Intercomm short fic: This Side of Hell
Title: This Side of Hell
Author: LadyKate63
Word Count: 3,519
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Djaq, Guy, Vaisey; mentions Marian, Robin, Allan, Will, Bassam.
Spoilers/Warnings: 2x10 Walkabout; 2x13 We Are Robin Hood.
Summary: A few days after Marian's death, Djaq pays a visit to her grave. She's not the only one.
Disclaimer: Don't own Robin Hood, don't profit from this fic.
Notes: Many thanks to roh_wyn for the preview and the helpful suggestions. Sorry if this is a little too Guy-centric for what is ostensibly a Djaq fic. ;-) Still, I hope I have done justice to Djaq as well.
THIS SIDE OF HELL
It has been three days.
Saffiya wanders around the cool, familiar half-darkness of the house, feeling restless. She checks up on the birdcages. The cooing of the pigeons, always so comforting, rattles her nerves today for some reason, and she wants to get away from it.
Will is away with Bassam, with relatives and family friends-all men, gathered in a meeting house where women are not allowed and men sit around drinking hot spicy beverages; men who must accept this pale-faced Englishman as one of their own if they are to accept him as her husband.
She paces, impatient; pours herself a strong, sweet pomegranate drink.
If all goes as she hopes, she and Will are going to have a life here. And Robin and Marian will have nothing, except for vows spoken with her last breaths, and a grave in the hot sand.
She remembers the way Will looked at her, when Marian lay dying and Robin was crouched over her, sobbing. Looked at her; not at Marian and Robin. Even if she didn’t know him as well as she does, she could have read his thoughts in his face. If it was you…
Her thoughts drift, once again, to Marian. Dead for three days. Forever.
They were never close, not even in the few short days that Marian spent at Robin’s camp in the forest. Saffiya-Djaq-always found her something of a mystery; had dismissed her at first as a spoiled pretty rich girl who played at being a fighter, only to be impressed by her bravery when she was wounded; and even after that had continued to wonder how committed Marian really was to their common battle. Marian was never quite one of them, always keeping one foot in the other world, the world of the castle and its rulers, the castle to which she returned of her own free will. She loved Robin, there was no doubt of that, and yet Gisborne always seemed to have some strange hold over her that she could never break completely…
Gisborne. Djaq shivers at the name. Back in England, the day Prince John’s army came to destroy Nottingham, Will told her how the Sheriff’s brutal henchman returned to fight and die at Marian’s side rather than escape to safety. And now Marian is dead by that man’s hand. He couldn’t have loved her; he couldn’t. A man who truly loves a woman could never-
She tosses her head angrily, as if to rid herself of these thoughts. But Marian’s presence lingers, and suddenly Djaq feels a need to pay her respects to this woman she never knew or understood in life, this woman who died so young and so brave.
Now, she has a purpose. Putting on her headdress, she goes outside, gets one of Bassam’s horses. On her way out of Acre, she buys some fresh palm leaves from a vendor: the only thing a Muslim is allowed to place on a grave, said by some to ease the dead’s passage to the next world. Djaq is not sure she believes that, but she buys them still; and then rides out toward Imuiz, the ghost town taken and destroyed by the Crusaders, and now haunted by new ghosts.
She can see the place from far away: the rocks and the cluster of palm trees in the yellow sand of the desert, and the two Christian graves, covered with shields bearing the Crusader colors: red cross on white. And something else...something that, from a distance, looks like a huge black bird lying dead in the sand. She frowns, puzzled, vaguely alarmed; then, in an instant, she knows. The realization jolts her and she is horrified, repulsed. Her breath tight in her throat, she sets her horse to a trot and rides toward the graves, and then, dismounting, dashes toward the black form.
Dead, she thinks.
Gisborne is sprawled in the sand, on his stomach, arms and legs spread gracelessly, his face half-turned and mostly hidden from view by a mess of dark, sand-specked hair. Cautiously, Djaq squats next to him and, overcoming her revulsion, reaches out to touch his neck. She feels the faint beat of a pulse; a moment later the man twitches slightly, and there is a short gasping breath. She flinches, jerking her hand away.
She owes him nothing, this murderer; there is no reason she should not simply leave him here, for the sun and the desert to finish. Except one: She learned many things from her physician father, and one of them is that someone who possesses such skills as she cannot stand by and do nothing when another human being is in need of those skills, deserving or not; that is not for the medic to decide. And one more: a voice inside her, a small voice that seethes with anger, tells her it is not right for him to rest here, next to the woman he killed.
