Summerwode, page 7
part #4 of The Books of the Wode Series
“A support that had already rid us of bloody Longchamps,” Durham muttered.
A fleeting smirk from de Lacy, but he continued. “Aye, and this steward of mine acted as my intermediary to Count John. Former steward, I should say. His defection was a surprise at the time. Both grateful and loyal, he possessed scant initiative—or so I thought—to change allegiance once given.” Only then did his gaze flit to Gamelyn and hold, challenge and—mayhap—a slight.
Gamelyn refused to let so much as mild puzzlement quirk his brow.
De Lacy hadn’t quite the same mastery over his own emotions. He frowned and continued, still peering at Gamelyn, “As you said, Brother Guy: Who can blame a man who grasps the lodestone of royal favour in troublesome times? Otho Boundys de Blyth has always been altogether prone to the literal.”
The name snuck in and heeled with a sharp nip. Otho.
Thankfully, Gamelyn still couldn’t react. Wouldn’t, insecure in this place, with these people.
Huntingdon did it for him. “You mean, ’tis Ian’s second son who holds the castle against us?”
Hubert slid his gaze sideways and held to Gamelyn’s. He hadn’t known either.
“Aye.” De Lacy seemed a bit put out that his words provoked no reaction. His next ones were directed at Gamelyn. “The Count wooed Otho with promises of hereditary holdings—all quite legitimate, mind you, as your eldest brother… ah… died without issue. As to the youngest, who won the right to his own claim through trial by battle on Nottingham’s bailey, then disappeared into Sherwood, mortally wounded?” A shrug. “Of such things are jongleurs’ tales made. Most believe Gamelyn Boundys never returned from the Holy Land. Including his middle brother.”
F
“Go it!” Marion crowed and thumped one fist into her palm. “Take him, then!”
Another clank-clash, then a scrape, then a heavy whup! of steel sculpting air. A glittering arc reflected against the firelight as Gilbert twisted in a lithe whirl of disengagement and circled his opponent.
Will was sweating. This time he didn’t make the mistake of wiping it from his eyes, merely tossed his head to one side, moisture flying.
“Watch it, lads!” Arthur coaxed.
Will grinned, then lunged.
Gilbert danced aside and smacked the flat of his blade on Will’s arse… only to yelp as Will spun and whacked the blade nigh from his grip. Another lunge followed, and Gilbert leapt over the fire in retreat.
“A Gilly!” David sang out as Arthur whooped his delight.
“That’s more like it!” Marion cheered.
“An’ who’re you rooting for, then?” Robyn nudged her with a grin.
“Does it matter?”
“It might, should that lovely lad you’re tupping decide to get in on t’ game.”
Marion wrinkled her nose at him, and Robyn grinned wider. By his lights, it had been just this short of brilliant to come back from too much thinking after a bath to this little bit of entertainment.
“Not bad for a ‘ham-fisted peasant,’ eh?” Will growled at Gilbert, who blew him a kiss from across the fire.
“I’m a peasant,” Much drawled from the sidelines and waggled his fingers. “See, no ham fists. You use ’em proper, and they’ll loosen up.”
“But ’twere better?” Will’s query was just this side of plaintive, and Robyn couldn’t help his loud snort. Will scowled. “Belt up, you!”
“Aw, Scathelock, but for such a handsome, shaggable beast, you’re a proper bairn.”
Marion was giggling. Good.
“Aye, and this from one who is a ham-fisted peasant when it comes to a sword!” Will retorted.
“Are y’ after practicing, or back-talking Himself?” Much put in. “Or are you wanting me to pick up a sword?”
Robyn smirked. It was a proper threat, no question. Will had come along well, but he was still struggling to stand down Gilbert. Against Much… well.
Marion exchanged the smirk with him, nudged him back.
“Give me a bit more o’ this practice,” Will boasted. “Come summer, I’ll give you a right thrashing.”
Much snorted, but his eyes lit with that lazy, dangerous glint. “You and two more like you.”
A frown wanted to twitch at Robyn’s brow, smoothed away as John came up beside him, slipping a hand into his and leaning his brown head against Robyn’s shoulder.
And was forgotten as David tipped the lid from the cauldron. The roasted-spice scent of cooking venison wafted outward as he sang out, triumphant, “Supper!”
