Fic: The Carpenter and the Wood (part 1)
Title: The Carpenter and the Wood (part 1)
Author: tania_sings
Rating: R (one semi-explicit sex scene and some violence. Overall, it's pretty tame.)
Pairings: Luke/Kate, Luke/OMC, Luke/canonical male character so obscure he might as well be an OMC, Kate/OMC, Will/Djaq, Much/Eve
Warnings: Slash and het, violence, character death
Word Count: 30457
Summary: The life and loves of Will and Luke Scarlett over the course of one lifetime.
Author's Notes: I've tried to include a bit of history here, but some reality had to be scrapped for the sake of the story. Just remember it takes place in a world where Maid Marian wears sweaters from Topshop and you should be fine! Please don't run away on account of Kate; I've done my best to work with canon while redeeming poor Joanne's hard work. Thanks to the amazing roh_wyn for her sensational and very speedy beta work. And thanks to everyone who offered advice and suggestions on the help threads. And finally, thanks to ladylovelace for taking on the art challenge. I can't wait to see it. Much obliged!
Part 2: http://community.livejournal.com/bigbanghood/18278.html#cutid1
Part 3: http://community.livejournal.com/bigbanghood/18470.html
Part 4: http://community.livejournal.com/bigbanghood/18709.html
Prologue
I don't believe an accident of birth makes people sisters or brothers. It makes them siblings, gives them mutuality of parentage. Sisterhood and brotherhood is a condition people have to work at.
~Maya Angelou
Luke Scarlett's earliest memory was of looking into his brother's eyes.
Will's early enthusiasm for having a baby brother had waned somewhat after his realisation that the infant Luke couldn't actually DO anything. Forget about tickling for trout in the River Trent or gathering the autumn apples; after a nearly year of his dutiful waiting this disappointing child couldn't even walk yet, and Will was running out of patience.
So after he finished his chores, he carefully unswaddled his little brother, noting that, once free of restraints, Luke's chubby little legs kicked enthusiatically. No reason at all for him not to walk but sheer laziness.
Will tried modelling at first, hoping that his own independence would inspire the baby. But although Luke was more than happy to watch his big brother parade back and forth in front of him, he seemed uninspired to try it himself. And when Will pulled him up into a standing position and lifted one of his feet, the startled Luke plopped back down onto his plump little bottom as if stunned by the experience.
However, Will Scarlett had never been a quitter and through sheer trial and error he found a method that worked. Kneeling in front of Luke and propping the baby's hands up on his skinny six-year-old shoulders, he crept backwards, forcing his little brother to move forward in order to keep from falling over. At first, Luke could only manage a step or two at a time. But the two boys persevered together, and by the end of the week they were covering considerable distance.
This set the pattern for their early lives together. Whenever Will decided it was time for Luke to climb his first tree or take his first swim in the pond, he would kneel in front of his brother and look at him straight on, blue eyes scanning brown for comprehension. And whenever Will got down on his level, ensuring that they were face to face and eye to eye, Luke immediately understood that he was about to learn a vital life skill.
Years later, after the two boys hurriedly buried a cache of stolen potatoes at the roots of a black chestnut tree for safekeeping, Will laughed tenderly at Luke's reminiscing.
"Come on Lukey! You couldn't possibly remember that. You were just a baby."
With their arms slung comfortably over each others' shoulders, the Scarlett brothers headed for the river to scrub the telltale dirt from their fingernails before the sheriff's men came looking for the thieves. Luke smiled, relishing the warmth of his brother's side and the easy companionship that always existed between them.
"I do remember, Will. Just because you're thick as a plank doesn't mean everyone else forgets about things as soon as they happen."
Will cuffed him affectionately on the back of the head and, after carefully inspecting each other's hands to make sure they'd left no evidence behind, they headed for home, the conversation turning to how good the potatoes would taste if they could just obtain a little butter and salt from somewhere.
But Luke remained, silently but unshakeably, certain of his own recollections. Until the day he day he died, he would maintain that his very first memory was of Will kneeling in front of him, prodding him on to independence, looking him straight in the eye. And his own baby mind concluding that if Will could do it, manage this seemingly impossible feat, well then, so could he.
Chapter 1
We understand death for the first time when he puts his hand upon one whom we love.
~Madame de Stael
Jane had been a beauty once.
Luke had no portrait to confirm this, and she'd deny it whenever he asked, but his father had sworn it so many times that he'd come to take it as fact.
By the time that Luke was born, Jane was, like most peasant women, already old before her time. Bearing two big baby boys, plus the two she'd lost in between them, had taken its toll on her figure. Her hands were permanently red and calloused from a life spent stripping bark off the raw material of the family's livelihood and, as she was ridiculously house-proud where their little hut was concerned, her knees were swollen from hours spent scrubbing the slate floors. As she was fair-skinned, a lifetime in the sun had wrinkled and freckled her face and the grey had long ago begun to overtake the brown in her hair.
But Dan Scarlett constantly declared that when he looked at her, he saw only the English rose who had met him at the church door twenty years before, with a face as plump and smooth as a peach and a smile that could light up Nottinghamshire better than a million torches. And he said it with so much love in his voice that Luke believed it wholeheartedly.
Jane had been a beauty. Once.
But you'd never know it now.
She lay unable to move on her straw pallet, as Will carefully spooned a runny mixture of flour and water into her mouth, dabbing at the excess that oozed from between her lips. Luke threw another handful of thyme on the fire, hoping the fragrant smoke would cut the smell in the room, because he knew how the stench of Jane's dying body embarassed her. Dan, rendered useless by grief, wept inconsolably in the corner.
Jane was a skeleton. Sheer force of will, a refusal to let her family know she was passing on her portions to them, had kept her on her feet until it was too late to do anything for her. Her skin hung off her bones like worn cotton; the slightest touch left her mottled with ugly purple bruises.
Her eyelids, swollen and red, flickered open, revealing deep blue eyes gone milky and unfocussed. She mumbled under her breath, a hiss of putrid air leaking from between her lips. Will leaned in, unflinching. He took a ragged breath and then nodded sharply.
"Luke, Mum thinks she could manage some food. Can you and Dad go and pick her some berries? There're some growing down by McLelland's fence."
Luke agreed quickly, secretly and guiltily gleeful at the idea of getting out of their stifling little cottage. He put an arm around his father's shoulders and lifted the man to his feet. Dan Scarlett allowed himself to be led away wiithout protest, his misery making him childlike and biddable.
They walked through the village without speaking, the sunny autumn day a shock after the dark horror of their home. Neighbours called out greetings, and Luke stared blankly at them. What were they saying and what could they want from him? How in the world was normal life still going on?
At the fence, he filled his hat with all the blackberries he could find. There weren't a lot left; most of the fruit had already been stripped away by people almost as hungry as his mother and those that remained were rotting and wormy. Nonetheless, his mouth watered at the sight of them, and he had to physically fight the temptation to appease his own aching belly. Silently, he offered up his hunger as a sacrifice to God. He'd suffer -- he'd suffer gladly -- if his mother, the guiding light of his ten years on this Earth, could just live. Please, please, let her live.
Will met them at the door, tears running unashamedly down his face. He shook his head without speaking and their father fell to the ground in an insentient heap. Luke stood stock-still, utterly shocked. His instinct was to run away and never stop, to just keep running until he was too far away for this moment to ever catch him, but Will's hand on his shoulder kept him in place. Silently, his brother drew him back inside the hovel, leaving Dan where he lay. They had to prepare their mother's body.
That evening, after they had covered Jane with dirt and dosed Dan with tincture of valerian so he would sleep, Luke watched Will rinse the blood from digging the grave off his hands and spoke for the first time since the morning.
"How could you do it?"
He was surprised at his own voice. He hadn't meant to sound angry, he hadn't known he WAS angry. He just genuinely wanted to know. But the question came out as an accusation, cold and demanding and filled with barely contained fury.
Will shrugged without turning around.
"She asked me to. She was suffering, and she asked me to do it."
Jane's neck had been wrapped in a soft brown scarf by the time Luke and Dan had returned from their pointless expedition, but Will had done nothing to stop his brother from unwinding it and seeing the livid red fingerprints on their mother's throat.
"But how could you DO it?"
He couldn't imagine it. Will taking that fragile neck in his hands and pressing down. Cutting off her air and ending her life. He'd seen Will nurse baby birds that had fallen from their nests with pippets and tender care. He was the one the local shepherds called on for help at lambing time because they knew he wouldn't let nerves or exhaustion distract him from carefully swaddling and sheltering every last brand new sheep life. Will had tenderly brushed their mother's hair away from her sweaty forehead only that morning. How could he now be washing blood off the hands that killed her?
Will took a step towards him and Luke instinctively moved away from the murderer. Will flinched as if he'd been slapped.
