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

  My spine snapped straight. “I do everything I can to protect her. I’m not in a position to order her to do anything and I could not prevent her marriage, that’s the job of the Earl of Huntingdon.”

  Robin’s hood protected his face so I couldn’t see his expression but I could feel his anger rolling off and hitting me. “Her fate was my father’s duty. I didn’t know he’d died.”

  “You didn’t know because you chose to remain overseas, wandering about Europe until returning home when it suited you and now you don’t want your title but you won’t help those of us who are trying to protect your family and your lands,” I said, punctuating my rising temper with a jabbing finger.

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about, my duties are too complex for you to grasp,” he said, deciding to walk away from me.

  “Well, that’s bloody convenient. Is it because I’m too young? Not a mighty lord? Never having raised a sword in a holy war? Or maybe it’s because I can’t fuck like your lost love.”

  I knew the moment the words formulated on my tongue I’d made a mistake but I couldn’t prevent them from sliding out. Robin whirled back towards me and dropped the reins of his horse. I stepped back, hands now out in supplication, but it didn’t help. He grabbed the front of my cloak, tunic and shirt, hauled me almost off my feet and pushed me back against a tree trunk in one smooth movement, his hood falling off his head and revealing the man’s dark heart.

  “You will never use him against me again, or so help me there won’t be a place left in England you will be safe.” His blue eyes were almost black in the deepening shadows and dusk of the forest, the large fists were anvils and I could not breathe against their pressure. I looked into the face of a killer. Fear shot through me, turning my spine to jellied bones.

  I took hold of his wrists, with slow and gentle movements, looked into his eyes and nodded. “I am sorry,” I said with great tenderness. “You are right, I stepped over the line and had no right to do so.”

  Robin’s expression shifted from blind and agonised fury to dead within a few heartbeats. His eyes closed down and his hands relaxed. “You should return to your brother,” he murmured. I felt his weight shift and knew he was about to walk away again. My grip on his wrists tightened.

  “Don’t go.”

  He raised his eyes to mine. “I am not the man you need. I am not the man Marion needs.”

  “I understand that’s what you think, but please, don’t go, come to the meeting tomorrow. Talk to her. Don’t disappear, she needs friends.”

  Robin released me. “I’ll take you back to the cave.” He flicked his hood over his head once more, hiding from the world.

  “I guess that’s better than nothing,” I muttered. It seemed Marion took after her brother, their mercurial natures were raw emotion.

  He mounted the horse without any conceivable effort and held his hand out, silent in his request for me to join him. I took a firm grasp of his forearm and swung up onto the back of the horse, his strength doing most of the work. I expected him to move away from me, but he pulled my right thigh tight under his and placed my right hand around his waist.

  “Hold on,” he growled. With a nudge and a click of his tongue the horse broke into a canter and we were on our way back to the cave.

  By the time we had navigated the path in the dark, exhaustion nipped at me. It had been a long day and I needed to be warm and safe. I leaned against Robin’s back and felt his muscles shift with the movement of the horse and the heat of the man against my chest and belly. We reached the cave and Robin helped me slide off the beast, before dismounting.

  In the silence of the night we were still for a moment. He pushed back his hood and gazed at me, a half-moon giving me enough light to see his confusion and longing. “I am not sure what to do with you.”

  “You don’t have to do anything.”

  “That doesn’t feel right.”

  “Then –” My words were cut off by a strange new sound. A dead thud, a soft cry of pain and a litany in Latin. My legs moved without conscious command.

  “Tuck,” I cried out, running for the cave’s narrow entrance.

  “Will?” Robin called, following me.

  I raced through the short tunnel and skidded to a halt. Tuck knelt by the fire, which crackled merrily, his torso bare, his back towards me. The soft skin of his bony frame had split several times already and thin rivers of blood snaked into his braies, staining the linen. He trembled, but whether from cold, pain, passion or some other confusion of emotions I didn’t know. He didn’t hear me, because his words didn’t stop, and neither did the hand holding a branch of hawthorn, the small thorns doing more damage with each blow. Robin stopped dead behind me.

  “Holy Mother of God,” he whispered. “Why?”

