Choices - Part VII

[joyfultiger]

Spoilers: references to S1, 2, and 3.
PG for romantic scenes
PG-13 for violent scenes.


The door shuts out gasps of shock and denial from the hall below.

“You are so arrogant!”  Having to whisper is really starting to annoy her, “You did not have to shame me in front of everyone I know making me out to be a liar as to why we weren’t sharing a bed. I had told them it was your idea!”

Noticing the hot flush to her cheeks, Guy shakes off the throbbing pain that is fast taking over his palm, “I was angry.”

“That doesn’t excuse you.”

Lashing out, “Loving Hood doesn’t excuse you.” Guy’s had enough. Turning away from her, he studies his hand palm up, palm down, distracting himself in order to cool his temper. The Sheriff might suspect something if he hears Guy is this attached to Marian’s scarf, so that has to go as soon as possible. First, dispatch Simon. Then claim the wound was Marian’s last hurrah. The distraction works. Guy’s voice is steady, “Look, you don’t deserve an explanation, but I did what I did so the killer would take the bait and head for Nottingham, away from you.” She should be under Hood’s protection right now. “He didn’t.”  But she is here. With him. Guy picks up his sword, scrapes its blade into his blood on the floor back and forth. If he has run her through, the sword must be bloody. Damn his heart to Hell for aching. Leaving the sword there, he picks up the dagger, wipes it off on his thigh as he straightens. Facing her, “Why did you come back?”

She draws from her dress’s pocket the flask Matilda had brought to the camp this morning. Now is her chance to explain. To end it.

“Wine?” Guy feels cautious for some reason. Wine is not worth risking her life to bring to him, and she knows it.

“I know how badly you’re doing. Since you sent me away.”

“You flatter yourself.” Guy puts his dagger back where it belongs.

With confidence, Marian disagrees, “Guy.” He tries to correct her, cocking his head, giving her the look. The one that wants her to obey saying, ‘right, little woman, what I say goes.’ Marian doesn’t even miss a beat. “Matilda made it. Look. It’s perfectly safe.”

“You’re drinking it,” Guy is appalled. She drinks more still. “What is that concoction, Marian?” his voice a warning to stop.

“Something a lot stronger than what you’ve been trying lately.”

In one stride he snatches the flask out of her hand, throws it across the room into the fire, its contents hiss and froth over glowing coals, beneath the flames. With snide disregard, Guy reaches the right conclusion, “So. That’s going to make you forget.”

Sir Guy of Gisborne is the only man she has ever known who is condescending toward others when what he feels is self-loathing. “Guy, all we do is lie to each other, betray each other.”

“Long for each other.” A soft challenge.

“No,” on the exhale of Marian stunned by the thought, by Guy even thinking it.

Another in a long string of rejections, this one is in direct contradiction with what her touch had confessed to him just a few minutes ago. He glowers at her to regain his pride, “If you would only admit it.”

“I can’t.”

“Then go. You don’t need protection anymore, mine or anyone else’s. As long as you do not let people see you, you’ll be safe. If you must go back to Hood, promise me you will tell him everything so he will know what to do.” Marian is staring at him, standing stock still. If he had told her to climb out the window whilst standing on her head, her disbelieving eyes would make sense, but - her hand is reaching out - “You should go, Marian. Now. Find Matilda. Please. You need the antidote.” Though he can speak she is stealing his ability to breathe. She has taken his hand. Now Guy is the one who cannot believe what is happening. She presses those beautiful lips against the scarf, their warmth against skin of his palm. Now she nestles her cheek against it, the wound receiving a caress; its blessing.

Against his better judgment, Guy slips his hand out of hers, and around the nape of her neck. He waits, bracing for the familiar reminder his touch is unwanted. The reminder does not come.

His hand slides over her shoulder, down the length of her arm to hold her hand, his eyes watching hers intently for their earliest sign that this cruel encouragement will be as the others, put to a quick, merciful end before it is too late for him, before she sentences him to a life haunted by loss after coming so close. The signal does not come.

He draws her to him, his breath a sharp intake as she steps ahead of his hand’s hesitating tug into his arms. He wraps them fiercely around her, gentling on impact. “Marian.” He must be dreaming. There can be no other explanation. He runs his hands down her back, then up again, reassuring himself she is real. With the excruciating hope of old, he presses his mouth to her forehead, then lower. Lower still, tentative, pausing between each so as not to wake her out of whatever wine-induced trance she must be under, trying to stay in this perfect moment for as long as he can. Let this last just long enough, that is all he asks.

