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“Well,” an accented voice calls, “You’re certainly a difficult man to track down.”
A flurry of movement overtakes the valley that they’ve claimed for their own, bows and arrows drawn at the ready. The intruder raises his hands impishly, smirk twitching at his lips. “Suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, you English aren’t exactly known for your hospitality, are you?”
Robin lowers his bow slightly, arrow tipped to the earth at his feet, and walks to the edge of the greenwood, nearer where the man is. “State your purpose,” he shouts, “Or just as kindly be on your way.”
“I hear you’re in the wealth redistribution game.” The man nods, giving Robin a smile outright.
*
They’re due to meet first thing, a foreign prince’s convoy scheduled to pass through on its way to York just as the morning light breaks. Robin waits with the rest for their newest recruit to arrive.
“It’s a trap,” Will says, picking at the filth beneath his nails. “Don’t know how many times I need to say it.”
“Never could trust a Viking,” John adds.
A rustling comes from the bushes to their left, Magnus tumbling out. Robin eyes him. “You took your time.”
Magnus returns the expression, unimpressed. “You’ll forgive me for having a life,” a beat, as Robin's lot look at him with blank faces, “surely.”
Allan’s been posted a ways up on the road on lookout, and he hisses at them now. The convoy is coming; Robin and his men rush to take up their places, hidden in the roughage lining the road. Magnus ends up next to him, big body compacted tightly next to Robin’s own large frame, Magnus somehow dwarfing him despite Magnus's lighter build. It’s been a dry winter and half the bushes around them are dead; it's only thanks to this that the bright shock of his blond hair doesn’t stand out as much as it might otherwise, even done up in a braid like it is. Magnus’s eyes catch his just before Robin’s about to give the call for them to attack.
The bastard winks.
Robin fights a smile and shouts for his men to move. Everything happens in an instant after that, arrows flying. Robin isn’t keen to have blood on his hands, so the first thing they do is tie up the men stationed as knights, or whatever it is the men Swedish lords outfit themselves with are titled.
His new friend keeps to the bushes until all the lord’s men are tied up, their heads disappeared under patchwork sacks, as much an admission as any that the man is a renegade servant brought along with the lord’s court as much as his accent and appearance are. The Lord above knows that Robin has to right to judge in such matters. He throws open the door to the carriage — only to find it empty.
Magnus rolls his eyes, jumping inside to remove the items within, passing them over to John and the rest to start unloading. “Typical,” he says, speaking to Robin.
“Your lot make a habit of travelling without their lordship?”
“When the Lord in question is Erik,” Magnus says, pausing in his handling. “You focus on your job and leave it up to him to get where it is he needs being. Even his advisors have given up on him.”
“That so?”
“It is indeed.” Magnus has finished clearing the inside, feet dangling out the door, very nearly touching the ground with the length of them. Robin’s tempted to ask him to stand next to the horses at the front of the carriage, to see how few hands there are between Magnus and the beasts, if a hand separates them at all. “Though you can keep the judgment out of your tone, if you don’t mind. It’s your own barons who came calling to foreign royals by the likes of Lord Erik to see things made right against that king of yours, rather than aligning their interests with the common folk.” Magnus’s voice is pitched low, quiet enough as to not see it carry to his compatriots tied up further down the road. Robin will leave them there to be found, sure that the well-to-do of York will send rescue when their expected guests don’t arrive in due time.
Serves them right for crossing through Robin’s greenwood, really.
“You aren’t wrong there,” Robin agrees. “Now,” he claps his hands together, “should we tie you up as well, or can your absence be explained a little longer yet?”
*
Magnus gets along with the lads. Robin isn’t sure why the reality of it surprises him, but it does. The youngins love him, climbing onto his arms and laughing as he lifts them up. The older boys whine until John sits him down at log to arm wrestle, and Robin is surprised by how many of the bouts Magnus wins despite John having the bigger bulk, even if they are of a height.
Night comes swiftly now that the solstice has passed, and the day seems to disappear in a blink, especially with a solid job behind them, pride and accomplishment thrumming through their blood. Under the cover of darkness they venture to Nottingham, welcomed as heroes with the spoils of their victory carried in on their backs to be passed over to the townsfolk and beyond, all the local villages benefitting from Robin’s scheme.
