By morning, Rook had managed to lay his father's ghost back in its grave. With resolve, he turned his mind to the task of drawing out whatever ghosts lurked in Tod's own past. But as one day followed another, Rook had no success. Words had never been his strong suit, and speaking of personal matters did not come easily to him. He began to hope that instead, Tod would begin to relax and open up to him as the two of them spent more time together, saving Rook the awkwardness of blundering clumsily into a delicate conversation.
In the meantime, there was no lack of work to keep their hands from idleness. The Rowan Hollow band's food and medicinal stores needed replenishing, and the damage wrought by the winter's snow and ice needed repair. In the evenings, Rook and Tod took supper at Rowan's cottage, or with Robin Hood's band.
Rook tried to teach Tod how to hunt, setting snares for rabbits and other small creatures, bending a bow for larger game, using a knife to gut and skin their prey, and tickling trout in the still, shallow pools along the banks of the river. Tod showed an odd reluctance at all of these tasks, except for fishing. The sight of more than a little blood made him turn pale and look away. Rook was puzzled. He could not recall Tod being squeamish of blood when they were younger, and he knew the man was no coward.
"Are you all right?" he asked once, up to his elbows in the carcass of a deer.
"Well enough," mumbled Tod, not looking at him or the gutted and half-skinned animal. "I just - I can't do this. I'm sorry. Is there something else I can do?"
Instead of pushing, Rook brought Tod to help Rowan collect herbs and plants for food and medicine. Some plants needed to be hung to dry, while others required careful transplanting into the cottage garden. Rowan wore a jerkin and trews for gardening, heore hair tucked up under a wide-brimmed hat.
"Anything yet?" Rowan asked in a low voice while they worked, glancing at Tod to make sure they were not overheard.
Rook shook his head. "Nothing, apart from hating the sight of blood. Do you think maybe he killed someone and regretted it, and that's why he became a monk?"
Rowan frowned, considering. "I don't think so. I suppose that could be part of it. But as deep as this goes, I think something must have happened to him, or to someone close to him. You'll keep trying?"
Rook nodded. He did not like disappointing Rowan, even if he still had no idea how to proceed.
They stuck to bloodless tasks after that, for which Tod seemed relieved. For two days, they worked to finish the henhouse next to the cottage, constructing cozy boxes for the future hens to nest in, and making sure the walls and roof were sturdy enough to keep out foxes and other predators.
Rook found himself enjoying the work, and Tod's company, in spite of the weather turning grey and drizzly. Tod, for his part, seemed to delight in trying to make Rook smile and laugh, both of which had been almost unheard of during Tod's last stay in the forest. The young monk hid his own feelings with such ease that Rook wondered whether Rowan had been mistaken after all. He even found himself teasing Tod, in his turn.
"I thought you said you had no skill at carpentry."
Tod grinned, pushing his rain-soaked fringe back from his forehead. "I don't. But I hope I can manage well enough to satisfy a chicken. They're less likely to complain about my shoddy work, at least."
Rook laughed. "I don't know what chickens you've been around. All the ones I've known complained almost as much as Lionel does. You just can't understand what they're saying."
"Are you two talking about me?" asked Lionel, ducking out the cottage door, harp hugged to his chest to keep the strings dry. Smudge trailed after him, seeming not to mind the weather at all.
"Only in passing, Friend Lionel," Tod smiled. "Have you come to help us, or only to inspect my sorry work?"
"Neither," admitted Lionel. "I thought perhaps while you worked, you might remember a song or two that you learned in the East. Or you could tell me of the glories of Crusading, so that I might compose a ballad about it," he added hopefully.
A shadow passed over Tod's face. "I'm sorry to disappoint you, Friend Lionel, but I found nothing glorious in Crusading. It's a bloody business, where men slaughter each other with no true understanding of one another's nature. Often, they make no distinction between warriors and civilians. Men who call themselves Christians treat the women and children of those they call the enemies of God with no greater chivalry than the warriors of the Muslim faith treat our own women and children."
Rook pricked up his ears, hoping that Tod might continue, trying to think of a question to ask that might lead the monk to expound further upon his feelings of bitterness against a cause the rest of the Christian world seemed to fervently believe in, but Tod only turned back to his work, appearing to consider the matter closed.
Lionel looked disappointed. "But surely you must have learned some songs along the way that you could teach me?"
"All the songs I know are hymns and psalms," said Tod, with uncharacteristic sharpness.
"Leave him be, Lionel," said Rowan from the doorway of the cottage. Heore gaze fixed on Tod, as if heo could divine the secrets of his soul if heo only stared hard enough. "He has work to do, and you're supposed to be watching Smudge."
Lionel looked around guiltily, and gave a cry of dismay when his eyes lit on the toddler, black dirt smeared down the front of her tunic, happily pulling up the young plants in the corner of Rowan's garden. He hurried over and scooped the little girl up with one arm, patting the plants clumsily back into place with the other hand, while Smudge screeched in annoyance at the interruption of her "gardening".
Tod seemed unaware of the little drama playing out nearby. He stared, unseeing, at the hen box in his hands, knuckles white from gripping the rough wood. Rook caught Rowan's eye, silently beseeching heom for help. Rowan only inclined heore head and raised heore eyebrows in an expression that said as eloquently as words, go on, talk to him.
Hesitantly, Rook laid a hand on Tod's arm. "Hey."
The monk shook himself and blinked, then turned toward Rook with a smile on his face once more. "I'm sorry. I was distracted for a moment. Where were we?"