She brushes aside his matted hair. His face is hot and flushed and dry; sure signs that the heat is doing its damage. She turns him over, and only then notices the puddle of vomit in the sand next to him. She rises, wincing, and grabs him under the armpits; his head lolls helplessly, but he stirs a little and lets out a low moan.
He is heavy. Gritting her teeth, she manages to drag him toward the trees that give at least some shade; then runs back to her patiently waiting horse, leads it to the rocks and tethers it, and takes the water flasks strapped to the saddle. Kneeling at Gisborne’s side again, she lifts him up and peels off his jacket and shirt, and pours water over his bare chest and shoulders. There is not enough; but Allah must mean for her to save this man’s life, at least for now, because looking around she notices a small spring flowing from the rock. She soaks the shirt in cold water and spreads it over his chest, as she was taught to do, then splashes water in his face.
Gisborne splutters and gasps, his eyelids fluttering. Djaq puts the flask to his mouth, and he drinks in greedy gulps, then drops his head back on the folded jacket she’s placed underneath, taking deep shuddering breaths. As she surveys him, the dagger at his belt catches her notice. She quickly takes it and slips it under her sash, next to her own curved blade. Even in his weakened state, the man is dangerous, and she had no idea what to expect from him.
He opens his eyes. His gaze wanders at first, then settles on the woman kneeling over him. He blinks slowly, focusing, his expression turning from a look of bafflement to a scowl.
“Hood’s Saracen,” he mutters. The scowl deepens, and though his voice is weak she can hear menace edging into it. “What are you doing?”
“Saving your life,” she says brusquely, meanly.
Gisborne closes his eyes again, and bares his teeth in a dreadful, low, snarling laugh. “Why?”
“Because I have been trained as a physician, and it would be wrong for me to let a man die when I can help him. Even a man like you.”
“Foolish woman.” He lapses back into a murmur, his breaths harsh and ragged. “I came here to die.”
His words prick her anger, and she spits out, “By her side? You do not deserve it, Gisborne,” his name a curse in her mouth.
She sees a spasm run across his face; he makes a sound in his throat, shudders. Then he asks, in a barely audible rasp, his eyes still closed, “Were you there?”
She knows what he means, of course. After a brief silence she says, “I was.”
For a moment there is only the sound of his rough breath. Then he says, “Was she… When you found her, was she-”
“She was alive,” Djaq snaps. Her face is burning. It makes her ill that she is speaking of Marian’s last moments to her murderer; and, worse yet, that he sounds as if he cares and that she almost believes it. “She was going to die when the sword was pulled from her body. She pulled it out with her own hands.”
He makes another choked sound as his eyes drift open.
“So brave,” he whispers.
“She was,” Djaq says. Then, anger surges inside her again; she hates this, hates that she is agreeing. She is about to tell him that Marian exchanged marriage vows with Robin before she died-she will not spare him that, will not spare him anything-but before she can speak again, Gisborne’s face contorts in agony. He turns and curls up on his side, clutching the wet shirt to his face as hoarse sobs rack his body, sobs that must be all the more excruciating because the heat has scorched away all the tears he’d had in him. There is a muffled word amidst the sobs. “Marian…Marian…Marian…” Djaq feels another lurch of revulsion, but there is pity mixed in with it, and she does not want to feel pity for him, she does not.
Quieting at last, he flops on his back, panting, long harsh breaths that rattle his chest, his throat moving convulsively. Djaq suddenly wonders what she is to do with him, now she’s saved him. She peers into his face. The flush on his skin is fading; right now, he is out of danger. What happens next is no concern of hers. She should go home. Belatedly, she remembers the palm leaves. This is what she should do, then: put them on the grave, the grave of the woman this man murdered, and go.
As Gisborne’s breath steadies, his eyes flicker open blearily; then his gaze slides to the two daggers under her sash, his and her own, and he reaches down and fumbles at his belt. Djaq moves back slightly, sitting on her haunches, alert.
He motions his chin toward the dagger, his eyelids drooping again.
“Use it.”
She recoils, shocked. “I will do no such thing.”
He grimaces. “If you are the physician you say you are…then I’m sure you know how to make it quick.” The grimace comes back as a sneer, a short harsh laugh. “Or very slow and painful…if you prefer.”
“I am not a killer.”
