Choices - Part VI
Spoilers: references to S1, 2, and 3.
PG for romantic scenes
PG-13 for violent scenes
“Cripes, that was the worst night ever,” his eyes still closed, his face unchanged, Much could be talking in his sleep.
Allan rolls over toward Much on his back, near his ear. “Maybe you should - WAKE UP! Ow !” Laughing, Allan shoves Much away with his elbow, his arm smarting a little from the punch. “Where’s your sense of humour?”
“Back home.”
“Little John’s gone to bring Matilda?” Allan asks Robin, finished with his fun for now.
“They’re almost back. If you listen, you can hear them.” Robin’s enjoying the morning fire that’s soothing his arms and legs with the bliss of languid heat, his beautiful bride beside him. Finding Simon, thwarting the Sheriff, giving the Black Knights’ donations to the poor, and cutting more firewood if they’re stuck here another night - none were last night’s reasons to wait. She is his more than ever before yet as free to leave as she had been with Gisborne, ironically. The idea of being caught alone together by a killer on the prowl hadn’t exactly enhanced the mood for carefree romance, nor did being watched by this lot. Of course, there are two critical differences between this marriage and the one she had with Gisborne. He’s never seen her smile for hours straight like this before and she keeps finishing sentences with “...then we can have our honeymoon.” Each time intimacies he’s thought of for years flood his mind. They could start as soon as tonight, if all goes well today. He doesn’t want to stop imagining them, but when he has managed to think of something else this morning - out of sheer willpower over her stunning smile that sends his heart soaring - he finds himself anticipating the pleasure he’ll feel when Gisborne finds out.
Much throws off his blanket, waits until he can speak in the exhale of a deep yawn, “We’ve got some old bread around here somewhere.” Sighing, he gets to his feet, opens his eyes with a vigorous shake of his head against his open palm. He senses the moisture on his lips, a misty feeling in his lungs. He peers ahead with half-closed eyes and a slight sway to his solid, average height. “Great. No wonder my clothes feel soggy.” He begins to shuffle his feet, another sigh grows instantly into a full blown yawn. The bread is right where he left it. What a blessing.
“Morning, everyone! I brought you a present.”
With a groan, Much crunches his shoulders up as though that could cover his ears as he forces himself to move from one friend to the next with the bread. Matilda’s voice is too chipper, too jarring. Especially since the thick fog has muted her and John into ghostly figures that would have the civil morning voices of no volume. They seem to be in the process of walking toward an earthly existence, as with each approaching step their colours, the folds of their clothes, the tendrils of their hair, the outlines of staff and bag, their irritatingly cheerful faces are all gradually coming into sharper focus. Everything about them is more vibrant than he feels, that’s for certain.
“That was a quick trip,” Marian replies. Another smile.
“We thought it best to hurry. Matilda’s got something for us, but she needs time to make it,” explains Little John, as he sets his staff among the bows leaning against a nearby tree trunk.
“This is a second gift.” Matilda hands a flask to Much.
Lifting the nozzle, he breathes in. The sweet, heavenly smell of a rare treat pops his eyes wide awake with delight. Wine. “Matilda, I think I love you.”
“You better,” she teases.
She hands him the infamous water jug which he pays for with a resounding smack on her cheek and a grateful smile. “This is a fine morning!” he announces, sitting down - he picks one end of the fallen oak - as everyone settles on dry perches wherever they can find them to share the morning snack.
“What it is you need to make?” asks Marian, breaking her piece of bread in two with both hands.
The men don’t notice the merest flick of a glance between her and Matilda except for Robin, “She’s doing pretty well at exercising that hand, isn’t she Matilda?”
Robin’s question takes her by surprise. She gives a galvanized response as quickly as she can muster it. “Um, yes. Absolutely. Well done there, Marian.”
“Thank you. So what is it you’ve brought?”
“Medicine I think you can use it against Simon. I picked up the ingredients this morning from a travelling apothecary who’s been around Nottingham market lately.” She opens her leather bag, so creased from wear and tear it looks to have crisscrossing light brown lines of design, and takes out to set on the rock she’s sitting on a few metal vials and tins containing the wares of her profession. “I need to brew it.”
“What does it do?” asks Allan, his bite of bread shoved into one cheek.
“I think the whole story behind it might explain it best. A year ago, I was trying to help a soldier just back from the Holy Land, sent home because he wasn’t right in the head. Living in torment was more like it.” Muttering under her breath to herself, “Snake-hearted, gutless chicken-heads who couldn’t tell demonic possession from labour pains. I’d like to see them survive what he’d seen and done. We’d see who’s not hiding under beds when the cows moo.”
Blank expressions. All directed at her. Everyone has heard her quite clearly, apparently. Unruffled, Matilda gets to the point, “I experimented, it wasn’t easy, but I finally got him what he needed. This medicine wipes away specific memories. Drug Simon, let Robin be the last person he sees, and then poof - no more memories of Robin Hood.” Matilda accepts a cup of watered wine that has been passed from Much, to Little John, at last to her with fingertips brushing fingertips with a blush to the cheeks of two faces. Clearing her throat, “He may do with some quizzing first - he might know who’s trying to kill Marian.”
“Right, you’ve totally confused me.” Allan brushes the crumbs off his pants into his hand, tosses them into the fire.
“I gave my patient the medicine, his friend who’d brought him home from the war sat with him - just the two of them - until the potion made the soldier fall asleep. Next day, when he woke up and saw his friend, it was as though they were meeting for the first time. He had forgotten who his friend was, and whatever they had shared. The ugly memories of the war they’d fought together were gone.”
Allan thinks of his brother, together for so many capers, some criminal, some hilarious, some imperative to raise the spirits of their worn out parents. “What about the good times he’d had with his friend? I mean, did they come from the same village?”
“They grew up together.”
“So your patient doesn’t remember them playing as kids?”
“If you had seen what he was like after the war, you would have said losing those happy childhood memories was worth his peace of mind.”
“Did he forget where he lived? I mean, he and his friend would have hung out at his house, so -“
“There were too many memories at the house that didn’t include his friend, so my patient remembered his wife, his kids, the rest of his life. Just the memories of his friend and what they had done together were gone.”
“The medicine’s like an arrow hitting a bull’s-eye in the brain,” Robin’s intrigued.
“Exactly.”
Little John adds, “Pity there wasn’t some other way for him. I wish to God I’d never left my wife and son, but I would never give up the good times we had together for peace of mind. Not for a thousand pieces of gold. Some memories haunt me, but the shame keeps me from repeating my mistakes; memories make me a better man.” He shakes off what is not ever to be bestowed on the likes of murderers and oppressors like Gisborne, a growl steals the sympathy that was in his voice, “Sir Simon. He’s another story.”
Marian has snuggled her face into Robin’s shoulder. Unconsciously, he puts his arm around her as he begins to think this through aloud, “If Simon’s memories of us include a plan to get us captured, if we can use this on him, he won’t remember the plan or seeing our camp if he has. If finding us is the only reason he’s here, he may even go straight back to where he came from when he wakes up. Everything about us will be erased from his mind. This could let us go home again. It could make certain Marian can’t be found.” Robin relaxes his hold as Marian as sits up.
“The Sheriff has put a price on your head, Marian. The news was all over the market this morning,” adds Little John.
“See?” says Robin.
“I do,” says Little John.
“We won’t have to kill anyone.” Much is pleased.
“Whatever it takes to not have sleep next to you,” grins Allan. “You’re snoring here, mate. Very loudly. Might as well blow a trumpet to invite all the Sheriff’s guards ‘round for breakfast.”
“Hey, Allan, I thought we weren’t going to say anything,” says Robin in mock seriousness. Allan shrugs. “How long do you need?” Robin’s tone is one of a decision made, even though he’s chuckling at Much who is now mumbling something difficult to decipher, but it sounds like I never snore mixed with some suggestions of choice noises Allan should make with himself later on.
