Can't See the Trees for the Forest
Title: Can't See the Trees for the Forest
Word Count: 4,695
Rating: G
Characters/Pairings: Allan, Djaq
Summary: Allan tries to teach Djaq how to walk silently in the woods. Eyes open or eyes closed, there are things they are sure to miss.
Spoilers/Warnings: Spoiler for 1x08
Disclaimer: I own nothing
“Djaq? Djaq!” Robin’s urgent call shattered the more or less peaceful camaraderie of a quiet-until then-afternoon.
As Robin burst into view, Allan looked up from across the camp where he had been pretending to help Will fletch arrows. Will had been alternately smirking and scowling at his friend’s antics as various tools went missing only to reappear in unexpected and increasingly ridiculous places. But this playful nonsense had done nothing to disturb Djaq where she sat against an outcrop of rock, methodically sorting herbs and roots that she had gathered earlier in the day.
Sighting her there, Robin leaned forward to catch his breath, hands upon his knees.
Much appeared soon after. Just as Allan and Will had-unacknowledged by either of them-kept a close eye upon Djaq since her capture by the sheriff, Much had barely let Robin out of his sight since his brawl with Gisborne.
Allan rolled his eyes as Much gasped dramatically from his efforts to keep pace with Robin and tossed several empty sacks upon the ground, evidence of the day’s work delivering food to the villages.
Djaq rose swiftly to her feet, and Allan hid a smile of amusement at his own mischief as, unnoticed by her, a halo of feathers stood up from the hood of her cloak. “Robin, what is it?”
Choosing to ignore her adornment for the time being, Robin said, “I’ve just come from Locksley. Someone brought word to us there that Samuel Thatcher of Barnsdale has been hurt in a fall from a roof. It happened this morning, and he is still unconscious. Will you go and see if you can help?”
“Of course,” Djaq replied. “Just allow me a moment to gather a few things, and then I will leave at once. What can you tell me of his injuries?”
Allan’s attention wandered while Robin described a wound to the head and possible broken bones. His understanding of herbs and healing and the setting of bones was minimal, his interest limited to his own happily infrequent requirements in these areas. He did know that Sam was a leader in his village and an important ally to the outlaws, and he could tell by the concern in his voice that Robin was worried for him as a friend. He watched Djaq from the corners of his eyes as she rummaged through her small store of medicines and bandages, selecting what might be useful. By the time Robin finished speaking, she was ready to depart. Allan sat up straighter.
“I will do everything I can,” said Djaq. “Do not worry. Now tell me, which is the quickest way to Barnsdale?”
“Follow the forest path that runs parallel to the Great North Road,” began Robin. “After you cross the river at the bridge-”
“Nah,” said Allan, cutting him off. “Fastest way is to head to Locksley, but just before you get there, there’s a game trail through the woods that’ll bring you right to the river-”
“Which you will never be able to cross,” broke in Much. “It is much too deep there.” Having irritably and firmly disputed Allan’s advice, Much stalked over to his makeshift kitchen and began banging pots and pans about.
“Oi! Let me finish, will you?” Allan yelled after him. Getting no response, he continued. “So this game trail brings you to the river, and yeah, you can’t cross there”-a dirty look at Much’s turned back-“but head downstream not a quarter of a mile and you come to some logs that washed up against the rocks during the spring rains. That’ll bring you partway across, then you might hafta get a bit wet, but it isn’t too deep by that point, and there’s some boulders on the other side, so what you do is-”
“How do you know about this?” asked Robin, putting a stop to the complicated directions in an unmistakably dubious tone that did not quite manage, or probably intend, to hide the hint of reproach it contained. Allan just quirked an eyebrow, to which Robin hastily replied, “Never mind. Allan, go with Djaq.”
Allan nearly voiced a token protest about being tired. Not that he expected to change Robin’s mind, but he wanted to make sure he received due credit for both the idea and its implementation. The best way he knew to do this was to complain just enough that his actions registered as a sacrifice to all present. Instead, he kept his objections to himself as he almost instantly realized that Robin’s instruction meant he would be able to spend several hours in Djaq’s company. He almost grinned at the thought, but stopped himself in time. It wouldn’t do to appear too pleased.
Allan noticed Will staring at him with a hostile and faintly wounded look on his face. He glared back and shrugged. What? It wasn’t his doing. Why would Will blame him? And for the love of all that’s holy, why would he show his feelings so obviously? He might as well be Much.
“And Allan,” Robin called out sternly as they began to walk away from camp.
They both stopped to turn, Djaq with impatience, and Allan with a sudden worry that Robin was about to tell him to stay put after all.
Instead, Robin’s half-hearted attempt at discipline was belied by the crinkling skin around his mouth and eyes. “You might want to remove Djaq’s fancy headdress before she is mistaken for a pheasant and shot by a poacher.”
Grinning sheepishly, Allan plucked the feathers from Djaq’s cloak as she sent a withering look his way and returned them to Will, who took them sullenly and without a word. Allan just shrugged again and hurried after Djaq. He wasn’t going to let Will’s disappointment ruin his good mood at this turn of events.
~ * ~ * ~
Everything had gone well in Barnsdale. Samuel had still been unconscious when they arrived, and Djaq had taken that opportunity to reset a dislocated shoulder. He had begun to stir as she examined his head, and by the time they left later in the evening, he was fully awake and talking. Allan had spent most of the time seated by the door, out of the way and content to observe Djaq’s capable ministrations. The grateful Thatchers had offered them a roof for the night, but looking over the tiny cottage and the large Thatcher family, they had declined. They did accept some bread and cheese to take with them, and they now sat against a tree, brushing away the crumbs of their meal. They were only halfway back to the camp and Djaq seemed tired, but Allan was invigorated by the night air, by their success-well, really Djaq’s success-in Barnsdale, and by this rare chance to spend time alone with her.
