Fallout - Chapter Seven
Guy wakes to the sound of men shouting at each other. It has been a long time since he has awakened to anything other than the bustle of Locksley’s servants or the drawl of an early morning inn, and for one terrifying second, he thinks that he is thirteen again and back among the boys vying to be Vasey’s man. But then yesterday comes back in a dizzying rush of images, and Guy remembers that there is no Vasey, not anymore. It is glorious and horrifying all at once.
When he stands to pull on his familiar uniform, his head brushes the low-hanging cloth above him. If he had ever harbored doubts as to where Carter’s loyalties lay, the quality of these “lodgings” would have surely dispelled them. The tent, if you can even call it that, is tiny, with barely enough space to breathe; he would not be surprised to hear that it had recently housed King’s dwarves. It is also far away from Marian. Guy does not remember much about the night that came after he left her tent-his mind was too full of the unasked questions and suspicions that crashed into each other until it was difficult to know where one began and the other ended. But he does remember the long march through labyrinthine tents, all the while staring at Carter’s back and hating how he almost wanted to thank him for interrupting.
He had pushed too hard; he recognizes that. But sometimes the desire to know what he is up against, once and for all, claws at the rational part of him until there is nothing sane or reasonable left to hold on to. Guy has always liked plans, and despite Vasey’s many slurs stating his incompetence, he is good at them; he would not have been able to rise as he had if that were not the case. Marian, however, delights in thwarting his carefully laid plans for their future, kicking the stool out from under him when he least expects it time and time again. But if he could know what parts of her heart were still tied to the forest, to him, he could win. He knows it.
Filled with renewed confidence, he steps outside into the bright sun, squinting against its stringent rays, its punishing heat. He hates this place. Hated it the first time, hates it now. He wants woods (Hood-less, preferably) and trees and land that you can work and live on for years and years. This entire place is soaked in blood, and not just that of the people who have fought and died. It took his life before he had even seen it on a map, it with its constant craving for money.
Something flickers in the corner of his eye, and Guy turns to see a soldier with dun-colored hair studying him with wary curiosity. “Who are you?” he says flatly.
“I am to be your guard until Carter returns.”
Guy says nothing, just turns and stalks across camp in the direction of Marian’s tent after a weighty glare at his assigned shadow. He will be better today, he promises himself. Calm . . . reasonable. They will understand each other. He won’t be overbearing, and she will admit to past indiscretions and renounce Hood once and for all. It’s the perfect plan.
But when Marian is not at her tent, the plan begins to waver. He spots the older soldier from last night walking past and grabs his shirtfront, pulling the startled man to the side.
“Where is Lady Marian?”
“Not here,” the man says, affronted, before gripping Guy’s wrist and yanking his hand away from his collar. “And I won’t say any more if you grab me like that again.”
Guy would like nothing more than to clout this man over the head, but he manages to restrain his hands to fists at his side. He feels his sudden lack of power and position like a missing limb. “Do you know where she went?”
“She said she had to get out of the tent.”
“You thought it wise to let a woman wander around a camp of men alone?” he asks in disbelief.
“No. William is with her.” He nods over Guy’s shoulder. “They went that way.”
The same direction as Hood’s tent. What a coincidence, Guy thinks darkly, turning and striding across the camp, not caring when his shoulders bump into unlucky passerby. Lately he had tried to convince himself that Marian’s infatuation with Hood was one-sided, a remnant of their youthful betrothal. Hood himself was too cocky, too caught up in his own infuriating heroics to truly care for her as more than a tool to achieve is own ends. Guy still has trouble understanding how the man could have left her six years ago to come to this accursed place. To have Marian wanting to marry you, willing to pledge herself to you without any shred of politics behind it…the idea of it is intoxicating, and something he himself had given up on long ago.
But then Allan had let things slip, little mentions of Robin and Marian as a “them” that burrowed their way into his brain like maggots. They writhe there still. Last night he could barely sleep for the images of their entwined hands, entwined bodies. Images of them laughing together, laughing at him. The sick thing is that it only makes him want her more. He has often wondered if this is his punishment for all of his past wrongs: to want something so much that will always-always-dance out of your reach.
