White Knight (Marian, Robin Hood BBC, PG-13) Part Two
Title: White Knight (Pt 2)
Author: ctquill
Fandom: Robin Hood BBC
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Violence, death, language.
Prompt: #61: Nothing could be worse than the fear that one had given up too soon, and left one unexpended effort that might have saved the world. - Jane Addams (1860-1935), founder of the settlement house movement in the United States. Laid the foundations for social work as it is now practiced. Her writings and speeches influenced the later shape of the United Nations. Second woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, and the first American woman to win it.
Summary: Marian is presented with an opportunity, but the price may be too high. Set just after 2x11 and during 2x13.
Author's Notes: Expect historical inaccuracy. A huge thank you to jagnikjen and roh_wyn for beta reading. Any changes I've made that have messed this up are entirely my own fault. Thanks to the participants of the rewatch at roh_fics and to allthingsrobin's transcripts at Hoodwinked . I used both sites for reference. This version of Robin Hood belongs to Tiger Aspect and the BBC.
The horses were ready, saddled and tied to the fence behind the stable. The stable hand lay on a bed of hay, bound and gagged. Allan had been busy.
Ronald's breath smoked as he gabbled the rest of his explanation in snatches. The baby had kept quiet despite being jounced around while Ronald jogged across the yard. Perhaps it recognised family. Or it was just too shocked to cry.
“My grandfather's…second wife…awful woman…when she discovered the old man had left nothing for her after his death she took off for London to find…another rich husband.”
He passed Marian the baby as he mounted, but snatched it back immediately. He cradled it against him and took up the reins one-handed.
“Abandoned her newborn babe…the nuns care nothing for him…leave him locked in that room all day…Won't give him up, though, she paid them half of what she stole from the house before she was caught and thrown out and they think there's more where that came from…We've been searching for him…we're the only family he has left…My wife is waiting for him…We'll give him a proper home.”
He looked around like a rabbit catching the scent of a fox. Marian moved to mount her horse and Allan to open the gate, but Ronald had already kicked his horse into motion.
“Come on, hurry!”
Marian glanced back at the convent, but saw no signs of alarm. She still had the child's toy in her hand. He would surely want it on the journey. She stuffed it under her belt and swung up onto her horse. Allan was right behind her as they rode out into the woods. Ronald pulled ahead, but kept glancing back as if to assure himself they were following. Only when they reached the main road did he stop to let them catch up.
“My father is waiting with your reward,” he said, and now he seemed eager to be rid of them. His eyes gleamed like coins in the dark, shifting this way and that. His horse sidled, mimicking his impatience. “We part ways here.”
He wheeled his horse and galloped off. Marian didn't even have time to offer him the toy, though she had drawn it out from her belt.
“Wouldn't have hurt him to say thank you,” Allan said.
Marian stared at the toy in her hand. It had been sewn from scraps of cloth. Worn cotton, mostly, but the head was made of velvet. The stitcher had crafted a smiling face and stuffed it with more cloth to make it soft and plump.
“Allan...”
“Yeah. I know.”
“It doesn't make sense. It isn't right.”
Allan shifted uncomfortably in his saddle. “So what do you want to do about it?”
The decision was taken out of her hands.
“Charles! My baby.” The woman's screams caused Allan's horse to rear, nearly throwing him. Marian was a better rider and her mount merely tossed its head as the nun-or, rather, the woman in nun's clothing-came hurtling down the road towards them. “How could you help take him? You monsters. Murderers!”
She stumbled on the hem of her habit or she would have run straight past, after Ronald. Sobbing, she picked herself up, but Marian was already turning her horse.
“I'll get him back,” she called. “I promise.”
She soon left the woman behind, despite her efforts to keep up. Marian rode grimly. Her anger at what she'd been coerced into doing pulsed in time with the rhythm of her horse's muscles; powerful, tight and surging. She could only pray Ronald had kept to the road.
He hadn't. But he had left his horse tied to a tree beside it and a tract of crushed grass showed which way he had gone. Marian slipped from the saddle.
She followed silently in his wake. She had learned stealth well in her years as the Night Watchman, and her time in the forest had taught her more; where to place your feet on leaves, stones and twigs; how to avoid disturbing the nesting and burrowing creatures that could raise an alarm; how to track, though she hardly needed to. Even in the dark, he had left a path clear enough for a blind man.