“Would you not avenge her?” He sounds almost puzzled now.
“That is not for me.”
His lip curls again, and it is horrible, this sneer that has more pain than mockery in it. “For whom then? Hood?”
“If he so chooses,” she says neutrally. Will Robin do it, she wonders; kill this wrecked man in cold blood?
Apparently resigned to living for now, Gisborne sits up, pulls on his still-damp, sand-stained shirt and swallows more water from the flask. He rubs his face, no longer flushed from the sun but ashen and haggard, the skin even paler for the thick black stubble. He looks pensive and, right now, almost gentle.
“How could you do it?” she blurts out.
He shudders and hunches his shoulders, as if trying to make himself smaller. “I…I don’t-I did not want…”
You murdered her, she wants to say, but somehow her frankness fails her. Gisborne stares ahead, his gaze far away, and when he speaks again it is in a broken whisper probably meant only for himself.
“…just wanted her to stop…”
She knits her eyebrows, confused. Stop defending the King…? Is he raving mad?
“...destroying everything…taking everything away…everything…”
Now she understands, and contempt for the man sitting next to her floods her again. “She told you that you couldn’t have her, and you killed her,” she says, every word falling like a lash. “You call that love.”
He does not argue; instead he gives a long shaky sigh, his teeth chattering, and buries his head in his knees. Once again Djaq ponders what to do with him. If she leaves him here, she will have saved him for nothing. Should she somehow help him get back to Acre? He must have ridden here, but there is no horse in sight, and the thought of letting him ride with her makes her skin crawl. It occurs to her that, by rights, she should take him to the Crusaders’ camp and hand him over as a traitor; and yet-
“Last chance to be a good man.”
Startled by Gisborne’s hoarse, hollow voice, Djaq turns to look at him. He is now sitting back, leaning against the rock, staring ahead. Then he shifts his head and looks directly at her, his eyes feverishly bright.
“It is what she said to me. She thought I could be a good man. Or…” He hangs his head, his voice dropping to a whisper. “Perhaps that was a lie too, I-I don’t know…”
“It was not,” Djaq says, without thinking. She doesn’t quite know why she says it; it is not something she ever discussed with Marian, though she had gleaned, from some things that Robin let slip, that Marian had sometimes defended Gisborne. But there is something else; her own words from the past, sharp and clear in her mind.
You are a good man, Allan A’Dale.
She said it moments after she knew beyond all doubt that Allan was the traitor in Robin’s gang. When she still hoped she could persuade him to confess and make things right. And she never stopped believing it, not even when he went to work for their enemy, not even when he nearly led Gisborne and his men to the camp-not even…
She catches herself; how can she compare Allan to the man who had him tortured and forced him to betray his friends-to this killer? Allan had been trapped, stuck-
“Then she was a fool,” Gisborne says viciously. “You know what I am.”
To her own surprise, Djaq gives a small head-shake. “I do not.”
He scoffs. “You are the bigger fool, then.”
“Only God can see what is inside a man’s heart. Your God or ours; it does not matter.”
Gisborne sits up abruptly, his eyes burning into hers. It is finally enough to rattle even her composure and make her shift with unease.
“And what do you think,” he asks, slowly, deliberately, “he would see in mine?”
“I think that perhaps he spared you for a reason,” Djaq says.
He scoffs again, and looks away. She rises, contemplates him a moment, looks at the sun which is well on its journey west; looks out at the desert, toward the ghost town where Marian died-its rooftops faintly visible above the dunes-and then shifts her eyes back to Gisborne. He is slumped back against the rock again, looking dazed, and she senses that he is about to be lost in himself, to retreat into whatever hell or dream-world he is carrying within him.
“Do you have a horse?” she asks abruptly.
He stirs and looks up at her with an absent gaze. Her irritation spikes again; she is angry at this man whom she is helping for no reason, and at herself, and at all the men whose wars and power struggles have brought them both to this godforsaken place.
“A horse,” she repeats. “Did you ride here?”
He frowns and nods, and gestures vaguely in the direction of the deserted town.
“Come on,” she says. “Get up. You should go back to Acre.”
He sighs and rolls his head back, muttering something she cannot quite make out. Leave him, she tells herself.
She looks toward the town, and then starts and squints into the distance: there is something moving at the top of the dune. Perhaps an illusion of the desert…but no, a few moments later she clearly sees a horse and a rider in dark clothes. She does not know who it is, or what he wants here, but somehow the sight of him fills her with unaccountable dread; especially when it becomes clear that he is heading toward them.
