All the Time in the World (English)

Chapter 8 - My Place in This World

Guy could feel the wind raging around him, but its frosty fingers didn't touch him, as if there was an invisible veil between him and the rest of the world, separating him from the rest.
He was up on top of one of the castle towers, and he was waiting.
A yellow dot appeared on the horizon, flying over the villages, and, even from that distance, Guy could almost see the peasants of Locksley, of Knighton, and of Clun, raising their heads from their work in the fields to watch it pass . Every time it was flying over a village, the helicopter flew lower and Robin and his gang leaned out of its side door to throw out coins and supplies.
"Always the usual show-off," Guy said, his mouth curved in an amused smile.
"Gisborne!"
That scream at his back, so familiar, made him shudder.
Guy turned his gaze away from the helicopter, and he turned slowly, terrified, but ready to fight.
The sheriff was standing in front of him with his hawk on his wrist.
"You're a traitor, Gisborne. I raised you, I lifted you from the road mud, and are you ready to betray me like that? You were almost like a son for me, and instead you rebelled. Everything for that woman who is not even yours. You have never listened to me, Gizzy: women are like lepers and you should keep away from them."
"Don't talk about her."
"You can't have her. You never had a hope. You should have caught her, forced her, and in the end she would have obeyed you. This is how you deal with rabid dogs. I did so with you."
"But this dog has bitten you, in the end."
"And I killed him."
Guy looked at the landscape that he could see from the top of the tower: the Nottingham he remembered mixed with the city of the future, with its black streets and its horseless wagons.
"But I'm still alive and you're just dust."
"Do you think this is enough to make you free? Do you think you can get rid of me?"
"You've been dead for eight centuries, what can you do to me, now?"
"I'm in your heart. I am the evil that nests within you, the fault that will drag you to hell. You did horrible things, Gizzy, what would they think of you when they find out?"
"I didn't want to! You were the one who made me do them!"
"But it was also convenient for you to have the power. To obey and then saying that it was my fault was easier, isn't it? It was a convenient way to get rid of your conscience, but you did those things. You killed your leper!"
Guy turned his back to him and looked at the approaching helicopter.
"I don't want to listen to you. Stop poisoning my heart."
He reached out to the sky: he didn't want to stay there with Vaisey, he wanted Robin to save him from that situation. He could see Robin sitting in the pilot's seat with Archer and Allan beside him, confident and smiling, and the others in the back, all together, a family full of warmth.
"Come and get me! Take me with you!" He shouted and the helicopter moved toward him, filling his heart with hope.
Guy stood on the parapet of the tower, raising his hands. Robin would grab him and bring him to safety, away from danger.
Then Vaisey launched the hawk and the bird of prey flew high in the sky, becoming bigger and bigger. When he reached the helicopter, he was now so huge that he could grab it with a claw.
He did so, grasping it in flight, like a pigeon, crushing the aircraft and all that it contained, then he opened his claws and dropped the twisted scrap of metal to the ground.
Guy looked at the scene with horror, then, just a moment later, the sheriff pushed him into the void.

He landed on the floor with a thud, pulling a pillow and a blanket with him, and, a moment later, Robin Hood's book hit him on his head and fell to the ground in front of him. Guy remained silent for a moment, panting with terror.
"It was a nightmare..." He whispered.
The drawing of the archer dressed in green stared at him from the cover of the book and seemed to laugh at him.
The real Robin would have done it for sure, Guy thought, as he got up and sat on the floor. The fall had been painful and probably he got some new bruises, but he knew that he wasn't really hurt.
The dream, however, had left him with a sense of terror and disgust for himself. The sheriff's words had been as bad as ever, he was just trying to hurt him, but how could Guy deny them?
He had done those things. He had killed Marian.
The doctors and nurses in the hospital were all kind to him, but how would they treat him if they had seen him work for Vaisey? How could they accept what he had done for the sheriff?