The hem of her dress was soon soaked and heavy with dew. She thought wistfully of her leather trousers, now burnt and gone. The chatter of a stream heralded the start of open, muddy ground. His footprints stamped a straight line to the water. She heard the baby wail.
He cut a dark cross against the moonlit sky, with his arms raised to hold the child out over the stream. The water was shallow but swift. Ice glittered in the reeds.
“Ronald!”
There was no time for her to sneak up on him. He whirled round, bringing the baby back over earth.
“What do you want?” he sounded annoyed. “My father is waiting and he is not a patient man. Your part in this is done.”
Marian wanted to get closer, but he had moved one hand to his belt and the long knife there.
“Who was your grandfather?” Her voice rang in the frosted night. “A wealthy man, clearly. A nobleman? But your father wasn't the child of his first wife, was he? He stood to inherit nothing.”
Ronald's face contorted. “My grandmother was a kitchen maid. His first wife was dead. But he still wanted nothing to do with his bastard son.”
“Even though he was his only heir, for so long. Isn't that right?” She moved a fraction nearer.
“He knew about us. He received news. But he wouldn't receive us, not in his precious manor, not even on his lands. My grandmother slaved to buy my father an education from scribes and churchmen, but nothing made him acceptable to his lordship. After her death, my father went to him. He thought time might have softened the old man. And it had. He acknowledged my father publicly, though not as his heir.”
“And then…he married again.”
“He fell over that red-headed bitch-” he spat “-on a trip to London. Became besotted with her. They were wed within the month, and she was with child a month after that.”
“Your father must have been bitterly disappointed when she gave birth to a boy.”
She was still too far away. His hand touched the knife.
“Ronald.” She couldn't help how sharp her voice sounded. “Why not leave the child where he will be taken in as a foundling? There is nothing so anonymous as an abandoned baby. He will grow up with no knowledge of who he is.”
He sneered at her. “Stupid woman. There has to be a body, if the claim is to be undisputed. We have to make sure he is identified.”
“If you kill the baby, you will never inherit.”
“That's why no-one was meant to know,” he roared. “The mother would have accused us, but who would believe her? It would look like a kidnapping, or like she herself abandoned the boy to the cold. You were supposed to hold up your end of the deal.”
“To be your scapegoat? So I was not to be caught in case I told the truth.”
“What do you care of this, anyway? A woman who thinks she can play outlaw by night and lady of the manor by day. Who thinks she can speak of matters of governance as would a man, and be heard by those in power. Who thinks she can interfere with what king sits on England's throne! You have broken England's laws and the laws of decency to achieve your ends. Leave me to mine.”
He slashed his knife towards the baby's throat, then screamed and dropped both knife and child. Marian dived forward.
Her dagger was small enough to fit in her palm. She could throw it with accuracy over a considerable distance, but she had needed to keep him talking until she was closer. Close enough to catch the baby.
She only just made it. The child shrieked, but she had him in her arms. She supported his head as she had seen the women she had grown up around do, once they had all melted away into marriage and motherhood, leaving her behind. To be less than they in the eyes of the world, but to have power they could not. To fight -and, though she would not have admitted it even to herself, to wait.
She gathered the child in. Ronald was grunting and cursing behind her. She couldn't outrun him in her skirts, encumbered by the baby. If she had aimed for his leg he could still have used the knife. She supposed she should have killed him.
She laid the boy down on the driest patch of ground and turned to face Ronald.
“Leave,” she said. “Your plan will never work now.”
He wrenched her dagger from his arm and lunged for her.
It was harder work in a dress, but he was a heavy man and that slowed him down. She dodged the blade, trying to draw him away from the child. He caught her with a hard blow that made the night flare and followed it with a punch to her ribs. She got behind him and struck the dagger from his hand. A kick swept his legs out from under him. She snatched up both the blades from the mud.
Ronald struggled to his feet and limped for the trees. Marian heard a rider approaching. She ran back to the baby. He was cold, but unharmed.
Allan rode right to the water's edge. The woman clung to his waist. The moment he reined the horse in, she slid from the saddle.
“Please...my child...”
Marian realised she was still holding her dagger. She lowered it and passed the baby to his mother.
While she showered his face with tears and kisses, Marian ran to the horse. Allan had dismounted. She grabbed the reins from him and swung up into the saddle.
“I have to get to Matthew before Ronald does. Go after him, try to stop him.”
Allan gave her a 'who, me?' look.
There was no time to argue with him. She shook her head at him scornfully.
“You used to be a good man, Allan a Dale.”
She kicked the horse's flanks and raced for the road.