“All right then, up you get. It’s about time you learned how to walk in the forest.”
He stretched out his hand. It was a more or less honest appendage these days-one that no longer wandered into promising pockets or fiddled deftly with locks, except when engaged in the serious business of outlawry. It was a change, to be sure, but he found the act of theft and the artistry of a good con no less exciting for all that the former Lord of Locksley was orchestrating the illicit activities now. Or for the knowledge that the hard won spoils would be shared among less daring folk. There was still scheming worthy of a quick and agile mind, still the exhilaration of risk, the satisfaction of a payoff. He was still at practicing his favorite pursuit. Well, second favorite.
“I can walk in the forest,” came Djaq’s obstinate reply, no less than what he expected.
He did not even attempt to conceal his delight as she rose and knocked aside his genuine offer of assistance-that hand, which also had ceased its meandering ways when it came to the fairer sex. Almost ceased. He showed his teeth. “‘course you can. Wot I mean is, you want to go quickly and quietly at the same time, yeah? Can’t believe Robin lets you bungle about as you do. It’s a wonder you haven’t given us all away before now.”
He could see, warring within her, irritation at her own lack of skill-as well as at him for having called attention to it-and the strong desire to possess it, to do well this thing which the others achieved naturally. Her arms were tightly crossed and her brows pulled together, and a slight frown of her pursed lips indicated, possibly, determination. There was also a cautious, assessing look about her, eyes narrowed to a squint so that the exquisite brown warmth and depth of them were hidden, as if in judging the degree of his sincerity it was necessary to first mask her own.
If he managed to say the right words now, emphasize the practical aspects of his suggestion-no teasing-he knew that she would agree. In fact, he’d be willing to place on sizable wager on it.
“’course, it’s not your fault, bein’ from the desert an’ all. You just need practice. So, like this.”
He held up both hands before him, palms facing Djaq at about shoulder-height-her shoulders. See? Simple. Nothing to hide. She was nearly won. “Now you,’ he continued matter-of-factly. “Place your hands just in front of mine. Close as you can without touchin’.”
With only the slightest of hesitations, a flicker of a question in her eye, something perceived and wondered at but then dismissed, she did so.
“Now, shut your eyes.”
She balked, arms falling to her sides. “Allan.”
He had to admit it: he loved the way she spoke his name. In dull moments around the camp, he would provoke her by tossing acorns and then pretending to be asleep when she turned, swiping food off her plate, juggling pouches of her widely sought after and precisely cut dried herbs. Will’s rolling of eyes at such moments was a sure sign that he was being childish, but Allan didn’t care. If he was lucky, she would greet his antics with a laugh, and his whole body would warm to the affection she could express with those two simple syllables. Al-lan. But even in the clipped tones of frustration, or upon an exasperated breath of air, his own name, familiar as it was from birth, never failed to strike him as a remarkable new sound when she said it.
Here she was, though, supposing some sort of ploy was afoot, a way of making her look a fool, which of course she would hate. He shook his head as if to clear it. There was one last trick up his sleeve.
“No, look. I’m not bein’ funny. Trust me.”
She wavered just for a moment, then closed her eyes and presented her palms. Some small quiver stirred in his stomach because she would trust him, chose to do so in that moment, as he’d asked. It was only a small thing, and yet, in the face of her misgivings, it made him want to take those hands in his own, warm them gently before tucking them into her cloak, and escort her safely and efficiently back to camp.
She sighed impatiently; he cleared his throat.
“Right then,” he said, more to himself, as he brought his own palms up to rest a coin’s width from hers. He was surprised to notice a trembling in his usually steady fingers. “I’m goin’ to walk backwards, and you follow me without lookin’. My hands are here in case you trip, which you won’t, and we’ll just go nice and slow.”
“And how will this teach me to walk in the forest?” she asked, more amused than doubtful now, but still prolonging the moment of exposure when she would have to move blindly forward.
“Instead of lookin’, you have to sense where you’re goin’. You’re always thinkin’, Djaq. This is somethin’ you’ve got to feel.”
“You mean like instinct.”
“Wot’s that?” he queried, not catching the word, distracted as he was with attempting to still his unquiet hands.
“Instinct? An innate tendency. Something one does by natural inclination rather than as a learned behavior.”
“Oh, yeah. Well. Ready?”
Allan took a step backwards, and then another, and tentatively she followed, groping the ground with her feet, searching out obstacles prior to each step. Her hands grazed his lightly, unintentionally, teasingly, meeting and parting again and again as they made their unsteady progress. He felt the hardened skin of her palms as they brushed against his, calluses that came from gripping tools and wielding weapons, carrying burdens, and skillfully performing all the regular tasks around camp that made life as an outlaw in Sherwood Forest bearable.
Firm and strong as they were, these hands were also the gentlest he had ever known. He could personally attest to that after the incident when his head had made the unhappy acquaintance of a stubborn rock. He had Will to thank for that, actually, pulling him down a wooded slope to escape some guards whose horses they had been attempting to steal. One of them tripped-he was pretty sure it had been Will, with his long legs-and while Will had ended up with a mouthful of leaves and a stunned friend to drag back to camp, Allan had ended up with a lump on his head, blood in his eyes, and a fuzzy memory of Djaq speaking soothingly as she cleaned the wound. Come to think of it, maybe it hadn’t been that bad after all. Robin had let him sleep a lot for the next couple of days on Djaq’s advice, and although his head had hurt plenty after, there had been no pain while she was touching him. Still, he much preferred his current method of getting close to a woman.
