Fallout - Chapter Seventeen
After Marian is gone, Guy tries to resume his staring contest with the fire, but he is too keyed up to remain seated. He falls into a restless pace, kicking away shattered pieces of clay as he circles the table. The pitcher of water stands like a lost soldier at the edge nearest the fire. He had saved it to throw later, when the need for a big smash was the most overwhelming. And now the need for a smash is overwhelming.
After finding a firm grip on the pitcher’s handle, he hurls it toward the wall, relishing the way it feeds the white-hot knot of anger. How is it that Nottingham will go to him, the man who ran away to the forest-with his servant-and thwarted every attempt at genuine order?
An image of the outlaw lounging in the Great Hall’s high-backed chair flashes through Guy’s mind, and he has to sit down to keep the wave of jealousy from knocking him over. Hood will not even sit in it properly; he will hang a knee over the arm or squat on his heels like an arrogant squirrel. Peasants will be richer than nobles. The treasury and larders will be chaos. The outlaw will have everything, and what will Guy have? Other than some forgotten arsehole of an estate and a woman who he can’t figure out half of the time.
Guy rubs his eyes and stares at the ceiling, wondering if she is finally sleeping. Marian. That woman is a force of nature; every meeting with her leaves him angrier, happier, or more confused, and sometimes all three. Is it his imagination, or is she acting strangely, cycling through versions of herself faster than he can keep up? Tonight he saw them all-frosty Marian, conciliatory Marian, manipulating Marian, priggish Marian, and then, the most baffling of all, passionate Marian. Once again, he is left trying to figure out her game; he told her that it would not change anything and he meant it, although it almost seems shameful to waste whatever goodwill has made her so . . . welcoming. The boredom here is stultifying, and bedding Marian is certainly not boring. What harm is there in letting her stay a few more days? It seems like Baldrick will never return, and if he does Guy can just say that . . .
Fuck. This is what she wanted, Guy thinks, and kicks at the dying fire with the toe of his boot until it sparks back to life. The harm in letting her stay a few more days is that she will dig and dig and dig until he ends up admitting what he has been ordered here to do. And then her lips will tighten and she will give him thelook, the one that is disgusted and disappointed and scornful all at once. It has power, that look; it makes his heart flinch. In the past he had been able to bury the guilt beneath duty and responsibility as soon as she was out of sight-she didn’t know what it was like to have to carve a place for yourself out in the world with nothing but your willingness to compromise yourself-but what do you do when you feel the same disgust? For that’s what the real problem is now, isn’t it?
He does not want to kill the Abbess of Chelles. Still. He had thought that his distaste stemmed only from shock and that, like all the other times, it would pass. He had swallowed every new low that Vasey cared to set, a mastery of conscience that brought him shame at first, but later inspired pride. And yet his initial revulsion has not abated, and the only clear thought is one that irritates him with its simplicity. He does not want to do this. He does not want to pander to another man’s whims in the hopes that one day he will be tossed the scraps of a title while others are showered in gifts for merely bending the king’s ear. He does not want to add more sins for only the promise of a hazy reward. It is such a plain word, want, and yet he stumbles over it again and again every time he tries to formulate his next step.
It does not help that all the signs are telling him to get out now, that this is a mission that is doomed to fail. Guy has always hated omens and anything else that diverted fools from their course. Where lesser men would stop at the first wisp of a challenge, Guy made a point of forging ahead. For example, there were times when Guy doubted Vasey’s promises of wealth and position, times when he would look up to find the Sheriff studying him with a crooked smile, as though amused by a secret joke. Guy often wondered if the day that Vasey reached the pinnacle of power was the day that Guy would find a knife in his back. Still, he pressed forward; there was no point in worrying about that until the time came. There were also times that Guy saw the cracks in Marian’s game-he can admit that now-but thinking about them just meant that he would never have her, and that was not a future he was willing to contemplate. But perhaps he should have contemplated it. Perhaps he should have contemplated everything all along.
Richard is not to be trusted; that fact needs no further contemplation. The truth is that he will be lucky to get anything other than a swift execution. But what else is there to do now? He has no resources, he has no connections, and the man he had spent his life serving is dead by his own hand. He would laugh if it were anyone else; in fact he probably had laughed at the sight of someone so humbled.
A swirling headache swells up behind his forehead, causing Guy to lean back and close his eyes. Soon he is back in the dream, the one where forests are tents and tents are forests and there is nothing but blood, blood that covers his hands and Marian’s dress and anything that he has ever touched. His feet are heavy; there are people, grey-skinned children, clinging to his ankles. He raises his head to find Hood before him, squatting in Vasey’s chair. Guy can only watch as he springs up and pulls out his bow, notches an arrow. He waits for the slice of pain, but all he hears is a loud clap, and then he is falling, falling . . .
Guy jerks upright in his seat and blinks as he stares at the swinging door. His hands are already scrabbling for his weapon by the time his bleary eyes tell him that it is just Ahmad, who has arrived with a tray of food. All that remains of the fire is ash, and the walls are lightened by the early morning. How long has he been asleep? A grunt swims up from beneath the chair, and he looks down to find the dog curled at his legs, it’s heavy head resting on the toe of his boot.
After kicking the dog’s head away, he watches Ahmad. The boy’s hands are piled high with food; he has brought extra today, and Guy is positive that if he were to look outside he would find that Marian and Allan’s horses have already been put away. This boy is the perfect servant: adaptable, eager, and silent. He has been tiptoeing around Guy ever since yesterday, and now his gaze bounces between Guy and the broken dishware as though Guy were the crazy one, as though he were the one who continued to stay in this rotten hole and smile when there was an entire trunk of money just sitting upstairs. . . .Guy lurches out of his chair so quickly that Ahmad drops his bundle on the table, startled. He ducks out of the way just as Guy stalks up the stairs to the dark paneled door of Baldrick’s room. He kicks it open and enters before his eyes have even had time to adjust to the gloom, passing the tower of bird cages. When he reaches the foot of the bed, Allan bolts upright.
“Get your own strawberry! The blue one’s mine,” he yells, his hair wild.
There are very few things that Allan says that Guy feels deserve to be dignified with a response, and that one was the perfect example. Crouching down, he peers beneath the bed, feels for the sharp corner of the chest, and then drags it out in a cloud of dust.
“Am I still dreaming or are you crawling around on the floor?” Allan asks from above. Allan blinks, rubs his eyes, and then frowns at the birds in the corner, which are trilling and thwapping their wings against the wooden bars. “I’m not being funny; I am going to strangle some birds today. One more coo and I’ll-”
“Be quiet, Allan, or I will strangle you,” Guy orders, his fingers feeling along the engraved lid. He has a crazy fear that he will open it to find that it is empty, that yesterday’s gold is gone.
Allan is still talking. “That’s a bit of an overreaction, isn’t it? You’re the one who barged in here and woke me up in the middle of a nice dream about strawberries. They were a little funny colored, alright, but-Holy Mother of Christ, that’s shiny!”
Guy has torn off the lid. It’s still there, all of it, and Guy allows the small pinpoint of hope to swell as his mind skips forward. There is enough here for them to live on for years, and live well. If Richard’s plan fails, he will be forced to return to England, and if it succeeds, the fighting will be enough of a distraction to prevent him from pursuing them to the edges of Crusader influence. Or, God willing, Richard will die here and Prince John will take the throne knowing nothing of how Vasey died. Guy’s name was on the Pact of Nottingham . . . Vasey had grudgingly introduced him. Perhaps he could concoct some story, some fabrication of a plan gone awry that would at least win him enough favor to find something small, some payment for his previous service. . .
It is improbable, but not impossible. And after days of sitting in this stultifying pattern of waiting, the promise of action is exhilarating. But they will need to be careful. They will need help.
Guy looks up to find Allan staring at the contents of the chest with a dreamy expression.
“How much do you figure is there?” he asks.
“Enough.”
“Enough for what?” Allan asks.
Guy grabs a handful of the coins. “Listen,” he says. “I will give you this now for accompanying Marian here.”
