Much crawled closer to the edge of the road as they drew near to his hiding place. Their voices came to his ears.
“…used to be something,” the taller man said to his companion. “I was a sergeant of the guard.”
“I remember,” the shorter one said. He was older than the tall man, armor pushed out across a stomach it wasn’t forged to fit. “You were an arsehole about it, too. I’m glad you’re the same rank as me now.”
“I’m still higher rank. I’m a private first rank.”
“You made that up,” the short one replied glumly. “We’re all just privates since the Sheriff took over the garrison.”
The taller man grunted. They took a few more dawdling steps before he spoke again.
“I don’t like them.”
The shorter guard shrugged.
“They don’t care.”
“Damn Hessians.”
“Those ain’t Hessians.”
“How would you know?”
“My wife’s half Hessian.”
Tall man looked at him. “I didn’t know that.”
“Why would you?” the short guard said. “Regardless, those soldiers ain’t Hessian, but they are King John’s men.”
“He’ll go too far one of these days.”
“Maybe, but so what? Who’ll stop him? Every witch and devil in the land is enslaved by him,” the short one said.
“And what does that make us, that we consort with the man who deals with dark forces?”
“Smart,” the short one replied. “Survivors. Alive and well-fed.” They stopped walking as the short one pulled off his boot and shook out a small stone. “Unlike everyone else.”
“But God—”
“God has abandoned this land. At least He will after today. He’s off in Jerusalem with the king, and cares nothing for the likes of us. We have to take care of ourselves.” He slipped his foot back into the boot, shivering from the cold.
“It doesn’t feel right.”
“What doesn’t?”
“The monastery.”
“What has the monastery ever done for you? All they’ve done for me is take my tithe so the monks don’t have to work.” The short one spat on the ground and started walking again. “I say good riddance.”
The lanky soldier began to walk, shaking his head. “Burning the place still seems wrong.”
Much recoiled in horror. He stumbled back, sliding down the side of the ditch. His pants scraped against loose stones, tumbling them free to beat the dry winter rushes. He froze at the noise, praying they’d not heard him.
If they did, they gave no notice.
“If we drag arse enough,” the tall man said, “it will be ashes by the time we arrive. We might work for the devil, but we don’t have to participate in all his handiwork.”
The two kept walking, voices fading from his ears as Much backed away from the road. When he thought it safe, he fled toward home, cutting through the edge of Sherwood.
I have to tell Father.
His father would know what to do.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Young Much spilled out of the trees where the forest crept close to the river. He and his family lived in a small house behind the mill.
He was surprised to find the mill empty. Even here in the midst of winter, midday was the time of hustle and bustle, the village wives coming in to have their corn or grains turned to meal and flour, but the building was shuttered and the door barred. Things had been different this winter, harder, and people brought in less, but still the door should have been open. His scalp went tight with worry.
Moving quickly, he entered the house, pausing for a second to let his eyes adjust from the sun outside to the gloom inside. His mother only allowed candles or lamps at sundown, making them last longer to save money. His vision was just beginning to adjust when the smell hit him.
Blood.
The air in the house was rich with the iron tang of blood.
His mouth went dry, heart clenching into a fist that squeezed his throat shut. He pushed through the front room, moving toward the back of the house. He didn’t call out—he couldn’t—but his mind raced.
What has happened to my parents? he wondered frantically. Bandits? The Sheriff’s men?
Noise came then from the back room, the room where they ate their meals. Light spilled under the closed door.
He crept to it.
Put his hand on the rough wood.
Pushed.
The door swung open.
The warm glow of candles washed over him, carrying the sweet scent of honeyed beeswax. The table was covered by the body of a stag. It was a massive, majestic creature, a true prince of the forest. A slender arrow shaft jutted from its breast where its heart had been pierced.
Robin of the Hood smiled at him from behind it.
Relief flooded him as his mother and father came in from the kitchen. They were alive and well. Understanding followed the relief. They’d closed the mill because of Robin, to keep his visit a secret and to keep his gift of game a secret, as well. Meat was a rare thing for the family, a visit by the great man even rarer.
Robin stood straight and tall, face shining with a light that made him look like one of the angels that Friar Tuck would tell stories about. St. Michael the Archangel made flesh. He wasn’t the biggest man Much had ever seen, but he filled the room with his presence. He was a king and an outlaw, the dark justice of Sherwood. Not everyone knew that, but Much knew, because Much listened and watched, and those at the monastery had trusted him when they were battling the pox. Just being in his presence made Much feel like he could be better, wanted to be better, nobler, more heroic.
He smiled back, he couldn’t help it.
“There’s the lad with the ears of a fox and the eyes of a hawk,” Robin said. “I can tell even now that you have brought news of great importance. It burns in your eyes.”
Much swelled with pride and snuck a quick look at his father to see if he’d noticed the praise Robin had given him. His father nodded at him, and Much thrilled for the second time.
The moment passed, though, as Much remembered the urgency of his information. The smile left his face as quickly as it had come.
