Lay Down: Chapters One and Two
Title: Lay Down (The Long Goodnight)
Author:
e_schemer
Characters: Guy, the Sheriff, and one mystery woman.
Disclaimer: I own zilch.
Rating: K
Spoilers: S2
Summary: Guy sinks far too deeply into depression and madness after Marian's death. But he finds himself with unwanted company.
Lay Down
(The Long Goodnight)
Chapter One
The sun set over the Holy Land, bleeding its amber glow out to sea, and over the vessel that carried the Sheriff back to wetter, safer climes. Vasey watched the tide take him away, gnashing his teeth against the clotted mess of his failure. From below deck, the scraping, pacing and wailing of Gisborne was aggravatingly audible. The crew aboard deck stayed eerily silent, unable to raise the atmosphere above the tune of Gisborne’s grief. Vasey snarled at the sea spray, and paced.
The big booby had thrown himself headfirst into the abyss, there was little Vasey could do now but cultivate that darkness; nourish it as a new lifeline for Gisborne. Now that he’d gutted his last chance of deliverance.
A short distance from his foot, the wooden deck planks splintered upwards, providing a better outlet for the huffing and puffing of the big sad wolf below.
Spitting sharply, Vasey headed below deck, having had more than enough of this idiocy.
“Boatswain!” he roared. “Inform me if there’s any change.”
Once the Sheriff was down the ladder and out of earshot, the boatswain shrugged to the nearest deckhand and asked quizzically, “What sort of change is he expecting?”
The iron crate that Guy heaved upwards above his head in an impotent fury lodged itself in the upper ceiling of the ship, splitting planks and spraying splinters. He dislodged the crate by pulling at its lopped handles, and the metal lump came crashing down above his head. He crumpled to his knees, the fingers of one hand smashed beneath the crate. He pulled again at the crate, attacking the situation so blindly that the weight on his digits doubled. Panting at the struggle and the pain he could only dimly register, he noticed light flood the wrecked cabin, and the Sheriff’s short, cloaked form stamp forward.
He slammed the door shut, bolted it, and the room returned to its former grey.
“Get up you great waste!” the Sheriff shrieked.
Guy looked up, eyes hooded, not so much in defiance as discovery: another target. The two men locked gazes and the sheriff recognised some lingering shadows of treachery in his eyes. With a grimace he put out one well placed foot and rammed it into Gisborne’s face.
The man flung back heavily, his head cracking at the contact with the hull and his arm dislodging from the iron weight and falling to his side at an unnatural angle. He was out cold, and seemed grateful for it.
Vasey straightened his shoulders, his usual spirit returning for a moment.
Curiously, Gisborne’s expression shifted from one if blank oblivion, to something vague, approaching fear, and misery. Uninterested, and happy for the peace, Vasey left the cabin.
Guy stood by the bow after dusk, his hands tight around the railing. The Sheriff’s snores were the one noise disturbing his peace as they floated through the splintered deck.
“You should use a splint on those,” she reprimanded him brightly. He felt her warm hand on his cold one, gently ease his clench from the railing and examine the injuries. He looked at her calmly, holding a breath.
“They’ll heal,” he replied finally.
“But they might heal crookedly,” she argued. “Bandage them around small splints-this one…and this one. And don’t use them until they’ve fully healed.” She looked up at him expectantly, wheedling.
He looked down at the hand. His right hand, his sword hand. It was mottled purple and red. The knuckles were split and blood encrusted. The palm was cold.
He looked up at her. He could feel the immeasurable distance between them though she stood right beside him, viewing the glittering ocean. There was empty space where she stood, stagnant air where she took in great salty lungfuls in relish.
“I was kept below deck for the journey here,” she told him. “I didn’t see it.”
“The sky?”
“The ocean. I’ve never seen it before.”
He watched her watch the water. “Is it how you thought it would be?”
She smiled blithely, answerless. Empty space.
An ache began in his forearm, the twisted arm being brought forcibly to his attention. He looked up, blinking blearily, and saw the cracked hole above him. Through it, he glimpsed one star burning, tiny and distant, and a swish of skirt flying in the wind. Whether white or blood red he didn’t decide.
Vasey came into the cabin later in a significantly better mood. He’d been plotting. His plans to regain power after this disaster were fresh and alive. He took off his fur and regarded Gisborne who was sitting on the opposite bed mat with his back to him.