"Sometimes ... Luke. Sometimes you just have to do horrible things. Even if you know something's wrong, even if you know you'll burn in Hell for it, you do it because it needs doing."
Luke shook his head. "But Mum --"
"Was suffering."
Will's anguished face blurred in front of Luke as his eyes welled up with tears. God, all he wanted was to hug his big brother. No chance of that. Will spoke again.
"Are you going to tell? I won't deny it, I promise. I'll hang for it if you want me to. It's only right."
Luke shook his head emphatically. It had never occured to him to report Will. Living without his mother would be agony but living without Will would be impossible. The world needed Will Scarlett.
"I couldn't have done it."
Will's bloody hand brushed his little brother's cheek, wiping away a tear.
"No. Probably not."
Killing their mother was the first thing that Will had ever done that Luke couldn't imagine imitating. He wasn't sure if he was proud or ashamed of that.
Chapter 2
But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.
~Frederic Bastiat
The first time, they hadn't had a plan.
Helping to bring in the wheat crop was a Locksley tradition, and the fact that this year all of the wheat would be sent to London made no difference. Everyone was required to be there.
Will was usually one of the fastest when it came to harvesting. He was tall and long-limbed, as well as so used to swinging an axe that using a scythe was like second nature. But this time he kept lagging behind the others, only hustling to catch up when one of the overseers would threaten him with a whipping. And his stooks were spindly little things, nothing like the robust heaps of the autumn before.
Luke dropped back to help his brother. Ever since their mother died, Will had been showing a stoic streak that, to be honest, had Luke seriously frightened. He watched his brother like a hawk at mealtimes, convinced that Will would try to do what Jane had done and skimp on his own meals in favor of the others. It would be typical of this new Will to ignore a cut or another injury that could do a lot of damage later.
He found his brother tying a strip of cloth around his forearm and shuddered with horror. Strong arms were essential for carpenters and if Will had cut through a tendon, his career would certainly be over.
Will glanced up, reaching instinctively for his scythe. But on seeing Luke he smiled and gestured him closer.
"Give me a hand with this, will you?"
Luke moved in to tie the cloth, hoping to only see a minor nick. He was so concerned that it took him a moment to realise what was going on.
There was no red stain on the bandage. There was no injury. Rather, the strip of cloth had been folded over to form a pouch. Which now contained handfuls of pilfered wheat.
Will winked at his brother, and rolled up each of his trouser legs to show several similar pockets. He patted his belly, and Luke could hear the crunch of the stalks that Will had secured in the waistband of his trousers. Rolling his sleeve over the pouch, he ripped two more strips of cloth from the lining of his ragged overcoat and handed one to Luke.
And thus the Scarlett brothers became thieves together.
The first time, Luke had been hesitant. All of the Locksley children had grown up thinking of the wheat as the key to the village surviving through the winter. You'd no sooner steal from the wheat crop than raid your neighbour's larder. But, as Will said, none of them would enjoy the wheat during this cold season. The only people that would be disadvantaged were the Sheriff, who would have a slightly smaller crop to claim as payment for back taxes, and the rich London nobles, whose servants would have one or two fewer loaves to buy in the London markets. And neither of them, according to Will, should think twice about robbing those kitchens.
The next time, they were better prepared for it. Will had been sent to the castle to deliver some new washtubs and overheard talk that three pairs of ornamental swans that had been purchased to swim in the moat around Nottingham Castle would be arriving in four days. Since both the Scarlett boys had spent much of their childhoods in the woods, it was no challenge to work out where the path was narrowest and the trees were thickest. Armed with an impressive arsenal of axes, they confronted an aged swan breeder who certainly hadn't expected any trouble on this trip. The plump birds had made enough soup to feed the entire village for a week.
Soon it became a regular occurrence. They raided apple carts and poached deer. Bags of flour routinely went missing, and Luke, trading on his innocent young face, learned to cut the purse strings of the fat merchants' wives.
It was revenge, to be sure. Revenge for their mother's death and their father's broken spirit. For the babies who wailed all night because their pinch-cheeked mothers were too starved to produce milk. For their own empty bellies and for what the sheriff was forcing them to become.
But it was also a lark. Watching Will nodding severely when the Sheriff's men came by to offer a reward for information that could lead to the capture of the Locksley thieves was as good as a pantomime for Luke, who had to duck inside before his giggles were noticed. Returning from an escapade with a sack of this or a crate of that was a rush they'd never known before. Even the times they nearly got caught became the meat for the stories they'd whisper to each other at night when they couldn't sleep, filling the silence that their mother's songs had left behind.
It was Luke's idea to involve Benedict Giddens. The wheelwright's apprentice was one of the most dashing blokes in the village, and Luke was utterly thrilled the older boy seemed willing to be friends with him. He convinced Will it made sense to bring Ben along; he could keep watch while the brothers took their time, secure in the knowledge that no one was coming.
But the best times for Luke were when it was Will who stood guard and Ben who'd break into a root cellar with him. Pressed against each other in a stairwell, crouched low to the ground as they waited for the servants to leave for the night, Luke trembled with an excitement that he couldn't name but that he knew had nothing to do with stealing. It was another added bonus to their lives of crime.
So even when Dad, who they'd assumed was totally in the dark about their double lives, threw himself between Will and the Sheriff's men and begged them to take him instead, in his most secret heart Luke still didn't regret what they'd done. And even though their father's false confession cost him a hand, he didn't want to stop doing it.
"Will, think of all the people we're helping. Yes, Dad got hurt and that's awful. But people will die if we don't get them food. Hell, DAD will starve if we stop; he won't be able to work half as fast now."
Will was guilt-stricken and torn. "I can't stand seeing my family hurt because of me. The look on Dad's face when the soldiers came, and Mum..."
"No." Luke still refused to let Will talk about their mother. Luke himself wouldn't even think about how she died. It was the only way to love Will and stay sane.
Only when Will realised that Luke and Benedict would keep stealing without him did he agree to carry on. After all, he said, glaring at Ben like a maiden aunt who'd caught a soldier boy lurking outside his niece's window, someone had to look out for Luke's wellbeing.
Although he bristled at the implication that he couldn't take care of himself, Luke was thrilled that his brother would continue to share his adventures. So he grinned as he watched Will blacken his face with soot and happily led the way out into the night.
Chapter 3
When brothers agree, no fortress is so strong as their common life.
~Antisthenes
This was all his fault.
He was the one who had wanted Benedict, that snivelling coward, to be part of their gang. Will had never completely trusted him, and with good reason as it turned out. If that idiot, who was now sobbing in the corner like a baby, had just been able to keep his mouth shut, then none of them would be stuck in this stinking cell. None of them would be about to die.
Will swore he didn't blame Luke. Hell, he didn't even blame Ben --not really.
"It's the fault of the Sheriff, Lukey, him and Prince John. If they'd given us a chance to live honestly, none of this would have happened. I'm just sorry I got you involved. Forgive me?"
There was nothing to forgive; Luke had wanted, NEEDED, to be part of Will's thefts. But Will said he had to have forgiveness in order to die in peace, so Luke gave it. In fact, he forgave Will everything that night. He wanted to die in peace too.
The brothers watched the sun come up for the last time that morning, joined by a thief from Rochdale who was due to hang along with them. The man, who said his name was Allan, had shared a slice of bread with the Scarlett boys, cheerfully remarking that he wouldn't need it where he was going. Luke thought he must be mad, making jokes about his own execution, but Will seemed to take comfort in the other man's bravado so Luke was glad he was with them.
It was odd being led to the scaffold on such a beautiful morning. On any other day he might be splitting logs into beams in the front garden, relishing the sun beating down around his shoulders. The sun was still here now, but Luke shuddered with cold in spite of it.
The feel of the rope around his neck made him swoon and he nearly retched with fear. But he was going to die like a man, even if he'd never actually grow into one, so he forced himself to stand tall.
Will reached over and adjusted his brother's noose.
"Make sure the knot is here when the trap door goes, Lukey. Not at the back of your neck, HERE. Right under your ear. Do you understand?"
Luke nodded. "Will that make the rope snap?"
Will shook his head. "It'll break your neck, if you're lucky. That's a faster, easier death than strangling."
So, unlike Luke, Will had believed all along this might happen. Will had known they might die. He'd made preparations.
Luke tried to focus on the final words Will gave on behalf of them all, but the sound of his own heart throbbing in his ears drowned out all sound. So, instead, he fixed his eyes on his brother, marveling at how Will held his shoulders straight and his hands steady at a time like this. He wanted so desperately to believe that they would meet again in Heaven, but they were both thieves and Will was a killer. So, just in case, he drank in the sight of his brother now, trying to memorize every feature before the coarse grey sack was placed over his head, blocking out everything else.
