There But for You, Go I
or
Allan-A-Dale Hears a Who
The wharves of Portsmouth bustled. They stank, equal parts of fish and filth, they swelled with peasants, ruffians and scalawags. They teemed with men of high birth and below low, women of no morals, and of considerably less. Rife with pickpockets, stevedores, short-grift thieves. England's last stop for soldiers and coin bound for the Holy Land. Riddled with respectable merchants, and outlaws.
Today, any census would have curiously shown a marked increase in the population of the latter.
Just as any census four days prior would have shown a marked increase in appointed officials (shire sheriffs, to be exact), henchmen, and, unusually, ladies of noble birth.
At eight, little Johannah was not much one for census-taking, nor, as she had never been to school, numbers, but even in her from-birth blindness, the singing beggar girl, a fixture at the docks, had noticed the peculiar trend of companies neither merchant nor military in nature seeking passage on ships to the Holy Land.
Certainly, mid-October heralded not the best season to be out on the water, and persistent news of the wars told anyone with scruples 'twas not the time for planning one's holy pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
As ever, to buy her bread, Johannah sang, one hand held out to receive alms of any kind. She was not like the other children, able to scatter among the crates and dunnage, slip hands into pockets or pouches, small fingers nimbly claiming coin or token without the owners' knowledge. Nor was she able to chase and worry a mark to distraction as did those children traveling in packs until the mark produced coin or tidbit to satisfy and scatter the overwhelming urchin horde.
Hers was but to sing, standing near the gangplanks, songs of good English things, English beauties, the English countryside, England's noble peoples; to evoke pleasure in those arriving, and stoke sadness (and pity) among those here departing England's shores.
It was a good living.
But the past four days had seen her add a new air to her songlist. Some of the dockworkers had not taken too kindly to how often she chose to reprise it. More than one had roughly told her so, a few even trying to get her to surrender her patch. It was rare that the people of the wharf (roughhewn though they might be) were unkind to her, but still, she had made a promise, accepted payment, and she made an effort to keep her word.
The outlaw Allan-A-Dale and the Saracen ex-slave DJaq had paired off (as had the others) to search for the Sheriff and Gisborne (and, naturally, Marian-though it had been hours since any of their company had said her name).
Allan could easily tell by the cast of DJaq's eyes that she would far rather have been tasked to search with Will-for whatever reason Allan did not know, other than that none of the other lads had seemed even willing to so much as tolerate the idea of being paired with him for the task. The Man Who Betrayed Robin Hood, after all, the Reason They Were Here, that Things Had Come to This.
More than once he had caught Robin himself looking at him with murder in his eye on the hell-bent journey down the Portsmouth road from Sherwood.
There had been no stopping, and very little sleeping, and all breath needed for their flight after the Sheriff. (The Sheriff already with a considerable lead.) There had been no true time for confessions or explanations, and certainly none for properly begging forgiveness of his fellows.
He was like a man half-shriven, possibly to be allowed entrance into heaven (the safe society of his former forest brethren), but for now condemned (if not to torment) to Limbo (wait, was it Purgatory?), wishing, hoping-dare he say it-praying for someone to light a candle for him, to beg the priest to fully catalog his sins so that the proper expiation might begin. Setting him one step further away from the Hell he had been simmering in (the fires getting hotter every day).
But he knew, as long as Marian was the Sheriff's prisoner (please, God, for his sake if not for hers, nothing worse), no one existed in the world that cared for him enough to illumine such a taper.
DJaq looked to Allan, trusting in his height (she could hardly see over the at-times tight crowds filling the wharves) and his super-trained observer's eyes to find what they were here to locate: the Sheriff, and through him, Marian.
Her own mind was a mess of both clarity and chaos. So much happening, so much in the last few days falling into place. She loved Will. She had told him (and the others) as much. Allah had been kind and he had returned her feelings. The gang was going to die at the hands of the Sheriff's mercenaries, and she would never see them again, eternally parted, her Paradise something less than perfect. Her Paradise without Will. Without Robin or John, or Much. Or...Allan.
Yet she was with him now, the thief and prodigal unexpectedly returned to the fold. She stood at his familiar shoulder, saw his jaw from that very particular angle below that only she could...saw the two small scars on the underside of his chin (not quite to his windpipe)-from a fence gone wrong. 'Before I had got my sea legs in the business-like, you know,' he had told her in a rare moment of truth, referencing his thief's past.
He had never mentioned this incident to any of the others, all too tall, too distant to notice such a thing.
And if they could not find Marian still here, still on English soil, rescue and return her to Nottingham? Robin had not said as much, but the others seemed to already know it in their eyes: even with Marian safely free from the Sheriff, someone would have to go and try to beat the Sheriff and his plot to kill Malik-Ric. And so, into this already confusing, heady cauldron was thrown the possibility of a return to her homeland. And with it, the question of what to do should they survive both the trip and the foiling of the Sheriff's newest regicidal plot. Would she stay and bid the gang goodbye? All the gang?
Her mind swam with possibilities. With suddenly life-altering decisions on the near horizon sprouting so close to just days ago when she had not expected her life to see much beyond the sun rising over the horizon.
Allan had gauged that the Sheriff had a goodly lead over them. He had absconded from their traveling party to return to Nettlestone, a hard all-night ride. But, he had pointed out that the Sheriff and his company traveled by coach, and that once to Portsmouth they would have to engage a vessel and see it outfitted for the trip. So, certainly, he had assured the lads, they yet had time on their side to rescue Marian before the Sheriff sailed. A chance to find and free her in England, rather than an arduous race over water, and the Palestine desert to come.
...TBC...
A/N: Okay, so not the most brilliant breaking-off point, but it's what I have so far. When complete, this will be no longer than a Short Fic, under 5K words. I went ahead and posted it now, along w/ an update to my far-longer fic, so my readers there won't think I'm skiving off my duties to "Don't Give Out with Those Lips of Yours".
Just thinking about Allan and that peach, still, I guess, and what came before.