No, your eyes don't decieve you, this is an update - the quickest update I've ever done. The finish line is in sight, and I've got that last burst of energy you get at the end of a race that drives you forward...
Chapter Fourteen: A Physician's Hands
The quickest way to the forest was straight ahead through the wide streets of Nottingham, through the main gates and then across the greensward to where the trees were beckoning. The scent of the forest rose up to meet her; every twig and leaf was illuminated by the light of the brilliant moon. Though guilt still mingled with regret in her mind, her heart suddenly felt lighter, as if she'd just shed a heavy burden. She knew she was feeling the lightness of spirit that came after a decision had been made, and she quietly revealed in the springy feeling of weightlessness in her body as the forest neared.
Suddenly Will stopped and cocked his head to the side.
"Do you hear that?" he asked. Allan and Djaq stopped, turning their eyes toward him, and then as one, all three of them turned their bodies to face Nottingham.
"Horses," Allan said somewhat unnecessarily, as two dark figures emerged at a gallop from the wide gates. The rhythm of the horses' hooves echoed over the still countryside.
"Coming this way…" Djaq added as the riders suddenly swung their horses in their direction. For a moment the three outlaws stood still, as if the steady thrumming sound held them under a spell. Then, as the riders closed in they began to back up slowly.
"Friend or foe?" Will asked.
"Knowing our luck…" Allan's sentence didn't need completion. The three of them turned and bolted toward the trees.
Within moments they were among the leafy undergrowth and dark trees, but the crash of horses behind them was more than enough to inform them that their pursuers hadn't given up the chase. The moon's light was dimmer here, as well as confusing, being forced as it were to break through the swaying canopy of trees and create confusing shadows and pools of silver light. Never a quick runner, Djaq was finding it difficult to keep up with Allan and Will, but refused to call out and slow them down. Yet as she scrambled up a slope, pulling herself up by a low-hanging tree branch, she found that her newfound weightlessness did not only stem from the release of her tension, but from the fact that Will still had her sword.
A cold shiver of fear rushed up her spine.
Bounding over rocks and tree roots, Djaq felt her vial of acid slip out from underneath her vest and she grasped it with one hand. Distracted, she tried to pull the cord over her head, planning to use its contents as a weapon as she once had before, when the ground abruptly disappeared from beneath her feet. Grunting and gasping, Djaq rolled down the short but steep precipice, the vial flying from her grasp, stones and bracken scouring her body. She hit the ground heavily, and lay winded for a few moments, hearing only the wind through the leaves and the scuffle of animals in the underbrush. Slowly she hauled herself upright, wincing at the movement of her battered body, and then glanced around for her vial. Concern turned to panic as she failed to find it anywhere among the leaf-fall. It can't be gone, she thought frantically as she scrabbled about in the leaves. Not after carrying it this far.
She froze as she heard a sound from overhead. Was it Will? Allan? No…it was the unmistakable sound of horse hooves. Exhaustion suddenly overtook her. Why couldn't the world just leave her be? Every way she turned she was set upon by danger or intrigue, obligation or duty, slavers or Crusaders, unwelcome faces from the past or teenage boys creeping up on her while she bathed. All she wanted to do now was dig herself a hole, curl up in it and sleep for the rest of her life.
She hung her head for a moment, letting her tiredness pass over her, then sprung to her feet and sprinted as quickly as she could away from the shuffling sound of the horse.
Mark pulled his mount to a halt, gesturing to Geoffrey to do the same, and listened intently. A glimmer had caught his eye. There, halfway down a steep slope, something small was swinging back and forth from a cord caught on a thin branch. It was glinting in the moonlight with each sway, and as the forest quietened with the horses' stillness, he heard a soft noise. A body moving - and then a sudden silence that was more telling than any normal forest sound could be.
The silence stretched on for a few more heartbeats – and then the sudden crash of a body hurtling through the undergrowth. Geoffrey's head shot up and he instantly spurred his horse forward in the direction of the noise, a rare grin pulling up the corners of his mouth. Mark followed at a slower pace, being quite content to let Geoffrey do the hard work. As he passed, he leaned down in his saddle in order to grab the dangling trinket from the branch. He knew what it was, where he'd seen it before, and who it belonged to.