Guy spots Hood’s little cluster of tents straight ahead of him. He will not skulk in the shadows this time, no. This time he will stride into the middle and . . . well, do something. Gritting his teeth, he prepares for a fight. He hopes Allan is there so he can yell at him as well. Before he reaches the edge, however, a burst of female laughter swims up from his right. The Saracen’s laughter was deep and throaty; this is light and smooth. Marian.
He veers to the side, stepping in between the tents as quietly as possible. For one heart-stopping second he wonders if he is about to see Marian and Hood in a heated embrace. Expecting rage, he is shocked when all he feels is nausea and the sudden desire to leave. He does not know what he will do when his suspicions make that final trip into truth, but he has averted his eyes for too long. He forces himself to walk the final steps around the corner, so intent on steeling himself for what is to come that, when he finds only Marian in the middle of the army’s horses, her hand stretched out toward a dark brown mare, he can do nothing but stand and goggle dumbly.
“That was my finger,” Marian chides gently as she taps the horse on the nose. “I have no more food. You are lucky the other horses did not see; I did not have enough to go around.”
Guy watches as she lifts a hand to caress the animal’s jaw, watches as she leans her head forward to rest against its long snout, her dark, wavy hair becoming a shiny curtain that hides them both. “You are beautiful,” he thinks he hears her say, voice muffled, “and wasted here.”
The warmth in her voice, the openness in her actions catches him off guard. When his courtship of Marian began, he thought that her reserve and icy politeness were a mark of her rank and class, and it excited him that he was close to winning a real noblewoman; her refusals of his advances were only signs of her own high-standing, the quality of the final prize that he was to win. But then as he began to observe her more closely, he saw the façade crack-saw her temper and her passion, saw her arch delight when small things went wrong for the Sheriff. Imagine his surprise when he found that he liked these little bits of humanity even more . . . and his despair when they seemed to disappear every time he tried to draw them out.
The beast snorts into her hair, and she laughs again before drawing back. Guy feels a stab of jealousy that shoots right down into his bones. This is the first time that he has heard her laugh. And she has never smiled at him the way she is smiling at that stupid horse. He coughs.
Marian immediately whirls around, eyes wide, and Guy knows that if she had a weapon instead of a hand full of horse snot, it would be pointed at him. When she sees who it is, she relaxes-only slightly, but it’s there. He finds himself oddly pleased.
“Guy,” she says, acknowledging him with a small dip of her head and what he would have called a smile before he discovered the ones she bestows on animals. When he says nothing, she sighs. “Must you lurk?”
“I do not lurk.”
“Fine. Must you hulk?”
“I do not hulk.” He shifts uncomfortably under her scrutiny. “Marian, where is your guard?”
“I seem to have lost him,” she says, and then lifts up her heels to peer over his shoulder. “I see that you cannot manage to do the same with yours.”
Guy pivots to find his morning guard hovering behind him. It is insufferable that he is to be watched every second of the day. He frowns. When he turns back, she looks amused.
“Perhaps I can give you some pointers,” she says, and Guy thinks he hears a hint of flirtatiousness before she walks back to pet her new best friend, the horse. “She is beautiful, isn’t she?”
“She is passable.”
“Passable?”
“I’ve seen better,” he says shortly, and even though he feels it coming, he can’t stop the next childish thought from dribbling through his lips. “I gave you a horse once.”
“You did,” she says cautiously.
He should stop now, while he still has some dignity, but instead he hears “It was a fine horse-an expensive horse. But you did not like it. You did not like any of my gifts.”
The horse has been nuzzling her neck, searching for food, but she puts a hand on its neck to calm it. She meets his gaze, slightly bewildered. “But I did like the horse,” she says before stepping behind its neck and hiding from him. “Although I never cared how much money it cost you.”
Guy circles around to see her. “You did not like the jewelry.”
She refuses to meet his eyes. “I did.”
“You never wore it.”
“Because it was stolen,” she snaps and then hisses in a deep breath, her hand flying up to her lips and fluttering there for a few seconds before she visibly wills it back to stroking the horse’s mane.
At first he does not understand the reason for her nervousness. But when comprehension comes, it is swift and cold. “The necklace,” he says bitterly, crossing his arms to hide the hands that have become fists, the hands that want to grab her arm and make her look at him. “I was right. You betrayed me to Hood.”
