Previously...
“Here.” Gisborne places a bloody hand on my shoulder. I swat it away. “No, here,” he says, holding the ring in front of my face, minus its leather strap.
I sink back onto my haunches and Guy squats in front of me and presses the tiny jewel into my dirty, bleeding hand.
“You really should take more care of this,” he says, reaching out and touching my face, the pads of his fingers as soft as a highborn girl’s fingers. He swipes the corner of my mouth with his thumb and it comes away bloody. “Snap,” he says, touching his own mouth by way of explanation and smiling.
I stare into his eyes, thinking how similar in colour they are to Marian’s, and return the smile.
The fight is over almost before it began. A token gesture to our long held hatred. Just something we needed to do.
It is only as we come to our feet that we see the girl.
Chapter 15
I have no idea how long she’s been standing there, watching us punching and kicking each other.
She looks to be about eight or nine summers, childishly plump, with waves of brunette hair cascading down to her waist. Her eyes, which are presently staring at us in both fascination and bewilderment, are as blue as the summer skies. I notice she is holding a twist of woven grasses in her hands.
Her bow-shaped lips part, as if to speak, and I anticipate the soft lilt of her native tongue. I give what I hope is an encouraging smile, but she quickly presses her lips together and simply continues to stare.
“Marianne! Marianne!”
The girl turns sharply, back towards the farmstead. “Je viens,mère!”
She turns back to me, stares straight into my eyes. My chest tightens, squeezing the breath out of me.
She could be my daughter – our daughter.
If only Marian had lived.
If only I had saved her.
If only I had not become an outlaw.
If only I had not gone to war.
If only—
“Marianne! L'heure du souper. ”
The girl drops the grasses and runs.
~
I had not known Marian at this age; she had already passed four and ten when I first met her. And she had not stared at me in fascination or bewilderment, but rather with disdain, an expression she became very adept at over the years, growing up alongside my childish pranks and occasionally idiotic behaviour. But she’d had the same thick, wavy locks, the same bow-shaped mouth and her eyes were the same perfect blue: not of foreign skies, but the summers of home; the summer skies that bathed the trees of Sherwood Forest, where we would meet whenever we managed to escape from the chaperones and Muches of this world.
We had a favourite tree; The Kissing Tree I used to call it. It should have more rightly been called the ‘missing tree’ or the ‘Robin makes another big mistake tree’, since it seemed to be the focal point for many of the blunders I made with Marian over the years.
We used to meet under its wide canopy of branches. We used to flirt under it, tease each other under it and, sometimes, fight under it. It was the tree where I once foolishly tried to spy on her for a lark and had broken my wrist when the branch I was sitting on snapped off. It was the tree where I showed off my bow skills to impress her, where I failed to tell her how much she really meant to me, and where I told her I was leaving to go fight alongside King Richard in the Holy Land, perhaps my biggest mistake of all. If I had paid more attention to the things she was trying to tell me, I might never have gone to war. But I didn’t pay much attention to anyone in those days.
I had everything I wanted – almost everything. With my father long dead there was no one to tell me what to do and were it not for Thornton and, to a lesser degree, Much, I might well have joked and pranked my way through life. Yes, I had everything I wanted – everything except Marian.
Our tree; the biggest oak in the forest. It’s where I first tried to kiss her. Marian had wanted to talk and I, as usual, wasn’t listening. She wanted to talk about injustices that were occurring even before Vaisey came along and turned our world upside down. Because there will always be injustices in the world and even at that tender age she understood these things, was already the Marian I came to know and love.
Eventually, I did pay her heed. So much so, that when the call to arms came, I ignored her silent plea for me to stay, failed to recognise her needs above my own and left to go and change the world. And, yes, I did want glory and adventure; no one re-invents himself overnight and I still had a lot to learn. But I went a step too far in trying to prove myself to her and I lost her because of it.
~
I clutch the ring in my dirty, bleeding hand.
That’s where I’m going to take you, Marian, I think. Back to our tree, in Sherwood. Back to The Kissing Tree.
I turn towards Gisborne. He is staring in the direction the girl had run, his back to me.
“We’re going home, to Nottingham,” I tell him. “You and me. I’m going to keep my promise to Marian and finish what we started. And you’re going to help me.”
He grunts in acknowledgement, but makes no move to turn around and face me.
