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My mind flashed back to a moment in time, when I was a younger lad. Walking in on—no, interrupting—a priestly colleague of mine with his hand shoved in a young altar boy’s trousers. I would never forget the way the shadows curved from the corner of the nave, slicing across the boy’s face and hiding half of it in darkness, while illuminating the other half in holy light.
Illuminating his unmitigated terror and confusion.
I would also never forget the way the priest screamed the next morning, as I hacked his hands off with an axe. The way the blood spurted from the stumps of his wrists, oozing across the scroll he’d been writing.
I would never fail to recall the way those hands crunched as the nails cracked through the bones of his palms, giving resistance when I pinned them to the doors of the church.
And, of course, I wouldn’t forget the aftermath. Though the clergy never found evidence of my wrongdoing—or found the rest of the priest’s burned, crispy body—they concocted enough lies and excuses to exile me from the flock.
Since then, I’d become the most debauched of the Merry Men, I daresay, while trying my damnedest to make sure nothing like that ever happened to another child in my charge.
“Friar Tuck?” Robin asked in a meek voice, a helpless tilt to her brow as she watched my faraway gaze.
I turned my eyes to hers, iron coals in my sockets.
“Aye, Robin. My fleshly desires. That’s all it was.”
Silence fell between us, thick as a morning fog in Nottingham.
A twig nearby snapped and my head swiveled to find Alan-a-Dale standing off to the side of our little stack of tunics, pants, and dresses.
The dandy popped his eyebrows at me, ruining that pretty face of his with a frown. “You’ve had her all afternoon to yourself, Tuck. It’s my turn with her, while there’s still an hour or two of sunlight left.”
Robin threw her arms up, glaring at him. “I’m not just an object you can pass around!”
Alan let out a high laugh. “Of course you are. That’s what property is.” He brought out a longbow from behind his back, wagging it in the air. “Join me, little songbird. I have something more fun in store than needling dresses and droning on with this old hag.”
I watched Robin’s face, and when she noticed the bow, her eyes gleamed.
Chapter 22
Alan a Dale
This girl had stones bigger than mine. That, or she was incredibly naïve and innocent. I didn’t believe that, though. Not with how she had comported herself at the river, or in front of our dear chaplain.
Yes, she’d fumbled her words and blushed like a nun in a whorehouse when she stumbled upon the four of us naked in the river, bathing. Yet she stood her ground. Took the measure of us. I hoped we hadn’t fallen short of her expectations.
Robin was not worried about staking out into the woods with me, alone, for a hunt. She knew next to nothing about me—only that I was undeniably handsome, could sing, play a lute, and had a weapon.
I told her on the way out the clearing, “Try to run from me and I won’t hesitate to put one of these in your pretty ass.” My hand patted the quiver on my back.
She snapped back, “That’s if you can catch me,” giving me a wry smirk as she skipped ahead.
I raised a brow at her insolence. “Sounds like you’re itching for a challenge, brat princess.”
She held her head high.
The girl came up to my chest. She appeared small and pliable. Were I a lesser man, I could wrestle her to the ground and take her in the bushes we passed.
Little John had decreed we not touch her. Beyond that, I wasn’t that kind of man. None of us were, as far as I knew. We fought fiercely and terrified anyone passing through the trade roads, yet we also had a code of conduct. An unwritten one, but a code nonetheless.
We were not to behave aggressively or violently to women or children. Will Scarlet might have already violated that section of the code.
As I’d said in the river, Robin could qualify as both woman and child . . . or at least I believed that before seeing the way she tied and molded her ripped tunic into a fashion piece, baring her belly and squishing her chest together.
Now I recognized her innate attractiveness. It took one to know one. I could see us getting along famously if it weren’t for our current circumstances.
I had to wonder if she knew how she affected us. Even me—one who wasn’t naturally inclined toward the fairer sex. Truthfully, I would have taken her as a lad just as quickly as her true self. She was beautiful in both versions.