“That’s not…,” Allan says and then hesitates. “Well, yeah, alright, I’ll take it. It was a little difficult at times, what with all the-”
Guy cuts him off. “But I will double it if you leave with us today.”
Allan’s eyebrows raise in surprise, but his gaze strays to the array of treasure before him. Encouraged, Guy scoops up another handful with his spare hand so that Allan can see what there is to gain.
Suddenly, Allan frowns. “We just got here, and Marian’s not the most pleasant traveling companion, if you know what I mean.” Guy’s expression must say that he does not know what he means, for he adds, “She’s bossy. And why do you want to leave anyway? Seems pretty cozy, apart from the feathers over there.”
Questions are to be expected, but they open the door for doubt, and there is no room for doubt in this plan.
“If you do not want it, fine,” he growls. After folding several coins into the palm of his hand, he throws the rest back in the box and closes the lid. “But I would suggest leaving today unless you want to find yourself back in the desert on Richard’s orders.”
“Hold on a second! That wasn’t a no,” Allan cries, scrambling up and pulling on his clothes when Guy turns and heads for the door. “I’m in,” he says as he tugs a light green undershirt over his head. “It doesn’t really matter where I go now, does it?”
Guy is overcome by an embarrassing wave of relief, but he only gives a terse “Good” and tosses the pouch of money at his waist onto the bed. “I need you to go and find whatever supplies you can, enough for a week if possible. And fast, Allan. I want to be on the road by noon,” he orders and then is striding toward the next room.
Marian is still sleeping when he kicks open the door. She is all bent limbs and awkward positions, a jumble of angles broken only by the pale curve of thigh that has escaped the thin sheet. Guy remembers the first time he saw her asleep, when he had come to tell her that it was not the real king who returned. How angelic she had looked with her hands folded over the blanket, how unlike the Marian he has come to know. Now she sprawls on her stomach like a sack of grain, her hair a witchy tangle of curls. She tosses her head back and forth in dreamy irritation and then huffs into her pillow.
Guy would like nothing more than to run his hand up her leg, and see if she is still the Marian of last night, the one who met all the challenges that he thought would send her fleeing upstairs. He remembers the feel of her teeth against his neck and the way she said his name. He remembers the glide of her fingertips at his waist, the way they teased at going lower. Marian is an awkward seductress whose wanton courage almost always falters in the last act, but he doesn’t care. In fact he finds the strange primness almost more arousing; every inch of bared flesh, every hard-earned gasp, every clutch of her fingers feel like small victories. They are reactions that are his and his alone.
Now she yawns and rolls on her back. She still wears the green robe from last night, and when it slips off her shoulder and exposes a lush curve of breast, Guy would like to thank whoever left it here, even though he is fairly sure that they did not meet a happy end. It’s another sign screaming get out now, albeit one that is also making him want to crawl into the bed, wake her up, and then never leave.
No, he tells himself. There will be plenty of time for that whenever they get to . . . wherever they are going. And then Guy plans on having a lot of sex in a lot of different positions to make up for the fact that he might never have land or a title or any of the other things that he has worked his entire life to achieve. To make up for the fact that they very well may run out of money and starve within ten years.
Dark thoughts begin to swarm his new plan. Turning away, he grabs the corner of a satchel and begins to scoop up whatever he can find in an effort to expel them, but after only a few moments he is tempted to call Allan back and tell him to never mind. This is madness; he can’t escape the King of England. And after all, what is one more death on his conscience? He is just rusty-his reluctance will disappear once he has a sword in his grip. His hands reach for the crumpled remains of the outfit Marian was wearing last night when she arrived. He will send her away and make it up to her later; she will be angry, but she has proven that she has some affection for him.
“You did not come upstairs.”
Marian’s voice is low and husky with sleep. Dropping the satchel, Guy whips around, her clothing in his fist. She sits with her back against the headboard as she watches him with eyes that are still a little dreamy.
“Time escaped me,” he says.
“I see,” she says, for once without censure. Guy studies her face as silence fills the room. It’s flushed from sleep and free of the tenseness that so often invades her features when she looks his way. She gives him a tentative half smile that makes his heart leap into his throat, and he wads the material in his hands more tightly.
Her gaze drops to the clothing he is holding and then to the satchel at his feet. Her smile disappears, replaced by a tightening of the mouth.
“I take it that I am still leaving? I suppose that it should not come as a surprise,” she says coolly, but for a second Guy thought that he did see a flicker of surprise, right before the return of the tone he hates, the one that carries a regal sniff of disapproval and a bitterness that suggests she’s chastising herself for ever thinking that things might have turned out differently.
Angry, he opens his mouth to remind her that he made her no promises and that she is sadly mistaken if she thinks that she can fuck him into submission, but the words die when he finds her eyes. Because while the usual disappointment is there, it is overwhelmed by something that he has only seen once before, when he told her that he had chosen not to help Lambert. It is sadness, a leaden infinite sadness that stops him cold.
“No,” he says, “you are not.”
“What?” she says, sitting forward so quickly that a lock of hair falls forward. She pushes it back behind her ear.
“No,” he repeats. “Weare leaving. Get dressed,” he orders before he can change his mind, and throws the clothing at her. He bends down to grab the satchel; when he comes back up she is standing completely still, clutching the white shirt to her chest and staring at him as though he has lost his wits.
“I don’t understand,” she says.
“If there is no Nottingham,” he says, “then I no longer have reason to be here. But we need to go now.”
He tosses the satchel at her, and she drops the shirt to catch the bag. He would be lying if he said that he did not get the tiniest thrill from seeing her off-guard rather than disappointed.
“But where are we going?” she splutters.
“Away,” he says, and Guy realizes that his plan still needs some thought.
“Away where?”
“Marian, we do not have time for your questions!” Guy barks. Turning his back to her, he sets to stuffing clothing in the remaining bags. “Cyprus, possibly. Perhaps further up the coast.”
“We are not returning to England?” she says, a note of alarm replacing her previous surprise. She grabs his forearm, and he jerks it away so quickly that her nails scratch his skin. Wary, she retreats a step.
Guy tries to be calm, but now that the adrenaline is once again snaking its way through his veins, he is afraid to stop moving. “I apologize,” he says, crossing the room and retrieving what she has dropped. “But no, not to England.”
He holds the shirt toward her, but she does not take it. Instead she studies him, eyes muddied by consternation as they flit over his face.
“What are we escaping?” she asks finally. “Does this have to do with the letters?”
Guy curses. They do not have time to get into an argument about what he had been brought here to do. She will focus on what he might have done rather than what he is doing.
“Can you not just trust me when I say that we want no part of this?” he growls, but he already knows the answer even before Marian’s temper takes over.
“If I am going to abandon all that I have ever known,” she says on cue, “then I think I deserve a reason!”
“A reason?”
“Yes!”
Guy opens his mouth to give her the reason, but they are so large that he does not even know where to begin. He tosses the shirt on the bed and, without a word, goes back to arranging the bags. How about because he has let himself be led into an even more demeaning position than he had before? How about because he is tired of pretending that he can make things happen by force of will alone?
When he refuses to turn back around and when his movements grow more savage, Marian says his name. She repeats his name several more times and then sighs, but he doesn’t stop packing and stuffing until the bags are in a pile. Now he has nothing left to do but pivot and confront her. Still, he hesitates.
“I left the king’s camp with Robin Hood!” Marian says from behind him, her words rushed and tripping over one another.
He is facing her in less than a second. “What?” he snaps.
“I left the king’s camp with Robin Hood and his gang,” she repeats, “and then Allan and I abandoned them in Tyre to find you.” She raises her eyebrows. “I have shared my secret. Now you share yours.”
At first her expression is triumphant, but the triumph dims with every second he fails to speak. He had suspected that Hood was involved, but it was one more thing on top of a thousand other things that he did not want to think about. But now the familiar jealousy pours in, and it feels like it always feels: like the grate of teeth beneath his skin.
“And how did you convince Hood to let you accompany him?” he asks finally.