*
The door slammed back. Ice fell from the hem of her cloak and melted in the heat of the fire.
He glanced up, then returned to stirring the ashes. Marian stared at the last scraps of parchment, curling in the flames.
“Is-is the sheriff here?” she said finally. Her tongue felt like wood.
“About to leave. Still time for me to turn you in, though, if I choose to. I could try to convince him to hang you here, where there's no chance of rescue by lovestruck outlaws.”
“I don't suppose there was a copy of that.” She spoke slowly and precisely, because control was all she had.
Matthew threw the poker down and faced her.
“You want to stop him? There's only one way.” He thrust his crossbow into her hands. She clutched it instinctively, then tried to push it back at him.
“I am no killer. No assassin.”
“Then he goes on and your precious king will die.”
He was so certain. Not that Vaisey would try, which any fool knew, but that he would succeed. It shook her.
“What do you know?” He turned away from her with a sneer and she took a step after him, wanting to shake him, wanting to use the crossbow on him. “What was in that letter?”
He began to laugh. Marian's grip on the crossbow tightened. She raised it. Her voice like steel, she commanded, “Tell me.”
His laughter mocked her. Her finger was near the trigger, and she had no intention of pulling it-but her hand seemed not to know that.
“What is so funny?”
“I don't know, do I?” Matthew savoured each syllable. “I can't read. Mother's money didn't stretch to that.”
He looked her up and down and he didn't have to speak it. You say you are no thief, lady. You say you are no killer. But look at you. Just look.
The crossbow dropped to her side. Voices rose from the courtyard below.
“You claimed-”
“All I know is what I heard him say about it. Now no-one will ever know.”
He paced around her, studying her like a horse at market. “I thought you were like me. Ruthless enough to do whatever it took to achieve your ends. Ah, well.”
“Will you expose me now?” She forced herself to ask it.
“Now? When you could escape and run back to your lover? No, not yet. I think you still owe me, and I can't claim anything from you if you're dead.”
The portcullis winched up, groaning. She heard Vaisey say, “Always a pleasure, my prince. Or should I say…Your Majesty.”
That little chuckle that always made her blood fizz. She turned to the window.
Vaisey's white horse glowed in the torchlight. He sat astride it like a black and bloated tick. Prince John himself watched from the top of the steps.
“So-are you going to use that or not?” Matthew whispered in her ear.
She shook her head. “I cannot. If he dies, Prince John's army will besiege Nottingham again.”
“Will they?” Matthew wandered away as if bored by the whole situation.
“You were there. How can you even suggest-”
“I maintain that our future king knows that in the long run he will need taxes more than he will need the ringleader of his Black Knights. Certainly more than he needs a pile of ashes. But maybe you're right. The town could always fight, or be evacuated. Isn't it worth the risk? I suppose you could give yourself up, if you're that worried. Spin a story for them before they execute you, to save the town-you're such a good little liar. Or you could kill them both and be done with it.”
Her breath caught. “Murder the prince?”
“Why not? They're planning regicide. But I think you'd be safe just shooting Vaisey and making a run for it.”
Marian looked back at him, but he had turned to the fire again.
“You want him dead,” she said slowly. “Why?”
Matthew whirled round. “Think about it, girl.” His voice rose. “Who takes over once he's dead?”
“Guy?”
“Probably. Which leaves his position open. I haven't the wherewithal to be a sheriff-not yet-but I'll take what I can get.”
He advanced on her, suddenly stiff with anger. “You've stolen one position that's rightfully mine already tonight. You get me this one!”
He backed her up against the wall. She tried to raise the crossbow, but her arm was trapped.
“I'm going places,” he said, more calmly.“Up to the top at Nottingham if you pull that trigger. Off to greener pastures if you don't. I found the babe once, I can do it again. But consider this. A man in charge of Nottingham, a Black Knight, an agent of Prince John's-a man over whom you…exert a certain influence.” He leaned in until his lips and his beard brushed her cheek. “You want to make a difference? Imagine that.”
She squirmed one arm free and shoved him back. He smirked at her.
“Imagine that,” he said again.
The worst thing was, she could.
The clatter of hooves drew her back to the window and the crossbow was in her hands. It was easy to lift it, to aim it, to imagine a swift excision of the sheriff from this world. All her disgust for the man poured into that ready bolt.
Matthew had engineered this dilemma. He'd done it to punish her.
She could destroy Nottingham. She couldn't take that chance.
