A Drunken Tale
AN: Because I was, quite suddenly and without explanation, accosted with a desperate craving for Allan/Marian some time ago. Why, I will never know. Enjoy!
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Allan-a-Dale had, thus far, successfully swindled three rounds of ale out of his company, and was now drunk enough and hungry enough to want to earn his keep a little. He was a popular figure in the tavern (despite having been completely unknown there less than two hours ago) because he was funny and charming and knew a good few outrageously dirty jokes. He also knew drinking songs like you know the way to your granny's house, and had been keeping the crowd entertained with them for some time now.
"Tell us a tale, then," someone demanded, as the last song didn't so much end as it did come to a crashing halt, "spin us a good yarn, Allan-a-Dale."
Allan licked his lips, and examined the breasts of the barmaid who had, for reasons best known to herself, deposited herself upon his lap a few minutes ago. Then he shrugged, "What sort of a tale?"
"Umm…" said the barmaid – whose name was Molly, but whom Allan would not remember at all in the morning, save for her breasts – "what about a romance, then?"
There was a great deal of hooting and jeering at that, ('romance' was a bi-word for legitimate porn in those days), but Molly was too drunk to blush and Allan only smiled. He knew romances, alright – plenty of them.
He rubbed his drink-jarred face and said that if he might have a plate of stew to go with this fine ale of theirs, he would tell them the finest romance that they ever had clapped ears on.
A plate of stew was promptly produced, to go with the fine ale, and the stew was good, as far as Allan could tell (certainly, he had eaten worse).
"Tell us a romance, then, Allan!" Someone demanded, and Allan grinned, and adjusted his grip on Molly. He pushed his half-finished plate of stew aside and was thoughtful.
"How would you like a true romance?" He asked the crowd, in general, who, in general, appeared quite open to the idea.
Allan raised his fork, "Then I shall tell you one!"
The crowd roared with approval.
Allan licked his lip, and leaned back in his chair, promptly tipping poor Molly from his lap. She seemed not at all concerned, however, and looked up at him happily from the floor, hugging his knee.
"Alright, ladies and gents," Allan raised his fork again, and began his story, with as much aplomb as he could, given the great deal of alcohol in his veins, "I present to you this – a true romance, as what happened to me on a night as rainy as this one, last winter – and I swear by my honour, ladies and gents, that what I tells you herein to be truth; not a fic – fic – fictional word shall pass my lips. Swear on me mother's grave."
Thus saying, he spat into the palm of his hand and placed it over his heart, and his audience took this as word enough.
"Now," Allan continued, in an attempt at a serious tone, "would you believe, ladies and gents, that, some time ago, I happened to be in the area of Nottinghamshire? Oh yes – I was, as well, and shall be again, soon, for I am even now venturing that way. Fancy I shall help myself to some of the king's lovely deer – for I am a hungry chappy, and I fancy the wife will want feeding soon."
Uproarious laughter, and Allan grinned, pleased.
"Well, as I was in Nottinghamshire, this last time, it so happened as to rain – I know! Would you believe it? Nottinghamshire, of all places for the heavens to open. Because rain is unheard of there, I'll have you know – oh yes, it is little… what was your name, love? Molly, was it? Pretty name, that." And he was momentarily distracted, to the great amusement of his audience.
Then he began again, remembering what he was doing, and took another swig of ale to try to settle his mind into place.
"So the heavens opened, this one time, and I'm tired. I been walking a good long time, now, and I can't be getting soaked too. I says to myself – I says, Allan, gotta get out of this rain, else you'll catch your death. Only sensible, really. And I happened to be passing through this little place – I forget the name, now, but it was a little village such as is plentiful up there, with a great big house what did belong to the local lord. I was passing by this great big house, and I deducted as how there was likely nice dark stables round the back of there with straw and blankets and not many people going in and out, not in this weather. Who rides in this weather?"
Content drunken mumbles of agreement radiated from his audience.
Allan nodded, sagely, took a mouthful of stew and went on, in measured tones, "so I nip round the back – smartish, mind, for there was guards about such as was a little unusual in that kind of quiet village, to my mind – and sure enough, there's the stables, where I thought they'd be. And I'm a lucky old bastard, I am, because no one ever did spot me, not then. I duck inside and find myself a nice dark corner, pull off the old shirt, which was soaked through, hung it up to drip dry and settled down for a kip."
"Get to the romance, Allan!" Someone moaned, and there were rumbles of agreement, but Allan waved a hand.
