Greenwode

by J Tullos Hennig

  “…that I bent the knee, ‘m’lord’….”

  He fled into his father’s chambers as if a demon were after him.

  No, no demons. A demon lad, who’d grown tall and lithe and lovely.

  “Gamelyn, lad. I was just thinking on you.”

  Sir Ian was on the far end, seated in his favorite chair next to his book table. The massive stone fireplace was dark—the spring had been uncommonly warm, after all—but next to that and the upsweep of gabled stone arch, Sir Ian looked small. Frail. He was swathed in furs and woolens despite the heavy draperies pulled over the windows. The room was warm, too close.

  The book table was piled with books, but also had a chessboard set up, crowned here and there with the ornate wooden pieces that Sir Ian had himself carved for the mother of his sons. He had played it, many a time, with first Johan then with Gamelyn—Otho had never cared for it—and now he was playing with Alais, who turned to Gamelyn with a slight smile.

  “Your papa was talking of you, as well, little brother. Did your trip go well?”

  Gamelyn nodded. He wasn’t sure he trusted himself to speak just yet.

  “I think he was hoping you would read to him.” Alais rose, still smiling. She was obviously feeling the heat of the room, clad simply in a sleeveless linen overdress over thin crème muslin. The household keys jangled at her girdle as she approached Gamelyn and laid a dimpled, white hand on his arm. Her next words were for his ears alone. “He’s having a bad day and was worrying after you. I’m glad you came straight up from the stables….” She trailed off in sudden puzzlement, brushed her fingers through his hair, and held up a crumpled leaf. “Did you have an argument with a tree?”

  I might have, at that. At least this time the thought—albeit hysterical—was his own. Not… memory.

  “You do look a bit wild, though—are you too tired to sit with him?”

  Gamelyn shook his head, finally felt he could trust his voice. “I’m all right.”

  “Is the wise woman with you? Do I need to make a welcome for her?”

  “She could not come with me, but she assured me she will, anon. And I have medicine she made special for him.”

  “Well, then.” She gave his cheek a pat then raised her own voice for Sir Ian’s benefit. “I’m going to the kitchens, see about a bite for this wandering son of yours. If that’s all right, Papa?”

  “I wouldn’t mind leaving off this game.” Sir Ian gave his daughter-in-law a mock frown then, aside to Gamelyn, “Alais is trouting me as roundly as she ever does. Never play chess with a woman, son. They defy logic and play on instinct. Women would take the Holy Land, did more of them take up a sword.”

  Alais chuckled and went to him, laid a kiss to his head. “No swords for me. I’m a danger to my own thumbs when I put a knife to the roast.”

  Sir Ian snorted.

  She raised her eyebrows at Gamelyn, her concern obvious.

  Did he look that wild-eyed?

  “I’m fine,” he said again, quite firm, and she smiled.

  “Then I shall leave you and Papa to it.” With a susurrus of blue linen and a waft of clove pomade, she exited.

  “Come sit, boy. Take off your cloak and belts… here.” In the faint light, his eyes seemed sunken into his head, clad in shadows of gray as they focused upon Gamelyn. Sir Ian’s smile, genuinely given, nevertheless stretched too thin.

  It hardly seemed possible that his father had changed so much in a day and night. Of course, Gamelyn himself had changed….

  He would not think upon that, not now.

  “I’ll have someone see to your boots,” Sir Ian continued. “They’re filthy. You’re filthy. You’ve ridden too hard, I wager.”

  “Diamant was eager to go; I let him.”

  “I hope you did not put the wortwife to a pace she could not take….” Sir Ian trailed off, his eyes flickering as Gamelyn started to speak—was it disappointment? “She would not come.”

  “She will. She could not right away leave, that is true, but she promised,” he emphasized, “to come before the se’nnight’s ending, and I believe her. She sent medicine in the meantime.”

  A smile. “That was quite thoughtful. Here, son, take these old slippers of mine.” Sir Ian toed his own sheepskin-lined slippers toward Gamelyn. “Donall is resting, but call the paxman outside my doors and have someone see to those boots.”

