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The last thought made me jolt with recognition, mind circling back. Healer. “I know who might be able to tell us what this is. But he’s not in our camp.”
“Who?” Much asked.
I recalled a strange man in a heavy fur coat, white smile stretching across a dark face . . . and three wolves circling him like faithful protectors.
Chapter 10
Alan a Dale
Iwatched from the side of the glade as Will Scarlet sliced at tree limbs with mad abandon. His teeth were gritted, showing his anger and frustration on his sleeve, as always.
Shirtless, the younger man’s body glistened with sweat as he tried to fight off his intrusive thoughts.
I didn’t bother fighting off my intrusive thoughts, because they had only ever served me well. I had nothing to be ashamed of or hide, even if our surly warrior-berserker did.
Will looked exquisite. His corded, vascular arms flexed with every swing of his swords. He made a mess of one tree’s branches and moved onto another. The sweat flew as he went through his practiced motions. He white-knuckled his blades, showing me he held little control—a detrimental state for a man to be lost in the storm swirling around his mind.
He’d be useless in a fight right now. Masterful, certainly, but blinded by his lust for death and violence, like he always was. Being clearheaded on the battlefield was essential.
I sat on a stump nearby, keeping both eyes on him with my elbows on my knees and my chin in my palm. Daydreaming about how to help the potent young man.
“What is it you’re fighting, little badger?” I asked aloud.
He paused, wiped a forearm over his sweaty forehead, and didn’t bother tossing so much as a glance over his shoulder before returning to hacking at the tree.
“Life,” he said.
I rolled my eyes. “You know, for a man victimized by reality, you can be quite overly dramatic sometimes.”
“Say that to my face, dandelion.”
I quirked a smile he couldn’t see, because he wasn’t bothering to pay me any attention. Same as it ever was.
My life had always been dictated by what I could do for people rather than my inherent worth. In fact, my entire usefulness seemed to hinge on what I could provide to the Merry Men: revelry, wit, music, and the occasional biting opinion on political discourse surrounding the land.
Hardly anyone here knew my past. They didn’t ask. What made you a Merry Man wasn’t as relevant as what you could do for the band.
The men, and even my little songbird Robin, didn’t know about the weight of sadness behind my cheery eyes. They didn’t understand the effort it took to keep spirits high in a forlorn camp plagued with poverty and killing to make ends meet. How it dragged me down every day, and the sheer willpower it took not to give up hope.
Robin, for her part, represented a new paradigm to our murky way of life. I saw something in her few others did. Besides myself, only Tuck and John seemed to recognize her talents—the rejuvenation of life and purpose she’d thrust onto the Merry Men ever since her arrival.
Will was still discovering and combating the idea that Robin had changed things. I figured his battle against the tree branches was an outward, physical metaphor for him struggling to accept said change.
It was hard for anyone to change, but especially lads who had only ever known violence, war, and poverty.
Once upon a time, I hadn’t been much different than Will Scarlet. But I was older, some might say wiser, and I was a vessel for change rather than a detractor against it. I had long since given up resisting the ideas of growth and transformation.
In that respect, I had transformed the idea of Alan-a-Dale many times in my life—as a man, as a lover, as a thinker, as a warrior-poet and storyteller.
I had brought Will to the edge of camp here so he could clear his mind. That usually meant swords would be involved, but there were other ways I knew to calm the young fighter.
We were alone. Watching him attack those tree trunks and hanging branches, spinning and tightening his fit, wiry body with effort and noisy growls, made the world around me drown away. For a moment, I thought about the animalistic nature with which he’d fucked Robin into a stupor, and how satisfying it must have been for our little songbird as she sang her tune of desire in his ear.
I felt like a voyeur watching him now as much as I had felt like one last night, when I’d stumbled upon their raucous session near the Grinning Oak, and spied on them through the trees.
When I stood from the stump, my cock strained against my pants. I ignored my hardness as my legs absentmindedly dragged me toward the glistening young man in front of me.
“Tell me what it is about life that has you so up in arms, Will,” I said in a low voice.