Those people were dedicated to saving lives, how could they tolerate a man who had killed, mutilated and starved other people just because it was his job?
He picked up the book and put it in his lap, opening it to the illustration of Guy of Gisborne. He looked at the cruel traits of Robin Hood's enemy, his fierce expression, contorted by hatred, and he thought that even that representation was better than him. That enemy, at least, was consistent in his cruelty, embraced his wickedness and glorified it.
He, however, had obeyed passively, without wondering whether what he was doing was right or not, because it was simpler. It was easy to obey and think that it wasn't his fault because the sheriff was giving orders, too easy to forget that it was his hand that killed and hurt people.
Guy closed his eyes with a sigh, leaning his back on the side of the bed and hugging his knees.
That position reminded him of the time he had spent in the dungeons of the castle, waiting to be executed by his sister's hand. Then, he had spent his days in the darkness, sitting in a corner with his back resting on the bars of the cell, alone, hated and forgotten by everyone.
When they told him that he was going to be executed, he had been afraid, then he had thought that death wouldn't change anything; he was destined to hell and he was already there.
It had been Meg who shook him from that apathy. Meg, the innocent and determined girl who had risked everything to save his life and eventually lost her own.
Another victim of his mistakes.
Remembering her was sweet and painful in the same way.
Like a falling star, Meg had crossed his life, illuminating it for a moment, enough to show him the right path.
Before she died, she had asked him for a kiss and he didn't want to give it to her. He couldn't contaminate her innocence with his black soul, he wasn't worthy of being the subject of that first, tender love, but in the end he had granted her wish, and he had touched her lips with the same reverence that he could have reserved for a sacred relic.
She was just an innocent girl and that chaste kiss had made her happy. Meg had slipped into death smiling, serene in his arms.
She wasn't in the book, her memory had disappeared with her death because she wasn't important to Robin Hood's gang. Meg hadn't shared adventures with them, she wasn't the woman of one of the heroes, she wasn't part of the story.
She was just a young woman, a pure soul who had offered some comfort to a sinner, and the world had forgotten about her.
"You were important. I remember you..." Guy whispered. "...and I'll always do."
He closed the book and got up from the floor, collecting the blanket and the pillow to hide every trace of that humiliating fall.
He decided that he shouldn't listen to the sheriff's words, no matter how true they could sound.
Vaisey was a devil and his only pleasure was to hurt others, but Guy wouldn't let him.
He was dead, dust scattered in the wind, and he would no longer hurt anyone.
Guy opened the small wardrobe in the corner of the room and took clean clothes, marveling once again of the apparent abundance of that time. Alicia had brought him another black gym suit identical to the first one, several t-shirts, underwear and other clothes he could wear when he went to sleep.
When he lived at the castle, only noble and wealthy families had more than one or two different clothes, the others, the village peasants, always wore the same dress or tunic if they were so lucky to have a decent one.
He had always preferred to change at least his shirt when he sweated or when he rode for a long time in the dust of the road. At Locksley, he had a pair of spare jackets to alternate when the one he was wearing was too dirty. The servants, he knew, often criticized him for what they considered the whim of a nobleman and they grumbled when they thought he didn't hear them. Their mood got even worse when Guy ordered them to warm up the water for a bath, thinking that he bathed too often, forcing them to do so much work.
Instead, eight centuries later, possessing many clothes was normal for anyone, and if he wanted to bathe, it wasn't necessary to disturb reluctant servants.
That, Guy thought, was a pleasant side of the twenty-first century.
He opened the shower faucet and let the water run, and he took off the clothes he had used to sleep, pausing to look at his figure in the mirror.
He was still pale and too thin, and the scar on his belly was a bright red sign, perfectly visible on his white skin. He couldn't see his back, but he knew that the other two scars had to have more or less the same unpleasant look.
Guy brushed the scar with a finger, just touching it. He remembered the terrible pain that had pierced him when Vaisey had ran him through with the sword, and how that blow had taken his breath away.