  I couldn’t believe my eyes, in my arrogance I had thought Tuck safe from this behaviour at long last, but he wasn’t safe – not even here in the forest. I couldn’t protect him from the demons who hounded a soul exhausted from the fight.

  Robin rushed past me before the blow fell onto the naked flesh and he gripped Tuck’s wrist in his huge paw. “Tuck? Tuck?” He dropped to his knees beside my brother, who continued his litany. “Will, snap out of it, he needs you.”

  The harsh words galvanised me into action. “We must stop the bleeding.”

  I heard Robin murmur soft words of comfort to my brother, words I should be giving him but right now I couldn’t even look at the damage he’d done to himself again. I found thin strips of linen soaking in lavender water that he’d prepared before hurting himself and more cloth ready to soak up the blood.

  I picked up the fabric and the bowl, returned to the fire and placed them beside Tuck. My hands shook, a mirror to Tuck’s, and I reached for his shoulder. “Tuck?”

  Robin stroked his dark hair and he removed the bundle of branches from my brother’s grasp. “He’s not with us, Will. Just do what you can right now. I’ve seen this before. He needs to sleep once you’re done. He should be back with us when he wakes up.”

  I looked at him, the concern for Tuck softened his face, the harsh scar over his eye and cheek almost invisible. “He’ll be alright,” Robin said with such kindness I felt a tear slip from my eye. He reached over Tuck and swiped it away with his thumb, caressing my cheek in the process. “He’ll be alright.”

  I swallowed and managed to nod. We set to work, cleaning the blood, checking the depth of the wounds, and placing the linen bandages over them, before wrapping him up the way I had been the week before. Tuck didn’t move anything other than his lips as he continued to pray to a God who didn’t seem to care that a vulnerable young man had bloodied himself in some form of penance and worship.

  Robin went to the spring in the back of the cave and returned with a bowl of fresh water. He began to wash Tuck’s arms and hands with gentle smooth strokes of a damp cloth, before forcing Tuck to straighten so he could wipe his face and chest. I could see the track marks of tears on my brother’s face and felt helpless. Next, Robin made certain to force Tuck to drink and their eyes met for the first time.

  “Robin?” Tuck managed, breaking his litany.

  “Yes, Tuck, it’s me. Will is here as well,” Robin said, smiling with such tenderness at my brother it made my heart stutter.

  “I am sorry,” Tuck said.

  Robin swiped at more tears as they leaked from Tuck. “There’s nothing to be sorry for, Tuck. Sometimes the world offers us such confusion and pain we seek to escape it in ways we don’t fully understand. You will be alright, we will protect you.”

  Tuck nodded before his body folded into itself again and the litany continued. If I never heard Latin again I would be a happy man. Robin and I wrapped him in blankets. When we tried to make him stand, he couldn’t move, so Robin tucked his arms under Tuck and simply lifted him off the ground with a grunt. He carried my brother to his bed and lay him down, I covered him in blankets and furs, stroking his dark hair as he fell to sleep and the murmuring cease
d.

  “He’ll be out cold for hours,” I said.

  “Come, let us wash his blood from our hands, prepare some food and sleep ourselves,” Robin said. He held out his hand for me.

  I took the offering and he led me to the reredorter. He took the same care of me as he had my brother, but while he washed my hands with the tallow soap I bought from the city markets, he placed gentle kisses on my wrists and palm. In turn I washed Robin’s hands and stroked the scars lacing his palms and wrists, before daring to raise a single finger to my lips and kissing the tip. Our eyes locked and his breath tightened. I drew the finger into the hot cavern of my mouth and sucked.

  A murmur of need slipped from Robin’s control and he used his other hand to caress my cheek. He drew his finger out of my mouth, maintaining eye contact and moistened my lips with it. “You are so beautiful, Will.”

  He cupped my jaw in his large, rough hands, and leaned in. I met his lips and we kissed, a tender meeting of two damaged souls, both hurting for another in a world where pain graced our lives all too frequently.

  When he pulled back he smiled, tucking a stray curl over my ear. “We need to eat.”

  “I know.”

