Page 50 of Wench

Allen clucks his tongue. ‘You’re trying to outpace yourself. Breathe low in your belly. Like you’re drawing air from the roots, not snatching it from the branches.’

She narrows her eyes at him but obeys, hand pressed just above her navel. This time she forces herself to let the air seep into the hollow spaces before expanding. It hurts, pulling at tender flesh beneath her bandage, but when she exhales, it’s steadier.

John’s lips twitch in approval.

‘Good,’ Allen murmurs, flopping onto his back beside her. ‘Pretend your lungs are a wineskin. Fill from the bottom or you’ll only get foam. Again.’

They spend the next hour doing nothing but breathing, holding, releasing. At first Marian resents the simplicity, but slowly she begins to find comfort in the steady rhythm. Each exhale carries a sliver of tension out of her chest. Each inhale reminds her she is alive.

When he feels she’s mastered this first act, Little John shifts them to posture. They stand and he shows her how to stack spine on top of pelvis, so the body becomes a column, not a sail.

Quickly, Marian learns how to read his gestures without a word uttered between them.

He squares her hips with a light press of two fingers, tapping his foot against the backs of her knees until she softens them. A tilt of his chin tells her to widen her stance. When she overcorrects, he taps the outside of her ankle and she inches back to centre. He speaks in a language of small adjustments and patient repetition, his silence a steadier tutor than any barked command.

Allen prowls the room like a cat. ‘Proper balance is key,’ he hums under his breath. ‘If you can’t stand without toppling, then why bother putting a weapon in your hand.’

‘I am standing,’ Marian grumbles.

‘At best, you are wobbling attractively,’ he corrects. ‘The world will shove. Your job is to lean without falling.’

Little John moves first. The great frame that should belong only to a warrior bends with the grace of a tree in the wind – one leg rooted, the other lifted, arms rising slowly until his palms meet above his head. His balance is astonishing; not a tremor disturbs him, though his bulk could crush the boards. Then he shifts again, folding downward until his knuckles brush the floor, spine arched like a drawn bow.

‘Show-off,’ Allen grumbles. Then he adds to Marian, ‘He practises every morning. Says if he can balance the body, the heart follows.’

Little John only grins and holds another impossible pose: one arm extended, the other braced behind him, toes barely grazing the mat.

Allen watches the quiet display for a moment before muttering, ‘Lox says it’s his patience that makes John dangerous. That a man who can stand still for an hour without complaint can wait out a storm, or an army.’

Marian raises a brow, glancing between them. ‘You make it sound like he’s some kind of monk,’ she whispers.

Allen laughs. ‘Close enough. Though he’s got a temper when you cross him. Ask Lox about the time John threw a drunkard halfway across a tavern because the fool called him lumber-brained.’ He drops easily into a crouch, resting his elbows on his knees. ‘Lox was lucky they didn’t string them both up. Though, to be fair, Lox could charm a gallows’ rope into loosening if he wanted to. That’s half the reason the rest of us stick around.’

Marian attempts to mimic John’s stance, bending one leg and extending the other, but immediately topples sideways. The ache in her chest smarts as her arms flail.

‘How long have you been his . . .’ She hesitates on the word. ‘Merry Men?’

Allen barks a laugh and darts close, catching her elbow. ‘Lox hates that name more than Robin Hood. Says it makes us sound like court jesters rather than thieves and rebels.’ He grins at John, who snorts quietly through his nose. ‘We’re not Lox’s anything, really, and he’d prefer it that way. But he’s got our love, our loyalty, and our chaos, whether or not he wants it. A leader who doesn’t want a throne is the only kind worth following.’

‘Voice of the people,’ Marian murmurs before she can stop herself.

Allen’s mouth tilts. ‘He’d tell you the people already have voices. He just gets loud enough that the ones with crowns can’t pretend they don’t hear them.’

Little John nods once in agreement, folding easily until his arms splay wide, spine twisted in a way that would make a lesser man groan. Yet his balance doesn’t falter for a breath. ‘Soft knees,’ Allen adds, steadying Marian as she bends forward again. ‘Don’t lock them. You’re not a tree trunk; you’re a willow. Bend, don’t snap.’

They watch Little John hold the pose longer than seems possible, breath deep and unhurried. When he straightens again, there’s a serenity about him that humbles her more than any display of strength could.

‘How did you all find one another?’ Marian grunts through gritted teeth as she struggles against gravity.

Allen’s mouth tugs to the side. ‘I’m a wandering bard; travelling is in my nature, but there was a time when I’d run out of songs worth singing. I’d lost my dear Alaric the winter prior.’ He pauses as his throat bobs, eyes shining with the memory. ‘I was half-drowned in grief and mead, unable to see the point any more . . . and then Lox found me.’ Allen’s voice is gentle as he speaks, the usual spark softened into something older. ‘He was just another stranger in a hood then, all sharp teeth and clever eyes. I told him to piss off, but he sat right beside me in the mud and said, “If you can’t find a reason to sing, then borrow mine.” Next thing I knew, I was following him into Sherwood.’

Little John flows into another shape: one heel rooted, the other foot lifted behind him, his massive torso pitched forward. It looks impossible – a mountain pretending to be a molehill – and yet he holds it as if gravity obeys him instead of the other way around.

Marian teeters as she lowers herself into a lopsided version of his stance. ‘And John?’

‘He was banished from his clan years ago for saving humans,’ Allen reveals quietly. ‘Lightning strikes set a village aflame. His people said it wasn’t their place to meddle, but he charged in anyway. Saved women and children, a few soldiers too, before the smoke got him. His clan called it meddling, said Sherwood took his voice as punishment for disobeying them. They exiled him for it.’

Marian stills. Her father would have called it weakness or a trap. Her mother would have said it was an old wives’ tale, that no fae would risk their life for a mortal. But standing here, watching Little John move with such grace and quiet dignity, she can’t reconcile the monster from their stories with the man before her.