“I have news, but it isn’t good.”
“Go ahead and say it, son,” his father urged.
Much swallowed. “I overheard two soldiers on the road. There were a whole lot of them. They said the Sheriff plans to burn the monastery.”
The news fell into the midst of them, and lay as still as the corpse cooling on the table.
“He wouldn’t dare,” his mother breathed after a moment of silence. Her hand flew into the sign of the cross.
“Wouldn’t he?” his father asked. “He dares much since his arrival. He’s taxed us to poverty, and hurt our friends and neighbors. He’s evil personified.”
“But the church!” His mother tore at her apron, cheeks red and wet with tears. “How could he?”
“I assume with torches and fuel, Capricia.” His father’s voice was as harsh as his words. “Now get a grip on yourself!”
Robin stepped around the table. All cheer was gone from his features. His face shone with a dark light, features carved into hard lines. Much imagined the Angel of Death’s countenance would look exactly like that. Robin picked up his bow and headed for the door.
Much scrambled out of the way.
Robin stopped and laid a hand on his shoulder.
“Thank you, lad.”
“Where are you going?” Much’s father asked.
“To put an end to this tyranny once and for all.” Robin’s eyes glinted darkly. “Even if it kills me.”
* * *
Three times.
Three times that morning, imps of the devil had interrupted Friar Tuck’s supplications to the Lord, showing him dark and frightening visions so disturbing he’d barely been able to speak.
He’d always had such visions, though sporadically. Since Cardinal Francis had broken the devil
’s hold on him they had intensified, coming almost every night and with a clarity that shook him. They boded ill, not just for the day, but for the future of everyone in Nottingham.
Tuck was sure of it.
The village on the edge of Sherwood Forest was one of his personal favorites to visit. The walk from the monastery was a bit long for his short stride, but the road was even and it gave him time to think. He passed villagers in the snow-covered fields, looking for stragglers of wheat or corn, tending shivering sheep and cattle who ate frozen chaff, and combing roadside plots of weeds for any wild vegetables that might be hardy enough to grow beneath the hard, cold ground.
They hadn’t waved to him, hadn’t looked up, simply continued to work. They were good people, simple and made pure by hard work, good harvest, and the word of God. It was the way life had worked for generations. It was what the people deserved.
They deserved protection.
They deserved their king.
God’s plan had been usurped.
The village chapel was where he met those who should protect the people in the absence of the nation’s true defender, King Richard. God had called the Lionheart away to other tasks, across the ocean to defend the true faith.
More than once, however, Friar Tuck had thought that the king might have been heeding a different voice.
Then he would do penance for harboring such thoughts and suspicions.
But really, it was hard for him to dodge those fiery darts when tyrants were left in charge, tormenting the people and taking from them the precious little they had.
Soldiers came at the backs of tax collectors like a plague of armed locusts, to strip the people of the fruits of their hard work. They forced the villagers to load wagons full of their harvest to be taken away, leaving behind only scraps and starvation. The desire to express his wrath in a physical way rode him hard.
His burden on behalf of the people weighed around his neck like a stone.
He believed—no, he knew—that God would not long suffer his children to remain in such a state. Had not God himself called up heroes to fight for the people in the world? To lead them into battle?
One in particular.
Even if he was reluctant to accept his destiny.
Tuck left the chapel, making his rounds. The visions he’d experienced that morning remained vivid in his memory.
During the morning’s visions, he’d heard the incessant chattering and whispering of imps and demons, plotting even now to make the plight of the people harder. They schemed to plunge England into a state of darkness, to cut it off from the Creator, and make it a loathsome place where the Devil himself would walk freely. A desolation from which he could launch attacks against all of Christendom.
The first vision had been of a dark place, deep in the heart of some forgotten, God-forsaken wilderness. Everything was dead. Everything. Trees once majestic and laden with life had been reduced to twisted husks. Nothing grew in that place—no animals, no birds, not even the lowest crawling thing. The stench of death and evil lay heavy upon it. Something terrible had happened there, something so foul and blasphemous that the place itself had been cursed for the remainder of time, and even Almighty God had turned his back upon it.
Then the demons revealed the end of the first vision. It was of Tuck himself standing in the middle of that wretched place, screaming desperately for God to hear him.
But the Lord was silent.
The second vision blasted his soul as the first one faded.
He saw a spoiled bog. Dead creatures floated on its surface, bloated and rotting, half-submerged by the weight of their slowly dissolving flesh. The air was so rank, so choked with poison, that he could not breathe. A man—no, a creature—rose out of the bog as though ascending from Hell itself. When at last it stood free of the scum-crusted pond it was more than a foot taller than the average man.
Strange designs were tattooed onto its arms and chest, spilling under raw skin across slabs of muscle. Antlers grew from its head, tangled and gnarled like a bramble of wicked bone, and its feet were not feet at all but black cloven hooves. Its eyes glowed the crimson of spilled blood. A horsehide cloak and loincloth were its only coverings.