“What does it matter? I am here with you,” she says, and while her words carry the gloss of her usual impatience, there is a hum of nervousness belied by her inconstant gaze. For every beat that it holds his, it spends another searching the corners.
“It matters.”
“Why?”
“Do not act the fool. It does not suit you,” he says, stepping forward swiftly enough that she flinches.
“I do not know what you-”
"Can I assume that your playacting means that it is something I will not want to hear?”
There is a long pause, during which she seems to be waging an internal debate. She studies her hands; she studies the steep wall of the neighboring building.
“No,” she says finally. “It means only that I am ashamed.”
Guy’s heart clutches as he tries to imagine what could bring her shame. Has she been colluding with Hood all this time, and if so, for what possible purpose? But that would mean that last night was . . . no, she wouldn’t. Would she?
“Ashamed of what?” he manages to choke out, although his throat has suddenly gone dry. He does not know what he will do if she confirms yet another betrayal; not now, when he stands on the edge of everything. “Ashamed of what, Marian?”
“I told him that I had changed my mind about marrying you,” she says with the solemnity of confession. “I told him that I wanted to return with him to Nottingham and marry him there. But I never meant it; I only used him to get away from the camp because I knew his was the only request that Richard would not deny. I used him, and so I am ashamed. But I had to find you,” she insists and then hesitates before adding. “I was worried.”
Guy searches her body for signs of deception despite the fact that he has ever been particularly adept at noticing them. But given what he saw of Hood and Richard, it does make sense. Guy would laugh at Hood being brought low if Marian had ever shown half this much remorse over tricking him.
“What pretty guilt,” he sneers, and then begins to pace.
“I do not see what you are still angry about,” Marian says on his third round. “I had expected you to be happy.”
“Why would I be happy?”
“He will leave us be. He will hate me.”
“That is supposed to reassure me?”
“Yes!” she yells, but then gives a frustrated sigh. “Well, no. But I do not know how else to convince you that I have chosen to be here, that I want to be. . . . Would you please stop pacing? You are making me dizzy.”
Guy has no intention of stopping; he will wear a path in the floor and fall into the room below before he relents. This conversation has gotten away from him, and it is all her fault. He glares in her direction, expecting to find her cheeks mottled with anger. But when he gets a clear view of her face, it is bone white. He barely has time to say her name before she sits on the bed and puts her head between her knees.
“What is wrong?” Guy asks, concern halting him in his tracks.
“It is nothing,” she says, her voice muffled by a curtain of hair. “I am fine.”
He approaches her, stopping in front of her bowed head. Her shoulders rise and fall with every deep breath.
“You do not look fine,” he observes.
“I ate something that did not agree with me on the journey. I need to learn that just because Allan eats it, it does not mean that I should.”
Guy takes a seat beside her. “You should be more careful,” he admonishes. The lingering frustration makes it come out more harshly than he intended.
Raising her head, she levels him with a dirty look. “Yes, I should be.”
While her words are conciliatory, the tone is anything but, and Guy is left to wonder why this of all things seems to have made her the angriest.
“Good,” he says finally, for lack of something better. “We are in agreement then.”
Marian blinks at him for a few seconds, and then emits a short laugh. “You are so…” she trails off and then laughs again.
Guy frowns. “So what?”
She shakes her head. “Nothing.”
“So what?” he insists.
“So Guy,” she says. “You are so Guy.”
That does not make him feel better at all. Before he can ask for further clarification-like whether her smile is amused or pitying-Marian pulls her hand from beneath his and then lays her fingers on his sleeve. He stares at her hand, its tapered fingers pale in the early light. It looks like the hand of any well-bred lady. Sometimes when he is just looking at her, Guy still has trouble believing that Marian was the Nightwatchman. But then he feels the scars or hears the rigid determination in her voice, and he wonders how he could have ever doubted it.
“Please,” she murmurs, and while her voice is soft he hears that determination now. “Please tell me why you want to leave.” His reluctance must be obvious, because she scoots toward him until their knees are touching and then touches his arm. “I am not trying to be difficult, and I am not saying that I will not go with you-that I do not want to go with you-but I need to know.”
Guy studies her face, warm in the hardy glow of sunlight that has fought its way through the meager space between the buildings, and yet her features are strangely still and drawn. She is holding her breath, Guy realizes, and that small sign of anticipation suddenly makes him feel guilty for denying her. But he does not want to admit that until she arrived with news of Nottingham he had every intention of going through with Richard’s request. She will take it the wrong way, make more of it than it is, as though he himself had conceived of the plan to kill the Abbess and has spent the last month cackling in excitement.
Still, if the siege of Nottingham taught him anything, it’s that Marian will not be budged unless she wants to be budged.
“Richard does not want to leave the Holy Land,” Guy says, resigned. “He wishes to upset the peace with Saladin and continue his campaign here.”
Marian lets out the breath that she had been holding, and for a few moments there is only the sound of her even breathing. Now comes the part where she tells him that he is mad, that Richard would never neglect his people in such a manner.
But Marian does not say any of that. Marian only looks grave and asks, “And how does he plan to do that?”
At first Guy cannot think of anything to say, except maybe to ask if she has suffered a quick blow to the head.
“Yes?” Marian prompts.
“The treaty allows for pilgrims to pass freely into Jerusalem,” he says, and closely watches for signs of disbelief before continuing. “If pilgrims are attacked, he would have grounds to declare the treaty violated. And stay, I presume, although I do not know if those who are calling for his return will see it that way.”
“So he is waiting for pilgrims to be attacked? I do not understand. What need would he have of you here?”
Guy says nothing. He only watches as Marian’s confusion turns to comprehension and then to disgust.
“You are to attack the pilgrims,” she says and then lets go of his arm as though it were poisonous.
It’s as though she has forgotten the entire reason they are having this conversation. “No,” Guy snarls, “I am not. We are leaving, as I have said.” He stands up and heads toward the door. “Get dressed and come downstairs. Allan should return with supplies soon.”
“Wait! We need to talk about this!” she cries to his back. “Are you the only one?” she asks, but her tone suggests that she already knows the answer. Guy would like to take those damn letters and toss them all out the window.
“What does it matter?”
“Because if you are not the only one, then we need to stop it!”
In that second, Guy realizes that he has made a grievous miscalculation. This crazy desire to save the world is what he should have feared, not disbelief or disgust.
“No,” he says.
Marian appears non-plussed. “Excuse me?”
“No,” he repeats, crossing the room to stand in front of her, to make his wishes clear. “I have been indulgent for far too long. This madness ends now.”
She stands in a fury. “Madness?” she says. “I am talking about stopping the deaths of innocent people, and you call it madness?”
Her chin tilts up, hitting him with the full force of her haughty righteousness. Suddenly, all the anger that had left him when she took ill comes rushing back to fill their familiar grooves. He grabs her arms and pulls her closer, not caring when she gasps in shock.
“Yes,” he says to her jaw, for she keeps her face turned away. “I call it madness, all of it. Your little dealings with Hood only succeeded because of my infatuation, because of my willingness to be used as a tool. Without me, you would have failed a thousand times over.”
“You overstate your own importance,” she says stiffly, but Guy would like to think that does not sound certain at all.
“Do I?”
“Let me go.”
“Not until you realize that we would not be in this situation if not for your misguided ideals!” he yells, and doesn’t realize how much blame the words carry until he hears her indrawn breath, feels her body tense.
“Do you think that I do not realize my own culpability?” she challenges. “Because I do.”
Marian turns to look at him, her eyes grave. A swift agreement was not what Guy expected.
“You do?” he asks, his surprise evident.
“Yes,” she affirms and Guy wavers. Perhaps he had not given her enough credit, he thinks, perhaps she will be reasonable.
“. . . And that is precisely why it is my responsibility to fix it,” she continues.
Perhaps not.
“It is not something that can be fixed,” he says tersely.
“It is not something that you care to fix!” she retorts. “Tell me, are you leaving because Nottingham has gone to Robin or because you honestly do not want to do this?”
“There were other considerations,” he says between gritted teeth.