He didn't know what was happening at the time. For a long moment there was no air, and then suddenly there was. A hand with a grip like iron closed over his wrist and he was pulled through a crush of bodies. He stumbled and fell, only to find himself scooped off the ground and lifted onto someone's shoulders like a felled tree . People were screaming and crying; he heard both cheers and curses. But these faded into the background as he was carried away from the scaffold, away from the crowd, away from home.
Once the only sound was his rescuers' heavy breathing, Luke was lowered to the ground. The hated sack was removed and Dan Scarlett's face, awash with tears of joy and relief, filled his vision. He fell into his father's arms.
"Where's Will?", he asked, looking around for his brother. Surely Will, not burdened with carrying another person, should have got here first.
His father began to shake.
"Where's Will? Where is he?" Dan Scarlett wouldn't have left one of his boys behind. There was no way.
"He... he did make it. He was fighting with Lord Robin and the other men. I'm sure he made it."
"Then where is he?" Luke pulled away from his father, running up the road in search of his brother. "Will! WILL!"
But Will was nowhere to be found.
Chapter 4
Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands?
~Ernest Gaines
There was nothing necessarily wrong with Scarborough, but it wasn't home. The crash of the waves on the stony beach could never be mistaken for the rustle of the wind through the trees and the shrill shrieks of the gulls were jarring to a boy used to the cooing of pigeons. Auntie did her best to make her brother and his youngest boy feel at home, cooking old favourites from Luke's childhood and patching clothes that had fallen into disrepair since Jane had died, but she wasn't his mother.
And she wasn't Will.
Dad said to try not to miss Will too much. Surely, he would be along any day now. He'd want to help Lord Robin, who'd saved both their lives with what Dan Scarlett swore were a pair of the most remarkable shots any human being had ever released from a bow. But as soon as he'd repaid his debt he would be with them again. Moping and worrying wouldn't hurry him along.
Luke wanted to believe that Dad was right, but from what he heard it didn't sound like Will was in any rush to join them. Rather, according to the gossip of the local boys and girls, Will was well on his way to becoming a bonafide folk legend.
"They burned a mine -- freed loads of slaves! Right under the foremen's noses!"
"They're sneaking food to the locked-down villages. People jailed in their own homes, but they're eating like free men! Never heard of anything like it!"
"A whole cart of tax silver! That'll show that rutting Sheriff. If you talk to your brother, tell him we're all behind him!"
Will's heroics helped smooth the Scarletts' way in Scarborough; there was no doubt about that. A crippled old man and his escaped convict son would normally be greeted with suspicion, especially in a city where there was barely enough work to go around already. But the stories about Robin Hood and his Merry Men (although the idea of the somber Will belonging to such a group was rather odd) were spreading rapidly and no one could harden their hearts against people so closely linked to the famous outlaws.
Rather, Dan Scarlett was always given a free mug of ale at the local tavern and Auntie often remarked that the loaves of bread which the baker laid aside for her were significantly heavier than they'd been before. There was always a smile for the Scarletts as they passed through the city and the pew they were given in church was heaps better than labouring men had any right to expect. Tobias Skinner, a local carpenter with an established base of noble clients and a dozen men working under him, took Luke on as his apprentice for a fraction of what he should have had to pay, and Luke relished the chance to learn new skills.
Skinner and his workers treated Luke a bit like their mascot, extravagantly praising his efforts and ruffling his hair when he designed an elaborate bit of casing, or trimmed a fillet to the perfect size on only his third try. They called him their lucky charm and made a point of asking him to stand close by when they wanted to attempt something particularly tricky. Soon, he found he was eating as many meals at their homes as he was at Auntie's kitchen table.
Which made it all the more surprising when the invitations dried up. Suddenly, Luke was left to walk home alone at the end of the working day, with only a few gruff nods to send him on his way. At the same time, the excited murmer that used to break out when the father and brother of the Locksley hero walked down the street turned to the hiss of scandalised whispers and new lines began to appear around Dad's mouth.
"It's absolute nonsense. Just ignore it." Auntie would give him no reason for the change.
It was Skinner who finally explained things to Luke, after he was left empty-handed and teary-eyed when one of the workers offered around a bag of hazelnuts. Swearing loudly, he split his own share with Luke, cursing out the men who'd tossed the sack over the boy's head.
"It's naught to do with him, what his brother does! Luke's one of us; he's nothing like that."
After the others had shuffled shamefaced back to work, Skinner sat Luke down. He put an arm around the boy's shouder and glared defiantly, as if daring anyone to comment.
"You've heard about the Saracen boy who's joined up with Robin and the rest of his lot?"
Luke nodded. Of course he had; he was constantly on the hunt for stories about Will, although lately there had been far fewer people willing to tell them.
"Well, there are some that have been saying, the darkie and your brother seem awful close these days. They say they fight back to back, keep special watch out for each other, more than the others do. And, look I don't know if it's total bollocks, but folks say they've been seen holding hands."
Luke's head spun. Was it possible?
"People just wonder what blokes might get up to out in the woods, no way to get to church and no birds about. It might be true or it might not. Hell, probably not-- people just like to talk. You pay it no mind, all right boy?"
Skinner took Luke's enthusiastic nod and broad smile to mean that he agreed, that he wouldn't let the vicious gossip sully his image of his brother. He watched the boy return to work with a new spring in his step, glad to have been of help.
He had no idea that his words had given Luke the courage to finally sneak out to Donally's barn, where he knew a certain group of older boys gathered at night. Or that when one of those boys crooked his finger in Luke's direction, he would feel closer to his beloved big brother than he had for a very long time.
Chapter 5
Never part without loving words to think of during your absence. It may be that you will not meet again in this life.
~Jean Paul Richter
"One more hug."
Luke disguised a sob as a hicuppy laugh as he went once again into his big brother's arms. He hoped Will wouldn't notice the wet spot that his tears left on the shoulder of his tunic.
"You know you don't have to go, right?" Will's voice was muffled by a mouthful of Luke's hair; the younger boy had grown since the last time the brothers had met.
"You want me to go though. Admit it." Luke was trying very hard not to sound sulky, but he could tell he was failing miserably.
Will nodded ruefully. "It's not that I don't want you around. Hell, just the opposite. But it'll be a lot harder to do what I need to be doing if I'm worrying about you all the time."
"You worry about the others."
"They're not family. I'd worry about you specially."
"You worry about her specially. I can tell."
Djaq, the Saracen girl. Girl. Luke was trying really hard not to think about that.
"Hey now!" Will took hold of his brother's shoulders and looked him in the eyes. "You're still the most important person in my world, Lukey. No woman's going to change that! You're all the family I have left."
All too true. Luke had no idea what he was going to tell Auntie when he got back to Scarborough alone.
"I can't believe he's gone. Will, our Dad's gone. We're orphans."
Silence. He wondered if Will had thought about it in quite those terms yet.
"Yeah. Listen, Luke, if anything happens to me -- "
"Don't." He couldn't bear the thought.
"Just listen. If anything happens to me, I want you to come back to Locksley. I've talked to Lady Marian. There's money put aside for you if you want it, and you'll always have a home with her."
"Are you ever coming to get me?"
"When King Richard comes back. That very day. It can't be long now. Robin's working out how to get a message to him, and once he does the king will have to come and set England back to rights. I'll take you to London to see him, just us Scarlett boys. All right?"
"All right."
With everything and nothing left to say, Luke picked up his pack and started up the Great North Road. To be honest, he was less grieved about leaving Will behind than he had expected to be. The sheer hatred in his brothers' blue eyes and the cold, inhuman set of his mouth when he'd declared his vendetta on the sheriff had been absolutely terrifying. Rage was to be expected, but Will had been possessed by something else, something darker. It made Luke wonder if the hardship and fighting were taking a greater toll on Will than Robin and his other men realised. Of course, Robin said that Will wasn't a murderer but Robin didn't know about --
Hard footfalls behind him shook Luke from his reverie. Someone was running after him. He spun around, his hand on the little woodcarving knife he'd taken off his fathers' body.
Just Will again.
"Missed me already?"
"Just wanted to tell you to be careful." Will was red in the face, breathing hard.
"You already did that. I won't talk to strangers, I won't give anyone my real name till I'm out of the county, and I won't play any tavern games. Don't worry!"
"No, Luke, be CAREFUL. Scarborough's bigger than Locksley, but it's not a huge city. People see things and they talk. You have to be discreet."
Luke's cheeks burned as he realised what his brother meant. How could he know? Okay, so he'd maybe watched Lord Robin a bit more closely than necessary, but the man was a living legend; it was excusable.
Christ, could he be that obvious?"
"Do you understand?" Will was adamant.
Luke nodded, studying the ground. He'd rather be in the ground with Dad than having this conversation.
"I can't help it." Perfect. He sounded like a child who'd soiled himself.
"I know that."
Will gripped his brother's chin, forcing Luke to look at him.
Relief broke over him like a Scarborough wave. Will's eyes were filled with affection; he was smiling gently. He looked just like Will should look.