As though it can feel the tension, the horse skitters to the side with a disgruntled whinny. Marian says nothing, just tries to calm it with soothing murmurs and gentle hands. But when she speaks, finally, to him, her voice is tense, defiant. “There have been numerous betrayals between us. You lied to me about trying to kill the King. You lied to me about the King returning. Our marriage would have been based on nothing but lies.”
“My feelings for you were not a lie,” Guy shouts, so loud that the horse backs away from them both. “And what did my political actions have to do with our happiness? The side of me that would have been your husband…” He reaches down and captures her hand. “The side of me that will be your husband…”
She tears her hand out of his grasp. “Sides!” she scoffs. “It is always ‘sides’ with you.” She shakes her head in disgust. “It is impossible to love a man in pieces.”
Guy waits until the silence threatens to swallow them both before responding. “But you can marry one,” he says darkly. He does not know if it is an insult, an order, or a question. Marian’s mouth opens with a ready response, but suddenly he does not want to hear it. He turns away. “Marian, I did not find you to argue.”
“Did you not?”
“No,” he says and rubs at the bridge of his nose to ease the quickly mounting headache. This was not the plan. The plan was to come to an understanding, not be jealous of a horse and dredge up painful history until he wanted to stomp about and shake her. “I wondered if you would spend the day with me. We could . . . talk.”
“I do not want to talk of the things you want to know,” she says shortly. “And you do not want to answer my questions. Unless you offer a truce, I prefer the horses.” As if to prove her point, she walks back over to the mare and pats it on the side.
He sighs. “A truce? What would this truce involve?”
The question throws her off-guard; she had not expected an offer of peace. “I don’t know.”
“Then why offer it?” he says, and then moves toward her slowly. He watches how she stands up straighter, how her lips purse in that way that both infuriates him and makes him want to kiss her senseless. It reminds him of their kiss last night, before Hood was dragged into it yet again. She was responding to him-he is sure of it. He does not want to damage any fragile peace, but he needs some reassurance that he is not imagining things, that there is something between them. Otherwise there is no reason to keep holding on.
He leans down until there are only inches left between their mouths, wishing that his heart were not pounding like a nervous youth scared to go in for his first kiss. “We do not argue when your lips are on mine,” he says softly.
Her head rears back, but her eyes drop to study his mouth before coming up to meet his again uncertainly. He brings his hand up to cup her chin, runs a thumb over her bottom lip, and feels a surge of satisfaction when she doesn’t retreat. A surge of satisfaction that travels all the way down to…
“Sir Guy,” a voice calls out from behind him, and Marian uses the distraction to back away, turning around and busying herself with the animals.
When Guy turns around, Carter is staring at him with a grave expression. Mother of God. One day, Guy is going to kill him; this was not an interruption that he in any way wanted.
“What do you want?” he asks with what he hopes is an air of the menace to come.
“King Richard has asked me to bring you to the center of camp.”
“Why?”
“There is something that he would like you to witness.”
Before Guy can ask for more detail, Marian’s voice pipes up behind him. “I will come too,” she says. Of course now that it involves politics, she is eager to be with him.
Guy follows Carter to the center of camp, Marian scurrying close behind. She can’t seem to decide if she wants to walk behind him or next to him or before him or on him. When they are almost to their destination, Guy grabs her hand and pulls her forward to keep from tripping over her.
The first thing they see is the white backs of over a hundred soldiers standing side by side in a large circle. When Carter barks an order, the ones closest to them step back and allow them to pass.
Guy feels Marian’s hand tighten on his before he knows what he is looking at. Then he recognizes the bare, bowed heads of Vasey’s conspirators. Guy cannot feel a breeze, but tiny tufts of their hair dance and sway. It would be almost graceful if there were not swords at their necks or the heat of bloodlust in the air.
Out of the corner of his eye, Guy sees Marian’s hand go to her nose, and that’s when the smell hits him. It is rank and rotten and coming from a black lump to the side of the condemned men. Even though he had seen that robe every morning for nearly ten years, it takes a few seconds to comprehend that he is looking at the dead body of Vasey. Covered in dust, the robe no longer gleams. It is dull, just like the eyes that peer out from the bloated face. Any grateful feelings that Guy had ever felt for Vasey were bled out of him long ago, but he still feels a flash of shame that someone he professed loyalty to could ever meet such an end. And by his hand.
