Chapter 23 | Alan a Dale
Istayed in the shadows in Ravenshead, underneath an awning next to an old rickety shack someone called a house. A light drizzle had begun in this part of the forest, coating the hamlet in a low, gentle mist.
It was an eerie sight. I hated it.
I also hated not having my lute. Even more than my sword, I felt naked without it. I could have been playing tunes, humming to myself, trying to distract myself as I waited.
It was a pain in the ass being here. My boots were muddy, the people were surly, and the mud was getting thicker. It would be hell to leave.
More than that, I wanted to be with my little songbird and my angry little badger. Robin and Will needed me, yet I’d been sent away for reconnaissance.
I supposed I should’ve been honored. Robin had entrusted me with a very important mission.
Even so, it made me feel useless. Like I wasn’t wanted in the battle because I would be more of a nuisance than help. It was true, I was by far the worst fighter out of John, Will, and Tuck. Luckily, I had other abilities suited for Robin’s use.
And I was nothing if not a man who wanted to be used. Had been for ages.
Thoughts of the past swarmed me, unbidden.
First, as a young lad, I had been used against my will. I became addicted to the feeling of men and women taking control of me and doing whatever they wanted to me, my body, and my mind.
I’d been a whore long before I knew what the word meant.
Then I found purpose. My mind returned to me one day and I escaped my ragged, destitute situation. I changed my entire life, hellbent on making something of myself.
The traveling whore obsessed with sex and ribaldry became a traveling minstrel obsessed with other people’s stories. Anything to escape from my own. Vanishing behind my music and telling grand tales of heroes and villains was escapism at its finest.
It lasted for a while. The itch to return to my derelict life came in waves, yet I held it back.
Then, after a situation which ended up with a woman deflowered and a nobleman dead, I went on the run. Met Little John and Friar Tuck. Joined their fledgling group of outlaws. Brought some merriment to that dreary duo.
The three of us wanted more. We all sought a purpose, all of us having our own dour stories we needed to flee from. Death surrounded each of us, and we became close.
Then we met the lad Will Scarlet, back when he was known as William Scadlock. Little more than a whelp back then—spry, young, angry. Him against the world. He’d always been angry, but he was even worse as a younger man.
He had been achingly beautiful, too. It was hard to keep my urges at bay, and my old life reared its ugly head once again.
Like me, the young man enjoyed the finer things in life, because he had been born in squalor. He tried to fake it. The scarlet sash across his neck gave him that moniker, and it stuck. It made him a dashing, noticeable figure, and I’d nearly forgotten the history of that sash because he embodied its essence so well—the last parting gift of his mother, crumpled on the ground in a heap of cloth after she had been trampled by Plantagenet horsemen.
Like John, Tuck, and me, Will had been plagued by death. Killed a man or three and became an outlaw before he’d reached eighteen years.
He was too young for all that, I felt, so I consoled him. First with my songs, then with my embrace. My consolation turned into something more, and we became inseparable. The joyful dandy, always with a smile on my face and sadness behind my eyes, and the sullen fighter, always with a frown on his face and excitement in his eyes.
The dandelion and the badger.
John and Tuck thought nothing of it. I was content with our foursome, but John wanted more. He grew the band, and we became the Merry Men.
Then my songbird showed up. Stole the hearts of all of us. I found new purpose, new relief, and a new story.
To be separated from any of them for any length of time was torturous. I didn’t know their fate, or how the raid had gone. I could only hope and pray it had been a success, and that no one important to me had been killed.
My meandering thoughts coiled tight in my head when I noticed an uptick in chatter and voices across the hamlet. From the southern corner of the town square to the northern hill where William Elder’s honey farm lay, people were looking in one direction.
I followed their eyes and went rigid.
Horsemen approached from the western road.
Many, many horsemen.
I stepped out from the shadows as if drawn to them.
Children ran out from their houses in the mist to watch the riders with wide-eyed wonder on their little faces.
It made me smile.
I had a good view of the entire square and all the people in it. I recognized the large man Landon, de facto leader of Ravenshead while Bishop Sutton was gone. Near him stood a woman with three children close to her hips, holding them back from veering out into the road at the encroaching convoy.
Then I saw the woman’s head veer left and right, quickly, and she said something in a frantic tone to her husband that I couldn’t hear.
Landon furrowed his brow. He looked behind him, toward me, but paid no attention to me. His focus was elsewhere.
The riders were streaming by into town, sitting high on their saddles like they owned the place.
My smile vanished as Landon and his wife grew more frantic.
“Kelly?!” the woman screamed.
I instinctively moved out of the shadow of the awning, rain dripping in my hair, plastering it to my scalp. My eyes scanned the slight incline of the land, trying to watch what Landon and his wife were watching, and—
There!
A small girl stood in the middle of the road, hands clasping excitedly in front of her belly. She was no taller than my knees.
My heart squeezed and I moved before my brain could agree.
Landon and his wife didn’t see the girl—she was too far away from them, in the mist, and too mystified by the approaching riders.
Riders who were not going to veer off-path and into the mud to avoid her. Mud and holes could lead to a horse’s broken ankle, and they valued their horses more than a silly peasant child.
Beyond that, they simply didn’t care.
I flared my nostrils and broke out into a sprint.
“Kelly!” I shouted, hoping this was the girl in question.
