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Alan shivered as he sat in a long, lingering shaft of winter sunlight, rapidly fading. He didn’t need the firelight to strum his Celtic harp, restored to him by the Faerie Elandrielle. He hugged it close to him, as close as he hugged the memory of the Faerie feast that he had attended last Full Moon.
Shutting his eyes brought the spectacle to vivid memory. Bright and ornate, the feasting hall had rivalled any castle’s festivities. The duchess and her courtiers had celebrated from sunset to sunrise. They danced, drank sparkling wine, and feasted on sweet meats and rare confections and elaborately dressed swans.
Sylvan light had cascaded from greeny fountains. Silvery light had poured along pathways. A riot of large flowers decorated tables, draped along white-gilded banisters, and wreathed marble columns.
He had played music for a feasting that lasted the night, learning new songs from Elandrielle. Those notes still haunted him. He wanted to pick them out on his harp, even though that Faer lady had warned him not to play the songs when among humans.
With so many hours at the strings, his fingers should have been sore and bleeding. They had not been. The tips showed only the calluses he’d built up over time.
Yet he couldn’t cast that memory into the shadows of his mind.
He didn’t want to. The memory fed him more substantially than the poor fare that the outlaws passed around. Dry bread and a pottage heartened by a single scrawny cock and renewed for several days was not a meal to enjoy.
The recent snowfall had kept the cook Ellen Best from coming from Nottingham to improve their meals. While her friend Melly and old Alcide were fair cooks, they couldn’t match Ellen. No human could match the Faeries.
A complaining voice by the fireside penetrated his musings. Farmers had come this day, plowing through a fresh fall of inches-deep snow to find Robin Hood’s camp. Will Scarlet and Jack Greenleaf had encountered them. Since Will vouched for them, they had brought them deeper into Sherwood to speak with Robin himself.
Sitting well back from the campfire, Alan picked out a few notes before he recognized the Faerie song. He set the harp aside and took up his tin cup, heading for the fire where Alcide kept an herbal tincture going. He knelt behind her. When she glanced around, he presented the empty cup. She snorted and poured the tea, but her attention was on the farmer.
“We can’t pay the double rent that the abbot is demanding,” the man whined. The cold had reddened his cheeks. He looked scrawny next to the robust man beside him. The third farmer was middling, but he nodded vehemently in agreement.
The men had dragged off their knitted caps when Will presented them to Robin Hood. They had bowed and launched into speech only for Robin to wave them to silence. “Please, wait until all can hear.” Then he led them to the fire, shared pottage and stale bread, and called for the other men in the camp to join them.
Double rent. Last time he’d ventured into Nottingham, Alan had heard rumors that the new abbot at Throckmorten Abbey had raised the rents. Demanding a double rent before crops were in the ground wasn’t wise. Farmers had to wait for the last frost before planting and would need all summer before they could reap their harvest.
“Why does he want a double rent? Will he not take barter?” Will asked. He sat on his haunches beside Robin. The fire burnished his fox-red hair. Behind Will, the boy Tod stirred impatiently. “Doesn’t sound like a good landlord. He’ll lose his tenants.”
A throat cleared loudly, and everyone looked to the far verge of the fire, where Friar Tuck sat. With all attention on Tuck, Alan crept back to his seat and yanked his cloak closer to stave off winter’s chill.
“Abbot Petros believes that the tenant farms should be worked by the abbey monks. His goal is collect coins only. Those who cannot pay will be forced off their tenancies.”
Little John snorted. Robin’s brow creased. “The abbey doesn’t have enough monks to work the farms. They can barely manage the fields close to the abbey.”
Tuck shrugged. “Monks do not argue with their abbot.”
“Surely he doesn’t think the ranks of monks will grow when the farmers are forced off their tenancies.”
“You credit him with thinking, Robin?” John stroked his black beard. “Are all the farmers in the same straits?”
The three farmers nodded. “Prior Clement rode round with the news yesterday.”
“How much is your shortfall?”
“We have the first rent, ready to pay on the feast of St. Matthias. We don’t have the second rent, not even a penny of it.”
Robin rubbed his shaven chin. John cocked his head. Will rested his elbows on his knees, sank his head into his hands, and stared into the flames.
And Alan wondered what their three leaders planned.
Alcide bustled up from her place by the fire. “Come, good sirs. You will be our guests this night. We have warm places for you to tuck away and sleep sound. Tomorrow, Jack will escort you back to your farms. Bring your cups. You’ll want warm tea before you sleep.” She filled their cups then herded them from the fire. She tossed one look over her shoulder before she ushered them to the wattle cabins, mud-daubed to block winter wind.
“Tuck,” Robin said.
