He cleared his throat and turned back toward the night blooms.
“You should be in bed.”
She had been dismissed. She curtsied and turned to go, wishing they’d had nothing more serious to discuss than how many times she had danced with Robin of Longstride.
* * *
She stepped from the porch as he leapt off, landing on flexed legs, letting his knees absorb the impact. He turned, drawing short as he caught sight of her.
“Mother,” he said.
She looked down on him. He nearly melded with the darkness, blending like a night creature. He was so alien, so foreign. So unlike her other children. Unlike her husband. Unlike her. The spoiled fruit of her womb.
Her curse.
“Mother,” he said again, his voice turning stern. “I know you heard the fight. Say what you have to say.”
“Feel free to go with your father on the journey.”
Robin’s face twisted. “He has made it clear that I am to stay.”
The thought of him doing so soured her stomach. Working the land, he would be around under foot, a constant reminder, without the light of Philemon or Robert to distract her from his presence. “I do not need you here. You love him, so go with him. Fling yourself between your father and the swords of the enemy.”
“You would like that, wouldn’t you? To send me off to be killed on a foreign land.”
She remained silent.
“I will remain here and I will do my duty to this household, but never fear, I will stay out of your sight.” He turned and strode away.
She watched him go until he disappeared into the night, then went inside, making her way to the bedroom she shared with her husband.
He stood in their room, pulling off his tunic.
She stopped at the doorway and watched him. The soft linen shirt slid up his torso and over his head before being dropped to the floor. Philemon Longstride had thickened over the years, padded from a life as a commander of men rather than a worker beside them and cushioned with age, but he still had definition to his body that pleased her. Muscles still flexed and played beneath his skin and his head was still full of thick hair, even if some of it had turned silver here and there.
He was leaving her soon. She did not want it, but understood he was doing what he thought was right. It wasn’t the first time he had chased after his king and left her alone. She would miss him.
His hands moved to his belt, unbuckling it.
Desire rose inside her. Tonight she would make sure he would miss her.
Her hand touched the doorjamb, brushing the ancient symbols of protection she had painted there in pigment cut with her own menstrual blood. It was old superstition, woman’s magic passed from mother to daughter. Not the right-hand path of the hedgewitches and the herbalists, but the left-hand path of darkness. It was something she had done after the birth of Robin, a ward against allowing him entrance to this room, and he never had crossed the threshold. Her husband had no use for witchery, but tolerated it for her.
He did not understand its origin.
Energy crackled under her fingers, running up her arm and into her chest. It made her head swim like too much wine. Her mouth tasted of clover.
That was new.
She stared at the symbols in wonder until her husband’s voice called her to bed.
CHAPTER NINE
Friar Tuck woke feeling sticky and damp against the thin pad of his bedroll. His skull buzzed like a beehive, proof that he definitely had taken too much to drink the night before. That in itself was no mean feat. Noblemen, warriors, peasants, bishops… he had yet to meet the man who could drink as much as he, and still remain standing.
Not that he imbibed often, but when the opportunity presented he gave himself to it body and soul. There was no harm in it… well, what was the point in going to confession if you never had anything to confess?
He had missed morning prayers, and, when he presented himself to the cardinal, the man looked him over with a roll of his eyes.
“Are you aware that gluttony is a sin?” the cardinal asked.
“No greater than lying,” Friar Tuck replied. “You told me you had no idea what the king’s announcement would be.”
There were few above his station to whom he would ever speak that way, but Tuck had known Francis since his assignment to the monastery as a child. The man had been a mentor and a guide in the path to becoming a man of faith. More than that, the friar considered him a friend.
“It was an omission of necessity, I’m afraid.” The cardinal’s sigh had an edge of frustration. “The king wished it kept absolutely quiet until last night. We… he needed to see everyone’s reactions upon hearing the news.”
Tuck wondered at that. The king answered to no one except the pope, so fear of disapproval couldn’t have been what concerned him. The nobles had no choice but to follow his lead in this, as in all things. So, why would he need to see their reaction?
“What was he looking for?” Tuck asked. The cardinal eyed him for a long minute before answering.
“Treachery,” he said, dropping his voice. “Or signs thereof. A few of his loyal knights and servants were spread throughout the hall, observing the reactions of those who were present.”
Tuck gave this a moment to sink in.
“Did they find anything suspicious?”
“Not that I’m aware of,” the cardinal said.
The king’s announcement weighed heavily on Tuck’s mind, which was part of the reason he’d overindulged. The journey would be filled with danger, the destination even more so. He was a man who enjoyed comfort, such as it was, but here was a way to serve the church in a manner he would never before have conceived. An idea had taken hold of him, and would not let go.
“I wish to go on Crusade with the king and his men,” the friar said. “To attend to their spiritual needs, and help with the battle that awaits them.” There, he had said it. The words shimmered in the air between them.
When first he had been pressed into the service of the Lord as a child, he’d prayed almost ceaselessly that God would not send him to the corners of the earth, ministering to the heathens, but would allow him to stay in England and tend those who were already among the Lord’s flock.