Dimly, he registers that Richard has stepped in front of the accused. He holds up his arms and turns to address the crowd, his robes gleaming even whiter in the bright afternoon sun.
“The men before you have been found guilty of high treason,” Richard booms, turning in a slow circle as though to make sure each and every one of them knows why they are here. As the King turns, some men fidget, some lean forward eagerly, and others look at the ground in distaste. But Guy…Guy feels weight of the King’s gaze like a boulder on his chest. This is a message. A message for him.
“They will be executed,” Richard continues, refusing to pull his gaze away from Guy’s for fear of lessening the impact of his words, “and their bodies will be left to rot in the desert like the foul traitors they are.” He nods at the executioners. “On my word,” he says and then takes a place next to Guy, standing so close that he can feel the brush of Richard’s robes.
Guy begins to panic; he can feel the emotion crawling up from deep in his gut as he tries not to shake. But then he feels Marian’s fingers squeeze his hand in the hidden, safe, place between their bodies. So when Richard gives the final command that sends the heads of Guy’s co-conspirators rolling into the dirt, all he feels is her palm in his. He doesn’t even flinch.
A horse is let into the circle, ostensibly to bear the bodies of the dead men to their final place of punishment. He starts when he feels the clamp of Richard’s hand on his shoulder.
“When you are ready, Sir Guy, I have matters to discuss with you in my tent,” he says, and then leaves Guy to stand there, staring at the blood-soaked ground before him.
“I am sorry,” Marian says softly when the King is out of earshot.
Guy shakes his head even as his fingers tighten around hers. But then her hand, which had been so steady, pulls away. Looking over, he follows her faraway gaze, curious to see what has stolen her attention, and then freezes. Hood is standing across the circle, leaning against his bow and staring at them intently. Guy’s head whips back to study Marian’s face, marking the red flush of shame on her cheeks, her sudden inability to meet his eyes. Suddenly, all the raging emotions that have been swimming beneath his skin break free.
“When we are married, more than just Hood will know that you are Lady Gisborne. I’m sorry it disgusts you so,” he spits to her shocked expression, and then storms off to see what price he must pay for a life that he no longer knows and a woman who is embarrassed to share it with him.
When he stands to pull on his familiar uniform, his head brushes the low-hanging cloth above him. If he had ever harbored doubts as to where Carter’s loyalties lay, the quality of these “lodgings” would have surely dispelled them. The tent, if you can even call it that, is tiny, with barely enough space to breathe; he would not be surprised to hear that it had recently housed King’s dwarves. It is also far away from Marian. Guy does not remember much about the night that came after he left her tent-his mind was too full of the unasked questions and suspicions that crashed into each other until it was difficult to know where one began and the other ended. But he does remember the long march through labyrinthine tents, all the while staring at Carter’s back and hating how he almost wanted to thank him for interrupting.
He had pushed too hard; he recognizes that. But sometimes the desire to know what he is up against, once and for all, claws at the rational part of him until there is nothing sane or reasonable left to hold on to. Guy has always liked plans, and despite Vasey’s many slurs stating his incompetence, he is good at them; he would not have been able to rise as he had if that were not the case. Marian, however, delights in thwarting his carefully laid plans for their future, kicking the stool out from under him when he least expects it time and time again. But if he could know what parts of her heart were still tied to the forest, to him, he could win. He knows it.
Filled with renewed confidence, he steps outside into the bright sun, squinting against its stringent rays, its punishing heat. He hates this place. Hated it the first time, hates it now. He wants woods (Hood-less, preferably) and trees and land that you can work and live on for years and years. This entire place is soaked in blood, and not just that of the people who have fought and died. It took his life before he had even seen it on a map, it with its constant craving for money.
Something flickers in the corner of his eye, and Guy turns to see a soldier with dun-colored hair studying him with wary curiosity. “Who are you?” he says flatly.
“I am to be your guard until Carter returns.”
Guy says nothing, just turns and stalks across camp in the direction of Marian’s tent after a weighty glare at his assigned shadow. He will be better today, he promises himself. Calm . . . reasonable. They will understand each other. He won’t be overbearing, and she will admit to past indiscretions and renounce Hood once and for all. It’s the perfect plan.
