Men of Sherwood (A Rogue's Tale Book 1) Read online

  MEN OF SHERWOOD

  A ROGUE’S TALE

  First Published in Great Britain 2019 by Mirador Publishing

  Copyright © 2019 by Sarah Luddington

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission of the publishers or author. Excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  First edition: 2019

  Any reference to real names and places are purely fictional and are constructs of the author. Any offence the references produce is unintentional and in no way reflects the reality of any locations or people involved.

  A copy of this work is available through the British Library.

  ISBN: 978-1-912601-78-3

  Mirador Publishing

  10 Greenbrook Terrace

  Taunton

  Somerset

  UK

  TA1 1UT

  Men of Sherwood

  A Rogue’s Tale

  By

  Sarah Luddington

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  There are so many people to thank...

  The Tuesday Tarts for a start, you know who you are ladies. Also a special woman who helped me find the sanity in the maelstrom of life. Another two dear friends who make me smile whenever I think of their light. The Orgiva Writing Group – where would I be without the beer and fellowship, thanks for putting up with me!

  My insane pack of dogs who drag me from my computer regardless of what my virtual boys are doing to each other.

  All the amazing writers and readers I’ve enjoyed since becoming part of the MM Book Rec group on Facebook. What an amazing community you guys are and long may we read and write about the beauty of love in all its forms.

  TRIGGER WARNING

  There are references to child abuse, MM rape, MF rape and domestic violence. There’s also self harm in the context of religious flagellation. And some complicated but non-violent D/s. None of the really bad stuff happens ‘on screen’ and trust me, the bad guys will get their comeuppance but the medieval world was a violent place so there’s some graphic fight scenes as well. I hope not to cause any offense or pain to you, the reader. If you need any help with some of the subjects covered in my books there are great resources out there and people do want to listen and help! You are not alone.

  DEDICATION

  To the Shining Knight who makes it all possible.

  1

  THERE IS A MOMENT when time shifts. You expect it to always remain the same, a constant; prime, terce, sext, and so on until the very end, but that’s not what happens the moment you see your death rushing towards you on the point of a sword.

  The guard raised his weapon to bring it down on my weakened arm and I knew, I knew my sword would be knocked from my possession and my life would end a moment later.

  Time did two things at once. A peculiar trick for something so constant. The first it did was slow. I now had a pause in the day to consider the actions that brought me to this place, this moment of death, and to see it from the outside.

  My brother lay face down a few yards away, maybe dead already; I had to hope so because one of the other guards had pushed his friar’s brown robes over his slim hips, bearing his naked backside to the autumn sky of Sherwood. I also thought about how we’d arrived at this point. I’d told Tuck that we couldn’t fight five armed guards, not the two of us, but they carried the taxes from this quarter’s rent days and the money shouldn’t go to the High Sheriff’s purse, it should be returned to the people, so we attacked.

  I’d managed to kill two with my bow before the rest charged with their horses. We raced into the woodland, but they pursued on foot and cornered us. Tuck’s fasting for his latest religious fetish had made him weak and we couldn’t go far enough. We turned to fight, back to back, but these men had at least some skill.

  A span of heartbeats later and time split because I faced certain death. This is when the second thing with time occurred, it moved too fast to see and feel properly. The earth had rushed up to meet my falling body as I dropped my sword unable to hold onto it, my minstrel’s fingers too weak to combat a real fighter, and I’d flung myself to the ground to try to escape for just one more breath. One more breath before the end.

  The sky looked so blue from the mud slick ground. The smells of damp woodland penetrated my heart with the focused intent of an arrow seeking its target. Then the smell of the man fighting me dwarfed all others. Bile rose in my throat at the stink of his breath from rotten teeth, the leering smile of victory a grotesque mask.

  The panicking scream in my head made my fingers scramble in the mud for a weapon and I lifted my sodden boot to find the knife I hid so I could do something, anything, even as the guard stood over me, weapon poised to end my life.

  “You keep still and quiet and I might let you live after I’ve fucked you, boy.” The words were mangled and the accent so heavy I could only just understand.

  I felt like laughing, it always came back to two things in my life, sex and death. “Fuck off,” I spat, unable to articulate the deep and abiding grief sweeping through me at his words. Tuck and I were beautiful men, not handsome, we were beautiful and it led to nothing but misery. I hated the way the world viewed me and I hated that this foul excuse for humanity thought he could end my life and take my battered honour at the same time.

  “Alright then, the monk still breathes, we’ll use him for some entertainment.” The sword rose and a part of me wanted to close my eyes; maybe I’d see my mother’s kind face for a moment before the very end. Part of me still wanted to fight, to cling to life, to feel the wind, the rain, the sun and the frost of an early morning.

  The moment shifted, lurched sideways, as if God Himself was surprised by the turn of events. I stared at the guard whose eyes had widened in honest confusion. An arrow penetrated his thick neck, the well-crafted point dripping blood and torn flesh onto his chest. A hooded shadow detached itself from the forest and walked with smooth intent towards the small battle. The guard stood over me gargled something and toppled back, the sodden earth absorbing his impact with a soft squish. I scrambled against the wet leaves trying to regain my feet so I could stand against this new threat.