She was weakening. She could feel her body deteriorating with every day that passed, a combined effort from the weak stew, dirty water and stinking hold. Surely the dark and rancid ship in which cockroaches crawled over feet and the stench of unwashed bodies that made her retch was the closest mankind had ever come to creating hell. Only her detachment from the world kept her from going mad, locking herself away in strange half-dreams and memories.
As the days passed, she felt her consciousness slip deep inside herself, loosing herself, becoming just a part of the ship, as inanimate as the boards she sat on and the chains that held her. And eventually, she became even less than that, merging with the swaying motion of the ship as it took her further from home till she thought of herself as nothing more than a rocking sensation.
Sometimes, in the midst of her black indifference, a sudden memory would come upon her, and she would find herself pondering that girl she'd once known. Safiyah, she'd been called – a girl who had lived a life full of secrets. Had it really been a life when most of it had been concealed away from the world? Maybe she'd never really existed; maybe she'd only been a dream that her father or mother or brother had thought up in order to share their own secrets with.
All she'd really had to call her own had been the flight of pigeons and a boy she'd nursed back to health. A boy who was dead now, just like everything else. Maybe he'd never existed either. He'd been her dream; a way to justify Safiyah's strange half-life. And once Safiyah had ceased to exist, bourn away on the dark threads of her hair, he had disappeared back into nothingness.
There were half-hearted attempts by the others to talk to her but she ignored them, and soon all had fallen in to a stupor, broken only by the daily slops served to them in filthy bowls, and the occasional yanking on their chains that forced them up through the hatch and into the painfully bright sunlight that burnt their eyes cruelly. She would often eye the water speculatively, wondering if she could fling herself into its depths, but quickly conceded that it was impossible when shackled to her fellow slaves. It was only up here, among the regular work of the crew and the glinting sight of the ocean that awareness of her surroundings stirred in her again.
The sun beat down on her head like a sweaty hand, and her eyes drooped listlessly. The men in charge of the slaves forced her to eat and drink, and she let them, knowing it didn't matter now. Yet despite her efforts, death avoided her – perhaps just as afraid of her blank, deadened stare as her captors were.
Only one ever spoke to her, a middle-aged man who seemed to be shunned by the other men on account of his terribly disfigured face. Where the others were rough and impatient, often venting their frustration at her impassivity with a sharp slap across the face when the food or drink inevitably dripped down her chin, he was gentle. He would talk to her, despite the fact that – for all he knew – the slave standing before him didn't understand a word he was saying. Sometimes she would ignore him, other times she would pay heed to his chatter. He was going home after a long exile in the Holy Land, having saved up enough money through the slave trade to buy himself some land. A tract of land – perhaps a farm - where no one would bother him. He'd talk about England: the trees, the lakes, the meadows and ale, but was only when the ship neared its destination that she really began to pay attention.
He told her that there was a buyer all sorted out when they got into port – a man named Brooker, who was shrewd enough not to mistreat them. She supposed it was his odd way of comforting her, perhaps an oddly-formed apology from a man who had brought his own freedom off her captivity. But she couldn't muster any hate for such a man. Not after what her own people had done to Thomas.
Maybe it was that thought alone that kept her alive. That Englishmen had killed Djaq. That Saracens had killed Thomas. A life for a life. Now as the ship neared England, that sense of unfair justice awakened her senses once more. Escape had been impossible on a ship, but perhaps once on land she would find the opportunity to rid herself of these men and find a way back home.
But when the ship finally sailed into port, her hope failed. She was in enemy territory now, and once she was realised from her shackles, she was too weak to mount even the most pitiful attack against the men who had to carry her from the ship to the barred wagon that awaited her.
"Hey, hang on!" she heard a voice yell, and she was unceremoniously dropped on the dusty ground as a portly man leapt down from the driver's seat of the cart. This, she assumed, was Brooker. He peered down at her suspiciously as he fingered the knife on his belt. One of her fists slowly clenched the English soil beneath her hand, preparing a pitiful defence should he try anything.
"This one looks half dead!" he cried. "He'll be no good in the mines in that state."
There was muttering among the sailors, and she tried to raise her head, to argue her right to life, in English if she had to.
"Ah, he'll be alright," a gruff voice said. "Just a bit shook up that's all."
