The Wolf's Head: Part 3
Title: The Wolf's Head
Author: corrielle
Rating: PG-13
Pairings/characters: Guy, Djaq, Marian, Allan, John, Will, and Robin. Guy/Marian-ish
Word count: 3,280
Summary: Guy visits Treeton Mine and makes a decision that changes everything.
Notes: Many thanks to endcredits, who graciously agreed to be my beta at short notice and gave me both excellent advice and much-needed encouragement. Also, this story probably wouldn't be here without my girlfriend Rae, who read it first.
Disclaimer: All characters belong to legend and the BBC, and I make no profit from this work.
Previously: Part 2
Part 3
Despite the open windows that looked out over fields full of early autumn grain, the chamber where the council of nobles met was stifling. The most powerful men in the shire sat in a semi-circle around the Sheriff's throne with sweat trickling down their necks and faces, sipping tepid wine that had been brought up from the cellar an hour before.
"And so, if there are no more matters of business to put before the council today…" the Sheriff was saying as many of the nobles began to shift in their seats, ready to rise once the meeting was dismissed.
"I have business, My Lord," Marian said from her place behind her father's chair. Several of the other men groaned audibly.
"Ah, Lady Marian. What a surprise," Vasey said, casting a bored, commiserating glance at the man who sat closest to him. "What is it this time?"
"I have a proposal to benefit the workers at Treeton Mine," she said, coming forward and placing a piece of parchment on the table in front of the Sheriff. He picked it up and glanced at it for the space of a few heartbeats before tossing it to the side.
"The workers at the mine are Saracen slaves," the Sheriff reminded her. "As they have been since the mine's English workers refused to do a day's honest work. So, as they are foreigners and not Englishmen, their welfare should not concern this council."
Though the Sheriff seemed to be indicating that the matter was closed, Marian pressed her point. "I believe it should, My Lord," she said. "If they are half dead of starvation and exhaustion, they cannot be productive workers. If you were to add a tax to the price of the ore that they bring to the surface and put it toward better food and…" Marian broke off abruptly when she Sheriff started to laugh loudly.
"A tax," he said, gesturing to Marian as if he were presenting her to the assembled company. "This is new. Lady Marian here, of all people, is suggesting that we put a tax on our iron ore. But what she does not know is that if we do that, we will not longer be able to sell it to our neighbors at a low price, and they will look elsewhere for their iron. And then, the mine will not run at all, and her Saracen friends will be even hungrier than they are now."
"A very small increase in the price would not hurt the mine," Marian said. "Slaves or not, the workers at Treeton labor for long hours with little food, and I have heard that many of them arrived weakened from their journey. Surely, it is our responsibility to see that they are treated as men and not as animals." She glanced around the room, searching for support, and found none. Guy watched her trying to catch Robin's eye for a long while, silently imploring him to speak in her defense, but Locksley simply stared at a point just above her head and said nothing.
"Very well," the Sheriff said, though he was clearly humoring her. "Any in favor of taxing our iron ore to feed the very heathens that King Richard battles in the Holy Land?" The room was still as death, as if the entire council had forgotten to breathe for fear that their movement might be mistaken for agreement. Secure in his success, he waved his hands toward the door. "The motion is defeated, and the meeting is adjourned."
As the members of the council made their way to the door, Marian stood still in the center of the circle, her cheeks red with embarrassment. The Sheriff smiled patronizingly at her. "Better luck next time," he said. Because he knew Vasey could not see him, Guy shrugged sympathetically at her. He did not understand why Marian insisted on presenting proposals she knew would fail, but he did not like to see her looking so downcast.
It seemed, though, that she did not need Guy's sympathy. With the moment of her humiliation having passed, she smiled coolly. "Thank you, My Lord," she said, and joined her father in the line of nobles filing out into the hall.
#####
As was the custom on days when the Sheriff's council met, a feast was held in the Great Hall that night. Guy kept his distance from Marian and from Locksley, though he envied the way they spoke together freely at the other end of the table. In the two months since Guy had been reporting on Robin's movements to the Sheriff, Robin had done nothing that could even begin to be described as suspicious. He met with no one in secret, he entertained his guests in the full view of the servants and the village, and he seemed to be the most unassuming of men. In another month, Guy was planning to suggest that his informants might be more useful elsewhere. If he was very lucky, the Sheriff would agree.