Turning his attention to Djaq again, Allan could not help but notice the heat growing between them with each pass of their palms, and he wondered if she, who seemed to know all, could possibly be aware of the tightening in his chest and his shallow-coming breaths.
When they reached a more exposed section of the forest path, and moonlight shone upon her, his worry eased. He could see her concentration clearly now, marked by a slight downturn at the corners of her mouth and the fine crease between her eyebrows, her focus completely upon the task she had been set, and she approaching it like a problem to be solved. He relaxed and decided to enjoy the prospect before him.
Djaq looked more alluring than ever with the pale glow upon her hair, upon her face, and lighting her cheeks where her eyelashes now rested. The moonlight softened her, though Allan knew that Djaq only pretended to hardness. Indeed, it was her very tenderness that he was concerned not to offend. She kept it hidden, protected, and in first perceiving this so many weeks ago, he had instantly known its value.
He had not yet realized it that day in Nottingham when Tom had been killed. He could not then step beyond his own sorrow to truly grasp all that she had shared with him, or what it may have cost her to do so. Nonetheless he had been grateful, intuiting somehow, from the murky hollows of his grief, that she had allowed a bond to form with him, Allan A’Dale, a man she barely knew, and that she had risked something of herself in doing so.
Later, when he could look back upon that day and her actions, he reflected that she may well be the bravest person he had ever met. Had he been in her place, he would not, he realized, have done the same.
“Allan? This is ridiculous. It is not working.” She had stopped and was watching him, hands upon her hips.
“Wot? Yeah, it is! You were doin’ fine,” he spluttered, embarrassed, as if she could tell what he had been thinking.
“And you were not paying attention!”
“Sorry, I was just”-he groped for a benign explanation-“I was just wonderin’ what the others were gettin’ up to back at camp.” There. That was innocent enough.
She stood looking at him skeptically a moment longer, then nodded as if deciding to play along. “Well, John was hunting when we left, and Much will have prepared whatever he managed to catch for dinner.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet he grumbled about havin’ to cook it and then complained about havin’ to clean up after.” Allan was warming to his own fabricated diversion. “Will must’ve finished fletchin’ those arrows, then he probably chopped some firewood or somethin’. An’ Robin . . . he’ll be gettin’ ready for a romantic rendezvous in Knighton, don’t you s’pose?”
“It is possible. I do not know.” Djaq’s dignified aloofness was clearly meant to suggest that such things were beneath her interest and certainly none of their business.
He would have none of it. “Aw, come on,” he teased. “Lovely moonlit night like this? Tell you wot, if it was me, and I had a willin’ lass, that’s exactly what I’d be doin’, too.”
“And instead you are stuck accompanying me to Barnsdale and back.” She was intently, unnervingly watchful as she spoke, but her voice was light, almost coy. It concealed a question but betrayed nothing of what she might wish him to respond.
“s’alright,” he said, equally circumspect. “Got no lass waitin’ on me. An’ anyways,” he paused to shrug, never taking his eyes from hers, “I wouldn’t say stuck.”
They were still close, exactly in the spot where their walk had stalled, the distance separating them less than that of his elbow to his fingertips. Were she any other woman, there would be only one thing to do next. But she was Djaq, wasn’t she? He was likely to end up with a sound slap. He had never met another woman less inclined towards romance. She was fun to flirt with, easy to tease; she gave as good as she got and never took things the wrong way. Granted, many of the things he said were actually meant to be taken the wrong way, but she was rarely offended. She treated him like a friend, and he was trying his damnedest, against all of his most deeply rooted instincts, not to wreck that.
Anyway, there was Will to consider-Will, his friend, who thought he loved Djaq. Allan didn’t know if he really loved her or not. How could he, who had never been in love for longer than a single night, know if Will truly felt what he said he did? But Will believed he loved Djaq, and Allan accepted that as the important thing.
And Allan? Well, he had said he liked her, surprising himself with the admission no less than the others. He enjoyed her company, that was all. He wouldn’t question the way the beat of his heart quickened at an unexpected glimpse of her across the marketplace in Nottingham. Or the way he couldn’t help but grin at her when he caught her eye during one of Much’s frequent tirades, when she bested him in a fierce sparring practice, or when she threw up her hands in despair at the stupidity of Englishmen, or perhaps just men in general. Or the way a jest would momentarily catch in his throat when she returned to camp from a bathe in the river, her skin glowing from the cool and freshening water, her short black hair shiny and damp, trails of moisture trickling down her neck and disappearing beneath her collar . . .
Will had nothing to worry about.
Once again conscious of Djaq’s scrutiny, Allan realized he had grown uncharacteristically quiet. “Penny for your thoughts,” he said as a means of deflecting her curious attention.
“Excuse me?”
“It means I’ll give you a penny if you’ll tell me what you’re thinkin’. ‘course, I don’t have a penny, so it’s just a way of askin’ what’s on your mind. I mean, you don’t have to tell me or nothin’, I was just-”
“Allan?”
“Yeah?”
“You are babbling.”
“Sorry.”
“Perhaps I should offer you a penny for your thoughts?” She said it kindly, as if she truly wanted to know.
