Summerwode, page 1
part #4 of The Books of the Wode Series
Book Two of the Wode
Being a Tale of Robyn Hode
(a.k.a. Robin Hood)
- Dedication -
To the readers—
Without whom those of us cursed/blessed to be storytellers
would just be gibbering to the shadows on the wall.
- Prelude -
Nottingham Castle
Waxing of Oimelc
(Feast of the Maiden), 1194 CE
CANDLES, EVERYWHERE.
Full dozens of them illuminated the east-facing solar, commingling with the roaring hearth to banish murk from stubborn corners. Nevertheless, shadows lingered. In alcoves they tarried, and from without the light-filled sanctuary, they crept over stone walls into the stair beyond, dispersed only by an inadequate spatter of gilt to mark comings and goings.
And when the candles thought to gutter, John, Count of Mortain and Lord of Gloucester, demanded more.
Nightmares lingered in Nottingham Castle.
He knew why. Comprehended the realities—all of them—as few others might. Still, he craved light even as he nursed its reminders. The possibilities. The impediments… aye, the impediments.
It had been a right bloody bastard of a fortnight.
One of his favourite castles invaded—not by storm and fire, but by a horde of savages who’d stolen his best piece in a crooked, desperate game. The hunt after, a failure. The removal from Blyth Castle to here in Nottingham, a dogged try at re-establishing what political ties he could, dispelling an enduring terror of spectres from a hellish Hallows…
And then, this.
He’d known it was coming. But, still.
John gave the fire a savage thrust with the iron poker. Sparks fled upward and flared, albeit cold, against the emerald adorning his left hand. The centre log collapsed with another burst of light. Spilled gold over the clenched parchment.
“My lord, I—”
“Count. You will address Us as Count John. Or my liege.” Poker still in hand, John put his backside to the fire, contemplating both the hastily vacated bed and the figure to whom he spoke, standing shadowed by the post drapes. “For despite circumstance rendering Us low, We are nevertheless the latter. Yes?”
“Of course, my liege,” the figure soothed. “I was merely—”
“Questioning me. And what else would you have me do? Just knuckle under whilst my brother beggars England? First his bedamned holy war, and now this!” Rage nearly choked him. He gave another savage poke at the fire, showering sparks. “God’s teeth, but more than a king’s ransom is worth! All for my mother’s precious and shining idiot son!”
Over by the open door, Nottingham’s newest castellan inched towards escape, gaze equally held by his liege lord and by the one still lurking in the shadows.
Bloody annoying, that.
“And always, your like in the midst of it! Riding in mid-night, upsetting everything, dragging me from my bed and scaring that poor maid so.”
The castellan started to make excuse, realised the words were, again, not for him, and continued his steady creep.
“It took well over a se’nnight to cozen her from her shift, and now your dour manner and that bloody cross on your chest has no doubt set me back another!”
Silence. John gave a fleeting grin—he knew exactly with what weapons to pink his visitor—and rounded on his retreating castellan. “Murdac!”
The man froze in place, his broad, bewhiskered face nigh white with both fear and regret. He had nearly made the door.
John let him bask in both for a full intake of breath, then snapped, “Wine! Mulled hot and sweet!”
A flush this time, dark as the man’s beard, and Murdac wheeled, making a grateful escape into the shadows.
It was humiliating, but John didn’t envy him.
The candles glimmered, warm sanity, over the draperies and tapestries. John stretched a hand out towards one, flitting his fingers through, back and forth. “Of course, you and your like always are. In the midst of things.”
“It is the way of our Order, my lord Count. It has, I would suggest, in its time served you well.”
The shadowed acknowledgment was silk over steel, but conciliatory. As it should be. Along with his other titles, John was overlord of this bloody castle beneath their feet and regent of England—well, to be frank, his mother had been that for the past several years—but no matter. He was damned determined to be more. Was more.
“And as to my precipitous entry, I fear I’d little choice.” A pale flicker in the shadows, the heavy shush of a cloak being flung back. A gesture towards the parchment clenched in John’s fist. “Particularly once my agents delivered that.”