When the feast was drawing to a close, Guy excused himself from the hall. He was on his way to his chambers when he heard two voices whispering in one of the side passages. He stopped to listen more closely, and he soon recognized both speakers-Marian and Locksley, and neither of them happy, from the sound of things. Guy inched closer and risked a quick glance around the corner. Robin leaned against the wall, arms folded and a surly expression on his face. Marian stood with her back to Guy, and even though he couldn't see her face, irritation radiated from her like heat from a flame.
"I wasn't asking for your whole-hearted support, but you could have at least said something," Marian was saying.
Robin gave a melancholy sigh and shook his head. "You know I wanted to," he said.
"Then why didn't you?" Marian asked. "What happened to 'working together to make small changes'?" From the way she said the phrase, Guy guessed that the two of them had spoken of it before.
"Even if I did support you in council, the other nobles never would have agreed. It was doomed to fail from the start," Robin said. "And again, I would be remembered as the one man who had defied the Sheriff's wishes."
"Sometimes all it takes is one man," Marian countered. "Others might have followed your example."
"I would want to be sure of their support before I stuck my neck out publicly," Robin said.
Marian softened then, and reached out to touch Robin's face.
"What has happened to you, Robin?" she asked. "When you first came home, it was I who advised caution, and you who were ready to fight the Sheriff head-on."
"And you are angry that I have taken your advice to heart?" Robin asked, raising an eyebrow at her.
"Concerned that you have taken it too well. It's not like you."
For a long time, Robin was quiet. Then, he uncrossed his arms and let them hang at his sides. "The Sheriff threatened my mother," he said. "After the last time I spoke up against him in council, he found me alone when the meeting was done, and he asked about my mother's health. He said it would be a shame if something were to happen to her. A sudden chill, an inconvenient bit of bad meat…" Robin spread his hands helplessly. "And I know he has the power to do it. If anything were to happen to her… she's my mother, Marian…"
Robin's voice was choked with worry and frustration, and Guy was almost sorry that he was eavesdropping on such a private moment. At the same time, a tight, hard knot of worry began to form in his chest. Lady Elaine may not have been his mother, but she was a good woman, a kind woman, and a friend. Guy had known that the Sheriff did not like her, but he had never dreamed that Vasey would go so far as to have her killed just to keep her son in line. Anger joined the worry pulsing beside his heart.
Marian reached out and took Robin in her arms, threading her fingers through his hair.
"I'm so sorry," she said. Her voice was muffled against his shoulder. "Does your mother know?"
"She does. She… advises me to follow my conscience and not to worry about her," Robin said. "But I can't do that. I won't. I know I left her to go on Crusade, I know I haven't been the best of sons, but I will not be responsible for…"
"I know," Marian said, unwinding her arms from around his neck. "We will find other ways to fight. Ways that don't put her in danger."
"But that still leaves your Saracen workers at the mine hungry and mistreated, and our hands are tied." Robin said glumly.
"It is one of many injustices we can do nothing about. Not yet. But we must hope and plan, and do what good we can in the mean time."
Robin smiled at her optimism and offered her his arm. She took it, and they both turned their backs to Guy and walked further down the passage. Guy waited until long after both of their footsteps had faded into nothing before continuing to his chambers for a night of fitful sleep.
#####
Though the Sheriff loved it for the wealth it brought him, Guy had always thought Treeton Mine to be a desolate place. It sat in a shallow dip in the land bordered by Sherwood on one side and a patchwork of fields on the other. The single road that led to the mine was deeply rutted by the wagons that carried the iron ore to the foundry, and the mine itself was a hot, dry expanse of brown grass and dirt, punctuated by mounds of ore and square wooden entrances that led down into the shafts.
The day after the council meeting, the Sheriff had ordered Guy to ride with him out to the mine to survey the progress that had been made in the weeks since the Saracens had arrived.
"You see, Gisborne," the Sheriff said with satisfaction, "they are less trouble than Englishmen, and just as productive. No whining about their rights, their children, their pay. And if they do complain…" He put a hand to his ear and made a confused expression. "What is that? I don't understand… because I don't speak Turk." He let out a short, cruel laugh. "They seem to understand the lash well enough, though." He gestured at the mine's foreman, a brutish man with a thick neck and a coiled whip hanging from his belt.
"Most men do," Guy agreed.
Under the foreman's watchful eye, the workers brought up baskets full of ore, and one group of men that had begun work on a new shaft chanted with the rise and fall of their picks. The Sheriff majestically waved his hands in time with the chant, solemn as a cantor directing the mass.
