TITLE: Greenwode
AUTHOR: J Tullos Hennig
GENRE: Fantasy > Historical | LGBT > MM
PUBLISHED: October 2014 (2nd edition)
RATING: ★★★★★
PURCHASE LINKS: DSP Publications
MOBILISM LINK: Read
Description: The Hooded One. The one to breathe the dark and light and dusk between...
When an old druid foresees this harbinger of chaos, he also glimpses its future. A peasant from Loxley will wear the Hood and, with his sister, command a last, desperate bastion of Old Religion against New. Yet a devout nobleman's son could well be their destruction—Gamelyn Boundys, whom Rob and Marion have befriended. Such acquaintance challenges both duty and destiny. The old druid warns that Rob and Gamelyn will be cast as sworn enemies, locked in timeless and symbolic struggle for the greenwode's Maiden.
Instead, a defiant Rob dares his Horned God to reinterpret the ancient rites, allow Rob to take Gamelyn as lover instead of rival. But in the eyes of Gamelyn’s Church, sodomy is unthinkable... and the old pagan magics are an evil that must be vanquished.
Review: Robin Hood! Yes! I like these kind of tales. Especially if they are well researched and retold based on original scripts like Greenwode is. Thirty years long author Hennig had this particular project stewing while visiting England and consulting old tomes. Early on she wrote the first book and only recently the whole thing matured for publication, the second book called Shirewode.
Before you read ahead or even glance at the book, I recommend you forget all you know about Robin Hood, especially erase all fantasies you harbor originating from Hollywood movies and Walt Disney. Except the fact that Robin is as good with a bow as the legends say.
The concept of translating homoerotic hints in several centuries-old tales and plays into a full-fledged alternate historical fantasy novel intrigued me and I picked this one up right after its first publication in 2013. If you did read my introduction in the announcement thread, you know that language is somewhat fascinating to me and my expectations were high for Greenwode. Hennig here does not disappoint me. She used the Yorkshire dialect that probably reflects even in these days the sound of the old language used centuries ago; though mostly in the dialogue, I believe, to make it easier on the reader...
“Da wants you. He’s an errand for you.” Gray eyes took in Rob’s clenched palm, the suspiciously bulging bag tied to his waist. “And if he finds you’ve been feeding deer again, you’ll be in for it.”
“He’ll not find out unless you tell.”
“And why shouldn’t I?”
Rob grinned, crossed his arms, and leaned against a young oak. “We-elll, mayhap if I let slip—out of fear of punishment, mind—that I saw you in the fodder bin with Tom, the carter’s son?”
“You treacherous little sod,” Marion replied, but there was admiration in it. “All right, then. Pax. You dinna tell about Tom, and I say nowt to your little assignation.”
“Little what? Are you calling me an ass?”
Marion rolled her eyes, leaned forward, and grabbed him by one grass-stained woolsey sleeve. “As-sig-nation, y’fool. It means a meeting. Tryst.”
“Well, why didna you just say that?” Rob protested as she began to propel him, hand still on his arm, toward home.
“I did just say that. Can I help it if you’re a daft knob who canna be arsed to pay attention to his learning?”
“Parchments are a waste of time—ow!” He tried to pull from her grip; she just grabbed tighter and kept him on the march. “G’off me, I’m going, I’m going! And I’ve no need for smelly old tomes, I’ve my bow.”
“I’ve a bow too. Sometimes I outshoot even you, laddie. It doesna mean I’ve no need for my brain.”
“You’ll drive young Tom off, you will. Men dinna fancy clever women.”
Marion snorted. “Like you would know, boy.”
“I’m nearly a man!”
“Nearly only counts in quoits.”
“Da married Mam when he was fifteen!”
“You’re not even looking fifteen in the eye yet; I know ’cause I saw you born. How about we wait at least ’til your voice breaks to speak of it again?”
Rob tried to answer this, found “fuming” to be a word he did know.
“Anyway, you’re assuming I’m not clever enough to hide my cleverness. Not that I’m planning on marrying Tom.”
“You keep on with what I saw you two about in the hay ricks and you might have to—Ow!” Bloody hell, but she had a fearful left cross. “I dinna know what you see in Tom.”
“He’s got nice eyes. And golden hair—”
“What’s so special about that? He looks like corn that’s been in the ground too long. He’d never have a chance in the forest; anyone would see him coming for miles.” Rob shrugged free of Marion’s grip only to have her grab him again. “’Tennyrate, the only reason Tom’s so fair-haired is that he uses lime paste.”