The young friar rose from his seat on the verge and stepped around Jack Greenleaf. He crouched where one of the farmers had sat. All the men edged closer, even Alan. Although he wasn’t one of the outlaws, he felt kinship. They had welcomed him after he won the singing competition at Yule. He didn’t have their skills with bows and staves and swords, but he brought whatever news he heard when he played in the taverns. He would help where he could.
“What are you thinking?” Tuck asked.
Robin ignored the question. “Tell us about this new abbot. Is he a holy man?”
John snorted.
“You said you wouldn’t war against priests and the abbey.”
“I said I wouldn’t war against holy men and women. Tell me about this Petros. Is he like the unholy Abbot Veritas?”
Alan shuddered. He’d seen a black-robed man in Underhill. Elandrielle claimed the man was an abbot, suffering a penance for a crime against a Faerie. Disheveled and wasted, the man had slept beneath the leafy boughs of a rowan tree, for winter did not touch the Faerie realm. Other humans that he’d seen, the ones not escorted by Faeries, had also slept beneath trees, never stirring though the feasting was merry all around.
“No, not like Veritas.” Then the friar clamped his mouth shut.
“You do not like to speak against your abbot.”
“It isn’t wise.”
“Yet this new abbot has a corrupting sin. Not a sin of the flesh, like Veritas. A sin of greed? A lust for coins?”
“How did you know? I said never a word.”
Robin laughed. “I put the clues together, my friar. You say only that he is not like Veritas, and you do not say he is a holy man. He doubles the rent; thus, he loves coins more than God. Did he take the gold plate and chalice for his own chambers?”
“How—?” Tuck crossed himself. “Have the Faeries whispered in your ear, Sir Robin?”
“Nay, good friar. Tell us, for this is not a question about your abbot, merely of the abbey. Have the farthings and ha-pennies been exchanged for pennies?”
“His first order, an accounting of all coins collected and held.”
“His second order, I warrant,” John said, “was to send for a money lender to exchange the small bits and pieces into whole pennies.”
Tuck looked pained, but he nodded. “He keeps the coffer in his chambers.”
“Then we must enter the Abbey and extract enough coins to pay the extra rent for the farmers. We’ll need a drawing of the abbey. Can you do that for us?”
As the friar nodded, Will’s head popped up from his hands. “The question is how can we get these coins? How can a straggly band of outlaws enter an abbey of monks, make our way unseen to the abbot’s chambers and take the coins, then escape, all without being identified so the sheriff is justified in sending more rangers against us?”
Robin grinned. He looked light-hearted. “We need a feast. We need masks. And we need a distraction.”
“A mummer’s play!” Jack leaped to his feet. “I’ll happily play Tom Fool. Will, here, can be the sergeant. Alcide can be Dame Jane. Melly can be the lady bright and gay.”
Tuck doused that plan. “No women in the abbey.”
“Then Tod can be our lady. Who will be Dame Jane?”
“A mummer’s play?” John asked, scratching his beard. “The mummers distract; we steal. And Tuck keeps the door for us. How do we disguise ourselves? And what feast will give us entry? It will have to be soon.”
“Candlemas,” the friar said promptly. “Tomorrow. At noon we will have a mass to bless every candle for the chapel. I can miss that by saying I spent the time with Brother Jerome. My presence is required for the feast, after sunset.”
Robin merely smiled. “That fits our plan. Once you are inside, you can find a way to open a postern for us. We’ll come in quiet and leave the same way.”
“We’ll need masks for the mummer’s play,” Jack said.
Tuck scratched his curls. “I know someone who makes animal masks from scraps of leather and forest finds. I’ll visit him tomorrow.”
“Much?”
The slight man rolled up from where he lay on the circle’s verge. “Aye, Robin?”
“News from town?”
“I’ll bring it tomorrow after noon.”
“Alan. We need music for our play. Songs, a ballad, something to entertain the monks without offending their piety.”
A thrill shivered up Alan’s spine. The speed of their planning had fascinated him. His inclusion in their plan warmed his heart more than the fire warmed his winter-chilled body. After what happened at Yule, he hated thieves—but the abbot was stealing, too, and he would steal the farmers’ homes and livelihoods from them. He hoped Robin didn’t intend to take more coins than was needed. “Aye, Sir Robin. I can do that, easy.”
Robin clapped his hands once and stood. “After our farmers leave, we’ll work out the play. Men, we have a plan.”
. ~ . ~ . ~ .
In the morning, Alan found himself trudging through snow with Friar Tuck. Alcide had given them a good breakfast of eggs and gravy and more of her tea which they had wolfed down as they stood beside the fire. Warmed and full, he and Tuck took to the forest trail.