As he comes nearer, Djaq hears a sound that startles her, a low rasping laugh; she turns to look at Gisborne and sees that he is sitting up, staring, like herself, at the approaching rider.
“Do you know who it is?” he says.
“No,” she says, frowning. “Do you?”
But she knows even before he answers, even before she sees the rider’s face.
“It is the Devil come to claim his own,” Gisborne says thickly.
“No,” Djaq says; but, remembering her own close encounter with Sheriff Vaisey, the day he had her in the dungeons and wanted to make her his alchemist, she is not entirely sure. She shivers, a sick chill prickling at her skin.
“You people believe in the Devil, don’t you?”
“Shaytan,” she says under her breath. She should not be afraid of him-she is armed, and the Sheriff is a coward-and yet she cannot quite shake off the creeping terror. The Sheriff is close enough that she can see his face now.
Gisborne shrugs into his jacket and stands up next to her.
“He will have me,” he says, his voice heavy and flat, and it makes her shiver again.
Together, they watch the Sheriff approach, ride past the graves. As he halts his horse and surveys the two people before him, the smile on his face could almost be affable, if one didn’t know better.
“Gisborne; thought I’d find you here. Mourning your leper? Or found yourself a new one?” He nods toward Djaq and clucks his tongue. “Tsk, tsk; so soon?”
Gisborne inclines his head. “My lord.”
The Sheriff examines Djaq more closely, and the smile turns to a revolting leer. “Well, well. Robin Hood’s little pet Saracen.” He chuckles. “Sharing memories of poor Lady Marian?”
Next to her, Gisborne tenses and inhales a sharp breath, staring down, his fists clenched; then exhales with a low growl.
“Boat’s waiting, Gisborne,” the Sheriff says snappishly. “I’m not sure why I bothered to look for you, really; you’ll be more useless than ever, with all this moping.” He chuckles again. “Well…call me sentimental. Chop-chop”-he pats the side of his horse-“you can mope on the ship just as well as here.”
Gisborne takes another deep breath; and Djaq watches, appalled, as he moves to walk toward the Sheriff. She knows she is in the presence of something unspeakable. She has heard tales of sorcerers stealing a person’s mind, turning him into a slave who can no more disobey a command than a puppet can defy the puppeteer. She has always laughed at such superstitious nonsense, but right now she does not find it amusing. It is absurd, mad, that she should want to protect Gisborne from his master. And yet everything inside her rebels against letting this happen. She reaches out and clutches at Gisborne’s sleeve. He flinches and turns, and measures her with a scowling stare.
“Do not go with him,” she says in a rapid, urgent whisper, not wanting the Sheriff to hear. “Your Christian monks have a house here, near Acre. They will give you shelter.”
He stares at her silently. There is a glimmer of hope, of strange yearning in his face before it clouds over with bitter mockery.
“She believed you could change. It is never too late.”
“I think that’s enough sweet nothings,” the Sheriff’s voice cuts in. “Come on, Gisborne; I haven’t got all day.”
Gisborne is still looking at Djaq. His face softens suddenly, and he murmurs, “I’m sorry.” She has the eerie feeling that he is speaking to Marian, not to her.
She looks on, resigned, as he takes a step forward. Then, without warning, he turns and lunges toward her, his hand clenching on her shoulder; recovering from shock, she is about to push him off when he leans closer and whispers into her ear, his breath hot on her skin, “There will come a day when I kill him. For her.”
With that he walks away, and climbs up on the horse behind Vaisey. The Sheriff gives Djaq a mocking look.
“Give my regards to Hood. Oh, and-my condolences on the loss of his lady friend, hmm?”
Gisborne cringes and lowers his head. The Sheriff chuckles, and then turns around and rides off at a trot. Djaq remains where she was, unable to look away; and, as the horse and its riders pass the two graves, she sees Gisborne turn his head and cast a long gaze behind him.
Soon they disappear over the dune. She sighs and shakes her head, and goes to untether her horse. Remembering Gisborne’s dagger, she pulls it out, hesitates, and finally drops it in the sand. She walks back to the grave and, kneeling by the side of it, puts down the palm leaves.
“Good-bye, Marian,” she whispers.
When she mounts her horse and starts back to Acre, Saffiya thinks of Gisborne again, and realizes that she can summon no hatred for him. She wonders if that is wrong.