When his mouth above hers, he waits. Why is it so hard to breathe? Hopeful salvation is finally at hand, ashamed and afraid for he better than anyone knows he is unworthy, he waits, willing her to acquiesce, to give him what he had desperately needed as she had read aloud the note, meting out the whiplash of each word as though her heart would break the day he had sent her away in a rage, hurt, and in mortal fear for her life knowing he would never see her again. He waits for her permission to let him kiss her goodbye.

If the Sheriff ever finds out this man had sent for Robin to collect her, had sent her to Robin knowing she had information that would hang the Sheriff and himself by their necks until dead, Guy’s days on Earth would be over. The marriage cage crushed when manipulative obsession was purified into a passion as honourable as Robin’s, Guy has changed. Only days after giving her up to the man he hates most in the world, only minutes after putting an end to a threat to her life with his own life’s blood, he is letting her go, even if it means back to Robin. He loves her even for who she is. As she is. With a whimper, lips parted, she grants him access, and herself the permission to admit it - the yearning is real. As a man starving for survival, Guy’s mouth swoops down, passionately rewarding her with a kiss of perfect glory unfolding.

“I will give you the lands unjustly stolen from you if you join me in ridding England of those who would steal the King his throne.”

Kneeling before them, Guy looks so thin from her perspective beside the chair of the Sheriff attending to matters of court. And filthy.

“I pledge to you all my strength, my sword, my last breath on any field of battle.”

“Then rise, Sir Guy of Gisborne. You may collect advance pay if you like, to rebuild your Gisborne Manor, but first may I introduce to you my daughter, the Lady Marian?” Pulling Guy aside, Marian can only guess what her father must be whispering to him. That she’s been moping about ever since her childhood sweetheart abandoned her for the grandeur of war. That Sir Guy might be just the one to cheer her up.

As Guy deepens the heat of his farewell, Marian is spiraled into the meeting on the turret stairs. Guy is courageous. A faithful knight with a herculean capacity to hope. He is driven for England, not power, in service to her father. His feather light touch is wandering the back of her hand, “Let me prove my love to you, Marian. Marry me.”

He lifts his mouth to feast on her acceptance, to sip on the aftermath swollen by his.

Marian rushes out the words as she pulls his head down, “We were supposed to meet before.” Her mouth has captured his. Now Marian is the one asking. For Guy to show her more of what could have been.

He is bellowing at Matilda to get the baby out before the love of his life dies. Marian tells her husband to calm down or leave, that it’s been only five minutes. Guy refuses, as anxious about her surviving this childbirth as he had been for the other four.

“I must leave for battle soon.” Guy is sheltering her in his arms as she suckles their newest son, this one with dark hair that has an amber shine. Their daughters and sons are outside the door, “Mere! Papa! Can we come in now? Pleeeeassseeee? We promise we won’t jump on the bed like we did when Knobby was born. Ow! Knobby Robin bit me!”

Matilda’s voice echoes a memory, “The potion will blend all you have lived - real events, dreams, nightmares, thoughts you never knew you even had - into prophecies and insights of another kind. Do not be afraid when this happens. It is the mind gathering all it will erase.

Matilda did not tell her they would be this vivid, nor make her experience what Heaven must have ordained but which Guy had denied to them on Earth because his first vengeful choice - which lord he would serve.

“What you’re doing is wrong, Marian, slipping into the deepest fantasy of daydreams, letting Guy possess thoughts and emotions that belong me.”

“Let me be with my husband, David.” David? No, that is Robin. Robin. Spying on her and Guy with their baby from the window.

“Marian,” Guy is here, solid and real. She is with him in her old bedchamber. He is one of the wicked who plot against the King. Soon, these kisses, his soul-stirring voice, the way Guy and the potion are clouding her judgment, all will be washed clean away. This forbidden fruit will be as good as never tasted. When she next awakes, all will be as it should be. Sir Guy of Gisborne will mean nothing to her.