Rage swelled, humid heat, and John lurched forwards. In the next moment, dread choked the furious outburst, roiling in from the shadowy stones. John scooted back for the fire—for the light.
Had John been his father, he would have stomped and bellowed, rolled on the floor, and chewed the rushes. His brother Richard would have laughed, then led his mercenaries to burn a few towns in retribution. No fear in them… no imagination.
They’d no need for it. They’d never been the least of anything. They didn’t know. Hadn’t seen. Hadn’t… Seen.
“My lord?” It was rigid with calm.
As if that calm were contagious, John turned, took a deep breath, and met the Templar’s gaze.
“You must take care, my lord Count,” Wymarec de Birkin counselled, low. “He is, after all, our king.”
“‘He is, after all, our king.’” Mockery curled upon John’s lips. “Is he, then? Truly?”
The pale blue eyes shifted, uneasy.
“And what sort of king? Barren as his sodding marriage—taking, always taking! From the moment I stood on my own and reached for what was mine, he was set to take it. Or had it given to him as if by right! Even now…” Dropping his gaze to the parchment, John refused to unclench his stiff fingers. The emerald ring glittered, hand atremble.
Shadows in Nottingham. Ghosts in the Wode, and a power called from it to eclipse his own. And now, one line—just one line, set with ink and careful quill. One line, to inspire more dread.
Look to yourself—the Devil is loose.
No signature or felicitation. None was needed; John recognised France’s hand. Lovely, treacherous Phillip had penned this himself.
Wymarec was frowning. Or was he? Damn Templars, anyway, they’d no fear of shadows—they captured and set them to their bidding with countenances of iron and ice.
“Master of England, eh?” John growled. “You, Master de Birkin, mouth promises of powers and unholy Kingships, yet all the while, you play Us with this game of yours!”
“It is no game, my lord. Surely—”
“Game. You bluff keenly as any dice peddler, claim to wield things which you do not yet possess, whilst my brother beggars the country, blind to any might save that of mace and chain, sword and cross. And wins. Whilst a wolfshead rides with demons, calls spirits down upon my people and my lands, takes my forest and my crown! And wins!” It was ramping up into a scream, and he didn’t care. “He is mocking me, and you give him aid?”
“Not aid, my liege. A spy. Gisbourne will find what needs be known.”
“So you say?” John snorted. “Unless you’re keen to know the size of the wolfshead’s prick, I doubt you’ll gain much from your precious Sir Guy.”
“A small price to pay, lying with animals,” de Birkin insisted, albeit cautious, “if one can learn secrets thought long lost to us. Such a power, my liege! It still lingers in Nottingham Castle, whispering within every shadow of the stones beneath our feet.”
The sentiment sank home with a barbed and poisoned crossbow bolt. John shivered, inched closer to the fire. Realised the parchment remained, clenched, in his fist. A talisman of ruin—or mayhap just of patience.
All he could hope for now was escape. Richard indeed had the devil’s luck, always had. What was there for John to do but let his brother further plunder the kingdom? He could hardly stop him. Could do little but wait.
But the waiting? Interminable.
With a snarl, John threw the parchment into the hearth. It flared, brief brilliance to shame the tens of candles. Dread retreated, banished by scorn even as light chased shadow and nightmare into their corners. And suddenly John found himself laughing.
“My lord?” De Birkin looked puzzled.
“What a homecoming our lovely king shall have! A country drained of its resources, nothing more to give him. A brutal winter, poor hunting, meagre crops. And an eldritch power that Richard could never wield or understand, coiled in wait for him.”
Upon the hearth the parchment roiled, curling into sullen embers. Still chuckling, John shook his head.
“The devil is indeed loose—in Sherwood Forest! And I daresay my dear, lumbering brother has no idea.”
- I -
Deep in the Shire Wode
Waning of Alban Eilir
(Vernal Equinox), 1194 CE
“I CAN’T.”
“You mean you wain’t.”
“I mean exactly what I said.”