She wonders if Marian is watching him.
Author: LadyKate63
Word Count: 3,519
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Djaq, Guy, Vaisey; mentions Marian, Robin, Allan, Will, Bassam.
Spoilers/Warnings: 2x10 Walkabout; 2x13 We Are Robin Hood.
Summary: A few days after Marian's death, Djaq pays a visit to her grave. She's not the only one.
Disclaimer: Don't own Robin Hood, don't profit from this fic.
Notes: Many thanks to roh_wyn for the preview and the helpful suggestions. Sorry if this is a little too Guy-centric for what is ostensibly a Djaq fic. ;-) Still, I hope I have done justice to Djaq as well.
THIS SIDE OF HELL
It has been three days.
Saffiya wanders around the cool, familiar half-darkness of the house, feeling restless. She checks up on the birdcages. The cooing of the pigeons, always so comforting, rattles her nerves today for some reason, and she wants to get away from it.
Will is away with Bassam, with relatives and family friends-all men, gathered in a meeting house where women are not allowed and men sit around drinking hot spicy beverages; men who must accept this pale-faced Englishman as one of their own if they are to accept him as her husband.
She paces, impatient; pours herself a strong, sweet pomegranate drink.
If all goes as she hopes, she and Will are going to have a life here. And Robin and Marian will have nothing, except for vows spoken with her last breaths, and a grave in the hot sand.
She remembers the way Will looked at her, when Marian lay dying and Robin was crouched over her, sobbing. Looked at her; not at Marian and Robin. Even if she didn’t know him as well as she does, she could have read his thoughts in his face. If it was you…
Her thoughts drift, once again, to Marian. Dead for three days. Forever.
They were never close, not even in the few short days that Marian spent at Robin’s camp in the forest. Saffiya-Djaq-always found her something of a mystery; had dismissed her at first as a spoiled pretty rich girl who played at being a fighter, only to be impressed by her bravery when she was wounded; and even after that had continued to wonder how committed Marian really was to their common battle. Marian was never quite one of them, always keeping one foot in the other world, the world of the castle and its rulers, the castle to which she returned of her own free will. She loved Robin, there was no doubt of that, and yet Gisborne always seemed to have some strange hold over her that she could never break completely…
Gisborne. Djaq shivers at the name. Back in England, the day Prince John’s army came to destroy Nottingham, Will told her how the Sheriff’s brutal henchman returned to fight and die at Marian’s side rather than escape to safety. And now Marian is dead by that man’s hand. He couldn’t have loved her; he couldn’t. A man who truly loves a woman could never-
She tosses her head angrily, as if to rid herself of these thoughts. But Marian’s presence lingers, and suddenly Djaq feels a need to pay her respects to this woman she never knew or understood in life, this woman who died so young and so brave.
Now, she has a purpose. Putting on her headdress, she goes outside, gets one of Bassam’s horses. On her way out of Acre, she buys some fresh palm leaves from a vendor: the only thing a Muslim is allowed to place on a grave, said by some to ease the dead’s passage to the next world. Djaq is not sure she believes that, but she buys them still; and then rides out toward Imuiz, the ghost town taken and destroyed by the Crusaders, and now haunted by new ghosts.
She can see the place from far away: the rocks and the cluster of palm trees in the yellow sand of the desert, and the two Christian graves, covered with shields bearing the Crusader colors: red cross on white. And something else...something that, from a distance, looks like a huge black bird lying dead in the sand. She frowns, puzzled, vaguely alarmed; then, in an instant, she knows. The realization jolts her and she is horrified, repulsed. Her breath tight in her throat, she sets her horse to a trot and rides toward the graves, and then, dismounting, dashes toward the black form.
Dead, she thinks.
Gisborne is sprawled in the sand, on his stomach, arms and legs spread gracelessly, his face half-turned and mostly hidden from view by a mess of dark, sand-specked hair. Cautiously, Djaq squats next to him and, overcoming her revulsion, reaches out to touch his neck. She feels the faint beat of a pulse; a moment later the man twitches slightly, and there is a short gasping breath. She flinches, jerking her hand away.
She owes him nothing, this murderer; there is no reason she should not simply leave him here, for the sun and the desert to finish. Except one: She learned many things from her physician father, and one of them is that someone who possesses such skills as she cannot stand by and do nothing when another human being is in need of those skills, deserving or not; that is not for the medic to decide. And one more: a voice inside her, a small voice that seethes with anger, tells her it is not right for him to rest here, next to the woman he killed.