“Nah, they’re not worth that much.” He sighed and looked downward as he spoke, but his gaze only reached the first fastening of her vest before he hastily decided he would be better off meeting her eyes after all. If only she weren’t so awkwardly near, so difficult to lie to. “I was just thinkin’ ‘bout Robin bein’ off with Marian,” he confessed. “How I haven’t got even half as much as one of his promises to her that I can offer a lass of my own. That’s why there’s no pretty young thing lookin’ out for me tonight, or any other night, for that matter. Most women deserve better, but I’m not a man wot can give it to ‘em.”
Once the words left his mouth, he immediately regretted them. Djaq probably wouldn’t laugh, but she would rightly think him a fool for imagining that he could ever settle down with a wife, a family, an honest trade. He didn’t even believe it himself. It was just one of those things that crossed his mind whenever he took to wondering what might have been if he’d had a decent upbringing. Nothing extravagant, just something simple and honest, like Will’s life before he joined the gang, with his father and his brother and his carpentry. Then he might have been a little more reliable. Even if Djaq understood this hopeless dream, the most he could expect now was her pity, and that wasn’t what he wanted from her at all.
“I believe you have much to offer to . . . anyone.”
He had turned away rather than watch her reaction. He shook his head, but before he could open his mouth to protest what he knew to be wrong, Djaq spoke again.
“I think it is time for you to trust me.”
They had been standing still for several minutes, as if rooted, but he was suddenly seized by a feeling of being adrift. Her words overcame him-trust me, she had said-and set him loose from the familiar world in which he judged people by either the amount of harm they could render or the benefit their acquaintance could bring. Instead he was all but ready to believe that she knew what she was about, what she asked of him, to believe that she was truly seeing him as clearly as he now saw her. He almost concluded that they must feel and want and understand the same things, simply because they were standing here now, together, two outlaws of Sherwood Forest with nothing and no one left to them in the world but for each other and their friends. It was really no reason at all and yet made more sense than anything that had ever happened in his whole life.
He had been so aware of her all throughout the evening, but now his focus even intensified so that all else fell away, and he was no longer conscious of the scent of sweetly rotting leaves beneath their feet, the chill air numbing the tip of his nose, the scurry of nighttime creatures among the surrounding trees. His mind, his body, his tongue all froze-all but for the nearly unnoticeable to him parting of his lips, the imperceptible sway of his body, lured fractionally closer to hers.
She reached out, brought her right arm across her chest, and settled it upon his right shoulder. Then balancing herself lightly, she stepped carefully past him on the narrow path, just grazing his arm with the sweep of her cloak. When he spun about, she was standing with her hands held out, her palms facing him.
“Your turn,” she challenged.
An uneasy chuckle swelled in his throat. Disappointed, embarrassed, relieved, he held his hands up against hers. All right then.
But it wasn’t as easy as he thought it would be. Branches caught in his cloak and cracked loudly under his boots as he turned his ankles on loose stones and tripped over tree roots. If Allan hadn’t quite managed to make himself look like an idiot before, he was certainly doing a fine job of it now. He stumbled again and again, and each time he did, his hands grasped for Djaq’s, and hers were always there, small fingers tightening around them. In spite of her secure presence, he found himself growing frustrated, and after one misstep nearly sent him lurching into her, he opened his eyes and brought his hands down, though they still held onto hers.
“You are giving up so soon?” She sounded surprised and-oddly, he thought-a little bit offended.
He offered an apologetic half-smile. “Yeah, look, I’m gonna kill us both in another minute if I really do fall.”
Her response was nearly a statement. “You do not trust me, then?”
“Djaq, you’re half my size!” He had inadvertently raised his voice as well as his eyebrows at the accusation. Lowering both, he said, “It’s not about trust. I just don’t want to hurt you.”
She said nothing, but he sensed her disapproval and wondered what he had done wrong now.
“Hey,” he said, tilting his head and tracing soft circles against the backs of her fingers with his thumbs, noticing with pleasure how her smaller hands were settled within his own as if they belonged there, and all the while waiting for her solemn expression to lift. It did not, and so he swallowed and continued doggedly, speaking over a sense of dismay that something dear had slipped quietly away without his having seen it go. “What do you say we stop here? I can get a fire goin’, and we’ll head back to camp first thing in the mornin’. The others won’t be expectin’ us ‘til then anyways.”
She looked around as if weighing comfortable options, seeming to consider his proposal, but when she answered her voice was detached. “I think I would prefer to sleep at the camp tonight. It is not so far now.”
“Yeah. Yeah, sure.”
He released her and stood still, watching as she moved away. It seemed to him that the moonlight followed her, making her slight form appear bright and clear even as the distance spread between them, while he was left in near darkness, the ground before him grown indistinct. A swift, prickling shiver rose along his spine, as if the moonlight and she had been warming him with some shared inner brilliance, and he knew coldness for the first time that night. For just a moment, he felt unaccountably lost there on the forest path, more alone than before he’d ever met Robin, or Will, or any of the others. More alone than when Tom had died, when Djaq had filled some small part of his aching emptiness with her trust and her earnest, absolute friendship.
A heartbeat later and this sensation passed and he was only perplexed; there was something different about Djaq, walking ahead of him towards the camp and their friends. He thought that he would always know her at any distance, after any lengthy period of separation, by nothing so mundane as her stature or her hair, but just by the way she carried herself-like no other woman, and yet, for a certainty, like no man. It was a truth undeniable to Allan that there was no one else in the world like her, and he felt himself imprinted by an essential quality that was Djaq and that would forever tug at the most intimate part of Allan.
And yet something about her had altered this night . . .
His mouth twitched into a tentative smile that widened as he realized what it was, and he hurried to catch her up.