“About an hour.”
“You have our thanks.”
Looming above and ahead of them as though it hangs in midair is the thatched roof of Locksley Manor, the white plaster walls holding it up blend with the fog so well they appear to be part-mist save for their hard, dark beams, their bases made of nothing at all. Marian pulls Matilda back to hide behind a tree. Soldiers are stationed at the front, but not at the side entrance that leads directly to the kitchen. Without Marian to protect, Guy must have cut back the guard.
Matilda has a knot in her stomach. She couldn’t give a rat’s royal behind if they are captured, or tortured, or killed. Those would be chances to tell the newt-brained powers that be self-castrating exactly what she thinks of them non-stop, whatever end may come. Marian’s confession of yesterday had not impressed Matilda either. Matilda had guessed as much, that Marian had encouraged Guy to hope, to believe the impossible, that the current state of affairs at Locksley was partly her fault. But Matilda is having second thoughts. Last night’s wedding had been entirely Marian’s idea. “What if Robin finds out?”
“He’ll forgive me. He has to. I’m his wife.”
The cool, wet fog offers thick cover even five miles away from Locksley. Through it, through the forest, along the roadside, Robin and his men are on their way to Nottingham since this morning Locksley had rendered no Simon and no leads, confident Marian and Matilda are exactly where they had left them. The campfires with their high pillars of smoke, Much’s trumpet of snores - hilarious as it was - had made everyone agree the women should spend their visit together well armed and well hidden in Will’s weapons cave while the men tracked down Simon.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Matilda persists.
Marian is frowning, “Are you sure you didn’t bring anything? A knife, dagger, anything?”
Matilda has her answer. The women had left the cave about an hour ago. There Marian had not found a hand-held weapon the whole collection.
A man calls into the yard, “Food’s ready!” It’s Thornton.
“Bess. Right on time, bless her,” answers one guard pulling himself out of the fog, away from the wall he had been leaning against.
“Her cooking beats the wife’s any day,” adds another.
“Not mine. Mine’s the best cook in England,” brags the next.
“Well, that’s convenient,” smiles Matilda, as one by one four guards take themselves and their conversation through the front door to have their mid-afternoon meal in the main hall as always.
“Let’s go.” Marian leads the way across the lawn, they dive through the side door where in the kitchen a startled Bess clutches at the rim of the pot she has just knocked teetering toward the table’s edge, saving in the nick of time what smells to be a delicious beef stew from ruin upon the floor.
Unsure if she should believe her own eyes, Bess can only stare as Thornton walks in from the direction of the front hall, muttering, “This is not good,” his head bent over an untouched plate of bread. He halts in surprise, “M’lady! What are you doing here?”
“Never mind that. What happened to your eye?”
Thornton puts his hand up to check. Though his eyelid is open now, his black and blue cheek is still tender and very swollen. “Sir Guy. He was drunk.”
“Where is he?”
“Still where he was as of last night. In your old bedchamber. He hasn’t stirred or eaten all day.” Thornton puts the plate on the table. “Locksley will fall apart if he keeps on -” Thornton doesn’t know how to put feeling sorry for himself into words suitable for a manservant discussing the lord of the manor, even a despised one. “Two guards decided to give themselves a holiday this morning. The ones who were supposed to be guarding that door,” tilting his head at the one Marian and Matilda had used. “The rest haven’t been guarding anything but their card game.”
“Is he -” her eyes fall on the pitcher of mead Thornton has just picked up from the center of the table.
“No. But yesterday, he beat anyone who tried to stop him for his own good, ‘cept for Bess. Bess he let be. By noon, he was passed out. We had to step over him to put logs on the fire, until last night he finally came to and crawled up to bed. What’s to become of us, m’Lady?”
“Maybe I can help. I am here to see him.”
“The guards never take long,” Thornton is gruff with gratitude, a swallowed pride, as he leaves to pour the mead for the men laughing in the hall, closing the door behind him.
Brought back to life with Marian’s embrace, Bess pulls her lady and Matilda to sit on the bench by the table, and serves them - it is beef stew, with carrots and potatoes - the full plates she sets before them with one thud.
“I knew you’d come back.”
Guy had heard the news yesterday morning from the loud, insubordinate mouths in Nottingham market as he had ridden through it on his way home. He had expected it, but not this soon, and not without being informed through proper channels. The Sheriff must have issued the warrant immediately after Guy had reported the Black Knights’ desertion, while he had been fulfilling his other duties at the castle. Vasey hadn’t deigned to inform him his former wife was once again wanted for attempted murder.
On top of that, Guy now knows why he didn’t recall meeting Simon until that first party at the castle. Thornton had confirmed his suspicions when he had asked the servant this morning as Thornton had set down the breakfast he could not stomach. The day Thornton had shown Simon to a guest room, the smallest and least comfortable, was the day the Black Knights and their wives had returned from that week of festivities and meetings. Simon had been in their midst, accepted by all without question because of the Sheriff.
Someone watching Locksley. A closed meeting. An open window. An ‘accident’ when claiming he had indigestion from the night before Simon had not attended that last meeting the afternoon prior to Guy’s pre-dawn ride back to Locksley, to Marian. A notable absence the morning of the Black Knights’ departure. Because the job wasn’t done. Killing Marian. It all fits.
Gloves off, Guy’s hands wander over Marian’s clothes folded inside an open chest, intermingled with jewelry he had given to her over the course of their short time of marital ‘bliss.’ There had been moments of bliss for him, anyway, those times he had caught Marian looking at him, giving him a thrill. She had had to leave all her things behind. In his rage, he hadn’t given her time to pack.
A corner of violet catches his eye. Guy pulls at it recognizing it for what it is, draws it out. Closing his eyes, he buries his face in it to inhale. He had given this scarf to Marian for the colour had seemed to shimmer with life. He had thought she might like to brighten her bandaged arm with it. She had; her delight had been his. If it wasn’t for Vasey’s assassin, Marian would still be here, and he could be trying to earn her love even now.
“Gisborne.” A voice from the direction of the doorway. Guy stands. “Look who I found.” He turns around to see Vasey’s new hire holding a knife to Marian’s throat. The scarf cascades down in slow, serpentine flutter to the bare, wooden floor.
“I would have given her friend to the guards for their entertainment, but she got away. Probably to Hood, so we don’t have much time I imagine.” Simon shoves Marian at Guy who catches her before she stumbles. “How sweet. Still minding how you handle her arm.”
Guy whispers, “Are you all right?” The recent experience of living in close quarters needs only a cursory search of her face for a clue - shock at his swollen right eye, a mute plea that he take care, and something he has never seen when she has looked at him before. Faith. In him.
Simon is demanding attention. “As you are well aware, we are on - and I quote - ‘thin ice’ with the Sheriff.” She is so luscious to look at alive. Pity he never managed to kill her on his own.
Guy steps around Marian, putting her firmly behind his back to shield her from the threat of Simon’s long knife. “Give me one good reason why I should care.”
Simon counts off on his fingers, “Money. Locksley. Your powerful place in society. That’s three. Put us back into favour with the one who counts, Gisborne. Kill her.”
Marian lurches forward. No. Guy holds her back with his arm. Between clenched teeth over his shoulder, his eyes never leaving Simon’s, “Stay behind me.” She’s not fit to fight again. Not yet.
“Oh come on, Gisborne. Your conscience should be clear. The law is on your side.” As though explaining a simple procedure one step at a time to a child who finds it complicated, not bothering to conceal his impatience, “She’s wanted for the attempted murder of the Sheriff. Killing her will fulfill your duty to your lord.” Simon steps into the room, leaves the door open. The more inadvertent witnesses, the better.
