1. ((Edited))
“Nock!”
The ten men along the line put an arrow against the string. Dogon “The Saracen” walked along the line, his long kinked black hair pulled up in a tail at the top of his head bouncing as he nearly marched. He looked down his short, thick beard, making sure each man had done what he told them.
“Mark!”
All the men looked up at their targets.
“Draw!”
The men struggled to pull the longbow taut and hold the arrow to their cheek, or where the corner of their lips ended, or against a hole in their teeth from a missing tooth. One man let go and his arrow went deep into the ground.
“Loose!”
They all let go at the same time, while Dogon stomped up to the man who had let go and yanked him out of line by the scruff of his neck. He pulled him out and tossed him aside. “Give me that.”
The man fearfully handed the bow to Dogon.
“Maybe you should learn to use the bow for the children?” yelled Dogon, his English perfect but accented strangely.
“I’ll do it.”
“You have until next Sunday to do it.” He threw the bow back at the man. “Get out of my sight.” He turned to the next group. “Ready.”
Group one turned around and went back to the rear.
A man with chains of office stepped forward. He held a bow loosely in his hand. “Dogon, may I have a word?”
Dogon went to the officer.
“I…it seems that I had no time to practice–”
Dogon pointed to the line.
“You don’t seem to under–”
“Your English law says all men fifteen to sixty are to practice with the bow on Sundays. I am here to make sure this practice is done. Now, go to the line.”
The officer went to the line, and made a half-hearted attempt. Dogon shook his head. How many sars of men had he trained in the use of the bow? It never failed. A goodly amount of them didn’t like it, and ended up becoming average, or below average. He went through all of the men and got to the second to the last set, when he saw the light in this group.
The young man was handsome, with dark reddish-brown hair. He was broader in the shoulders than the men he was with. His arms were large and his biceps big, merely as he bent his arm. He wore a yeoman’s clothes, simple shirt, pants, soft shoes. He stepped to the line without talking to anyone, his mind and his eye entirely on the mark.
The Saracen was also broad-shouldered and wide in the chest, but his entire body was a study in perfection of the male form. If he was made in God’s image – and he knew he wasn’t – then God was of darker skin than these Northerners, broad-shouldered, slim-waisted, and muscular. He announced the orders, and the young man followed them to the letter. When he shot, Dogon saw his arrow go right into the center.
He walked up to the man and clapped him on the shoulder, hard. The man staggered. “Good. Very good.”
“Thank ye.”
“What is your name?”
“Daw the Lesser, from Brearton, Dogon.”
“Lesser?”
“There’re three Daws in my town.”
“Daw the Archer you are now.”
He laughed, and looked a bit ashamed. “I better tell me mother.”
“I’ll be calling you that,” said Dogon, “And you better answer to it.” He looked at the final group. “Next!”
He watched that group, but he especially watched Daw Archer. Dogon was being drawn to him, like a moth to a flame. He hadn’t been this attracted since…he couldn’t remember when.
After the target shot, they retrieved arrows. Dogon reached down at the line and took out the one from the young man he had yelled at before. He looked out at the men as they searched for arrows. For the last 2500 years, he had travelled the world and taught the bow. It was what he lived for. Hunting, tracking, and teaching.
He was the last original brother left that he could tell after the last time they had met. Even Aries, who had sworn to be the first and the last, had succumbed to love and been placed among the stars. Dogon, like all his brothers, could see them in the sky, yellow points of light.
He was going to put the men through their paces today for speed, but he didn’t want to put himself through hell again. He told the men they could leave.
Daw the Archer stayed. So did a few others, these were having trouble. Dogon patiently stood with them, gave them pointers, told them to practice holding the bow. Daw even asked for advice, so Dogon gave it, miniscule things about his stance and his form.
Dark came. Dogon lived in a small hut at the Butts so that people could practice every day. He did go to the tavern to eat, however.
“I will walk with you home,” Dogon said.
“Thank ye,” Daw said.
“You like the bow?”
He laughed, “My wife said I like the bow more than her.”
“Is she right?”
He laughed again. “She is.”