Her footsteps. They were nearly noiseless.
Word Count: 4,695
Rating: G
Characters/Pairings: Allan, Djaq
Summary: Allan tries to teach Djaq how to walk silently in the woods. Eyes open or eyes closed, there are things they are sure to miss.
Spoilers/Warnings: Spoiler for 1x08
Disclaimer: I own nothing
“Djaq? Djaq!” Robin’s urgent call shattered the more or less peaceful camaraderie of a quiet-until then-afternoon.
As Robin burst into view, Allan looked up from across the camp where he had been pretending to help Will fletch arrows. Will had been alternately smirking and scowling at his friend’s antics as various tools went missing only to reappear in unexpected and increasingly ridiculous places. But this playful nonsense had done nothing to disturb Djaq where she sat against an outcrop of rock, methodically sorting herbs and roots that she had gathered earlier in the day.
Sighting her there, Robin leaned forward to catch his breath, hands upon his knees.
Much appeared soon after. Just as Allan and Will had-unacknowledged by either of them-kept a close eye upon Djaq since her capture by the sheriff, Much had barely let Robin out of his sight since his brawl with Gisborne.
Allan rolled his eyes as Much gasped dramatically from his efforts to keep pace with Robin and tossed several empty sacks upon the ground, evidence of the day’s work delivering food to the villages.
Djaq rose swiftly to her feet, and Allan hid a smile of amusement at his own mischief as, unnoticed by her, a halo of feathers stood up from the hood of her cloak. “Robin, what is it?”
Choosing to ignore her adornment for the time being, Robin said, “I’ve just come from Locksley. Someone brought word to us there that Samuel Thatcher of Barnsdale has been hurt in a fall from a roof. It happened this morning, and he is still unconscious. Will you go and see if you can help?”
“Of course,” Djaq replied. “Just allow me a moment to gather a few things, and then I will leave at once. What can you tell me of his injuries?”
Allan’s attention wandered while Robin described a wound to the head and possible broken bones. His understanding of herbs and healing and the setting of bones was minimal, his interest limited to his own happily infrequent requirements in these areas. He did know that Sam was a leader in his village and an important ally to the outlaws, and he could tell by the concern in his voice that Robin was worried for him as a friend. He watched Djaq from the corners of his eyes as she rummaged through her small store of medicines and bandages, selecting what might be useful. By the time Robin finished speaking, she was ready to depart. Allan sat up straighter.
“I will do everything I can,” said Djaq. “Do not worry. Now tell me, which is the quickest way to Barnsdale?”
“Follow the forest path that runs parallel to the Great North Road,” began Robin. “After you cross the river at the bridge-”
“Nah,” said Allan, cutting him off. “Fastest way is to head to Locksley, but just before you get there, there’s a game trail through the woods that’ll bring you right to the river-”
“Which you will never be able to cross,” broke in Much. “It is much too deep there.” Having irritably and firmly disputed Allan’s advice, Much stalked over to his makeshift kitchen and began banging pots and pans about.
“Oi! Let me finish, will you?” Allan yelled after him. Getting no response, he continued. “So this game trail brings you to the river, and yeah, you can’t cross there”-a dirty look at Much’s turned back-“but head downstream not a quarter of a mile and you come to some logs that washed up against the rocks during the spring rains. That’ll bring you partway across, then you might hafta get a bit wet, but it isn’t too deep by that point, and there’s some boulders on the other side, so what you do is-”
“How do you know about this?” asked Robin, putting a stop to the complicated directions in an unmistakably dubious tone that did not quite manage, or probably intend, to hide the hint of reproach it contained. Allan just quirked an eyebrow, to which Robin hastily replied, “Never mind. Allan, go with Djaq.”
Allan nearly voiced a token protest about being tired. Not that he expected to change Robin’s mind, but he wanted to make sure he received due credit for both the idea and its implementation. The best way he knew to do this was to complain just enough that his actions registered as a sacrifice to all present. Instead, he kept his objections to himself as he almost instantly realized that Robin’s instruction meant he would be able to spend several hours in Djaq’s company. He almost grinned at the thought, but stopped himself in time. It wouldn’t do to appear too pleased.
Allan noticed Will staring at him with a hostile and faintly wounded look on his face. He glared back and shrugged. What? It wasn’t his doing. Why would Will blame him? And for the love of all that’s holy, why would he show his feelings so obviously? He might as well be Much.
“And Allan,” Robin called out sternly as they began to walk away from camp.
They both stopped to turn, Djaq with impatience, and Allan with a sudden worry that Robin was about to tell him to stay put after all.
Instead, Robin’s half-hearted attempt at discipline was belied by the crinkling skin around his mouth and eyes. “You might want to remove Djaq’s fancy headdress before she is mistaken for a pheasant and shot by a poacher.”
Grinning sheepishly, Allan plucked the feathers from Djaq’s cloak as she sent a withering look his way and returned them to Will, who took them sullenly and without a word. Allan just shrugged again and hurried after Djaq. He wasn’t going to let Will’s disappointment ruin his good mood at this turn of events.
~ * ~ * ~
Everything had gone well in Barnsdale. Samuel had still been unconscious when they arrived, and Djaq had taken that opportunity to reset a dislocated shoulder. He had begun to stir as she examined his head, and by the time they left later in the evening, he was fully awake and talking. Allan had spent most of the time seated by the door, out of the way and content to observe Djaq’s capable ministrations. The grateful Thatchers had offered them a roof for the night, but looking over the tiny cottage and the large Thatcher family, they had declined. They did accept some bread and cheese to take with them, and they now sat against a tree, brushing away the crumbs of their meal. They were only halfway back to the camp and Djaq seemed tired, but Allan was invigorated by the night air, by their success-well, really Djaq’s success-in Barnsdale, and by this rare chance to spend time alone with her.