“I’m going to change everything for you,” Guy breathes into her mouth as he covers it with his own again. “Starting with Simon.” With a kiss sweeter to Marian than all the rest he seals the pact, breathing in her life force. “Then the Sheriff.” His lips over Eden reclaimed. “Tell me. What is the antidote? How can I get it to you?”

“No.”

There are times he would give anything for Marian to be more submissive. “Marian, if you forget me, you are going to forget you are supposed to be dead. You’re going wander around in broad daylight for all to see. Please, Marian. Remember me, and live.”

A pang of pain. No marriage proposed, he settles now for being just a memory. With a tender tug she pulls at his wrist behind her back to hold onto the hand he has offered to her in marriage three times, the one he stabbed three times to save her life. The possibilities are more wondrous than she had realized. Kindness, compassion, bravery could take him over if the reason he serves Vasey is gone. Guy is the reason she loves Robin but not with her whole heart. Worse, she is the reason Guy mistreated the people of Locksley yesterday and the day before, and why Guy continues to serve a despot. I thought of you. Every time. What should have been can never be, but Guy can yet become the man she has seen today and could have loved if all goes to plan. She feels light-headed. Maybe it is the potion, or maybe it is the effect of his open mouth following the path of the knife’s bruise across her throat, “I am determined to forget.”

Far too late to save him and without a shred of mercy, the signal has come. Reluctant, respectful of her wishes, he pulls himself away, moving for the door. Marian clutches onto his arm, pulling him back, “No, Guy! Stay with me.”

The urgency in her whisper divulges at least one facet to the potion. For whatever it is to work, Marian must remain with him. And only him. Well, that’s easily fixed. “You will do as you please, you will go where you wish with no knowledge of the danger.” Searching her eyes praying he’ll see forgiveness in them after he does what he must do, “I’m sorry, Marian, but you force me to do this is for your own good.” Going to the door, pulling it open a crack, “Tuck. Come here.”

Her cheeks flushed, the flames’ golden reflection dancing in her eyes, Guy watches Marian as she sits beside him in the high back oak chair identical to his, both set beside the roaring fire, her face turned into the heat which is taking the damp out of the air in the hall. The servants’ clothes she is wearing, donned for she needed a fresh change and a disguise, make her more adorable than ever, along with those wheels of hers whirling. Marian is working on her escape already.

Guy has stashed away her dress having sliced a hole through the center of the blood stain, saving it for when he has Simon’s body to put into it. The man is scrawny enough though a little short, but the dress will cover up that, and the gnarled hand. All Guy needs is a passable wig, then he can dump the carcass where the wolves can find their newest chew toy, under the pretext of carrying ‘her’ to a place in the forest for a private, grief-stricken burial. The Sheriff will be next at the first opportunity that shields the people of Nottingham, the people he must rule. Then Marian can come back to life. To be with Hood, since that’s who she has always wanted. He shifts in the hard seat to ease the stab of the truth but with no relief.

“You are being overbearing.” Her voice is taut with uncertainty. First, Simon ruined the start of her scheme. Now her wiles of Guy manipulation are failing; she’s exhausted them all.

“And you are being ungrateful.” That gets her to remember; Guy is treated to a softer version of the sweetest smile he’s ever seen. If they are fated to be apart, he’d rather die now.

Sobering, Marian tells him, “Living with you has taught me one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Not to oversimplify the enemy. You are not as bad as I thought.”

An upturn in the furthermost corner of his lips, “Good.” Guy would wager every coin he has that she thinks she’s figured out how she’s going to get out of this. What she hasn’t factored is how good a man Tuck is. Brushing her fingers that dangle midair from a limp wrist after their drumming, her forearm upon the armrest, his fingertips begin to sweep over and over the smooth warmth of her skin, incapable of stillness in his need for more of the sensations that draw him on. Looking at her pale hand, careful not to let the blood-wet scarf defile her as his light touch roams over and in between her fingers, he works up the courage to ask the question.  It has been chafing his mind, troubling him ever since she had said it, since she had needed him as though only he had the power to banish some indescribable horror she had discovered without warning. Wetting his lips, he fears the answer. It may just tear him apart, “Marian, what did you mean, us meeting before? Before when?”

Behind them, the front door creaks open to let Tuck in out of the heavy fog that to Marian is overstaying its romantic, protective welcome. Hiding the cheerful sunlight for too long, the heavens seem bent on getting company in their misery, out to depress the lives of all below with limited horizons.