"I'm not angry. Not even upset. You're who you have to be and that's fine. But one thing that I've learned out here is that there's a lot of ugly in this world and I want you safe from it. So try to make that happen, okay?"
"It's not why you don't want me here?" Luke just had to check.
Will laughed like Luke had just suggested the Earth was round. "Not even a little bit!"
A final, for-real-this-is-the-last-one embrace later, and Luke was on his way again. Night was falling and a mist was forming, but he felt safer than he had for a long time.
No one was perfect and brothers were no different, no matter what you wanted to believe. But if you were lucky, they were good enough people that you could love them anyway. And, orphans though they were, he and Will were lucky.
Chapter 6
Emotion always has its roots in the unconscious and manifests itself in the body.
~Irene Claremont de Castillejo
The lying, motherfucking bastard!
Luke hacked at a plank as if it were his brother's neck, the force of his blows reducing the valuable pine to splinters. That would come out of his pay. He swore and reached for fresh wood; he needed to concentrate.
The letter itself had scared the shit out of him. Like all nobles, even the well-meaning ones, Lord Robin had a tendency to forget that not everyone could read. Getting a letter after months of no word had suggested only one terrifying possibility and he'd run in his nightclothes to the church so that he could beg the Abbess to tell him that he hadn't recieved his brother's death announcement.
He hadn't. But it was the next worst thing.
Where the Hell was Acre? It didn't even sound like a real place. And pigeons? They had pigeons in England! They were bloody well everywhere! Will had to disappear off the edge of the map to raise pigeons? If it weren't really happening it would actually be a fucking good joke.
His next swing cleaved the wood neatly in half, but the force behind it lodged the axe blade deep in his workbench. Luke spat and yanked it free.
Of course, he knew the real reason why Will had chosen to stay in the Holy Land. Luke had actually liked Djaq; she'd been clever and tough and seemed to understand why Will meant so much to Luke. He'd never pegged her as selfish enough to insist Will leave his little brother behind. And she seemed so at home in England. Why make Will live in some foreign place where he didn't know anyone and there was nothing but sand and heat when he was used to a family of villagers and the cool shade of Sherwood's trees?
He suddenly remembered their mother rubbing the juice from a bruised onion on Will's red skin, admonishing him that someone so fair needed to be careful of the sun.
He missed the plank completely this time. The noise of his axe hitting the stone floor of the workroom cracked like thunder. Skinner frowned and made his way over.
"Something bothering you, Luke?"
He shrugged. "Just having an off day sir."
Skinner nodded. "It happens to the best of us. I have days when I couldn't carve a wedge from a table leg. Maybe you oughta just come back tomorrow?"
Luke shook his head. The last thing he wanted was time to think.
"I'll work through it."
"As you will. Focus."
Right. Focus. Do the job. Don't remember that you're now all alone in the world.
What if they killed Will? The Saracens had been under attack from people that looked just like him for generations. A lone Englishman with only pigeons to defend him wouldn't stand a chance. Or how about the English themselves? How would they know that Will was one of the heroes of Sherwood instead of just another deserter who'd run off with his foreign whore? Luke knew what the Crusaders did to traitors.
He had an image of Will on his knees. His neck bared. A blade whooshing in a fatal arc. Red blood spurting upwards.
Blood spurting.
He heard Skinner scream and the pounding of workboots on slate. He felt the cold floor against his knees as he fell and the burning pain that seized his whole body in an instant. But it wasn't until he saw the two severed fingers, still twitching as they fell to the floor, that he realised that the agony was his own.
Chapter 7
People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But the self is not something one finds, it is something one creates.
~Thomas Szasz
The fever was at its peak when word came that his brother was dead.
Skinner had debated whether or not to share the letter that someone named Bassam had written in broken English. But he'd come to love Luke like his own son and the boy deserved to know.
A midnight raiding party had hit the little impromptu hospital that Will and Djaq had set up in the rubble. They'd moved through the little collection of tents, silently and efficiently slitting throats. No one was spared, not Saracens, not Crusaders, not the two medics who'd been curled up together on a camp bed desperately clutching at sleep before the next wave of casualties staggered in.
But he whitewashed the worst parts, the ones he couldn't bear to read aloud. He told Luke that Bassam was sure it would have been over before they had any idea what was happening. It wasn't like the kid could read; he'd never know that Will Scarlett had been found eviscerated, his guts spilled out all over the patient he'd been trying to defend. He'd never know what they did to his brother's mistress before they killed her.
He wasn't even sure that Luke could understand him. The young man's hand had developed gangrene and the physician had needed to sever another finger as well as a considerable chunk of the palm. By then, Luke was delirious with the infection, screaming constantly for his mother. He thought Skinner was someone named Vaisey or someone named Benedict, or maybe those were the same people. The worst was when he was sure Skinner was Will himself. Luke's voice went all soft and childlike then, as he clutched at the hands that were trying to wipe the sweat off his face.
"You did what you had to do", Luke would coo softly, like he was trying to comfort a weeping woman. "You did what you had to do. Please come back."
He was steeling himself for Luke's death. There was nothing more Skinner could do; he had sunk his already depleted savings into the useless medical care. Work had dried up after Prince John turned more aggressively on the remaining wealthy nobles and Skinner's crew had dwindled to just him and Luke. They had just been scraping by. And now there was nothing left.
But none of that seemed to matter on the morning when he found Luke Scarlett, emaciated and pale but himself once again, standing by the window of his sickroom. His fever had broken. Skinner's embrace nearly broke his ribs.
Coming so close to losing Luke had made him realise exactly how much his apprentice meant to him. He'd do anything to help the youth. That was the only reason he'd agreed to this.
He compared Luke's face to the one on the old wanted poster. Will's brows had been narrower than his brothers', so he carefully touched the razor to the boy's' forehead, scraping away the excess hair. The weight he'd lost while he was ill made his cheekbones stand out just like they did in the picture and trimming Luke's sickbed facial hair growth to resemble his brother's mustache was easy. Luke was shorter than the description of Will said he should be, but that could be explained as faulty witnesses. Aside from the missing fingers, the other differences were negligible.
"This is madness; you know that. You'll never pull it off."
Luke shrugged. "She did."
"No one knew her."
"Where I'm going, no one'll know me."
"What's the point of this? I just don't see it. He's dead, Luke. Taking his name won't change a thing."
"I told you already."
"Yeah, right. The world needs Will Scarlett. But clearly it doesn't, as he's gone and we're all still here. Look, I could see going to Locksley; I could see joining up with Robin. But taking his name, taking his face, and just disappearing? What's that in service of?"
Luke sighed. He'd already tried to explain this several times. It made sense to him, even if Skinner couldn't understand. It wasn't that Locksey needed Will; it was far more abstract than that. Will didn't need to be in his hometown, or fighting for Robin, or clashing with Vaisey. He just needed to be. In the grips of his fever, knowing somehow that Will was gone forever, he'd realised what he had to do. The urge had only grown stronger as his reason returned. Because Luke had discovered how much darker and colder the world was when his brother was merely unreachable. The whole thing would surely end if he was gone.
"You don't need to understand. Just promise you won't give me away."
The old workman wiped tears away with a coarse, filthy sleeve. "Course I won't."
Luke leaned in and kissed his cheek in gratitude. Skinner waved him away. He wasn't used to sentiment.
"You want to see it?"
Luke took a deep breath and nodded in affirmation.
Skinner pulled back the sheet and revealed the wooden marker. Luke had asked for it to be simple, just his name and the dates. But if this was really going to be all he had left of the boy, he wanted it to be special.
Luke's name scrolled across the top like script from a Bible. Meticulously, Tobias Skinner had carved the details of his life that had meant the most to him: Son of Dan and Jane. Brother of Will. Master craftsman.
The rest of the marker was taken up with an elaborate depiction of an oak tree. The branches, weighed down with an overabundance of leaves, stretched to the very edges. Deep roots led to the bottom. The whole thing almost seemed to sway in the breeze.
Luke stroked it with the remaining fingers of his left hand. "It's breathtaking. You shouldn't have. You'll put it in the churchyard?"
Skinner grunted in agreement. "I'll do it at night. Say I had to bury you straight away to stop the fever from spreading. Want me to write to Locksley?"
Luke shook his head. "There's no one there to receive a letter."
It was true. No one could find the outlaws to deliver news to them and with the death of Lady Marian, communications had broken down. They knew almost nothing of what was happening outside their cluster of villages. Which was why this could work.
Luke took a final look in the glass, then pulled the wooden tags Bassam had sent over his head. He picked up his pack, and Skinner realised this was really it.
"You know, if you change your mind, it's only wood." He slapped his calloused hand against the grave marker. "It'll burn away like it was never even there."
The boy's right hand, the whole undamaged hand, reached out to clasp his old mentor's. And then, with a creak of the door, Luke Scarlett was gone.