After dodging a third clump of snow and brushing ice from his cloak, Alan hefted the oiled cloth slung over his shoulder and caught up to the friar. “Who is this man who makes masks?”
“Brother Jerome. He’s a hermit. You might want to hang back when we arrive. He—he’s not fond of people.”
“A real hermit, not a holy man.”
“Hermit and holy man. He’s a friend.”
He looked around at the winter-smothered forest. The weight of snow had crushed brambles and bushes. It crunched under their feet. By afternoon, the bright sun would melt some of the fall, turning their trek into mush, while night’s chill would refreeze the snow into slippery ice. “Hard to be a hermit in winter. Did he not want to retreat to the abbey until spring?”
“Brother Jerome prefers solitude for his prayers.”
Suspecting a wealth of meaning behind those simple words, Alan glanced at the friar, but Tuck’s ruddy cheeks above his curly blond beard revealed nothing more.
They walked fast. Alan whistled a merry tune as defense against the cold. On his third time through, he recognized the song and stopped mid-phrase. Elandrielle’s warning rang strongly. He didn’t want an idle whistle to make an enemy of a Faerie.
“Keep going with that tune,” Tuck said after a few steps. He yawned. “It’s bright and cheery. I don’t know the words, but I like it.”
Alan wasn’t so sure. He remembered the sleeping abbot who’d had no Faerie escort. He exchanged the song for a lively ballad. Tuck joined in the chorus, “fol de la, fol de lay”. Eventually he grew weary and stopped singing although Tuck hummed a few rounds of the chorus.
They passed a rock formation that Alan thought he recognized, but no path led off the main trail. Tuck passed the rocks without glancing at them.
On the trail they saw the deep prints of deer, bird tracks that had scarce made an impression, and hare tracks that indented the snow. A single bird called out, repeated tweets that pierced the still air, but no other answered.
When they reached the hermitage, only their footprints marred the snow. No other had passed on the trail.
The hermitage was a tiny building formed of mortared rocks. A smoking chimney stood at the back of the shingled roof. A two-plank door opened at the front. Alan doubted Brother Jerome had more than a pallet, a hearth, and an altar, but he would be cozy while people in larger buildings contended with winter drafts.
Tuck stopped, and Alan stopped behind him. The friar whistled several notes, which Alan identified as the Gloria Patri only after he had stopped.
The weathered door opened, and a bush of white hair and beard was thrust out. Then a monk emerged. Although wrapped in a blanket, his thin, long limbs and bony neckline were evident. He lifted a hand above his eyes, fighting the reflection off the snow.
“Brother Jerome,” Tuck called. “How are you this morning?”
“Come for tea.” He motioned for them to come forward then ducked back inside the hermitage.
Alan followed Tuck inside and found the hermitage shadowy with only a candle and the hearth for light, but the banked fire had warmed the little room. Brother Jerome knelt beside the fire, pouring water into an iron pot.
“No time for tea, Brother,” the friar said. “We’ve come about your masks.”
The hermit looked up, squinting at them. “What use do you have for them? Out of my nightmares they are. I make them when I cannot sleep. When they are finished, then I can sleep.”
“I have friends who want to have a mummer’s play. We thought they would serve very well for the performers. May we see them?”
The brother rose. “A mummer’s play? I have not seen one in years.”
“Perhaps we will perform a part of the play later, when we return the masks. Alan here will play the songs, and two of my friends will dance.”
“You need not return them.”
Brother Jerome squeezed past Tuck and reached to a wall cabinet that Alan, standing beside, had not even noticed. He hooked a finger in a hole and opened a tall panel. The interior was crammed with all sorts of bits that made no sense until the monk removed the topmost. Alan recognized a mask of pieced leather and dangling bits. He handed it to Alan who turned it nose down. Only then did he see that the leather was sewn into a hare’s face with drooping ears and long strings to tie it on.
Alan exclaimed. “This is marvelous work.”
The monk hunched his shoulders and handed him another hare mask. Before Alan could examine his handiwork, he found himself clutching a mask with red, tufted ears and a bleached streak down the nose, creating a fox face. There was a second fox, then a boar with antler tusks. He tried to examine each while he juggled the others, and Tuck had to accept the bleached hart and a matching hind, a Green Man mask of leather shaped into leaves, and two fierce hounds, one black and one red.
Then Brother Jerome shut the panel and rested his forehead against it. “Right glad I am to have those nightmares leave my hermitage. They interfere with my work.”
After tying the masks inside the oiled cloth, Tuck and Alan didn’t linger. Nor did Brother Jerome tempt them to stay longer. Only as they waved a last time to the monk and watched him step back into his hermitage did Alan ask, “What work does he do here?”