  “I’m not sure how to do this with you, but I think time will guide us.”

  I grasped his wrists as I had done in the forest and smiled into his beautiful eyes. “Time and our hearts.”

  His expression saddened and I knew he thought of his dead lover. “I never thought to care again. It scares me, makes me say things I don’t mean, do things I don’t want to, I haven’t felt this in so long.”

  “Felt what?” I asked, his hands still on my face. I know what I wanted to hear because my heart was screaming its own conclusions.

  “Hope,” he murmured.

  Not quite what my heart wanted but it would do for a place to start. I smiled, more mischief than anything else. “Well, hope is a good place to start but I still have a lot of work to do on you, Robin of the Hood.”

  He chuckled and released me. “Hmm, I have the feeling I’m going to regret saving your life.”

  “You can never regret saving a minstrel, it’s against the rules.”

  “What rules?”

  “All the rules,” I said, seeking brevity.

  He grunted and followed me back to the living quarters. We kept our voices low but while we prepared a simple pottage and unleavened bread we allowed ourselves to banter. Of course the wine didn’t hurt.

  10

  WITH TUCK STILL ASLEEP I felt able to relax a little and it seemed, so did Robin. “Come sit with me,” he said. He held out his hand and I rose from my side of the fire. I took his hand and he pulled me down between his knees, turning me in the process. I settled on a cushion and his hands took possession of my chest, pushing me back into his embrace. “What is Tuck’s story? Why does he hurt himself? There are old scars on his back and newer ones.”

  I lay my head on Robin’s knee and sighed. “It’s not a pleasant story.”

  “None worth telling are,” he said.

  I grunted. “How to steal half my repertoire.”

  “Trust me, tell me.”

  I sighed again, more heavily, and allowed the memories to wash forwards. “After I murdered our father I sold everything he owned. House, business, goods, even his clothes. I took all the money and headed for the Cistercian Abbey at Rufford to tell my brother of his death.”

  Robin’s fingers laced with mine to keep my hands still.

  “When I asked to see him they brought him out of the Abbey grounds, held by two large monks. They said he was mad with a gift from God, and the Lord’s words spilled from him in a river of sound, like we saw earlier. I hardly recognised him, and though we hadn’t met in ten years I thought there should be something of the child I remembered.” I stopped, the vision of Tuck’s wasted and babbling features torturing me. Robin tightened his grip and I felt his strength bleed into me.

  “I knew something terrible had happened to him and I suspected our fates weren’t so different. I asked to speak with him alone, but they wouldn’t allow it, so I asked to speak with the abbot. When they took me to the man I knew for certain my brother was no idiot speaking in tongues. The man’s eyes craved my youth and my skin crawled as it had done when father looked at me. The offering I carried bought my brother’s freedom from the cloisters but the damage to his mind…”

  “How long before he spoke about it?” Robin asked, his lips moving over my head.

  “We made our way to Nottingham, I couldn’t return home and other than Marion I had no friends. I thought I could earn enough to keep us in the city and it would be far enough away to have no friends of my father hunting down their prize.” I felt Robin’s arms tighten further, as if to keep me from the harm my memories caused.

  “I underestimated Tuck’s vulnerability. I couldn’t leave him alone, and he couldn’t work. He knew how to read and write but I couldn’t make him use his skills to help us, everything about the city destroyed what little peace of mind he found in my company. If someone brushed against him a whimper would turn into a scream and soon people began to whisper of the Devil in his mad eyes. I tried hiding him in a small room I rented but he couldn’t be left. We were slowly starving, so I sold what little I had left, even my boots, but it wasn’t enough. When I came home, weeping from hunger Tuck seemed to rouse from his torpor and he began to explain.”

  I sniffed and poked at the fire with my foot, unwilling to relinquish Robin’s hold. “He had been used by the monks since he was eight years old. They never used his name, only ever called him – Boy – and they made sure he knew his place, a child sold to them. They taught him the Bible but only so they could use him and make his guilt over their pleasure worse. They taught him the necessity of flagellation because they convinced him their desires were his fault, because of his Devil given beauty and lustful nature. They beat him when he wouldn’t beat himself and they raped him. I still don’t think he’s told me everything but what you witnessed today… I haven’t seen him do that to himself for a very long time. Something must have happened. Something destroyed the peace he has found here.”