And Will Scarlett walked the streets of England again.
Author: tania_sings
Rating: R (one semi-explicit sex scene and some violence. Overall, it's pretty tame.)
Pairings: Luke/Kate, Luke/OMC, Luke/canonical male character so obscure he might as well be an OMC, Kate/OMC, Will/Djaq, Much/Eve
Warnings: Slash and het, violence, character death
Word Count: 30457
Summary: The life and loves of Will and Luke Scarlett over the course of one lifetime.
Author's Notes: I've tried to include a bit of history here, but some reality had to be scrapped for the sake of the story. Just remember it takes place in a world where Maid Marian wears sweaters from Topshop and you should be fine! Please don't run away on account of Kate; I've done my best to work with canon while redeeming poor Joanne's hard work. Thanks to the amazing roh_wyn for her sensational and very speedy beta work. And thanks to everyone who offered advice and suggestions on the help threads. And finally, thanks to ladylovelace for taking on the art challenge. I can't wait to see it. Much obliged!
Part 2: http://community.livejournal.com/bigbanghood/18278.html#cutid1
Part 3: http://community.livejournal.com/bigbanghood/18470.html
Part 4: http://community.livejournal.com/bigbanghood/18709.html
Prologue
I don't believe an accident of birth makes people sisters or brothers. It makes them siblings, gives them mutuality of parentage. Sisterhood and brotherhood is a condition people have to work at.
~Maya Angelou
Luke Scarlett's earliest memory was of looking into his brother's eyes.
Will's early enthusiasm for having a baby brother had waned somewhat after his realisation that the infant Luke couldn't actually DO anything. Forget about tickling for trout in the River Trent or gathering the autumn apples; after a nearly year of his dutiful waiting this disappointing child couldn't even walk yet, and Will was running out of patience.
So after he finished his chores, he carefully unswaddled his little brother, noting that, once free of restraints, Luke's chubby little legs kicked enthusiatically. No reason at all for him not to walk but sheer laziness.
Will tried modelling at first, hoping that his own independence would inspire the baby. But although Luke was more than happy to watch his big brother parade back and forth in front of him, he seemed uninspired to try it himself. And when Will pulled him up into a standing position and lifted one of his feet, the startled Luke plopped back down onto his plump little bottom as if stunned by the experience.
However, Will Scarlett had never been a quitter and through sheer trial and error he found a method that worked. Kneeling in front of Luke and propping the baby's hands up on his skinny six-year-old shoulders, he crept backwards, forcing his little brother to move forward in order to keep from falling over. At first, Luke could only manage a step or two at a time. But the two boys persevered together, and by the end of the week they were covering considerable distance.
This set the pattern for their early lives together. Whenever Will decided it was time for Luke to climb his first tree or take his first swim in the pond, he would kneel in front of his brother and look at him straight on, blue eyes scanning brown for comprehension. And whenever Will got down on his level, ensuring that they were face to face and eye to eye, Luke immediately understood that he was about to learn a vital life skill.
Years later, after the two boys hurriedly buried a cache of stolen potatoes at the roots of a black chestnut tree for safekeeping, Will laughed tenderly at Luke's reminiscing.
"Come on Lukey! You couldn't possibly remember that. You were just a baby."
With their arms slung comfortably over each others' shoulders, the Scarlett brothers headed for the river to scrub the telltale dirt from their fingernails before the sheriff's men came looking for the thieves. Luke smiled, relishing the warmth of his brother's side and the easy companionship that always existed between them.
"I do remember, Will. Just because you're thick as a plank doesn't mean everyone else forgets about things as soon as they happen."
Will cuffed him affectionately on the back of the head and, after carefully inspecting each other's hands to make sure they'd left no evidence behind, they headed for home, the conversation turning to how good the potatoes would taste if they could just obtain a little butter and salt from somewhere.
But Luke remained, silently but unshakeably, certain of his own recollections. Until the day he day he died, he would maintain that his very first memory was of Will kneeling in front of him, prodding him on to independence, looking him straight in the eye. And his own baby mind concluding that if Will could do it, manage this seemingly impossible feat, well then, so could he.
Chapter 1
We understand death for the first time when he puts his hand upon one whom we love.
~Madame de Stael
Jane had been a beauty once.
Luke had no portrait to confirm this, and she'd deny it whenever he asked, but his father had sworn it so many times that he'd come to take it as fact.
By the time that Luke was born, Jane was, like most peasant women, already old before her time. Bearing two big baby boys, plus the two she'd lost in between them, had taken its toll on her figure. Her hands were permanently red and calloused from a life spent stripping bark off the raw material of the family's livelihood and, as she was ridiculously house-proud where their little hut was concerned, her knees were swollen from hours spent scrubbing the slate floors. As she was fair-skinned, a lifetime in the sun had wrinkled and freckled her face and the grey had long ago begun to overtake the brown in her hair.
But Dan Scarlett constantly declared that when he looked at her, he saw only the English rose who had met him at the church door twenty years before, with a face as plump and smooth as a peach and a smile that could light up Nottinghamshire better than a million torches. And he said it with so much love in his voice that Luke believed it wholeheartedly.
Jane had been a beauty. Once.
But you'd never know it now.
She lay unable to move on her straw pallet, as Will carefully spooned a runny mixture of flour and water into her mouth, dabbing at the excess that oozed from between her lips. Luke threw another handful of thyme on the fire, hoping the fragrant smoke would cut the smell in the room, because he knew how the stench of Jane's dying body embarassed her. Dan, rendered useless by grief, wept inconsolably in the corner.
Jane was a skeleton. Sheer force of will, a refusal to let her family know she was passing on her portions to them, had kept her on her feet until it was too late to do anything for her. Her skin hung off her bones like worn cotton; the slightest touch left her mottled with ugly purple bruises.
Her eyelids, swollen and red, flickered open, revealing deep blue eyes gone milky and unfocussed. She mumbled under her breath, a hiss of putrid air leaking from between her lips. Will leaned in, unflinching. He took a ragged breath and then nodded sharply.
"Luke, Mum thinks she could manage some food. Can you and Dad go and pick her some berries? There're some growing down by McLelland's fence."
Luke agreed quickly, secretly and guiltily gleeful at the idea of getting out of their stifling little cottage. He put an arm around his father's shoulders and lifted the man to his feet. Dan Scarlett allowed himself to be led away wiithout protest, his misery making him childlike and biddable.
They walked through the village without speaking, the sunny autumn day a shock after the dark horror of their home. Neighbours called out greetings, and Luke stared blankly at them. What were they saying and what could they want from him? How in the world was normal life still going on?
At the fence, he filled his hat with all the blackberries he could find. There weren't a lot left; most of the fruit had already been stripped away by people almost as hungry as his mother and those that remained were rotting and wormy. Nonetheless, his mouth watered at the sight of them, and he had to physically fight the temptation to appease his own aching belly. Silently, he offered up his hunger as a sacrifice to God. He'd suffer -- he'd suffer gladly -- if his mother, the guiding light of his ten years on this Earth, could just live. Please, please, let her live.
Will met them at the door, tears running unashamedly down his face. He shook his head without speaking and their father fell to the ground in an insentient heap. Luke stood stock-still, utterly shocked. His instinct was to run away and never stop, to just keep running until he was too far away for this moment to ever catch him, but Will's hand on his shoulder kept him in place. Silently, his brother drew him back inside the hovel, leaving Dan where he lay. They had to prepare their mother's body.
That evening, after they had covered Jane with dirt and dosed Dan with tincture of valerian so he would sleep, Luke watched Will rinse the blood from digging the grave off his hands and spoke for the first time since the morning.
"How could you do it?"
He was surprised at his own voice. He hadn't meant to sound angry, he hadn't known he WAS angry. He just genuinely wanted to know. But the question came out as an accusation, cold and demanding and filled with barely contained fury.
Will shrugged without turning around.
"She asked me to. She was suffering, and she asked me to do it."
Jane's neck had been wrapped in a soft brown scarf by the time Luke and Dan had returned from their pointless expedition, but Will had done nothing to stop his brother from unwinding it and seeing the livid red fingerprints on their mother's throat.
"But how could you DO it?"
He couldn't imagine it. Will taking that fragile neck in his hands and pressing down. Cutting off her air and ending her life. He'd seen Will nurse baby birds that had fallen from their nests with pippets and tender care. He was the one the local shepherds called on for help at lambing time because they knew he wouldn't let nerves or exhaustion distract him from carefully swaddling and sheltering every last brand new sheep life. Will had tenderly brushed their mother's hair away from her sweaty forehead only that morning. How could he now be washing blood off the hands that killed her?
Will took a step towards him and Luke instinctively moved away from the murderer. Will flinched as if he'd been slapped.
"Sometimes ... Luke. Sometimes you just have to do horrible things. Even if you know something's wrong, even if you know you'll burn in Hell for it, you do it because it needs doing."