She could save Nottingham. She just had to shoot.
The crossbow struck the wall as she threw it aside. It would have hit Matthew, but he was no longer there. She was alone in the tower.
*
When she returned to her horse she found Allan there, leaning against a post. She didn't bother asking whether he'd even tried to go after Ronald.
“Did you get it?” he said.
She walked past him without a word. He fell into step beside her.
“The mother and child are safe. She said she couldn't stay under the nuns' protection after this. She needed to disappear, until her boy's old enough to claim and defend his titles. They've been hunting her for months. I got her to the nearest town and saw her on her way.”
“Good,” Marian said dully. “That's good, Allan.”
*
They rode back to Nottingham. The carriage would remain abandoned beside the road to the convent. Marian was sure someone would find a use for it.
“You still don't know that he wasn't just bluffing,” Allan said matter-of-factly, after an hour's silence.
“Perhaps he was.” Marian fingered her reins. “But I couldn't do nothing. Perhaps I should have tried to find it and take it from him, rather than playing by his rules.”
“He would have turned you in.”
“I should have chanced it.” Her hands curled into fists. “I am no longer the Night Watchman, Allan. And I don't think I can be an effective spy in the castle now that Guy knows what I am capable of, not unless I could turn him against the sheriff and the Black Knights. Robin needs intelligence more than he needs another sword at his side. The people need the Night Watchman. So what use am I?”
“Well, you're not a soldier like Robin. Leave all that Black Knights rubbish to him. There's got to be ways you can still help the poor.”
“The best way to help them is to put a stop to Vaisey.”
“Yeah, but be serious. You're just-”
“A woman?” she flared, hearing Ronald's words again. “That does not mean I feel no responsibility for my country. That I cannot fight for it and my king.”
Allan rolled his eyes at her. “I was going to say, you're just one person. Like this business with Matthew-you can't stop the sheriff and Prince John single-handed.”
“Robin is just one person,” she said, and even she had to admit it sounded sulky. “I managed perfectly well fighting alone for years. Anyway, this time I had you with me.”
“I don't count. Just-you have to be realistic, Marian. There are fights you can't win.”
She shook her head.
“I have been too cautious for too long. I have lost too much and have so much to fight for. My father died for this. So many people, so many good people, have died for it. I fear I have done nearly all I can while staying hidden. Staying safe.”
He looked uneasy. “How far, though, Marian? How far are you really willing to go for this?”
*
So it comes to this. One last dance with an assassin's sword-and with a man's heart, that most dangerous weapon of all. The blade slams into me. The world goes white and all I feel is the ferocity with which he crushes my body against his.
I hear shouts and running feet, although perhaps it is just the pounding of the pulse in my skull. He releases me and, through the disbelief, I know I have won.
I spared myself nothing, held nothing back, to protect my king. I did what an army of knights should have. It is an exultant desperation, these last struggles of my poor, stammering heart. I was willing to give myself up for this and in a way it is a relief that it demanded my blood instead of my life. At least I can die an honest woman. A free one.
My Robin weeps as I try to explain. We gave everything to cause, king and country, but so little to each other. Perhaps he would go back and do it differently if he could, but I cannot truly believe that.
“We were fighters,” I say.
I do not think he understands. How can he? But here, in these failing heartbeats, I have what I fought for and I have earned my warrior's death. Oh, I would not have chosen this brevity, or the sand and heat and pain, or to have his ring still cold on my finger; but I am content.
I have one final choice. I will not linger. I smile at him, fixing his face in my mind. My fingers close on steel.
The pain goes away.
*
“How far, Marian?” His blue eyes were wary, as if he didn't really want an answer. “How far are you willing to go for this?”
She thought of Robin and Much, of John Little, Djaq and Will Scarlett, living on the edge of capture and death. She thought of her father, who lost his life in part to prove her wrong. She had not even been there when they buried him beside her mother. She thought of all the families she had seen crushed by disease and desperation, by ceaseless hunger and fear. She watched the fields roll up to Sherwood's feet and remembered a time when this land had no more than its share of poverty and so much more freedom. She thought of a girl running reckless through the grass, trying to catch up with a boy whose laughter remained always two strides ahead.
She thought of the future. She wanted there to be one, a good one, for that little boy and girl and all the others like them.
“These things are worth fighting for,” she said, more to herself than to Allan. “I will go as far as I have to.”
How could she have ever thought this was just politics? How had she convinced herself that a man like Vaisey could be constrained or defeated by words?