He had barely felt Isabella's blow, in comparison, her blade sinking into a body already paralyzed by pain.
His legs had suddenly given way and he had collapsed to the ground, unable to get up. It had been that weakness to make him realize that it was over, that it was a deadly wound and that he wouldn't see a new day.
But a prodigious event had saved his life, though Guy couldn't understand why that miracle had happened to him.
There must be a reason for that. There must be some reason why I'm here.
He went into the shower, closing his eyes as the hot water flowed on his body and face, washing away the last traces of the nightmare.
Vaisey had failed to kill him, and he shouldn't allow his malignity to hurt him. Perhaps his words were true and Guy's conscience was sullied by many sins that couldn't be washed away, but those evil actions belonged to the past and he had a new future ahead of him.
His life had been saved, and it was a precious gift that he shouldn't waste. Guy swore to himself that he would search for a purpose, a reason to be worthy of that miracle.
To do this, he had to learn to know this new world that was so different from his own, and he had to adapt to live in it, even if it wasn't going to be easy.
He passed his hand over his face to push his wet hair back and he looked at the plastic bottles lined up on a shelf. He tried to remember which of those substances had to be used to wash the body and which on was for the hair, and he squeezed the shampoo bottle, pouring some of it on his hand.
He smelled that colored liquid before putting it on his hair, and he thought that such a substance, in his Nottingham, would only be suitable for a wealthy nobleman. Even the material of the bottle, they called it 'plastic', was amazing and it was used in many different ways, but, just like the clothes, at that time it seemed to be incredibly common.
Guy finished washing, lingering under the stream of warm water only for the pleasure of doing so, then he wrapped himself in a soft towel and he used another one to rub his hair before getting dressed.
This time, he had chosen a blue shirt to wear under his black tracksuit and it seemed strange to him to wear a garment of such a bright and brilliant color.
He looked different from the Guy of Gisborne who had worked for the sheriff and he thought that he probably was different. To die and to return to life had changed him, even though he was not sure he understood how.
For the better, I hope. Also because becoming worse than I was would be difficult.
He went back to the room, and sat on the bed, then he got up again to look out the window. His room overlooked on an inner courtyard and he could only see the windows of the other wing of the building, almost all of them dark because it was still night-time.
Perhaps he should go back to sleep, he thought, but in the last few days he had slept so much that he now wasn't sleepy at all, and then he was afraid that he could dream Vaisey again.
He looked at the book resting on the bedside table, but he didn't want to spend the rest of the night reading the adventurous stories of Robin Hood's gang, not when he missed them so much.
He found himself walking back and forth in the room, and that movement made him remember the days he had spent in the dungeons when he couldn't sleep and he had nothing else to do except wandering without purpose in the narrow space of his cell.
He glanced at the door and realized that this time he wasn't locked in a prison. Nobody had ever forbidden him to leave his room, if not his own fears.
He approached the door and put his hand on the handle, then he pulled it toward him and stepped past the threshold.
The corridor was desert at that hour of the night and Guy looked around, uncomfortable, expecting to be stopped and sent back to his room.
A nurse passed by, coming out of one of the other rooms, and she gave him an amazed look.
"It's everything all right, Guy? You can't sleep?"
"No, I'm not sleepy."
The girl smiled.
"I can believe that! You have done nothing but sleeping in the last few days," she said cheerfully, "I'm not surprised at you being awake, now. But it's strange to see you out of your room, usually you burrow in there all day long."
"I wanted to see what's out here."
The nurse saw the light of a call turning on, and she apologized to Guy.
"I have to go. Feel free to explore the surroundings, but don't make noise, the other patients are sleeping. And remember that if you need me, I'm around here."
The girl went away quickly and Guy looked at her until she was gone.
Guy took a few steps down the corridor, looking at the closed doors of the other rooms. From one of them came a groan, followed by a desperate cry. A voice sobbed that he wanted to go away from there, he wanted to go home.