Luke shook his head. "But Mum --"
"Was suffering."
Will's anguished face blurred in front of Luke as his eyes welled up with tears. God, all he wanted was to hug his big brother. No chance of that. Will spoke again.
"Are you going to tell? I won't deny it, I promise. I'll hang for it if you want me to. It's only right."
Luke shook his head emphatically. It had never occured to him to report Will. Living without his mother would be agony but living without Will would be impossible. The world needed Will Scarlett.
"I couldn't have done it."
Will's bloody hand brushed his little brother's cheek, wiping away a tear.
"No. Probably not."
Killing their mother was the first thing that Will had ever done that Luke couldn't imagine imitating. He wasn't sure if he was proud or ashamed of that.
Chapter 2
But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.
~Frederic Bastiat
The first time, they hadn't had a plan.
Helping to bring in the wheat crop was a Locksley tradition, and the fact that this year all of the wheat would be sent to London made no difference. Everyone was required to be there.
Will was usually one of the fastest when it came to harvesting. He was tall and long-limbed, as well as so used to swinging an axe that using a scythe was like second nature. But this time he kept lagging behind the others, only hustling to catch up when one of the overseers would threaten him with a whipping. And his stooks were spindly little things, nothing like the robust heaps of the autumn before.
Luke dropped back to help his brother. Ever since their mother died, Will had been showing a stoic streak that, to be honest, had Luke seriously frightened. He watched his brother like a hawk at mealtimes, convinced that Will would try to do what Jane had done and skimp on his own meals in favor of the others. It would be typical of this new Will to ignore a cut or another injury that could do a lot of damage later.
He found his brother tying a strip of cloth around his forearm and shuddered with horror. Strong arms were essential for carpenters and if Will had cut through a tendon, his career would certainly be over.
Will glanced up, reaching instinctively for his scythe. But on seeing Luke he smiled and gestured him closer.
"Give me a hand with this, will you?"
Luke moved in to tie the cloth, hoping to only see a minor nick. He was so concerned that it took him a moment to realise what was going on.
There was no red stain on the bandage. There was no injury. Rather, the strip of cloth had been folded over to form a pouch. Which now contained handfuls of pilfered wheat.
Will winked at his brother, and rolled up each of his trouser legs to show several similar pockets. He patted his belly, and Luke could hear the crunch of the stalks that Will had secured in the waistband of his trousers. Rolling his sleeve over the pouch, he ripped two more strips of cloth from the lining of his ragged overcoat and handed one to Luke.
And thus the Scarlett brothers became thieves together.
The first time, Luke had been hesitant. All of the Locksley children had grown up thinking of the wheat as the key to the village surviving through the winter. You'd no sooner steal from the wheat crop than raid your neighbour's larder. But, as Will said, none of them would enjoy the wheat during this cold season. The only people that would be disadvantaged were the Sheriff, who would have a slightly smaller crop to claim as payment for back taxes, and the rich London nobles, whose servants would have one or two fewer loaves to buy in the London markets. And neither of them, according to Will, should think twice about robbing those kitchens.
The next time, they were better prepared for it. Will had been sent to the castle to deliver some new washtubs and overheard talk that three pairs of ornamental swans that had been purchased to swim in the moat around Nottingham Castle would be arriving in four days. Since both the Scarlett boys had spent much of their childhoods in the woods, it was no challenge to work out where the path was narrowest and the trees were thickest. Armed with an impressive arsenal of axes, they confronted an aged swan breeder who certainly hadn't expected any trouble on this trip. The plump birds had made enough soup to feed the entire village for a week.
Soon it became a regular occurrence. They raided apple carts and poached deer. Bags of flour routinely went missing, and Luke, trading on his innocent young face, learned to cut the purse strings of the fat merchants' wives.
It was revenge, to be sure. Revenge for their mother's death and their father's broken spirit. For the babies who wailed all night because their pinch-cheeked mothers were too starved to produce milk. For their own empty bellies and for what the sheriff was forcing them to become.
But it was also a lark. Watching Will nodding severely when the Sheriff's men came by to offer a reward for information that could lead to the capture of the Locksley thieves was as good as a pantomime for Luke, who had to duck inside before his giggles were noticed. Returning from an escapade with a sack of this or a crate of that was a rush they'd never known before. Even the times they nearly got caught became the meat for the stories they'd whisper to each other at night when they couldn't sleep, filling the silence that their mother's songs had left behind.
It was Luke's idea to involve Benedict Giddens. The wheelwright's apprentice was one of the most dashing blokes in the village, and Luke was utterly thrilled the older boy seemed willing to be friends with him. He convinced Will it made sense to bring Ben along; he could keep watch while the brothers took their time, secure in the knowledge that no one was coming.
But the best times for Luke were when it was Will who stood guard and Ben who'd break into a root cellar with him. Pressed against each other in a stairwell, crouched low to the ground as they waited for the servants to leave for the night, Luke trembled with an excitement that he couldn't name but that he knew had nothing to do with stealing. It was another added bonus to their lives of crime.
So even when Dad, who they'd assumed was totally in the dark about their double lives, threw himself between Will and the Sheriff's men and begged them to take him instead, in his most secret heart Luke still didn't regret what they'd done. And even though their father's false confession cost him a hand, he didn't want to stop doing it.
"Will, think of all the people we're helping. Yes, Dad got hurt and that's awful. But people will die if we don't get them food. Hell, DAD will starve if we stop; he won't be able to work half as fast now."
Will was guilt-stricken and torn. "I can't stand seeing my family hurt because of me. The look on Dad's face when the soldiers came, and Mum..."
"No." Luke still refused to let Will talk about their mother. Luke himself wouldn't even think about how she died. It was the only way to love Will and stay sane.
Only when Will realised that Luke and Benedict would keep stealing without him did he agree to carry on. After all, he said, glaring at Ben like a maiden aunt who'd caught a soldier boy lurking outside his niece's window, someone had to look out for Luke's wellbeing.
Although he bristled at the implication that he couldn't take care of himself, Luke was thrilled that his brother would continue to share his adventures. So he grinned as he watched Will blacken his face with soot and happily led the way out into the night.
Chapter 3
When brothers agree, no fortress is so strong as their common life.
~Antisthenes
This was all his fault.
He was the one who had wanted Benedict, that snivelling coward, to be part of their gang. Will had never completely trusted him, and with good reason as it turned out. If that idiot, who was now sobbing in the corner like a baby, had just been able to keep his mouth shut, then none of them would be stuck in this stinking cell. None of them would be about to die.
Will swore he didn't blame Luke. Hell, he didn't even blame Ben --not really.
"It's the fault of the Sheriff, Lukey, him and Prince John. If they'd given us a chance to live honestly, none of this would have happened. I'm just sorry I got you involved. Forgive me?"
There was nothing to forgive; Luke had wanted, NEEDED, to be part of Will's thefts. But Will said he had to have forgiveness in order to die in peace, so Luke gave it. In fact, he forgave Will everything that night. He wanted to die in peace too.
The brothers watched the sun come up for the last time that morning, joined by a thief from Rochdale who was due to hang along with them. The man, who said his name was Allan, had shared a slice of bread with the Scarlett boys, cheerfully remarking that he wouldn't need it where he was going. Luke thought he must be mad, making jokes about his own execution, but Will seemed to take comfort in the other man's bravado so Luke was glad he was with them.
It was odd being led to the scaffold on such a beautiful morning. On any other day he might be splitting logs into beams in the front garden, relishing the sun beating down around his shoulders. The sun was still here now, but Luke shuddered with cold in spite of it.
The feel of the rope around his neck made him swoon and he nearly retched with fear. But he was going to die like a man, even if he'd never actually grow into one, so he forced himself to stand tall.
Will reached over and adjusted his brother's noose.
"Make sure the knot is here when the trap door goes, Lukey. Not at the back of your neck, HERE. Right under your ear. Do you understand?"
Luke nodded. "Will that make the rope snap?"
Will shook his head. "It'll break your neck, if you're lucky. That's a faster, easier death than strangling."
So, unlike Luke, Will had believed all along this might happen. Will had known they might die. He'd made preparations.
Luke tried to focus on the final words Will gave on behalf of them all, but the sound of his own heart throbbing in his ears drowned out all sound. So, instead, he fixed his eyes on his brother, marveling at how Will held his shoulders straight and his hands steady at a time like this. He wanted so desperately to believe that they would meet again in Heaven, but they were both thieves and Will was a killer. So, just in case, he drank in the sight of his brother now, trying to memorize every feature before the coarse grey sack was placed over his head, blocking out everything else.
He didn't know what was happening at the time. For a long moment there was no air, and then suddenly there was. A hand with a grip like iron closed over his wrist and he was pulled through a crush of bodies. He stumbled and fell, only to find himself scooped off the ground and lifted onto someone's shoulders like a felled tree . People were screaming and crying; he heard both cheers and curses. But these faded into the background as he was carried away from the scaffold, away from the crowd, away from home.