He turned back to his work, fitting together the boards of the nesting boxes, while Rook looked on helplessly, with no more idea what to say to him than before.
The henhouse was finished. Rook worried that Lionel might try to pester Tod again if they spent another day working near the cottage, so the following day, Rook took him to the river instead. Tod seemed to have recovered his spirits, or at least brought his secret sorrows back under his control.
Rook showed Tod where the spring thaw had damaged the fish pools he had made, the breaking ice and heavy current of the river scattering the stones of the low dams. The two of them set about gathering stones, wading calf-deep in the chilly water, and arranging them in such a way to create wide, deep pools where fish could rest, and frogs might lay their eggs.
The weather was fine once more, and the sun warmed them as they worked. Rook threw off his sheepskin vest. The sunlight felt good on his bare shoulders. He could feel the approach of summer in his bones, as if he, too, were waking up after a long winter. Tod also shrugged out of his habit, letting it hang from the belt rope about his waist.
It occurred to Rook that it had been several days since he had spent any time alone. He had barely noticed. Usually, Rook preferred his solitude, but Tod did not complain like Lionel, or chatter incessantly like Beau. He was more like Rowan and Etty, thinking his own thoughts most of the time, and speaking only when he felt moved to do so. Rook found his company agreeable.
More than once, Rook caught himself watching the monk out of the corner of his eye. Freckles sprinkled the pale skin of his chest and back. The muscles of his strong arms and broad shoulders rippled as he lifted the heavy stones and settled them into place with ease.
To distract himself, Rook began singing as he worked. Many of the songs he knew were bawdy folk tunes. A few were Lionel's compositions, detailing the adventures of Robin Hood and his band. Rook had a good voice - nothing like Lionel's pure, sweet tenor, but still pleasant and strong - and he was good at remembering the words to even the longer ballads. Tod smiled in amusement when he began to sing, but soon joined in on the choruses as he picked them up. After a few songs, Tod started to share some of the hymns and psalms he knew, in English, French, and Latin.
They ran out of good-sized stones within easy reach before Rook and Tod ran out of songs. Heedless of the chill, Rook stripped off the rest of his clothes and waded into the deeper water, ducking under to fetch stones from the bottom, and transferring them to their growing dam.
Tod had stopped singing. The monk's head was bent, eyes fixed as if in intense concentration on the bottom of the shallow river beyond the dam. He carefully collected stones that were too small to be of much use.
Rook cocked his head, frowning and stepping closer to the other man. "We need bigger stones than that. Come into the pool and help me."
Tod glanced at Rook, standing naked, up to his thighs in the cold water of the fish pool, then quickly looked away, cheeks reddening. "I'll go downstream a little way, and see if I can find some better ones." He turned and splashed away, the skirts of his habit raised carefully above his knees to keep them from being soaked.
Rook watched him go, puzzled. Was he mistaken, or had Tod been shy of looking on his nakedness? Most men would think nothing of going bare before one another. They all had the same parts, after all. Or - he thought briefly of Beau - most of them did. Perhaps monks cared more about modesty than the average man. But averting one's eyes was one thing; blushing and running away was something else.
A suspicion took root in Rook's mind concerning what that something might be. Was it possible that Tod was the sort of man who liked looking at other men? That was an interesting thought.
Rook had looked at several men and boys over the years. There had been one man, the previous year, who had particularly captured Rook's attention - a young outlaw of Robin Hood's band. Rook had contrived to go hunting and fishing with him on several occasions, and his warm feelings had made him behave awkwardly. But when those feelings were not returned, they had faded in time. The only boy Rook had ever kissed was Beau, once, when they were younger, just to see what it was like. There had been no girls. Apart from Etty, there were few women in the forest.
But now there was Tod, and Rook had to admit that he liked what he saw when he looked at the monk. If Tod was also looking, was it possible that he liked what he saw, too?
Rook had a hard time imagining that. He was small and skinny, with knobbly bones that stuck out all over. He also had the darkest skin of anyone he knew, apart from Beau, and a man in Robin Hood's band whose parents had been African merchants. Beau had once speculated that Rook's mother might have been of Wanderer extraction, like Beau himself. Rook supposed it might be true, but there was no one he could ask. He certainly had not inherited his black hair and dark eyes from his father. All Rook knew was that brown skin was not commonly considered desirable.
Whether his face was at all handsome, Rook did not know. The only mirror he had ever known was the surface of still water, and he had not spent much time looking at himself. He tried, now, to discern his reflection in the surface of the fish pond, but the water rippled, distorting his image too much to give him any idea of his looks. All things considered, Rook doubted he was attractive enough to tempt someone who had taken holy orders. And yet ...
It occurred to Rook that there might be more to Tod's embarrassment than a wish to keep his inclinations secret. Some godly men, Rook knew, were disgusted by the thought of intimacy between two men. Rook wondered if such self-loathing was part of the turmoil Rowan had sensed in Tod. Perhaps he had sworn, as part of his vows, to live chaste, in spite of such feelings. Or it might be that Tod had not yet fully realised or accepted his own inclinations.
Whatever Tod felt or thought or had sworn, Rook reminded himself that Tod was hurting. Even if Rook liked what he saw - even if Tod had been looking - Rook knew it would be wrong to do anything about it while his friend was vulnerable. He would have to wait until Tod began to let go of his secret pain, and then see where they stood.
Resolved, Rook dove back under the chilly water, hoping that it would cool the growing warmth in his chest as easily as it cooled his sun-warmed skin.