"Hold onto your horses, for God's sake, all in good time." He took another swig of ale, then scooped up a few more mouthfuls of stew, chewing thoughtfully as he gathered the threads of his plot together, "alright – so. I'm in the stables, getting dry, listening to the rain pouring down outside. I go to take a kip, flop down on a nice bed of good dry straw and roll over to get comfy. Only, there's something underneath me – the straw's all lumpy. I'm lying on something."
"Wasn't a lass, now, was it?"
"No, you daft pilluk," Allan rolled his eyes at the jeers and sniggers that followed the question, and shook his head, "and like I said, I'm getting to that bit, if you'd just hold your bloody horses. Where was I? Oh, right, yeah – the straw. Anyway, what I found there, under the straw, of all things, was a leather nap-sack, and I know it's my lucky day right there and then because this nap-sack is stuffed full with enough food to feed half a village, I swear. So, not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I settle down and have myself a little feast. There's cheese, and cold meat, and bread – nothing to drink, but that's okay by me, plenty of rain running down outside, enough to stick my head out the window, open my mouth under the run off. Good enough for me. Any man'd do the same – good clean rain, that."
There were rumbles of reasonable agreement – as if his entire audience had, at one point or another, been wondering the country without a penny or a meal to their name, and so had also been forced to rely on the heavens to provide their drinking water.
"So, I'm half way through my little feast there, when I hear this voice, screaming – this girl's voice, alright?"
Cheers, as the audience sensed incoming smut.
"Yeah, yeah," Allan waved them into silence, "okay, settle down, kids. So there's this girl's voice absolutely screaming – I am going to check on my horses and so help me God I will end you if you try to stop me – take your hands off me! She yells, ever so hoity-toity, and you hear this scuffle and shriek and then this girl comes flying into the stables like nothing you have ever seen and throws them shut behind her like this – " he slammed the palms of his hands down onto the top of the table for effect, creating a thud so loud as to send several of his audience shrieking with fear and delight.
"Anyway, anyway," Allan grinned, pleased with himself, "well, there's this girl, with her back against the door and I see her beginning to cry. Her face getting red and crumpling – but she doesn't make a sound. She just bites her lip and shuts her eyes and you can tell she doesn't want whoever's out there to hear her. Whoever she was arguing with gives the door a kicking, but doesn't try any harder to get in. I can see her flinching and crying to herself, without making a sound. Then whoever's out there goes away, and she just slides down and sits, and hugs her knees, and sobs like a little kid. I tell you, my heart fair broke for her, it did. I never heard such a sad sound as her sobbing there, all alone. Well – least ways, she thought she were alone."
The audience sighed with pity for the image that Allan had conjured for them, and Allan, leaning back in his chair, narrowed his eyes as he began to drift back to that previous winter, thinking of the rain on the roof of the stables; the dry smell of the hay and the horses – the sobbing girl.
"Then, just like that, she stands up, she wipes her face, she dries her eyes on her dress and she takes these great shuddering breaths and she just stops crying, makes herself stop. Goes to a stall, kicks it, just once, really, really hard," he thumped a fist down on the table, making the audience jump again, "then just stays there, taking all these deep breaths. And I realise, I'm in trouble. I'm in serious trouble, because here I am, stuck at the back of these stables, which aren't that big, if I'm being honest, with the only way out barred and this really upset girl in there with me. I mean, she comes anywhere near me, she'll spot me, scream bloody murder and I'm a dead man.
"I tuck myself in the back as far as I can and try to keep as still and quiet as is humanly possible. She's too upset to look to close around anyway, so I suppose I'm safe for a bit. But then – then – wouldn't you know the bleeding thing – I have to sneeze! And there's nothing I can do – it's gonna happen, innit it? You gotta sneeze, you gotta sneeze, am I right?"
Nods from the audience, a few grins from those who might have been in similar situations themselves. Everyone knew about sneezing.
"So I hold my breath and hold my nose and I try, I really do, not to – but I can't help it. I sneeze. And she hears me. Of course she does. She whirls around, and I know she can't see me, but she's got her eyes in about where I am, and says – "
Allan could hear it in his head as he dutifully repeated it to his audience, her voice clean and clear and just a little hoarse because of the crying and the shouting. Come out where I can see you. I have a knife in my sleeve, and I'm warning you now that I know how to use it.
Oh, I don't doubt that you do, he'd told her, coming out, and he had seen her eyes narrow as she evaluated him, sizing him up. She hadn't been afraid.