  “Could it be me? Us? The threat he thinks I pose to you?” Robin asked.

  I stared into the fire and shrugged. “I honestly don’t know and if he doesn’t tell us it’s just going to get worse but trying to force him…”

  “I have seen this kind of –”

  “Don’t say madness, he’s not mad.”

  “I know he’s not mad, I was going to say, malady. There is something similar that happens to soldiers when they see too much, experience too much death, too much violence.”

  “Is that what happened to you?” I asked.

  It was his turn to sigh. “Yes, although I respond differently to pain. I react with violence to others, but you’ve already been a victim to that.” His kissed my hair as if to say sorry once again. I rubbed my fingers over his knuckles, accepting his apology. “We can help him, together.”

  “That means you’d have to stay,” I said continuing to stare into the fire and not at Robin.

  “Well, I’m here now, so I can help now and right now we need to sleep.”

  I shivered against him. “Come to my bed?”

  “To sleep, I’ll come to sleep. Last night was lovely,” he whispered. He took my hand and lifted me from the floor of the cave. We stood chest to chest and his hand laced around my back, pulling me even closer.

  “The colour of your hair is like a raven’s wing.” His thick fingers were stroking through my dark tangle but his eyes were focused on mine. “It’s so soft, like your eyes, a reflection of the green forest we live in, and your strength that of a young stag.” Colour rose in my cheeks; I wasn’t used to receiving compliments from men I wanted.

  “Thank you,” I murmured.

  “I’m going to kiss you,” he informed me, cupping my jaw, his thumb stroking my cheekbones.

  My heart contracted and expanded so fast I felt dizzy.
“I’d like that.”

  He smiled, those cerulean eyes darkening into wells of desire. I couldn’t help myself, I licked my lips in anticipation, his focus became razor sharp and I heard a small grunt. His lips lowered and I took hold of his wrists. He didn’t close his eyes, but the first pass of his lips over mine set off my need for more. My eyelids lowered and I swayed into his body. Robin’s hands slid over my back and he drew me in, pressing more kisses to my lips before his tongue slipped over my lips. His arms tightened and I opened my mouth, mirroring his and he moaned as his tongue entered my body. I drifted on waves of light and instinct. My tongue rubbed against his, danced into his mouth for the first time and he leaned into my strength as I pulled him, wanting more.

  The heat of the fire on the backs of my legs faded. All my focus remained on Robin, his inferno was so much more, and I never wanted to lose the connection we’d made but all things end and Robin pulled back. He pressed his forehead to mine, and we both breathed as if we’d run a league chased by wolves.

  “Will…” He groaned and shifted back out of my grasp, dropping his hands from my hips. I watched him blink, trying to remember who he was, it made me nervous. What if I’d done something wrong? “Respecting your space in that bed is going to be even more difficult than I thought.”

  “What?” I asked, also finding it difficult to understand actual words. “Did I do something wrong?”

  That brought his attention back to the present. “Wrong? No. What makes you think something is wrong?”

  “I just, I don’t… I don’t know what I’m doing…”

  Robin laughed. “Really? You seem to know exactly what I want.” He reached for me and drew me back into his embrace. “I am merely very aware of what has hurt you in the past. I promised never to hurt you and I certainly don’t want to scare you.”

  “Oh, I’m scared but not of kissing you,” I said raising a smile.

  “I think I should sleep by the fire,” he said.

  “I think I can trust you.” I took hold of his hands, weaving my fingers through his and pulled him to my bed. We moved over the cave’s floor, focused only on each other and I stepped up onto the natural dais. We lowered onto the bed and Robin’s fingers trembled as he reached for my tunic. I lifted my arms and he pulled the woollen cloth over my head. I leaned forwards and for the first time initiated a kiss. He reached for my hip and tugged me closer, pulling at his tunic and breaking away long enough to remove it and his undershirt. My palm and fingers brushed against his skin for the first time and he whimpered.