“How was church?” Guy’s question is soft with sarcasm.

“Everyone is accounted for. They should be praying for Lady Marian’s soul for quite a while,” Tuck is conflicted. Lying to prevent murder, one of the Ten Commandments is being broken in order to keep another.

Guy stands so he can speak with Tuck without having to crane his neck, though he loathes being this far from Marian’s hand. Regretting the decision to separate, he would grope for it now if he was not so proud. “What excuse did you give?”

“That someone had to come back here and pray loudly for yours. To keep a guarded eye on you. “

More quiet sarcasm, “I’m sure that went over well.” Mocking their piety, “May God smite me with a thousand arrows as soon as He can find the time, eh?” Guy offers Marian his arm, “Shall we?”

Rising from her chair, Marian takes it, “Where are we going?”

Step one in her plan to outwit his. She’s trying to gather information. Living with her is the only good thing that has ever happened to him, and now he knows her so well. “It’s a surprise.” He wishes he could kiss that perplexed expression but that prerogative belongs to the man she has chosen, not to the one she is ‘determined to forget.’

Sir Guy of Gisborne leads the three of them outside the same way Marian had entered, around the back of the manor to where a carriage is waiting. Guy must have hitched the horses to it while she had been changing her clothes. “You’re fast with horses,” Marian is impressed. And you love to canter with a son or daughter on your lap.

The haunting revelations this medicine may spew, their rough waves crashing over the wall between fantasy and reality to swamp aspects of her life, may in time gouge a trail of destruction and self-doubt. Matilda had tried to warn her what could happen if Guy should not be the one she forgets.  If only she could have fallen asleep while she was supposed to be changing. She had tried, had lain down on the bed straight away, but she could not calm her mind’s hungry exploration of one beautiful day with Guy through another. A night. This potion may leave her all too aware of what nature had never intended - the travesty between the deep love she wants and the rapturous love she cannot.

“The white one is yours. I was saving him for the day Matilda pronounced your arm perfectly healed.”

Following the direction of Guy’s pointed glance past her shoulder, Marian sees a spectacular example of God’s grace in motion though the horse is but grazing beyond the wooden fence in the mist. “I could not accept him.” Guy gives her his hand to help her step up into the carriage with his eyes lowered; she cannot read them.

From his perch on the seat above Tuck asks, “Won’t people wonder why this carriage is missing, m’Lord?”

“I’ll tell them I ordered you to bury her then to bring me back a sample of the wenches Nottingham has to offer. They will accept your ‘decision’ when you don’t return.”

“And what would you know about wenches in Nottingham? Are they experts at foot massages?” The words blurted out before she can bite her tongue.

Guy grins up at Tuck. She sounds jealous. “If she remembers, bring her back without delay. If it is clear she has forgotten too much, keep her busy until I send word the Sheriff is dead.”

“The Sheriff dead?  You know what Prince John will do to Nottingham!” Marian tries to bolt out of the carriage, but Guy blocks her way with his body. “At least tell me where I am going!”

“France.”

“France! Guy, no!” her eyes glittering.

“Warn the King.”

That has made her sit, or rather fall back and be caught by the seat. Her expression is priceless. Guy half expects her to ask ‘Who? Do I go left at the crossroads or right to find this mysterious person?’ He’ll take that as a win in today’s battle of wills. Now he’d bet all he’s worth she is struggling with the choice - if she should go straight to Hood, or if it’s best for England that she accept this free passage to the King. Moved by her speechlessness, her utter bafflement, Guy explains, “I am seeing the world for what it isn’t. Keep your head inside the carriage. And don’t jump out. Your arm - we must take care you don’t break it before it’s healed.” He moves to close the carriage door, pauses, “When Matilda’s concoction wears off will you remember anything about me at all? Does putting you in Tuck’s care change anything?”

“No.” Guy has turned her part in the plan on its head. Someone else will be the last person she sees when she falls asleep.

“Then I can say this without being a fool. I love you.”

He shuts the carriage door with a step back. Tuck snaps the reins. As the carriage lurches forward into the fog, Marian looks back to watch Guy disappear into the mist, his black form melts into the cloud, turning away from her and toward the deserted manor that will welcome him the same way a crowded one would, without a single face brightened by his coming home.

