All the Time in the World (English)

Chapter 11 - The Glittering Tooth

Guy glanced up at the sign of the inn, stared at it for a while, then he turned to Alicia.
"Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem? Is this a joke?"
"No, it's the oldest inn in Nottingham, in all England, actually."
Guy shook his head, incredulous.
"The castle no longer exists, yet this old hovel is still standing!"
"Don't let people hear you call it like that, they wouldn't like it. It's a tourist attraction, now."
"What?"
"People come from far away to visit it."
"To visit an inn?"
"Sure. Shall we go inside? I booked a table."
Alicia made her way into the inn, and Guy followed her, looking around.
"It's completely different from how I remembered it," he said in a low voice.
"Have you been here already?"
"I've seen it opening, if you want to know. I was there, when the sheriff signed the concession for an inn just outside the castle walls. The owner paid a good deal of gold coins to have the permits to start his business."
"How was it, then?"
"I told you, a kind of hovel, frequented by knaves of all kinds."
Guy took the menu and opened it, pretending to look at it to avoid Alicia's gaze.
"Here, I ruined a man's life," he confessed in a low voice and the woman looked at him for a moment before replying.
Guy kept his gaze down, and he looked to be ashamed of what he had just said, but Alicia realized that he was expecting a question from her to continue telling that story.
"How did you do that?"
"Allan was one of Robin Hood's comrades, a cheeky thief. One day I surprised him while he was trying to cheat people right here, with one of those ridiculous tricks that could only fool the idiots."
"Did you arrest him?"
"Yes. He was an outlaw, Robin Hood's companion, and I had discovered him while cheating on the customers of the tavern. The sheriff would have flogged me if I'd let him go."
"Did you execute him?"
Guy shook his head.
"No. Maybe it would have been better if I did. More right, surely."
Alicia looked at him, frowning.
"How can it be right to hang someone just because he is a cheat?"
"He wouldn't have been hanged for that reason, but because he was an outlaw, an accomplice to Robin Hood. The sheriff had decreed that the fight against the outlaws was a real war, and that the sentence was death, without even a process. If I had hanged Allan-a-Dale, I would just have applied the law."
"Allan-a-Dale? The minstrel?"
Guy looked at her, confused.
"What?"
"In the legend of Robin Hood, it's how Allan-a-Dale is described: a wandering minstrel who joins the outlaws' gang."
Guy let out an ironic laugh.
"Well, they're wrong. The only times I heard Allan singing was when he was completely drunk, and believe me, the screams of a cat in love were more enjoyable to hear than him."
"Am I wrong or that outlaw became your friend? When you talk about him, you use the same tone you have when you tell me about Robin."
Guy nodded briefly.
"Yes, but it would have been better for him if he had kept hating me."
"Why? What did you do to him?"
"When I arrested him, I ordered to torture him and then I tempted him, I convinced him to work for me, offering him the option of choosing between a painful death and wealth."
"That's not a choice."
"I know. However, Allan started working for me. At first he gave me informations, and then he became my assistant when his friends discovered him and kicked him out of the gang... Finally he went back with them, but they never forgot his betrayal. When there was a suspicion on his loyalty, no one believed him. He died thinking that everyone hated him..."
Guy stopped talking and Alicia touched his hand.
"If I knew, I wouldn't have brought you here. It wasn't my intention to awaken bad memories."
Guy shook his head.
"It's not your fault if I have done so many horrible actions. Remorse is the burden I deserve for what I did."
"I'm still sorry."
"I am not. I can only talk of my friends with you, without being considered crazy. Remembering them is painful, but at the same time it's a comfort. When I tell you about the people I love, it's as if they still live, at least for those few moments. Do you know, Alicia? I'm still wondering what's the sense of all this, if there is a reason why I survived. Sometimes I have the impression that I am still in this world to remember them, to be a witness of their lives."
"I'm always willing to listen, you know."
Gisborne smiled at her, grateful, and he pointed at the menu.
"I wonder if Allan would have liked this new version of the inn. Once, there wasn't so much choice of food, and often there was no choice at all: the inn served the same dishes to everyone, however many of the customers, including Allan, came here mainly for drinking or for the maids. But I think that now they wouldn't let him play his tricks to cheat people..."
"I don't think they would allow it, in fact. What do you want to eat?"
"You choose for me, I don't know many of these ingredients."
Alicia nodded.
"Is there some food you don't like?"
"The only important thing is that it's not like what they served in the castle's dungeons."
"Why? What did they serve?"
"Moldy bread, full of worms too," Guy said with a grin.
"Now you're kidding me, right?"
"I'm afraid I'm not. I spent a lot of time there, on both sides of the bars. I can assure with certainty that the food there left much to be desired."
"They gave you spoiled food?"
"I ate even worse things in my life. Anything you decide to order will be fine."