“Yes,” she said, unapologetically. “It complicates things.”
“Only if I leave,” I told her.
She gripped my hand. “This path—I cannot keep you safe, Marian.”
“I’ve never been safe,” I told her. “No sense in starting now.”
The next morning, I went walking about the grounds, at an utter loss with what to do with myself. I wanted to leave and ride hard for Nottingham, but I were injured and weak, and I didn’t want to leave until Eleanor were safe. So I meant to sleep and ended up walking, and I saw Margaret’s bright gown in the graveyard amidst all the gray stone and quiet.
I came up to her. She were sitting in front of a grave with a crumbling stone of a marker. “Friend of yours?” I asked.
She glanced up at me. She weren’t quite as young as I thought; maybe around my own age, just—sweeter. Newer, in some way. “Do you know who is buried here?” she asked.
It were fair clear I didn’t, since I just asked, so I sat beside her and waited for her to tell me.
“King Arthur and Guinevere,” she told me.
I frowned at the grave marker. “Shouldn’t it be more grand?”
She nodded. “Yes. It should. But they’ve been dead a very long time.”
“I wouldn’t have been buried with her,” I told her. “Guinevere was disloyal. With his best friend—the worst sort of disloyal. She buried him as sure as a knife, and took the whole of his kingdom down with her.”
She smiled. “Wouldn’t we be Guinevere in that story?”
I started to tell her I’d never be disloyal, but I wondered if that’s what it meant to marry another man, to run to another country, when my heart were firm in Rob’s chest. “No,” I told her.
She shook her head. “It’s wonderful,” she said. “Arthur—he loved her. He loved everything about her. And even when she hurt him and was cruel to him, he still loved her. It seems a precious thing, for someone to know the very worst part of you and love you anyway.”
I frowned.
“You don’t think?” she asked.
“It’s hard to argue when you say it so prettily,” I told her.
She smiled.
“And it seems strange that you’d have a care for the worst in people. You don’t seem to have much in the way of darkness,” I told her.
Her smile went watery. “That’s good, I suppose—you don’t want everyone to see your darkness, do you?”
I frowned deeper.
“That man—yesterday—” she said, halting. “He would have taken me. Moments more, he would have done it. And I wonder if my—someone would still have me if that happened.”
I looked at her. Were she betrothed? “Marriage is just about money,” I told her. “If you still had that, you’d be well enough. Unless you have a particular man.”
She bit her lip, glancing back at the abbey like someone might hear. “Saer loves me. And I love him.”
“Oh.” Rob. “Well, loving someone makes you forgive just about everything,” I told her. My chest felt tight and out of breath. “Besides, willing and unwilling are two very different forms of being disloyal.”
She shivered. “I’d never been so frightened in my life,” she whispered. “And my first worry was that somehow this whole thing made me less in his eyes.” She shook her head.
“Will you tell him?” I asked.
She nodded quick. “I can’t imagine keeping it from him.”
My thoughts ran back to the last night I saw Gisbourne alive, and how he’d tried to hurt me the same as that man tried to hurt Margaret, and how I knew then I could never tell Rob. I wondered if that meant I loved Rob less than she loved this Saer.
“I can’t imagine keeping anything from him. You know.”
“I don’t think I do.” I sighed, still remembering Rob that night, how he’d touched me and my fear had rushed away and I still hadn’t told him.
“Well, you know Saer so well,” she said, glancing around again.
“I do?”
She nodded, and her words tumbled out in a rush like a secret she’d been waiting to tell me. “He speaks so highly of you. He even gave me a knife when he heard I’d travel with the queen, in case of something just like this, even though I don’t know how to use it. I don’t even carry it with me. But he did that because he said you used one so well.”
“And I know him? He hasn’t just heard something about me?”
She laughed. “My lady, do you not know my lord Winchester’s Christian name?”
“Winchester?” I repeated. “Saer—Winchester is your Saer?”