“The best work for the Lord,” Tuck said. “He spends his time in communion with the Christ.”
Much returned to the camp on their heels. As Robin looked over the masks, the slight man reported what he had heard: “The Sheriff will attend the Candlemas feast at the abbot’s express invitation.”
Robin began to sort through the masks, setting aside a fox and separating out the boar mask from the hounds.
“Did you hear me, Robin? The Sheriff will be there.”
“He always carries a hefty purse. This is an extra boon. Here, Alan, I think you should wear this.” He handed over the black hound, made of darkly stained leather with a long snout, pinned-back ears, and a fierce scowl above the eyeholes.
“This for me?”
“You’ll need to be disguised as well. They might suspect you, but as our musician they will have no evidence to act upon their suspicions.”
He took the mask. At Brother Jerome’s, Alan hadn’t had the opportunity to examine either of the hound masks. A dark ink or soot had been rubbed into the leather. It didn’t come off on his fingers, so he guessed ink rather than soot. The monk had used a full piece of leather for the brow, creating the snarl by tooling lines. The eyeholes were large and round. He held it to his face and looked through. He would be able to see better than the angled eyes of the foxes and deer.
Jack took up the Green Man mask. He pressed it closely against his face and peered through the eyeholes.
Will accepted the red boar mask. Its color matched his hair.
“Robin,” Much insisted, “the Sheriff will have his guards. How will we manage that many men?”
Will lowered his mask. “Can Melly cook a sleeping draught for us?”
“I can,” the young woman said. She played with a deer mask. “This one fits me.”
“You can’t go,” Tuck said sorrowfully. “No women are allowed inside the monastery.”
“Even when I’m masked?”
“Melly,” Robin said gently, “even masked and wrapped double to hide your shape, you will be spotted immediately.”
Color staining her cheeks, she ducked her head and handed the deer mask to the friar. “Then I had better start on the sleeping draught.”
“None of the women should come, not even Alcide. We won’t take everyone. How many masks do we have?”
“Only twelve.”
“Twelve will have to do.”
“It’s not enough against the guards and all the monks,” Much warned.
“It will have to be enough. We’ll dose the guards outside as well as everyone inside. Then we’ll find the coffer, take the coins to make up the double rents, relieve the Sheriff of his purse, and make our merry way home.” Robin tied on a fox mask.
. ~. ~ . ~ .
Friar Tuck had left well before sunset to reach the monastery before the front gates closed for the evening. He had a two-fold job, to pour Melly’s draught into the wine jugs and to admit them to the monastery.
The boy Tod watched and counted the guards who came with the Sheriff of Nottingham. Eight men, all heavily armed.
Along with his furred cloak and red finery, the Sheriff wore a broadsword, not caring that he entered a peaceful monastery. He rode in an open wagon, sitting with crossed arms on the bench with the driver.
They were a strange assortment that crept through the forest. In dark clothes they blended into the shadows. The animal masks made them seem creatures escaped from the Faerie realm. Twelve masked men and one unmasked moved quietly through the dark forest, hearing a distant fox bark and an owl hoot, with only icy snow crunching beneath their boots. The world had a strange unreality. When Alan glanced at the others, he understood Brother Jerome’s nightmares.
No harp could move silently through the forest. Every bush would reach for the strings, to play them and reveal their position. They couldn’t risk that betrayal. Alan had given his harp to Tuck to carry into the monastery.
He felt naked and unmasked without it.
Thirteen men slipped out of the forest to cross the fallow field. Silvery light from a crescent moon barely lit their way to the monastery wall. They looked away from the torches burning along the front wall and headed for the back postern Tuck had pointed out.
Robin as Fox reached the door first. Behind him was Little John, the only one unmasked. His size would identify him, no matter what disguise he wore, so he was left out of the mummer’s play. He would come in with them but remain in the corridor, looking for the abbot’s chambers. Robin would join him for invading that space and taking the coins.
Robin scratched at the door. No one answered.
He tried the latch. When it rattled rather than opened, he quickly dropped his hand. He looked around, but no one had any solution. They pressed against the wall and hoped no guards patrolled the exterior.
He scratched again. And waited. Then again.
The latch rattled once. The door swung inward, revealing Tuck’s curls, burnished by distant torches. Tuck touched a finger to his lips. “I had trouble getting away,” he whispered. “They think I’ve gone to the privy.” He handed over the Celtic harp when Alan came through the gate. “Follow close.”
The postern was behind outbuildings. They passed a stable and shed, a pigsty; a workshop, then another and another, all the buildings that the monastery needed to be a self-sustaining farm.
The monks’ cells were next, roughly built as a separate building, with the cells opening toward the primary building.
