said.

  “That would only be worth it if there was a reason to stay,” I said, watching him both wary and curious. We were focused on each other and it left me breathless with something other than fear.

  “How is Robert?” he asked, never taking his eyes from mine.

  “Worried about you.” I paused, tried hard to think through the consequences of this conversation and said, “And me.”

  He shifted enough for the light to fall on his face. “He is worried about us?”

  I broke his hold over me and looked at my hands. “I think he’s worried about your history together and my interest in you.” I took one big leap off the cliff and looked up at him through my lashes. I knew from Robin how this particular, coy, look affected him and it seemed Guy wasn’t immune either. His nostrils flared and he licked his lips making them shine in the candlelight.

  “How much did he tell you?”

  “Enough to know he’s ashamed of how he failed you. He’s ashamed of breaking something he didn’t understand and he regrets his actions,” I said. I took hold of his tankard and swigged back a gulp of the bitter brew. I liked it, posh bloody Norman snob.

  This time Guy looked down, his hands very still on the clean table top. Pale against the dark wood. “Did he tell you about Ghaalib?”

  “Yes.”

  “He told you what happened?”

  “He told me he watched the man he loved die.”

  “He tell you I was there that day?”

  I paused. “No.”

  Guy took his ale and drank it down. “You should leave Nottingham, get back to your forest, Will, before someone else recognises you and I am forced to act.”

  “He didn’t know you were there.” I reached across the table and placed my long musician’s fingers over his fine swordsman’s hand. He let me touch him but every muscle in his body snapped taut. I held a wild cat by the tail. “He still doesn’t know you were there. You should tell him.”

  “I saved his life that day. They were going to cut his throat, right there in the square, I convinced them to throw him in prison. That there should be a trial so they could make an example out of him. I needed time to figure out how I could get him out, but then Saladin attacked, Acre fell, he escaped and I couldn’t find him in the madness that followed.” The words were quiet, a steady stream, pared down to the minimum necessary to discuss that brutal time in both their lives.

  “He doesn’t know it was you. He would have told me.”

  “He loves you.” An accusation but his hand remained in mine even if the fingers weren’t reacting to my gentle movement over their knuckles.

  “I don’t know. He hasn’t said it. I’m not sure he’s able to move past the guilt of what happened with you and with Ghaalib. The Arab, he helped Robin understand you, understand love…” I let the words stop because the twist of agony on Guy’s face said it all – Guy still loved my Robin. Oh, what a happy mess this was turning out to be.

  “I have to leave now,” Guy said, pulling his hands away from mine. I tightened my grip and held on, his eyes hardened and my stomach quailed at my foolishness. If you have a wild cat by the tail, you don’t yank on it.

  “Come with me to Sherwood. Come talk to Robin. Listen to him, to Tuck, to Marion, find a new path.”

  Guy barked a bitter sound which might have been a laugh. “Were you sent to convince me to join you?”

  I released him, while he was talking he wasn’t leaving. “No. Robin specifically told me to stay away but you came looking for me so it doesn’t count. I wanted to talk to you, bring you in, make you a spy but he wouldn’t hear of it. He doesn’t want you hurt by us, he doesn’t want you hurt by him. He doesn’t think you can forgive him.”

  “You willing to surrender him?” Guy asked.

  “No, but I can share him,” I said. I had to chuckle. Guy’s jaw dropped open, his eyes widened like a child tasting a candied fruit for the first time, and colour swept up his cheeks.

  “You have no idea –”

  “I have some very good ideas. Leave now, go back to your castle, to your current master,” yes, I used that word on purpose, “and think about joining me tomorrow when I leave in the morning. We could go to Robin together to talk to him.”

  I shou
ld take up gambling, never mind singing for my supper. Everything rested on this coin toss. If we could have Guy protecting us, we’d be safe and we’d be able to convince him to stop rounding up people in the city.

  “You are a child and a fool,” he snarled, the grey turning to granite and the beautiful mouth twisting in anger.

  “I am a man who is giving you an option for the first time since you lost Robin. I can give him back to you.” My arrogance hadn’t caught up with the fact I should not keep pulling the cat’s tail.