She brushes aside his matted hair. His face is hot and flushed and dry; sure signs that the heat is doing its damage. She turns him over, and only then notices the puddle of vomit in the sand next to him. She rises, wincing, and grabs him under the armpits; his head lolls helplessly, but he stirs a little and lets out a low moan.
He is heavy. Gritting her teeth, she manages to drag him toward the trees that give at least some shade; then runs back to her patiently waiting horse, leads it to the rocks and tethers it, and takes the water flasks strapped to the saddle. Kneeling at Gisborne’s side again, she lifts him up and peels off his jacket and shirt, and pours water over his bare chest and shoulders. There is not enough; but Allah must mean for her to save this man’s life, at least for now, because looking around she notices a small spring flowing from the rock. She soaks the shirt in cold water and spreads it over his chest, as she was taught to do, then splashes water in his face.
Gisborne splutters and gasps, his eyelids fluttering. Djaq puts the flask to his mouth, and he drinks in greedy gulps, then drops his head back on the folded jacket she’s placed underneath, taking deep shuddering breaths. As she surveys him, the dagger at his belt catches her notice. She quickly takes it and slips it under her sash, next to her own curved blade. Even in his weakened state, the man is dangerous, and she had no idea what to expect from him.
He opens his eyes. His gaze wanders at first, then settles on the woman kneeling over him. He blinks slowly, focusing, his expression turning from a look of bafflement to a scowl.
“Hood’s Saracen,” he mutters. The scowl deepens, and though his voice is weak she can hear menace edging into it. “What are you doing?”
“Saving your life,” she says brusquely, meanly.
Gisborne closes his eyes again, and bares his teeth in a dreadful, low, snarling laugh. “Why?”
“Because I have been trained as a physician, and it would be wrong for me to let a man die when I can help him. Even a man like you.”
“Foolish woman.” He lapses back into a murmur, his breaths harsh and ragged. “I came here to die.”
His words prick her anger, and she spits out, “By her side? You do not deserve it, Gisborne,” his name a curse in her mouth.
She sees a spasm run across his face; he makes a sound in his throat, shudders. Then he asks, in a barely audible rasp, his eyes still closed, “Were you there?”
She knows what he means, of course. After a brief silence she says, “I was.”
For a moment there is only the sound of his rough breath. Then he says, “Was she… When you found her, was she-”
“She was alive,” Djaq snaps. Her face is burning. It makes her ill that she is speaking of Marian’s last moments to her murderer; and, worse yet, that he sounds as if he cares and that she almost believes it. “She was going to die when the sword was pulled from her body. She pulled it out with her own hands.”
He makes another choked sound as his eyes drift open.
“So brave,” he whispers.
“She was,” Djaq says. Then, anger surges inside her again; she hates this, hates that she is agreeing. She is about to tell him that Marian exchanged marriage vows with Robin before she died-she will not spare him that, will not spare him anything-but before she can speak again, Gisborne’s face contorts in agony. He turns and curls up on his side, clutching the wet shirt to his face as hoarse sobs rack his body, sobs that must be all the more excruciating because the heat has scorched away all the tears he’d had in him. There is a muffled word amidst the sobs. “Marian…Marian…Marian…” Djaq feels another lurch of revulsion, but there is pity mixed in with it, and she does not want to feel pity for him, she does not.
Quieting at last, he flops on his back, panting, long harsh breaths that rattle his chest, his throat moving convulsively. Djaq suddenly wonders what she is to do with him, now she’s saved him. She peers into his face. The flush on his skin is fading; right now, he is out of danger. What happens next is no concern of hers. She should go home. Belatedly, she remembers the palm leaves. This is what she should do, then: put them on the grave, the grave of the woman this man murdered, and go.
As Gisborne’s breath steadies, his eyes flicker open blearily; then his gaze slides to the two daggers under her sash, his and her own, and he reaches down and fumbles at his belt. Djaq moves back slightly, sitting on her haunches, alert.
He motions his chin toward the dagger, his eyelids drooping again.
“Use it.”
She recoils, shocked. “I will do no such thing.”
He grimaces. “If you are the physician you say you are…then I’m sure you know how to make it quick.” The grimace comes back as a sneer, a short harsh laugh. “Or very slow and painful…if you prefer.”
“I am not a killer.”
“Would you not avenge her?” He sounds almost puzzled now.