Spotting Guy’s broadsword on the bed, Marian quickly puts it into Guy’s left hand from behind, the right thing to do for him to unsheathe it, drawing his sword with the same motion, to aim the tip of the blade at Simon with a straight right arm.
Simon tries the sing-song of luring a simple-minded child into blind obedience with the promise of a sweet treat. “It will make up for us not finding Hood’s camp.”
“I’d rather send you to the Devil.” Guy’s mouth twists into a snarl, his voice full of venom, “Writhing with pain.”
“I don’t believe this!” Simon throws one hand up at the scene before him, lets the other holding his knife fall to his side. “Everyone is talking about you, Gisborne. How your idiotic presents got you nowhere. How she wouldn’t lower herself to like you, how you couldn’t pay her to accept you. They’re all saying you never stood a chance. Everyone knows you are beneath her. She knows it, too. Here’s your chance. You can shut them all up.” Offering the hilt of his knife, “Slit her pompous, little throat.”
Guy glances at the knife. His pride is squirming under his temper, both want the usual sacrifice rendered up to the glory of Gisborne after hours and hours of torture. Clawing their way from his clenched stomach through the pounding in his chest, they throb at his neck, his cheek, demanding their appeasement. Their vindication.
Simon’s glee burgeons. Disparaging Sir Guy worked! His eyes are growing less tense now, more decided. He’s capitulating, seeing reason. Dropping his sword, Sir Guy is pulling out from a hidden pocket a dagger that looks like it could disembowel a horse despite its compact size.
“Guy, what are you doing?”
Shut it, woman. So ominous is the glint to its blade, the curved shape of it, the way Gisborne holds it between his fingers, he looks to have sprouted an unnatural, merciless, deep-reaching, cold steel claw. Lady Marian cannot possibly see it from where she stands behind Sir Guy’s broad shoulders. This is going to be so worth all the trouble these two have caused the second she realizes Sir Guy is about to slice her. Shame Simon couldn’t turn her head at the dinner party, but she had eyes only for Gisborne. Watching them die is more arousing if they’ve flirted innocently with him beforehand.
Guy puts a finger to his lips. Not necessary. Simon is too entranced, too excited to speak, swallowing a mouthful of drool, silently tallying his fees for services perfectly rendered. Vasey is going to be so pleased he might even give Simon a bonus. Sir John’s pretty one. She promises to be breath-taking dead. Absolutely stunning.
Gisborne spins his back to Simon, whipping an arm around Marian’s waist, pulling her tightly against the length of his body, silencing her cry of pain with a thrust.
Unfair. Gisborne’s having all the fun pressing his face into her neck, his right elbow drawing back, winding up for a second go. His shoulders are blocking Simon’s view now. Simon cranes to see, only to be permitted the forward plunge of Guy’s elbow and arm. This thrust lifts her feet off the floor, her head flops, her chin set upon Gisborne’s shoulder. Her eyes are wide and unblinking, their sparkle dimming, leaching her life away. Finally. Her death at the hands of the man she trusted with her life. But she is turning out to be rather disappointing, more beautiful alive than dead. Some are like that, muses Simon. With a smirk, Simon decides to be magnanimous. Guy can have her after.
But at the third thrust Simon cannot restrain himself any longer. He dashes forward, strides around the couple to feast upon the sight that gratifies him best. Finding it, he stops and stares in delight, “In the back, Gisborne?”
Guy’s hands lie folded over each other between her shoulder blades, the dagger beneath them now flat. All are soaked. The dagger’s blade looks made of blood, blood is flowing over and under Guy’s hands, seeping thick dark red into Marian’s pale turquoise dress. Simon’s voice is airy in awe at what Gisborne will sacrifice to hold onto what he wants, “Fascinating.”
At that, Gisborne lifts his head. Simon stumbles backward. Gisborne turns to follow Simon with his eyes, holding Marian’s lifeless body close like an animal that will not share his hard won meat with the rest of the pack. Simon’s back slams into the doorframe, impaled there by Gisborne’s savage expression. Gisborne might as well be spilling his guts, trampling them underfoot as he moves on to Simon’s heart and lungs. “Gisborne, you should be thanking me!”
“Tell the Sheriff. She is dead.”
But the inhuman hiss renders Simon incapable of moving an inch. Unexpectedly, Sir Guy turns out to have an undependable side to him. “Come, Gizzy. I’m on your side. Always have been.”
No reassurance of being comrades against Hood comes, only the sound of dripping. Under the leaves of a tree, these would be the early, arrhythmic drops of rain just before a thunderous downpour. Gisborne’s hands clench her to him in the snare of his fingers, like the embedded teeth of a trap hidden under leaves of glistening, sticky crimson. Her blood is splattering over the floor.
“GET OUT OF MY SIGHT!”
The monstrous roar launches Simon down the stairs, bolting for the front door. Of course Gisborne needs the Sheriff to know. For money, Locksley, power. This reprieve is probably temporary but Simon will take it, racing for a head start. As he runs full speed through the blindfold of mist to his horse tied to a tree in the forest, Simon hears an unearthly creature bellow for his demon, “TUCK! IN HERE! NOW!!!” Simon’s life depends on getting to the Sheriff. He must get the money that will pay for his escape. Before Gisborne can hunt him down. He mounts his horse, kicks her to spring into a gallop. Because if he doesn’t, Simon is as good as dead.
The dagger tips out of his hands. Guy’s knees buckle. He is sinking to the floor, taking Marian with him even as he lets her go, and as Tuck crashes into the room where he beholds blood on the floor, on Marian’s back, on Guy’s hands, lap and shirt. “Who -?“ No need to finish the question. The source is pulsing blood.
Marian is frantic, “Shut the door and help me!” No! Guy cannot bleed to death slowly. Not now. Not when she has finally found the way to heal his heart. Marian scrambles for the scarf from where it had slipped through Guy’s fingers when their eyes had locked over Simon’s knife. She takes the softest possible hold of his left hand, fights the rising need to vomit, for the ability to think clearly, to act. The black folds of his light-weight shirt are visible through a gaping hole in his palm.
Slamming the door, shutting out the upturned faces of a few servants and guards who are just now stepping cautiously into the hall below to see what the commotion is all about, Tuck rushes to kneel beside Sir Guy who is wavering, losing his balance. Lady Marian is trying to wrap the wound, but with one arm immobile her clumsy attempt is too loose. The blood won’t stop coming. “Put his head down before he hits it on the floor.”
Marian draws Guy down to lay his head in her lap, wipes her fingers roughly on her dress as fast as she can. “Guy, what have you done?”
“Protected you.”
A loud knock on the door. “Is everything all right?”
Guy clamps his right hand over Marian’s mouth. “Mind your own business, or I’ll give you an eye to match the one I gave you yesterday!”
Ripping his hand away, Marian wipes his blood roughly from his right hand and her face with the useless scarf, then forgoes holding Guy’s head in favour of pressing the scarf down as hard as she can on his bleeding palm, “I hope this hurts. Thornton is a good servant!” she whispers at him, glaring as Tuck quietly ransacks the room for something he can use to close the wound.
Soldiers know how not to undo a victory, and what Guy has just done for her - again - is a victory. Marian and Tuck have caught on. The manner of Guy’s response to Thornton doubled as a cue that Marian’s living presence be kept secret. They must keep their voices low.
Pointing to his bruised eye, Guy hisses, “I am fairly certain after I punched your good servant he brought me to my unconscious senses.”
Compared to Thornton’s, Guy’s black eye borders on the grotesque. “Then he’s earned a raise.” Marian smothers a smile, short-lived as she cannot put pressure on both sides of his hand. She needs two free hands to do that. One side is still bleeding with each push of his heart. The anxious plea in her eyes is back, imploring Tuck to hurry.
“Marian.” Guy helps her, putting pressure on the back of his left hand with the palm of his right. She must be made to understand why he had to do what he did.
“What?”