  “Nay, Papa, please don’t worry anyone. I’m fine for now.” With every step Gamelyn felt himself relaxing, enough to unbuckle his swordbelt and lay it carefully aside, to shuck both cloak and overcoat and realize how tired he truly was.

  “Whatever did you do to yourself, boy?”

  “Eh? Wha—?”

  “Your arm. Did you have trouble on the road? I keep telling you that the roads can be dangerous, yet we had to set someone after you since so many times you insist on riding alone. What happened, son?”

  Gamelyn realized what his father was concerned about at the same time it came to him that he wasn’t tired enough. Not if the mere sight of that blood-spotted, torn sleeve could raise a tent in his breeks and send his breath tight in the mere space of three heartbeats.

  “I do apologize. For the knife. I figured did you follow, I’d have heard you comin’ for a furlong at least….”

  “It’s nothing. I was clumsy in the barns, nothing more,” Gamelyn blurted, moving to his saddlebags. “Here, let me show you what Mistress Eluned made for you even as I watched.” He pulled both bottles from the protective swath of straw he’d packed around them, held up first one then the other. “She said the best thing to do for you now would be to manage your pain. So you’re to have a measure of this as you need and another of this one before you retire at night, to help you sleep. Where’s your cup, and I’ll pour—”

  “In a moment, boy. Come, sit beside me.”

  Gamelyn obeyed, setting the fired-clay bottles on the table next to the chessboard. He knelt next to his father’s chair, took the bony hands in his own. Sir Ian’s fingers were warm in Gamelyn’s, the skin like overused parchment, dry and too smooth.

  “Manage my pain, eh? No doubt she told you there was not much else to do for me but make me comfortable, eh?”

  Gamelyn stiffened.

  “Never you mind, lad; I know how it is. Whatever time is left will be God’s blessing. I’ve lived a good life, done my duty by Church and Crown, and as a result I’ll leave my boys with the means to make their own lives. It’s enough.”

  The frank acceptance of it hit Gamelyn, hard.

  Don’t go. Don’t leave, not yet.

  To be covered with another voice, napped with velvet and pain: Don’t leave me. Please, don’t go….

  For mad seconds he wished he could lay his head upon his father’s lap and sob out his troubles like a child.

  Acceptance? Nay, his father would never accept this.

  “I won’t say nay to any ease, of late,” his father was musing. “Though pain is good for the soul. No doubt our dear cousin the Abbess would corroborate that.”

  The statement was threaded through with weakness and admittance of guilt. But instead of nodding compliance, irritation niggled at Gamelyn. He leaned forward, gripped tighter to his father’s hands.

  “Then she would be mistaken. You have been a righteous man all your life and now is your time to rest.”

  “Dear lad.” Sir Ian smiled. “She is a very holy woman, and no doubt she has a point… nay,” he soothed as Gamelyn stiffened, “you did not make the journey for naught. I will take the wortwife’s potion, and look hopefully for her visit. I should rather have the strength to end my days on earth upright, rather than in this chair. God will judge my failings, in the end, and that is well enough.”

  “Only a cruel God would deny ease to one of His best!”

  “I’ll have nowt to do with any god as cruel as yours….”

  Silent memory came upon the heels of protest and struck Gamelyn behind the eyes so swiftly that he gasped. He dropped his head into his fathe
r’s lap to hide the sudden sting of tears.

  “There, lad. You seem so sad.” The open concern in his father’s voice was more brine in an already raw laceration. The thin fingers faltered, nevertheless had the strength in them to pull Gamelyn’s face up to meet his.

  “It’s only…,” Gamelyn tried, faltered, then tried again. “I don’t want you to leave me. Not yet. I… I feel like I have only begun to know you.”

  He had never before spoken the words aloud. Never before realized how true they were.

  Sir Ian sighed, nodded. “I feel the same way. Here you are, nearly a man. I would like nothing better than to see you wived and giving me grandchildren. Or”—one eyebrow arched, a return to imperiousness—“knowing you, giving yourself to a higher calling. None of my sons save you have the will or the inclination for the priesthood. You seem to have the necessary—aloofness?—of temperament.”

  Gamelyn barely controlled a wince. Before, he’d always prided himself on his detachment, his ability to be cool and considering….