At one stop, while they hid and waited for a torch-bearing monk to make his way from the dairy to the main building, Tuck confessed that he hadn’t been able to pour the sleeping draught into the various wine jugs. The chief cook had drafted him to carve a suckling pig and arrange the meat into dozens of bowls.
The kitchen was a separate building. The smoke from the hearth chimneys was tinged with orange, evidence of the flames needed to cook a grand feast. Extending to the main building was a roughly enclosed corridor, to protect the servers in bad weather.
Tuck didn’t lead them there.
Moonlight showed the breadth of the main communal building, with a tower at the front. The chapel would be there, near the bell, with windows to catch the east and west sun. He understood from Tuck’s previous talk that the new abbot had conceived a plan to commission stained glass to replace the diamond-paned glass.
That would be the reason for the new abbot to increase the rents.
They entered a narrow side door, into a dark room. Without hesitation, Tuck crossed and opened a door, admitting a faint shaft of flickering light. “This way,” he hissed, and they followed him into a corridor. Tuck tapped John’s shoulder and pointed to a tapestry. “Door. Wait there.” He drew the rest of them along the corridor.
They reached a cross hall. Muffled voices could be heard.
Tuck pointed to his left and two doors. “That way to the chapel, this to the dining hall. I’ll go add Melly’s sleeping draught to the wine jugs now.”
Robin clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Off you go, Tuck, with our thanks. No need for them to know about you. Don’t rejoin us.”
Alan envisioned the drawing of the monastery that the friar had sketched in the dirt. On the right, one door led into the dining hall. There would be two doors at the back of the dining hall, for the lesser monks to enter and to serve. The single door ahead would be used by the abbot and the higher monks and any special guests, a direct way from the chapel.
Robin touched his mask. “We enter all at once. Black Hound, you go first. Go in with music. We’ll come next. First is the round dance we practiced. The jig next, then the second round dance, then another jig. Then Hare and Boar, Green Man and Stag, Hart and Hind, you six will perform our play. Another dance, then all leave, same way we came in. They should all be snoring in their bowls by then.”
Alan maneuvered into the fore. Now was the time for his performance.
He didn’t want to play any of the songs from the Yule competition. Nor any song he’d played at the taverns in Nottingham. Those were too well-known.
The song that came first to him was the Faerie song that Elandrielle had warned him against.
He closed his eyes and tried to think of a merry tune. He placed his fingers on the strings—and the Faerie song longed to burst forth.
“Black Hound?” Robin whispered.
Alan shook his head, trying to drive out the liquid notes he’d learned in Underhill. He dredged up the Irish jig he would need. It would do for twice.
“Open the door,” he ordered.
Robin lifted the latch and pushed the door wide.
And Alan stepped into the brightness and noise in the feasting dining hall.
He launched immediately into the jig. He kept his steps light, almost dancing as he made his way around the tables.
Talk ceased at the opening notes of the music.
Alan saw the stares, caught murmurs at the masks. He kept playing, keeping the music lively. Once he completed a circuit, he entered the partial square. He took a position facing the dais with the abbot and the sheriff, the prior and a captain, the priest and a sergeant. Monks filled the side tables.
He didn’t see any guards.
The others followed, forming a circle around him. All twelve spun around then began the entwining round dance.
The abbot stood. Alan saw anger on the man’s face. Then he saw the Sheriff speak. He couldn’t hear anything, only the notes of the jig, but the abbot subsided into his chair.
The doors at either end of the wall opened. Monks came in, bearing platters. They stopped when they saw the masked mummers. Tuck appeared behind one set of monks. He pressed them forward, and they began moving. When one side moved, the other started then moved as well. They served the platters around the room, first at the central table, then to the side table. Roast suckling pig. Glazed apples. Root vegetables. Tuck circled the table, pouring wine.
Alan’s mouth watered. He hadn’t been able to eat the simple pottage before they garbed into dark clothes and the animal masks.
Then he realized the mummers had finished their dance and stood still, three behind, four and four lined up beside him. He ended the jig.
Red Boar jumped from a side position to stand before the dais. He swept a deep bow with a flourishing hand to the side. Straightening, he slid one foot forward and set it at angle before the other. “Good sirs, welcome all, and good evening on this feast of Candlemas. Eat, drink, and celebrate together, for we come to entertain you on this dark winter night. Hound will play our tunes. All mum and mute we shall dance and tell a silly tale. Then, all good sirs, we ask your blessing.” He swept another exuberant bow then leaped back into his place.
And Alan re-played the jig.
When he started the second verse, Much as Hare began his leaping dance. As he jumped and kicked, the other mummers eased out of the center of the tables. They milled around the room, keeping to the sides. Alan concentrated on his harp, but he saw a few venture along the walls to the serving doors on either end of the wall behind the dais.
