He picketed Arawn to a spot with scarce forage but where Rob had a clear shot should any predator think to venture close. He was too tired to bother with a fire, and the gelding had gleaned plenty of opportunity to graze on their outing and take a good long drink from the river. Approaching his little cavern shelter, Rob yawned, grateful and eager for his pile of furs….
Stopped. In sheer instinct, his hand went to his knife. It quivered upon the cord-wrapped hilt, relaxed.
Flowers were the first thing he saw—a riot of colors laid upon a bed of ferns.
The entry had been swept clean and the fire pit tidied, and a tiny cauldron nestled in rocks and rags to keep it reasonably warm. When he lifted the lid, the smell that wafted upward made his mouth water: a rich man’s helping of meat, stewed with roots and sharp, new greens.
And there was a sizeable mound of fresh-mown grass just to the side of the little cave.
The little girl had indeed told her tale, and it had indeed had results—though not ones he had ever imagined. Not without some anxiety, Rob contemplated the pottage. Even given the standard of living that Blyth’s peasants seemed to enjoy, several families had no doubt stinted themselves to make this offering. What had he done to deserve it other than camp in their croft and frighten a child?
He tensed, half expecting the Horned Lord’s presence to occupy his senses. But the ruthless tension did not come, his own instincts telling him more than any fae manifestation of tynged would.
Perhaps he didn’t feel altogether worthy of or able for it, but he was what he was, and the peasants of Blyth were acknowledging that: the presence that lived in him, the magic that manifested through him. Marion had it right—this was love, leavened with a dollop of fear that made Rob realize anew the weight of both.
It also made it clear to him that to not accept such a weight would blunt the arrow tip of their courtesy. It would profane their offering, mock their belief.
It would be… cowardly.
Arawn greeted the fodder with a nicker that suggested he was skin and bones instead of a nice layer of fat between sleek hide and muscle. The horse certainly had no foolish and overcontemplated uncertainties such as his master, accepted what came to him and the moment in which it came.
Rob smiled, and went to do likewise.
“HAVE YOU seen it?”
“I have.”
“Where?”
“Aye, where?”
Gamelyn was waiting for Ricardo in the armory, stripped down to muslin braies and limbering up his shoulders by swinging his arms back and forth. It was still abominably hot, particularly at this time of day, and every opening that could be opened was, to catch the lightest breeze from the still, thick air.
So the voices, coming from just outside the armory’s flung-open sally-port, were easily discerned.
“Rose saw’t wanderin’ the woods as she was gatherin’ the pigs. And I saw’t meself, in the north pastures whilst I brought in the sheep.”
“It’s an omen, I tell you.”
“Aye, but what kind, I’m asking?”
“What could such a thing mean but for th’ good?”
“It’s no’ just a thing. Maisie actually saw ’im close, din’t you, Maisie?”
“Maisie ran from ’im!” A young voice, teasing.
“He… scared me.” Another, even younger voice.
“No doubt he scared you, young miss, because you were out later’n you should’ve been. Maybe next time you’ll gather your mushrooms before dusk settles.”
“But she saw’t, mind you, saw the Great Stag!”
The Great Stag? Eyes narrowing, Gamelyn crept over to the sally-port, listening.
“He was so tall, and dark,” the young voice—Maisie, it seemed—returned. “He had his bow drawn, and th’ fire beneath him—”
“Behind him, y’ mean.”
“Nay, I’d swear he stood over it. And he was… awash in black, he was. He kept changing, from beast t’ man.”
“And hooded, you said!”
This brought shocked whispers and murmurs. It also brought a harsh intake of breath from Gamelyn as he leaned against the sweating stones of the wall, strained to hear.
“The Hunter showing hisself w’ the cowl… that’s an omen.”
“We could ask the si woman.”
Good luck with that, was Gamelyn’s disgruntled thought.
“There’ll be no bothering Herself with such a simple thing. I’ve already gone, yesterday, and left an offering to placate Him for our trespass.”
Murmurs of satisfaction all around.