The man with the hideous face grabbed her under the arms and pulled her to her feet, hoisting her into the cage and the helping hands of her fellow Saracens with a strength she wouldn't have thought possible in such a grizzled old man. He closed the cage door firmly behind her, cutting her off from Brooker. The man looked at her once more as she was, laid out on the floor of the wagon, his face unreadable. Then he was gone. In all the months on board ship together, she'd never once heard his name.
Brooker gave a pragmatic shrug, informing the sailors that if any were to die on the way he wouldn't be paying for the next shipment, and fastened the lock on the cage door.
Through the bars of the cage, Djaq watched as the captain of the vessel was paid, and a small leather pouch passed hands to Brooker.
"'ere, what's this?" he asked.
The captain shrugged. "It was on one of the slaves when we caught 'em. Just a bit of glass. How much you want for it?"
Djaq's heart began to thump. It was her father's lens, which through some small twist of circumstance had somehow made the journey across the ocean with her.
Brooker shrugged.
"Could fetch a fair price I suppose."
He handed over a coin that the captain grimaced at, but mention of the poor quality of the slaves silenced him from bartering further.
Brooker tucked the pouch with its precious contents inside his belt, and turned to his property with false joviality.
"Next stop, Treeton Mine!" he cried, and after throwing some strange English food into the cage, he pulled a large drape over them, shrouding the Saracens in darkness. The last thing she saw through the bars as she lay on her back gazing straight up into the grey sky, was the flight of three seagulls sailing out to sea.
Her breath hitched in her throat painfully as she scrambled through the trees like a hunted rabbit. She had nothing – no sword, no acid, no allies, and she was swiftly running out of options.
She could try to hide, but the trees were sparse here. She could keep running, but she was already functioning on adrenilene alone. Her feet began to lag, her eyes drooped, and the sound of the horse grew ever closer. She had to stop – surely she'd die of exhaustion if she didn't.
She stumbled into an open space, the huge dark figure of a tree looming over her. Struggling toward it, a flicker of recognition crossed her mind. She'd been here before…there was an old campfire, a rocky outcrop, and this magnificent tree, anchored to the ground by roots that were so large they stretched over her head. She crept into a crevice made by two such roots, and curled up into the darkness it provided, hoping her heart wasn't as audible to the horseman as it was to her.
She heard the horse approach and slow, and she pressed herself against the bark of the tree. Except for the steady and ominous thumping of the hooves, all was silent.
As the horse and its rider entered the clearing, her surroundings suddenly crystalised in her mind. This was one of the outlaws' campsite, the very first one she'd come to. She'd fought Much over there…sparred with John just a few hours later…patched up Will's wound while he sat on the very tree stump that her pursuer was now passing. It was hard to see in the darkness, but it seemed that the horseman was gazing at the massive tree before him. He came forward, peering into the darkness, and her heart clenched in her chest when she realised he was making a systematic check of the hiding places that the tree's roots afforded. She'd have to run again, but as she steeled herself, a quiet voice trickled – unbidden - through her mind.
That's one of the biggest oaks in the forest. It's called the King Oak.
It was the sheltering roots of the King Oak that she was nestled in…but if this was the King Oak, then that meant…
With a gasp of inspiration, she leapt over the huge roots and flung herself toward the forest, hearing the whinny of a horse and a cry of triumph behind her. She thrust her body forward, willing herself to get closer to her target, her eyes flitting from tree to tree.
This one here – this is an oak. They're the oldest trees in the forest. See the leaves? You can tell the oak by the shape of the leaves.
Her eyes fixed on a tree that looked familiar. Was that it? She hesitated, her footing faltering for just a moment, and she felt the thump of an arrow hit the ground near her feet.
"Halt!" a voice cried. "Or the next one will get you in the kneecap!"
She had no idea whether he was exaggerating his skills or not, but in any case she couldn't win against an arrow. Not yet anyway. She turned to face her opponent, who kept his arrow trained on her as he dismounted. Then, as his eyes raked her tiny form, her lack of defences and the exhausted slump of her shoulders, he smiled and slung his bow across his back, placing a hand on the hilt of his sword instead.
"There's nowhere left to run," he told her as she slowly paced backwards. "It's over."