  The hooded man strode to the guards standing around Tuck’s prone body, his bow now slung across one broad shoulder, and a knife caught the light of the afternoon sun as it slipped without sound over the throat of one guard. The other turned, raising his weapon in a wild swing. The hooded man stepped back, only armed with the knife. I watched from the ground, everything happening too fast for my scrambled brain to catch-up and take action. The guard snarled, but the hooded man remained silent. The guard stepped in to stab, pushing his hip into the thrust, meaning to skewer his opponent. The hooded man let him lunge, and a neat twist of his body off the line of attack saw him safe and the attacker over-stretch. He drew back but too late. The hooded man stepped into his undefended body, the knife barely visible as it drew a neat line over the guard’s throat. The unprotected area of flesh peeled open, became crimson and he died without further ceremony.

  The stranger kicked a body off my brother and bent towards him.

  “No! Don’t touch him,” I shouted, scrambling over the rough mud to reach them, energised at last into action. The hooded man stepped back and held his arms up in supplication, the bloodied knife still in his hand. I decided the hooded woodland man was not an immediate threat.

  I dropped next to Tuck and watched the man back farther off. I pushed Tuck’s brown robes over his arse and thighs, and then with great care, I rolled him onto his back. Wet oak leaves and mud mixed with the blood from the wound in his scalp but I didn’t remove them
, I merely held his face near mine.

  “Tuck, come on, love, wake up for me, wake up for me,” I said, repeating myself as I felt the tears fall and my body start to shiver from more than just the cold.

  “Let me look,” said a deep rumble from behind me. The man had approached and I hadn’t noticed. I fumbled again for the knife in my boot and held it up, warning him off. “If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead, put the toothpick down and let me look.” His voice sounded like rust but remained quiet and calm. I detected no anger.

  “You can help him?” I asked.

  “I have experience with head wounds. Let me check him and you’ll soon know if he’ll live or not,” the man said. I still couldn’t see his face, the woollen hood too thick and the light low in the sky, casting heavy shadows.

  The thought of Tuck dying caused a part of me to shut down and I slumped, my hands going numb and the knife dropping into the autumn leaves under my arse. The man knelt on the other side of my brother and brushed away the detritus before checking the wound, my brother’s pulse and his breathing.

  “He’s just knocked out cold, he’ll have a headache when he wakes but that’s it. Your lover will be fine,” he said.

  I frowned. “What?”

  “He’ll be fine.”

  “What makes you think he’s my lover?” I asked, wary again. A minstrel’s life can be a dangerous one when the wrong person thinks the wrong thing about how you share your body.

  “It’s alright, you’re not the only one to walk on the wrong side of the fence, I’ve been known to dally there a time or two,” he said with indifference.

  “He’s not my lover,” I said, my voice shrill. Had we walked into the fire?

  “You said –”

  “He’s my brother,” I said.

  “Then I’m sorry for my presumption and your brother will be fine. Forget I said anything.” The man’s shoulders tensed for a moment, he backed off once again and rose. “You should leave the area as they’ll come looking for these guards.”

  He poked one with his booted foot. Then he began searching the body for coin and other valuables. I watched him strip the corpse, before he moved onto the next.

  “Will?” My brother’s voice brought me back to the most important person in my life. He shifted under my palm and I heaved in a deep breath.

  “Tuck,” I murmured. “Don’t move too much, you’ve been hurt.”

  He reached up with a shaking hand and touched his head before I thought to stop him. “Ouch,” he said making me smile. “You alright?” he asked.

  I stroked his face. “I’m fine. It’s you they hurt.”

  “Did you kill them?” he asked.

  “No.” I let my eyes travel to the stranger who was now stripping body number three.

  “I’m glad, you already have too many souls on your conscience,” he murmured.

  I ignored his words and focused on my anger. “Have you any idea how close to death we came today?”

  “The Lord sent us a protector,” Tuck said.

  I growled in frustration. “The Lord also sent men who wanted you for more than your pretty words, Tuck. We take too many risks, why won’t you listen to me?”

  He sat up and swayed. I caught him, then helped him lean over as he puked. There wasn’t much to come up. The man returned to us and handed me a flask. “Wine, it’ll give him something to wash his mouth out.”

  “Thank you,” I said, watching him, still unable to see his features.

  I took the wine and handed it to Tuck, but he seemed at a loss so I unstoppered it and handed it back. “Just a little, you don’t want to be drunk on an empty stomach.”

  “I cannot drink –”

  “Not now, Tuck. Just do this for me and we’ll not mention to God I helped break your vow of fasting,” I said with exhausted patience.

  He drank a little, swilled it around his mouth and spat. I took the leather flask and drew on it. The bittersweet wine burned my parched tongue but I swallowed without any of my brother’s guilt.

  “Their horses are nearby,” I said to the stranger. “You can take them if you leave us with any food they might have.”