When he ended the jig, Much leaped to the center and gave his own flourishing bow. The monks applauded ... until they realized the abbot did not. The applause died away, leaving only the sheriff and his two men to clap.
He realized the others had lined up on either side of him. When Much rejoined them, Alan launched into another tune suitable for a round dance. This time the men spiraled around him, kicking or jumping by turns, swooping around with widespread arms, making sure to give the monks good views of their masks.
All too soon the second jig was over, and it was time for the silly mummery play they had decided on: Green Man as Tom Fool, the slight Hare as the Lady, Red Boar as the bluff sergeant, White Hart and Hind as interfering rogues, and Stag as the hero.
Alan stayed against the wall, playing a light tune that could repeat over and over as the Hare rebuffed the Boar’s advances, Hart and Hind tripped up the Stag and pushed forward Green Man. The Hare bewept her fate, sobbed her wishes, and slithered free of Hart and Hind. Then Stag defeated Boar in a mock battle, and Green Man escorted Lady to Stag and offered her hand.
The abbot smiled throughout. The Sheriff and his men laughed at the antics, highly enjoying the pretense of a duel. The monks would laugh then look guilty until the next antic drew another shout of laughter. Everyone applauded.
He played another dance from the back while the mummers formed in cross lines, three and three and four. The men took turns leaping or jumping or kicking.
Then the Sheriff stood.
And the captain and the sergeant stood.
Alan’s gut felt hollow while his heartbeat sped up.
The sergeant headed for the door that Alan was blocking. He thought it wise to step aside. The man began running before the door shut behind him.
He brought the dance to a quick end.
The mummers broke off and swept bows then began filing out of the center.
The Sheriff spread his arms wide. “Give thanks to these mummers for their play.”
They had to stop and face the dais and bow. Alan slid along the back wall and worked toward a serving door. Leaving through the door that the sergeant had used was foolish.
“And give thanks to our Black Hound who played so well,” the Sheriff announced.
He had to bow several times before the last clap died away. The others had made it to the back wall. Red Hound had his hand on the door latch.
“But what is this?” The Sheriff pretended confusion, an act worthy of Hart or Hind. “You leave before we can reward you. Or perhaps you take your reward elsewhere. When you entered, I counted twelve, our musician and eleven mummers. Now I count only ten. A fox is missing.”
Boar stepped forward. “My good sir, perhaps you are mistaken. We are only eleven mummers. A fox, a hare, a hound black and one red, a hart and a hind, two deer and a stag, our Green Man, and this humble boar.”
Abbot Petros stood. “Nay, good Boar, you were twelve, for I remember thinking you numbered same as the apostles.”
A muffled shout came from outside the dining hall.
Red Hound opened the door ... and the sergeant stood there with several guards behind him.
Alan didn’t wait. He had reached a serving door. He didn’t have to open it. A monk came through, swinging the door wide to bring in a large bowl of mulled wine. He caught a whiff of the spices floating in the wine, then he was through the door. He heard fighting start behind him as he gained the back corridor. He ran along the side hall to that dark room that meant escape.
Hands grabbed him as he came through the room, still dark. They squeezed hard, and he squeaked like a child.
The hands released him. “It’s the songster.”
That was Little John.
“Where are the others?” Robin asked.
“The Sheriff caught them. He knew you were gone. He guessed you were—.” A commotion in the hall stopped his words.
“This way,” and Robin headed out.
They scurried—well, Little John scrambled—to the postern, stopping and dropping low when torches swung light toward them. Little John carried a heavy pouch that betrayed its contents with little clinks. For a tall man Robin was stealthy. Alan kept blundering into fences and walls. John finally grabbed his arm and steered him around obstacles.
Tuck met them at the postern. “I wasn’t sure who had gotten away.”
“Where are the others?” Robin asked. “We cannot allow them to be gaoled.”
“At the front, surrounded by the guards. There’s more guards than we originally thought. They must have been hidden in the Sheriff’s wagon.”
“You think the Sheriff expected a robbery?” John asked.
“I think he’s cannier than we anticipated. Tuck, you need to go back in. You’ll be missed.”
“I will not let my friends be arrested.”
“We’ll take care of it.”
Tuck stared at Robin, who had shed his fox mask. Whatever he saw in that moonlit face must have reassured him, for the friar saw them through the postern then closed the narrow door and latched it.
No one spoke until they had crossed the field and re-entered the forest verge. Robin led them to the road that wound its way through Sherwood, connecting the monastery to Nottingham. They crouched in the faint cover offered by the winter-stripped landscape, dark clumps huddled together against the snow.
“What are you planning?” John asked, voice heavy, chill as the air.