“All right then, up you get. It’s about time you learned how to walk in the forest.”
He stretched out his hand. It was a more or less honest appendage these days-one that no longer wandered into promising pockets or fiddled deftly with locks, except when engaged in the serious business of outlawry. It was a change, to be sure, but he found the act of theft and the artistry of a good con no less exciting for all that the former Lord of Locksley was orchestrating the illicit activities now. Or for the knowledge that the hard won spoils would be shared among less daring folk. There was still scheming worthy of a quick and agile mind, still the exhilaration of risk, the satisfaction of a payoff. He was still at practicing his favorite pursuit. Well, second favorite.
“I can walk in the forest,” came Djaq’s obstinate reply, no less than what he expected.
He did not even attempt to conceal his delight as she rose and knocked aside his genuine offer of assistance-that hand, which also had ceased its meandering ways when it came to the fairer sex. Almost ceased. He showed his teeth. “‘course you can. Wot I mean is, you want to go quickly and quietly at the same time, yeah? Can’t believe Robin lets you bungle about as you do. It’s a wonder you haven’t given us all away before now.”
He could see, warring within her, irritation at her own lack of skill-as well as at him for having called attention to it-and the strong desire to possess it, to do well this thing which the others achieved naturally. Her arms were tightly crossed and her brows pulled together, and a slight frown of her pursed lips indicated, possibly, determination. There was also a cautious, assessing look about her, eyes narrowed to a squint so that the exquisite brown warmth and depth of them were hidden, as if in judging the degree of his sincerity it was necessary to first mask her own.
If he managed to say the right words now, emphasize the practical aspects of his suggestion-no teasing-he knew that she would agree. In fact, he’d be willing to place on sizable wager on it.
“’course, it’s not your fault, bein’ from the desert an’ all. You just need practice. So, like this.”
He held up both hands before him, palms facing Djaq at about shoulder-height-her shoulders. See? Simple. Nothing to hide. She was nearly won. “Now you,’ he continued matter-of-factly. “Place your hands just in front of mine. Close as you can without touchin’.”
With only the slightest of hesitations, a flicker of a question in her eye, something perceived and wondered at but then dismissed, she did so.
“Now, shut your eyes.”
She balked, arms falling to her sides. “Allan.”
He had to admit it: he loved the way she spoke his name. In dull moments around the camp, he would provoke her by tossing acorns and then pretending to be asleep when she turned, swiping food off her plate, juggling pouches of her widely sought after and precisely cut dried herbs. Will’s rolling of eyes at such moments was a sure sign that he was being childish, but Allan didn’t care. If he was lucky, she would greet his antics with a laugh, and his whole body would warm to the affection she could express with those two simple syllables. Al-lan. But even in the clipped tones of frustration, or upon an exasperated breath of air, his own name, familiar as it was from birth, never failed to strike him as a remarkable new sound when she said it.
Here she was, though, supposing some sort of ploy was afoot, a way of making her look a fool, which of course she would hate. He shook his head as if to clear it. There was one last trick up his sleeve.
“No, look. I’m not bein’ funny. Trust me.”
She wavered just for a moment, then closed her eyes and presented her palms. Some small quiver stirred in his stomach because she would trust him, chose to do so in that moment, as he’d asked. It was only a small thing, and yet, in the face of her misgivings, it made him want to take those hands in his own, warm them gently before tucking them into her cloak, and escort her safely and efficiently back to camp.
She sighed impatiently; he cleared his throat.
“Right then,” he said, more to himself, as he brought his own palms up to rest a coin’s width from hers. He was surprised to notice a trembling in his usually steady fingers. “I’m goin’ to walk backwards, and you follow me without lookin’. My hands are here in case you trip, which you won’t, and we’ll just go nice and slow.”
“And how will this teach me to walk in the forest?” she asked, more amused than doubtful now, but still prolonging the moment of exposure when she would have to move blindly forward.
“Instead of lookin’, you have to sense where you’re goin’. You’re always thinkin’, Djaq. This is somethin’ you’ve got to feel.”
“You mean like instinct.”
“Wot’s that?” he queried, not catching the word, distracted as he was with attempting to still his unquiet hands.
“Instinct? An innate tendency. Something one does by natural inclination rather than as a learned behavior.”
“Oh, yeah. Well. Ready?”
Allan took a step backwards, and then another, and tentatively she followed, groping the ground with her feet, searching out obstacles prior to each step. Her hands grazed his lightly, unintentionally, teasingly, meeting and parting again and again as they made their unsteady progress. He felt the hardened skin of her palms as they brushed against his, calluses that came from gripping tools and wielding weapons, carrying burdens, and skillfully performing all the regular tasks around camp that made life as an outlaw in Sherwood Forest bearable.
Firm and strong as they were, these hands were also the gentlest he had ever known. He could personally attest to that after the incident when his head had made the unhappy acquaintance of a stubborn rock. He had Will to thank for that, actually, pulling him down a wooded slope to escape some guards whose horses they had been attempting to steal. One of them tripped-he was pretty sure it had been Will, with his long legs-and while Will had ended up with a mouthful of leaves and a stunned friend to drag back to camp, Allan had ended up with a lump on his head, blood in his eyes, and a fuzzy memory of Djaq speaking soothingly as she cleaned the wound. Come to think of it, maybe it hadn’t been that bad after all. Robin had let him sleep a lot for the next couple of days on Djaq’s advice, and although his head had hurt plenty after, there had been no pain while she was touching him. Still, he much preferred his current method of getting close to a woman.