But when Marian is not at her tent, the plan begins to waver. He spots the older soldier from last night walking past and grabs his shirtfront, pulling the startled man to the side.
“Where is Lady Marian?”
“Not here,” the man says, affronted, before gripping Guy’s wrist and yanking his hand away from his collar. “And I won’t say any more if you grab me like that again.”
Guy would like nothing more than to clout this man over the head, but he manages to restrain his hands to fists at his side. He feels his sudden lack of power and position like a missing limb. “Do you know where she went?”
“She said she had to get out of the tent.”
“You thought it wise to let a woman wander around a camp of men alone?” he asks in disbelief.
“No. William is with her.” He nods over Guy’s shoulder. “They went that way.”
The same direction as Hood’s tent. What a coincidence, Guy thinks darkly, turning and striding across the camp, not caring when his shoulders bump into unlucky passerby. Lately he had tried to convince himself that Marian’s infatuation with Hood was one-sided, a remnant of their youthful betrothal. Hood himself was too cocky, too caught up in his own infuriating heroics to truly care for her as more than a tool to achieve is own ends. Guy still has trouble understanding how the man could have left her six years ago to come to this accursed place. To have Marian wanting to marry you, willing to pledge herself to you without any shred of politics behind it…the idea of it is intoxicating, and something he himself had given up on long ago.
But then Allan had let things slip, little mentions of Robin and Marian as a “them” that burrowed their way into his brain like maggots. They writhe there still. Last night he could barely sleep for the images of their entwined hands, entwined bodies. Images of them laughing together, laughing at him. The sick thing is that it only makes him want her more. He has often wondered if this is his punishment for all of his past wrongs: to want something so much that will always-always-dance out of your reach.
Guy spots Hood’s little cluster of tents straight ahead of him. He will not skulk in the shadows this time, no. This time he will stride into the middle and . . . well, do something. Gritting his teeth, he prepares for a fight. He hopes Allan is there so he can yell at him as well. Before he reaches the edge, however, a burst of female laughter swims up from his right. The Saracen’s laughter was deep and throaty; this is light and smooth. Marian.
He veers to the side, stepping in between the tents as quietly as possible. For one heart-stopping second he wonders if he is about to see Marian and Hood in a heated embrace. Expecting rage, he is shocked when all he feels is nausea and the sudden desire to leave. He does not know what he will do when his suspicions make that final trip into truth, but he has averted his eyes for too long. He forces himself to walk the final steps around the corner, so intent on steeling himself for what is to come that, when he finds only Marian in the middle of the army’s horses, her hand stretched out toward a dark brown mare, he can do nothing but stand and goggle dumbly.
“That was my finger,” Marian chides gently as she taps the horse on the nose. “I have no more food. You are lucky the other horses did not see; I did not have enough to go around.”
Guy watches as she lifts a hand to caress the animal’s jaw, watches as she leans her head forward to rest against its long snout, her dark, wavy hair becoming a shiny curtain that hides them both. “You are beautiful,” he thinks he hears her say, voice muffled, “and wasted here.”
The warmth in her voice, the openness in her actions catches him off guard. When his courtship of Marian began, he thought that her reserve and icy politeness were a mark of her rank and class, and it excited him that he was close to winning a real noblewoman; her refusals of his advances were only signs of her own high-standing, the quality of the final prize that he was to win. But then as he began to observe her more closely, he saw the façade crack-saw her temper and her passion, saw her arch delight when small things went wrong for the Sheriff. Imagine his surprise when he found that he liked these little bits of humanity even more . . . and his despair when they seemed to disappear every time he tried to draw them out.
The beast snorts into her hair, and she laughs again before drawing back. Guy feels a stab of jealousy that shoots right down into his bones. This is the first time that he has heard her laugh. And she has never smiled at him the way she is smiling at that stupid horse. He coughs.
Marian immediately whirls around, eyes wide, and Guy knows that if she had a weapon instead of a hand full of horse snot, it would be pointed at him. When she sees who it is, she relaxes-only slightly, but it’s there. He finds himself oddly pleased.