“Better we keep up such gifts. Then He’ll smile upon us. Harvest’s still to come. This weather might be gey uncomfortable for people, but ’tis good for our crops.”
“And no harm to tickle the Hunter’s fancy.”
More chuckles. “Maybe next time he’ll show himself as a handsome man to woo a maiden. That would be an honor!”
Maiden. Hunter. Stag.
“Summer and Winter will die for their Lady, and each for the other, aye?”
Escape, no longer the arcades and arches of chill stone walls and the smooth wood of altars, but sunlight through trees, wind-creak and green.
Dreams.
“He’s tricky. Your faintest, fondest dream or a harrowing nightmare….”
That was an understatement.
“You aren’t my son… you’re the one’s breaking my son’s heart….”
“No.” It was a whimper, shameful and shamed. Upon the heels of that came the thought, unbidden: Could I have broken his heart? Do I have that much power?
Is he still out there, waiting?
“I’ve been waiting….”
Blood on his hands. Rob’s blood. “No,” he growled. “I won’t let that happen.”
Is he waiting? Would he? Does he care as much as…
Gamelyn bit his lip, took a deep breath, finished it because… because it wouldn’t go away. It was never going to go away.
As much as I do?
He was tired of being unwanted. Untouched. Cold. This was desolation. This was loneliness.
Was there a point to avoiding Hell, if one was already there?
HIS MOTHER met him where they’d agreed, on the second day after their arrival, and she was dressed for travel.
She left her escort down by the great road connecting Nottingham to York, with either side of it planted fields and villeins bent working, the shadow of the castle looming over them.
It looked not so imposing up on the hillside, where Rob squatted on a great slab of rock half buried in the rich earth, letting Arawn graze and watching the approach of a petite, plump figure that said to him in so many ways: Mother.
She sat down next to him with a huff of breath and toed off her boots to let her heels rub the fresh grass. “Well. I’ve done what I can for the lord. He’s dying and he knows it; got a lump in his belly that I can all but feel growing. But I’ve made some good simples for him and told him if he wants to be aware, he has to stop being bled. The second son and his wife, thank the Lady, are both reasonable and see that the leech is of no use. The eldest son thinks he knows the right of everything, though, so we’ll see.”
“And… Gamelyn?”
“That one is confused as a hare in the blossoming time. I’d almost feel sorry for him. But I don’t.” She reached out, touched Rob’s cheek. “Not when he’s playing such a game with you.”
Confused. Rob wanted to ask more, but realized it would do him no good. Eluned had made up her mind; he couldn’t blame her for it, but there it was.
“So. Are y’ ready to come home?”
Rob shook his head. “I waint leave, not yet. I’ve more yet to see to, several days riding at the least, and still the south to cover.”
“Then cover the south on our way,” Eluned reasoned. “Come on home with me, son. I can send the earnest soldier back… or, now I think on it, he’ll insist on seeing us home. He’s a soldier by necessity, not by choice. A nice, respectf
ul lad of the heath who still follows the old ways. More our kind than….”
“Than Gamelyn,” Rob finished for her.
“Rob, you’re chasing after sommat’ll just break your heart… that’s already breaking your heart. You don’t have to stay here to finish your tallies. And your father will likely be home by now. He needs us—all of us—about him now.”
He needs you, not me. He… looks at me and sees… something he doesn’t like. I don’t understand. Everything’s changed, Mam, and I don’t understand any of it.
It’s like the Horned Lord is… walking through him. As if my da’s become more spirit than the Lord Himself, growing less instead of more, and I don’t know what to do about that, I don’t know how to change it!
But this… this moment, this place, this possibility? This I do know. I have to reach for it. Have to try.
“Da would want me,” Rob said, hoarse, “to finish what I started.”
Eluned peered at him, then looked down the hillside, toward Blyth. “I never thought we’d be this involved in noblemen’s games.” Rob started to speak; she shook her head, continued, “You’ll need to take care, son. There’s a woman, there, one who had nowt but the blackest looks for what I was doing for Gamelyn’s poor father. She’s gone the now, left yesterday, but she’ll be back. She’s kin to them, and the old man is keen she be his confessor.” Eluned gave a shudder. “All I saw when I looked at her was a raven, all that black, and her picking at the bones of dying men….”