Turning his attention to Djaq again, Allan could not help but notice the heat growing between them with each pass of their palms, and he wondered if she, who seemed to know all, could possibly be aware of the tightening in his chest and his shallow-coming breaths.
When they reached a more exposed section of the forest path, and moonlight shone upon her, his worry eased. He could see her concentration clearly now, marked by a slight downturn at the corners of her mouth and the fine crease between her eyebrows, her focus completely upon the task she had been set, and she approaching it like a problem to be solved. He relaxed and decided to enjoy the prospect before him.
Djaq looked more alluring than ever with the pale glow upon her hair, upon her face, and lighting her cheeks where her eyelashes now rested. The moonlight softened her, though Allan knew that Djaq only pretended to hardness. Indeed, it was her very tenderness that he was concerned not to offend. She kept it hidden, protected, and in first perceiving this so many weeks ago, he had instantly known its value.
He had not yet realized it that day in Nottingham when Tom had been killed. He could not then step beyond his own sorrow to truly grasp all that she had shared with him, or what it may have cost her to do so. Nonetheless he had been grateful, intuiting somehow, from the murky hollows of his grief, that she had allowed a bond to form with him, Allan A’Dale, a man she barely knew, and that she had risked something of herself in doing so.
Later, when he could look back upon that day and her actions, he reflected that she may well be the bravest person he had ever met. Had he been in her place, he would not, he realized, have done the same.
“Allan? This is ridiculous. It is not working.” She had stopped and was watching him, hands upon her hips.
“Wot? Yeah, it is! You were doin’ fine,” he spluttered, embarrassed, as if she could tell what he had been thinking.
“And you were not paying attention!”
“Sorry, I was just”-he groped for a benign explanation-“I was just wonderin’ what the others were gettin’ up to back at camp.” There. That was innocent enough.
She stood looking at him skeptically a moment longer, then nodded as if deciding to play along. “Well, John was hunting when we left, and Much will have prepared whatever he managed to catch for dinner.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet he grumbled about havin’ to cook it and then complained about havin’ to clean up after.” Allan was warming to his own fabricated diversion. “Will must’ve finished fletchin’ those arrows, then he probably chopped some firewood or somethin’. An’ Robin . . . he’ll be gettin’ ready for a romantic rendezvous in Knighton, don’t you s’pose?”
“It is possible. I do not know.” Djaq’s dignified aloofness was clearly meant to suggest that such things were beneath her interest and certainly none of their business.
He would have none of it. “Aw, come on,” he teased. “Lovely moonlit night like this? Tell you wot, if it was me, and I had a willin’ lass, that’s exactly what I’d be doin’, too.”
“And instead you are stuck accompanying me to Barnsdale and back.” She was intently, unnervingly watchful as she spoke, but her voice was light, almost coy. It concealed a question but betrayed nothing of what she might wish him to respond.
“s’alright,” he said, equally circumspect. “Got no lass waitin’ on me. An’ anyways,” he paused to shrug, never taking his eyes from hers, “I wouldn’t say stuck.”
They were still close, exactly in the spot where their walk had stalled, the distance separating them less than that of his elbow to his fingertips. Were she any other woman, there would be only one thing to do next. But she was Djaq, wasn’t she? He was likely to end up with a sound slap. He had never met another woman less inclined towards romance. She was fun to flirt with, easy to tease; she gave as good as she got and never took things the wrong way. Granted, many of the things he said were actually meant to be taken the wrong way, but she was rarely offended. She treated him like a friend, and he was trying his damnedest, against all of his most deeply rooted instincts, not to wreck that.
Anyway, there was Will to consider-Will, his friend, who thought he loved Djaq. Allan didn’t know if he really loved her or not. How could he, who had never been in love for longer than a single night, know if Will truly felt what he said he did? But Will believed he loved Djaq, and Allan accepted that as the important thing.
And Allan? Well, he had said he liked her, surprising himself with the admission no less than the others. He enjoyed her company, that was all. He wouldn’t question the way the beat of his heart quickened at an unexpected glimpse of her across the marketplace in Nottingham. Or the way he couldn’t help but grin at her when he caught her eye during one of Much’s frequent tirades, when she bested him in a fierce sparring practice, or when she threw up her hands in despair at the stupidity of Englishmen, or perhaps just men in general. Or the way a jest would momentarily catch in his throat when she returned to camp from a bathe in the river, her skin glowing from the cool and freshening water, her short black hair shiny and damp, trails of moisture trickling down her neck and disappearing beneath her collar . . .
Will had nothing to worry about.
Once again conscious of Djaq’s scrutiny, Allan realized he had grown uncharacteristically quiet. “Penny for your thoughts,” he said as a means of deflecting her curious attention.
“Excuse me?”
“It means I’ll give you a penny if you’ll tell me what you’re thinkin’. ‘course, I don’t have a penny, so it’s just a way of askin’ what’s on your mind. I mean, you don’t have to tell me or nothin’, I was just-”
“Allan?”
“Yeah?”
“You are babbling.”
“Sorry.”
“Perhaps I should offer you a penny for your thoughts?” She said it kindly, as if she truly wanted to know.