"It's a sweet sound, isn't it? The sound of money being made?" the Sheriff asked. "And when one of them drops dead, I can buy another, thanks to Good King Richard's wars."
A sudden swell of shouting in English and in the Saracens' foreign tongue drowned out Guy's grunt of agreement. Workers whose heads had been bent to their tasks looked up to see what was happening before guards ordered them back to their work, brandishing their spears to make their point. Still, many of the slaves still watched as Guy and the Sheriff rode over to the source of the noise.
Two guards held a single Saracen boy between them. He was covered in dust, and the white bit of cloth that he had wrapped around his head was in tatters. Even though he was shorter by a head than both of the men who held him, they struggled to keep him from breaking free. The foreman ran to meet Guy and the Sheriff, and he forced the boy's chin up with his fist.
"This one again?" the foreman asked. Apologetically, he turned to Vasey. "Sorry, My Lord… This one's tried to escape three times, now. I try to put the fear of the lash into them, but some of them are just trouble." He spat out the last word vehemently, and glared at the Saracen boy, who had stopped struggling and met the foreman's eyes with an equal amount of fire. The Sheriff dismounted and motioned for Guy to do the same.
Vasey studied the boy closely for a while, and then nodded decisively.
"Kill him, Gisborne."
The boy's eyes widened in fear, and when he turned his head to look at the man who had just been ordered to end his life, Guy saw a long, freshly healed scar that ran along his jaw line from his right ear to his chin.
"Perhaps a flogging, My Lord," Guy suggested. He did not know how Marian did it, but she listened well, and she seemed to know everything that went on at the mine. She would not forgive him easily if he killed one of the Sheriff's slaves. He prayed that he could convince the Sheriff to settle for a lesser punishment, for there was little that he could do if the Sheriff insisted.
"No, no. Not this time. This," he jabbed a finger at the boy's face, "is an excess of spirit. You can see that he's been punished before, trying to escape." He tapped the boy's new scar. "And still he tries again. No, this one is more trouble than he's worth."
Slowly, Guy drew his sword, the steel hissing against the scabbard as he pulled it free.
The two guards who held the boy let go of his arms and pushed him forward, offering Guy an easy target. The boy did not beg, and he did not flinch when Guy raised his arm to strike. Instead, he looked over Guy's shoulder at the other slaves and shouted a single phrase in Arabic. Guy had spent enough time in the Holy Land to make out the words "I die proud." Then, the boy stared up at Guy with large, dark eyes, and though he was afraid, Guy recognized a defiance he had seen before. It was the smoldering anger he had seen in Will Scarlett's eyes while he had stood on the gallows. It was the refusal to back down in the face of overwhelming odds that he saw every time Marian tried and failed to win the nobles to her causes. It was the strength in his father's eyes as he stood in his own grave having the leper's mass read over him. And now, he saw it in a face that looked up at him and dared him to strike, promising that though Guy might be able to kill his body, the boy's spirit would not waver.
"Gisborne! Get on with it!" the Sheriff shouted. "My patience is wearing thin."
The boy tensed himself for the blow, and Guy lowered his sword.
"No."
Though Guy had his back to the Sheriff, he could feel his ire. "What did you just say?" he demanded.
"No, My Lord," Guy repeated, more loudly this time, though every scrap of reason that he possessed screamed for him to keep quiet and beg forgiveness. Instead, he turned to face the Sheriff, putting his naked blade between Vasey and the boy. "I will not," Guy added, knowing that the words, once spoken, could not be taken back.
The Sheriff's face contorted with barely controlled fury. "Then I'll have someone do it for you."
Vasey nodded at one of the guards who had caught the boy, and the soldier had his sword out and cutting through the air in an instant. Instinctively, Guy blocked the blow, and as their swords rang against each other, he knew that everything had changed.
Guy looked down at the boy and said, "Run." Shocked though the boy was, he seemed to understand the simple command and took off across the open ground.
For a moment, no one moved. The soldier, used to following Guy's orders and not knowing what to do now that his former commander was an enemy, simply stared wide-eyed at him through their crossed blades.
"That, my friend, was a mistake," Vasey said in a dangerously soft voice. Then, he bellowed, "Guards! Arrest Gisborne! And catch that boy!"