"Now, ladies and gents, when I got a good look at her, what do you think I could see?" His audience were wrapt now, the promise of porn was close at hand; the scenario was already spinning itself out in any number of drink-fuelled minds, more lurid than it would ever be in real life. Allan puffed himself up, for he had reached the first of several good bits in his story. "Oh, ladies and gents, now I get a proper look at her, I can see – this were no servant girl. Oh no. This, ladies and gents, were the lady of the house."
There were jeers of disbelief and delight from the listeners, but Allan shook his head, "No – no, not being funny, I swear on me honour – did I not swear? It's true. She were a lady. I could tell. With her fine accent, and her fine clothes – she were wearing this dress, right? The colour of glowing fire embers, it was, and all trimmed and pretty. Fine leather boots and fine warm gloves and a fine lacy shall the colour of good wine, I swear. No servant girl, no sir. Not her. And let me tell you, her clothes were not the finest thing about her."
Laughter, now, from his listeners, who seemed temporarily to have suspended their disbelief – laughter and cat calls at the idea of what was soon to come.
"Oh, she was a beauty, and all," Allan sighed, steepling his fingers and grinning blissfully at the memory, "a real looker. Prettiest face I have ever seen – aside from yours, little Molly," a wink and a grin for the barmaid who he would not remember in the morning, but who blushed happily anyway. "She was though. This lady was fine, in every which way a man could wish for. Young… all soft curves where you might want 'em. She had this long dark hair, curls of it, all shiny, down her back and pulled off her face. Pale skin, pale as ivory – face like an angel, I swear. Her eyes were blue as the sky on a summer's day; her lips were red as strawberries ready for eating…"
Most of the men in the audience, by this time, were sighing in contentment at the image (or licking their lips in anticipation), while the women rolled there eyes and waited for Allan to pick up the narrative again.
Allan was embellishing a little, of course. Oh, no doubt that she had been a beauty – as true a one as he had ever seen (and he had seen plenty of women, had Allan). But she had been more real in person than how he was describing her now, taking, as he was, just a little poetic licence. Up close, she had been solid and fierce and sad. Her nose had been slightly crooked in the middle – her lips pale and well-chewed. Her eyes hadn't been like the summer sky, so much as they had been like the rain – wet, grey around the edges, cold. Tired. And her skin had been pale with exhaustion. He'd wondered, actually, if she was ill.
He had been able to see the knife blade flashing inside her dress sleeve. She was letting him see it, he knew – knew by the look of her that she could use it; that she would use it, if it came to that. He'd never seen that look on a woman before, let alone a member of the landed gentry.
"I'm worried now though," Allan went on, "I'm worried, now she's looking at me. She turns me in, in that area of Nottingham, with the new Sheriff acting like some great terrible snake munching on the souls of the damned, and I'm a dead man, simple as that. Or at least, a man with a significantly shorter arm. So I says to her, look, miss, my lady – ladyship – please don't turn me in. I am only a humble peasant and I am hungry and cold and I lost my home to the bailiff – my leg. My leg it ails me and… She weren't having none of it, though. She just waved a hand and shook her head, told me – "
I wont turn you in, she'd said to him, so softly, and she'd smiled, cold and bitter. I won't turn you in, you poor wretch, whatever your story is.
"She made me stay in my corner, though. She wasn't having any of it. She sat down over there and I sat here and we never said a thing, not for a while. I said – well, not being funny or nothing, but do you mind if I take a kip? Only I've walked a pretty long way in the rain. She told me it made no odds to her, and picked up a brush, and started to see to her horses. So I went back to my stall and went to sleep.
"When I woke up, she was gone, and I was cold, and it was still raining, and getting dark. I got up and stretched and went to drink a bit more from the water running off the roof. Not much to do in those stables, really, but I didn't want to go out yet. It was still raining really badly."
"Are we getting to the good stuff yet, or what?" Someone demanded, tiredly, "'cause as of now, we seem to have rain, stables, and a fine-looking, supposedly-existent noblewoman who you have yet to shag."
There were jeers of agreement. Allan sighed.
"We're getting nearer it, alright? Calm down," he waved his fork, and pushed the last of his stew into his mouth. The story was beginning to make him morose with the memory of it. Truth be told, it was a darker tale than he had originally let on, albeit one that he liked to pull out and turn over in his head on the occasion of him being in a certain mood. Now, with the effects of the ale beginning to be blunted beneath his full stomach, he was starting to regret offering to tell them it at all.
"She comes back, once it's properly dark – the lady of the house. She's got a plate of things for me. Good food, from the house. I feel bad now, so I fess up about the sack of food I ate, but she only smiles, said as how it was meant for the poor anyway. Gave me the plate, and she had good ale in a flask. She had a bowl of hot water with her, too, told me to wash myself up – gave me a blanket to sleep under.