He swings their eldest up onto his shoulders, takes her for a rowdy lap over the sun-warm grass; her giggles bouncing in infectious delight, a sparkle in his smiling eyes, the other children running alongside clamoring, “Me next, Papa! Me next!”

Tuck has the horses at a gallop. Around that first corner, the one she had walked only two days ago with Robin and Much dressed as guards, Marian must clutch onto the side of her seat to keep it. Guy is right. To jump out at this speed would make her a cripple, and she’s had enough of the clipped wing,“Tuck! Please! I must go back to Robin!” He cracks the reins, urging the horses to carry them on, far and faster. If only she could show Tuck what fight she is made of! “Tuck! You must let me go back to Robin. He’s my husband!”

Tuck shouts to be heard over the rumble of hooves and wheels, “Does Sir Guy know this?”

“No!”

The root of all evil lies within all men - and women, apparently. “We will return to England according to Sir Guy’s orders, I promise.” Muttering under his breath, “I’ll savour the moment when we do.”

“I gave Guy something to make him forget.”

Tuck pulls on the reins, the carriage’s back wheels buck with the force of the sudden standstill. “Do you insist on sticking your head out that window to talk to me?”

“Yes!”

Tuck’s weight rocks the carriage as he clambers down. “Tut, tut,” he scolds as she tries to beat him through the open door and fails. Once inside, he sits on the seat across from her, holding the door fast with one hand on the doorsill. Sir Guy had stressed her life depended on him following orders to the last. “Pray, explain.”

“I had hoped an honest approach would work but knowing Guy I anticipated it wouldn’t, so I poured Guy’s dose into the goblet by the bedside while Guy demanded reasons from Simon, and while Simon obliged.”

“What are you talking about?”

Marian explains at length what had to be done, not a detail overlooked and with brutal honesty, “The good in him will have a chance! As for me, I am going to forget you, not him, if I should fall asleep soon. Or - “ cheering at the idea that the friar might be tempted, “ - you could take me back to him. I’m positive he would be glad to see me.”

The friar raises his hand for silence. Tuck has listened to Lady Marian tell all without interrupting, his Christian love for this particular member of the congregation becoming more and more strained with each twist and turn to her meddling, “When was the last time you went to confession?”

“What do you mean?”

“You, my lady, have grievously sinned. You coaxed this Robin Hood into securing your own selfish, happy ending knowing full well you would move on to seduce Sir Guy. To rob him of his!”

“I did not set out to seduce Guy!” objects Marian, indignant.

“Then what was all that about his kisses, his touch, the longing?” challenges Tuck. “What I heard is you admitting what Saint James would call ‘your cravings that are at war within you.’”

Coldly, Marian reiterates, “I told you, that was unexpected. Like Simon’s knife and the agony Guy must have withstood. You saw his hand, but you did not see those visions which -”

“- showed you who he might have been if he had made one fateful choice differently. M’Lady, If Sir Guy forgets the only one in this world who managed to bring out the good in him, the gentleness in him -”

“- I didn’t bring out much - ” Marian interrupts, dubious of Tuck’s argument.

“- The man you met in your visions exists! Without you, all that will be left is the monster! He must remember you!” Locking the carriage door on his way out, Tuck climbs back up to the high seat, pulls the horses and carriage around in a dirt road almost too narrow. “Hya!” As fast as the carriage will go, Tuck drives the horses home, informing God He had best hold the axels together for he will not slow the carriage for any rut, hole, or rock that lies between him and another soul for the flock. Lady Marian was right about one thing. The good in Sir Guy can and must have a chance.

Guy surrenders to the sudden, overpowering drowsiness that promises to stop spinning him around if he would only give in to it and fall asleep. He must be more exhausted than he realized, given last night’s drunken sleeplessness and today’s loss of blood, for a confounding dream has begun before he has even fallen asleep as if he were living it. Moments of a nonexistent life had flickered before him while he had waited with Marian for Tuck to come back, sparked by the feel of her warm hand under his fingertips.

“Forgive me. If I had known I would be meeting you today I would have found a way to wash.”

“I hope you will find we have been good stewards of lands so wrongfully stripped from you this court should beg your forgiveness. Not you, mine.”

Stoic, she stands beside her father’s chair. So distant. So alone. This Marian needs him. Surprised at himself, he finds he relishes the prospect of the responsibility.