Marion shot him a look—clearly this was news to her. Unfortunately, it didn't stop her from continuing to propel him forward. “You'll understand soon enough. You’ll see some girl that tilts your braies and then you'll want to be tilting into her.”
“This is more than I really wanted to know about you, thanks awfully. I dinna like girls. Giggling, silly things, all sick-sweet flowers from their skirts to their empty heads.”
A snort. “You like me.”
“You ent a girl, then, are you? You're my sister.”
Yes, Robin and Marion won't be in love, married or otherwise, because here they are brother and sister. Rob’s the son of the forester, a member of folk who do still walk the paths of the Old, druids and all. They are lowly people, rangers and farmers, while Rob’s father Adam, has gained the trust of the village more than the thane of Loxley and often is referred to as ‘Lord’, his real status notwithstanding.
Running his father’s errand, Rob has a remarkable encounter with a gray stallion that apparently lost its rider. The trail leads Rob to a injured youth of high standing, a noble, unconscious lying about in the forest.
Gamelyn wakes from his hard fall only to see a lad staring at him and he gets scared. Superstition fed by stories of ghosts and demons roaming these forests overtakes his good sense...
“What do you want of me?” Gamelyn tried to make his voice steady, succeeded after a fashion. Aye, he’d not go craven, even if unshriven.
A horrific screech echoed through the thick dim, reverberating off the trees. Gamelyn remembered that sound bringing and breaking the delirium of his fall. The buck had bowled them over and he’d gotten dragged a short ways, had lain for some indeterminate time, heard that horrible shriek. He regretted then and there he’d not just fallen in a faint like some tight-laced lass, wondered if the demon lad had called his kin to finish the job and crossed himself.
The demon lad did not, unfortunately, go up in flames at the fervent genuflection. Instead he merely blinked, as if puzzled. The shriek sounded again, this time with a definite thud at the end, and the demon lad suddenly laughed. “Sounds as if they’ve had enough. I know you’re a bit addled, but do you think you can walk? We’d better go and fetch them before they wander off, eh?”
Gamelyn blinked. “What?”
“Your stallion. My mare. I think she’s tired of him for now.” The narrow face bent closer to Gamelyn and said, very slowly, “Our horses. We have to catch them up. Ride home. Do you understand me? At that, do you even know where home is?”
He seemed exasperated.
At some point Rob - annoyed - succeeds to coax and manhandle a vexed and only half-in-his-wits Gamelyn back to Rob’s home where his mother and sister take charge of the noble’s wounds. It is there Gamelyn actually realizes that Rob is just a boy and no demon at all. Or man-wolf. Or Ghost. Or whatever supernatural somethings said to lurk in the forests. Gamelyn is amazed how open these people are when interacting with each other. His thoughts hint to a very different upbringing than Rob’s, a strict, lonely if not violent one, dictated by etiquette and religion.
Rob doesn’t like Gamelyn. He thinks of him as most commoners think of gentry: violent, self-centered, using their good luck of birth to their advantage. It’s only in time he learns otherwise and they develop an uncommon friendship while growing up to young adults. To this point I found the story sweet but light. Images flowed through my mind, colored by Hennig’s language and easy use of the same, even considering the dialect. Some words made me stumble a bit but in the context I quickly understood their meaning.
I followed the two protagonists and the next steps in their relationship, difficult steps because they are attracted to each other. Gamelyn’s Catholic Church doesn’t allow the like and I watched him struggle while Rob barters with his pagan god, The Horned One. Eventually they find themselves exchanging passion and touch. Still the story continues in rather sweet tones and only on the horizon do the first dark clouds of foreboding arrive. Enraptured I read on. Turns out, their destiny is irrevocably intertwined and my heart ached at a particular gruesome incident brought on by Gamelyn’s family…
J Tullos Hennig spins a tale worthy of Shakespeare with all the components needed: tragedy, sweetness, enmity and betrayal, inner and outer conflicts, (lost) love and magic, all in a believable historical context, and she still manages to draw some laughter from me.
I like fantasy novels and more so when magic is a logical and natural component that doesn’t talk of overpowered, invincible, either throughout bad or good creatures. Hennig implements magic as part of simply being. It flows, lives, gives deeper sense rather like a matrix in which everything else comes to life. And logically in such a system, bad and good are not separated but intertwined, like Yin-Yang.
This book combines almost everything I wish for in a good novel I cannot stop reading. As for me, I grabbed the second volume as soon as I finished the first. Maybe you will too.