“You are the way we can get to Prince John,” I continue. “He trusts you, thinks you’re on his side. You’re going to be our man on the inside, our spy.”
“I can’t—”
“No excuses, Gisborne. If you want to come with me, then you play by my rules.”
“You’re going to use me?” he says, still facing away from me.
“I think it’s the least you can do.”
“And when it’s over?” he asks.
I brush away the bits of grass in my hair and on my clothes, replacing them instead with streaks of soil and blood. “I haven’t decided yet.”
Gisborne turns to face me. He’s crying. Now it is my turn to stare in bewildered fascination.
“You should kill me,” he says, “when it’s over, when you have what you want, because I don’t have the courage to do it myself.” He walks to his sword, picks it up and sheathes it. Then he walks to the spot where the girl had stood, bends and picks up the grasses she’d been holding.
I watch as he sinks to his knees, rolling the crudely woven plait of grass between his hands and muttering something under his breath, something in the tongue of the little girl, in the tongue of his mother. Then he says something else, in English, directed at me.
“I didn’t want to...I didn’t mean to—” He falters.
“What?” I ask.
“I didn’t mean to kill her. I just wanted to stop her saying the things she was saying.”
“I know,” I tell him, recalling Richard’s blow-by-blow account of Guy and Marian’s exchange of words.
Standing, he wipes his face and begins walking towards the farmhouse, the woven grasses still gripped in his sword hand.
“I still hate you,” I whisper to his retreating back.
But it doesn’t feel like hate, not any more.
~
“Blimey. What happened to you two?” Allan asks, a cup halfway to his mouth.
Much leaps to his feet and I wave him down. “We had a fight.” I sit on an upturned barrel.
John growls, reaches for his staff.
“No, John. It’s over. Leave it be.”
I turn to Guy and motion him to sit. He eyes John, Much and Allan in turn and then gingerly perches on the edge of a wooden bench, as far away from everyone as possible.
There are breads, meats and cheeses laid out on a makeshift table, as well as some cups and two large jugs; one of ale, one of wine.
I pick up a trencher, place some bread and meat on it and hand it to Guy.
“Thank you.” He starts eating, wincing when the food touches his split lip. “Maybe just a drink,” he says.
I pour him a cup of wine and one for myself. My friends glance between Guy and me, as though they expect us to leap up at any moment, fists flying.
Allan breaks the awkward moment by saying, “Anyone want to play happy families?” He produces his tatty parchment rectangles from inside his shirt.
I catch Guy’s eye and smile. He smiles back.
~
After supper, I leave the gang in the barn playing Kings and Queens and make my way outside. Dark grey clouds are scurrying across the evening sky and I guess that we are in for more rain, maybe another storm. Guy is sitting, his back to the barn’s wall, staring at the field where we fought, now nothing more than a shadowy smudge in the setting sun.
Sliding down the wall, I place the wine jug and two cups between us. I pour Guy a drink and he silently accepts it. Then I pour one for myself. I deserve a drink tonight, I think, to celebrate. Guy and I have come to a truce, I’ve made a plan, and Marian’s ring is back where it belongs, around my neck, on a new leather strap provided by our generous host.
The girl, Marianne, is chasing some errant chickens from the farmhouse door. I glance at Gisborne. Even in the waning light, I can make out his wretchedness.
Thinking he would rather be alone, I push off from the wall. Gisborne whips his head around. He thrusts my empty cup into my hands. “Drink?” he rasps, as if daring me not to.
I nod and resume sitting against the wall. He pours me a cup of wine, close to overflowing.
Wordlessly, we watch the girl shooing the last of the chickens back to their coop. Then, on hearing her mother’s call for bed, she hurries into the house.
“What did you do?” Guy asks.
“When?”
“Afterwards?”
I don’t need to ask what he’s referring to. “I drank,” I reply, staring into my cup.
“As did I.” He stares into his own cup. “What if it had been you?” he says.
“Sorry?”
“What if she’d been mine and you were the one who killed her?”
“I wouldn’t.”
Guy takes a swig of wine and turns to me. “No, you wouldn’t, would you. That’s what makes you the better man.”
“I’ve done some not so good things in my life,” I say.
We turn back to the farmstead and the empty yard, lost in our own thoughts.
I yawn. I feel dopey, my limbs heavy. I think I’m a little bit drunk. I’m not surprised since, apart from the few mouthfuls I ate at supper, I’ve not eaten today, choosing to break my fast with a cup of ale and practising with my bow during the midday meal.