“What? How much you stood to gain?”
“No, you. There was a reason that Richard wanted you in the camp. I did not want to drag you down with me.”
The irritation on Marian’s face flickers, and she drops her gaze to study a point on his chin. This would be a perfect time for her to say thank you. But when she opens her mouth, it is not for gratitude.
“We could at least warn them,” she says.
Guy releases her arm in disgust. “It is impossible, Marian.”
“Why? Why is it impossible?”
“We are two people.”
“Allan is here!”
“Perhaps you should ask him before you volunteer him to be hanged!”
For a second Marian looks shamed, but she soon recovers. “Still,” she says, “surely we are intelligent enough to avoid being killed
“Perhaps. But you do not bare your neck for the sword just because you think you are quick enough to dodge it.”
Marian remains skeptical. Her arms are crossed over her chest like a shield, her eyes are still bright with fury, and although Guy cannot see her heels, he is sure that by now they are embedded in the floor. Pragmatism is obviously not enough to sway her.
“Their plan is already faltering,” he says, trying another tactic. “The pilgrims are delayed. My absence will be yet another hole. Richard’s court is clamoring for his return; he will not be able to hold out much longer.”
“How can you be so certain?” Marian scoffs. “Some of us are not as comfortable with blood on our hands.”
That is the last straw. Marian is far better than anyone he has ever known, but he is tired of her playing the saint, especially now when he is trying to do something right. He has been silent for too long.
“I would not say such things if I were you,” he says darkly.
“And what does that mean?”
“Only that your actions have cost men their lives.”
“Who? Vasey? I will not lose sleep over that, and neither should you!”
He shakes his head. “Not Vasey. Men who were punished for information that you betrayed.”
Her neck tightens, and Guy thinks he sees guilt nipping at the edges of her resolve. “I did what I thought was best,” she says. “I am sorry if that put them on the wrong side of the perversity that Vasey called justice.”
“Yes, you did what you thought was best to bring home Good King Richard. But perhaps,” he says, gaining steam, “you should have asked yourself whether or not Good King Richard wanted to come home. But instead you chose to stupidly believe Hood’s lies and help a cause that only existed in a madman’s head. Do you know how many men were put to death every time Hood breached the Sheriff’s treasury in order to steal money meant for Prince John’s campaign? It was enough to empty one of the villages you championed so valiantly.”
“How dare you pretend to care!” she seethes. “When you were the one who-,”
“I do not care!” Guy interrupts, “but I never professed to do so. You did, and yet you made their lives-”
“Enough!” Marian yells with a note of desperation, and then raises her hand when he starts to speak again. She sits on the bed, and at first Guy wonders if she is once again feeling ill. But she does not look flushed or feverish, just stunned. She grips her knees, and the white of her knuckles are a stark contrast to the deep hue of the robe. All of a sudden, Guy fears that he has gone too far. Marian believes in things, and it lights her up from the inside.
“Marian,” he says, and when she does not turn to look at him, the fear grows stronger. He tries to touch her cheek but she knocks his hand away. “Say something,” he insists.
“I will leave with you,” she says in a voice that’s eerie and flat. “We do not need to argue anymore.”
Guy should feel triumphant, but instead he feels hollow. He should not have said those things. She had no way of knowing any of what would happen; he hated King Richard, and yet he could not have predicted half of it.
“Your charitable instincts are to be admired,” he says clumsily in an effort to fix what he has torn. “But this is not Nottingham, and I am not. . .,”
He lets the sentence die. He had intended to say “and I am not willing to risk you,” but it somehow sounds cowardly when compared to her willingness to fling herself in the path of all danger, so he says nothing.
“I understand,” she says, but he knows that she doesn’t.
“It was not my intention to-,”
Marian cuts him off. “I will meet you downstairs. Please go,” she says. And so he does.
***
It takes Marian less than thirty minutes to be ready, but she does not go downstairs. Instead she sits on the end of the bed and stares at the mound of bags in the corner as she tries to make sense of what just happened. Guy had taken her by surprise-knocking about the room like an insane person and tossing things at her-and then she had felt sick, and felt even sicker when he had confirmed everything that she had feared: that all her work in the name of bringing Richard back to England had been silly and shortsighted, had in fact hurt more than it helped.
Marian turns to survey the packet of letters at her hip, touching the ragged edges and twisting the rough piece of twine around her finger until its tip turns red. She had retrieved them as soon as Guy slammed the door, full of indignation and the mad desire to prove him wrong. Because she had helped Nottingham’s people-she had-and here was everything they needed to figure out the who and where and when. For a brief moment she had mad fantasies where she abandoned Guy, alerted everyone to the danger, and then returned to gloat.
But then she had flipped through the pile again, reading name after name after name, and realized with dawning horror that Guy was right-Guy! Who had not realized her condition even when she was dropping foolish, peevish comments and nearly vomiting in his lap! This fight is too large for one person to tackle; it is even too large for two people to tackle, not that she could even find anyone. Allan is unlikely to agree to any more endeavors-at least if she takes his many mutterings about her sanity at face value-and Robin is no longer an option. He would want to help her stop it, but that would mean winning back his trust and convincing him that it was happening in the first place. Is it even possible to cut through his devotion to Richard? She no longer knows. He never spoke of what happened here, had always brushed it off while Much looked on from the background with a worried brow. Perhaps she should have tried.
Marian lies down and hugs her knees, feeling childish but needing the comfort. So this is what it feels like to give up-numb relief. She had always thought that it would happen locked in a dungeon or standing on a scaffold, not sitting in an empty bedroom in Jerusalem. There is nothing to do now except hope that Guy’s last-ditch effort to convince her to leave is correct, and that this insane plan of Richard’s will fail due to chance and dumb luck. Maybe a person really can help by merely doing nothing. Perhaps she should have been doing nothing all along.
Marian does not know how much time has passed, but it feels like an eternity. She is surprised that Guy has not yet bellowed from below; Allan has surely returned by now. After a few deep breaths to work up her nerve, she climbs off the bed, grabs a satchel and heads downstairs.
Guy sits in the deep window, one boot braced against the clay frame as he squints through the half-opened wooden shutters. Marian studies him from the foot of the stairs. She wants to hate him for what he said, but every scrap of anger fizzles as soon as she finds it. After all, he had not said anything that she had not thought herself in the past month. As for the rest . . . it was her own fault for falling once again into that familiar trap of setting her expectations too high. All things considered, she should be grateful that Guy has decided that he doesn’t want to kill nuns.
“Where is Allan?” she asks to break the silence and her own dark thoughts.
Immediately, Guy stands, his eyes searching her face with a concern that she does her best to ignore. “He has not yet returned.”
Marian takes a seat at the end of the table. There are several platters of untouched food, and she busies herself with peeling an orange so that she will not have to watch Guy watching her.
Guy pulls out the chair beside her. “Once Allan returns, I thought we would try to make Samaria by nightfall. We should avoid Jaffa,” he says as he sits. “What do you think?”
“I do not have an opinion,” she says, continuing to peel, although if she did have an opinion it would be that he still has not told her enough to make an informed judgment.
“You always have an opinion.”
Looking at him with what she hopes is a serene expression, Marian says nothing. The old Marian would have been a little thrilled with how disgruntled Guy looks. . . . Perhaps new Marian is the tiniest bit pleased as well. At least until Guy leans forward and captures her hand.
She wants to pull it away, she does. Just because bodies respond to one another, it does not mean that they have anything in common. The sooner she learns that the better.
“Tell me what will make you happy and I will do it,” Guy says, and in his mouth it sounds like a command.
A loud rap on the door saves her from responding that it isn’t that simple, because what will make her happy isn’t simple. It might not even make any sense.
“That will be Allan,” she says, extricating her hand and standing up to get the door. Her heart starts to pound as she realizes what she’s agreed to. Suddenly she does not feel so numb; suddenly she feels very scared.
Guy holds out an arm, blocking her way. “Allan doesn’t knock.”
“What?”
“Believe me,” he says darkly, and then tells her to stay still. Grabbing his sword, he approaches the door just as it swings open to reveal a familiar build.