Robin was right. This was war.
“As far as it takes.”
~
Author: ctquill
Fandom: Robin Hood BBC
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Violence, death, language.
Prompt: #61: Nothing could be worse than the fear that one had given up too soon, and left one unexpended effort that might have saved the world. - Jane Addams (1860-1935), founder of the settlement house movement in the United States. Laid the foundations for social work as it is now practiced. Her writings and speeches influenced the later shape of the United Nations. Second woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, and the first American woman to win it.
Summary: Marian is presented with an opportunity, but the price may be too high. Set just after 2x11 and during 2x13.
Author's Notes: Expect historical inaccuracy. A huge thank you to jagnikjen and roh_wyn for beta reading. Any changes I've made that have messed this up are entirely my own fault. Thanks to the participants of the rewatch at roh_fics and to allthingsrobin's transcripts at Hoodwinked . I used both sites for reference. This version of Robin Hood belongs to Tiger Aspect and the BBC.
The horses were ready, saddled and tied to the fence behind the stable. The stable hand lay on a bed of hay, bound and gagged. Allan had been busy.
Ronald's breath smoked as he gabbled the rest of his explanation in snatches. The baby had kept quiet despite being jounced around while Ronald jogged across the yard. Perhaps it recognised family. Or it was just too shocked to cry.
“My grandfather's…second wife…awful woman…when she discovered the old man had left nothing for her after his death she took off for London to find…another rich husband.”
He passed Marian the baby as he mounted, but snatched it back immediately. He cradled it against him and took up the reins one-handed.
“Abandoned her newborn babe…the nuns care nothing for him…leave him locked in that room all day…Won't give him up, though, she paid them half of what she stole from the house before she was caught and thrown out and they think there's more where that came from…We've been searching for him…we're the only family he has left…My wife is waiting for him…We'll give him a proper home.”
He looked around like a rabbit catching the scent of a fox. Marian moved to mount her horse and Allan to open the gate, but Ronald had already kicked his horse into motion.
“Come on, hurry!”
Marian glanced back at the convent, but saw no signs of alarm. She still had the child's toy in her hand. He would surely want it on the journey. She stuffed it under her belt and swung up onto her horse. Allan was right behind her as they rode out into the woods. Ronald pulled ahead, but kept glancing back as if to assure himself they were following. Only when they reached the main road did he stop to let them catch up.
“My father is waiting with your reward,” he said, and now he seemed eager to be rid of them. His eyes gleamed like coins in the dark, shifting this way and that. His horse sidled, mimicking his impatience. “We part ways here.”
He wheeled his horse and galloped off. Marian didn't even have time to offer him the toy, though she had drawn it out from her belt.
“Wouldn't have hurt him to say thank you,” Allan said.
Marian stared at the toy in her hand. It had been sewn from scraps of cloth. Worn cotton, mostly, but the head was made of velvet. The stitcher had crafted a smiling face and stuffed it with more cloth to make it soft and plump.
“Allan...”
“Yeah. I know.”
“It doesn't make sense. It isn't right.”
Allan shifted uncomfortably in his saddle. “So what do you want to do about it?”
The decision was taken out of her hands.
“Charles! My baby.” The woman's screams caused Allan's horse to rear, nearly throwing him. Marian was a better rider and her mount merely tossed its head as the nun-or, rather, the woman in nun's clothing-came hurtling down the road towards them. “How could you help take him? You monsters. Murderers!”
She stumbled on the hem of her habit or she would have run straight past, after Ronald. Sobbing, she picked herself up, but Marian was already turning her horse.
“I'll get him back,” she called. “I promise.”
She soon left the woman behind, despite her efforts to keep up. Marian rode grimly. Her anger at what she'd been coerced into doing pulsed in time with the rhythm of her horse's muscles; powerful, tight and surging. She could only pray Ronald had kept to the road.
He hadn't. But he had left his horse tied to a tree beside it and a tract of crushed grass showed which way he had gone. Marian slipped from the saddle.
She followed silently in his wake. She had learned stealth well in her years as the Night Watchman, and her time in the forest had taught her more; where to place your feet on leaves, stones and twigs; how to avoid disturbing the nesting and burrowing creatures that could raise an alarm; how to track, though she hardly needed to. Even in the dark, he had left a path clear enough for a blind man.
The hem of her dress was soon soaked and heavy with dew. She thought wistfully of her leather trousers, now burnt and gone. The chatter of a stream heralded the start of open, muddy ground. His footprints stamped a straight line to the water. She heard the baby wail.