Belatedly, the soldiers lurched into action, but Guy was ahead of them. He pushed back hard against the soldier who had tried to kill the boy, sending him stumbling backwards into three of his fellow guards who had begun to cautiously advance. The other man who had been holding onto the boy's arms made a half-hearted attempt at an attack, but Guy parried it easily and slashed the guard across the ribs. A painful cut, but not deadly.
More guards were coming from all over the mine with each moment that passed, and the men who were pursuing the boy as he ran for Sherwood were making steady progress. Guy knew that if they caught him, he would be killed, and nothing Guy had done there that day would mean anything at all. And so, he rebalanced his sword in his hand, seeking the deep calm that came upon him just before a fight, judged the distance between himself, his horse and the Sheriff's men, and took off at a sprint.
It seemed that most of the guards who were just arriving had not heard the Sheriff's orders, or if they had, they had not believed their ears, because none of them tried to stop him. He had tied his horse's reins loosely around a post, and they came free easily in his hands. He vaulted himself into the saddle and kicked his horse into a gallop, nearly running over several astonished soldiers. By the time Guy reached the edge of the mine, it was in an uproar, but the Sheriff had also managed to get his men organized for the pursuit. He could hear the pounding of hooves and the clank of chain mail behind him.
Guy urged his horse on faster now, past the guards who were chasing the boy on foot. He shouted at the boy, who turned and looked at him with utter surprise for the second time that day. Seeming to understand what Guy had planned, the boy stopped running and faced the oncoming rider and held out a hand. As Guy passed, he slowed only enough to pull the boy up behind him without wrenching his shoulder, and once he felt the boy's arms close around his waist, he kicked his horse into a gallop again, and they made for Sherwood Forest.
The line of trees was close, now, and Guy knew that if they could reach them, they could use the wood to hide themselves. He was no Night Watchman, but he knew the forest well enough to lose a few scattered soldiers who spent most of their days in Nottingham castle.
The boy shouted something in his ear that Guy could not hear, and later he realized it must have been a warning, for just before they rode past the first trees, a volley of arrows from the Sheriff's archers hissed through the air around them, and one of them found its mark in Guy's left thigh. He had been wounded before, but still, the searing pain almost blinded him, and he never did understand how he managed to stay in the saddle as they plunged deeper into Sherwood Forest.
Next: Part 4
Author: corrielle
Rating: PG-13
Pairings/characters: Guy, Djaq, Marian, Allan, John, Will, and Robin. Guy/Marian-ish
Word count: 3,280
Summary: Guy visits Treeton Mine and makes a decision that changes everything.
Notes: Many thanks to endcredits, who graciously agreed to be my beta at short notice and gave me both excellent advice and much-needed encouragement. Also, this story probably wouldn't be here without my girlfriend Rae, who read it first.
Disclaimer: All characters belong to legend and the BBC, and I make no profit from this work.
Previously: Part 2
Part 3
Despite the open windows that looked out over fields full of early autumn grain, the chamber where the council of nobles met was stifling. The most powerful men in the shire sat in a semi-circle around the Sheriff's throne with sweat trickling down their necks and faces, sipping tepid wine that had been brought up from the cellar an hour before.
"And so, if there are no more matters of business to put before the council today…" the Sheriff was saying as many of the nobles began to shift in their seats, ready to rise once the meeting was dismissed.
"I have business, My Lord," Marian said from her place behind her father's chair. Several of the other men groaned audibly.
"Ah, Lady Marian. What a surprise," Vasey said, casting a bored, commiserating glance at the man who sat closest to him. "What is it this time?"
"I have a proposal to benefit the workers at Treeton Mine," she said, coming forward and placing a piece of parchment on the table in front of the Sheriff. He picked it up and glanced at it for the space of a few heartbeats before tossing it to the side.
"The workers at the mine are Saracen slaves," the Sheriff reminded her. "As they have been since the mine's English workers refused to do a day's honest work. So, as they are foreigners and not Englishmen, their welfare should not concern this council."
Though the Sheriff seemed to be indicating that the matter was closed, Marian pressed her point. "I believe it should, My Lord," she said. "If they are half dead of starvation and exhaustion, they cannot be productive workers. If you were to add a tax to the price of the ore that they bring to the surface and put it toward better food and…" Marian broke off abruptly when she Sheriff started to laugh loudly.