He settles himself at his usual table and isn’t at all surprised when Magnus joins him, gold hair turned to copper in the flickering light of the tavern.
“What is that you do then,” Robin asks, “in Lord Erik’s court?”
Magnus seems surprised at the question. “A great number of things.”
“I’ll only ask for one.”
They share a look, the thread of something passing between them.
“I believe it’s called Favorites, here.”
Robin would’ve figured as much, with the way Magnus looks. Erik has good taste, whatever else might be said of him. “I’d asked around,” Robin says, lowering his voice. “After you first came to us. There’s rumours.”
Magnus sets down his drink and folds his hands into his lap, looking at Robin from across the table with a lazy cast to his eyes. They're such a pale shade of blue that they might as well be grey — which, Robin supposes, perhaps they are, and there isn't any point in comparing them to blue at all. “We’ve got rumours about you too, back home.” He nods his chin to Robin. “Loads of them. That you’re truly Sir Robert, who went far beyond the call of duty for Richard the Lionheart, if you catch my meaning, though when we landed ashore I had that one cleared up for me - you not being a Sir that is.” His hand comes up from his belly, and he ticks a finger. “Then I got to hear all about Robin of the Hood, who banded with a group of merry bastards, standing the richest man without a title, and yet is a well to his people, keeping nothing for himself, not even the late Sir Robert’s rather unexpected widow.”
“All that about little old me?”
Magnus shrugs. “When an interested party goes beating through the bushes, I suppose.”
They’re back to staring at one another.
“How are you with a bow?” Robin surprises himself by asking, but, well, in for a penny.
“Absolute shite.”
“Care for some lessons?”
They’re out the door without anyone to miss them. Robin leads them past the edge of town, off where the practice range has been set up. They don’t leave bows in case of bandits or worse, and Robin hadn’t brought his own with him when they’d come into town.
Of course, he hasn't brought Magnus out of the warmth of the tavern for shooting, and he’s certain Magnus knows it too.
Robin has to get up on his toes to reach Magnus’s mouth, but beyond that it’s as easy as it’s ever been. Magnus does him one better by getting his hands around Robin’s middle and hefting him up. He supports Robin’s weight for a few passes of their tongues before seeming to think better of it, the endless length of his legs bending until the pair of them have dropped down to their knees in the long grass, necking like they aren’t long from trailing after their mother's skirts.
He gets a hand on Magnus’s belt; Magnus pulls back, panting hard. “We shouldn’t,” he says, sucking in breath.
Robin frowns. He isn't one for games. “Why’d you come?”
“I wanted to see what you’d do.” Robin gives him an unimpressed look. “All right, because I’ve been known to think with my prick more than my head on more than one occasion.”
“Which I suppose is how one ends up Favourite to a Lord he can’t stand.”
Magnus’s smile goes a bit twisted in the middle. “Aye.” He finally lets go of where he’d still been clutching Robin, dropping down onto his backside in the grass, still holding Robin's gaze. “It’d be a shame to muddle our working relationship, don’t you think?”
Robin doesn’t stop from rolling his eyes, though he's doubtful Magnus will’ve seen it in the dark of the night, even with the moon as bright as it is. “We’ve only started.”
“A promising future, then.”
“I’m willing to risk it,” Robin says, tone as dry as any of the deserts Richard marched them through.
“Well, I’m not.” It’s earnest, something Robin hadn’t expected.
It makes him laugh, realizing just what it is that he’s doing, practically begging a man likely half his age to give him the time of day.
He’d thought himself past this, and yet here he is. “Who taught you how to negotiate?” Robin asks, looking to shift the mood.
Magnus seems of a mind to let him. “Clearly someone more skilled than whomever it is that taught you,” he teases. “This you giving up, then?”
“I didn’t say that.” Robin gives him a closed-mouth smile. “The thing about negotiation,” he says, bringing his hands up to show his palms, “at least here in England,” he grins outright at Magnus’s lofty nod, the way the man gestures for Robin to continue with a lazy flick of his wrist, “is that at a certain point, you’ve just got to wait for the other party to need you.”
“Is that right?”