“They have to pass this way.”
“We’re three against a dozen or more. Probably sixteen, eighteen men. Our men will be bound. They can’t help us. We don’t have our longbows. Not even a good stave. Just knives.”
Robin didn’t answer.
And that Faerie song started up in Alan’s head.
“I might have a solution,” he offered hesitantly.
“How is that a solution?” Robin asked when he explained. For answer, Alan played a few notes.
Little John caught Robin before he dropped into the snow and shook him until Robin thrust him off. “I’m awake,” he groused. Then he stared at Alan as if he’d never before seen him. “We’ll try that first.”
. ~ . ~ . ~ .
The rescue started easier than Alan anticipated. He positioned himself behind a giant oak, cradled his harp, and waited for the Sheriff and his men and theirs to approach. Robin and John were well away, where they couldn’t hear the harp. He would need to shout to bring them back.
He didn’t bother to count the odds against them. More than eight was all that he needed to know.
He waited until the first four men passed, the Sheriff among them. Then came the big horses pulling the wagon with guards riding alongside and more guards following. The outlaws still wore their mummers’ masks. Alan realized with a start that he also still wore the black hound mask.
Alan played the Faerie song from his cover.
His protection depended on darkness, on surprise, and on the quickness of the Faerie song’s effect. Before he reached the end of the first verse, the guards were drooping in their saddles. Three fell off. Their horses stopped and waited. The other horses kept plodding onward, taking their sleeping riders to Nottingham.
The wagon passed him, two guards asleep on the bench, the outlaws asleep in the wagon.
The last guards passed, eyes closed, heads nodding as their horses walked by Alan.
He stopped playing and stepped onto the road. He had to sprint to catch up to the wagon. He didn’t bother climbing to the bench. He darted to the right-side horse and dragged on the harness. The big horse stopped, and the other horse did. A bit of luck kept the following horses with their nodding riders still heading for Nottingham. They simply passed the wagon without stopping.
Alan considered his shout for Robin and John, but what if the shout woke the sleeping guards who drove the wagon? The ones who had passed were still in view. The three fallen lay on the road, their horses beside them. He didn’t know how long the sleep caused by the Faerie song would last. He didn’t know if an abrupt sound would wake the men. He scrambled into the wagon and began shaking his friends to wake them.
The wagon jolted.
He worked forward as the horses started walking again. He reached over the driver to grab the reins and drew the horses to a halt. He tied the reins tight, hoping the horses would decide the taut reins meant not to move. Then he returned to the others and shook them hard.
No one stirred from their sleep. No one blinked or yawned. No one snored. They slept on, eyes closed, at peace, lost in whatever dream the Faerie song caused.
He began shaking with one hand while he untied mask strings with the other. He cast the masks into the road ... but that also had no effect on his friends.
The silvery light brightened. He glanced up, but the moon was still a fading crescent, casting little light.
Then black shapes ran up to the wagon, around it, under it.
A chill froze him.
Alan straightened and looked for the source of the silvery light.
A man stood beside the wagon, beside the bench. He was tall, with silver hair, and he wore an antler crown.
Cerne.
Alan crawled to the wagon’s front.
The black shapes were the Hunt hounds, running around the wagon, grasping the masks he’d tossed over the side, disappearing into the forest with them only to return and find another mask. One hound nosed at each guard sleeping on the road’s dirt. The horses stamped then ignored the hounds as if they weren’t there.
“What do you here?”
“My lord.” Alan didn’t know what to answer.
“You play a song of Faerie. You wear the mask of a Faer animal. What do you here?”
“My lord, I am Alan-a-Dale—.”
“Perchance you wish to be a black hound? Perchance you wish to join my black hounds?”
He froze. How did he tell a Faerie no?
Then the silvery light grew. He caught movement in the corner of his left eye, but he dared not look away from Lord Cerne.
“You owe a debt,” a lady said.
Alan looked then.
Lady Elandrielle stood on the other side of the wagon. Two black hounds leaned against her legs.
“My lady.”
“Alan-a-Dale, you disobeyed my command. I warned you: ‘Do not play any song you learn in Faerie in your human realm.’ On this very night you have. Always before, you have stopped yourself, yet tonight you break my command. You owe a debt.”
“My lady, it was necessary.”
“Perchance he can become a black hound as punishment.”
Alan froze colder at Cerne’s words. His only hope lay with Elandrielle. “My lady, it was necessary to save my friends. They were captured by the Sheriff.”
She nudged the stag mask with a silver-slipped foot. “They wore these animals?”
“For a mummer’s play, Lady. And after, the Sheriff arrested them.”
Her dark eyes fastened on him and locked his limbs. “A mummer’s play. I have heard of these.”