“That is not for me.”
His lip curls again, and it is horrible, this sneer that has more pain than mockery in it. “For whom then? Hood?”
“If he so chooses,” she says neutrally. Will Robin do it, she wonders; kill this wrecked man in cold blood?
Apparently resigned to living for now, Gisborne sits up, pulls on his still-damp, sand-stained shirt and swallows more water from the flask. He rubs his face, no longer flushed from the sun but ashen and haggard, the skin even paler for the thick black stubble. He looks pensive and, right now, almost gentle.
“How could you do it?” she blurts out.
He shudders and hunches his shoulders, as if trying to make himself smaller. “I…I don’t-I did not want…”
You murdered her, she wants to say, but somehow her frankness fails her. Gisborne stares ahead, his gaze far away, and when he speaks again it is in a broken whisper probably meant only for himself.
“…just wanted her to stop…”
She knits her eyebrows, confused. Stop defending the King…? Is he raving mad?
“...destroying everything…taking everything away…everything…”
Now she understands, and contempt for the man sitting next to her floods her again. “She told you that you couldn’t have her, and you killed her,” she says, every word falling like a lash. “You call that love.”
He does not argue; instead he gives a long shaky sigh, his teeth chattering, and buries his head in his knees. Once again Djaq ponders what to do with him. If she leaves him here, she will have saved him for nothing. Should she somehow help him get back to Acre? He must have ridden here, but there is no horse in sight, and the thought of letting him ride with her makes her skin crawl. It occurs to her that, by rights, she should take him to the Crusaders’ camp and hand him over as a traitor; and yet-
“Last chance to be a good man.”
Startled by Gisborne’s hoarse, hollow voice, Djaq turns to look at him. He is now sitting back, leaning against the rock, staring ahead. Then he shifts his head and looks directly at her, his eyes feverishly bright.
“It is what she said to me. She thought I could be a good man. Or…” He hangs his head, his voice dropping to a whisper. “Perhaps that was a lie too, I-I don’t know…”
“It was not,” Djaq says, without thinking. She doesn’t quite know why she says it; it is not something she ever discussed with Marian, though she had gleaned, from some things that Robin let slip, that Marian had sometimes defended Gisborne. But there is something else; her own words from the past, sharp and clear in her mind.
You are a good man, Allan A’Dale.
She said it moments after she knew beyond all doubt that Allan was the traitor in Robin’s gang. When she still hoped she could persuade him to confess and make things right. And she never stopped believing it, not even when he went to work for their enemy, not even when he nearly led Gisborne and his men to the camp-not even…
She catches herself; how can she compare Allan to the man who had him tortured and forced him to betray his friends-to this killer? Allan had been trapped, stuck-
“Then she was a fool,” Gisborne says viciously. “You know what I am.”
To her own surprise, Djaq gives a small head-shake. “I do not.”
He scoffs. “You are the bigger fool, then.”
“Only God can see what is inside a man’s heart. Your God or ours; it does not matter.”
Gisborne sits up abruptly, his eyes burning into hers. It is finally enough to rattle even her composure and make her shift with unease.
“And what do you think,” he asks, slowly, deliberately, “he would see in mine?”
“I think that perhaps he spared you for a reason,” Djaq says.
He scoffs again, and looks away. She rises, contemplates him a moment, looks at the sun which is well on its journey west; looks out at the desert, toward the ghost town where Marian died-its rooftops faintly visible above the dunes-and then shifts her eyes back to Gisborne. He is slumped back against the rock again, looking dazed, and she senses that he is about to be lost in himself, to retreat into whatever hell or dream-world he is carrying within him.
“Do you have a horse?” she asks abruptly.
He stirs and looks up at her with an absent gaze. Her irritation spikes again; she is angry at this man whom she is helping for no reason, and at herself, and at all the men whose wars and power struggles have brought them both to this godforsaken place.
“A horse,” she repeats. “Did you ride here?”
He frowns and nods, and gestures vaguely in the direction of the deserted town.
“Come on,” she says. “Get up. You should go back to Acre.”
He sighs and rolls his head back, muttering something she cannot quite make out. Leave him, she tells herself.
She looks toward the town, and then starts and squints into the distance: there is something moving at the top of the dune. Perhaps an illusion of the desert…but no, a few moments later she clearly sees a horse and a rider in dark clothes. She does not know who it is, or what he wants here, but somehow the sight of him fills her with unaccountable dread; especially when it becomes clear that he is heading toward them.