Robin moves slowly, giving Magnus ample time to deny him, to move out of Robin's path, as he crawls towards the other man, making his way up Magnus's long body until their faces are of a level. Robin kisses him a final time, lingering, putting his all into it.
When he pulls back, Magnus’s eyes are closed, face slack.
“Now, Magnus,” he says. “You find yourself with any needs you need sorting out, you come looking for Robin, yeah?”
Magnus’s eyes flutter open, silvery-blond lashes of his catching the moonlight. “Yeah,” he mumbles.
“Good.”
*
Given what Robin was made to sacrifice, he sees to it that Magnus and he continue their working relationship. Eventually Erik does make it to York, and a great procession of the kingdom’s elite seem to think it worth a pilgrimage to make his acquaintance, eager for his support.
The king's roads fill with convoys that Robin and his men have an easy time picking off, Magnus's information getting them to just the right time and place to see such matters done.
Magnus, for his part, truly seems to relish the part, looking a model Viking as he rifles through the belongings of the well-to-do, nose raised at the excess. He is always careful not to reveal his face to their victims, standing back until they have been blindfolded or sacked.
Robin is often distracted, for all that he keeps to Magnus's wishes of a working relationship, his eyes drifting to Magnus as they settle up their tasks, mind consumed with him.
"What do you do each day that keeps you so occupied?"
Magnus queries him with his eyes, squinting over the lopsided tilt to his smile. "Forgive me," he says, "but I feel we have ventured this ground before, friend."
Crossing his hands across his chest, Robin steps closer, his voice dropping. "What I mean is — how important is your position that you only seem able to sneak away so early in the mornings, or so deep into the night?" His eyebrows rise meaningfully. "One would think, well," in the end he cannot quite bring himself to say it, or indeed to even imply.
Magnus does not possess such hindrances. "What?" he asks, face alight with mirth. "That these should be the hours of my honest work?" He shakes his head. "And what of it? What business is it of yours when Erik has need of me, and how it might differ from what is expected?"
Robin snorts. It should be clear to anyone with the slightest use of their minds that whatever it is Magnus does, he is wasted in Erik's court. Robin would care to know if Magnus has ties back where he's from, or if he's perhaps as free to resettle in a place of his choosing just as Robin and his men had. "And if I wanted to make it my business?"
The man looks more fond than anything else, his honour, such as it is, intact. He takes it far better than an Englishman might. Far better than Robin would, in his place, which leaves Robin desiring him all the more for it. "Has anyone ever told you that you're insufferable?" Magnus asks.
"It's been suggested, yes."
*
A piece of information comes Robin's way, pertaining to an event a few days hence. He chews on it in the back of his mind, considering, and shares it with no other in his camp.
He's going to act on it, of course. That isn't a matter of debate. It's just the tricky notion of seeing his plans set into motion without the men catching wind.
In the end it's much simpler than he'd expected. There is to be a ball for the visiting Swedish court, nearly all the region's wine transported in for the occasion. Robin keeps his crews from it, wanting his intended targets well and truly drunk.
The night wears on, Robin watching from just outside the modest castle, waiting until the guards on duty seem wobbly in their steps, never mind the guests themselves. Robin makes quick work of the security, letting himself inside sight-unseen, stepping through the halls and dashing out of view whenever someone seems to be heading down the hallway he's in.
He listens at just about every great door that he comes across, straining to make out voices through the heavy wood, searching for where the foreign party has been quartered. In the end it doesn't matter; he nearly steps right into the wing where Lord Erik himself is turning in for the night, a servant speaking to him in the hallway.
"You're certain you don't need anything, Sir?" There's a heavy hint of something in the lad’s tone, though his accent is as local as they come. It appears that Robin isn't the only one who's queried after the Swedish Lord's reputation and been receptive to what they've heard for their trouble. Robin wonders just how Magnus feels about that, or if perhaps he's glad to give his spoiled benefactor to whatever local is willing to have him, an easy excuse to get away.
"I'm quite all right.” Erik’s native accent is thick on his tongue as he speaks English. The bastard sounds amused. Flattered, but not interested. Maybe he isn't as dim as Robin assumed; Robin certainly wouldn’t be caught with his hands wandering if he had the likes of Magnus to warm his bed, that is for sure.