Stubborn git. Robyn whirled on Gamelyn, angry-quick, and Gamelyn rocked back, almost tripping on a gorse. “You mean, you wain’t!” Only a step more and Robyn was on him, nose to nose. Gamelyn’s expression had an instant of shock—slight, to be sure, but there.
Good. It meant Robyn was getting to him.
“You’re the one who won’t. You’re not even trying to understand.” Aye, the mild control to Gamelyn’s voice had a scratch around the edges, and his eyes more the giveaway, witching from soft juniper to a gilt-trimmed verdigris.
If only it were witchcraft. The beginnings of admission, or agreement, or capitulation to… well… everything. If only it weren’t threatening to rain. Again. If only the sun would make some sort of appearance and dry the slippery ground beneath their booted feet. If only the bloody game weren’t wily as hares—again—and they’d not tracked that hart halfway to Nottingham, then lost it. If only Robyn, brassed off at losing their first fresh meal in a brace of fortnights, hadn’t brought all this up just to ram his head against another type of brass and stone.
Again.
“I’m trying to understand! You’re the one’s makin’ precious little sense!”
Enough of this squabbling, the Horned Lord rumbled behind Robyn’s eyes, his shade a resolute track upon their heels. You and the Maid are too lenient. Put the Oak on his knees and keep him there.
Gamelyn scowled—he’d heard—and twitched akin to a horse shuddering a biting fly from his withers. “I’m not making any sense? Is it my fault you seem incapable of using what brains you have?”
Aye, Robyn was definitely getting to him. Gamelyn only tossed the bloody stupid peasant die when he was that angry. Not to mention all those freckles were disappearing beneath a flush of colour vying for a match with his hair. Unbound, strands of the latter snagged in his beard… all of it bronzed against those eyes. All of it akin to metal left in winter rains—held frozen by his own runnelled-on rust of pride and protection… yet canny-deadly for all that.
And just like that, Robyn’s own fury melted from brassed off to sexed up. He stepped closer, head cocked, eyebrows lifted, and lips curling in a smirk. An appreciative one—yet Gamelyn didn’t appreciate it. His nostrils flared white, stark contrast to all that ginger-and-scarlet… that furious, he was, and couldn’t hide it.
Neither could Robyn stop himself from saying, “Sweet Lady, but do you know how bloody gorgeous you are when you’re all riled up?”
“God grant me patience!” It escaped—not without an accompanying eye roll—and one hard hand slapped against Robyn’s chest, gave a shove that sent him sprawling.
Right, then. Mayhap a good rut wasn’t in order, even though sometimes ’twere a bloody fine way to quit an argument.
The Horned Lord growled louder.
Not that you’re helping! Robyn growled back, and started after.
Gamelyn stampeded across the small clearing before he lurched to a stop—and then Robyn wasn’t sure but that sodden curtain of willow hadn’t been the true reason.
Its own giveaway, that.
Gamelyn made a snatch at the lithe green branches before him, and they sent a shower over his boots. Indeed, the woodland hung heavy about them, scented and thick and nigh dripping—plumped not only with rain, but the beginnings of spring. With waiting. No longer time to hold back, or yearn after oaths gone conflicted and awry. It was long past any expectations that Summer should keep dragging his feet like he wished the frost would cover him… again.
Gamelyn half turned, opened his mouth, closed it again. Finally said, “You know the only reason they let me go.”
They didn’t let you go. They made you. That still lay between them, a hot brand neither would touch.
But Gamelyn wasn’t the only one who could bite back words until his teeth bled. Revision was proper unnatural to Robyn, but he did it—several times over in his head—and settled for “Marion wants it. The Horned Lord, the Lady. It… it must be done.”
“And you? What do you want? And me—what about what I want? Am I allowed an opinion in this?”
Bloody damn, what is he on about? Robyn sent the darting, inward query to god or goddess or forest spirits all woven with them into skeins of tynged. But there was nowt to be found in the foretelling or the fate. Merely ice and rust, a cairn carven deep and bound about with iron.