  “You cold, misbegotten son of a—”

  “I’m not—!”

  His eyes were stinging; Gamelyn looked down, away.

  “I spoke with Abbess Elisabeth before she left for Worksop. She is quite interested in you, Gamelyn. She believes you have a gifted intellect, that with the proper sponsorship you would go far in the Church.” Sir Ian kept patting his hand. “I’m proud of you, son. It would be a worthy choice for your situation. If it is what you truly want, you should have that path.”

  What was wrong with him? The Abbess had obviously not been telling pretty lies, had gone so far as to speak not only to him, but to his father. In fact, it had only been a few days ago that Gamelyn had spoken to Brother Dolfin about it. Only a few days ago, he would have leapt at the chance. Would have left tomorrow, did his father give the word.

  Only a few days ago.

  Before a demon lad had spun him widdershins in a spiral of want.

  Before he had known what it was he longed for, and that had little to do with sterile comforts and safe boundaries, had everything to do with a fae wind that whistled untamed through the green Wode….

  “Gamelyn?”

  He wasn’t sure he trusted himself to speak, merely laid his head once more against his father’s knees and held tight to the thin, strong hands.

  “Son. Don’t worry. I’ll see to your future. I have no intention that you, of all my boys, should have to go begging to anyone.”

  Gamelyn shook his head, finally made himself peer up at his father, give that much comfort. Wicked at the very least, damned at the very best, Gamelyn should repent not only of what he had given into last night, but for sitting beside his dying father and mourning not merely that father, but something gone within himself.

  Gone, with something else taking its place, strong and merciless and indecent.

  I am not the son you meant to raise, Papa, he thought but hadn’t the courage to say. Instead he smiled, said, “I know you will,” and was both heartened and guilt-ridden as his father leaned forward and kissed the top of his head.

  “We will see it done, then.”

  “Well. Our little gadelyng returns.”

  The scorn in Johan’s voice rose irate answer in Gamelyn; he tried to lurch upward from his father’s embrace. Sir Ian didn’t let him, held Gamelyn’s hands in his lap with remarkable strength.

  “I will not tell you again, Johan,” Sir Ian rebuked. “It is not fitting, to call your brother such a thing.”

  Johan was set in a purposeful lounge against the door, all innocence. One would never suspect that he’d just called his brother an itinerant boor—or, in its underpinnings, a gipsy’s bastard. “It’s merely play on his name, Papa. Gamelyn, gadelyng.” He shrugged, smiled. “I meant his wanderings, nothing more.”

  The last time Johan had called his younger brother thus in their father’s hearing, Sir Ian had soundly thrashed him. But such punishment was no longer possible, and Johan was growing bold in that lack...

  Sir Ian let it go, all too easily. “Well. Now I have two of my three best accomplishments in life at my side. Where is Otho?”

  “It looks like you were doing well enough with Gamelyn’s company,” Johan said, his gaze strafing Gamelyn. “Otho is overseeing some ridiculous market-stall haggle. Three vendors claiming the rights to one space… bloody peasants! Too stupid to control their own fancy, let alone govern themselves in anything.”

  “… flirting with death you’re doing, lying with me… lowering himself to root in the dirt with a peasant…”

  Gamelyn winced. Johan’s eyes moved to him, cool and gauging.

  “I see your cup.” Gamelyn rose, giving Sir Ian’s hands a quick squeeze and release. “I’ll fetch it, pour you a drought.”

  “So the old witch had a potion for you?”

  “Don’t call her that!” Gamelyn retorted.

  “Forgive me.” Johan’s eyes belied the apology and glinted, dangerous. “Perhaps, little brother, you can tell me why did you not bring her as your lord father asked?”

  “She had other duties—”

  “More pressing than tending to the mesne lord of her village?”

  “Johan, with your name-calling and doubts you blight the name of a good woman who has offered to help your father in his need,” Sir Ian warned. “She has promised to come by se’nnight’s end.”

  “She’d better,” Johan murmured as Gamelyn passed him. Then, louder, “Forgive me, Papa. I doubt she’s all that old, at that. The forester was in his prime, and I’ve heard rumor tell his wise-woman is as lovely….” Alais came in through the doorway, and he added, “… as our own trothed sister, here.”