  “You need them to leave this place,” he said. “I’ll take one. You can have the others.”

  Tuck looked up. “Show us your face, pilgrim.”

  I watched tension shoot through the man before me. “I am no pilgrim, monk.”

  “We are all pilgrims on God’s path through this life,” my brother said.

  I closed my eyes and wished for patience. “I think your words are likely to be wasted here, brother. Why don’t you let this man go?”

  My brother’s long slim fingers closed over my wrist. “Will, he was sent to us for a reason. You need to see that, as does he.”

  I heaved in a breath. “Don’t, Tuck, please…” Though I knew my words would be ignored.

  Tuck used me to stand and he straightened his robes and the damned rope he wore around his waist. “Sir knight –”

  “I’m not a knight,” snapped the stranger.

  I tried to hide a smile. My brother and his damned proselytising would get us killed but it amused me no end when someone knocked him down a peg, and so long as it remained verbal, I was happy to watch. Undaunted, my brother drew in a breath and proceeded to emotionally blackmail our saviour.

  “Sir, I know you have a heart turned to God or you would not have saved us this day, but God’s hand does not remove itself from a soul once it is touched and we have great need of a man like you to help us with our mission,” he said.

  Our voices were so similar I often thought I was hearing myself when he spoke, unless he was spouting his God’s Word about the place. I liked to sing ballads, the bawdier the better, but Tuck preferred psalms.

  “I have no use for your mission,” the stranger said, his right palm resting on his dagger’s hilt. The tension in him made me nervous.

  “Tuck, leave it, he’s not interested in helping us.” I rose and placed a hand on my brother’s arm but he stepped away.

  “We must encourage God’s will in those we meet, William.” He turned back to the stranger. “These men were collecting taxes from the villages in the forest. Money and goods that people can ill afford with winter fast approaching but the lords, both of the Church and the State, care little for the deaths of these people because of starvation and brutality. I merely wish to see a little balance returned to these lands. Give the Church its tithe, give the State its due, but do not force the poor and needy into desperation because that desperation will see men turn cruel.”

  The stranger snorted. “You know nothing of cruelty, friar.”

  I could have argued with him on that point, both Tuck and I knew more about cruelty than we had any business knowing.

  Tuck stepped towards the stranger. “Break bread with us; share a meal, your name and listen to us, then if you still feel the same we will leave you alone.”

  “No.”

  “Then you would take the purses of gold you have stolen from these dead men and do what with it? Share your bed with a whore? Drink and gamble? Or do you have a family that suffers under unfair tyranny and you will use that money to protect them? You will hurt others so your family might be safe?” Tuck argued.

  I saw the stranger’s back stiffen at the mention of a family and knew Tuck was on dangerous ground. His sleeve slipped through my fingers once again as I tried to stop him but he pushed me away.

  “You are a soldier, a man of honour or we would already be dead, do not abandon your morality. Help us return this money to those who need it most. Be our protector, just until that job is done and I will give absolution for any sins you wish to confess.”

  The man barked a harsh laugh. “I am far beyond any absolution you could offer, friar. You’re a boy. I am a man. Perhaps when you have seen Hell in this world for yourself you will understand a little more about sin.”

  Tuck walked straight up to the man and reached for the sides of his hood. I bent an
d picked at a fallen sword, ready to defend my brother, yet again, from the violence about to be committed.

  When Tuck pushed the hood back I gasped. The man had a deep scar running from hair line to jaw, carving the right side of his face in two. Scars covered his throat, explaining the rust of his voice. He stood at least two hand spans taller than me, and I was taller than Tuck, and his shoulders were huge, with deep blue eyes and hair the colour of darkest river sand. He would once have been beautiful and imposing. Now he was plain scary. The scar missed the eye socket and lips, but it turned the right side of his face into a cruel and twisted mirror to the perfection of the left.

  “Still want to save my soul, Friar Tuck?” he snarled.

  “God’s hand is in you, soldier, I am merely a tool for Him to show you the way,” Tuck said.

  The stranger glanced at me, his eyes flicking to the sword in my hand. “Think you can take me with that thing?” he asked me.

  I swallowed hard. “No, but I’ll die trying if you hurt my idiot brother.”

  The man burst into laughter. It was so sudden I yelped in shock. “I’ll give him the dues he’s earned with his foolish talk. Alright, I’ll help you with the money, or the blood I spilled today to save your ridiculous arse will be wasted. But I want no more talk of God or his Will in my life. I’ve had enough of that nonsense. I serve someone far more earthly than God.”

  Tuck opened his mouth to argue but I kicked his ankle. “Don’t, you won, just accept it.”

  “Where are the horses these guards were riding?” the stranger asked.

  “This way. They dragged us off the road when Tuck’s declarations about avarice and sin started to irritate them. They left their horses up here,” I said, nodding up a steep bank. The man followed me to the road and we found the three horses, waiting patiently. I watched the man approach them, he made soft cooing noises to the stallion and rubbed his nose when the horse didn’t flinch.