“Guy,” she says, acknowledging him with a small dip of her head and what he would have called a smile before he discovered the ones she bestows on animals. When he says nothing, she sighs. “Must you lurk?”
“I do not lurk.”
“Fine. Must you hulk?”
“I do not hulk.” He shifts uncomfortably under her scrutiny. “Marian, where is your guard?”
“I seem to have lost him,” she says, and then lifts up her heels to peer over his shoulder. “I see that you cannot manage to do the same with yours.”
Guy pivots to find his morning guard hovering behind him. It is insufferable that he is to be watched every second of the day. He frowns. When he turns back, she looks amused.
“Perhaps I can give you some pointers,” she says, and Guy thinks he hears a hint of flirtatiousness before she walks back to pet her new best friend, the horse. “She is beautiful, isn’t she?”
“She is passable.”
“Passable?”
“I’ve seen better,” he says shortly, and even though he feels it coming, he can’t stop the next childish thought from dribbling through his lips. “I gave you a horse once.”
“You did,” she says cautiously.
He should stop now, while he still has some dignity, but instead he hears “It was a fine horse-an expensive horse. But you did not like it. You did not like any of my gifts.”
The horse has been nuzzling her neck, searching for food, but she puts a hand on its neck to calm it. She meets his gaze, slightly bewildered. “But I did like the horse,” she says before stepping behind its neck and hiding from him. “Although I never cared how much money it cost you.”
Guy circles around to see her. “You did not like the jewelry.”
She refuses to meet his eyes. “I did.”
“You never wore it.”
“Because it was stolen,” she snaps and then hisses in a deep breath, her hand flying up to her lips and fluttering there for a few seconds before she visibly wills it back to stroking the horse’s mane.
At first he does not understand the reason for her nervousness. But when comprehension comes, it is swift and cold. “The necklace,” he says bitterly, crossing his arms to hide the hands that have become fists, the hands that want to grab her arm and make her look at him. “I was right. You betrayed me to Hood.”
As though it can feel the tension, the horse skitters to the side with a disgruntled whinny. Marian says nothing, just tries to calm it with soothing murmurs and gentle hands. But when she speaks, finally, to him, her voice is tense, defiant. “There have been numerous betrayals between us. You lied to me about trying to kill the King. You lied to me about the King returning. Our marriage would have been based on nothing but lies.”
“My feelings for you were not a lie,” Guy shouts, so loud that the horse backs away from them both. “And what did my political actions have to do with our happiness? The side of me that would have been your husband…” He reaches down and captures her hand. “The side of me that will be your husband…”
She tears her hand out of his grasp. “Sides!” she scoffs. “It is always ‘sides’ with you.” She shakes her head in disgust. “It is impossible to love a man in pieces.”
Guy waits until the silence threatens to swallow them both before responding. “But you can marry one,” he says darkly. He does not know if it is an insult, an order, or a question. Marian’s mouth opens with a ready response, but suddenly he does not want to hear it. He turns away. “Marian, I did not find you to argue.”
“Did you not?”
“No,” he says and rubs at the bridge of his nose to ease the quickly mounting headache. This was not the plan. The plan was to come to an understanding, not be jealous of a horse and dredge up painful history until he wanted to stomp about and shake her. “I wondered if you would spend the day with me. We could . . . talk.”
“I do not want to talk of the things you want to know,” she says shortly. “And you do not want to answer my questions. Unless you offer a truce, I prefer the horses.” As if to prove her point, she walks back over to the mare and pats it on the side.
He sighs. “A truce? What would this truce involve?”
The question throws her off-guard; she had not expected an offer of peace. “I don’t know.”
“Then why offer it?” he says, and then moves toward her slowly. He watches how she stands up straighter, how her lips purse in that way that both infuriates him and makes him want to kiss her senseless. It reminds him of their kiss last night, before Hood was dragged into it yet again. She was responding to him-he is sure of it. He does not want to damage any fragile peace, but he needs some reassurance that he is not imagining things, that there is something between them. Otherwise there is no reason to keep holding on.
He leans down until there are only inches left between their mouths, wishing that his heart were not pounding like a nervous youth scared to go in for his first kiss. “We do not argue when your lips are on mine,” he says softly.