“It is Allan,” she says, before she realizes that Allan’s hands are up and that he has not returned alone. For there are people standing behind him. . . a group of very familiar people.
After finding a firm grip on the pitcher’s handle, he hurls it toward the wall, relishing the way it feeds the white-hot knot of anger. How is it that Nottingham will go to him, the man who ran away to the forest-with his servant-and thwarted every attempt at genuine order?
An image of the outlaw lounging in the Great Hall’s high-backed chair flashes through Guy’s mind, and he has to sit down to keep the wave of jealousy from knocking him over. Hood will not even sit in it properly; he will hang a knee over the arm or squat on his heels like an arrogant squirrel. Peasants will be richer than nobles. The treasury and larders will be chaos. The outlaw will have everything, and what will Guy have? Other than some forgotten arsehole of an estate and a woman who he can’t figure out half of the time.
Guy rubs his eyes and stares at the ceiling, wondering if she is finally sleeping. Marian. That woman is a force of nature; every meeting with her leaves him angrier, happier, or more confused, and sometimes all three. Is it his imagination, or is she acting strangely, cycling through versions of herself faster than he can keep up? Tonight he saw them all-frosty Marian, conciliatory Marian, manipulating Marian, priggish Marian, and then, the most baffling of all, passionate Marian. Once again, he is left trying to figure out her game; he told her that it would not change anything and he meant it, although it almost seems shameful to waste whatever goodwill has made her so . . . welcoming. The boredom here is stultifying, and bedding Marian is certainly not boring. What harm is there in letting her stay a few more days? It seems like Baldrick will never return, and if he does Guy can just say that . . .
Fuck. This is what she wanted, Guy thinks, and kicks at the dying fire with the toe of his boot until it sparks back to life. The harm in letting her stay a few more days is that she will dig and dig and dig until he ends up admitting what he has been ordered here to do. And then her lips will tighten and she will give him thelook, the one that is disgusted and disappointed and scornful all at once. It has power, that look; it makes his heart flinch. In the past he had been able to bury the guilt beneath duty and responsibility as soon as she was out of sight-she didn’t know what it was like to have to carve a place for yourself out in the world with nothing but your willingness to compromise yourself-but what do you do when you feel the same disgust? For that’s what the real problem is now, isn’t it?
He does not want to kill the Abbess of Chelles. Still. He had thought that his distaste stemmed only from shock and that, like all the other times, it would pass. He had swallowed every new low that Vasey cared to set, a mastery of conscience that brought him shame at first, but later inspired pride. And yet his initial revulsion has not abated, and the only clear thought is one that irritates him with its simplicity. He does not want to do this. He does not want to pander to another man’s whims in the hopes that one day he will be tossed the scraps of a title while others are showered in gifts for merely bending the king’s ear. He does not want to add more sins for only the promise of a hazy reward. It is such a plain word, want, and yet he stumbles over it again and again every time he tries to formulate his next step.
It does not help that all the signs are telling him to get out now, that this is a mission that is doomed to fail. Guy has always hated omens and anything else that diverted fools from their course. Where lesser men would stop at the first wisp of a challenge, Guy made a point of forging ahead. For example, there were times when Guy doubted Vasey’s promises of wealth and position, times when he would look up to find the Sheriff studying him with a crooked smile, as though amused by a secret joke. Guy often wondered if the day that Vasey reached the pinnacle of power was the day that Guy would find a knife in his back. Still, he pressed forward; there was no point in worrying about that until the time came. There were also times that Guy saw the cracks in Marian’s game-he can admit that now-but thinking about them just meant that he would never have her, and that was not a future he was willing to contemplate. But perhaps he should have contemplated it. Perhaps he should have contemplated everything all along.
Richard is not to be trusted; that fact needs no further contemplation. The truth is that he will be lucky to get anything other than a swift execution. But what else is there to do now? He has no resources, he has no connections, and the man he had spent his life serving is dead by his own hand. He would laugh if it were anyone else; in fact he probably had laughed at the sight of someone so humbled.
A swirling headache swells up behind his forehead, causing Guy to lean back and close his eyes. Soon he is back in the dream, the one where forests are tents and tents are forests and there is nothing but blood, blood that covers his hands and Marian’s dress and anything that he has ever touched. His feet are heavy; there are people, grey-skinned children, clinging to his ankles. He raises his head to find Hood before him, squatting in Vasey’s chair. Guy can only watch as he springs up and pulls out his bow, notches an arrow. He waits for the slice of pain, but all he hears is a loud clap, and then he is falling, falling . . .
Guy jerks upright in his seat and blinks as he stares at the swinging door. His hands are already scrabbling for his weapon by the time his bleary eyes tell him that it is just Ahmad, who has arrived with a tray of food. All that remains of the fire is ash, and the walls are lightened by the early morning. How long has he been asleep? A grunt swims up from beneath the chair, and he looks down to find the dog curled at his legs, it’s heavy head resting on the toe of his boot.
After kicking the dog’s head away, he watches Ahmad. The boy’s hands are piled high with food; he has brought extra today, and Guy is positive that if he were to look outside he would find that Marian and Allan’s horses have already been put away. This boy is the perfect servant: adaptable, eager, and silent. He has been tiptoeing around Guy ever since yesterday, and now his gaze bounces between Guy and the broken dishware as though Guy were the crazy one, as though he were the one who continued to stay in this rotten hole and smile when there was an entire trunk of money just sitting upstairs. . . .Guy lurches out of his chair so quickly that Ahmad drops his bundle on the table, startled. He ducks out of the way just as Guy stalks up the stairs to the dark paneled door of Baldrick’s room. He kicks it open and enters before his eyes have even had time to adjust to the gloom, passing the tower of bird cages. When he reaches the foot of the bed, Allan bolts upright.
“Get your own strawberry! The blue one’s mine,” he yells, his hair wild.
There are very few things that Allan says that Guy feels deserve to be dignified with a response, and that one was the perfect example. Crouching down, he peers beneath the bed, feels for the sharp corner of the chest, and then drags it out in a cloud of dust.
“Am I still dreaming or are you crawling around on the floor?” Allan asks from above. Allan blinks, rubs his eyes, and then frowns at the birds in the corner, which are trilling and thwapping their wings against the wooden bars. “I’m not being funny; I am going to strangle some birds today. One more coo and I’ll-”
“Be quiet, Allan, or I will strangle you,” Guy orders, his fingers feeling along the engraved lid. He has a crazy fear that he will open it to find that it is empty, that yesterday’s gold is gone.
Allan is still talking. “That’s a bit of an overreaction, isn’t it? You’re the one who barged in here and woke me up in the middle of a nice dream about strawberries. They were a little funny colored, alright, but-Holy Mother of Christ, that’s shiny!”
Guy has torn off the lid. It’s still there, all of it, and Guy allows the small pinpoint of hope to swell as his mind skips forward. There is enough here for them to live on for years, and live well. If Richard’s plan fails, he will be forced to return to England, and if it succeeds, the fighting will be enough of a distraction to prevent him from pursuing them to the edges of Crusader influence. Or, God willing, Richard will die here and Prince John will take the throne knowing nothing of how Vasey died. Guy’s name was on the Pact of Nottingham . . . Vasey had grudgingly introduced him. Perhaps he could concoct some story, some fabrication of a plan gone awry that would at least win him enough favor to find something small, some payment for his previous service. . .
It is improbable, but not impossible. And after days of sitting in this stultifying pattern of waiting, the promise of action is exhilarating. But they will need to be careful. They will need help.
Guy looks up to find Allan staring at the contents of the chest with a dreamy expression.
“How much do you figure is there?” he asks.
“Enough.”
“Enough for what?” Allan asks.
Guy grabs a handful of the coins. “Listen,” he says. “I will give you this now for accompanying Marian here.”
“That’s not…,” Allan says and then hesitates. “Well, yeah, alright, I’ll take it. It was a little difficult at times, what with all the-”
Guy cuts him off. “But I will double it if you leave with us today.”