“You have to stay dead. Because if you are not -” his throat is dry, Guy needs a drink - “the Sheriff’s men will keep coming for you until one succeeds.”
Speechless, Marian’s eyes are riveted to Guy’s. Though to her this comes as no shock - she has always known the Sheriff to be a lying, treacherous soul beyond hope - to Guy, Vasey being behind the attempts to kill her must be shattering his precious chivalric code. Guy gave Vasey his obedient loyalty in return for power and protected interests. Even interests that came to include her.
Tuck sidesteps the puddle on the floor, “He’s lost a fair amount of blood.” Crouching down, he peers under the bed where a basket has been kicked on its side. Scrounging inside it, he finds needles, a pair of scissors, and plenty of thread. A sewing basket. Too bad Sir Guy couldn’t have landed himself on the bed, Tuck thinks wryly to himself crossing his legs to sit beside Sir Guy, opposite to Lady Marian, to see what he can do with the tools he has. “How long has he been bleeding?” Tuck takes over Guy’s wounded hand.
A nightmare includes no sense of time. A minute? Ten? “I’m not sure.” Wiping her hands on her dress again, Marian runs her fingertips lightly over Guy’s swollen, bluish purple cheek.
The first jab of the needle into and through Sir Guy’s skin doesn’t illicit even the hint of a grimace. Tuck recognizes a man who has experienced more anguish in his life than most. Sir Guy glances up at Lady Marian, and is immediately taken by what he sees. Emboldened, Tuck sets to work with rapid stitches into Guy’s skin, tugging the thread tight to draw the edges shut. First, Sir Guy’s palm then turning the hand over, Tuck sews closed the open wound at the back, praying aloud for God to rejoin the veins Tuck has tried to help by laying their sliced ends close together, to heal all. Finishing his work with another secure knot, Tuck binds the bloodied scarf around Sir Guy’s hand.
Marian closes Tuck’s prayer with a wisp of air, “Amen.” She is gazing steadily back at her protector, stroking his hair as she has been since Tuck poised the needle tip to strike.
Taking a slow, deep breath, the bleeding dramatically slowed by Tuck’s handiwork, Guy can feel his head clearing. Marian’s face is full of worry, guilt. Her faith has been validated with blood she had not needed to believe. Women. A little blood, then it’s all this unnecessary and bothersome hysterics. Except from Marian, he is rather liking the attention. Her fingertips stroke his hair again. She must be enjoying the sensation too, for the needle is put away. Milking this for all it is worth seems like a very good idea. He’ll take her to task for coming here when he’s good and ready, which at this rate could be tomorrow. “Thirsty.”
“Tuck?”
Tuck finds a goblet of wine by the bed, left over from Guy’s evening of drunken sin presumably, and passes it to Marian. “What happened here?” He is ready for explanations having done what he can, as Marian helps Guy drink, resorting to inching up her knee so her leg can prop up his head.
“I came to see Sir Guy. Matilda came with me. We were waiting in the kitchen for the guards to leave the front hall when Sir Simon came in from outside, ordered everyone to stay out of it, then dragged me up here.”
Guy has finished drinking. Marian sets the empty goblet down, then goes back to touching him. The backs of her fingers begin with his chin, follow the line of his jaw, up his cheek, along his temple. Now her fingers are resting in the warmth of his hair that has curled as it has grown long. If he had known she would be like this, he would have permitted wounds more often and at the first opportunity. The day Hood had nearly drowned him in the trough would have been a good time to start with a slice to the scalp from the trough’s edge perhaps. No, Marian. Don’t.
She senses an intangible pull and looking down finds solemn eyes watching her tears fall. His fingertips reach up to her cheek. Brushing a tear away, lowering his hand, Guy clenches a fist around it.
“Then Simon did this to Guy,” Tuck concludes.
“No. Simon wanted Guy to kill me.” Marian tries, but she cannot seem to breathe in. The gravity of what Guy has done is constricting her lungs. All she can do is breathe out. “He used his own blood.” With a vicious wipe of the back of her hand across both her cheeks, Marian tries to regain control of her emotions and the tears spilling over her cheeks, “You hurt my arm when you did that.”
Turning his head in her lap, Guy apologizes with three kisses to the fingertips of her hand on the mend, lingering with each one for they have a large debt to pay. One for each reason Guy had consistently and foolishly chosen Vasey over Marian in the past - the reasons Simon had known - and for each time his arms had squeezed her too tightly so his hands could be free to do the job. She has scolded him. A smile tugs at the furthest corners of his lips. She must have decided there’s been enough sweet talk for one day.
“You’re fine.”
Damn. She’s noticed.
Accusing, “Aren’t you.” Not waiting to hear the obvious, Marian shoves his head off her lap, it hits the floor with a satisfying hollow clunk. “You are the most conniving,” something worse, because he’s grinning, “deceitful,” - he’s chuckling softly - “scoundrel of pure evil, Sir Guy of Gisborne. Life would be so much easier without you!” What she would give to be able to shout.
With an impish grin, Guy’s voice that always gets to her has most of its strength back, “At least you continue to live, no thanks to yourself. Though you did play your part very well.”
“How could I not? You’re so good at giving orders, Master.” Marian is shaking. “Beg. Fetch. And now play dead whispered in my ear. What was it you called me?” She is enraged Guy has finally managed to pry the secret out of her heart. The one she would never have told a soul. Not Bess, not Matilda, not Robin or herself, and especially not him. Against all that is right, fair, and just, he has found her out. She could love him. She might already. How weak she is! Marrying the better man was absolutely the right thing to do to lead herself not into this distressing temptation that, that - no, she will not allow what Guy makes her feel deter her from what must be done. Remember who he is. Hoping to avenge herself, to embarrass him, “My sweet, was it? After you throw me out with a hefty dose of public humiliation?” She stands for advantage. “Pathetic.”
The elation they’ve come through this latest danger with her body still miraculously inhabited by her soul, her willing touch his for the first time, is gradually being lost to a creeping anger. The bump she gave him on the head didn’t help. Standing, unsure of his sense of balance, rubbing his head, “I might have said ‘sweet.’ Or maybe it was ‘stupid’ -”
“Stupid?” A swift punch to a strategic location is suddenly very appealing, followed by a solid whack to the side of his head with a painfully heavy object, but either would knock him off his feet, and the tumble of his weight and height would make too much noise. She describes his lack of character in further detail instead, as she and Guy walk toward each other, their two hands reaching for the same target with the exact same goal in mind.
Tuck finds himself in the awkward position of being summarily and literally pushed aside by two people who know each other very well on the offense, their faces nearly nose to nose, unleashing in low voices heated anger and - can it be affection? Watching them, it does make perfect sense. Sir Guy and Lady Marian have been through much more together than most other couples. It’s not usual for a man to have to fight almost daily for the life of his wife as Sir Guy has fought to protect his lady’s for the past few weeks, and to this self-sacrificing degree. Tuck takes in the violet scarf with its sickening dark overtone of fresh blood. Sir Guy would die for Lady Marian, no doubt about it.
“I gave you over Hood because I wanted you safe and you would not cooperate. I was right. You come back, and the first thing you get is a knife at your throat. I’d call that stupid.” If only he was torturing Simon already. “If it wasn’t for Vasey and what I’m guessing his orders probably were, we would not be having this conversation. Simon could have cut you open in the kitchen! I’ve a good mind to kill you after all.” His hands itching for the Sheriff’s slow and painful death, he would be thundering at Marian at least but he keeps his voice to a whisper, he keeps Marian’s presence dead and gone to any - My God, eavesdroppers. “Tuck, go out and guard the door. Tell anyone too curious I have given orders to be left alone.” Matching Marian’s burning glare with a smoldering one of his own, he speaks loud enough for anyone outside the door to hear, “Tell them I am prostrate with grief having just run my sword through the silliest girl in England.”