There's the sound of the door closing, steps disappearing down the hallway. Robin's hand goes to the sword at his belt, tightening at the hilt. He prefers his bow, all things even, but he won't shame himself in a swordfight, especially not against some high-born brat. He creeps down the hallway and presses his ear to the door.
The door opens with a wisp of a sound, hinges well seen-to. Robin steps inside and closes it behind him as quietly as he'd pried it open.
The room has been turned down for the night, the fire raging. Magnus is standing by the dressing table. He is done up extraordinarily, crown atop his head, jewels catching the light on all of his fingers, fine furs draped over his shoulders, giving way to the lush velvet fabric of his tunic underneath. His hair is not done in its usual long braid and instead is laid down, the bits closest to his face braided away from his face.
Robin is surprised that Erik is able to outfit his Favourite in such a manner, that his English patrons are so comfortable having Magnus in this room. Though he supposes that they are considered to be from a Godless kingdom. and it isn't as if Robin's own supposed betters haven't also been well-known to cast aside their supposed scruples in the search of quests for power besides.
"Where's Erik?" he asks, keeping his voice low.
Magnus turns, startled. His eyes take up much of his face, their usual almond shape turned wide, looking at Robin as if he were a ghost.
The truth dawns on Robin far slower than it has any right to, though in his defence, most of his thinking, when it comes to Magnus, has originated from between his thighs.
"Oh." He does not care for the sullenness that carries through his tone. "You'll be happy to know I didn't even suspect."
Magnus comes back to himself, hands curling at his sides. His smile is awkward, as if it doesn't know if its appearance is well-met. "Not even a little?" he asks. The thick accent from the hallway is gone.
"Not for a single moment."
"And to think that you have outwitted kings," Magnus teases. The air between them is fragile. He reaches up and removes the crown from his head, settling it on the pillow atop the table. "You did not find it odd," he presses, "for a servant to speak near-fluent English, when none of my court has shown the ability, even when captured?"
Robin is ashamed to admit he had not considered it. "Favourites can be well educated," he offers, his excuse plucked from the air. Obviously so, if Magnus's disbelieving expression is to go by.
"What are you doing here?"
Robin lets go of his sword’s handle, stepping into the room properly and allowing himself to look around, taking it in with clear eyes. Perhaps the clearest his gaze has been in weeks. "I wanted to see my competition," he huffs, shaking his head at himself. "They said the Swedish court was not long for these shores and I wanted —" Robin cannot say what it is that he wanted, not truly, and he sits on the bed in a heavy thump. He had plans of fighting for Magnus's honour, for his hand. Of approaching Erik outright and seeing if he felt as little for Magnus as Magnus feels for him, and perhaps offering to return some favored items from what had been in exchange for Magnus being excused from his lord's service. Of perhaps taking Magnus as his willing hostage, the two of them playing a trick on this idiot lord, one final siege before Erik left and Magnus, impressed and fond, decided to stay with Robin.
It seems a fool's dream to Robin now. Indulgences befitting a boy and not a man so well travelled as to have long since put such fantasies from his mind.
Magnus is kind, and does not press him. "I have met with your barons and I fear there is not much more I can achieve in these lands of yours," he says, pulling the rings from his fingers. "But there is much I might manage within my own. You, Robin, have shown me that."
Robin allows himself to digest this, rising from his seat on the bed and venturing nearer to Magnus at his dressing table. He supposes that as Magnus assisted in Robin’s petty robberies, Erik did have full days indeed. The reputation must leave peers far more likely to show their true feelings than if the man were a respected, principled; Robin has no doubt that Erik has looked into their hearts and found them wanting, no redemption to be found. No accomplices to be had in whatever Erik's politics are, exactly.
"It sounds as if we are no longer partners, then."
"Well —"
Robin attacks him swiftly, fingers gathering the furs still draped across Magnus's shoulders and using the weight of them to drag him down. He sees to it that it is his own back that hits the stone floor, Magnus's bulk blanketing him, their chests pressed together.
The wind comes out as a laugh as it is knocked from his lungs.
Magnus kisses him first, frantic. He had arrived clean-shaven, but a beard has grown over the weeks he has been with Robin and his men, and the soft texture of it catches against Robin's own poor attempts at grooming.