Disgust was etched in every feature of his face: the piggish eyes, the flared nostrils, the sneering mouth and with a glint of spite, she knew she would relish saying her next words.
"You could take me to Lord Khalid, but it would do you no good. I've already been to see him. He no longer wants me. He's leaving on a ship back to Acre tomorrow. I'm worthless to you now."
Truthfulness rang out in every note of her voice. Geoffrey believed her, and the hot bile of disappointment choked his mind. For a moment he could only look at her in frustration, all those dreams of wealth and security evaporating under the reality of many more years of dutiful service under Guy of Gisbourne's sneer. Disappointed flooded into anger, all of it fixated upon this wretched Saracen runaway before him. His eyes narrowed and his fist clenched his sword's hilt, gently sliding it out of its scabbard.
"Spoiled goods, are you? Well, if you're no use to your own people, you're no use to anyone here. Fallen women are as good as dead anyway. I should put you out of your misery."
He advanced, drawn sword glinting in the moon's light, and Djaq tensed herself, ready to spring. She was so close to the tree – so very near, when suddenly an odd look came over her adversary's face. It was look she had seen only once before, in a desert far away, in what seemed like another lifetime, but this time she recognised it for what it was.
Geoffrey of Weymouth clawed the air and toppled to the ground, and Djaq saw an arrow between his shoulder blades as he fell, pointing up to the night sky like a flagpole. Out of the darkness materialised another figure, and the hesitant smile on her lips faded as she realised her saviour was neither Will nor Allan. This was another Englishman, a stranger with a second arrow notched on his bow, pointed at her. As he moved into the pale light, her heart sank. She knew him now – the man in league with the Saracens. The man she'd threatened with her precious vial of acid – the one that was now hung around his own neck.
"I remember you," he said coldly. "The witch that tried to poison me. All along you were right there – right under my nose, warming the beds of Hood and his men."
Djaq shrank back. All the hours she'd recently spent with Allan had not gone to waste, and now she forced herself to assume a look of timidity and defeat.
"Please – don't hurt me," she said, letting a quaver soften the edge of her voice as she judged the distance between herself and her goal. She cowered before him, her pride prickling in disgust, but knowing that helplessness could get her closer to her last chance. "You heard what I told him. I'm worth nothing now."
"Oh, I wouldn't say that. Geoffrey here didn't know it, but Lord Khalid wasn't the only one with a bounty on your head. As soon as the sheriff saw how much you meant to his Saracen guest, he let out word that he would also be willing to pay a great amount for your capture. If Khalid could pay that much for a runaway, surely he'd be willing to pay twice as much for a hostage."
The man grinned, and lowered his bow. She wet her lips. Her chance was coming.
"If you are indeed worthless to Khalid, then the sheriff doesn't know. And he won't know till I'm miles away with the reward.
"You know," he said after a pause, something dark and dangerous creeping into his tone. "I've never seen a Saracen woman before."
It was an ugly threat, and she knew exactly what it meant.
Rage, the like of which she'd never known, suddenly coursed through her like a living thing. That she had come all this way, survived slavery and war, fire and saltwater, had her dignity and hair and identity stripped away from her as though they were nothing more than rags, that she'd lost everything that she'd ever held dear – from a family to a patient to a pigeon in a box…that she had made it through all of that only to find herself the object of lust and greed from a man who didn't know that throughout all her suffering she'd managed to keep her honour intact…every particle of her being screamed out in fury, some of which managed to release itself in a strangled war-cry.
She pivoted on the soles of her feet and threw herself toward her target: a nearby oak tree. Behind her she heard the man give a low snarl, and his steps on the forest floor as he raced toward her. She had only seconds.
One hand landed flat on the trunk of the tree, the other grappled wildly for the hollow that Will had carved out long before her coming, as though he'd somehow known she would need it in this time, in this very place. Her hand wrapped around the hilt of something – it didn't matter what – and with all her strength she swung whatever it was out of its hiding place. In a blur she spun around, positioning and bracing the sword, for sword it was, and felt the weight of the man as he crashed into her, pushing her against the tree. A moment passed.
Her gaze was steady, and for a few seconds Mark looked deeply into her eyes as though he was trying to convey something of utmost importance without words. A trickle of blood slowly crept down his chin from the corner of his mouth.