Allan’s eyebrows raise in surprise, but his gaze strays to the array of treasure before him. Encouraged, Guy scoops up another handful with his spare hand so that Allan can see what there is to gain.
Suddenly, Allan frowns. “We just got here, and Marian’s not the most pleasant traveling companion, if you know what I mean.” Guy’s expression must say that he does not know what he means, for he adds, “She’s bossy. And why do you want to leave anyway? Seems pretty cozy, apart from the feathers over there.”
Questions are to be expected, but they open the door for doubt, and there is no room for doubt in this plan.
“If you do not want it, fine,” he growls. After folding several coins into the palm of his hand, he throws the rest back in the box and closes the lid. “But I would suggest leaving today unless you want to find yourself back in the desert on Richard’s orders.”
“Hold on a second! That wasn’t a no,” Allan cries, scrambling up and pulling on his clothes when Guy turns and heads for the door. “I’m in,” he says as he tugs a light green undershirt over his head. “It doesn’t really matter where I go now, does it?”
Guy is overcome by an embarrassing wave of relief, but he only gives a terse “Good” and tosses the pouch of money at his waist onto the bed. “I need you to go and find whatever supplies you can, enough for a week if possible. And fast, Allan. I want to be on the road by noon,” he orders and then is striding toward the next room.
Marian is still sleeping when he kicks open the door. She is all bent limbs and awkward positions, a jumble of angles broken only by the pale curve of thigh that has escaped the thin sheet. Guy remembers the first time he saw her asleep, when he had come to tell her that it was not the real king who returned. How angelic she had looked with her hands folded over the blanket, how unlike the Marian he has come to know. Now she sprawls on her stomach like a sack of grain, her hair a witchy tangle of curls. She tosses her head back and forth in dreamy irritation and then huffs into her pillow.
Guy would like nothing more than to run his hand up her leg, and see if she is still the Marian of last night, the one who met all the challenges that he thought would send her fleeing upstairs. He remembers the feel of her teeth against his neck and the way she said his name. He remembers the glide of her fingertips at his waist, the way they teased at going lower. Marian is an awkward seductress whose wanton courage almost always falters in the last act, but he doesn’t care. In fact he finds the strange primness almost more arousing; every inch of bared flesh, every hard-earned gasp, every clutch of her fingers feel like small victories. They are reactions that are his and his alone.
Now she yawns and rolls on her back. She still wears the green robe from last night, and when it slips off her shoulder and exposes a lush curve of breast, Guy would like to thank whoever left it here, even though he is fairly sure that they did not meet a happy end. It’s another sign screaming get out now, albeit one that is also making him want to crawl into the bed, wake her up, and then never leave.
No, he tells himself. There will be plenty of time for that whenever they get to . . . wherever they are going. And then Guy plans on having a lot of sex in a lot of different positions to make up for the fact that he might never have land or a title or any of the other things that he has worked his entire life to achieve. To make up for the fact that they very well may run out of money and starve within ten years.
Dark thoughts begin to swarm his new plan. Turning away, he grabs the corner of a satchel and begins to scoop up whatever he can find in an effort to expel them, but after only a few moments he is tempted to call Allan back and tell him to never mind. This is madness; he can’t escape the King of England. And after all, what is one more death on his conscience? He is just rusty-his reluctance will disappear once he has a sword in his grip. His hands reach for the crumpled remains of the outfit Marian was wearing last night when she arrived. He will send her away and make it up to her later; she will be angry, but she has proven that she has some affection for him.
“You did not come upstairs.”
Marian’s voice is low and husky with sleep. Dropping the satchel, Guy whips around, her clothing in his fist. She sits with her back against the headboard as she watches him with eyes that are still a little dreamy.
“Time escaped me,” he says.
“I see,” she says, for once without censure. Guy studies her face as silence fills the room. It’s flushed from sleep and free of the tenseness that so often invades her features when she looks his way. She gives him a tentative half smile that makes his heart leap into his throat, and he wads the material in his hands more tightly.
Her gaze drops to the clothing he is holding and then to the satchel at his feet. Her smile disappears, replaced by a tightening of the mouth.
“I take it that I am still leaving? I suppose that it should not come as a surprise,” she says coolly, but for a second Guy thought that he did see a flicker of surprise, right before the return of the tone he hates, the one that carries a regal sniff of disapproval and a bitterness that suggests she’s chastising herself for ever thinking that things might have turned out differently.
Angry, he opens his mouth to remind her that he made her no promises and that she is sadly mistaken if she thinks that she can fuck him into submission, but the words die when he finds her eyes. Because while the usual disappointment is there, it is overwhelmed by something that he has only seen once before, when he told her that he had chosen not to help Lambert. It is sadness, a leaden infinite sadness that stops him cold.
“No,” he says, “you are not.”
“What?” she says, sitting forward so quickly that a lock of hair falls forward. She pushes it back behind her ear.
“No,” he repeats. “Weare leaving. Get dressed,” he orders before he can change his mind, and throws the clothing at her. He bends down to grab the satchel; when he comes back up she is standing completely still, clutching the white shirt to her chest and staring at him as though he has lost his wits.
“I don’t understand,” she says.
“If there is no Nottingham,” he says, “then I no longer have reason to be here. But we need to go now.”
He tosses the satchel at her, and she drops the shirt to catch the bag. He would be lying if he said that he did not get the tiniest thrill from seeing her off-guard rather than disappointed.
“But where are we going?” she splutters.
“Away,” he says, and Guy realizes that his plan still needs some thought.
“Away where?”
“Marian, we do not have time for your questions!” Guy barks. Turning his back to her, he sets to stuffing clothing in the remaining bags. “Cyprus, possibly. Perhaps further up the coast.”
“We are not returning to England?” she says, a note of alarm replacing her previous surprise. She grabs his forearm, and he jerks it away so quickly that her nails scratch his skin. Wary, she retreats a step.
Guy tries to be calm, but now that the adrenaline is once again snaking its way through his veins, he is afraid to stop moving. “I apologize,” he says, crossing the room and retrieving what she has dropped. “But no, not to England.”
He holds the shirt toward her, but she does not take it. Instead she studies him, eyes muddied by consternation as they flit over his face.
“What are we escaping?” she asks finally. “Does this have to do with the letters?”
Guy curses. They do not have time to get into an argument about what he had been brought here to do. She will focus on what he might have done rather than what he is doing.
“Can you not just trust me when I say that we want no part of this?” he growls, but he already knows the answer even before Marian’s temper takes over.
“If I am going to abandon all that I have ever known,” she says on cue, “then I think I deserve a reason!”
“A reason?”
“Yes!”
Guy opens his mouth to give her the reason, but they are so large that he does not even know where to begin. He tosses the shirt on the bed and, without a word, goes back to arranging the bags. How about because he has let himself be led into an even more demeaning position than he had before? How about because he is tired of pretending that he can make things happen by force of will alone?
When he refuses to turn back around and when his movements grow more savage, Marian says his name. She repeats his name several more times and then sighs, but he doesn’t stop packing and stuffing until the bags are in a pile. Now he has nothing left to do but pivot and confront her. Still, he hesitates.
“I left the king’s camp with Robin Hood!” Marian says from behind him, her words rushed and tripping over one another.
He is facing her in less than a second. “What?” he snaps.
“I left the king’s camp with Robin Hood and his gang,” she repeats, “and then Allan and I abandoned them in Tyre to find you.” She raises her eyebrows. “I have shared my secret. Now you share yours.”
At first her expression is triumphant, but the triumph dims with every second he fails to speak. He had suspected that Hood was involved, but it was one more thing on top of a thousand other things that he did not want to think about. But now the familiar jealousy pours in, and it feels like it always feels: like the grate of teeth beneath his skin.
“And how did you convince Hood to let you accompany him?” he asks finally.
“What does it matter? I am here with you,” she says, and while her words carry the gloss of her usual impatience, there is a hum of nervousness belied by her inconstant gaze. For every beat that it holds his, it spends another searching the corners.
“It matters.”
“Why?”
