The Friar's Tale, стр. 8
"I would imagine that there would be Christians there still, but under Saracen rule."
"There are worse fates. The Saracens do not interfere with them." Tuck considered it for a moment. "In a way, they are better men than most here. They are more..." He tailed off. "Tolerant than most in Christendom."
"Still, they should not hold Jerusalem."
"It is sacred also to them. They consider Christ an important teacher."
Robin fell silent. Perhaps Tuck had said too much. Too much of his impressions of the Saracens and of the Holy Land itself. It bordered on if not heresy, then at least an unacceptable belief and attitude.
It was taken as read by all that the Saracens were evil barbarians bent on the utter destruction of Christendom. The truth was far more complicated. There was no need to take Jerusalem back from them...
But the Crusaders would, and it would be the ordinary people of that city who suffered for it. They who died.
They would make Jerusalem a wasteland, and once Tuck realized that he had turned his feet back to the west.
Back to England where, at least, there was no pointless war, no meaningless conflict. Or was there? Perhaps it had been his travels that had caused him to see the lack of perfection. To see the holes in the social fabric.
And now he walked with outlaws.
They made camp that night in a valley with steep sides. A quite defensible location, Tuck noted. He had, indeed, spent too much time with Crusaders. Once he would not have thought of such things.
He also saw the stream that flowed down through it, crisp and clear. Good water. He stepped around a fairy ring...friar or no, he was not about to risk an encounter with the Good People.
Robin. Robin was a fairy name. The outlaw had no doubt taken it for a reason, to reflect the ability to appear and vanish, to be part of the woods. But a fairy name nonetheless. He wondered if that would anger them.
The Church officially said fairies did not exist. Tuck had spent enough time in the woods not to believe it. He remembered the shimmer on the water. Had that been a sign from God after all? Nobody else stepped in the fairy ring either. It might as well have been formed out of solid stone.
It did not take long to make camp. Tents went up with practiced ease, but from any distance none of them would be visible. Forest greens and browns.
These people knew what they were doing. Tuck checked on his mule, then wandered a distance from camp.
As he did so, he heard footsteps. A broken twig. The passage of somebody no better a woodsman than he himself. Had that betrayed them?
No, he doubted it. But this person was...and then he saw him. A peasant, plain and simple. The dog that limped at his side was undoubtedly lawed. He carried a staff.
No threat, Tuck decided, except that there was a bounty on outlaws, and this was a poor man. After a moment, he came across a course of action.
Exaggerating a weave to his step, he crossed the man's path.
"Good brother!" the man called.
"Good day." He slurred his speech very slightly...attempting to appear ale-sodden. A state he wished he was actually in. They had drunk a lot of his ale...
"Be careful, good brother, there are outlaws in these woods."
"I doubt they would harm a man of the cloth."
"They took all of Abbott Moresford's jewels."
"Which he should not have had." He kept the slight slur to his speech. He wanted to appear drunk, but not so drunk he could not have a conversation. Drunk enough that he would not be able to lie. People forgot how to lie when they got drunk. Exaggerate, yes. Lie, no.
The man looked him up and down. "You have none. And if you had any ale, they won't be taking it now." He laughed a bit. "Just be careful."
"I am not so drunk as to stumble right into their lair...and if there's an outlaw lair, its far from here."
"Or invisible. Or you are too drunk to see it." The man laughed again. "The road is that way, good brother."
Tuck headed the indicated way, almost walking into a tree. Only when he was sure the villager was out of sight did he turn back. Invisible. These outlaws had quite the reputation. But if they had taken Moresford's jewels then he would cheer them on. "Should have taken his mistress, too."
A nearby tree responded. "He didn't have her on him."
He jumped, turned, and realized that he had somehow walked past the huge form of Little John. The Little, of course, being a sarcastic nickname. "Did he have her jewels on him?"
"Not that we could tell. Neat move."
"You won't let me get drunk for real."
"That ale is too good to binge on." John fell in next to him. "You need to be more careful about putting your heel down first," he added.
Tuck nodded. "I'm not a woodsman."
"Yet." The word sounded almost like a threat.
"Uh oh," was Tuck's only response. Turning into one sounded like far too much like hard work.
"Of course, there's a price to pay for any lessons."
"And what would you charge?"
"Your stories of the Holy Land."
"I think I would make that payment to Will. He can make more of them than I could. I lack the minstrel's gift. Or a good singing voice, for that matter."
John laughed, stepping back down into the valley. His long legs covered the ground such that Tuck had to scurry a little to keep up. "I am sure you can sing the services."
"Not very well." He could, any one in orders could, but by values of 'could' that anyone with a sense of pitch would argue with. "I sing better when drunk."
"You just want your ale back."
Tuck felt himself relaxing. The