"A tax," he said, gesturing to Marian as if he were presenting her to the assembled company. "This is new. Lady Marian here, of all people, is suggesting that we put a tax on our iron ore. But what she does not know is that if we do that, we will not longer be able to sell it to our neighbors at a low price, and they will look elsewhere for their iron. And then, the mine will not run at all, and her Saracen friends will be even hungrier than they are now."
"A very small increase in the price would not hurt the mine," Marian said. "Slaves or not, the workers at Treeton labor for long hours with little food, and I have heard that many of them arrived weakened from their journey. Surely, it is our responsibility to see that they are treated as men and not as animals." She glanced around the room, searching for support, and found none. Guy watched her trying to catch Robin's eye for a long while, silently imploring him to speak in her defense, but Locksley simply stared at a point just above her head and said nothing.
"Very well," the Sheriff said, though he was clearly humoring her. "Any in favor of taxing our iron ore to feed the very heathens that King Richard battles in the Holy Land?" The room was still as death, as if the entire council had forgotten to breathe for fear that their movement might be mistaken for agreement. Secure in his success, he waved his hands toward the door. "The motion is defeated, and the meeting is adjourned."
As the members of the council made their way to the door, Marian stood still in the center of the circle, her cheeks red with embarrassment. The Sheriff smiled patronizingly at her. "Better luck next time," he said. Because he knew Vasey could not see him, Guy shrugged sympathetically at her. He did not understand why Marian insisted on presenting proposals she knew would fail, but he did not like to see her looking so downcast.
It seemed, though, that she did not need Guy's sympathy. With the moment of her humiliation having passed, she smiled coolly. "Thank you, My Lord," she said, and joined her father in the line of nobles filing out into the hall.
#####
As was the custom on days when the Sheriff's council met, a feast was held in the Great Hall that night. Guy kept his distance from Marian and from Locksley, though he envied the way they spoke together freely at the other end of the table. In the two months since Guy had been reporting on Robin's movements to the Sheriff, Robin had done nothing that could even begin to be described as suspicious. He met with no one in secret, he entertained his guests in the full view of the servants and the village, and he seemed to be the most unassuming of men. In another month, Guy was planning to suggest that his informants might be more useful elsewhere. If he was very lucky, the Sheriff would agree.
When the feast was drawing to a close, Guy excused himself from the hall. He was on his way to his chambers when he heard two voices whispering in one of the side passages. He stopped to listen more closely, and he soon recognized both speakers-Marian and Locksley, and neither of them happy, from the sound of things. Guy inched closer and risked a quick glance around the corner. Robin leaned against the wall, arms folded and a surly expression on his face. Marian stood with her back to Guy, and even though he couldn't see her face, irritation radiated from her like heat from a flame.
"I wasn't asking for your whole-hearted support, but you could have at least said something," Marian was saying.
Robin gave a melancholy sigh and shook his head. "You know I wanted to," he said.
"Then why didn't you?" Marian asked. "What happened to 'working together to make small changes'?" From the way she said the phrase, Guy guessed that the two of them had spoken of it before.
"Even if I did support you in council, the other nobles never would have agreed. It was doomed to fail from the start," Robin said. "And again, I would be remembered as the one man who had defied the Sheriff's wishes."
"Sometimes all it takes is one man," Marian countered. "Others might have followed your example."
"I would want to be sure of their support before I stuck my neck out publicly," Robin said.
Marian softened then, and reached out to touch Robin's face.
"What has happened to you, Robin?" she asked. "When you first came home, it was I who advised caution, and you who were ready to fight the Sheriff head-on."
"And you are angry that I have taken your advice to heart?" Robin asked, raising an eyebrow at her.
"Concerned that you have taken it too well. It's not like you."
For a long time, Robin was quiet. Then, he uncrossed his arms and let them hang at his sides. "The Sheriff threatened my mother," he said. "After the last time I spoke up against him in council, he found me alone when the meeting was done, and he asked about my mother's health. He said it would be a shame if something were to happen to her. A sudden chill, an inconvenient bit of bad meat…" Robin spread his hands helplessly. "And I know he has the power to do it. If anything were to happen to her… she's my mother, Marian…"
Robin's voice was choked with worry and frustration, and Guy was almost sorry that he was eavesdropping on such a private moment. At the same time, a tight, hard knot of worry began to form in his chest. Lady Elaine may not have been his mother, but she was a good woman, a kind woman, and a friend. Guy had known that the Sheriff did not like her, but he had never dreamed that Vasey would go so far as to have her killed just to keep her son in line. Anger joined the worry pulsing beside his heart.