Once the only sound was his rescuers' heavy breathing, Luke was lowered to the ground. The hated sack was removed and Dan Scarlett's face, awash with tears of joy and relief, filled his vision. He fell into his father's arms.
"Where's Will?", he asked, looking around for his brother. Surely Will, not burdened with carrying another person, should have got here first.
His father began to shake.
"Where's Will? Where is he?" Dan Scarlett wouldn't have left one of his boys behind. There was no way.
"He... he did make it. He was fighting with Lord Robin and the other men. I'm sure he made it."
"Then where is he?" Luke pulled away from his father, running up the road in search of his brother. "Will! WILL!"
But Will was nowhere to be found.
Chapter 4
Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands?
~Ernest Gaines
There was nothing necessarily wrong with Scarborough, but it wasn't home. The crash of the waves on the stony beach could never be mistaken for the rustle of the wind through the trees and the shrill shrieks of the gulls were jarring to a boy used to the cooing of pigeons. Auntie did her best to make her brother and his youngest boy feel at home, cooking old favourites from Luke's childhood and patching clothes that had fallen into disrepair since Jane had died, but she wasn't his mother.
And she wasn't Will.
Dad said to try not to miss Will too much. Surely, he would be along any day now. He'd want to help Lord Robin, who'd saved both their lives with what Dan Scarlett swore were a pair of the most remarkable shots any human being had ever released from a bow. But as soon as he'd repaid his debt he would be with them again. Moping and worrying wouldn't hurry him along.
Luke wanted to believe that Dad was right, but from what he heard it didn't sound like Will was in any rush to join them. Rather, according to the gossip of the local boys and girls, Will was well on his way to becoming a bonafide folk legend.
"They burned a mine -- freed loads of slaves! Right under the foremen's noses!"
"They're sneaking food to the locked-down villages. People jailed in their own homes, but they're eating like free men! Never heard of anything like it!"
"A whole cart of tax silver! That'll show that rutting Sheriff. If you talk to your brother, tell him we're all behind him!"
Will's heroics helped smooth the Scarletts' way in Scarborough; there was no doubt about that. A crippled old man and his escaped convict son would normally be greeted with suspicion, especially in a city where there was barely enough work to go around already. But the stories about Robin Hood and his Merry Men (although the idea of the somber Will belonging to such a group was rather odd) were spreading rapidly and no one could harden their hearts against people so closely linked to the famous outlaws.
Rather, Dan Scarlett was always given a free mug of ale at the local tavern and Auntie often remarked that the loaves of bread which the baker laid aside for her were significantly heavier than they'd been before. There was always a smile for the Scarletts as they passed through the city and the pew they were given in church was heaps better than labouring men had any right to expect. Tobias Skinner, a local carpenter with an established base of noble clients and a dozen men working under him, took Luke on as his apprentice for a fraction of what he should have had to pay, and Luke relished the chance to learn new skills.
Skinner and his workers treated Luke a bit like their mascot, extravagantly praising his efforts and ruffling his hair when he designed an elaborate bit of casing, or trimmed a fillet to the perfect size on only his third try. They called him their lucky charm and made a point of asking him to stand close by when they wanted to attempt something particularly tricky. Soon, he found he was eating as many meals at their homes as he was at Auntie's kitchen table.
Which made it all the more surprising when the invitations dried up. Suddenly, Luke was left to walk home alone at the end of the working day, with only a few gruff nods to send him on his way. At the same time, the excited murmer that used to break out when the father and brother of the Locksley hero walked down the street turned to the hiss of scandalised whispers and new lines began to appear around Dad's mouth.
"It's absolute nonsense. Just ignore it." Auntie would give him no reason for the change.
It was Skinner who finally explained things to Luke, after he was left empty-handed and teary-eyed when one of the workers offered around a bag of hazelnuts. Swearing loudly, he split his own share with Luke, cursing out the men who'd tossed the sack over the boy's head.
"It's naught to do with him, what his brother does! Luke's one of us; he's nothing like that."
After the others had shuffled shamefaced back to work, Skinner sat Luke down. He put an arm around the boy's shouder and glared defiantly, as if daring anyone to comment.
"You've heard about the Saracen boy who's joined up with Robin and the rest of his lot?"
Luke nodded. Of course he had; he was constantly on the hunt for stories about Will, although lately there had been far fewer people willing to tell them.
"Well, there are some that have been saying, the darkie and your brother seem awful close these days. They say they fight back to back, keep special watch out for each other, more than the others do. And, look I don't know if it's total bollocks, but folks say they've been seen holding hands."
Luke's head spun. Was it possible?
"People just wonder what blokes might get up to out in the woods, no way to get to church and no birds about. It might be true or it might not. Hell, probably not-- people just like to talk. You pay it no mind, all right boy?"
Skinner took Luke's enthusiastic nod and broad smile to mean that he agreed, that he wouldn't let the vicious gossip sully his image of his brother. He watched the boy return to work with a new spring in his step, glad to have been of help.
He had no idea that his words had given Luke the courage to finally sneak out to Donally's barn, where he knew a certain group of older boys gathered at night. Or that when one of those boys crooked his finger in Luke's direction, he would feel closer to his beloved big brother than he had for a very long time.
Chapter 5
Never part without loving words to think of during your absence. It may be that you will not meet again in this life.
~Jean Paul Richter
"One more hug."
Luke disguised a sob as a hicuppy laugh as he went once again into his big brother's arms. He hoped Will wouldn't notice the wet spot that his tears left on the shoulder of his tunic.
"You know you don't have to go, right?" Will's voice was muffled by a mouthful of Luke's hair; the younger boy had grown since the last time the brothers had met.
"You want me to go though. Admit it." Luke was trying very hard not to sound sulky, but he could tell he was failing miserably.
Will nodded ruefully. "It's not that I don't want you around. Hell, just the opposite. But it'll be a lot harder to do what I need to be doing if I'm worrying about you all the time."
"You worry about the others."
"They're not family. I'd worry about you specially."
"You worry about her specially. I can tell."
Djaq, the Saracen girl. Girl. Luke was trying really hard not to think about that.
"Hey now!" Will took hold of his brother's shoulders and looked him in the eyes. "You're still the most important person in my world, Lukey. No woman's going to change that! You're all the family I have left."
All too true. Luke had no idea what he was going to tell Auntie when he got back to Scarborough alone.
"I can't believe he's gone. Will, our Dad's gone. We're orphans."
Silence. He wondered if Will had thought about it in quite those terms yet.
"Yeah. Listen, Luke, if anything happens to me -- "
"Don't." He couldn't bear the thought.
"Just listen. If anything happens to me, I want you to come back to Locksley. I've talked to Lady Marian. There's money put aside for you if you want it, and you'll always have a home with her."
"Are you ever coming to get me?"
"When King Richard comes back. That very day. It can't be long now. Robin's working out how to get a message to him, and once he does the king will have to come and set England back to rights. I'll take you to London to see him, just us Scarlett boys. All right?"
"All right."
With everything and nothing left to say, Luke picked up his pack and started up the Great North Road. To be honest, he was less grieved about leaving Will behind than he had expected to be. The sheer hatred in his brothers' blue eyes and the cold, inhuman set of his mouth when he'd declared his vendetta on the sheriff had been absolutely terrifying. Rage was to be expected, but Will had been possessed by something else, something darker. It made Luke wonder if the hardship and fighting were taking a greater toll on Will than Robin and his other men realised. Of course, Robin said that Will wasn't a murderer but Robin didn't know about --
Hard footfalls behind him shook Luke from his reverie. Someone was running after him. He spun around, his hand on the little woodcarving knife he'd taken off his fathers' body.
Just Will again.
"Missed me already?"
"Just wanted to tell you to be careful." Will was red in the face, breathing hard.
"You already did that. I won't talk to strangers, I won't give anyone my real name till I'm out of the county, and I won't play any tavern games. Don't worry!"
"No, Luke, be CAREFUL. Scarborough's bigger than Locksley, but it's not a huge city. People see things and they talk. You have to be discreet."
Luke's cheeks burned as he realised what his brother meant. How could he know? Okay, so he'd maybe watched Lord Robin a bit more closely than necessary, but the man was a living legend; it was excusable.
Christ, could he be that obvious?"
"Do you understand?" Will was adamant.
Luke nodded, studying the ground. He'd rather be in the ground with Dad than having this conversation.
"I can't help it." Perfect. He sounded like a child who'd soiled himself.
"I know that."
Will gripped his brother's chin, forcing Luke to look at him.
Relief broke over him like a Scarborough wave. Will's eyes were filled with affection; he was smiling gently. He looked just like Will should look.