Dogon laughed, again clapped the man on the shoulder. He kept his hand there. “That is the mark of a professional archer, Daw.”
“I just do as the king commands. But – I do like this.”
“Come back to the Butts tomorrow.”
He shook his head, “I can only go on Sundays. My wife has things for me to do.”
“To the devil with your wife. Who rules the house?”
He spat out a laugh, this time uncomfortable. “Truly?”
“No, not truly. You rule the house, and to the devil with her.”
He said nothing, but Dogon could see him shaking his head.
Dogon frowned in the darkness. He was at the tavern, so he bid goodbye to Daw.
2.
Dogon entered the smoke-filled tavern, filled also with all kinds of men of ill repute. He put a hand on his dagger hilt and walked into the place. Conversations didn’t cease, but they went down in volume. He walked up to the bar and asked the innkeeper for whatever was available.
They called him a Saracen because of his darker coloring, but he was really from a place farther east of that. The peasants here didn’t know what a Saracen was – if they did, they would know he shouldn’t be drinking the house beer. Nor would he be eating pork.
The tavern offered veal stew with black bread, which he took to a table by a window. He drank the beer, looked out the window, ignoring the conversation around him. He thought of Daw. He’d been attracted to other archers before, and they’d had liaisons, but he never stayed in one place long enough to form a relationship. He had only been here three weeks, and most had progressed to at least drawing the bow. None had progressed like Daw had.
Dogon shook his head. He couldn’t get the man out of his mind. Maybe now was the time to settle down, to settle with one man.
But Daw was married. Dogon been a homewrecker before – a few times, in fact – and none of them ended up pretty. One man committed suicide for him. He bore that guilt for years. This was also a Christian shire, and would probably look down upon him having any kind of relationship with another man. He could move, but would Daw go with him? Would Daw want to travel the world or be like most of the Englishmen in this room – not comfortable with venturing any further out than the nearest market town?
As he ate, the door opened again. This time the conversation in the room slowed down and stopped. Dogon looked behind him, and then turned back to his soup immediately. It was the sheriff, the man who had talked the Duke into hiring him and thought he was his best friend. Possibly even more, but Dogon wasn’t encouraging that.
The sheriff was not well-liked in the town because he was also the tax-collector, and had a very heavy hand when dealing with some people. Word got around.
Suddenly, many people had other things to do, and left the common room. Dogon debated on leaving his dinner and walking out, but he was hungry. So he prayed, Please don’t sit here, please don’t sit here…
“Mind if I sit with you, Saracen?”
Dogon, his mouth full, waved his hand to the chair opposite him. Sometimes he wondered whether the Lady ever heard his prayers anymore, or they were being interceded by someone else who was a trickster.
Sheriff William of Harrogate was a man of average height, but considerable strength. He could draw a bow easily and shoot at the target. Dogon had seen William lift a man twice his size and throw him a good two rods away into the stream nearby. Someday he would like to shoot against him, or attempt feats of strength, but for now, Dogon wanted to eat and get away.
Like all Englishmen, William had an aversion to water. He bathed once for Easter and once for Lammas. All the other times, he just stank. He turned Dogon’s stomach. Dogon gave up on the stew and munched on the bread.
“Not any good?”
Dogon wordlessly pushed it toward William, who started to eat it and talk with his mouth full, spitting out broth.
“How’s the group coming along?”
“Average. Men are not practicing.”
“They have to farm, you know.”
“The king wants them ready in a fortnight, and with this group, I cannot.”
“The king, bah, he doesn’t care what we do up here.” He waved his hand and spilled more soup. Dogon sighed – he was quite in his cups. He finished his bread.
Continued William, “Instead of having them hit targets, have them hit men. That’s what they’re going to do on the battlefield.”
Dogon got up. “I need to go.”
“Thank ye for the soup, Saracen.”
Dogon went for the door and stepped outside, gasping for air. William smelled like liquor and rotten food and stale sex. Sometimes it was a bad thing to have a good nose.
3.