She flushed, but smiled and nodded.
“Oh. Yes, of course, you know I know him.”
“But that wasn’t the first time you met him, was it? He said you’re beloved of his dear friend.”
Rob.
“Robin Hood,” she told me, with a grand smile, like she knew my secret. “Or Locksley, as he insists on calling him. So much less romantic!”
I stood, hampered a bit by the dress. “I don’t want to talk of . . . him,” I said. I wished it didn’t sound like a plea on my lips.
“I’m sorry!” she cried. “I didn’t mean—I just—I never get to speak about him. My father hasn’t agreed to the match, and we’re not supposed to be seen together. I can’t tell anyone, and I thought—” She stopped, and I knew I’d silenced her.
“I would like to hear of Winchester,” I told her. “He’s been an incredibly kind friend to me, and I have nothing but loyalty for him. But the other—Robin Hood—I don’t want to speak of him.” It were easier to say Robin Hood. That didn’t bring to mind Rob’s face, his eyes, his hands on my skin.
She lifted a shoulder. “I have enough to say about Saer to fill several days.”
My brows pushed together at this comment, but she didn’t notice. She simply took my hand and started to walk, chattering on about every detail of their lovely, traditional, perfect courtship. There were kisses and gifts and secret walks that were the closest they got to scandal.
There weren’t no death, no torture and nightmares and bruises and cuts. There weren’t nights when they were so close together and kept apart by a husband that would have sooner seen me dead than loved me.
“You were married, weren’t you?” she asked me, tugging on my arm. She knew I weren’t paying enough mind to her.
It weren’t really a good question to ask if she wanted me to talk more. “Yes,” I said.
“When were you engaged?”
I frowned. “A lifetime ago.” Then my frowning got worse. “You said I was married, not that I am.”
Red rose in her cheeks. “Yes. I know—I know your husband died.”
I remembered it clear, the sight of Gisbourne’s big body twisting slow in the wind. I’d felt free. And a darker emotion, when I’d realized why he died—just so the prince could use me to hurt Robin, use me to take the position of sheriff away from Rob.
Gisbourne had hurt me from the first, when I were a defiant little girl and he’d cut the scar in my cheek and marked me forever. He’d hunted me down as a thief, and he hurt me as my husband. And yet before he died, he’d told me, your unassailable loyalty and unshakable belief should have been for me. Like I should have cared for him, when all he ever wanted were to hurt me. But caring for him weren’t something he could take from me against my will.
“Saer—Winchester—he told me about him. About Lord Leaford.”
“Told you,” I repeated, my blood running cold. “What did he tell you?”
She glanced around, nervous. “I don’t know. He just told me. About Nottingham, and seeing the two of you there. And—” She started and stopped.
“And?” I demanded, stepping forward.
She stepped back, scared and open now. She were blinking fast but her eyes had tears in them. “He told me Leaford was cruel to you,” she whispered.
Cruel. I remembered that night, that awful night, when Gisbourne tried to force me, the cold promise of his hands p
ulling at my skirt and the fear. The fear worst of all, that he could steal it out of me when no one else could.
Her arm touched mine and I jerked away. “He had no right to tell you of anything I suffered at Gisbourne’s hands.”
“It was deplorable!” Margaret continued on. “Why shouldn’t he speak of a man without honor? Why shouldn’t he decry that? And Winchester—he didn’t even know you were a princess. Did your husband?”
“What does it matter?” I yelled at her, high and empty in the quiet of the graveyard. “A princess? Does that make it worse, because when a man took a blacksmith’s daughter he had a royal ring on his hand? You don’t know these things and I’m glad that you don’t, but all men are like that, Margaret. All of them. They are rotten and dying inside and some cover it up better than others.” My mind filled with thoughts of the fishwives that were crying in cold houses now, their husbands’ blood still on my hands. “Maybe we all are. Maybe we are all rotten and dark inside.”