It is Magnus who pulls back again, as with their last attempt at this dance. Robin finds that he is far less charmed by it now, with the full context between them. "This," Magnus says, and his accent is thicker, similar to how it'd been with the servant in the hall, and Robin realizes that the lack of it is the act, and not the other way round — he wonders what Magnus must think of him, to assume a less foreign man would be kinder met by Robin and his mates; and what it does mean, that he was likely correct to assume so? — "is what you choose to concern yourself with, after all that it is I've said?"
Shrugging beneath the heft of a man Magnus's size is no easy task, but Robin manages it enough. "I'm used to your class letting me down," he says. "'suppose I may as well get something out of it."
Magnus's eyes narrow. He drops lower, nosing along Robin's jaw. "If I said my reputation wasn't entirely ill-earned?" he asks. "And is not just meant to give me leave by which to see to greater tasks to achieve our mutual goals?"
"I think you very well know that all of our goals are mutual to that end," Robin rolls his head so that their eyes catch, "my Lord Erik."
*
Robin wakes in the morning to an empty room, but that is to be expected. He escapes the castle before any of the pages might come to attend to the room while its master is out, knowing that whatever Lord Erik's reputation might be, it certainly won't survive Robin Longstride having been found in his bed, satisfied and well used.
Marion's the one who finds him when he returns to the greenwood, amusement bright on her face. "What did you get up to?" she asks.
"Probably something that'll haunt me," is his answer, in no mood to be teased.
She recognizes it instantly, giving him a sympathetic frown. "For good or bad?"
"Now that," Robin says, "remains to be seen."
He returns to the tent that serves as his home and sleeps the morning away, dreams filled with the night behind him, the pleasures tasted within Magnus's body, and the ones he shared with Magnus in return.
Robin goes to his men after the mid-day meal, squinting at the sun even though drink was one indulgence neither he nor Magnus undertook.
"There he is," Allan calls, making his way over with a cup that Robin does not think twice in swallowing down. "Messenger came for you." He hands over a piece of paper, done up right with a seal and everything.
The younger boys hoot and holler, while Robin's men share a far more conspiratorial look.
"What does it say?" Will asks. Robin is suprised they kept themselves from tearing it open as he slept.
Perhaps there is some gentlemanry to be found in them yet.
"It reads," Robin says, squinting as he picks the seal from the edge and unfolds the paper, "When you finish your merrymaking on this island of yours, know that there awaits like-minded souls on the continent, mine chiefly among them."
Snickers break out anew. Robin's heart thunders in his chest. "Boys," he calls. "What say you to another crusade?"
"I'd say you're fucking mad," Will answers.
Robin laughs, and supposes that is certainly fair. "A crusade to see that those in all lands have a chance at liberty, as we have been so thoroughly denied," he continues, voice rising. "To help plant the seeds of our cause abroad, for it would seem our Enemy The King does not keep his own interests so contained, nor the lords who seek to free themselves even as they hope to keep us so thoroughly under heel!”
Muttering breaks out, the men discussing it amongst themselves. A voice rises among the rest, Little John easy to make out amongst the crowd. "So — it'll be robbin' from toffs abroad, and spending our nights with foreign girls?"
The mood of the wood turns in an instant, excitement replacing the potential for malcontent. John looks smug, and Robin knows that he owes him. "Aye," Robin agrees. "Now, would you sorry lot join me, or am I to go on this adventure all on my lonesome?"
"Now we didn't say that —" "Give us time to charter the fucking boat —" "—and pack!"
It's more than Robin's core group who are spurred to motion, and he finds the sight warms his heart. From across the clearing Marion smiles at him, mischief written across her face. "And just which kingdom do you think you'll be overthrowing first, Robin?"
He scratches at his beard, reminded that he's due a shave. "Hadn't really considered it," he says, matching her nonchalant tone even as he sends her a look that undermines it. "But if you'd have a kingdom out of me now, I suppose Sweden seems welcoming enough."
John's crept up to Robin while he was otherwise occupied, thick bicep hooking itself around Robin's shoulder and pulling him in close. "Works for me," he says.
"Seems as good a start as any," Will adds.
Robin couldn't agree more.