How the years could change a person.
As God was his witness there had been a restlessness growing in him for several years. It came with a conviction that he wasn’t doing as much as he could for the Lord or His people. He woke in the middle of sleep, at least once a fortnight, covered in sweat and shouting part of the Lord’s Prayer—usually the section about deliverance from evil.
Suddenly things seemed so clear.
The Lord had work for him. In the Holy Land.
“I cannot allow it,” the cardinal said firmly. “I need you.”
Tuck blinked in surprise. “There are enough here in the monastery to care for God’s people.”
“And they are fine men. I would trust many of them with my very life.” Francis peered at him intently. “You I would trust with my very soul.”
“I’m flattered,” Tuck replied genuinely, “but what does that mean?”
“I want you close at hand. I believe God will reveal a way for you to be of use.”
“But the Crusade—”
The cardinal cut him off with a hand. “Is nothing with which to concern yourself.”
Friar Tuck rolled the words around in his head, wishing now that he’d shown some restraint the night before. It was hard to think and he felt ashamed at having to work so hard at concepts.
“Am I to infer that you perceive the greatest danger not to be in the Holy Land, but here on our own soil?”
“That is precisely what you are to infer,” Francis said.
“I still do not understand.”
“You know I am a believer in signs, portents, and prophecies.” Tuck nodded. The cardinal looked around suddenly, as though concerned that someone might be listening. Tuck did as well, but they appeared to
be alone in the chapel.
The cardinal rose and gestured for him to follow. The two walked together down one of the corridors of the monastery. They took a left down an intersecting hallway where the walls were much narrower. Then they reached a section of the wall that appeared to be completely ordinary, and stopped.
Tuck knew what was about to occur.
The cardinal removed a torch from its wall sconce and lifted it high until the light shone on a tiny indentation in the stone, a spot worn smooth by the pressure of countless thumbs over the years. It was such a small spot that only one who knew it was there would see it. The cardinal glanced around hastily before jamming with his thumb and shoving. A narrow section of the wall about four feet tall swung away into darkness. They stooped to enter.
Friar Tuck’s chest tightened and his breath grew short. The narrowness of the passage unnerved him, as if it got narrower and narrower with each step, pressing in on him.
Yea, I say unto thee, ’tis easier for a camel to crawl through the eye of the needle than it is for a rich man’s soul to enter the gate of Heaven.
Once inside, they pushed the door shut behind them. The torch flickered in a darkness that was otherwise absolute. They proceeded for several feet and the whole time he struggled to stay hunched far enough to not bump his head on the low ceiling, even as he winced at the feeling of squeezing through the passage, the rough stone catching at his robes as though trying to stop him from continuing forward.
They came to a flight of stairs which they had to descend while bent over nearly double. It was slow, painful work and Tuck had never been sure if it was a necessity of the architecture, or a deterrent to keep out all but the most persistent.
When he actually had to traverse the passage he contemplated that it could simply have been the sadism of the masons who built the monastery.
At last they reached the bottom and were able to stand straight. Tuck began to breathe a little easier. They passed through what looked like an old storage room, long since forgotten. At the back of it the cardinal pressed his thumb to another wall and another door opened, large enough for them to walk through quite easily.
Again they closed it behind them. The cardinal set the torch in a sconce and Tuck looked around the room. Even though he had been here but yesterday, it never ceased to fill him with awe. All manner of objects were present, some of them ancient beyond reasoning. His eyes tracked over the shelves, picking out those that had fascinated him since his indoctrination into the inner circle of the Protectorate.
A cup, plain pottery with a worn seal of the House of Arimathea stamped on its side, used at the Last Supper. Not the Sangreal—no, not the Holy Grail—but a cup from which the Christ and his disciples, the first church fathers, had drunk.
A small tin whistle that had belonged to St. Brigid.
A basket with a swaddle of crumbling cloth that wrapped what were supposed to be the shards of mighty Excalibur.
The axe used to take the head of the apostle Paul, its bronze edge still stained with saint’s blood.
An arrow removed from St. Sebastian, also stained to the fletching.
The shelves were littered with mundane objects as well. The shoe of St. Simeon, and the diary of St. Boedwyn. His eyes simply passed over them. As had always been the case, the relics that drew him were deadly in their own right. From the first moment he’d been entrusted with the knowledge of the chamber’s existence, he’d been fascinated by weapons and objects of war, stained by the spilt blood of the holy. That something meant to kill could be a vessel of God’s power and might—it pulled at a place, a small hollow, nestled deep behind his heart.
On a table sat the book the bard had carried from Ireland.
The cardinal turned to look at him, his face awash with moving shadows. He reached out to a low shelf and removed a book bound in black. He held it up.
“Do you know what this is?”
Tuck didn’t have to look closely. The binding gave it away.
“The Black Book of Carmarthen,” he said quietly. Written in Welsh, the tome contained centuries’ worth of poetry and writings both secular and divine, with quite a bit of early history thrown in, as well—particularly when it came to Arthur and the wizard who had always attended him.