PG for romantic scenes
PG-13 for violent scenes
“Cripes, that was the worst night ever,” his eyes still closed, his face unchanged, Much could be talking in his sleep.
Allan rolls over toward Much on his back, near his ear. “Maybe you should - WAKE UP! Ow !” Laughing, Allan shoves Much away with his elbow, his arm smarting a little from the punch. “Where’s your sense of humour?”
“Back home.”
“Little John’s gone to bring Matilda?” Allan asks Robin, finished with his fun for now.
“They’re almost back. If you listen, you can hear them.” Robin’s enjoying the morning fire that’s soothing his arms and legs with the bliss of languid heat, his beautiful bride beside him. Finding Simon, thwarting the Sheriff, giving the Black Knights’ donations to the poor, and cutting more firewood if they’re stuck here another night - none were last night’s reasons to wait. She is his more than ever before yet as free to leave as she had been with Gisborne, ironically. The idea of being caught alone together by a killer on the prowl hadn’t exactly enhanced the mood for carefree romance, nor did being watched by this lot. Of course, there are two critical differences between this marriage and the one she had with Gisborne. He’s never seen her smile for hours straight like this before and she keeps finishing sentences with “...then we can have our honeymoon.” Each time intimacies he’s thought of for years flood his mind. They could start as soon as tonight, if all goes well today. He doesn’t want to stop imagining them, but when he has managed to think of something else this morning - out of sheer willpower over her stunning smile that sends his heart soaring - he finds himself anticipating the pleasure he’ll feel when Gisborne finds out.
Much throws off his blanket, waits until he can speak in the exhale of a deep yawn, “We’ve got some old bread around here somewhere.” Sighing, he gets to his feet, opens his eyes with a vigorous shake of his head against his open palm. He senses the moisture on his lips, a misty feeling in his lungs. He peers ahead with half-closed eyes and a slight sway to his solid, average height. “Great. No wonder my clothes feel soggy.” He begins to shuffle his feet, another sigh grows instantly into a full blown yawn. The bread is right where he left it. What a blessing.
“Morning, everyone! I brought you a present.”
With a groan, Much crunches his shoulders up as though that could cover his ears as he forces himself to move from one friend to the next with the bread. Matilda’s voice is too chipper, too jarring. Especially since the thick fog has muted her and John into ghostly figures that would have the civil morning voices of no volume. They seem to be in the process of walking toward an earthly existence, as with each approaching step their colours, the folds of their clothes, the tendrils of their hair, the outlines of staff and bag, their irritatingly cheerful faces are all gradually coming into sharper focus. Everything about them is more vibrant than he feels, that’s for certain.
“That was a quick trip,” Marian replies. Another smile.
“We thought it best to hurry. Matilda’s got something for us, but she needs time to make it,” explains Little John, as he sets his staff among the bows leaning against a nearby tree trunk.
“This is a second gift.” Matilda hands a flask to Much.
Lifting the nozzle, he breathes in. The sweet, heavenly smell of a rare treat pops his eyes wide awake with delight. Wine. “Matilda, I think I love you.”
“You better,” she teases.
She hands him the infamous water jug which he pays for with a resounding smack on her cheek and a grateful smile. “This is a fine morning!” he announces, sitting down - he picks one end of the fallen oak - as everyone settles on dry perches wherever they can find them to share the morning snack.
“What it is you need to make?” asks Marian, breaking her piece of bread in two with both hands.
The men don’t notice the merest flick of a glance between her and Matilda except for Robin, “She’s doing pretty well at exercising that hand, isn’t she Matilda?”
Robin’s question takes her by surprise. She gives a galvanized response as quickly as she can muster it. “Um, yes. Absolutely. Well done there, Marian.”
“Thank you. So what is it you’ve brought?”
“Medicine I think you can use it against Simon. I picked up the ingredients this morning from a travelling apothecary who’s been around Nottingham market lately.” She opens her leather bag, so creased from wear and tear it looks to have crisscrossing light brown lines of design, and takes out to set on the rock she’s sitting on a few metal vials and tins containing the wares of her profession. “I need to brew it.”
“What does it do?” asks Allan, his bite of bread shoved into one cheek.
“I think the whole story behind it might explain it best. A year ago, I was trying to help a soldier just back from the Holy Land, sent home because he wasn’t right in the head. Living in torment was more like it.” Muttering under her breath to herself, “Snake-hearted, gutless chicken-heads who couldn’t tell demonic possession from labour pains. I’d like to see them survive what he’d seen and done. We’d see who’s not hiding under beds when the cows moo.”
Blank expressions. All directed at her. Everyone has heard her quite clearly, apparently. Unruffled, Matilda gets to the point, “I experimented, it wasn’t easy, but I finally got him what he needed. This medicine wipes away specific memories. Drug Simon, let Robin be the last person he sees, and then poof - no more memories of Robin Hood.” Matilda accepts a cup of watered wine that has been passed from Much, to Little John, at last to her with fingertips brushing fingertips with a blush to the cheeks of two faces. Clearing her throat, “He may do with some quizzing first - he might know who’s trying to kill Marian.”
“Right, you’ve totally confused me.” Allan brushes the crumbs off his pants into his hand, tosses them into the fire.
“I gave my patient the medicine, his friend who’d brought him home from the war sat with him - just the two of them - until the potion made the soldier fall asleep. Next day, when he woke up and saw his friend, it was as though they were meeting for the first time. He had forgotten who his friend was, and whatever they had shared. The ugly memories of the war they’d fought together were gone.”
Allan thinks of his brother, together for so many capers, some criminal, some hilarious, some imperative to raise the spirits of their worn out parents. “What about the good times he’d had with his friend? I mean, did they come from the same village?”
“They grew up together.”
“So your patient doesn’t remember them playing as kids?”
“If you had seen what he was like after the war, you would have said losing those happy childhood memories was worth his peace of mind.”
“Did he forget where he lived? I mean, he and his friend would have hung out at his house, so -“
“There were too many memories at the house that didn’t include his friend, so my patient remembered his wife, his kids, the rest of his life. Just the memories of his friend and what they had done together were gone.”
“The medicine’s like an arrow hitting a bull’s-eye in the brain,” Robin’s intrigued.
“Exactly.”
Little John adds, “Pity there wasn’t some other way for him. I wish to God I’d never left my wife and son, but I would never give up the good times we had together for peace of mind. Not for a thousand pieces of gold. Some memories haunt me, but the shame keeps me from repeating my mistakes; memories make me a better man.” He shakes off what is not ever to be bestowed on the likes of murderers and oppressors like Gisborne, a growl steals the sympathy that was in his voice, “Sir Simon. He’s another story.”
Marian has snuggled her face into Robin’s shoulder. Unconsciously, he puts his arm around her as he begins to think this through aloud, “If Simon’s memories of us include a plan to get us captured, if we can use this on him, he won’t remember the plan or seeing our camp if he has. If finding us is the only reason he’s here, he may even go straight back to where he came from when he wakes up. Everything about us will be erased from his mind. This could let us go home again. It could make certain Marian can’t be found.” Robin relaxes his hold as Marian as sits up.
“The Sheriff has put a price on your head, Marian. The news was all over the market this morning,” adds Little John.
“See?” says Robin.
“I do,” says Little John.
“We won’t have to kill anyone.” Much is pleased.
“Whatever it takes to not have sleep next to you,” grins Allan. “You’re snoring here, mate. Very loudly. Might as well blow a trumpet to invite all the Sheriff’s guards ‘round for breakfast.”
“Hey, Allan, I thought we weren’t going to say anything,” says Robin in mock seriousness. Allan shrugs. “How long do you need?” Robin’s tone is one of a decision made, even though he’s chuckling at Much who is now mumbling something difficult to decipher, but it sounds like I never snore mixed with some suggestions of choice noises Allan should make with himself later on.