"Never before or since have I met a noble as generous as that, not in Nottingham. They're all scared, up there. Scared to breathe, let alone lend a hand to an old scoundrel such as myself. But the lady was kind to me, in this silent sort of way. Talked to the horses and brushed out their manes and scratched their noses while I ate, and drank, and washed me-self. Grateful for that, I was, for I hadn't had a decent bath in a good month or so and I knew that I smelt like seven shades of death. Strange, the lady was, very strange. But I was getting fed for free, so I didn't complain.
"Silence started to get to me, after a while, though. I'm a talker. Always have been, since I was just a toddler. Used to get my ears boxed by me father for it – but I could never keep my mouth shut, me. So I asked her –"
He had asked her, watching, curiously, You the lady of the house, then?
The question had amused her. She'd sort of half-laughed, rolled her eyes heavenwards as she fed a handful of oats to the horse she was fussing over.
I suppose I am, she'd replied.
You married to the old man? He had asked, more carelessly than he would have had he not drunk so much of the ale that she'd brought him.
What old man?
One that owns the big house – you his wife?
She'd laughed at that, too, and shaken her head. You aren't from around here, are you?
Walked a long way, me. He'd smiled, and shrugged, ruefully.
She'd nodded, then glanced back, over her shoulder, in the direction of the house, I'm his daughter. The old man who owns the house, he's my father.
"Surprised me, that," Allan told his listeners, thoughtfully, "she weren't old by any stretch of the imagination, but most high-born girls is definitely married by the time they get to what age she looked like. I mean, there's some as are married at twelve, aren't they? Definitely by sixteen – but she were older than that. Twenty or so, I thought. And she were still living with her father. Strange girl, she was.
"She said that her father was ill, and that she took care of him. She didn't want to get married because that would mean leaving him, and besides, she was promised to another – never quite caught what happened to him, though. Something about the crusades.
"Anyway, we were talking, then, properly, and she came and sat down next to me and gave me more ale. Even drank some of it herself, actually – kind of impressive, that was. I told her where I'd come up from, how I was looking for my brother – the little bugger owed me money and had run off with all my belongings the month before. He still owes me that money, actually. Next time I see him, I'm gonna beat it out of him, and no mistake – but that's beside the point.
"We just sort of kept talking for a while. Swapped stories, like we was old men in a tavern somewhere. Her mother'd died from giving birth to her, and her father never got married again, so she'd grown up all alone – 'cept for this boy on the neighbouring estate, who she was her best friend when she was little, and who was her sweetheart when they got older, and who was gone now – she never said where to. Turns out her father were a man of some importance amongst the nobles of those parts – though she never told me precisely who he was – but he'd lost it all when the new Sheriff came. Never really recovered from it, she said. He was ill all the time now.
"She looked so tired, then. And so sad. It would break a heart of stone to hear her tell it, I tell you. She were so alone, you see. I never saw a girl so alone in this world."
I just want you to make me forget, she'd said, please – just for a while. Take me somewhere else.
"She kissed me then," Allan explained, for the benefit of the crowd, "while we were talking. Maybe it was just the ale, but she definitely started it. She told me – "
I don't want to know your name, she'd said it firmly and clearly and pleadingly, I don't want to know anything at all. I just want you to make me forget.
"Well – I mean, what is a decent-minded man to say to that?" Allan asked his audience at large, and there were several nods of agreement, "I tell you something – she wanted it more than any girl I have ever known, and I was not that first man she had had like that. No – this was no innocent little maid, that much I can tell you. This girl knew what she was doing."
Do I get your name, then? He had breathed the question into her ear, as he held her in his lap and began pulling at the catch on the back of her dress.
She'd laughed, softly, and unhooked the catch herself, 'My Lady', to you, good sir.
That had made him grin. There was something alluring about how she played the part of the noble, even as she flushed with pleasure at his hand, slipping sweet as a knife between her thighs.
"And she was as fine without her clothes as with, I swear to you," Allan told them, and meant it, "oh and such things as we did in those stables…" he trailed off there, for he knew very well that it was best to allow the audience to imagine the most lurid details for themselves than paint them in.
The reality had been a strange experience, to be sure. Oh, enjoyable, certainly – for she really had known what she was doing. But very strange.
She'd been so eager for him, and he'd been very happy to oblige – but there had been something empty in those rain-coloured eyes, something cold, and tired. He'd wondered about that betrothed of hers (the same man as her sweetheart?), and wondered what sort of idiot he had been to want to forfeit his rights to this woman.