“Is this what you meant, Lady Marian, when you told me we were supposed to meet before?”

She had not answered. He asked her again as they had sat together by the fire in the front hall.

Now, seated on the bench, Guy lets his head drop into the crook of his elbow on the table, the only sound in the room is lulling him deeper into the dream, the crackling of the fire. Replete in the peace, Guy is grateful for the respite from his empty life; he is weary of all the blood. The killing. The loneliness.

“She is beautiful.” With wonder, he is sitting by them as she lies on the bed with their newborn nestled close to her heart.

“What shall we name her, m’lord?”

“Marian.”

“Poor girl will be turning her head every time you call me, and I every time you call her.”

Guy laughs, “All right. What do you think of Ghislaine?”

“Your mother?”

“She would be pleased, if she were alive.”

“Ghislaine, meet your Papa.” Marian places their squirming firstborn into his hands.

Enfolding her, cradling her, he hopes he knows his own strength. She looks so fragile. “I promise you, Marian, I will be a good father. I will never abandon you, nor our daughter, I’ll never let anyone ruin us, I’ll never get sick, I’ll protect you both with my life  -”

“Stop it.  I have faith in you.” Their daughter is cooing, gurgling, her tiny fist is holding onto her Papa’s sleeve like a vice. “Look. She loves you already.”

A funeral after the battle, after the birth of their youngest. Standing beside the Gisborne family, next to two coffins before two open graves Robin of Locksley is trying his best to reach her, though she looks, acts as though she is made of stone, “Your father, Guy, they died fighting for England. Guy saved my life. So I dedicate myself to the well-being of his widow, his children. I owe him that. You will never be alone, and I will not rest until this Vasey is destroyed, and King Richard is returned.”

“Thank you, Robin. But what can you do? The new Sheriff has made you an outlaw.”

Alone in the hall of Locksley, Guy is laughing in his sleep. You still love her, don’t you. Though you are pretty ugly, my friend, give her time. Tell her that because of her, her father, and you, I died proud, having lived more full a life than I had ever imagined possible. Melt her sorrow and grief away. She has a life to lead. She should not bury it because I am gone…

A wedding ceremony is finished…Marian’s and Robin’s. They’re walking down the aisle. “Marian, it’s pretty radical.”

“I am Lady Gisborne of Locksley and that’s final.”

“Fine! Just don’t come running to me when the eyebrows don’t come down.”

She’s fuming, until their youngest - he’s tall, strong for only three - tugs mightily on her skirt. She smiles into his face so like his father’s. With Marian holding little Edward’s hand for the honour it is, and Robin’s arm, the three of them finish the retreat down the aisle.

“Look. I loved him too. He was a brother to me.” Robin’s version of a white flag. “But you are going to remove his portrait from your bedchamber, right? ‘Cause tonight’s going to be pretty awkward otherwise.” Bedchamber? They must have their lands back.

Marian gives grin; she’s up to something. Robin’s done it. He has brought England peace, and Marian’s gorgeous spunk back to life.

Marian, back to life. The earth is quaking. “Wake up, Sir Guy!”

Tuck is leading him away, telling him Robin, Marian, the children will be happy, that he doesn’t have to watch over her anymore. His soul floating up, the clouds greet him with a torrent of cold rain over his head, his shoulders shudder as icy tendrils of water trickle under the neck of his shirt, between his shoulder blades.

“Father, forgive me,” Tuck empties the second bucketful from the horse’s trough over Sir Guy’s head. “WAKE UP!” Dropping the bucket, he catches his master’s shoulders before Sir Guy nearly falls off the bench.

Groggy, Guy manages to mumble “We were supposed to be together,” before submitting to the hope it is not too late to return to the dream, to that sweet beginning on the turret stairs. But the damn earth won’t stop shaking his head back and forth, and the air is booming a command, “Wake up! You must wake up!” Rubbing the water off his face with his good hand, Guy’s sense of responsibility comes to. Slowly, he sits up to pay attention to the voice, though barely, annoyed and against his will. “Tuck. What is it.”

“M’Lord, are you sure you want Hood to think you’ve killed Lady Marian? He will want revenge, he may kill you before you have time to destroy the Sheriff.” He has recognized me. Encouraged, Tuck hopes he is in time to be the only one Sir Guy forgets.