“Nah, they’re not worth that much.” He sighed and looked downward as he spoke, but his gaze only reached the first fastening of her vest before he hastily decided he would be better off meeting her eyes after all. If only she weren’t so awkwardly near, so difficult to lie to. “I was just thinkin’ ‘bout Robin bein’ off with Marian,” he confessed. “How I haven’t got even half as much as one of his promises to her that I can offer a lass of my own. That’s why there’s no pretty young thing lookin’ out for me tonight, or any other night, for that matter. Most women deserve better, but I’m not a man wot can give it to ‘em.”
Once the words left his mouth, he immediately regretted them. Djaq probably wouldn’t laugh, but she would rightly think him a fool for imagining that he could ever settle down with a wife, a family, an honest trade. He didn’t even believe it himself. It was just one of those things that crossed his mind whenever he took to wondering what might have been if he’d had a decent upbringing. Nothing extravagant, just something simple and honest, like Will’s life before he joined the gang, with his father and his brother and his carpentry. Then he might have been a little more reliable. Even if Djaq understood this hopeless dream, the most he could expect now was her pity, and that wasn’t what he wanted from her at all.
“I believe you have much to offer to . . . anyone.”
He had turned away rather than watch her reaction. He shook his head, but before he could open his mouth to protest what he knew to be wrong, Djaq spoke again.
“I think it is time for you to trust me.”
They had been standing still for several minutes, as if rooted, but he was suddenly seized by a feeling of being adrift. Her words overcame him-trust me, she had said-and set him loose from the familiar world in which he judged people by either the amount of harm they could render or the benefit their acquaintance could bring. Instead he was all but ready to believe that she knew what she was about, what she asked of him, to believe that she was truly seeing him as clearly as he now saw her. He almost concluded that they must feel and want and understand the same things, simply because they were standing here now, together, two outlaws of Sherwood Forest with nothing and no one left to them in the world but for each other and their friends. It was really no reason at all and yet made more sense than anything that had ever happened in his whole life.
He had been so aware of her all throughout the evening, but now his focus even intensified so that all else fell away, and he was no longer conscious of the scent of sweetly rotting leaves beneath their feet, the chill air numbing the tip of his nose, the scurry of nighttime creatures among the surrounding trees. His mind, his body, his tongue all froze-all but for the nearly unnoticeable to him parting of his lips, the imperceptible sway of his body, lured fractionally closer to hers.
She reached out, brought her right arm across her chest, and settled it upon his right shoulder. Then balancing herself lightly, she stepped carefully past him on the narrow path, just grazing his arm with the sweep of her cloak. When he spun about, she was standing with her hands held out, her palms facing him.
“Your turn,” she challenged.
An uneasy chuckle swelled in his throat. Disappointed, embarrassed, relieved, he held his hands up against hers. All right then.
But it wasn’t as easy as he thought it would be. Branches caught in his cloak and cracked loudly under his boots as he turned his ankles on loose stones and tripped over tree roots. If Allan hadn’t quite managed to make himself look like an idiot before, he was certainly doing a fine job of it now. He stumbled again and again, and each time he did, his hands grasped for Djaq’s, and hers were always there, small fingers tightening around them. In spite of her secure presence, he found himself growing frustrated, and after one misstep nearly sent him lurching into her, he opened his eyes and brought his hands down, though they still held onto hers.
“You are giving up so soon?” She sounded surprised and-oddly, he thought-a little bit offended.
He offered an apologetic half-smile. “Yeah, look, I’m gonna kill us both in another minute if I really do fall.”
Her response was nearly a statement. “You do not trust me, then?”
“Djaq, you’re half my size!” He had inadvertently raised his voice as well as his eyebrows at the accusation. Lowering both, he said, “It’s not about trust. I just don’t want to hurt you.”
She said nothing, but he sensed her disapproval and wondered what he had done wrong now.
“Hey,” he said, tilting his head and tracing soft circles against the backs of her fingers with his thumbs, noticing with pleasure how her smaller hands were settled within his own as if they belonged there, and all the while waiting for her solemn expression to lift. It did not, and so he swallowed and continued doggedly, speaking over a sense of dismay that something dear had slipped quietly away without his having seen it go. “What do you say we stop here? I can get a fire goin’, and we’ll head back to camp first thing in the mornin’. The others won’t be expectin’ us ‘til then anyways.”
She looked around as if weighing comfortable options, seeming to consider his proposal, but when she answered her voice was detached. “I think I would prefer to sleep at the camp tonight. It is not so far now.”
“Yeah. Yeah, sure.”
He released her and stood still, watching as she moved away. It seemed to him that the moonlight followed her, making her slight form appear bright and clear even as the distance spread between them, while he was left in near darkness, the ground before him grown indistinct. A swift, prickling shiver rose along his spine, as if the moonlight and she had been warming him with some shared inner brilliance, and he knew coldness for the first time that night. For just a moment, he felt unaccountably lost there on the forest path, more alone than before he’d ever met Robin, or Will, or any of the others. More alone than when Tom had died, when Djaq had filled some small part of his aching emptiness with her trust and her earnest, absolute friendship.
A heartbeat later and this sensation passed and he was only perplexed; there was something different about Djaq, walking ahead of him towards the camp and their friends. He thought that he would always know her at any distance, after any lengthy period of separation, by nothing so mundane as her stature or her hair, but just by the way she carried herself-like no other woman, and yet, for a certainty, like no man. It was a truth undeniable to Allan that there was no one else in the world like her, and he felt himself imprinted by an essential quality that was Djaq and that would forever tug at the most intimate part of Allan.
And yet something about her had altered this night . . .
His mouth twitched into a tentative smile that widened as he realized what it was, and he hurried to catch her up.
Her footsteps. They were nearly noiseless.