“About an hour.”
“You have our thanks.”
Looming above and ahead of them as though it hangs in midair is the thatched roof of Locksley Manor, the white plaster walls holding it up blend with the fog so well they appear to be part-mist save for their hard, dark beams, their bases made of nothing at all. Marian pulls Matilda back to hide behind a tree. Soldiers are stationed at the front, but not at the side entrance that leads directly to the kitchen. Without Marian to protect, Guy must have cut back the guard.
Matilda has a knot in her stomach. She couldn’t give a rat’s royal behind if they are captured, or tortured, or killed. Those would be chances to tell the newt-brained powers that be self-castrating exactly what she thinks of them non-stop, whatever end may come. Marian’s confession of yesterday had not impressed Matilda either. Matilda had guessed as much, that Marian had encouraged Guy to hope, to believe the impossible, that the current state of affairs at Locksley was partly her fault. But Matilda is having second thoughts. Last night’s wedding had been entirely Marian’s idea. “What if Robin finds out?”
“He’ll forgive me. He has to. I’m his wife.”
The cool, wet fog offers thick cover even five miles away from Locksley. Through it, through the forest, along the roadside, Robin and his men are on their way to Nottingham since this morning Locksley had rendered no Simon and no leads, confident Marian and Matilda are exactly where they had left them. The campfires with their high pillars of smoke, Much’s trumpet of snores - hilarious as it was - had made everyone agree the women should spend their visit together well armed and well hidden in Will’s weapons cave while the men tracked down Simon.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Matilda persists.
Marian is frowning, “Are you sure you didn’t bring anything? A knife, dagger, anything?”
Matilda has her answer. The women had left the cave about an hour ago. There Marian had not found a hand-held weapon the whole collection.
A man calls into the yard, “Food’s ready!” It’s Thornton.
“Bess. Right on time, bless her,” answers one guard pulling himself out of the fog, away from the wall he had been leaning against.
“Her cooking beats the wife’s any day,” adds another.
“Not mine. Mine’s the best cook in England,” brags the next.
“Well, that’s convenient,” smiles Matilda, as one by one four guards take themselves and their conversation through the front door to have their mid-afternoon meal in the main hall as always.
“Let’s go.” Marian leads the way across the lawn, they dive through the side door where in the kitchen a startled Bess clutches at the rim of the pot she has just knocked teetering toward the table’s edge, saving in the nick of time what smells to be a delicious beef stew from ruin upon the floor.
Unsure if she should believe her own eyes, Bess can only stare as Thornton walks in from the direction of the front hall, muttering, “This is not good,” his head bent over an untouched plate of bread. He halts in surprise, “M’lady! What are you doing here?”
“Never mind that. What happened to your eye?”
Thornton puts his hand up to check. Though his eyelid is open now, his black and blue cheek is still tender and very swollen. “Sir Guy. He was drunk.”
“Where is he?”
“Still where he was as of last night. In your old bedchamber. He hasn’t stirred or eaten all day.” Thornton puts the plate on the table. “Locksley will fall apart if he keeps on -” Thornton doesn’t know how to put feeling sorry for himself into words suitable for a manservant discussing the lord of the manor, even a despised one. “Two guards decided to give themselves a holiday this morning. The ones who were supposed to be guarding that door,” tilting his head at the one Marian and Matilda had used. “The rest haven’t been guarding anything but their card game.”
“Is he -” her eyes fall on the pitcher of mead Thornton has just picked up from the center of the table.
“No. But yesterday, he beat anyone who tried to stop him for his own good, ‘cept for Bess. Bess he let be. By noon, he was passed out. We had to step over him to put logs on the fire, until last night he finally came to and crawled up to bed. What’s to become of us, m’Lady?”
“Maybe I can help. I am here to see him.”
“The guards never take long,” Thornton is gruff with gratitude, a swallowed pride, as he leaves to pour the mead for the men laughing in the hall, closing the door behind him.
Brought back to life with Marian’s embrace, Bess pulls her lady and Matilda to sit on the bench by the table, and serves them - it is beef stew, with carrots and potatoes - the full plates she sets before them with one thud.
“I knew you’d come back.”
Guy had heard the news yesterday morning from the loud, insubordinate mouths in Nottingham market as he had ridden through it on his way home. He had expected it, but not this soon, and not without being informed through proper channels. The Sheriff must have issued the warrant immediately after Guy had reported the Black Knights’ desertion, while he had been fulfilling his other duties at the castle. Vasey hadn’t deigned to inform him his former wife was once again wanted for attempted murder.
On top of that, Guy now knows why he didn’t recall meeting Simon until that first party at the castle. Thornton had confirmed his suspicions when he had asked the servant this morning as Thornton had set down the breakfast he could not stomach. The day Thornton had shown Simon to a guest room, the smallest and least comfortable, was the day the Black Knights and their wives had returned from that week of festivities and meetings. Simon had been in their midst, accepted by all without question because of the Sheriff.
Someone watching Locksley. A closed meeting. An open window. An ‘accident’ when claiming he had indigestion from the night before Simon had not attended that last meeting the afternoon prior to Guy’s pre-dawn ride back to Locksley, to Marian. A notable absence the morning of the Black Knights’ departure. Because the job wasn’t done. Killing Marian. It all fits.
Gloves off, Guy’s hands wander over Marian’s clothes folded inside an open chest, intermingled with jewelry he had given to her over the course of their short time of marital ‘bliss.’ There had been moments of bliss for him, anyway, those times he had caught Marian looking at him, giving him a thrill. She had had to leave all her things behind. In his rage, he hadn’t given her time to pack.
A corner of violet catches his eye. Guy pulls at it recognizing it for what it is, draws it out. Closing his eyes, he buries his face in it to inhale. He had given this scarf to Marian for the colour had seemed to shimmer with life. He had thought she might like to brighten her bandaged arm with it. She had; her delight had been his. If it wasn’t for Vasey’s assassin, Marian would still be here, and he could be trying to earn her love even now.
“Gisborne.” A voice from the direction of the doorway. Guy stands. “Look who I found.” He turns around to see Vasey’s new hire holding a knife to Marian’s throat. The scarf cascades down in slow, serpentine flutter to the bare, wooden floor.
“I would have given her friend to the guards for their entertainment, but she got away. Probably to Hood, so we don’t have much time I imagine.” Simon shoves Marian at Guy who catches her before she stumbles. “How sweet. Still minding how you handle her arm.”
Guy whispers, “Are you all right?” The recent experience of living in close quarters needs only a cursory search of her face for a clue - shock at his swollen right eye, a mute plea that he take care, and something he has never seen when she has looked at him before. Faith. In him.
Simon is demanding attention. “As you are well aware, we are on - and I quote - ‘thin ice’ with the Sheriff.” She is so luscious to look at alive. Pity he never managed to kill her on his own.
Guy steps around Marian, putting her firmly behind his back to shield her from the threat of Simon’s long knife. “Give me one good reason why I should care.”
Simon counts off on his fingers, “Money. Locksley. Your powerful place in society. That’s three. Put us back into favour with the one who counts, Gisborne. Kill her.”
Marian lurches forward. No. Guy holds her back with his arm. Between clenched teeth over his shoulder, his eyes never leaving Simon’s, “Stay behind me.” She’s not fit to fight again. Not yet.
“Oh come on, Gisborne. Your conscience should be clear. The law is on your side.” As though explaining a simple procedure one step at a time to a child who finds it complicated, not bothering to conceal his impatience, “She’s wanted for the attempted murder of the Sheriff. Killing her will fulfill your duty to your lord.” Simon steps into the room, leaves the door open. The more inadvertent witnesses, the better.
Spotting Guy’s broadsword on the bed, Marian quickly puts it into Guy’s left hand from behind, the right thing to do for him to unsheathe it, drawing his sword with the same motion, to aim the tip of the blade at Simon with a straight right arm.