  “He isn’t yours to give,” Guy snapped, rising from the stool and towering over me. I felt the threat in my bones.

  “We both know that’s not true. Maybe it’s time to give him something I can’t,” I said, going for a flanking manoeuvre. It worked, he paused, the threat diminished a little.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” The granite softened enough to be classed as a storm.

  “He needs something from you that I can’t give. I’ll never be able to give it to him. Maybe you can, especially now he understands you.” Again his nostrils flared and I could almost see his pulse pounding in his throat. I rose, he stood taller than me, but in that moment I felt the control rested in my hands. “Some men need a master, I understand that, Guy.” I spoke in a whisper, keeping our conversation wrapped in darkness and secrets. “I cannot give that to Robin, but he needs it, I can see it when he looks at you, talks about you.” Would Guy be enraged by Robin telling me such private insights into my enemy? Was I about to lose my life? Guy’s hands flexed but whether to kill me or caress me remained a mystery.

  The man said nothing, he simply walked past me, our fingers catching on each other’s for a moment before he was gone. I dropped my arse back on the stool and breathed in and out a few times before drinking the rest of Guy’s ale.

  25

  I DIDN’T FIND MYSELF hauled out of bed and arrested in the night so by morning I was shattered because every creak in the tavern made me break out in a sweat of fear, but I was still alive and free. I left Malcom and Bess just as dawn put in an appearance, as I wanted to be rid of Nottingham and its complications before I made a mistake and my world came to an abrupt halt on the end of a noose.

  When I reached the gate to leave the city on foot, I stopped. Guy sat on a fine bay stallion, his white hair shining in the gloom of another winter morning, talking to the guards.

  “Oh, fuck,” I breathed in all sincerity.

  As if some lodestone now joined us, he looked up and in my direction. Other than his eyes locking onto mine, nothing happened, he didn’t stop talking to the guards, nor did he give an order to have me arrested. I unlocked my knees and managed to walk forwards. I walked behind his beautiful horse, ignored him, gave the guards the false name I’d given the previous day and left the city. Long before I’d gone half a league I heard a horse canter up behind me.

  Guy stopped his horse by cutting off my momentum, turning the animal sideways on the road. The other traffic, not that there was much, moved around us – muttering about nobility being knobs. He ignored the rest of humanity, uncaring of their presence like a true lord.

  I looked up at him, the familiar swirl of trepidation and… desire? Yes, if I were honest, desire had a huge amount to do with this insane plan. I knew I loved Robin, I hadn’t told him yet because I feared it causing him too much grief, but I also desired the intriguing mass of contradictions that sat on a fine stallion before me now.

  “Hello,” I said.

  He stared at me with a strange blankness to his usually expressive eyes. They were washed of emotion, as if he didn’t quite know why he sat on his horse, in the drizzle, looking at a criminal.

  “You will take me to him,” Guy said.

  “Only if you agree to terms,” I said. All night I’d been trying to plan for this event, just in case it happened. I think I’d covered all eventualities.

  His eyes narrowed. “You said nothing about terms last night.”

  “I didn’t know you’d come. I had to get you this far first. If I’d given you terms last night you would have arrested me for being cheeky, never mind everything else.”

  His lips thinned and his hands tightened on the reins, making his horse dance. “Fine, tell me your terms.”

  His way of saying, you’re right, I guessed.

  “When we leave the road you wear a blindfold and leave your sword tied to the saddle. I also tie your hands in front of you so the others know not to kill you,” I said.

  He growled. A fine flush coloured his pale cheeks and I had to wonder if it happened because of his kink, or because I was pushing my luck.

  “They need to know you come in peace and I need to know I haven’t led the enemy into the camp. If you’re blindfolded it’ll be harder for you to report back.”

  “You don’t trust me.”

  “I’d be a fool for trusting you. Even you have to admit that.”

  We stood and stared at each other for a long time. Assessing, guessing, anticipating, even plotting maybe, but I had no idea if we were thinking the same things. I saw potential sat on an expensive destrier, whether for the group, for Sherwood, or for Robin remained a guessing game at the moment. I also saw great loneliness, a separation from the world that withered his soul, and I bore witness to torment and grief before he broke the hold we had on each other with a blink, grunt and twist away.