Finally Djaq broke the spell, and with her palms she flung the man away from her own body. He stumbled backwards, a strange gurgling rising in his throat, and the moonlight glinted on the Saracen sword impaled in his stomach. His eyes never left hers, and in the next moment she understood what he was asking of her. Stomach wounds were fatal, but slow to kill.
She rushed forward, grasped the hilt, and with one swift movement, pulled the sword out of his body and sliced it across his throat. The blade was sharp, and did its work. She released her long-held breath as he toppled to the ground, a great weariness falling upon her as though he'd taken the last of her strength with him as he died.
All she could do was stand and look at the dead man, registering that her vial of acid was still draped around her neck. She leaned down and lifted his head in order to reclaim it, trying not to look at the mess she'd made. Slipping it into her pocket, and leaning on the sword she looked up to see Will and Allan watching her from the trees. She wasn't sure how long they'd been there, but judging from Will's dazed expression and the fact that Allan's eyebrows were raised almost to his hairline, it had been long enough to see her dispatch her opponent. She looked up at them, still panting.
She looked down at the dead man again, remembering the words he'd once said to Robin:
I've heard of you, Locksley, and I'm not some nobleman, leeching off the backs of the poor. I'm just a man being paid to do a job – deliver these goods to the sheriff of Nottingham, so that I can go home and feed my own family.
Had he been telling the truth? She'd probably never know now, but in light of this she knew that although she wasn't sorry she'd killed him, she was indeed sorry that he was dead.
She almost let herself weep, but she called her tears back up into place as Allan and Will came to join her.
"Not being funny, but you didn't kill your Saracen Lord as well, did ya?"
She gave a sigh. "No Allan, I did not."
Together they carried the dead men further into the forest, laying them out under the trees for burial. Allan and Djaq searched their bodies for any valuables that they might have carried while Will rounded up the horses and tethered them to a nearby tree. Djaq cleaned the bloody Saracen sword in the grass and returned it to its hiding place, happy to reclaim her own short sword from Will. Then it was only a short walk back to the campsite under the King Oak, where the three of them collapsed into a messy pile on the ground, curling up close to each other like an exhausted litter of puppies.
She lay semi-conscious on the floor of the cage, listening to the strange sounds of the forest: bird song and rustling wind. Brooker knew better than to starve slaves that were needed for hard labour, and though he'd refrained from giving them meat, she could feel her strength gradually returning.
She'd kept track of the days of travelling, thinking that the time in which it took to get from the shore to the mines might come in useful. She rested throughout the day so that she could perform her ablutions in the safety of darkness. She ate whatever was given to her. A thousand escape plans flitted through her mind, each one as unlikely to work as the next, but the ideas she came up with gave her a small degree of hope. She thought nothing beyond being free of Brooker and this hated cage, considering that whatever came after that accomplishment would simply have to take care of itself.
It was in the midst of one such plan – if she could only get her hands on her father's lens she might be able to burn through the ropes that held them all here – that she felt the regular rumble of the cart's progress falter and come to a crashing halt. From outside, she could hear Brooker begin to curse loudly, and she sat up, wondering if her chance had finally come. Quickly she conversed among her fellow captives, telling them to stay alert and ready to move at a moment's notice, and tried to grasp at the drape that kept them all in shadowy gloom. If only she could see where she was…
Getting frantic as the minutes past, knowing that her chances of escape would all but evaporate once she reached the mines, her ears pricked up at the sound of muffled voices. Men's voices, one belonging to Brooker, the other unfamiliar.
She crouched near the side of the cage, her heart beating fast. Something was happening out there…
A moment later, the heavy canvas cloth was whipped back, and she found herself staring into a pair of shocked blue eyes. About an hour later, when the stranger asked for her name, she glared at him and announced:
"Djaq."
Can you believe that this is the first time I've used Allan's catchphrase? Well, not that surprising, since I hate catchphrases. However, as catchphrases go, Allan's isn't too bad, and I didn't want to just have it for the sake of having it. But there it is!
Djaq's story has almost come full-circle, and I hate to say it, but the next chapter will be the last. But the good news is, you will FINALLY find out what the deal with Khalid is (though I suspect most of you have already guessed).