“Take heart, Gisborne,” he said softly, undressing. “We have a head start on Hood, if he ever comes back at all, that is, and I can fantasise,” he groaned, tugging off one boot, “and on our return to England, we’ll have a day or so to catch our breath. And then we shall see how England’s fate is to be decided. And then we shall see.”
Greedily content with his optimism and his plots, he came up behind Gisborne, and stopped. Looking down over the unresponsive shoulder, he saw Guy obediently bandaging his broken fingers, slowly, with small, roughly fashioned splints.
Vasey frowned with his lips pursed, then stepped backwards. He rolled his eyes, lay down on the thin mat, and did not comment.
Lay Down
(The Long Goodnight)
Chapter Two
Earlier on the voyage, Guy had remained still long enough to come to the backstabbing conclusion that his body imagined itself seasick. Rather than a distraction to the churning guilt in his gut, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. He launched his stomach overboard in great gasping retches.
She rubbed his back soothingly. He could hear the Sheriff further off behind him, complaining of the stink carried over the deck.
“Drink some water,” she recommended.
He spat, ridding his mouth of the taste. “Don’t issue me any more orders,” he wheezed.
“I wouldn’t dream of telling you to do anything you didn’t want to do.”
He wrenched himself out of her reach, the movement of which added horribly to his dizziness. He turned to her, his face a demonic mask the like of which would have scared the living spirit out of a weaker woman.
“Or a livelier one,” she added impiously. She held his stare for a long moment.
“That confirms it, doesn’t it?” she said, amused. “I know what you’re thinking, therefore I’m not really here.” He stared at her, unable to voice his agreement. It seemed that saying what he ought to say was something he had also lost overboard.
She stepped closer to him. “But I’m always here,” she whispered conspiratorially, tracing her fingers over his cheek to his temple. “Right here. Safe, and always.”
Forlornly, he let her pet him into submission, easing himself to the deck floor.
“Marian,” he whimpered piteously.
“Always,” she said again, cutting off all further denials with a kiss.
The evening on which the ship docked in England was welcomingly grey and drizzly. Guy was no better for the rest period he’d had aboard ship. His arrogance had diminished but his rigid self-control had reasserted itself. Yet his continuing silences kept the Sheriff watchful. And the boatswain had his own ideas about what was troubling Lord Gisborne. He’s seen cabin fever and seasickness and superstitious fear bring down the hardiest of voyagers. This was an impressive compound of the three.
The carriage journey back to Nottingham was lengthened by its unrewarding conversational exchanges. Vasey would comment and Guy would nod, or shrug. Vasey could smell the stale wine on Guy’s breath, and lost patience with his lackey. He fell to watching the scenery, tapping the side of the carriage and humming erratically. Gisborne continued staring downwards, always in collected, unshared thoughts.
She joined in the Sheriff’s tune lightly, her cheek on Guy’s shoulder.
“I learnt this in the nursery,” she whispered, grinning at the thought. “Do you suppose his mother sung it to him?”
Guy looked upwards briefly. The Sheriff was conducting with his finger, his eyes squinting at his own imaginings, and he hadn’t heard her.
“It’s about a little boy, running alone on the heath when his mother wants him home,” she said close to his ear, then hummed the rest of the tune in time with the Sheriff.
“Run away little lad.
Sunshine...da da da… sun is warm,
One da da da-da…lad,
Da da mother won’t be sad,
If you da da through corn.”
He became aware that hers was the only voice he could hear, singing that nonsense rhyme with half the words missing. The Sheriff’s head lolled back, and his breathing had slowed.
“The corn hides you,” she explained dreamily. “It’s a sunny colour. Your mother will trust you to its protection.” She shifted her cheek on his shoulder. He looked down at her head, not understanding.
“My mother?” he questioned, voice barely above a whisper. He glanced again at the sleeping lord. “Do you mean him?”
She smiled patiently, with some amusement.
“Do you mean you?”
“Guy, Guy,” she said mockingly. “Who’s looking after you now?”
The guards at the castle gates escorted the carriage through with little more than a hand wave, once the guard had seen the Sheriff snoring inside.
“You’re not real,” Guy insisted as the carriage covered the short distance to the steps.
She raised an eyebrow. “So who does that leave you with?”
He scowled, breathing heavily through his nose.
“My Lord!” he said suddenly. The Sheriff jerked awake.
“Oh, are we back?” he grunted. “Good.”
Guy exited the carriage, looking disturbed.
Vasey sat in the otherwise empty vehicle for a long, contemplative moment. Gisborne, it seemed, had left his sanity lying somewhere among those sandy, bloodstained streets.