He cut a dark cross against the moonlit sky, with his arms raised to hold the child out over the stream. The water was shallow but swift. Ice glittered in the reeds.
“Ronald!”
There was no time for her to sneak up on him. He whirled round, bringing the baby back over earth.
“What do you want?” he sounded annoyed. “My father is waiting and he is not a patient man. Your part in this is done.”
Marian wanted to get closer, but he had moved one hand to his belt and the long knife there.
“Who was your grandfather?” Her voice rang in the frosted night. “A wealthy man, clearly. A nobleman? But your father wasn't the child of his first wife, was he? He stood to inherit nothing.”
Ronald's face contorted. “My grandmother was a kitchen maid. His first wife was dead. But he still wanted nothing to do with his bastard son.”
“Even though he was his only heir, for so long. Isn't that right?” She moved a fraction nearer.
“He knew about us. He received news. But he wouldn't receive us, not in his precious manor, not even on his lands. My grandmother slaved to buy my father an education from scribes and churchmen, but nothing made him acceptable to his lordship. After her death, my father went to him. He thought time might have softened the old man. And it had. He acknowledged my father publicly, though not as his heir.”
“And then…he married again.”
“He fell over that red-headed bitch-” he spat “-on a trip to London. Became besotted with her. They were wed within the month, and she was with child a month after that.”
“Your father must have been bitterly disappointed when she gave birth to a boy.”
She was still too far away. His hand touched the knife.
“Ronald.” She couldn't help how sharp her voice sounded. “Why not leave the child where he will be taken in as a foundling? There is nothing so anonymous as an abandoned baby. He will grow up with no knowledge of who he is.”
He sneered at her. “Stupid woman. There has to be a body, if the claim is to be undisputed. We have to make sure he is identified.”
“If you kill the baby, you will never inherit.”
“That's why no-one was meant to know,” he roared. “The mother would have accused us, but who would believe her? It would look like a kidnapping, or like she herself abandoned the boy to the cold. You were supposed to hold up your end of the deal.”
“To be your scapegoat? So I was not to be caught in case I told the truth.”
“What do you care of this, anyway? A woman who thinks she can play outlaw by night and lady of the manor by day. Who thinks she can speak of matters of governance as would a man, and be heard by those in power. Who thinks she can interfere with what king sits on England's throne! You have broken England's laws and the laws of decency to achieve your ends. Leave me to mine.”
He slashed his knife towards the baby's throat, then screamed and dropped both knife and child. Marian dived forward.
Her dagger was small enough to fit in her palm. She could throw it with accuracy over a considerable distance, but she had needed to keep him talking until she was closer. Close enough to catch the baby.
She only just made it. The child shrieked, but she had him in her arms. She supported his head as she had seen the women she had grown up around do, once they had all melted away into marriage and motherhood, leaving her behind. To be less than they in the eyes of the world, but to have power they could not. To fight -and, though she would not have admitted it even to herself, to wait.
She gathered the child in. Ronald was grunting and cursing behind her. She couldn't outrun him in her skirts, encumbered by the baby. If she had aimed for his leg he could still have used the knife. She supposed she should have killed him.
She laid the boy down on the driest patch of ground and turned to face Ronald.
“Leave,” she said. “Your plan will never work now.”
He wrenched her dagger from his arm and lunged for her.
It was harder work in a dress, but he was a heavy man and that slowed him down. She dodged the blade, trying to draw him away from the child. He caught her with a hard blow that made the night flare and followed it with a punch to her ribs. She got behind him and struck the dagger from his hand. A kick swept his legs out from under him. She snatched up both the blades from the mud.
Ronald struggled to his feet and limped for the trees. Marian heard a rider approaching. She ran back to the baby. He was cold, but unharmed.
Allan rode right to the water's edge. The woman clung to his waist. The moment he reined the horse in, she slid from the saddle.
“Please...my child...”
Marian realised she was still holding her dagger. She lowered it and passed the baby to his mother.
While she showered his face with tears and kisses, Marian ran to the horse. Allan had dismounted. She grabbed the reins from him and swung up into the saddle.
“I have to get to Matthew before Ronald does. Go after him, try to stop him.”
Allan gave her a 'who, me?' look.
There was no time to argue with him. She shook her head at him scornfully.
“You used to be a good man, Allan a Dale.”
She kicked the horse's flanks and raced for the road.