It threw back its head and laughed, and out of its mouth spilled perversions and filth to which the friar had been forced to listen. While he watched this abomination, the imps whispered in his ear that the doom of Robin Longstride was at hand, for here was his slayer.
Friar Tuck tried desperately to shake off these dark thoughts as he headed across the square. There were things to which he needed to attend, and besides, one could never trust demons to tell the truth. Their currency was lies and perversion.
These thoughts kept him from noticing the figure who watched him with amusement from a few feet away.
“You look to be in better spirits,” a voice said. “Have you been at a secret cache of good monkish whiskey?”
Friar Tuck stopped mid-stride. Alan-a-Dale sat on the edge of the village well. He’d donned a salmon-colored tunic, which was tucked into blue-checkered pants. A lemon-and-grass cloak pinned over both made him a bright splash painted on the dull backdrop of the village.
A simple wooden flute hung from the silver scale belt at his waist. With it he could form a tune or charm a sparrow. His ancient yew harp rested in slender hands and he wore a heavy gold torc around his slender neck, both of them older than even the monastery.
He was a minstrel, a skald, the very image of a Celtic bard stepped from the pages of a book. Alan strummed the harp, lifting his smooth voice along the scale.
Oh, I once knew a friar who loved him some ale
Had it for breakfast and supper without fail
He drank and he drank until he was ever so fat
I wonder what the good Lord would think about that
The bard ended with a flourish and a laugh.
“A full belly and a warm hearth are all the thanks I get,” Tuck growled, “for looking after the wretched, depraved souls, lost and wandering in the devil’s own wilderness.” He gave Alan a serious look, and added, “Souls such as your own.”
As he wondered why Alan was approaching him in public, instead of contacting him at the monastery or in the forest, Tuck tried to rid himself of the third vision the demons had shown him that morning. Yet as he stared at his friend’s smiling face, he couldn’t help remember what he had seen.
The demons had shown him Alan-a-Dale, draped in chains of black iron, trapped in a dark and terrible dungeon.
Beaten.
Tortured.
Swollen, his face was nearly unrecognizable, cheekbones broken and his skin painted with his own blood.
Bards were sacrosanct, untouchable, accorded great leniency in return for speaking the truth. Their satire could be so harsh that it could cut skin, yet they were depended upon for news and gossip, sought by king and peasant alike.
In the vision, Tuck had watched as a figure cloaked in darkness pulled a wicked knife from a bucket of hot coals. It glowed red, and as the vision had dissolved into darkness, all that was left were screams and the smell of cooking meat in his nose.
He shook his head to clear the image from his mind.
“Let’s go into the chapel,” Tuck suggested for the benefit of prying ears, “that I might better pray for your wayward soul.” Alan nodded, and followed him inside.
As soon as the door was shut, Tuck turned to him.
“What has brought you here,” he hissed, “dressed as such?”
“I’ve decided it was high time I took my position as a true bard.”
Friar Tuck frowned, but remained silent.
“What is it, my friend?” Alan asked, and he smiled. “Do I not look fine?”
“It makes you a target,” the friar replied.
“I am already a target,” he said. “We all are. Mayhap this way I can draw the fire from the rest of our merry band of fellows.”
“That’s not the point.”
Sudden
ly the church door flew open, crashing against the wall and causing the statues of saints to jitter and jig inside their cubbyholes. Tuck spun as quickly as his girth would allow.
“This is the house of God,” he bellowed. “Show some respect.”
Alan-a-Dale touched him on the shoulder.
“Don’t be so harsh,” he said. “It’s just a lad.” Tuck could see how Alan would make such a mistake. Slender and wiry, in the androgynous, pre-bloom stage of youth, and dressed in the rough clothes of the village boys, Lenore was very tall for a girl—taller than the friar himself already. She was short of breath, as if she had run a long distance. Her cheeks were full of color, eyes wide with panic.
“What is it?” he asked her. “What’s wrong, child?”
“The Sheriff,” she said between gulps of air. “He’s coming.”
Friar Tuck blinked. The Sheriff rarely put in an appearance himself, usually relying on his lackeys to do his dirty work. Whatever was happening, it couldn’t be good.
“Go out the back door and return to the monastery,” he said, shooing her away. “Go! Quick like a bunny.”
She nodded, gathered herself, and scampered through the church.
As soon as she was gone they heard the clop of horse’s hooves approaching on the road at a rapid pace.
“What does the devil’s bastard want today?” Friar Tuck hissed.
“Perhaps to confess his sins,” Alan offered sarcastically. “I’m sure they are many.”
* * *
Moments later, a tall, angled form darkened the doorway, blocking the afternoon sun from outside. Black eyes glittered from the shadow cast by a shock of white-blonde hair. White teeth flashed, and the friar couldn’t tell if it was a smile or a grimace.
The man stepped in, swinging booted feet, the hobnailed soles chiming out small sparks against the flagstone floor. A wide-bladed sword hung from his hip, and one gloved hand was on the hilt as he entered the church. Friar Tuck bristled, fighting to keep his lip from turning up in disdain.
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