She shook her head. “You think you’re the first to call me silly?” she asked soft. “Or foolish, or naive, or sheltered. Protected, perhaps. I have two older brothers. I’ve heard all of it before. That they stand for me against the bad things in this world. That they swallow it so I will not know its taste. And maybe that’s so. Maybe I’m lucky in that regard. But I have spent a lifetime watching people scoop up the pain for other people. And sometimes it’s genuine, and kind, and noble. But sometimes I see them do it because they are terrified of what they might be without that pain to glorify them, Lady Marian.”
I felt her eyes on me, but I didn’t look at her.
“Sometimes it’s harder to be bright when you feel the darkness inside you. Sometimes the very hardest thing is to let the pain go.”
I shook my head, and walked past her.
CHAPTER
I went back to my room and made sure my things were gathered. I wanted to leave as soon as Eleanor’s new knights arrived. In a dress, in stone walls, with the blood of a man who were just trying to feed a family on my hands—I didn’t know myself. I needed to ride. I needed to move.
Eleanor were there, waiting for me.
“Is everything all right?” I asked.
“No,” she told me. “Your speech is abysmal, your manners are worse, and we have roughly two days to change all that so that you can charm the nobility.”
I crossed my arms. “How does any of that matter?”
Eleanor’s brows lifted, drawing her chin up with them. “Marian, John never won the nobles. They don’t like him. Some of them fear him well enough, but nothing warmer. Their memories of Richard are distant and dimming. If you can win them over, you will win your war before anything is ever fought. And since I believe you intend to head for Nottingham the moment one of the aforementioned lords appear, I will do what I can.”
I didn’t move forward.
“Forget it all, if you like. Richard certainly does when it pleases him. But you will know what I have to teach.”
Drawing a breath, I moved into the room.
It were an abbey, and there weren’t anything in the room but a bed and a kneeler, so I sat beside her on the bed.
“Good,” she said. “Now, you have a natural ability that John never had. You care about people. You listen to them. He’s spent so much of his life wondering why no one pays him more mind that he forgets to listen to others.”
“You want me to listen.”
“Yes. Which includes not interrupting me, my girl. In my life, I’ve discovered people want two things—to feel important, and to feel useful. Take my knights for example. They would give their lives for mine, and they do it because they feel they have the ability to do so, and because they know their sacrifice would save my life. Important, and useful.”
“That isn’t always true,” I told her, frowning. “People want all sorts of things. Love. Forgiveness. Hope.”
“But all things come straight down to appreciation and purpose, Marian. We want our love acknowledged, returned, and we want it to make some kind of difference. We want it to change something. We want the exact same from forgiveness and hope.”
I closed my mouth.
“Make people feel important,” she told me. “And give them a way to serve a purpose. The purpose may not be to you—I’m hardly speaking of sending someone to fetch you a cloak—but a real purpose. What is your purpose, my dear?”
My shoulders lifted. “I don’t know.”
She touched my chin. “You do. Why can’t you go to Ireland? You put it so beautifully yesterday.”
“Because all I know how to do is fight to protect the things I love,” I told her, confused. “But I don’t understand.”
“That is a purpose many, many people can see themselves reflected in. If you make room for others to serve that purpose in their own way, you will be able to win the nobles and the people alike.”
I shook my head. “I don’t understand, Eleanor. All along, Prince John has hurt me because of my connection to Rob, and the way the people love him. That won’t protect me.”
“Oh, my girl,” she said soft. “You don’t see how the people love you, do you?”
Shaking my head again, I admitted, “It’s not me, Eleanor. It’s always been Rob. He’s captured their hearts from the first, and the shine just rubs off.”
