Everything is a Choice

Chapter 19

Previously...

Guy places a hand on my shoulder in a gesture of understanding. I turn and stare at his long, slim fingers with impossibly clean nails, resting on my worn and filthy shirt. 

I should swat his hand away.  I don't want his pity.  But I don't.  Instead, something akin to desire swoops low in my stomach.  How can this be? I think, sickened. A memory of a terrible time dances in front of my eyes when, drunk and grieving, I had listened to something I would rather not have heard coming from the cabin next to Much's and mine. Yet, even as I have this thought, and as Guy's hand slides from my shoulder, the want does not go away. 

"Can I come with you?" he asks.

I know what he means.  He means back to England, to Nottingham; but right now, I cannot help but wonder if I am on the road to Hell.

~

Book 3 - Home

"Are you all right?" Much asks, for what seems like the umpteenth time.

You're the closest I'll ever get to Marian. That's what Gisborne had said.  Now I think I understand. And it frightens the hell out of me. 

I had put my unholy thoughts and desires down to exhaustion, to grief, to an overwhelming need to lose myself in something or someone. Even so, the moment we walked down the gangplank onto dry land, I told Guy I had changed my mind about him being our spy and that I wanted him to go. I didn't care where, as long as it wasn't Nottingham. He did not put up any resistance.  Perhaps what had happened or, more rightly, nearly happened in the shadowy alleyway in Le Havre had frightened him too.

My friends think it's because of Marian and I am content to let them think that. After all, the closer we get to Nottingham, the more likely it is that my grief over her death will reassert itself. They cannot know how wrong they are.

~

Leaving our horses tethered on the edge of Sherwood Forest, and checking no one is about, we emerge from the trees and look towards Nottingham. With its surrounding walls, we can only see rooftops, but the castle, built on a hill, is in plain sight.

"Not being funny, but can anyone see what I'm seeing?"

Atop every turret is a pennant, flying Prince John's colours.

"I can't believe I'm saying this," Allan says, "but I think I'd sooner see Vaisey and his hapless guards than that.  If Prince John's men are half as good as I've heard tell, then we're in big trouble."

Nottingham Castle. That great stone fortress where we spent so much of our time trying to break in to and out of.  That fortress where Allan and Will nearly lost their lives, shortly after my return to Nottingham.  And later, where Djaq almost lost hers, because I lost sight of what was important in my desire to punish Gisborne for the traitor he was.  That fortress where Marian had spent so much of her time, living her duplicitous life, attempting to help me and, at the same time, pretending to care for Gisborne.

But it wasn't all pretence, was it, Marian?  It couldn't have been.

"What do you think, Robin?" John asks.

"I'll admit it doesn't look good. We'll find out what's been going on in Nottingham soon enough. Right now, I want to go to Locksley, see what's happened to my village." I slide my bow back onto my shoulder. A bow-maker in Portsmouth made it for me and it's a fine weapon, but I miss my Saracen bow. I wonder if the ruined weapon is still lying in the alleyway where I left it, too choked by my heinous desire to get up close and personal with Guy to remember my own name let alone pick up the shattered pieces of bow. It was beyond repair in any case, much as my first childhood bow was irreparable after my father destroyed it.