Simon tries the sing-song of luring a simple-minded child into blind obedience with the promise of a sweet treat. “It will make up for us not finding Hood’s camp.”
“I’d rather send you to the Devil.” Guy’s mouth twists into a snarl, his voice full of venom, “Writhing with pain.”
“I don’t believe this!” Simon throws one hand up at the scene before him, lets the other holding his knife fall to his side. “Everyone is talking about you, Gisborne. How your idiotic presents got you nowhere. How she wouldn’t lower herself to like you, how you couldn’t pay her to accept you. They’re all saying you never stood a chance. Everyone knows you are beneath her. She knows it, too. Here’s your chance. You can shut them all up.” Offering the hilt of his knife, “Slit her pompous, little throat.”
Guy glances at the knife. His pride is squirming under his temper, both want the usual sacrifice rendered up to the glory of Gisborne after hours and hours of torture. Clawing their way from his clenched stomach through the pounding in his chest, they throb at his neck, his cheek, demanding their appeasement. Their vindication.
Simon’s glee burgeons. Disparaging Sir Guy worked! His eyes are growing less tense now, more decided. He’s capitulating, seeing reason. Dropping his sword, Sir Guy is pulling out from a hidden pocket a dagger that looks like it could disembowel a horse despite its compact size.
“Guy, what are you doing?”
Shut it, woman. So ominous is the glint to its blade, the curved shape of it, the way Gisborne holds it between his fingers, he looks to have sprouted an unnatural, merciless, deep-reaching, cold steel claw. Lady Marian cannot possibly see it from where she stands behind Sir Guy’s broad shoulders. This is going to be so worth all the trouble these two have caused the second she realizes Sir Guy is about to slice her. Shame Simon couldn’t turn her head at the dinner party, but she had eyes only for Gisborne. Watching them die is more arousing if they’ve flirted innocently with him beforehand.
Guy puts a finger to his lips. Not necessary. Simon is too entranced, too excited to speak, swallowing a mouthful of drool, silently tallying his fees for services perfectly rendered. Vasey is going to be so pleased he might even give Simon a bonus. Sir John’s pretty one. She promises to be breath-taking dead. Absolutely stunning.
Gisborne spins his back to Simon, whipping an arm around Marian’s waist, pulling her tightly against the length of his body, silencing her cry of pain with a thrust.
Unfair. Gisborne’s having all the fun pressing his face into her neck, his right elbow drawing back, winding up for a second go. His shoulders are blocking Simon’s view now. Simon cranes to see, only to be permitted the forward plunge of Guy’s elbow and arm. This thrust lifts her feet off the floor, her head flops, her chin set upon Gisborne’s shoulder. Her eyes are wide and unblinking, their sparkle dimming, leaching her life away. Finally. Her death at the hands of the man she trusted with her life. But she is turning out to be rather disappointing, more beautiful alive than dead. Some are like that, muses Simon. With a smirk, Simon decides to be magnanimous. Guy can have her after.
But at the third thrust Simon cannot restrain himself any longer. He dashes forward, strides around the couple to feast upon the sight that gratifies him best. Finding it, he stops and stares in delight, “In the back, Gisborne?”
Guy’s hands lie folded over each other between her shoulder blades, the dagger beneath them now flat. All are soaked. The dagger’s blade looks made of blood, blood is flowing over and under Guy’s hands, seeping thick dark red into Marian’s pale turquoise dress. Simon’s voice is airy in awe at what Gisborne will sacrifice to hold onto what he wants, “Fascinating.”
At that, Gisborne lifts his head. Simon stumbles backward. Gisborne turns to follow Simon with his eyes, holding Marian’s lifeless body close like an animal that will not share his hard won meat with the rest of the pack. Simon’s back slams into the doorframe, impaled there by Gisborne’s savage expression. Gisborne might as well be spilling his guts, trampling them underfoot as he moves on to Simon’s heart and lungs. “Gisborne, you should be thanking me!”
“Tell the Sheriff. She is dead.”
But the inhuman hiss renders Simon incapable of moving an inch. Unexpectedly, Sir Guy turns out to have an undependable side to him. “Come, Gizzy. I’m on your side. Always have been.”
No reassurance of being comrades against Hood comes, only the sound of dripping. Under the leaves of a tree, these would be the early, arrhythmic drops of rain just before a thunderous downpour. Gisborne’s hands clench her to him in the snare of his fingers, like the embedded teeth of a trap hidden under leaves of glistening, sticky crimson. Her blood is splattering over the floor.
“GET OUT OF MY SIGHT!”
The monstrous roar launches Simon down the stairs, bolting for the front door. Of course Gisborne needs the Sheriff to know. For money, Locksley, power. This reprieve is probably temporary but Simon will take it, racing for a head start. As he runs full speed through the blindfold of mist to his horse tied to a tree in the forest, Simon hears an unearthly creature bellow for his demon, “TUCK! IN HERE! NOW!!!” Simon’s life depends on getting to the Sheriff. He must get the money that will pay for his escape. Before Gisborne can hunt him down. He mounts his horse, kicks her to spring into a gallop. Because if he doesn’t, Simon is as good as dead.
The dagger tips out of his hands. Guy’s knees buckle. He is sinking to the floor, taking Marian with him even as he lets her go, and as Tuck crashes into the room where he beholds blood on the floor, on Marian’s back, on Guy’s hands, lap and shirt. “Who -?“ No need to finish the question. The source is pulsing blood.
Marian is frantic, “Shut the door and help me!” No! Guy cannot bleed to death slowly. Not now. Not when she has finally found the way to heal his heart. Marian scrambles for the scarf from where it had slipped through Guy’s fingers when their eyes had locked over Simon’s knife. She takes the softest possible hold of his left hand, fights the rising need to vomit, for the ability to think clearly, to act. The black folds of his light-weight shirt are visible through a gaping hole in his palm.
Slamming the door, shutting out the upturned faces of a few servants and guards who are just now stepping cautiously into the hall below to see what the commotion is all about, Tuck rushes to kneel beside Sir Guy who is wavering, losing his balance. Lady Marian is trying to wrap the wound, but with one arm immobile her clumsy attempt is too loose. The blood won’t stop coming. “Put his head down before he hits it on the floor.”
Marian draws Guy down to lay his head in her lap, wipes her fingers roughly on her dress as fast as she can. “Guy, what have you done?”
“Protected you.”
A loud knock on the door. “Is everything all right?”
Guy clamps his right hand over Marian’s mouth. “Mind your own business, or I’ll give you an eye to match the one I gave you yesterday!”
Ripping his hand away, Marian wipes his blood roughly from his right hand and her face with the useless scarf, then forgoes holding Guy’s head in favour of pressing the scarf down as hard as she can on his bleeding palm, “I hope this hurts. Thornton is a good servant!” she whispers at him, glaring as Tuck quietly ransacks the room for something he can use to close the wound.
Soldiers know how not to undo a victory, and what Guy has just done for her - again - is a victory. Marian and Tuck have caught on. The manner of Guy’s response to Thornton doubled as a cue that Marian’s living presence be kept secret. They must keep their voices low.
Pointing to his bruised eye, Guy hisses, “I am fairly certain after I punched your good servant he brought me to my unconscious senses.”
Compared to Thornton’s, Guy’s black eye borders on the grotesque. “Then he’s earned a raise.” Marian smothers a smile, short-lived as she cannot put pressure on both sides of his hand. She needs two free hands to do that. One side is still bleeding with each push of his heart. The anxious plea in her eyes is back, imploring Tuck to hurry.
“Marian.” Guy helps her, putting pressure on the back of his left hand with the palm of his right. She must be made to understand why he had to do what he did.
“What?”