F
The pool is wide and black, a shimmer of half light stretching out, lapping gently against his bare toes. The other side beckons, thick with undergrowth, heavy with trees in first leaf. A wet fog meanders, hanging upon this limb, that bush, plastering his hair to his skull and leaving a velvety scrim upon bare limbs.
Come, Oakbrother. Leave by the iron and bells. Be dancing with us. Be swimming beside us.
Alarm thrills up and down his spine—has he heard these voices before? Has he not?—but no matter; he wants to obey. Of their own accord, his hands set aside sword and dagger, a foolish concession. He tells himself it is safe enough, the voices are merely the hum and whir of fireflies. They are the only light in the glade, fits and starts illuminating hanks of mist, darting about him as he disrobes, skimming reflections upon the opaque mirror that is Barrow Mere. The moon is dark behind the clouds, the stars obscured…
Nay, not the only light. His instincts are true; something, though he knows not what, lurks in Barrow Mere. A passage in the underbrush, a promise of adversity. Ghost-trails upon the water, gleaming. Voices and dancing shadows. Eyes regard him, winking-wet, reflecting the fireflies dancing in the murk.
Watching.
He angles down, naked but for the cord about his hips—Templar’s measure, Templar’s oath—and palms the discarded dagger. It is the one Robyn wears, but in this place… thisnow… it has returned to his hand for some purpose. The fireflies cluster about it, curious lights upon sharp steel.
Gamelyn sends them scattering with a twirl of the dagger, then utters several sounds all breathy and laced together. Not Frankish, not Latin, not Arabic, nor any of the myriad tongues he garnered in the Holy Land. This is a language he does not truly know.
But the eyes know it. They go out. A whirl and whuff of breath brings wild eddies to the mist. As if summoned, sharp tines rise from the mists of the opposite bank, the god-man abandoning His cloak of shadows, eyes glowing like a beast faced by torches. The fireflies abandon Gamelyn for their master, cutting swathes of gilt against ivory skull and horns. And the light… expands.
Lean and pale, the god-man spreads his arms. Breathes. The horns burst from tawny to green: holly twined with mistletoe and ivy, acorns and oak. A staff seems to grow from one outstretched palm; it blossoms into spring leaves in the time it takes the god-man to breathe twice. From behind Him the sun begins to rise, light misting further the glade, spreading farther, and farther, letting summering into the land.
And the forest begins to dance.
Gamelyn cannot so much as join them; he is fixed in place by the Seeing, how it spirals out from the god-man… from himself… tynged’s loom spinning them into one source.
Into such fair welcome, She enters: rising sinuous from the Mere, gleaming dark-wet beneath tendrils of cinnabar hair. The Lady spreads Her arms, and in their embrace is illuminated a scene of golden peace and plenty. Blessings made with games of fire and strength. Dances winding the year’s wheel through mist and rain, snowfall and bare branches, into warm sun and clear night, leaf-fall and renewal.
Until games are no longer enough.
The change is subtle: first the shadows. Creeping in, absolute, they banish all between. The eyes, one by one, wink out. Fierce winds blow a conflagration of flames through the forest. The Horned figure’s immense rack dips, green withering, skull-face stark from beneath. His cloak falls, turns to ash, sprinkles in a gust of chill wind to scatter the Mere’s surface.
Winter-borne… the skull remains, shivers, then begins to rise: the figure cowled beneath the bare horn-crown, carrying bow and arrow instead of staff. There is fire behind Him, eyes glinting in the blaze blown upon the wind and spreading through the green—but it does not burn. It illuminates, gilt and green, the Wheel’s turning.
Rebirth, the Hooded god-man whispers. The reason… the truth… of Sacrifice.
That voice is wildfire; one that will wreck, wound, and wend shivers down his spine. And in truth, upon the opposite bank does wildfire wait, personified. It blazes in the sloe gaze of a man become Hooded archer become avatar of a woodland spirit. It leaps and glimmers upon the pitch-wrapped tip of a nocked arrow. Bow canted horizontally before him, as long as he is tall—and the archer is, indeed, tall—it is half at nock, with arrow-tip aflame.
A flash of teeth beneath the cowl, and the archer raises then bends the bow. Aims for Gamelyn’s heart, flames licking at the arrow shaft. Looses. Gamelyn does not so much as flinch.
