The Friar's Tale, стр. 6

"Yours, eh? Ours now. But then, perhaps you will stay?"

"I haven't decided yet. My feet wish to wander."

Will snorted. "You mean your sorry mule's hooves."

"Nothing sorry about him. He's loyal and reliable, so what if he's not handsome?" An understatement. Tuck was well aware the beast was as ugly as sin. "Besides, I swore a vow of poverty. Of course I had to buy a cheap mule."

"Shanks' Mare would be cheaper," Will pointed out.

"Ah, but I could not carry as much ale that way, and good ale is rare enough that acquiring plenty of it when one can is a good idea." Tuck shrugged. "I never was very good at poverty."

"So, I suspect you had no more choice about entering orders than most. It's small wonder half of you have mistresses."

"I find women less of a temptation than wine." A testing of the waters. Getting no immediate reaction, Tuck glanced at the sky. "But you're right. I had very little choice. Nor money behind me to get a good living." But he had freedom. Vow of obedience or not, he had far more of that than any other man he knew. Other than, perhaps, these outlaws.

"You could have become a minstrel."

Tuck laughed, and then chose to demonstrate the foolishness of that idea by singing a few bars.

Will clapped his hands over his ears. "Enough! Enough! Your point is made!"

"I sing better when drunk."

"You could hardly sing worse!"

Tuck felt the cameraderie between these men begin to expand to include him. He half thought he should fight the sensation. He was a friar, a man who belonged only to god and to no other place or person. He could easily come to belong here, and that would be dangerous. Dangerous to his soul.

He remembered the shimmer on the water. "So, you are all good Christians here?"

"Mostly." Will's response was edgy.

That meant, like as not, they had at least one believer in older superstitions amongst them. Possibly Will himself. The old gods had been pushed away into corners, but they still named the days of the week. People still dressed wells for the Celtic Brigid, claiming she was now a Saint. People still danced the May. People still locked the livestock in on nights when the Wild Hunt was supposed to ride.

It was a small step from there to actually worshipping and making offerings to those old figures. Here, out in the countryside, it was more likely. It was likely that these people called on herbwives when one was sick or wounded, and if those herbwives made a quick prayer to Lugh or to the Norse goddess Eir, then who was to notice? "I am not somebody who wants to stomp on the old ways with a heavy boot," Tuck said, quietly. "I would rather men came to God in their own time and in their own way."

"And if that way is to call Him by another name?"

Tuck glanced at the sky again. "I will minister to those who let me. Those who would prefer I didn't interfere with their lives...life is too short to turn into one of those."

One of those who seemed to have more and more power. Of course, every time people sought an old fashioned handfasting or a lychgate wedding. Every time they casually forgot to baptize a baby, or simply avoided the two required masses at Christmas and Easter, the church lost money. The church needed money, especially with the crusades. More and more indulgences were being sold, and Tuck was pretty sure there were enough pieces of the True Cross around to build Noah's Ark. Possibly twice over.

"Good," Will said. "Because there are a couple of people here who have been known to invoke Cernunnos in a tight spot. And...well. You'll see."

Thou shalt have no other God before me. It went through his mind, of course, in the Latin. But that did not necessarily mean there were no other Gods. Tuck knew where his loyalty lay. He wasn't a very good friar, but he was still a friar. "As long as nobody asks me to join in such invocations. With the exception of those that have the church's sanction."

"The ones the church knows it can't stop, you mean." Will winked. "So. Tonight, over ale, perhaps you will tell us all your story."

"Get me drunk and I will tell you plenty of tales." He winked back. Not that he needed to be drunk, but the only way he was getting any of his ale back was to talk it out of them. "And perhaps a song?"

"Always."

Having been reminded of his mule, Tuck went to check on the beast. He was tethered with two scruffy forest ponies, the kind that tended to escape and breed on their own. Both had been recently groomed, at least. The mule was still the least attractive beast here. He found a small stash containing a curry comb at the base of one of the trees and liberated it. He was not about to ask anyone else to perform the task of grooming his beast, not right now. It might help him get into that state where he could feel God's presence. The one which kept eluding him.

It bothered him that he could not seem to reach God. Was this place forsaken? He had had that thought before, but felt it more likely to be some failing in himself. God was everywhere. God was even in an ugly mule who tried to nip him when he approached with the curry. "Enough of that, Brownie."

Why bother with a more original name? At his last stop he had been teased, both about the state of the creature and the name. People expected a churchman to ride a fine palfrey and wear silk under his robes.

Brownie resigned himself to being groomed, only shooting Tuck the occasional glare.

"I have a boy could do that for you," came Robin's voice.

"I like to do it myself." Tuck