  “Damn minstrels,” he muttered. “Faerie-bred all of you.”

  I smiled. “Give me a lift and don’t mention faerie-bred to my brother or he’ll have me doing penance for an eternity. It’s hard enough getting him to accept Robin, never mind that my gift might be from someone other than his God.” I held my hand up for a lift.

  Those shifting silver grey eyes considered rebelling and leaving me to walk behind his beast but he relented, a gentle concession to his spine’s rigidity. “You sound like you don’t believe in God, minstrel.” He reached down, grasped my forearm and I placed my foot in the stirrup as he lifted me with no discernible effort. Those slim arms were strong.

  I sat behind him and his saddle, we would not be too close but I could smell him, where Robin smelt of ancient woodland and old worlds, Guy’s scent took me to places I’d never seen. Places of warm sunshine, languid days, and passionate nights; heady smells more potent than any other rose from the warmth of his surcote. He didn’t touch me as Robin had all those weeks ago, the first time we rode together.

  The horse moved forwards without complaint but we remained at a walk. “To answer your question –”

  “I didn’t ask a question,” Guy said.

  “Well, I’m going to answer it anyway. I believe in what we can see and feel. I believe my minstrel’s gift comes from some place between worlds, but whose worlds I don’t know. I believe the Christ was a good man who can offer us guidance but I do not believe in the Church’s governance. I cannot believe in that. Men are corrupt and no holy man I’ve ever met has given me reason to trust.”

  “You don’t believe in Hell?” he asked.

  “Do you?” I countered.

  His slim shoulders leaned back just a little, brushing my chest and face. I couldn’t help but turn into his neck. I barely grazed the sliver of skin between his collapsed hood and his curling white hair, but he jolted as if struck by lightning. The horse danced sideways in response and Guy clamped a hand on my thigh to stop me sliding off the beast’s smooth narrow back.

  “Don’t touch me, Will. Please, I cannot…” A whisper of sound, so fragile in the winter air I might have lost it to the damp mists weaving through trees, fingers of lost souls.

  I ignored him. I wrapped my cold hands into his cloak and leaned into his back.

  “I think I believe in Hell,” he said. “I think I might be walking blindly towards it this very moment.” Ghosting words of quiet torment.

  “Maybe, or maybe we move towards a Heaven on Earth we all deserve.”

  He grunted, a real sound of pain. “I cannot do this, minstrel.”

/>   “You call me that when you want distance between us.” I placed my chin on his shoulder, my breath brushing his cheek.

  “I need distance, minstrel. Don’t push me.”

  I relented, moving back, sliding my hands away from his warmth, until he grasped my fingers in his leather clad grip and fitted them around his slim waist again. A moment later we were flying over the ground, his horse a centaur the connection between man and beast so flawless. I clung to Guy, trying to flow with his body as we wove between carts and humans, geese and dogs until the road took us deep into Sherwood.

  “You can stop,” I said, breathless and a little drunk from the ride.

  The morning had hardly grown old, it would have taken me long after midday to reach this spot alone, and the drizzle relented at last. The grey clouds still promised cold but I might be dry sometime soon.

  I slipped off the horse and looked up at Guy. “Time to be blindfolded and bound,” I said.

  That slim, slightly curved nose, flared again.

  “You promised,” I added.

  He stared into the woodland for a moment, the naked trees a tableau in patience I sorely lacked. I shifted and removed a cloth I used to clean my lyre. “I can promise I will protect you.”

  He unbuckled his sword belt and strapped it under his thigh to his saddle. He snatched the cloth from my hand and tied it around his face, the cloth was thick but fine wool and would serve well for a blindfold. Then he thrust his wrists towards me, hands together. I took a length of cloth I used to wrap over my face when I needed to be anonymous, and bound his wrists.

  “It’s too gentle,” he groused.

  “It’s only to demonstrate your willingness to enter our home in peace. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  I watched the colour on his cheeks flush with more than the cold.