She smiled like she knew something I didn’t, and nodded. “Very well, I’ll allow you your wild misconceptions for now. But the common people are by far the harder feat—listening to them, knowing what they want and helping them get it—those are difficult things. Nobles are easier. And once you win them, John won’t be able to hurt you, because you’re not only a woman, a person they are trained to protect, but you represent their own power. If a prince can lash out at you, he can harm any earl, any lord without warning. And they will protect their own just as you will.”
“They are hardly trained to protect women,” I said with a snarl. Prince John enjoyed hurting me, and de Clare, the heir to the Earldom of Hertford, took his own sick pleasure in my pain.
“Small men will always hurt things that are weaker than them,” Eleanor told me. “But they betray themselves in so doing. Richard would never hurt someone like that because he doesn’t have to.”
Weaker things. I would never be counted as such.
I pushed my shoulders back. “If this will stop small men, very well. Teach me what I need to know.”
Three days after we arrived, we received our first answer to Eleanor’s call. It were a small company of knights, headed up by the Earl of Essex.
He walked into the cloisters where Eleanor sat and I stood behind her, washed in the sun. He were a tall man dressed in blue, a color that reminded me of Rob. He were young and dark-haired, a quick sharpness in his step that spoke of a fast, sure-footed fighter.
He knelt before Eleanor, letting his cape sweep over his shoulder to pool on the ground.
“My lady Queen. Lady Norfolk, Lady Margaret,” he greeted. A courtier—that were the only way he’d know their honors so well. His eyes flicked to me, and my chin raised.
“May I introduce Lady Huntingdon,” Eleanor said, gesturing her hand at me.
He looked sharp to Eleanor.
“Huntingdon,” he repeated. “I thought those were Prince John’s lands.”
“My Richard thought to see his daughter better taken care of,” Eleanor said.
My blood rushed faster. I knew she’d do this—she told me that invoking Richard’s name would help my cause, that we needed nobles at our side before the news of my life and creation reached John—but still. Hearing my father’s name spoke as such so plain, so clear, it brought iron to my bones.
His eyes dashed to me again, and it weren’t with warmth. It were a look of danger, but he bowed his head. “My lady Huntingdon,” he greeted.
“My lord Essex,” I returned, bowing my head.
“My lady Queen, I have brought you a company of knights to answer your call. Your lack of protection was a
disgrace to us all, and I will see you safely conveyed,” he pledged her. He dashed his head down.
“Thank you,” she said. She touched her bruised cheek, and he lifted his head to watch her, a sad, vulnerable smile on her face. “It is such a welcome relief.”
“Does the vagabond that did that to you still live?” he asked, his voice a low half growl.
I looked at the ground, but Eleanor’s cool fingers slid around my arm. “No,” she said. “My granddaughter saved my very life.”
She took my half hand in hers, and I saw his eyes go to it.
“You’re Marian Fitzwalter,” he said, standing.
I pulled my hand away from Eleanor. “I was.” Though true in a strict sense, I’d never once called myself “Marian Gisbourne,” and I weren’t about to speak the words now.
He frowned. “I have heard much of your . . . deeds, my lady,” he said.
Eleanor did not seem surprised. “She and my son’s wife, Isabel, seemed to have much in common at Nottingham. They both have a tremendous concern for the common people.” She paused. “I’m surprised that didn’t come up in your many walks together at the palace.”
“She’s a thief,” he said, glaring at me.
“She’s the daughter of a king,” Eleanor snapped back. “And the lady of an earldom. She may have played at being common, but she has always been royal.”
I didn’t note the effect this had on Essex. Her words struck at me—were that true? All this time, Scarlet had felt like my true self, and Marian felt like a dress that never quite fit. What if it were the other way around? What if Scarlet were the falsity all along?
“Marian,” Eleanor said, tugging at my hand. “Are you feeling quite well?”
Nodding quick, I squeezed her hand. “Yes, Eleanor.”
She held on to my hand but looked at Essex. “She has been recovering,” she explained. “Most recently from saving all of our lives in that dreadful episode, but before that from Prince John’s unlawful detainment of her.”