“Were we free,” he offered boldly, “we could perform for you.”
“After he pays his punishment,” Cerne interjected.
“Come to me, Alan-a-Dale.”
He clambered over the side of the wagon and down to the road. When he reached Elandrielle, he dropped to his knees. He hoped she saw the gesture as proof that he didn’t think himself worthy of her presence.
“You were forbidden. You owe a debt for disobedience.”
He bent his head, humble and awed. “As you wish, my lady.”
“A black hound for a month,” Cerne offered.
Pain writhed through him. Alan fell prostrate to the ground. He heard cracking. He felt smothered. He twisted and rolled as his limbs ached and bent and changed, as his body bowed and arched, as his head narrowed, his skin itched. The mask fell off. When the pain ended, he lay panting.
A hound nudged him.
He looked up. His sight had gone weirded, all grays and blacks. Elandrielle glowed bright silver.
He whined. Then he barked his offense.
Cerne laughed. “A fine hound he makes, aye, Elandrielle?”
“You have taken an enchanting voice and magical fingers. I do not approve, Huntsman.”
The lady placed her hand on his head ... and change writhed through him again. He wanted to scream, he wanted to howl, he wanted to sob. He suffered through it, whimpering at the pain. When it ended, he lay panting again, hoping, praying.
“Stand, Alan-a-Dale.”
He was man again. He stared at hands and fingers, at his legs. Alan pushed to his knees, climbed to his feet, then stumbled. He righted himself with effort. “Lady, oh Lady, forgive me. I was desperate.”
“This I believe.” Her dark eyes fastened on the wagon.
Suddenly, she wasn’t beside him. She was in the wagon, touching each man. They stirred at her touch, slowly waking from the Faerie sleep.
Then she flashed away. A second flash placed her before him. The hounds yawned and flopped onto the ground.
“You owe me double, Alan, for your friends, for my forgiveness.”
He dropped to one knee and looked up, his face silvered by her light. “Whatever you wish, Lady.”
“Charming—.”
“He deserves punishment.” Cerne’s scowl held heat. “A moon-turn of punishment.”
“Yet his reason is not selfish. He helped his friends.” Elandrielle touched his brow. “Hear me, Alan-a-Dale. Next Moon, you will perform this mummer’s play.”
“That is no punishment,” the Faerie Huntsman complained and gestured. His black hounds came to him then threaded into the forest, fading into the black night.
“Then you will forget all you learned in Faerie. Never will you return. And I shall exact a further punishment at a later date.”
“My lady, you are generous and merciful.”
“You will not think so, Alan. Perchance my later punishment will have you transformed to a deer hunted by the Earl of Cherdley. What say you to that?”
“I would rather be a black hound hunting those who commit evil,” he dared to say, for Faeries did not like cringing cowardice.
She laughed. “That would please you and Cerne. That is not my choice. Till the Full Moon, Alan-a-Dale.” Then she walked away, her light fading until it vanished entirely.
When Cerne left, he did not know. He looked around after Elandrielle had vanished, and the Faerie Huntsman had vanished.
The masks had returned and lay where he had dropped them from the wagon.
He heard running feet and turned. Robin and John burst upon him. “Ho! What’s happened here? We saw the guards riding past, asleep.”
“Faeries.”
The two men exchanged a look and asked no further.
From the wagon came grumbles and complaints. The others had roused.
. ~ . ~ . ~ .
At camp, they celebrated their escape from the Sheriff with the last of the ale. They didn’t know quite how Alan had accomplished it; they only knew that Faeries were involved.
Walter huddled beside the campfire and held his winter-chafed hands to the flames. “All those coins, and now we’ve nothing. We’ve got the worst of winter still before us.”
“Never say that,” Much ordered. “The farmers will reward us with hens and salted pork and milled grain. We’ll eat well the rest of this winter.”
“We needed coins.”
Robin eased down beside the ruddy-cheeked man. “We take only what we need, Walter. Nothing more. We’re not criminals.”
“We’re outlaws!”
“Outside the law, aye, but we serve a higher law.”
“Justice, not revenge,” Will said. “Fairness, not greed. Truth, not lies.”
Walter snorted. “Fine words don’t keep us warm. Fine words don’t fill our bellies. Fine words keep us poor! You said we’d take the Sheriff’s purse!”
“We have time enough for that,” Robin said mildly.
Alan wondered what new scheme Robin Hood planned.
He hoped no part of the plan required a Faerie song.
He did look forward to entertaining the Faeries with a mummers’ play, much like the one at the monastery.
Yet the next time Alan saw the Huntsman Cerne in the camp, visiting the herbalist Melly, he didn’t linger in the Faerie’s presence.