“There are more than sonnets recorded in these pages,” Francis said. “The book contains prophecies of a time when the king will be absent, and the land has been rendered barren.”
Tuck nodded, listening intently.
“I have studied the prophecies, here and elsewhere,” Francis said. “Many come from saints, some were made by the druids, and some even by the lost race who first occupied these lands. All point to the same event.”
“And that is?” Tuck asked, fear gnawing at the edges of his mind.
“That an age of darkness shall fall upon England, and if nothing is done to counter it, that darkness will soon take the rest of the world. Evil will walk free on the earth, roaming where it wills and killing whomever it wishes.”
“How do you know that the prophesied time is upon us?”
“There have been many signs, omens,” he replied, “but the final piece of the puzzle fell into place last night. Yes, I knew the king was planning for England to join the Crusade. Until last night, though, I had no idea that he was planning on leading the army himself. He told me shortly before we joined the feast.” He looked down, his eyes hidden. “I did my best, argued until I couldn’t speak anymore, but I could not dissuade him. The prophecies all indicate that the time of darkness will take root on the day the king sets sail, abandoning his people to their fate.”
“But the king leaves in but a matter of days.”
“Yes, which gives us scarce time to prepare.”
“What is it you want me to do?”
“Pray that I’m wrong, and watch for me. Be my eyes and ears wherever you go. Finally, I need you to protect these relics,” he said, gesturing around them. “None of them can fall into the hands of the enemy. The king may be going off to war in the Holy Land, but the real battle will take place here.”
“Do the prophecies tell us how to oppose this evil?”
“No, not as such. There are hints, but I’ve yet to uncover their meaning. There is one thing all of the prophecies speak of, however. A man who will rise and accept the mantle of leadership, to fight a war while the infirm can only watch. But for him Sovereignty itself may be overturned.”
“Who is he?”
“If only it were that easy.” The cardinal shook his head. “All I’ve been able to glean about this man is that he will be of Sherwood.”
Friar Tuck blinked. “He’ll be a ghost then. That’s all that lives in the forest.”
“I understand no more than you, but I have faith that in time the truth will be revealed to us. Until then, can I count on you to help me?”
“Absolutely,” Tuck answered.
* * *
He awakened in the grave he’d been buried in for centuries, trapped there by the damned wizard. The creature thrashed, straining at his bonds inside the iron box that encased him. He opened his mouth to hiss and howl in alternating patterns. Black fur flared out, a sign of rage. He howled again, and heard his sister-mate answer.
He redoubled his efforts, wicked claws clacking against the metal as he sought to wiggle his jaws free from the iron band that kept his mouth clamped shut. He had been sleeping long, too long, but at last had heard his master’s call, and knew it was time to walk the earth at his side. Together they would rain down destruction and feast on the flesh of the living.
With a terrible screaming sound the metal band around his jaw gave way. Above the prison he could smell dirt. So many smells, so many sins. He thrashed harder, gaining strength as he took in the aromas of human desperation and depravity. Greed, hunger, lust all fed him until he was strong enough to claw his way through the box, then upward through the dirt to finally emerge in the pale moonlight, a monstrous black shadow.
Nearby the ground
heaved and a moment later his sister-mate raised her head to the moon and let out a howl. With a final thrusting of her body she was free of her grave, as well. Together they wove in and out of tombstones as they made their way east. They had been called, and it was time to go to work.
The first thing they had to do was find the prince.
CHAPTER TEN
He sat with his back against one of the hawthorns, the ground dry beneath him. It was a tall one, reaching to its height to try and wrest some sunlight from the oaks above. He nibbled absently on one of the small red pommes, not noticing its dull sweetness.
He’d spent the night in the forest, a place that normally calmed the anger he kept inside himself, an anger that was his oldest companion, but his mind had been in too much turmoil for sleep. Instead he had wandered the glens and ridges of the mighty forest and listened as the spirits of the wood danced around him.
Some of the noises in the night were surely animals, nocturnal and on the prowl, but some were unnatural. Voices that sang snatches of melodies and the patter of feet that were not normal creatures. He spent hours chasing them into the depth of Sherwood, but always they stayed out of his sight and just beyond his reach. Finally exhausted, he declared the game over and sat at the foot of the hawthorn.
His body rested, but not his mind. That ran along, faster than even the feet of the fey.
He thought about his father, a man who on many occasions had proven himself more loyal to the king than to his family. Not a full two harvests would pass before he was off with Richard settling some dispute between lords, or riding the land to survey the borders. Lately he’d taken Robert with him. He was never gone long enough to force Robin into the role of housemaster, but he’d also never gone overseas.
Robin did his part on the land—at least the part he was allowed to do—but it seemed as if neither of his parents wanted him around for very long. His father always preferred the elder son, the two of them so much alike it was almost eerie. His mother had never been anything more than distant toward him and, at times, looked at him with an animosity that chilled him to the bone. She spent all of her time doting on the girls or ignoring everything in favor of her own private studies.
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