Gisborne listened to it for a moment, then he walked away, pensive. Until then, he had never thought of the people who were in the other rooms, he had never stopped thinking that he wasn't the only one who had been injured, and that behind those doors there were real people, suffering for some reason.
That hospital, which seemed a safe haven and a welcoming place to him, for others was a tremendous place, a place they wanted to escape, a place of pain and torment.
With a sigh, he moved away from that door.
He remembered Alicia's words and he reached the window at the far end of the corridor, wondering if he would be able to see one of the wagons without horses.
He waited for a while, looking out the window: it was night, but the road was lit up by high poles with a lamp on their top, and occasionally a car passed, with the lights on.
Guy looked at the cars, astonished at the idea that a vehicle could go so fast without being towed by horses. It was definitely a useful and important invention, but he missed the sound of the hooves on the pavement, the neighs coming from the stables and the smell of the horses, which once pervaded every place inhabited by man and which now was completely absent.
An ambulance passed, sparkling with colored lights and faster than the other cars, breaking the silence of the night with a sound similar to the cry of a banshee, and Guy looked at it, no longer frightened.
It was a new, completely new world, and he wasn't crazy, now he knew for sure, but he realized that if he had been mad, things would have been simpler, and that the most difficult times were still to come.
To find his purpose in that life that had been donated to him, Guy had to learn to live in this time, to make up for eight centuries of oblivion as quickly as possible.
He stepped away from the window and he went back down the corridor, looking around and trying to figure out what was yet unknown to him, to ask for explanations to Alicia or Dr. Jack later.
He came to a room that contained some tables and some chairs lined up against the wall. In a corner, on a small table, there were some jugs and glasses, and there were two strange appliances close to it, similar to small wardrobes with buttons and lights on them. One of them had a transparent wall and, inside it, Guy recognized the chocolate bars that Alicia gave to him, but it seemed that there was no way to take them.
In the other corner of the room, hanging high on the wall, there was one of those luminous panels that showed moving images. When he had followed Jack Robinson on the roof to see the helicopter, in the corridors and on the desk of the nurses, Guy had seen some of them working, but that one was turned off.
Guy approached, looking at the black and still surface of the screen and he wondered how it worked.
He had been there for a while, when the nurse he had met earlier entered the room together with a colleague.
"Oh, you're here, Guy! I see you found the best place in the ward."
Gisborne approached, a little puzzled.
The girl took one of the jugs and poured herself a cup of coffee, then filled one for her colleague and one for Guy.
"When you want to drink something warm, you can come here to take tea or coffee from these kettles. You just have to be careful not to burn yourself: sometimes it can be very hot."
"And what about that? How do you open it?" Guy pointed at the snack food vending machine, and the girl giggled.
"You need some coins for that." She turned to her colleague. "Hey, John, why don't you buy us something, so we can show Guy how it works?"
The other nurse burst into a jovial laugh.
"Confess that you just want to scrounge a snack."
The girl shrugged innocently, and John put his hand in his pocket, resigned, fumbling in search of coins.
Gisborne carefully observed the steps needed to use the distributor, asking for some explanation to make sure he understood it well.
The two nurses ended drinking their coffee, chatting cheerfully, then the girl smiled at Guy.
"We need to get back to work now, do you need anything?"
Gisborne pointed at the TV.
"How does that work?"
John recovered the remote control that was on a shelf next to the TV and used it to turn it on, then he handed it to Guy.
"Too long to explain, but have fun finding out by yourself."
The two nurses came out of the room together and they walked along the corridor. As soon as they were far enough, John turned to his colleague.
"Was he the guy who believes to be a medieval knight?"
The girl giggled.
"Just him. Adorable, but completely crazy. It was strange too see him wandering around tonight, usually he is always staying into his room."
"At least this one seems to be quiet... Have I ever told you about the patient who claimed to be the reincarnation of Tutankhamon?"
"No, what did he do?"
"He kept stealing bandages from the dressing trolley, saying that he needed them for his mummification!"