Everything is a Choice

Chapter 3

I eye Allan’s clothes.

“Deckhand,” Allan explains.  “It seems the sheriff’s holed up in the captain’s cabin, sick as a dog.  The captain speaks good English, by the way.  Apparently, the sheriff and Gisborne are not exactly on speaking terms, and Gisborne is sleeping somewhere else on the boat.  With the crew I think.”

“Does the sheriff know we’re on board?”

“I don’t think so, at least not yet.  What do you think we should do?”

“Just lie low for now. I need to think.”

“Look, not being funny, Robin, but it’s going to be pretty hard keeping out of both Vaisey and Gisborne’s way.  In case you haven’t noticed, we’re on a fairly small boat in the middle of a very big sea.”

“I’ll think of something.”

Falling back on the bed, I shut my eyes, and Allan and John take it as a hint that the matter is closed, for now at least. I wait until I hear the soft click of the cabin door and then look at Much. 

He folds his arms across his chest, a resolute expression on his face. “I won’t let you do it.”

“You can’t stop me.” I ease myself up and pull my boots from under the bed.  My head is still pounding, and there is a disconcerting pain in my right hip, but I’m not about to let that get in the way of what I have to do. 

As I drag my bow and quiver out from under the bed, Much flings himself dramatically across the cabin door. “No!”

“I have to do this. You know that.”  With trembling fingers, I buckle on my quiver.

“No, you don’t.  We don’t kill.  You don’t kill.  Not even Gisborne.” 

It seems Much has deliberately chosen to forget my little killing spree when Marian lay injured in the poxy cave, as he called it.

“What?  Did you think I would go back to England and let Gisborne live?  That I would not kill him?”

“Yes, I mean, no, but I thought we had weeks, if not months, and that you’d cool down, change your mind.”

“I will never change my mind about this.  Besides, what was that in the Holy Land, if not killing?”

“It was different. We were at war. It was in the name of the king. We were defending the king. This is different. This is personal.”

“Damn right it is!”

“No, please, Master.  It’ll change you.”

“As if I haven’t changed.”

“Please.” Much kneels in front of me, his grey-blue eyes awash with tears. “It’ll eat away at you, and you’ll never forgive yourself.  What would Marian say if—”

“Don’t!  Don’t use her to change my mind.” 

“I couldn’t bear it if you changed.  I couldn’t live with you.”

“Then live without me!” Whipping up my bow, I smack him across the temple.  I don’t have the energy to catch him. “Live without me,” I whisper, stepping over his crumpled body and opening the cabin door.

Slipping unseen along the boat’s narrow corridors, I bite back my tears. Much will understand.  In the end, he will understand.  He loves me, after all.

I recall his hand in mine and how he had pressed into my back, and I guiltily wonder whether I’ve been reading him wrong all this time and how far his love for me really goes. Don’t be stupid, Robin.  How could he not care for you after all these years?  But it is an unnerving thought.