The arrow strikes him through the heart, burning. It is agony. It is…
Welcome.
Falling from his hand, the quillion dagger buries itself halfway into the soft, fecund earth.
Guy of Gisbourne died on Samhain, beheaded by Robyn Hode. He did not go easily. The Lady’s voice, tickling his ear.
“Nothin’ should go easy, pet.” And it is impossible, but Robyn is with him, placing a hand upon the fire-wound, sending agony into a different, sweeter pain. “Not you. Not me. But we must go, aye?”
Not you. Not yet, the Lady murmurs against Gamelyn’s nape… only She is Marion—just as impossible as Robyn’s presence. Cradling him, surrounding him with the scent of desert roses whilst he lies dying. Clad in all the greens of summer, horn-crown gleaming sharp upon her cinnabar head, his Maiden sings to him a song old when they were children:
“Sumer is icumin in
Lhude sing, cuccu
Groeϸ sed, and bloweϸ med
And springeϸ Wode new
Sing! Cuccu…”
It has to be a dream. Has to be…
Dream? Or nightmare? Robyn leans forwards, kisses his forehead. ’Tis all they are, Guy. Haven’t you already lived enough of your hell in thisworld?
Stop calling him Guy! Marion says. Guy is dead.
Is he? Gamelyn’s own voice, a memory quiet yet slurried with threat. Is he, really?
Nay, says Robyn, and over one bare, sinewy shoulder, Gamelyn can see another dream/vision/nightmare: the Horned Lord across the Mere. And whilst the Lady wears His crown, He wears a wreath of mistletoe and oak.
Make of him dryw, Hooded One. Only with the magic will he survive. And he must survive, for we will need him, when the time comes.
Then it is mine to make the sacrifice. Robyn stands, clad only in sky and shadows and long curls of ebon hair, then pulls from the earth the lovely filigreed dagger—once Gamelyn’s—that now never leaves his side.
Holds it out to Gamelyn. Smiles.
Says, Take it, Oakbrother. Take me…
F
Gamelyn bolted upright, both hands over his mouth. The shout castrated itself into a whimper, buzzing against his palms, fizzling into the barest of echoes against dark stone walls.
Slowly, reality crept back. He wasn’t at Barrow Mere, wandering where he didn’t belong in nightmares come to life. Nay, ’twas Clipstone’s great hall, where he lay on a rush-padded cloak, with his Master and his Templar Brethren close. Taking in a long breath, Gamelyn closed his eyes, looked again just to be sure. Aye, six gathered, weapons to hand, lying beside the fire. Gamelyn could have reached out and touched Hubert’s shoulder.
All of them were still sleeping, thank God.
Gamelyn put first one hand to the pallet beneath him, then another, propping himself, panting. Firelit embers spilt orange light across his splayed hands. For a sparse heartbeat, it darkened, resembled blood.
Gritting his teeth, Gamelyn shook his head, stared into the fire for long moments, then shut his eyes. Even the brilliant remnants ghosting his lids didn’t obscure the play of it, over and over again, a foul mummer’s dance with but one ending: betrayal. One last arrow shot into the sweet green Wode, then the dagger laid across the pale throat.
Sometimes Robyn lay in his arms willing. Others he struggled. But always, the same inexorable end: sacrifice wrought with the lovely gilt-and-glimmer knife, lovers/rivals in the long dance of myth become life, and Winter’s blood upon Summer’s hands.
“It is what you are meant to do, were born to do, within this little Dance in which we’ve found ourselves.”
The nightmares had returned.
Gamelyn lurched up and stumbled from the hall.
F
It took some time to regain control. The flagstones swallowed his steps. The wall bordering the inner bailey had escorted him thrice around. Gamelyn made it four, breath wafting thick behind him as he stalked, nigh soundless beneath a diamond-and-ebon sky and burrowed into his cloak. Incense clung there, musky-sweet reminder of the peace only a few hours hence, spent with his Brethren in observance of Evensong.
Once it had been all he wanted: the peace of prayer, the waft of frankincense, the comfort of a library full of parchments. Fate—tynged—had decided otherwise, and faith? It had given way, inevitably, to reason and his own intelligence: damnably complicated, truth was not some unfaltering star a naïve and devout boy had pursued, and the portals of knowledge often held fast by corruptible, fallible men.
