The Friar's Tale, стр. 28
To the south of the hollow was a huge oak, which Richard kept walking circles around, muttering. Druids really did, it seemed, talk to trees. Well, there were worse things he could have been doing.
Tuck found himself drawn towards it. The trunk was large enough that if a couple of children climbed through the crack in one side of it, they could play house comfortably inside. They would, too, if they found it. Children loved climbing in hollow trees. Despite being hollow, the great oak seemed remarkably healthy, albeit bent and bowed with age. "What have you seen, I wonder?" he asked it.
Oak trees lived for generations. God had granted them a span greater than any man's. Tuck wondered why. Why would an oak tree live four hundred years, a man three score and ten, and a dog maybe a decade?
It seemed very strange. True, he was not to know the mind of God, but he doubted He did anything random.
Tuck looked into the hollow trunk. Then he laughed. Somebody had hid their ale stash in it. He was tempted to steal some, revenge for the time he had met the band and they had taken what had been meant to be a three-month supply. After a moment, he decided to be a better man, and stepped away, turning around.
She was standing between two of the trees. This time, her presence was not a suggestion. She was clad in a blue dress of a style that might be worn by a noblewoman, assuming she was not planning on doing anything important that day. Extremely fine, but simple. Her dark hair was worn loose, as would be appropriate for a maiden, and flowed over her shoulders. A circlet of silver was set within it.
She might have been Mary...she was dark, her eyes dark, she could have been a woman of the Holy Land. Yet, she could also have been a woman of, say, Wales, or a Pict from the far north of Scotland. Or a Roman maiden.
There was something about her that was all of those things and none, that might indeed encompass the blonde of Saxon and Norse without being of it.
Ambiguous. All goddesses, no goddess. Maybe she was Sidhe after all. "Lady..." He tailed off. If she was Mary and he did not bow to her, as the Mother of God, she might be angry. If she was not and he did, then he committed heresy. So he just stood there. Waiting for her to speak. Waiting for her to do something.
She did. She stepped forward, brushed his lips with her fingers. The scent of roses filled his nostrils. Then she was gone.
Whatever she wanted from him, it remained uncertain. The druid had said she might consider him a challenge. If she was Aine. That she might set out to find him a woman, he supposed he meant. The idea terrified him.
He had never let a woman touch him like that. His heart pounded in his chest, then settled. No. He did not want to be touched like that. Not by a woman. Not by a man. Not by anyone. Had she been testing him?
What was she trying to tell him? He wasn't sure he wanted any understanding of this, only the relief that for now it was over, the fear that she would return.
What he could no longer doubt was that she was real, and perhaps that had been the only message she sought to send.
If she was... He murmured the words not of the Hail Mary, but of the Jesus Prayer. Normally such gave him some comfort, but not now. If she was some alien, ancient goddess, some power older than the Church? Even acknowledging her existence bordered on blasphemy, yet he had done it before. He had not tried to convert Clorinda, when all the rules of the Church said he should. To save her. To ensure that she did not burn forever in hell.
It was hard to believe that woman was associated with Hell. But then, perhaps she was Mary after all. The scent of roses, the garb of the sea.
Perhaps. He sat down heavily on a stump.
Quiet footsteps behind him. "Tuck. Are you alright?"
Robin. He did not even turn. "I'm fine." He could share it with this man, who had also seen such visions, but he found himself oddly unwilling to do so. It felt as if it had meant to be a moment for him alone.
"Remember that village we went through?"
"Yes."
"The sheriff is going to be there. Collecting taxes they're 'refusing' to pay." The cant Robin put to refusing made it clear how he felt on the matter. "I think we may want to collect some tax from him."
The man's tone was grimly mischievous. Robbing the sheriff was akin to robbing his master, and that went all the way up to the king. But they stole from the king all the time.
"We should be careful. He'll..."
"Have plenty of guards with him. I know. I have a plan."
Tuck sighed inwardly. "What do you want me to do?"
10
If anything, the village seemed worse on their return than when they had left. The dogs seemed thinner and Tuck could hear a woman's sobs from a building nearby. It was not his business, but the temptation to go and comfort her was strong.
What comfort could he give? Those sobs were of a woman who had lost a husband or, perhaps, a child. More likely the latter. Children died all the time. Especially when they did not get enough to eat.
Robin glanced at him. "Are things this bad everywhere?"
"Bad, but not like this. Gisbourne's not the only lord to empty his coffers for the Crusades, but from what I saw on the way here, he's one of the worst offenders. Most are at least making sure the peasantry have enough to grow next year's crop." Not