AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I was startled for a moment, because when he threw the door open to reveal his entire face, there weren’t two eyes staring back at me—just the one, still.
Guilt tugged at my heart. Poor whelp.
“Hail, Brand,” Tuck said with a tight smile. He pushed into the orphanage and I followed him in. As the boy tried to run away to rouse his friends to tell them who had arrived, Tuck grabbed his bony shoulder. “Nay, lad. Keep it quiet and don’t wake the others while we talk, if you please.”
Brand screwed up his single eye. “What about, sir?”
Tuck crouched to get eye-level with him. “Can you keep a secret, son?”
“Of course.” He smiled sadly. “You know me, Tuck.”
The friar patted his shoulder softly, gently. It was touching seeing the man in his element—kind and unwavering in the presence of people who needed help. And the saints know these children need it more than any of us.
“I’m here on a clandestine matter of great importance,” Tuck said in a low voice. “Do you know what ‘clandestine’ means, Brand?”
Brand nodded diligently. “Of course, sir. You taught me. It’s like rebellion, right?”
Tuck’s smile widened. His head bobbed right to left. “Close enough.”
He’ll let it slide, I thought with a wry smile.
“Who is your friend?” Brand asked, pointing up at me. “I like his hair.”
I stifled a chuckle. Brand had spotty black hair, like a wetted mop on his head. With a little proper bathing, however . . . “You can have hair just like this some day,” I said, running a hand through my golden locks. It had grown out quite nicely recently. “Long as you follow the chaplain’s directions. Understand?”
Brand nodded vigorously, smiling wide. His eye gleamed.
Tuck said, “Where’s Father Gabe, son?”
“He’s been out the last two days, sir. Kept us under close watch. Said no one is to leave.”
Still crouched, Tuck glanced over his shoulder at me. I noticed the lines knotting between his brow. That sounds not at all ominous, I thought sardonically.
“Why?” Tuck asked.
Brand’s shoulders bobbed.
I knew “Father Gabe.” Gabriel was, by all accounts, a Merry Man. A placeholder to run the shop while Tuck worked with us in the forest. He could have been a priest—I wasn’t truly certain—but he never did anything illegal with us. He simply had the similar heart and spirit of a rebel. Which made him the perfect candidate to run the almshouse while Friar Tuck was away . . . which was often.
I can’t fathom him turning coat on us. If he’s no longer loyal to the Merry Men, he could do a lot of damage with what he knows about us. More importantly, he could fuck up the almshouse operation we have here.
Of course, the main thrust of the almshouse was to provide service to the needy and homeless children that lived and proliferated in Nottingham. As an arm of the Church, it wasn’t subject to the Sheriff’s vicious taxes—something Sir George had been trying to fight for years now.
Being lenient in the tax situation gave Tuck breathing room to do more . . . clandestine things, as he’d put it, with the orphanage as cover. Tuck obviously wouldn’t tell anyone, but I’d been in the Merry Men long enough to know more than a few stolen, pawned, and fenced goods had been laundered through this place and washed out clean on the other side.
Friar Tuck was a just man. But even the best of us had less-than-pristine motives and immoral means to meet them.
“Father Gabe says it’s to keep us safe,” Brand said.
“Safe from what?” Tuck tilted his head.
This was news to both of us. Hard as he tried to hide it, I recognized the worry tingeing his voice.
Brand looked both ways down the grungy hall to make sure we were alone. He leaned in and whispered, “Couple people gone missing while you’ve been away, sir. Please don’t tell Father Gabe I told you.”
Tuck’s head reeled back in shock. “Whom?”
Brand’s brow furrowed, fearful. Like he knew, by Tuck’s reaction, that he’d said too much.