“The Abbess.”
Her gaze slid to Rob’s, beneath a frown. “She is an abbess, aye.”
“Wearing a great sodding cross, all jeweled and glittering?” He still couldn’t think on it without a stabbing ache in his breast.
“I’m not sure I’d use the ‘sodding’,” Eluned retorted, her gaze never leaving him. “But, aye.”
“She’s the one whose soldier Will sent to hell.” She’s the one who’ll see me there, too, for what I canna guess.
“Rob,” his mother said, “what d’you See in this woman?”
Eluned had always been too canny. But he wasn’t going to tell her this. No parent should have to see their child’s death, even a hint of it.
“Rob.”
He shook his head. “’Tis no matter. I’ll be careful, Mam. I promise.”
“Rob, please. Come away with me, now. There’s nowt but danger and heartbreak here for you. Already the castle’s beginning to stir with tales.”
“Because you’re there.”
“Aye, and I’m leaving, but what power is stirring the woodlands about Blyth remains.” She reached out, put a firm hand to his knee, shook it. “You, Rob. They’ll take notice.”
Rob was silent for a moment, then took her hand. He rose to his haunches, with both hands turned hers palm up, and breathed across it.
Her brows drew together, and she put her hand to his face. “Rob. Son.”
“They’ll take notice, aye,” he answered. “They’ll have to. And they’ll have to because the dance has begun again. Can you no’ feel it?”
“Rob.”
“You canna See my future, what tynged spins out from the spiraling in, but I can. I can, and I have to follow it, Mam.”
She paled as he said aloud what she had never told him, and her fingers twitched against his face.
Then she nodded and, leaning forward, kissed the cheek warmed from her hand. “Take care, son.”
And he watched, still crouched on his haunches, as she pulled her boots back on, rose and walked, head high, down the hillside toward the soldier who’d see her back safe to Loxley.
Rob watched them ride away until they were two tiny specks past the gray carapace of Blyth Castle. Then he put his head in his hands, whispering to himself, feeling the whispers and the breath of them swirling about in his chest like smoke and mist, then like a spun lattice of leaves caught in a whirlwind.
Then he opened his eyes, extended his hands, palms up, from his breast. Released the magic; breathed across his palms only this time with words, and a power that spun, a dervish whipping leaves and dirt, ebbing and flowing down the hillside and over the gray stones of the castle:
“Anadlu eich tynged.”
Breathe your destiny, nobleman’s son. Swallow or choke on it, ’tis time to choose.
“DO YOU need escort, m’lord?”
There were times that Much’s attentiveness was downright daunting. Gamelyn paused from where he’d just given a shift to Diamant’s saddle. “Do you have some kind of trip wire stretched across the door to my chambers, Much?”
“Milord?”
Gamelyn took up Diamant’s girth another notch. Diamant, of course, greeted this with pinned ears and a switch of his tail.
At Diamant’s head, the stable lad—John—gave a murmur and shot Much a quelling look. Gamelyn saw it, because his attention was entirely too focused on this particular stable lad and what experience he and Gamelyn had vicariously shared. Not to mention, Gamelyn had already had an intense and one-sided discussion this morning with the lad about how he really did want to saddle his own horse this morning, thank you.
Gamelyn slipped a hand into his pocket and offered Diamant a bit of swede; the stallion took it greedily and consented to have his girth taken up the rest of the way without letting loose a grouchy and half-aimed cow-kick.
A grin tugged at his lips as he asked, “Much, do you also know when I go to the garderobe?”
“Of course, milord. ’Tis my duty, to be available should you need me.”
Gamelyn snorted back a laugh—tried to, anyway. It was a failed effort; he leaned against Diamant’s neck and gave in to laughter. If it had a slightly hysterical tinge… ah, well.