*
The door slammed back. Ice fell from the hem of her cloak and melted in the heat of the fire.
He glanced up, then returned to stirring the ashes. Marian stared at the last scraps of parchment, curling in the flames.
“Is-is the sheriff here?” she said finally. Her tongue felt like wood.
“About to leave. Still time for me to turn you in, though, if I choose to. I could try to convince him to hang you here, where there's no chance of rescue by lovestruck outlaws.”
“I don't suppose there was a copy of that.” She spoke slowly and precisely, because control was all she had.
Matthew threw the poker down and faced her.
“You want to stop him? There's only one way.” He thrust his crossbow into her hands. She clutched it instinctively, then tried to push it back at him.
“I am no killer. No assassin.”
“Then he goes on and your precious king will die.”
He was so certain. Not that Vaisey would try, which any fool knew, but that he would succeed. It shook her.
“What do you know?” He turned away from her with a sneer and she took a step after him, wanting to shake him, wanting to use the crossbow on him. “What was in that letter?”
He began to laugh. Marian's grip on the crossbow tightened. She raised it. Her voice like steel, she commanded, “Tell me.”
His laughter mocked her. Her finger was near the trigger, and she had no intention of pulling it-but her hand seemed not to know that.
“What is so funny?”
“I don't know, do I?” Matthew savoured each syllable. “I can't read. Mother's money didn't stretch to that.”
He looked her up and down and he didn't have to speak it. You say you are no thief, lady. You say you are no killer. But look at you. Just look.
The crossbow dropped to her side. Voices rose from the courtyard below.
“You claimed-”
“All I know is what I heard him say about it. Now no-one will ever know.”
He paced around her, studying her like a horse at market. “I thought you were like me. Ruthless enough to do whatever it took to achieve your ends. Ah, well.”
“Will you expose me now?” She forced herself to ask it.
“Now? When you could escape and run back to your lover? No, not yet. I think you still owe me, and I can't claim anything from you if you're dead.”
The portcullis winched up, groaning. She heard Vaisey say, “Always a pleasure, my prince. Or should I say…Your Majesty.”
That little chuckle that always made her blood fizz. She turned to the window.
Vaisey's white horse glowed in the torchlight. He sat astride it like a black and bloated tick. Prince John himself watched from the top of the steps.
“So-are you going to use that or not?” Matthew whispered in her ear.
She shook her head. “I cannot. If he dies, Prince John's army will besiege Nottingham again.”
“Will they?” Matthew wandered away as if bored by the whole situation.
“You were there. How can you even suggest-”
“I maintain that our future king knows that in the long run he will need taxes more than he will need the ringleader of his Black Knights. Certainly more than he needs a pile of ashes. But maybe you're right. The town could always fight, or be evacuated. Isn't it worth the risk? I suppose you could give yourself up, if you're that worried. Spin a story for them before they execute you, to save the town-you're such a good little liar. Or you could kill them both and be done with it.”
Her breath caught. “Murder the prince?”
“Why not? They're planning regicide. But I think you'd be safe just shooting Vaisey and making a run for it.”
Marian looked back at him, but he had turned to the fire again.
“You want him dead,” she said slowly. “Why?”
Matthew whirled round. “Think about it, girl.” His voice rose. “Who takes over once he's dead?”
“Guy?”
“Probably. Which leaves his position open. I haven't the wherewithal to be a sheriff-not yet-but I'll take what I can get.”
He advanced on her, suddenly stiff with anger. “You've stolen one position that's rightfully mine already tonight. You get me this one!”
He backed her up against the wall. She tried to raise the crossbow, but her arm was trapped.
“I'm going places,” he said, more calmly.“Up to the top at Nottingham if you pull that trigger. Off to greener pastures if you don't. I found the babe once, I can do it again. But consider this. A man in charge of Nottingham, a Black Knight, an agent of Prince John's-a man over whom you…exert a certain influence.” He leaned in until his lips and his beard brushed her cheek. “You want to make a difference? Imagine that.”
She squirmed one arm free and shoved him back. He smirked at her.
“Imagine that,” he said again.
The worst thing was, she could.
The clatter of hooves drew her back to the window and the crossbow was in her hands. It was easy to lift it, to aim it, to imagine a swift excision of the sheriff from this world. All her disgust for the man poured into that ready bolt.
Matthew had engineered this dilemma. He'd done it to punish her.
She could destroy Nottingham. She couldn't take that chance.
She could save Nottingham. She just had to shoot.