“You have to stay dead. Because if you are not -” his throat is dry, Guy needs a drink - “the Sheriff’s men will keep coming for you until one succeeds.”
Speechless, Marian’s eyes are riveted to Guy’s. Though to her this comes as no shock - she has always known the Sheriff to be a lying, treacherous soul beyond hope - to Guy, Vasey being behind the attempts to kill her must be shattering his precious chivalric code. Guy gave Vasey his obedient loyalty in return for power and protected interests. Even interests that came to include her.
Tuck sidesteps the puddle on the floor, “He’s lost a fair amount of blood.” Crouching down, he peers under the bed where a basket has been kicked on its side. Scrounging inside it, he finds needles, a pair of scissors, and plenty of thread. A sewing basket. Too bad Sir Guy couldn’t have landed himself on the bed, Tuck thinks wryly to himself crossing his legs to sit beside Sir Guy, opposite to Lady Marian, to see what he can do with the tools he has. “How long has he been bleeding?” Tuck takes over Guy’s wounded hand.
A nightmare includes no sense of time. A minute? Ten? “I’m not sure.” Wiping her hands on her dress again, Marian runs her fingertips lightly over Guy’s swollen, bluish purple cheek.
The first jab of the needle into and through Sir Guy’s skin doesn’t illicit even the hint of a grimace. Tuck recognizes a man who has experienced more anguish in his life than most. Sir Guy glances up at Lady Marian, and is immediately taken by what he sees. Emboldened, Tuck sets to work with rapid stitches into Guy’s skin, tugging the thread tight to draw the edges shut. First, Sir Guy’s palm then turning the hand over, Tuck sews closed the open wound at the back, praying aloud for God to rejoin the veins Tuck has tried to help by laying their sliced ends close together, to heal all. Finishing his work with another secure knot, Tuck binds the bloodied scarf around Sir Guy’s hand.
Marian closes Tuck’s prayer with a wisp of air, “Amen.” She is gazing steadily back at her protector, stroking his hair as she has been since Tuck poised the needle tip to strike.
Taking a slow, deep breath, the bleeding dramatically slowed by Tuck’s handiwork, Guy can feel his head clearing. Marian’s face is full of worry, guilt. Her faith has been validated with blood she had not needed to believe. Women. A little blood, then it’s all this unnecessary and bothersome hysterics. Except from Marian, he is rather liking the attention. Her fingertips stroke his hair again. She must be enjoying the sensation too, for the needle is put away. Milking this for all it is worth seems like a very good idea. He’ll take her to task for coming here when he’s good and ready, which at this rate could be tomorrow. “Thirsty.”
“Tuck?”
Tuck finds a goblet of wine by the bed, left over from Guy’s evening of drunken sin presumably, and passes it to Marian. “What happened here?” He is ready for explanations having done what he can, as Marian helps Guy drink, resorting to inching up her knee so her leg can prop up his head.
“I came to see Sir Guy. Matilda came with me. We were waiting in the kitchen for the guards to leave the front hall when Sir Simon came in from outside, ordered everyone to stay out of it, then dragged me up here.”
Guy has finished drinking. Marian sets the empty goblet down, then goes back to touching him. The backs of her fingers begin with his chin, follow the line of his jaw, up his cheek, along his temple. Now her fingers are resting in the warmth of his hair that has curled as it has grown long. If he had known she would be like this, he would have permitted wounds more often and at the first opportunity. The day Hood had nearly drowned him in the trough would have been a good time to start with a slice to the scalp from the trough’s edge perhaps. No, Marian. Don’t.
She senses an intangible pull and looking down finds solemn eyes watching her tears fall. His fingertips reach up to her cheek. Brushing a tear away, lowering his hand, Guy clenches a fist around it.
“Then Simon did this to Guy,” Tuck concludes.
“No. Simon wanted Guy to kill me.” Marian tries, but she cannot seem to breathe in. The gravity of what Guy has done is constricting her lungs. All she can do is breathe out. “He used his own blood.” With a vicious wipe of the back of her hand across both her cheeks, Marian tries to regain control of her emotions and the tears spilling over her cheeks, “You hurt my arm when you did that.”
Turning his head in her lap, Guy apologizes with three kisses to the fingertips of her hand on the mend, lingering with each one for they have a large debt to pay. One for each reason Guy had consistently and foolishly chosen Vasey over Marian in the past - the reasons Simon had known - and for each time his arms had squeezed her too tightly so his hands could be free to do the job. She has scolded him. A smile tugs at the furthest corners of his lips. She must have decided there’s been enough sweet talk for one day.
“You’re fine.”
Damn. She’s noticed.
Accusing, “Aren’t you.” Not waiting to hear the obvious, Marian shoves his head off her lap, it hits the floor with a satisfying hollow clunk. “You are the most conniving,” something worse, because he’s grinning, “deceitful,” - he’s chuckling softly - “scoundrel of pure evil, Sir Guy of Gisborne. Life would be so much easier without you!” What she would give to be able to shout.
With an impish grin, Guy’s voice that always gets to her has most of its strength back, “At least you continue to live, no thanks to yourself. Though you did play your part very well.”
“How could I not? You’re so good at giving orders, Master.” Marian is shaking. “Beg. Fetch. And now play dead whispered in my ear. What was it you called me?” She is enraged Guy has finally managed to pry the secret out of her heart. The one she would never have told a soul. Not Bess, not Matilda, not Robin or herself, and especially not him. Against all that is right, fair, and just, he has found her out. She could love him. She might already. How weak she is! Marrying the better man was absolutely the right thing to do to lead herself not into this distressing temptation that, that - no, she will not allow what Guy makes her feel deter her from what must be done. Remember who he is. Hoping to avenge herself, to embarrass him, “My sweet, was it? After you throw me out with a hefty dose of public humiliation?” She stands for advantage. “Pathetic.”
The elation they’ve come through this latest danger with her body still miraculously inhabited by her soul, her willing touch his for the first time, is gradually being lost to a creeping anger. The bump she gave him on the head didn’t help. Standing, unsure of his sense of balance, rubbing his head, “I might have said ‘sweet.’ Or maybe it was ‘stupid’ -”
“Stupid?” A swift punch to a strategic location is suddenly very appealing, followed by a solid whack to the side of his head with a painfully heavy object, but either would knock him off his feet, and the tumble of his weight and height would make too much noise. She describes his lack of character in further detail instead, as she and Guy walk toward each other, their two hands reaching for the same target with the exact same goal in mind.
Tuck finds himself in the awkward position of being summarily and literally pushed aside by two people who know each other very well on the offense, their faces nearly nose to nose, unleashing in low voices heated anger and - can it be affection? Watching them, it does make perfect sense. Sir Guy and Lady Marian have been through much more together than most other couples. It’s not usual for a man to have to fight almost daily for the life of his wife as Sir Guy has fought to protect his lady’s for the past few weeks, and to this self-sacrificing degree. Tuck takes in the violet scarf with its sickening dark overtone of fresh blood. Sir Guy would die for Lady Marian, no doubt about it.
“I gave you over Hood because I wanted you safe and you would not cooperate. I was right. You come back, and the first thing you get is a knife at your throat. I’d call that stupid.” If only he was torturing Simon already. “If it wasn’t for Vasey and what I’m guessing his orders probably were, we would not be having this conversation. Simon could have cut you open in the kitchen! I’ve a good mind to kill you after all.” His hands itching for the Sheriff’s slow and painful death, he would be thundering at Marian at least but he keeps his voice to a whisper, he keeps Marian’s presence dead and gone to any - My God, eavesdroppers. “Tuck, go out and guard the door. Tell anyone too curious I have given orders to be left alone.” Matching Marian’s burning glare with a smoldering one of his own, he speaks loud enough for anyone outside the door to hear, “Tell them I am prostrate with grief having just run my sword through the silliest girl in England.”