“Do not act the fool. It does not suit you,” he says, stepping forward swiftly enough that she flinches.
“I do not know what you-”
"Can I assume that your playacting means that it is something I will not want to hear?”
There is a long pause, during which she seems to be waging an internal debate. She studies her hands; she studies the steep wall of the neighboring building.
“No,” she says finally. “It means only that I am ashamed.”
Guy’s heart clutches as he tries to imagine what could bring her shame. Has she been colluding with Hood all this time, and if so, for what possible purpose? But that would mean that last night was . . . no, she wouldn’t. Would she?
“Ashamed of what?” he manages to choke out, although his throat has suddenly gone dry. He does not know what he will do if she confirms yet another betrayal; not now, when he stands on the edge of everything. “Ashamed of what, Marian?”
“I told him that I had changed my mind about marrying you,” she says with the solemnity of confession. “I told him that I wanted to return with him to Nottingham and marry him there. But I never meant it; I only used him to get away from the camp because I knew his was the only request that Richard would not deny. I used him, and so I am ashamed. But I had to find you,” she insists and then hesitates before adding. “I was worried.”
Guy searches her body for signs of deception despite the fact that he has ever been particularly adept at noticing them. But given what he saw of Hood and Richard, it does make sense. Guy would laugh at Hood being brought low if Marian had ever shown half this much remorse over tricking him.
“What pretty guilt,” he sneers, and then begins to pace.
“I do not see what you are still angry about,” Marian says on his third round. “I had expected you to be happy.”
“Why would I be happy?”
“He will leave us be. He will hate me.”
“That is supposed to reassure me?”
“Yes!” she yells, but then gives a frustrated sigh. “Well, no. But I do not know how else to convince you that I have chosen to be here, that I want to be. . . . Would you please stop pacing? You are making me dizzy.”
Guy has no intention of stopping; he will wear a path in the floor and fall into the room below before he relents. This conversation has gotten away from him, and it is all her fault. He glares in her direction, expecting to find her cheeks mottled with anger. But when he gets a clear view of her face, it is bone white. He barely has time to say her name before she sits on the bed and puts her head between her knees.
“What is wrong?” Guy asks, concern halting him in his tracks.
“It is nothing,” she says, her voice muffled by a curtain of hair. “I am fine.”
He approaches her, stopping in front of her bowed head. Her shoulders rise and fall with every deep breath.
“You do not look fine,” he observes.
“I ate something that did not agree with me on the journey. I need to learn that just because Allan eats it, it does not mean that I should.”
Guy takes a seat beside her. “You should be more careful,” he admonishes. The lingering frustration makes it come out more harshly than he intended.
Raising her head, she levels him with a dirty look. “Yes, I should be.”
While her words are conciliatory, the tone is anything but, and Guy is left to wonder why this of all things seems to have made her the angriest.
“Good,” he says finally, for lack of something better. “We are in agreement then.”
Marian blinks at him for a few seconds, and then emits a short laugh. “You are so…” she trails off and then laughs again.
Guy frowns. “So what?”
She shakes her head. “Nothing.”
“So what?” he insists.
“So Guy,” she says. “You are so Guy.”
That does not make him feel better at all. Before he can ask for further clarification-like whether her smile is amused or pitying-Marian pulls her hand from beneath his and then lays her fingers on his sleeve. He stares at her hand, its tapered fingers pale in the early light. It looks like the hand of any well-bred lady. Sometimes when he is just looking at her, Guy still has trouble believing that Marian was the Nightwatchman. But then he feels the scars or hears the rigid determination in her voice, and he wonders how he could have ever doubted it.
“Please,” she murmurs, and while her voice is soft he hears that determination now. “Please tell me why you want to leave.” His reluctance must be obvious, because she scoots toward him until their knees are touching and then touches his arm. “I am not trying to be difficult, and I am not saying that I will not go with you-that I do not want to go with you-but I need to know.”
Guy studies her face, warm in the hardy glow of sunlight that has fought its way through the meager space between the buildings, and yet her features are strangely still and drawn. She is holding her breath, Guy realizes, and that small sign of anticipation suddenly makes him feel guilty for denying her. But he does not want to admit that until she arrived with news of Nottingham he had every intention of going through with Richard’s request. She will take it the wrong way, make more of it than it is, as though he himself had conceived of the plan to kill the Abbess and has spent the last month cackling in excitement.
Still, if the siege of Nottingham taught him anything, it’s that Marian will not be budged unless she wants to be budged.
“Richard does not want to leave the Holy Land,” Guy says, resigned. “He wishes to upset the peace with Saladin and continue his campaign here.”
Marian lets out the breath that she had been holding, and for a few moments there is only the sound of her even breathing. Now comes the part where she tells him that he is mad, that Richard would never neglect his people in such a manner.
But Marian does not say any of that. Marian only looks grave and asks, “And how does he plan to do that?”
At first Guy cannot think of anything to say, except maybe to ask if she has suffered a quick blow to the head.
“Yes?” Marian prompts.
“The treaty allows for pilgrims to pass freely into Jerusalem,” he says, and closely watches for signs of disbelief before continuing. “If pilgrims are attacked, he would have grounds to declare the treaty violated. And stay, I presume, although I do not know if those who are calling for his return will see it that way.”
“So he is waiting for pilgrims to be attacked? I do not understand. What need would he have of you here?”
Guy says nothing. He only watches as Marian’s confusion turns to comprehension and then to disgust.
“You are to attack the pilgrims,” she says and then lets go of his arm as though it were poisonous.
It’s as though she has forgotten the entire reason they are having this conversation. “No,” Guy snarls, “I am not. We are leaving, as I have said.” He stands up and heads toward the door. “Get dressed and come downstairs. Allan should return with supplies soon.”
“Wait! We need to talk about this!” she cries to his back. “Are you the only one?” she asks, but her tone suggests that she already knows the answer. Guy would like to take those damn letters and toss them all out the window.
“What does it matter?”
“Because if you are not the only one, then we need to stop it!”
In that second, Guy realizes that he has made a grievous miscalculation. This crazy desire to save the world is what he should have feared, not disbelief or disgust.
“No,” he says.
Marian appears non-plussed. “Excuse me?”
“No,” he repeats, crossing the room to stand in front of her, to make his wishes clear. “I have been indulgent for far too long. This madness ends now.”
She stands in a fury. “Madness?” she says. “I am talking about stopping the deaths of innocent people, and you call it madness?”
Her chin tilts up, hitting him with the full force of her haughty righteousness. Suddenly, all the anger that had left him when she took ill comes rushing back to fill their familiar grooves. He grabs her arms and pulls her closer, not caring when she gasps in shock.
“Yes,” he says to her jaw, for she keeps her face turned away. “I call it madness, all of it. Your little dealings with Hood only succeeded because of my infatuation, because of my willingness to be used as a tool. Without me, you would have failed a thousand times over.”
“You overstate your own importance,” she says stiffly, but Guy would like to think that does not sound certain at all.
“Do I?”
“Let me go.”
“Not until you realize that we would not be in this situation if not for your misguided ideals!” he yells, and doesn’t realize how much blame the words carry until he hears her indrawn breath, feels her body tense.
“Do you think that I do not realize my own culpability?” she challenges. “Because I do.”
Marian turns to look at him, her eyes grave. A swift agreement was not what Guy expected.
“You do?” he asks, his surprise evident.
“Yes,” she affirms and Guy wavers. Perhaps he had not given her enough credit, he thinks, perhaps she will be reasonable.
“. . . And that is precisely why it is my responsibility to fix it,” she continues.
Perhaps not.
“It is not something that can be fixed,” he says tersely.
“It is not something that you care to fix!” she retorts. “Tell me, are you leaving because Nottingham has gone to Robin or because you honestly do not want to do this?”
“There were other considerations,” he says between gritted teeth.
“What? How much you stood to gain?”
“No, you. There was a reason that Richard wanted you in the camp. I did not want to drag you down with me.”