“Marian?”

“You know Lady Marian, you must!” Sir Guy’s coordination is off, he’s slipping back into the deepest of slumbers. “No, Sir Guy!”

He is riding through death’s door into infinite forests and villages with curving, everlasting roads. A one-roomed, white cottage with a thatched roof atop a cliff over the sea and surf, flowers of every kind and colour around it. He pounds on the door. He must find Marian. The only one he has ever loved.

“Tell me what I want to hear.”

The bow and the hood hide a smirk of superiority, “She is dead.” He got her. But the thrill passes all too prematurely by the time he straightens.

“And Gisborne?”

“The one who killed her. Per your instructions.” Under less pressing circumstances, Simon would enjoy the chill in this drafty room of long tables with carefully stacked coins, cluttered with pages and pages of ledgers bearing the name of every man, woman, and child in Nottingham, Clun, Locksley, and Nettlestone, each marked by a check or the word “execute.” Lit by a few candles, there is no fireplace. No warmth, no comfort. How preserving.

“I’m delighted!” Simon is not appropriately impressed. “You should be ecstatic. It’s not often I am delighted.”

“I am, m’Lord, but she didn’t turn out as I thought. I like them submissive, only prettier.” The truth is Simon needs to get out of this tax collection office, this castle, this county. He needs his money, but etiquette prevents him from being the first to broach the subject.

Chuckling, “Let down by love, eh? I suppose you’ll be wanting your paycheck.”

Simon heaves a sigh of relief, “If it is convenient for you, m’Lord.”

Like a miser, the Sheriff takes the reluctant stroll over to the coffers that line the far wall. Running his hand over the lid of one, he gathers himself before opening it, feeling a twinge of pain. After several minutes of picking and choosing through several, minutes in which Simon’s impatience has drawn him to stand at a disrespectful distance, Vasey takes out a crimson velvet bag with a drawstring of gold. Opening it, the Sheriff instructs, “Put out your hand.”

Simon whips out his right hand, palm up.

There, the Sheriff drops each coin in pace with his thoughtful recitation of an itemized bill. “One gold piece in return for one dead leper. One for being a most excellent fake Black Knight and guest at Locksley after camping up a tree. One for pushing the old fart down the stairs.” With his hand over the mouth of the bag, the Sheriff pauses to give his employee an impromptu performance appraisal, “Brilliant move, I must say, Simon. If she had broken her neck, our gallant Sir Guy would have most certainly blamed himself for not being there to protect her. If she had survived, which she did, the push got Gisborne to stow her somewhere - shame it wasn’t with me after all - and to commence his oh, so sodden soul-searching about his sorry feelings for her safety. You said she’d come back to check on him once he’d done that, that she’d be undeterred by the warrant hanging over both their heads. Everyone was in your trap, your little pressure cooker. Well done. Really. Well done.”  The Sheriff returns to paying his henchman who is shifting from one foot to the other as if he must use the latrine, “And one more coin for predicting Gisborne would cave under his inability to find me Hood’s camp once the warrant was issued, he being left outside the loop of privileged information.”

Simon begins to close his fist over his precious way out of here, but the Sheriff is quicker. “And I am charging you three gold coins for NOT BRINGING ME HOOD!” Snatching back all but one coin, the Sheriff returns them to the pouch, draws the cord tight. He twirls the money bag above his shoulder, one finger in the loop of the drawstring. “But m’Lord, that wasn’t part of our agreement! I’m not a tracker. I’m a trapper. I set traps. “

“You followed her, you saw her with Hood at his camp, and you couldn’t find it again? Do you honestly expect me to believe that? The only thing that’s keeping me from feeding you to the filthy rags starving in the dungeons right now is that your trap worked. I hope Gisborne never gets over it.”

So. This is what he gets for having his own fun with Hood, Gisborne, the Sheriff, and the comedic tensions between them. “But m’Lord, I beg you, I need the money to leave Nottingham before Gisborne - ”

The Sheriff lets the bag hang from his finger, “- what about Gisborne?” He takes out a coin to lick.

The Sheriff doesn’t understand the gravity of the situation. “He wants to kill me.”

“La-de-da-de-da. You can commiserate with your next victim. It would lighten the burden of her plight and bring you two closer together.”