The crossbow struck the wall as she threw it aside. It would have hit Matthew, but he was no longer there. She was alone in the tower.
*
When she returned to her horse she found Allan there, leaning against a post. She didn't bother asking whether he'd even tried to go after Ronald.
“Did you get it?” he said.
She walked past him without a word. He fell into step beside her.
“The mother and child are safe. She said she couldn't stay under the nuns' protection after this. She needed to disappear, until her boy's old enough to claim and defend his titles. They've been hunting her for months. I got her to the nearest town and saw her on her way.”
“Good,” Marian said dully. “That's good, Allan.”
*
They rode back to Nottingham. The carriage would remain abandoned beside the road to the convent. Marian was sure someone would find a use for it.
“You still don't know that he wasn't just bluffing,” Allan said matter-of-factly, after an hour's silence.
“Perhaps he was.” Marian fingered her reins. “But I couldn't do nothing. Perhaps I should have tried to find it and take it from him, rather than playing by his rules.”
“He would have turned you in.”
“I should have chanced it.” Her hands curled into fists. “I am no longer the Night Watchman, Allan. And I don't think I can be an effective spy in the castle now that Guy knows what I am capable of, not unless I could turn him against the sheriff and the Black Knights. Robin needs intelligence more than he needs another sword at his side. The people need the Night Watchman. So what use am I?”
“Well, you're not a soldier like Robin. Leave all that Black Knights rubbish to him. There's got to be ways you can still help the poor.”
“The best way to help them is to put a stop to Vaisey.”
“Yeah, but be serious. You're just-”
“A woman?” she flared, hearing Ronald's words again. “That does not mean I feel no responsibility for my country. That I cannot fight for it and my king.”
Allan rolled his eyes at her. “I was going to say, you're just one person. Like this business with Matthew-you can't stop the sheriff and Prince John single-handed.”
“Robin is just one person,” she said, and even she had to admit it sounded sulky. “I managed perfectly well fighting alone for years. Anyway, this time I had you with me.”
“I don't count. Just-you have to be realistic, Marian. There are fights you can't win.”
She shook her head.
“I have been too cautious for too long. I have lost too much and have so much to fight for. My father died for this. So many people, so many good people, have died for it. I fear I have done nearly all I can while staying hidden. Staying safe.”
He looked uneasy. “How far, though, Marian? How far are you really willing to go for this?”
*
So it comes to this. One last dance with an assassin's sword-and with a man's heart, that most dangerous weapon of all. The blade slams into me. The world goes white and all I feel is the ferocity with which he crushes my body against his.
I hear shouts and running feet, although perhaps it is just the pounding of the pulse in my skull. He releases me and, through the disbelief, I know I have won.
I spared myself nothing, held nothing back, to protect my king. I did what an army of knights should have. It is an exultant desperation, these last struggles of my poor, stammering heart. I was willing to give myself up for this and in a way it is a relief that it demanded my blood instead of my life. At least I can die an honest woman. A free one.
My Robin weeps as I try to explain. We gave everything to cause, king and country, but so little to each other. Perhaps he would go back and do it differently if he could, but I cannot truly believe that.
“We were fighters,” I say.
I do not think he understands. How can he? But here, in these failing heartbeats, I have what I fought for and I have earned my warrior's death. Oh, I would not have chosen this brevity, or the sand and heat and pain, or to have his ring still cold on my finger; but I am content.
I have one final choice. I will not linger. I smile at him, fixing his face in my mind. My fingers close on steel.
The pain goes away.
*
“How far, Marian?” His blue eyes were wary, as if he didn't really want an answer. “How far are you willing to go for this?”
She thought of Robin and Much, of John Little, Djaq and Will Scarlett, living on the edge of capture and death. She thought of her father, who lost his life in part to prove her wrong. She had not even been there when they buried him beside her mother. She thought of all the families she had seen crushed by disease and desperation, by ceaseless hunger and fear. She watched the fields roll up to Sherwood's feet and remembered a time when this land had no more than its share of poverty and so much more freedom. She thought of a girl running reckless through the grass, trying to catch up with a boy whose laughter remained always two strides ahead.
She thought of the future. She wanted there to be one, a good one, for that little boy and girl and all the others like them.
“These things are worth fighting for,” she said, more to herself than to Allan. “I will go as far as I have to.”
How could she have ever thought this was just politics? How had she convinced herself that a man like Vaisey could be constrained or defeated by words?
Robin was right. This was war.
“As far as it takes.”
~