It reminds of a time when, much drunker than this, I had sat under a blazing sun, debating whether to get on the boat or to tell the gang to go to Hell. Now, here I am, sitting with Gisborne of all people.
The barn’s hard wood pressing into my back brings a memory to mind: a slashed wolf’s-head tattoo, a ring tossed onto a leafy forest floor, a fight and the woman I loved chastising me.
“Everything is a choice, Guy. Everything we do.”
“What?” he asks, his eyes still fixed on the farmstead.
I can picture Marian standing over me, hands on hips, that familiar look of disdain on her face. And me, slumped against a tree, battered and bruised after a vicious slogging match with Gisborne, over a tattoo and all that it represented. Me, spouting patriotic words that meant nothing to my friends, who feared only for Djaq’s life. I had begged them to see the bigger picture, but eventually I had come to see it was the smaller picture that mattered most.
Marian had saved King Richard from almost certain death by standing in front of him as a crazed Gisborne wielded his sword. She had sacrificed herself for the bigger picture and in doing so she had lost her life. And I had stopped caring about the bigger picture, about England. Because in the end it had all come down to that small patch of sand in a town called Emmaus, where my wife lost her life, and where I lost everything.
I steal a glance at Gisborne. Where we both lost everything.
“Everything is a choice,” I repeat. “Something Marian once said to me.”
“Oh?”
“And I figure we have a choice. Either we carry on trying to kill one another, or we work together to try to right the wrongs in England. It was what she died for. Don’t you think we owe her that much?”
When Guy doesn’t answer, I tap him on the shoulder. “Drink?”
He holds out his cup and I fill it.
“To England,” I say, raising my cup.
“To Marian,” Guy says, raising his.
~
I awake, shivering. It takes me a moment to realise I’m still outside. It’s drizzling. The empty wine jug is lying next to my elbow. I crawl to the barn door, ease my way in and continue crawling past the sleeping gang. No one stirs. I keep crawling until I hit a pile of hay at the back of the barn. Thinking a pile of hay will be a good place to spend what’s left of the night, I start to claw my way up it.
My first attempt ends with me thumping onto the barn floor, a sprinkling of hay falling on top of me. I hold my breath, but no one awakes. Perhaps they’ve all been at the wine as well, I think. I try again and this time I make it to the top only to find myself tumbling down the other side.
“Hood! I thought we’d said our goodnights.” Guy rolls me off him. “What are you doing here anyway?”
“I’m trying to sleep,” I say. “What are you doing here?”
“The same as you. Now push off. I got here first.”
“There’s enough room for both of us,” I tell him. I sit, think about tugging off my boots, change my mind and flop back onto the hay.
“Locksley?”
“No, I’m not going to tell you a bedtime story. Go to sleep.”
“I was going to say...”
“What?” I open one eye and regard him.
“Us.”
“What about us?”
“You and me. Here. Don’t you think the good sheriff would turn in his watery grave? I mean, the legendary Robin Hood and Vaisey’s master-at-arms, sleeping side by side.”
“Gisborne, you’re drunk.” But I have to admit, he does have a point.
I close my eyes and shuffle as far away from him as the small space will allow.
“What’s the matter, Locksley? Frightened I might jump you in the night?”
“You wouldn’t be the first.” I am thinking of Much, pressing his warm body into my back while I wept for my darling Marian. But my disquiet had been misplaced. Much simply cares for me and Gisborne would never understand, not in a million years. Guilt clogs my throat. If there is one thing I am going to get right on this interminable journey home, it is to make friends with Much again.
“There’s so much I don’t know about you, isn’t there, Locksley.”
“Gisborne?”
“It’s Guy.”
“And I’m Robin, or Brat Face, or Lick Bottom, or whatever you want to call me.”
“Ha! I’d forgotten about that.”
“Go to sleep,” I say.
“You too, Brat Bottom Lick Face.”
I take a swipe at his outstretched arm, miss. I push up on my elbows. There’s a sliver of moonlight coming through a broken board in the barn wall. It traces a pale line on his face. Amazingly, he’s already asleep.
“Goodnight, Guy,” I whisper.
I awake the following morning with a pounding head, but, strangely, a lighter heart.
However, it’s not until we are saddling the horses that I realise Gisborne’s dark brown mare is not among them.
He has gone.