Page 85 of Queen of Sherwood

It was an eerie sight. I hated it.

I also hated not having my lute. Even more than my sword, I felt naked without it. I could have been playing tunes, humming to myself, trying to distract myself as I waited.

It was a pain in the ass being here. My boots were muddy, the people were surly, and the mud was getting thicker. It would be hell to leave.

More than that, I wanted to be with my little songbird and my angry little badger. Robin and Will needed me, yet I’d been sent away for reconnaissance.

I supposed I should’ve been honored. Robin had entrusted me with a very important mission.

Even so, it made me feel useless. Like I wasn’t wanted in the battle because I would be more of a nuisance than help. It was true, I was by far the worst fighter out of John, Will, and Tuck. Luckily, I had other abilities suited for Robin’s use.

And I was nothing if not a man who wanted to be used. Had been for ages.

Thoughts of the past swarmed me, unbidden.

First, as a young lad, I had been used against my will. I became addicted to the feeling of men and women taking control of me and doing whatever they wanted to me, my body, and my mind.

I’d been a whore long before I knew what the word meant.

Then I found purpose. My mind returned to me one day and I escaped my ragged, destitute situation. I changed my entire life, hellbent on making something of myself.

The traveling whore obsessed with sex and ribaldry became a traveling minstrel obsessed with other people’s stories. Anything to escape from my own. Vanishing behind my music and telling grand tales of heroes and villains was escapism at its finest.

It lasted for a while. The itch to return to my derelict life came in waves, yet I held it back.

Then, after a situation which ended up with a woman deflowered and a nobleman dead, I went on the run. Met Little John and Friar Tuck. Joined their fledgling group of outlaws. Brought some merriment to that dreary duo.

The three of us wanted more. We all sought a purpose, all of us having our own dour stories we needed to flee from. Death surrounded each of us, and we became close.

Then we met the lad Will Scarlet, back when he was known as William Scadlock. Little more than a whelp back then—spry, young, angry. Him against the world. He’d always been angry, but he was even worse as a younger man.

He had been achingly beautiful, too. It was hard to keep my urges at bay, and my old life reared its ugly head once again.

Like me, the young man enjoyed the finer things in life, because he had been born in squalor. He tried to fake it. The scarlet sash across his neck gave him that moniker, and it stuck. It made him a dashing, noticeable figure, and I’d nearly forgotten the history of that sash because he embodied its essence so well—the last parting gift of his mother, crumpled on the ground in a heap of cloth after she had been trampled by Plantagenet horsemen.

Like John, Tuck, and me, Will had been plagued by death. Killed a man or three and became an outlaw before he’d reached eighteen years.

He was too young for all that, I felt, so I consoled him. First with my songs, then with my embrace. My consolation turned into something more, and we became inseparable. The joyful dandy, always with a smile on my face and sadness behind my eyes, and the sullen fighter, always with a frown on his face and excitement in his eyes.

The dandelion and the badger.

John and Tuck thought nothing of it. I was content with our foursome, but John wanted more. He grew the band, and we became the Merry Men.

Then my songbird showed up. Stole the hearts of all of us. I found new purpose, new relief, and a new story.

To be separated from any of them for any length of time was torturous. I didn’t know their fate, or how the raid had gone. I could only hope and pray it had been a success, and that no one important to me had been killed.

My meandering thoughts coiled tight in my head when I noticed an uptick in chatter and voices across the hamlet. From the southern corner of the town square to the northern hill where William Elder’s honey farm lay, people were looking in one direction.

I followed their eyes and went rigid.

Horsemen approached from the western road.

Many, many horsemen.

I stepped out from the shadows as if drawn to them.

Children ran out from their houses in the mist to watch the riders with wide-eyed wonder on their little faces.

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