Her head rears back, but her eyes drop to study his mouth before coming up to meet his again uncertainly. He brings his hand up to cup her chin, runs a thumb over her bottom lip, and feels a surge of satisfaction when she doesn’t retreat. A surge of satisfaction that travels all the way down to…
“Sir Guy,” a voice calls out from behind him, and Marian uses the distraction to back away, turning around and busying herself with the animals.
When Guy turns around, Carter is staring at him with a grave expression. Mother of God. One day, Guy is going to kill him; this was not an interruption that he in any way wanted.
“What do you want?” he asks with what he hopes is an air of the menace to come.
“King Richard has asked me to bring you to the center of camp.”
“Why?”
“There is something that he would like you to witness.”
Before Guy can ask for more detail, Marian’s voice pipes up behind him. “I will come too,” she says. Of course now that it involves politics, she is eager to be with him.
Guy follows Carter to the center of camp, Marian scurrying close behind. She can’t seem to decide if she wants to walk behind him or next to him or before him or on him. When they are almost to their destination, Guy grabs her hand and pulls her forward to keep from tripping over her.
The first thing they see is the white backs of over a hundred soldiers standing side by side in a large circle. When Carter barks an order, the ones closest to them step back and allow them to pass.
Guy feels Marian’s hand tighten on his before he knows what he is looking at. Then he recognizes the bare, bowed heads of Vasey’s conspirators. Guy cannot feel a breeze, but tiny tufts of their hair dance and sway. It would be almost graceful if there were not swords at their necks or the heat of bloodlust in the air.
Out of the corner of his eye, Guy sees Marian’s hand go to her nose, and that’s when the smell hits him. It is rank and rotten and coming from a black lump to the side of the condemned men. Even though he had seen that robe every morning for nearly ten years, it takes a few seconds to comprehend that he is looking at the dead body of Vasey. Covered in dust, the robe no longer gleams. It is dull, just like the eyes that peer out from the bloated face. Any grateful feelings that Guy had ever felt for Vasey were bled out of him long ago, but he still feels a flash of shame that someone he professed loyalty to could ever meet such an end. And by his hand.
Dimly, he registers that Richard has stepped in front of the accused. He holds up his arms and turns to address the crowd, his robes gleaming even whiter in the bright afternoon sun.
“The men before you have been found guilty of high treason,” Richard booms, turning in a slow circle as though to make sure each and every one of them knows why they are here. As the King turns, some men fidget, some lean forward eagerly, and others look at the ground in distaste. But Guy…Guy feels weight of the King’s gaze like a boulder on his chest. This is a message. A message for him.
“They will be executed,” Richard continues, refusing to pull his gaze away from Guy’s for fear of lessening the impact of his words, “and their bodies will be left to rot in the desert like the foul traitors they are.” He nods at the executioners. “On my word,” he says and then takes a place next to Guy, standing so close that he can feel the brush of Richard’s robes.
Guy begins to panic; he can feel the emotion crawling up from deep in his gut as he tries not to shake. But then he feels Marian’s fingers squeeze his hand in the hidden, safe, place between their bodies. So when Richard gives the final command that sends the heads of Guy’s co-conspirators rolling into the dirt, all he feels is her palm in his. He doesn’t even flinch.
A horse is let into the circle, ostensibly to bear the bodies of the dead men to their final place of punishment. He starts when he feels the clamp of Richard’s hand on his shoulder.
“When you are ready, Sir Guy, I have matters to discuss with you in my tent,” he says, and then leaves Guy to stand there, staring at the blood-soaked ground before him.
“I am sorry,” Marian says softly when the King is out of earshot.
Guy shakes his head even as his fingers tighten around hers. But then her hand, which had been so steady, pulls away. Looking over, he follows her faraway gaze, curious to see what has stolen her attention, and then freezes. Hood is standing across the circle, leaning against his bow and staring at them intently. Guy’s head whips back to study Marian’s face, marking the red flush of shame on her cheeks, her sudden inability to meet his eyes. Suddenly, all the raging emotions that have been swimming beneath his skin break free.
“When we are married, more than just Hood will know that you are Lady Gisborne. I’m sorry it disgusts you so,” he spits to her shocked expression, and then storms off to see what price he must pay for a life that he no longer knows and a woman who is embarrassed to share it with him.