Marian reached out and took Robin in her arms, threading her fingers through his hair.
"I'm so sorry," she said. Her voice was muffled against his shoulder. "Does your mother know?"
"She does. She… advises me to follow my conscience and not to worry about her," Robin said. "But I can't do that. I won't. I know I left her to go on Crusade, I know I haven't been the best of sons, but I will not be responsible for…"
"I know," Marian said, unwinding her arms from around his neck. "We will find other ways to fight. Ways that don't put her in danger."
"But that still leaves your Saracen workers at the mine hungry and mistreated, and our hands are tied." Robin said glumly.
"It is one of many injustices we can do nothing about. Not yet. But we must hope and plan, and do what good we can in the mean time."
Robin smiled at her optimism and offered her his arm. She took it, and they both turned their backs to Guy and walked further down the passage. Guy waited until long after both of their footsteps had faded into nothing before continuing to his chambers for a night of fitful sleep.
#####
Though the Sheriff loved it for the wealth it brought him, Guy had always thought Treeton Mine to be a desolate place. It sat in a shallow dip in the land bordered by Sherwood on one side and a patchwork of fields on the other. The single road that led to the mine was deeply rutted by the wagons that carried the iron ore to the foundry, and the mine itself was a hot, dry expanse of brown grass and dirt, punctuated by mounds of ore and square wooden entrances that led down into the shafts.
The day after the council meeting, the Sheriff had ordered Guy to ride with him out to the mine to survey the progress that had been made in the weeks since the Saracens had arrived.
"You see, Gisborne," the Sheriff said with satisfaction, "they are less trouble than Englishmen, and just as productive. No whining about their rights, their children, their pay. And if they do complain…" He put a hand to his ear and made a confused expression. "What is that? I don't understand… because I don't speak Turk." He let out a short, cruel laugh. "They seem to understand the lash well enough, though." He gestured at the mine's foreman, a brutish man with a thick neck and a coiled whip hanging from his belt.
"Most men do," Guy agreed.
Under the foreman's watchful eye, the workers brought up baskets full of ore, and one group of men that had begun work on a new shaft chanted with the rise and fall of their picks. The Sheriff majestically waved his hands in time with the chant, solemn as a cantor directing the mass.
"It's a sweet sound, isn't it? The sound of money being made?" the Sheriff asked. "And when one of them drops dead, I can buy another, thanks to Good King Richard's wars."
A sudden swell of shouting in English and in the Saracens' foreign tongue drowned out Guy's grunt of agreement. Workers whose heads had been bent to their tasks looked up to see what was happening before guards ordered them back to their work, brandishing their spears to make their point. Still, many of the slaves still watched as Guy and the Sheriff rode over to the source of the noise.
Two guards held a single Saracen boy between them. He was covered in dust, and the white bit of cloth that he had wrapped around his head was in tatters. Even though he was shorter by a head than both of the men who held him, they struggled to keep him from breaking free. The foreman ran to meet Guy and the Sheriff, and he forced the boy's chin up with his fist.
"This one again?" the foreman asked. Apologetically, he turned to Vasey. "Sorry, My Lord… This one's tried to escape three times, now. I try to put the fear of the lash into them, but some of them are just trouble." He spat out the last word vehemently, and glared at the Saracen boy, who had stopped struggling and met the foreman's eyes with an equal amount of fire. The Sheriff dismounted and motioned for Guy to do the same.
Vasey studied the boy closely for a while, and then nodded decisively.
"Kill him, Gisborne."
The boy's eyes widened in fear, and when he turned his head to look at the man who had just been ordered to end his life, Guy saw a long, freshly healed scar that ran along his jaw line from his right ear to his chin.
"Perhaps a flogging, My Lord," Guy suggested. He did not know how Marian did it, but she listened well, and she seemed to know everything that went on at the mine. She would not forgive him easily if he killed one of the Sheriff's slaves. He prayed that he could convince the Sheriff to settle for a lesser punishment, for there was little that he could do if the Sheriff insisted.
"No, no. Not this time. This," he jabbed a finger at the boy's face, "is an excess of spirit. You can see that he's been punished before, trying to escape." He tapped the boy's new scar. "And still he tries again. No, this one is more trouble than he's worth."
Slowly, Guy drew his sword, the steel hissing against the scabbard as he pulled it free.