Aye, but his lovely Oakbrother had barriers like to none Robyn had ever known. Such times he wished Marion were here, to untangle the secret weave of metal and stone when Robyn himself couldn’t broach it with fire. Maybe that was the problem. Robyn had always been the throwback, too much of his mother’s Barrow blood rushing his veins.
Iron was murder to the fae, after all.
“Gamelyn.” Robyn pitched it soft—light as his footfalls, coming after. “You’re here, en’t you? I even think most-times you want to be here.”
“I do want—”
“Then come with me. To the caverns.”
“Aren’t you afraid of what I’ll witness?” It was flat.
“How can you betray what’s yours?”
Ah, and that went home, somehow. A bone-deep shudder along that rigid spine—and more, quivering its way through heart and mind.
Robyn scented it, marked it. Stole after. “’Twill be all the more yours after I take you below. Me and John’ll see to it, see you to rights. See you prepared for what comes of it.”
The words were gentle, reasonable. But Gamelyn was no less a predator; he sensed the stalk beneath.
“You’re willing to take me into the caverns and do this—”
“Initiation. Aye.”
“And you’re not worried about what I’ll witness.”
“It’s what you’ll See that matters. And that, you’ll take nowhere.”
“And you’re sure of that.”
“Never sure with you, pet, there’s too much as you keep close when you needn’t. But this I do know. You’ll not be able t’ speak of what comes, save to those as have rights to hear.” Robyn put a hand to Gamelyn’s face. More, Gamelyn let him. Robyn leaned closer. “You’ll have no choice.”
“I’ve little enough of that already.” A grumble against Robyn’s fingertips.
“Aye, He’ll heel us ’til we drop,” Robyn murmured back. “And if you wait for the drop, you’ll have precious nowt to fight with. Nowt to keep yourself… whole.”
He was going for blood with that; sure enough, Gamelyn’s cheek twitched beneath Robyn’s palm. His eyes met Robyn’s. “Is it you, being such a bastard? Or the Horned Lord merely assuming his favourite role?”
Robyn started to speak; instead, the Horned Lord steamed through both their minds. You say that as if you think there’s a difference.
“Robyn.” Gamelyn’s gaze didn’t drop, and his next words were slow, weighted. “You don’t understand. Mayhap your god is keeping things close as well.”
Not half so much as you are. “I want to,” Robyn insisted, his fingers softening to stroke the line, from temple to jaw, of fox-tinged beard. “And I want you to understand. I want you with me. I want to offer you what’s yours. Your right. All of it. ’Tis… empty for me otherwise.”
The stony eyes wavered and dropped, gilt veiling a sudden darkling spark, shadowing damp cheeks.
Robyn stole the moment and tipped his chin, kissed Gamelyn hard and long. Then closed his own eyes, tilted his forehead to rest against Gamelyn’s, and said, silent, See?
No words, now, merely visions: blurring thisnow, and into then…
A young man flung naked and senseless upon an altar stone, black hair spidering over a blank face and breath misting upward into a cavern deep and warmed with fire, lit with torches. The young man lies upon furs, horns placed reverently at the head of his stone couch, runes scrawled dark over pale skin. There is a cord, shimmering and pulsing as if alive, an umbilical knotted around narrow hips. His eyes are black and thick with falling skies… and see nothing. Drugged.
To open the senses, Robyn whispers. I endured it. Blooding and binding, quickening and going within. All who are dryw must endure. Aye, there’s fear, and madness lurking. But I’ll be there. I would watch over, as mine own did for me.
An ancient All-Father hovers over the lad, twining the ends of the blood-cord through his fingers. Watching. And the lad’s earthly sire bears the Horns as if a great weight, a sentinel sifting dreams so as to guard the vulnerable dreamer.
Sifting dreams… It echoes between them, back and forth and… sinks, somehow, between them. The reverberations linger, and in Gamelyn’s spirit quivers a sudden, sick dread.
Robyn fights it, tangling his fingers in flax-fine hair, in strands of thought and will. Please. Wain’t you trust me, Brother? He combs those strands smooth between them, breathes across fear and sets it shimmering into possibilities: tynged quivering into the black. Summerlord, wilt tha take tha’s crown?