Much and John were trying not to smile; they had that look on their faces that all serfs seemed to when they were trying to conceal that they thought their masters absolutely mad.
Gamelyn gave Diamant another slice of swede: apology for piling into him. “Don’t follow me this time.”
“Milord, your brother—”
“You are my paxman, or so my brother ordered. Yes?”
“Aye, milord.”
“Then as my paxman, I order you not to follow me, Much. Just this time, I want to ride out alone. Alone,” he reiterated as Much started to protest. Once again there was an odd exchange of glances between Much and John.
“I trust that’s the end to it, then.”
“Aye, milord.” Much stood, looking somewhat at a loss.
“On your mount, then,” Gamelyn said, bright. “Go ride patrol with the hunters.”
“Aye, milord.” Still looking befuddled, Much retreated.
Gamelyn finished seeing to Diamant in silence. Of course, that was mostly how it was around the little stable lad. Gamelyn had always thought him mute, until….
He clenched his teeth. The feelings that swamped him every time he thought of anything to do with Rob were… complicated.
Gamelyn wasn’t even sure why, but then, he wasn’t sure what he thought he was doing. Wasn’t sure it would end other than in a frustrating ride in the forest chasing his own tail, and that was probably all he deserved.
He took Diamant’s bridle, started forward only to find that the stable lad wasn’t budging. Gamelyn frowned, started forward again.
John was still there, patient and unmoving. Then he let loose of Diamant’s bridle—with a stroke to the black nose—and brought his hands to his own head, ducked low.
Gamelyn watched him in absolute bewilderment, blinked as John straightened, hands outstretched. In those hands was the leather cord he’d worn about his neck. At the end of it was a wood-and-ceramic carving. Gamelyn’s memory jogged itself.
It looked to be a stag’s head.
It looked to be the same stag’s head that Rob had, some se’nnights previous, put about this lad’s neck.
And John was making it plain that he wanted to place it about Gamelyn’s neck.
Gamelyn shook his head. “No. Thank you. It’s yo
urs, I know. He… gave it to you….” The very fact he’d noticed such a thing was a confession in itself.
John frowned, shook his head, and held the necklet up once more. Since there seemed to be no help for it, Gamelyn allowed him to thread it over his head and tuck it beneath his tunic. It was warm from the lad’s own body heat, tingling against Gamelyn’s breastbone. John stepped back, put his hands to his face, and blew a breath across them. The breath quivered against Gamelyn’s hair and, though it seemed impossible, the stag head ornament seemed also to vibrate.
Then John spoke. “’Twill protect you, lord. And help you find him.”
Inconceivable. Gamelyn said, hoarse, “I’m not looking for anyone.”
“Yes, lord.” The stable lad bowed a retreat and vanished into the barn’s shadows.
Entr’acte
“ARE YOU sure, Deirdre?”
“I would stake my life on it, Reverend Lady.”
Worksop Abbey was silent, dark. Its main solar was lit only by the spastic flicker of several fat candles against the inner wall. Their voices did not even carry to the outer room, where several attendants slept, and Abbess Elisabeth’s tread, back and forth, was nigh silent. In privacy, and beneath the humid press of night, she had shed wimple and gorget as well as the voluminous cuculla she wore when her official capacity was called upon. She wore a plain nightdress, sleeveless, and her wheat-colored hair, cropped close, was lank with sweat.
Deirdre was clad in much the same fashion. Normally she would sleep in the outer room, with the others, but her Abbess had required her presence and Deirdre always complied.
It was useful, Elisabeth considered, to have one so devoted, and so mindful of their own redemption. Deirdre was a constant reminder that even those imagined eternally lost could be saved, with God’s help.
“It has been a long time, and then I was merely another poor sinner in a gathering of pagan idolaters. But I remember her. My family and I, we had come from Alfreton—a long way, but we considered it well worth it, then. The Maiden was of the old blood, it was rumored; not just from the Welsh Marches, but deeper still, an unbroken line to the fae folk. And to see Hunter taking Maiden to wife not just in ritual, but in troth… it was considered fair luck to witness.”
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