The irritation on Marian’s face flickers, and she drops her gaze to study a point on his chin. This would be a perfect time for her to say thank you. But when she opens her mouth, it is not for gratitude.
“We could at least warn them,” she says.
Guy releases her arm in disgust. “It is impossible, Marian.”
“Why? Why is it impossible?”
“We are two people.”
“Allan is here!”
“Perhaps you should ask him before you volunteer him to be hanged!”
For a second Marian looks shamed, but she soon recovers. “Still,” she says, “surely we are intelligent enough to avoid being killed
“Perhaps. But you do not bare your neck for the sword just because you think you are quick enough to dodge it.”
Marian remains skeptical. Her arms are crossed over her chest like a shield, her eyes are still bright with fury, and although Guy cannot see her heels, he is sure that by now they are embedded in the floor. Pragmatism is obviously not enough to sway her.
“Their plan is already faltering,” he says, trying another tactic. “The pilgrims are delayed. My absence will be yet another hole. Richard’s court is clamoring for his return; he will not be able to hold out much longer.”
“How can you be so certain?” Marian scoffs. “Some of us are not as comfortable with blood on our hands.”
That is the last straw. Marian is far better than anyone he has ever known, but he is tired of her playing the saint, especially now when he is trying to do something right. He has been silent for too long.
“I would not say such things if I were you,” he says darkly.
“And what does that mean?”
“Only that your actions have cost men their lives.”
“Who? Vasey? I will not lose sleep over that, and neither should you!”
He shakes his head. “Not Vasey. Men who were punished for information that you betrayed.”
Her neck tightens, and Guy thinks he sees guilt nipping at the edges of her resolve. “I did what I thought was best,” she says. “I am sorry if that put them on the wrong side of the perversity that Vasey called justice.”
“Yes, you did what you thought was best to bring home Good King Richard. But perhaps,” he says, gaining steam, “you should have asked yourself whether or not Good King Richard wanted to come home. But instead you chose to stupidly believe Hood’s lies and help a cause that only existed in a madman’s head. Do you know how many men were put to death every time Hood breached the Sheriff’s treasury in order to steal money meant for Prince John’s campaign? It was enough to empty one of the villages you championed so valiantly.”
“How dare you pretend to care!” she seethes. “When you were the one who-,”
“I do not care!” Guy interrupts, “but I never professed to do so. You did, and yet you made their lives-”
“Enough!” Marian yells with a note of desperation, and then raises her hand when he starts to speak again. She sits on the bed, and at first Guy wonders if she is once again feeling ill. But she does not look flushed or feverish, just stunned. She grips her knees, and the white of her knuckles are a stark contrast to the deep hue of the robe. All of a sudden, Guy fears that he has gone too far. Marian believes in things, and it lights her up from the inside.
“Marian,” he says, and when she does not turn to look at him, the fear grows stronger. He tries to touch her cheek but she knocks his hand away. “Say something,” he insists.
“I will leave with you,” she says in a voice that’s eerie and flat. “We do not need to argue anymore.”
Guy should feel triumphant, but instead he feels hollow. He should not have said those things. She had no way of knowing any of what would happen; he hated King Richard, and yet he could not have predicted half of it.
“Your charitable instincts are to be admired,” he says clumsily in an effort to fix what he has torn. “But this is not Nottingham, and I am not. . .,”
He lets the sentence die. He had intended to say “and I am not willing to risk you,” but it somehow sounds cowardly when compared to her willingness to fling herself in the path of all danger, so he says nothing.
“I understand,” she says, but he knows that she doesn’t.
“It was not my intention to-,”
Marian cuts him off. “I will meet you downstairs. Please go,” she says. And so he does.
***
It takes Marian less than thirty minutes to be ready, but she does not go downstairs. Instead she sits on the end of the bed and stares at the mound of bags in the corner as she tries to make sense of what just happened. Guy had taken her by surprise-knocking about the room like an insane person and tossing things at her-and then she had felt sick, and felt even sicker when he had confirmed everything that she had feared: that all her work in the name of bringing Richard back to England had been silly and shortsighted, had in fact hurt more than it helped.
Marian turns to survey the packet of letters at her hip, touching the ragged edges and twisting the rough piece of twine around her finger until its tip turns red. She had retrieved them as soon as Guy slammed the door, full of indignation and the mad desire to prove him wrong. Because she had helped Nottingham’s people-she had-and here was everything they needed to figure out the who and where and when. For a brief moment she had mad fantasies where she abandoned Guy, alerted everyone to the danger, and then returned to gloat.
But then she had flipped through the pile again, reading name after name after name, and realized with dawning horror that Guy was right-Guy! Who had not realized her condition even when she was dropping foolish, peevish comments and nearly vomiting in his lap! This fight is too large for one person to tackle; it is even too large for two people to tackle, not that she could even find anyone. Allan is unlikely to agree to any more endeavors-at least if she takes his many mutterings about her sanity at face value-and Robin is no longer an option. He would want to help her stop it, but that would mean winning back his trust and convincing him that it was happening in the first place. Is it even possible to cut through his devotion to Richard? She no longer knows. He never spoke of what happened here, had always brushed it off while Much looked on from the background with a worried brow. Perhaps she should have tried.
Marian lies down and hugs her knees, feeling childish but needing the comfort. So this is what it feels like to give up-numb relief. She had always thought that it would happen locked in a dungeon or standing on a scaffold, not sitting in an empty bedroom in Jerusalem. There is nothing to do now except hope that Guy’s last-ditch effort to convince her to leave is correct, and that this insane plan of Richard’s will fail due to chance and dumb luck. Maybe a person really can help by merely doing nothing. Perhaps she should have been doing nothing all along.
Marian does not know how much time has passed, but it feels like an eternity. She is surprised that Guy has not yet bellowed from below; Allan has surely returned by now. After a few deep breaths to work up her nerve, she climbs off the bed, grabs a satchel and heads downstairs.
Guy sits in the deep window, one boot braced against the clay frame as he squints through the half-opened wooden shutters. Marian studies him from the foot of the stairs. She wants to hate him for what he said, but every scrap of anger fizzles as soon as she finds it. After all, he had not said anything that she had not thought herself in the past month. As for the rest . . . it was her own fault for falling once again into that familiar trap of setting her expectations too high. All things considered, she should be grateful that Guy has decided that he doesn’t want to kill nuns.
“Where is Allan?” she asks to break the silence and her own dark thoughts.
Immediately, Guy stands, his eyes searching her face with a concern that she does her best to ignore. “He has not yet returned.”
Marian takes a seat at the end of the table. There are several platters of untouched food, and she busies herself with peeling an orange so that she will not have to watch Guy watching her.
Guy pulls out the chair beside her. “Once Allan returns, I thought we would try to make Samaria by nightfall. We should avoid Jaffa,” he says as he sits. “What do you think?”
“I do not have an opinion,” she says, continuing to peel, although if she did have an opinion it would be that he still has not told her enough to make an informed judgment.
“You always have an opinion.”
Looking at him with what she hopes is a serene expression, Marian says nothing. The old Marian would have been a little thrilled with how disgruntled Guy looks. . . . Perhaps new Marian is the tiniest bit pleased as well. At least until Guy leans forward and captures her hand.
She wants to pull it away, she does. Just because bodies respond to one another, it does not mean that they have anything in common. The sooner she learns that the better.
“Tell me what will make you happy and I will do it,” Guy says, and in his mouth it sounds like a command.
A loud rap on the door saves her from responding that it isn’t that simple, because what will make her happy isn’t simple. It might not even make any sense.
“That will be Allan,” she says, extricating her hand and standing up to get the door. Her heart starts to pound as she realizes what she’s agreed to. Suddenly she does not feel so numb; suddenly she feels very scared.
Guy holds out an arm, blocking her way. “Allan doesn’t knock.”
“What?”
“Believe me,” he says darkly, and then tells her to stay still. Grabbing his sword, he approaches the door just as it swings open to reveal a familiar build.
“It is Allan,” she says, before she realizes that Allan’s hands are up and that he has not returned alone. For there are people standing behind him. . . a group of very familiar people.