There were many mansions in a Father’s house… and a Mother’s.
The latter waited, as always, a soft-thick presence beyond the walls of Clipstone: the Wode beckoned with Her own, darker peace. Gamelyn wanted to turn away, instead found himself taking in that calm with long, slow draughts of misted green, heady in its own fashion as any frankincense.
As if in answer, the breeze quickened over the courtyard, teasing at his hair and rustling the heavy boughs beyond. Gamelyn tensed, as if nightmares could become flesh.
For they could. He no longer doubted that.
Silence broke itself with a soft, mournful call. He started, then grimaced as another scratch and flutter rippled into a wave of rustles and coos from the top story of the building a stone’s throw away. No more than the dovecote, settling in for the evening.
Gamelyn ran a hand over his face, found it damp with sweat, cursed beneath his breath.
He needed a smoke. Or a stalk. Or to mete out an arse-kicking to some deserving sod. He was keen as a good blade for the siege; if nothing else, ’twould set his head back on its axis.
Mayhap Hubert had a bit of the hashish lying about, to dull the edge until then.
Was it too much, he asked, silent into the waiting forest, to hope the dreams gone?
Is it too much, She answered, grave, to hope you would stay where you belong?
And where is that, Lady?
Silence, as deep within as without.
So. This is punishment, then.
Only a Fool cloaked in church resin would sass a goddess and imagine it penance.
The Voice wafted away as if on the breeze, replaced by the sound of approaching steps. Gamelyn stiffened for a bare moment, let out the breath he only then realised he was holding. The tread was nigh familiar as his own heartbeat.
“It is discomfiting, non?” Hubert murmured as he stalked over, an aged panther who’d lost none of his predatory grace. “To be confined within walls after sleeping beneath sky and bough.”
Gamelyn turned a hesitant gaze, found those eyes upon him—and no less mindful than his own. Then he saw what Hubert held: a pewter goblet. Steam rose from it and wafted upon the night air, touching Gamelyn’s nostrils with spice and ferment.
Not the hashish, but nonetheless a kind offering. He accepted it, drank deep. The mulled wine spread warmth from chilled toes to bared head.
Hubert was peering at the sky above the night-black trees. “A successful assembly. We have more options coming out than we did going in. And, my Brother, your grasp of tactics has but improved. I think this outlaw and his… insurgeré? Yes, this, ah, sense of insurrection has added an irregular sheen to your already considerable arsenal.”
“Werran,” Gamelyn murmured.
“Eh?”
“Werran.” Louder this time, but not so as to disturb the surrounding quiet. “A Saxon word. It means to bring confusion.”
“Ah. How apropos. Considering.” Delicate, the phrasing. Reluctant to pry too far.
“A word Marion would use…” Gamelyn began, only to warble away, baffled by the sudden tangle of his tongue and the warmth brushing his cheeks. Hubert knew Marion, knew she was part of the outlaws Gamelyn had been ordered to accompany—
Infiltrate, a snide inner voice reminded. Spy upon—
—and what she represented to the Old Faith, so why should he fear to speak her name in the company of his Master, as if Marion represented some broken vow? Thank God the Lady had retreated, as if with the moon’s rising. She would merely encourage such fascination.
Hubert watched Gamelyn flail in an inexplicable mire for a few heartbeats, and those overloud to his ears. A singular, throaty plaint wafted from the dovecote. From somewhere within the Wode’s shadows, another answered.
And another grateful oath whispered upon Gamelyn’s lips as Hubert did not pursue the silence. “You quite impressed my lord the Bishop.”
Gamelyn shrugged. “Not that it matters.”
“Ah, but it does. Durham is a powerful man. Our lord King thinks to flex his wings over the midlands and the North, but in truth? Between Durham and Richard’s bastard brother—Bishop and Archbishop—they rule Yorkshire, albeit uneasily.” A small tsk. “Hugh de Puiset is not an easy man to impress. To have him on your side in this little game can only serve us to the good.”
Game. Everywhere I turn, the game draws closer, beckoning. And I’ve no wish to play.
A low, derisive snort, and the glint of tines against dark woodland. If only Our Lady had an ardent lover for every time you were so certain. She’d no need of you, would She?