She didn’t look over. Landon did, though, and saw where I was running. He took off, also.
The riders were twenty feet from the girl, closing fast down the road. Perhaps they didn’t even see her because she was so small.
A visceral memory that I’d never actually lived or seen flashed through my mind: Will Scarlet’s mother getting trampled to death by horses. Cracking bone, muffled cries, and sneering laughter from her attackers.
“Kelly!” Landon cried again, voice cracking as his feet churned mud and he floundered and tripped over himself, down to his knees.
The little girl finally looked over, wide smile on her face. She pointed at the riders. “Look how many of ‘em there are, da!”
“Get out of the road!” Landon screamed.
The girl didn’t move. She was mesmerized by the awful nature of the huge horses and their riders.
Ten feet from the horses, and the earth was shaking now under their hooves.
Bearing down.
My legs burned as I ran, stretching my arms out, cloak billowing behind me.
Five feet, my heart stopped—
And I made it to the girl from behind, wrapped my arms around her little body, and spun her around off the road.
Her feet dangled and kicked and she shrieked—
Just as a loud whoosh of air and stamping hooves crashed around us in the road, inches from my cloak.
I was breathless, holding the girl so tight I might’ve crushed her tiny frame if I wasn’t careful.
I set her feet on the ground and she pouted up at me with tears in her big eyes.
“There, there, little lass,” I said, panting, trying to smile down at her but feeling sick to my stomach. I went to my knees to get to eye-level. “All safe now.”
Landon charged in behind me, just as breathless as I was and twice as muddy. “Kelly!” he panted, and slid to his knees to wrap her in a tight hug.
“What’s the matter, da?” the girl asked, hearing her father sniffle in the crook of her bony shoulder.
Landon held her at arm’s length. “How many times have I told you to stay with your mother when horses are riding down the road?”
They were still coming, too. So many riders, there had to have been forty of them. Marked clear as day in their Nottingham garb.
Over Kelly’s shoulder, I briefly locked eyes with Landon. I saw the relief and pain in them, and he gave me a tight, curt nod of thanks.
I returned the nod and sauntered away from the road, back toward the shadows and the awning I’d been hiding under.
Already with the start of a new song in my mind.
I KEPT CLOSE TO THE massive congregation of soldiers in the town square. An hour had passed, and they had essentially taken over the village for their own.
No one could tell them what to do. Their horses overfilled the Ravenshead stables, and many soldiers simply led their steeds by their bits through town, muddying the roads even more.
The drizzling stopped, the mist dissipated, and left in its wake was a group of unpleasant soldiers.
They didn’t listen to anyone. Like every soldier I’d ever met loyal to the king or an important nobleman, they carried themselves as if it was an affront even being here.
Men, women, and children tried to get out of their way as they traveled in packs of four and five through town. They filled the couple local taverns and started drinking.
The leaders spoke with Landon, but they didn’t listen to him or hear what he had to say—that Bishop Sutton had not passed through town. Landon had no idea where he was. No idea where the reported Templar Knights were, either.
Good. Landon is sticking to the plan. All it takes is one rat, though . . .
It made the situation tense.
The captain, whom I heard referred to as Sir Connor, pushed Landon out of the way and stormed past him to speak with his other soldiers.
I was nearby, back turned but listening as I rummaged through an empty barrel, trying to find something interesting about it.
“Sir Guy wouldn’t have been wrong about this,” Connor told his man. “Something is amiss.”
“Been raining some, sir. Maybe they got held back from a flooded road in the woods?”
Connor scoffed and shook his head. “Send half the unit back down the eastern road. We’re getting to the bottom of this.”
“Sir, shouldn’t we wait a bit? We made good time, and splitting our force—”
“I didn’t ask for your opinion, soldier. Sir Guy of Gisborne entrusted me with the health and safety of Bishop Sutton of Ravenshead.”
“Then why wasn’t he riding with us, sir?”
Connor seethed and shoved the soldier, then marched past him. “Fucking idiot.”
I smiled as he passed me, my back still turned to him.
Sutton wasn’t here. Maid Marian hadn’t lied—the bishop must have taken the eastern road.
But the soldiers were getting rowdy, and they’d only been here less than an hour. There was plenty of night left. Plenty of time for them to make this aggravating situation even worse.
From the open apertures of the two local taverns, I heard raised voices. Ladies of the night, being set upon by hungry soldiers. Drink was already flowing, and I was sure these men paid less than they drank.
Righteous fucking bastards.
My old life swarmed back to me. The one that told me to pillage and rescue and fuck. To show these pricks that they couldn’t just do whatever they wanted in this town, even if they had swords strapped to their hips.
I had a sword, too, and it was fucking useless.
I made a step for the tavern door across the road.
More soldiers entered, and I stilled.
The townsfolk were frightened. I could see it on every face I passed. They didn’t want trouble, yet trouble had been brought to them.
I was only one man. The Nottingham militia was at least forty. There was no chance I was rescuing anyone here . . . I had already rescued one little girl, and that was more than enough.
I couldn’t be a hero like from one of my songs.
So I made the tough decision to leave Ravenshead, feeling guilty and awful for it. Sick to my stomach, I turned away from the needy peasants, because I had a duty of my own. I needed to return to camp and tell Robin my findings.
Tell her that Ravenshead was a fire in the middle of the forest, on the verge of blooming and burning down everything around it.