I like your little hands, he'd told her, afterwards, examining the long, fine, pale fingers – and she'd laughed.
Even as he hammed up one or two of the details for his listeners, he ran the happenings of that night through his mind's eye once more. Silly details, really, but the ones that stuck in his mind the most. Like how he'd had that niggling worry all the time about someone coming in and finding them – and been quite glad that she wasn't particularly noisy as lovers went. Like how smooth the skin on her shoulders was, and how her neck had tasted of the rain and dry sweat.
He remembered how it seemed like her eyes had gotten warmer as they went on – more alive with every breath they took together. And once, just once, as he was loving her, he had thought he'd heard her gasp someone's name, muffled against his shoulder, her eye's closed, her fingers digging into his arms – Robin… (or so it had sounded, though Allan was never sure whether it was just a sigh, or the whisper of the wind in the rain outside). It was only some time later that he'd begun to wonder where she had been, at that point, certain that it wasn't with him in that stable.
He really had liked her little hands. They were one of her loveliest parts – and she had many lovely parts, which he described in great detail for his delighted audience. He didn't mention her pretty hands, though. Or her lovely legs – long and pale and fine, with such dainty ankles and little feet and toes like buttons. Nice legs, he whispered in her ear, and she'd laughed. It seemed like a betrayal, to prostitute those beauties for the entertainment of these strangers. They were too personal a detail.
She hadn't wanted away from him, after, either, like some girls did – wham, bam, thank you ma'am – she'd lain still next to him, and been peaceful. He'd felt quite pleased with himself, actually, for she certainly seemed more content than she had been before. It made her very beautiful, that contentment.
He'd rolled onto his front next to her, then, and examined her curiously. She hadn't even blushed under his scrutiny – just reached up and stroked his cheek, until he leant down and kissed her again, and wondered how many transitory men had kissed those same lips before him. It felt strange to him, that she was so lovely, and still so alone.
What idiot of a man left you? He'd asked, and that had pleased her.
He was a fool, she'd replied, as if no further explanation were necessary, though he saw some old, burning hurt spark briefly in her rain-grey eyes.
He was that, he'd agreed, and they'd made love again, slower and gentler than the first time – a good kind of love making, to be sure, sort of comforting.
He did not mention this second time to the inn full of people – fed them more lurid fictions but made no pretence of that second intimacy, kept it secret and close to himself.
He'd wanted to know her name very badly by the end of that, if only because he wanted something to gasp into her hair as he finished, finally. But she had told him that it would be better for all their life expectancies if he didn't know it, or that of her father. He wondered, still, if she had been some kind of royalty, or someone of importance within the local court, but he hadn't pushed the issue at the time.
They'd held hands that second time, tight and secure, and she had never once looked away from him, never dreamed herself elsewhere or breathed another name in her ecstasy. It was why he replayed the memory so often, when he was alone, out of puzzlement and awe as to what private little tragedy he had brushed against that night, and how, perhaps, he had made her feel happy for a while once more.
Then, he had fussily picked the straw out of her hair, and she had laughed at him and examined his big, rough hands, calloused with too many days of hardship. She'd shown him the little scars on her arms and wrists that looked suspiciously like long healed (and sometimes not-quite-so-long-healed) sword-blows – but he hadn't asked. He'd stroked her arm and watched her flex those long, pale legs and he had grinned.
Then he had fallen asleep, and when he had woken up she was gone, it was early morning, his shirt was dry and it was no longer raining. So he had taken the last of the food from the leather pack under the straw, and crept away – got out of Nottinghamshire as soon as he could after that.
With the tale finished, Allan dispersed his audience, who left, contented, and asked if he might have a room at the inn for his trouble, and the inn-keeper said he could, if he'd do a day's work for him tomorrow. Allan had no intention of sticking about that long, but he agreed happily enough.
So he made it upstairs to bed, and took Molly with him, and made love to her, for all he would not remember anything of her but her breasts by the next morning. He took care not to call her 'my lady', and didn't let his mind wonder to the lonely noblewoman, with eyes like the rain, so many miles away. He thought about how he was going to get back to Nottinghamshire, soon, and hunt some fine king's deer, make himself a roast of it and sell the rest for good silver.
Allan did not know about sweet, fierce Saracen girls or light-eyed carpenters, soaring gallows or wild forests or an outlawed nobleman, with his loyal manservant by his side and a mission in his heart. So he dreamt of none of them quite yet. His mind skipped only briefly over whether perhaps, just perhaps, this time he might be caught poaching, and – before he finally fell into that deeper abyss of true unconsciousness – who would save him if he was.