The two guards who held the boy let go of his arms and pushed him forward, offering Guy an easy target. The boy did not beg, and he did not flinch when Guy raised his arm to strike. Instead, he looked over Guy's shoulder at the other slaves and shouted a single phrase in Arabic. Guy had spent enough time in the Holy Land to make out the words "I die proud." Then, the boy stared up at Guy with large, dark eyes, and though he was afraid, Guy recognized a defiance he had seen before. It was the smoldering anger he had seen in Will Scarlett's eyes while he had stood on the gallows. It was the refusal to back down in the face of overwhelming odds that he saw every time Marian tried and failed to win the nobles to her causes. It was the strength in his father's eyes as he stood in his own grave having the leper's mass read over him. And now, he saw it in a face that looked up at him and dared him to strike, promising that though Guy might be able to kill his body, the boy's spirit would not waver.
"Gisborne! Get on with it!" the Sheriff shouted. "My patience is wearing thin."
The boy tensed himself for the blow, and Guy lowered his sword.
"No."
Though Guy had his back to the Sheriff, he could feel his ire. "What did you just say?" he demanded.
"No, My Lord," Guy repeated, more loudly this time, though every scrap of reason that he possessed screamed for him to keep quiet and beg forgiveness. Instead, he turned to face the Sheriff, putting his naked blade between Vasey and the boy. "I will not," Guy added, knowing that the words, once spoken, could not be taken back.
The Sheriff's face contorted with barely controlled fury. "Then I'll have someone do it for you."
Vasey nodded at one of the guards who had caught the boy, and the soldier had his sword out and cutting through the air in an instant. Instinctively, Guy blocked the blow, and as their swords rang against each other, he knew that everything had changed.
Guy looked down at the boy and said, "Run." Shocked though the boy was, he seemed to understand the simple command and took off across the open ground.
For a moment, no one moved. The soldier, used to following Guy's orders and not knowing what to do now that his former commander was an enemy, simply stared wide-eyed at him through their crossed blades.
"That, my friend, was a mistake," Vasey said in a dangerously soft voice. Then, he bellowed, "Guards! Arrest Gisborne! And catch that boy!"
Belatedly, the soldiers lurched into action, but Guy was ahead of them. He pushed back hard against the soldier who had tried to kill the boy, sending him stumbling backwards into three of his fellow guards who had begun to cautiously advance. The other man who had been holding onto the boy's arms made a half-hearted attempt at an attack, but Guy parried it easily and slashed the guard across the ribs. A painful cut, but not deadly.
More guards were coming from all over the mine with each moment that passed, and the men who were pursuing the boy as he ran for Sherwood were making steady progress. Guy knew that if they caught him, he would be killed, and nothing Guy had done there that day would mean anything at all. And so, he rebalanced his sword in his hand, seeking the deep calm that came upon him just before a fight, judged the distance between himself, his horse and the Sheriff's men, and took off at a sprint.
It seemed that most of the guards who were just arriving had not heard the Sheriff's orders, or if they had, they had not believed their ears, because none of them tried to stop him. He had tied his horse's reins loosely around a post, and they came free easily in his hands. He vaulted himself into the saddle and kicked his horse into a gallop, nearly running over several astonished soldiers. By the time Guy reached the edge of the mine, it was in an uproar, but the Sheriff had also managed to get his men organized for the pursuit. He could hear the pounding of hooves and the clank of chain mail behind him.
Guy urged his horse on faster now, past the guards who were chasing the boy on foot. He shouted at the boy, who turned and looked at him with utter surprise for the second time that day. Seeming to understand what Guy had planned, the boy stopped running and faced the oncoming rider and held out a hand. As Guy passed, he slowed only enough to pull the boy up behind him without wrenching his shoulder, and once he felt the boy's arms close around his waist, he kicked his horse into a gallop again, and they made for Sherwood Forest.
The line of trees was close, now, and Guy knew that if they could reach them, they could use the wood to hide themselves. He was no Night Watchman, but he knew the forest well enough to lose a few scattered soldiers who spent most of their days in Nottingham castle.
The boy shouted something in his ear that Guy could not hear, and later he realized it must have been a warning, for just before they rode past the first trees, a volley of arrows from the Sheriff's archers hissed through the air around them, and one of them found its mark in Guy's left thigh. He had been wounded before, but still, the searing pain almost blinded him, and he never did understand how he managed to stay in the saddle as they plunged deeper into Sherwood Forest.
Next: Part 4