  Alais cocked an eyebrow at him and didn’t stop her forward progress. She held a large tray laden with roast chicken, early lettuces, and fresh bread. “Make yourself useful for more than buttering the bread of your brother’s wife, Johan, and clear the table. I brought enough for us all.”

  Instead, Johan pulled another, larger table close to Sir Ian. “Too many bloody books to bother moving.”

  “You’re as fond of that word as….” Gamelyn hesitated just before he said, Rob.

  “And who would that be, little brother?” Johan queried, quick as a ferret.

  “It doesn’t matter, does it? Save he’s right,” Sir Ian countered. “You are overfamiliar with that word.”

  Alais settled the tray, watched Gamelyn pour a small dose from the stoneware bottle into Sir Ian’s cup. “Is that brew from the wortwife, then?”

  Gamelyn nodded and handed it to his father.

  “Good. No more of this nonsense from the leech. He’d have you racked with pain, he would, and bleed you to death in the meantime.”

  “He’s a good man,” Sir Ian protested, with a grimace at the potion. “Why do these things never taste good?”

  “I doubt not he’s virtuous; it’s his healing skills I question,” Alais quipped. “As to the brew, consider the sharp taste penance. I hope it works. We’ve missed you in the hall.”

  Gamelyn saw her glance at Johan as she said it. She took Johan’s slights and attempts at intimidation, rolled them into a hard ball, and lobbed them back in his face. Gamelyn wished he had her nerve.

  Of course, Otho was a lot bigger than Johan, and had basted his head several times when Johan had gotten too overbearing.

  She’s Otho’s wife, after all. His… property.

  Oh, God! Gamelyn nearly dropped the bottle, tightened his grip just in time. Aye, he’d had such thoughts before, in scattered snippets, but why now? So many, so close together, so aggressive.

  He knew why.

  If he ever saw Rob Loxley again, he’d baste his head.

  “Maybe Gamelyn’s new paramour has a dirty mouth to go with the dirty feet.”

  Gamelyn whipped his head around to stare at Johan, who crossed his arms and smirked.

  “Well, lapin?”

  “Paramour?” Alais blinked, then smiled. “Ah, is that why yo
u’ve been gone so often, Gamelyn? Could it be our little brother’s absentmindedness has a good reason?”

  “I… I don’t know what you mean,” Gamelyn retorted.

  “Oh, come. Confession is good!” Johan came over and slapped Gamelyn on one shoulder. The blow looked conspiratorial, but could have in truth felled an ox. Gamelyn didn’t stagger, refused to give so much as a glare.

  “Paramour?” Sir Ian grumped. “What is this?”

  In reward for such self-control, Johan merely laid an arm on Gamelyn’s shoulders. “Tell them, brother. Don’t be shy.”

  “Perhaps our lad has finally found love.” Alais was quartering the chicken, preparing a plate for him, but her smile toward Gamelyn was fond, the tease gentle.

  “He’s in love, all right,” Johan said, “Love that counts. The forester’s daughter holds his cod-wrap in her hands, sure enough.”

  The uttered “her” gave Gamelyn leave to once again breathe. Unfortunately, relief became anger which, as usual, had no place to go but deep in his belly, burning.

  “Johan,” Alais warned, “one day you’ll go too far.”

  She was ignored.

  “How lucky for our little brother that he had dear Papa’s blessing to visit this last time?”

  “And here we were, just talking of your future in the Church. I pray that you have not taken undue advantage of Mistress Eluned’s hospitality.” Sir Ian’s expression was severe.

  Gamelyn was beginning to feel like a rabbit indeed—one in a trap. “I have not!” he protested. “They have treated me courteously, and I would not betray….” His voice choked in on itself.

  “I canna tell you not to follow my son….”

  “Gamelyn?” Sir Ian’s voice had not softened. “Have you taken liberties with the forester’s daughter?”

  Gamelyn raised his chin and said with complete conviction, “No, my lord. I have not.”

  Sir Ian peered at him, then nodded, satisfied. “It would have surprised me, surely. You have been such a good, chaste lad.”