"I'm not angry. Not even upset. You're who you have to be and that's fine. But one thing that I've learned out here is that there's a lot of ugly in this world and I want you safe from it. So try to make that happen, okay?"
"It's not why you don't want me here?" Luke just had to check.
Will laughed like Luke had just suggested the Earth was round. "Not even a little bit!"
A final, for-real-this-is-the-last-one embrace later, and Luke was on his way again. Night was falling and a mist was forming, but he felt safer than he had for a long time.
No one was perfect and brothers were no different, no matter what you wanted to believe. But if you were lucky, they were good enough people that you could love them anyway. And, orphans though they were, he and Will were lucky.
Chapter 6
Emotion always has its roots in the unconscious and manifests itself in the body.
~Irene Claremont de Castillejo
The lying, motherfucking bastard!
Luke hacked at a plank as if it were his brother's neck, the force of his blows reducing the valuable pine to splinters. That would come out of his pay. He swore and reached for fresh wood; he needed to concentrate.
The letter itself had scared the shit out of him. Like all nobles, even the well-meaning ones, Lord Robin had a tendency to forget that not everyone could read. Getting a letter after months of no word had suggested only one terrifying possibility and he'd run in his nightclothes to the church so that he could beg the Abbess to tell him that he hadn't recieved his brother's death announcement.
He hadn't. But it was the next worst thing.
Where the Hell was Acre? It didn't even sound like a real place. And pigeons? They had pigeons in England! They were bloody well everywhere! Will had to disappear off the edge of the map to raise pigeons? If it weren't really happening it would actually be a fucking good joke.
His next swing cleaved the wood neatly in half, but the force behind it lodged the axe blade deep in his workbench. Luke spat and yanked it free.
Of course, he knew the real reason why Will had chosen to stay in the Holy Land. Luke had actually liked Djaq; she'd been clever and tough and seemed to understand why Will meant so much to Luke. He'd never pegged her as selfish enough to insist Will leave his little brother behind. And she seemed so at home in England. Why make Will live in some foreign place where he didn't know anyone and there was nothing but sand and heat when he was used to a family of villagers and the cool shade of Sherwood's trees?
He suddenly remembered their mother rubbing the juice from a bruised onion on Will's red skin, admonishing him that someone so fair needed to be careful of the sun.
He missed the plank completely this time. The noise of his axe hitting the stone floor of the workroom cracked like thunder. Skinner frowned and made his way over.
"Something bothering you, Luke?"
He shrugged. "Just having an off day sir."
Skinner nodded. "It happens to the best of us. I have days when I couldn't carve a wedge from a table leg. Maybe you oughta just come back tomorrow?"
Luke shook his head. The last thing he wanted was time to think.
"I'll work through it."
"As you will. Focus."
Right. Focus. Do the job. Don't remember that you're now all alone in the world.
What if they killed Will? The Saracens had been under attack from people that looked just like him for generations. A lone Englishman with only pigeons to defend him wouldn't stand a chance. Or how about the English themselves? How would they know that Will was one of the heroes of Sherwood instead of just another deserter who'd run off with his foreign whore? Luke knew what the Crusaders did to traitors.
He had an image of Will on his knees. His neck bared. A blade whooshing in a fatal arc. Red blood spurting upwards.
Blood spurting.
He heard Skinner scream and the pounding of workboots on slate. He felt the cold floor against his knees as he fell and the burning pain that seized his whole body in an instant. But it wasn't until he saw the two severed fingers, still twitching as they fell to the floor, that he realised that the agony was his own.
Chapter 7
People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But the self is not something one finds, it is something one creates.
~Thomas Szasz
The fever was at its peak when word came that his brother was dead.
Skinner had debated whether or not to share the letter that someone named Bassam had written in broken English. But he'd come to love Luke like his own son and the boy deserved to know.
A midnight raiding party had hit the little impromptu hospital that Will and Djaq had set up in the rubble. They'd moved through the little collection of tents, silently and efficiently slitting throats. No one was spared, not Saracens, not Crusaders, not the two medics who'd been curled up together on a camp bed desperately clutching at sleep before the next wave of casualties staggered in.
But he whitewashed the worst parts, the ones he couldn't bear to read aloud. He told Luke that Bassam was sure it would have been over before they had any idea what was happening. It wasn't like the kid could read; he'd never know that Will Scarlett had been found eviscerated, his guts spilled out all over the patient he'd been trying to defend. He'd never know what they did to his brother's mistress before they killed her.
He wasn't even sure that Luke could understand him. The young man's hand had developed gangrene and the physician had needed to sever another finger as well as a considerable chunk of the palm. By then, Luke was delirious with the infection, screaming constantly for his mother. He thought Skinner was someone named Vaisey or someone named Benedict, or maybe those were the same people. The worst was when he was sure Skinner was Will himself. Luke's voice went all soft and childlike then, as he clutched at the hands that were trying to wipe the sweat off his face.
"You did what you had to do", Luke would coo softly, like he was trying to comfort a weeping woman. "You did what you had to do. Please come back."
He was steeling himself for Luke's death. There was nothing more Skinner could do; he had sunk his already depleted savings into the useless medical care. Work had dried up after Prince John turned more aggressively on the remaining wealthy nobles and Skinner's crew had dwindled to just him and Luke. They had just been scraping by. And now there was nothing left.
But none of that seemed to matter on the morning when he found Luke Scarlett, emaciated and pale but himself once again, standing by the window of his sickroom. His fever had broken. Skinner's embrace nearly broke his ribs.
Coming so close to losing Luke had made him realise exactly how much his apprentice meant to him. He'd do anything to help the youth. That was the only reason he'd agreed to this.
He compared Luke's face to the one on the old wanted poster. Will's brows had been narrower than his brothers', so he carefully touched the razor to the boy's' forehead, scraping away the excess hair. The weight he'd lost while he was ill made his cheekbones stand out just like they did in the picture and trimming Luke's sickbed facial hair growth to resemble his brother's mustache was easy. Luke was shorter than the description of Will said he should be, but that could be explained as faulty witnesses. Aside from the missing fingers, the other differences were negligible.
"This is madness; you know that. You'll never pull it off."
Luke shrugged. "She did."
"No one knew her."
"Where I'm going, no one'll know me."
"What's the point of this? I just don't see it. He's dead, Luke. Taking his name won't change a thing."
"I told you already."
"Yeah, right. The world needs Will Scarlett. But clearly it doesn't, as he's gone and we're all still here. Look, I could see going to Locksley; I could see joining up with Robin. But taking his name, taking his face, and just disappearing? What's that in service of?"
Luke sighed. He'd already tried to explain this several times. It made sense to him, even if Skinner couldn't understand. It wasn't that Locksey needed Will; it was far more abstract than that. Will didn't need to be in his hometown, or fighting for Robin, or clashing with Vaisey. He just needed to be. In the grips of his fever, knowing somehow that Will was gone forever, he'd realised what he had to do. The urge had only grown stronger as his reason returned. Because Luke had discovered how much darker and colder the world was when his brother was merely unreachable. The whole thing would surely end if he was gone.
"You don't need to understand. Just promise you won't give me away."
The old workman wiped tears away with a coarse, filthy sleeve. "Course I won't."
Luke leaned in and kissed his cheek in gratitude. Skinner waved him away. He wasn't used to sentiment.
"You want to see it?"
Luke took a deep breath and nodded in affirmation.
Skinner pulled back the sheet and revealed the wooden marker. Luke had asked for it to be simple, just his name and the dates. But if this was really going to be all he had left of the boy, he wanted it to be special.
Luke's name scrolled across the top like script from a Bible. Meticulously, Tobias Skinner had carved the details of his life that had meant the most to him: Son of Dan and Jane. Brother of Will. Master craftsman.
The rest of the marker was taken up with an elaborate depiction of an oak tree. The branches, weighed down with an overabundance of leaves, stretched to the very edges. Deep roots led to the bottom. The whole thing almost seemed to sway in the breeze.
Luke stroked it with the remaining fingers of his left hand. "It's breathtaking. You shouldn't have. You'll put it in the churchyard?"
Skinner grunted in agreement. "I'll do it at night. Say I had to bury you straight away to stop the fever from spreading. Want me to write to Locksley?"
Luke shook his head. "There's no one there to receive a letter."
It was true. No one could find the outlaws to deliver news to them and with the death of Lady Marian, communications had broken down. They knew almost nothing of what was happening outside their cluster of villages. Which was why this could work.
Luke took a final look in the glass, then pulled the wooden tags Bassam had sent over his head. He picked up his pack, and Skinner realised this was really it.
"You know, if you change your mind, it's only wood." He slapped his calloused hand against the grave marker. "It'll burn away like it was never even there."
The boy's right hand, the whole undamaged hand, reached out to clasp his old mentor's. And then, with a creak of the door, Luke Scarlett was gone.
And Will Scarlett walked the streets of England again.