Dogon did his usual routine – no matter how cold, and no matter how strange the English thought, he always bathed in the river in the morning. He left his chamise up in the tree and walked off the banks into the river. He found plants on the side of the river for soap, and set to washing his hair, a tedious and time consuming thing, since it was curly and kinked. He had no comb, and the peasants here had no idea what one was. They all cut their hair short, anyway.
He was chest high in the river, letting the fish swim between his legs and applying the soapwort to his hair, when a voice called from the banks, “Hail, Dogon!”
Dogon flipped back his hair, sending a rainbow of droplets into the air, and looked to see who was on the bank.
Daw waved to him.
Gods!
Dogon must have looked shocked, and he hoped that Daw couldn’t see into the river, see that his cock had started to swell. Dogon waved back, tentatively. Then Daw sat down at the base of the tree and waited.
Balls! Well, there was nothing for it. He rinsed out his hair and started back to the riverbank, thinking of the ugliest man he had ever seen. It helped, as he cleared the bank and his cock, though swollen a bit, was not jutting out straight this time.
“Hello, Daw Archer,” said Dogon.
“I have to ask: Can you make money as an archer?”
“Yes, you can, as a mercenary.”
“Mercenary?”
“You join a group of men as an archer. A man like you can command a lot of money.” He went to a wineskin and drank some of the thin wine he got in the morning. “You have to travel.” Dogon reached up for his chamise. Daw watched him, and Dogon turned his back to him, not trusting himself.
“I won’t see my wife and my children?”
“Probably not for years. But when you come back, you will be a rich man.”
“Have you done it?”
Dogon turned around and finger-combed his beard. “Yes. I’ve done it for many years.”
“What does your wife think of it?”
“I have no wife.”
“No?” He looked shocked.
“I have no need of a wife.”
“You don’t want children?”
“No.” Dogon wiped his feet on the grass to get the sand of the riverbank off of them, and said, “So why have you come? Without your bow?”
“I snuck away from the fields. I wanted to come see you.”
“To ask about being an archer.”
“My wife – my ma and da – they think it’s silly training to be an archer, that I should train to be a farmer.”
“Do you have brothers and sisters?”
“Yes, many.”
Dogon waved his hand. “Let them be the farmers. You follow your heart.”
“I don’t want to go alone.”
Dogon stopped, turned, and faced him. “You want to come with me?”
“How long are you staying?”
“A fortnight. Then I am going to the Old Bridge.”
He frowned. “I would abandon my wife and children.”
Yes, you would. Then I would have you, Dogon thought. “You’re going to come back, aren’t you?” Not if Dogon had his way. Part of him didn’t like how he was being manipulative. You’re acting like your brother, Gir-Tab.
“Yes.” Daw smiled, “I’ll be rich enough to buy the land we farm for the manor?”
“You’ll be rich enough to buy the manor.”
“Are you?”
Dogon laughed. “Archer, I can buy this borough.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Truly?”
“Yes.”
“To find someone like you.”
Daw’s jaw dropped. Then he blushed.
Dogon took a risk. He took a very big risk. He reached out and caressed Daw’s cheek.
Daw snapped his head up. Dogon whisked his hand away. “I’m sorry. I’m very sorry.”
“Saracens…men…love men?”
“Where I am from, it is not…evil.”
“But to do that – it’s not for pleasure.”
Dogon smirked, “Who says? Your priests? Who have concubines?”
“The priests will go to heaven no matter what they do. It’s the rest of us that will go to hell.”
Dogon spoke conspiratorially, “I have died, my friend, and I have seen the afterlife. It is not what you think.”
“How – how have you died?”
Dogon took the collar of his chemise and pulled it down, past his pectoral and his nipple. He pointed to an indentation there. “An arrow through the heart.”
Daw bent down, peering at it. He reached out his hand and touched the spot. Dogon found his breath quickening. Daw touched Dogon’s nipple, and Dogon gasped. “Stop,” he said, and let go of his chemise, so the fabric covered his chest again.
Daw jerked his hand away. “This is a grievous sin.” He backed up. “I must go.”
“Wait!” called Dogon. “Wait. Tonight, bring your bow. We’ll practice.”
“In the dark?”
“I’ll have torches.”
((Close, but not quite…needs to be redone.))