As he comes nearer, Djaq hears a sound that startles her, a low rasping laugh; she turns to look at Gisborne and sees that he is sitting up, staring, like herself, at the approaching rider.
“Do you know who it is?” he says.
“No,” she says, frowning. “Do you?”
But she knows even before he answers, even before she sees the rider’s face.
“It is the Devil come to claim his own,” Gisborne says thickly.
“No,” Djaq says; but, remembering her own close encounter with Sheriff Vaisey, the day he had her in the dungeons and wanted to make her his alchemist, she is not entirely sure. She shivers, a sick chill prickling at her skin.
“You people believe in the Devil, don’t you?”
“Shaytan,” she says under her breath. She should not be afraid of him-she is armed, and the Sheriff is a coward-and yet she cannot quite shake off the creeping terror. The Sheriff is close enough that she can see his face now.
Gisborne shrugs into his jacket and stands up next to her.
“He will have me,” he says, his voice heavy and flat, and it makes her shiver again.
Together, they watch the Sheriff approach, ride past the graves. As he halts his horse and surveys the two people before him, the smile on his face could almost be affable, if one didn’t know better.
“Gisborne; thought I’d find you here. Mourning your leper? Or found yourself a new one?” He nods toward Djaq and clucks his tongue. “Tsk, tsk; so soon?”
Gisborne inclines his head. “My lord.”
The Sheriff examines Djaq more closely, and the smile turns to a revolting leer. “Well, well. Robin Hood’s little pet Saracen.” He chuckles. “Sharing memories of poor Lady Marian?”
Next to her, Gisborne tenses and inhales a sharp breath, staring down, his fists clenched; then exhales with a low growl.
“Boat’s waiting, Gisborne,” the Sheriff says snappishly. “I’m not sure why I bothered to look for you, really; you’ll be more useless than ever, with all this moping.” He chuckles again. “Well…call me sentimental. Chop-chop”-he pats the side of his horse-“you can mope on the ship just as well as here.”
Gisborne takes another deep breath; and Djaq watches, appalled, as he moves to walk toward the Sheriff. She knows she is in the presence of something unspeakable. She has heard tales of sorcerers stealing a person’s mind, turning him into a slave who can no more disobey a command than a puppet can defy the puppeteer. She has always laughed at such superstitious nonsense, but right now she does not find it amusing. It is absurd, mad, that she should want to protect Gisborne from his master. And yet everything inside her rebels against letting this happen. She reaches out and clutches at Gisborne’s sleeve. He flinches and turns, and measures her with a scowling stare.
“Do not go with him,” she says in a rapid, urgent whisper, not wanting the Sheriff to hear. “Your Christian monks have a house here, near Acre. They will give you shelter.”
He stares at her silently. There is a glimmer of hope, of strange yearning in his face before it clouds over with bitter mockery.
“She believed you could change. It is never too late.”
“I think that’s enough sweet nothings,” the Sheriff’s voice cuts in. “Come on, Gisborne; I haven’t got all day.”
Gisborne is still looking at Djaq. His face softens suddenly, and he murmurs, “I’m sorry.” She has the eerie feeling that he is speaking to Marian, not to her.
She looks on, resigned, as he takes a step forward. Then, without warning, he turns and lunges toward her, his hand clenching on her shoulder; recovering from shock, she is about to push him off when he leans closer and whispers into her ear, his breath hot on her skin, “There will come a day when I kill him. For her.”
With that he walks away, and climbs up on the horse behind Vaisey. The Sheriff gives Djaq a mocking look.
“Give my regards to Hood. Oh, and-my condolences on the loss of his lady friend, hmm?”
Gisborne cringes and lowers his head. The Sheriff chuckles, and then turns around and rides off at a trot. Djaq remains where she was, unable to look away; and, as the horse and its riders pass the two graves, she sees Gisborne turn his head and cast a long gaze behind him.
Soon they disappear over the dune. She sighs and shakes her head, and goes to untether her horse. Remembering Gisborne’s dagger, she pulls it out, hesitates, and finally drops it in the sand. She walks back to the grave and, kneeling by the side of it, puts down the palm leaves.
“Good-bye, Marian,” she whispers.
When she mounts her horse and starts back to Acre, Saffiya thinks of Gisborne again, and realizes that she can summon no hatred for him. She wonders if that is wrong.
She wonders if Marian is watching him.