As soon as Simon hurries into the corridor latching the door behind him, Robin and Much drop from their hiding place in the rafters above, tackling Simon with the help of Allan and Little John out from behind the two pillars that flank the door. Simon has no time to shout. Robin gags him with the strip of cloth he has brought for the purpose. Escorting their prisoner through unenlightened passages and not so well kept secret tunnels, they arrive outside of the castle walls in an alley behind the loud and busy marketplace. Between the fog and the colourful, damp tarps sagging from the nearby stalls there is no sky to give them the uplifting sense of escape from the castle’s darkness and dread.

Robin throws Simon against the granite castle wall. “I’m gonna kill him!”

“Robin, no! Just give him the potion, he’ll forget all about us when he comes to.”

“Allan, didn’t you hear him? He let Gisborne kill her! Marian is - “ the word, the thought, the world without her has wrenched away all desire to feel or think ever again. All that remains is a void, “-dead.” Robin lunges at Simon, his fist crushes a cut across the rat’s left eyelid and a nose runny with blood from a new, deformed position. And vengeance.

“Robin! He didn’t kill her! Gisborne did. Spare his life, make him forget, then let’s find out if this nightmare is even true!”

“Is it?” Robin seethes between clenched teeth in Simon’s face, clutching the man by the throat. “Is it true, or did you lie to the Sheriff so you could get your money and run?”

“What is going on?” Matilda has been searching for them all over Nottingham, and now that she’s found them, she is not pleased to see they are ganging up on one man, four against one. Allan and Little John are pinning his arms against the wall as Robin has his violent way. As shock renders Much the bystander who wishes he could intervene but cannot for some weak, invisible reason.

“Where’s Marian? Did Gisborne find you at the cave?” Robin buries his fist in Simon’s uncut eye. “You do not look at me!”

“He didn’t find us. She went to him.”

“What?” Robin rounds on her.

Ordinarily, she would be afraid of such a wild glint in the eyes, but he is Robin Hood. “I tried to talk her out of it.” Matilda clutches his arm to stop him. His bloodied, whitened knuckles are clenched and ready.

He rips his arm free and punches Simon with a force that wants to feel the wall through Simon’s gut. That done, he asks, “Out of what?”

“Enough!” objects Much. “Give the weasel his potion, knock him out, and then let’s get out of here to talk!”

Matilda answers, “Giving the potion to Sir Guy. But mainly, I didn’t think she should drink it herself.”

“You do realize you are telling me she wanted to be with him as they both fell asleep.” Robin’s focus on Simon is quickly waning, what Matilda is saying is too much. His conscience is killing him. To Much, and with a shove at Simon, Robin sneers, “Do it.” The command a reflex, trained and rote from years of practice on disorienting battlefields. Without her, he isn’t a legend, or a hero. He isn’t anything. He had put her in Gisborne’s care.

Much pulls the gag down, smothering Simon’s disgusting presumption that a plea for mercy would even be considered with a steady flow of potion down his throat, reducing Simon’s begging to splutters, coughs, and choking between gulps for air. The pouch emptied, Little John’s staff strikes Simon’s head. No one bothers to break his unconscious fall to the ground. Everyone is looking to Matilda for an explanation to this disaster, the suffering that is suffocating them.

Robin bites out the word, “Talk.”

“She wanted to help the people of Locksley. She thought if Sir Guy forgot her, he’d stop beating everyone and drinking, so -“

“So, she went to Locksley.” She had been so happy this morning. Robin thought it was because they were married. A whisper in him wonders if it was because she knew she was going to see him.

Allan breaks the news gently, “He killed her.”

“No,” Matilda could not have so misread Gisborne. Shaking her head side to side. “No, he wouldn’t have harmed a hair on her head. He was a great dragon guarding his very life the way he hovered over her while she was abed.”

“I’m going to strangle you if you don’t shut it!” Robin loses his mind to doubts solidified, “The truth is my Marian died in the Holy Land. On the day she married him. He got to her. He changed her and any feelings she once had for me.”

“No, Robin. Anyone could look at you two together and know she was yours.”

Much. His ever faithful friend. “Why did she want to forget him then? Because she had fallen for him! I let my jealousy put her to the test. I lost. But because of him, because of what he is and what he has done, any chance I had to make it up to my wife, to win her back, is dead!”