Alternative version of the events in chapter 8-10 of Panes of Glass. Mrated for a tiny little controversial topic, no smut. I have actually a piece of rather ungraphic r/m smut in a Mrated version of chapter 4 of this story, but I haven't put that up on If you want me 2, you can tell me and I'll post it somewhere. Probably under this story, since it really isn't a story at all, just a different version of some chapters.
Chapter 8 in this version is almost like chapter 8 in the normal version, the story is just slightly altered in some places. Chapter 9 will be completely different and chapter 10 will be partly different, partly the same.
Chapter 8:
Choices
"Jag såg bjälken I mitt öga men sådan insikt hjälper föga."
("I saw the (wood) beam in my eye, but such insight doesn't help much.")
/Lars Winnerbäck
Life. Right now Marian though it felt much like trying to run trough a waist-deep lake. You struggled so hard to get ahead but every step seemed to be hindered by dark, cold masses of water, her feet sucked into the slippery mud.
She was in her room in the castle, with the faint rustling from the bored guard outside her door and the occasional swallow diving by her window as her only company. It had been known to happen from time to time that Robin came on an unexpected visit, leaping down from her ceiling or materialising out of the shadows. He came and went in a smoke cloud, she didn't see him arriving and he left as if he had never been there in the first place, little precious fleeting moments. And that was all they had. Random scheming, random kisses, random bickering and off he went with another cheeky grin. He was Mr Charming one moment and the next a troubled warrior with the weight of the world heavy on his shoulders. She savoured those moments, couldn't walk into her room without scanning every little corner after a sign of her lover, yet they somehow always left her feeling unsatisfied. It wasn't enough. She would wait for days for him, perfecting what she needed to tell him in her head, and then when he was standing in front of her it never turned out as she had planned. She got sucked into his problems while her own fell to pieces, and then they were forgotten until he was gone and it was too late to tell him anything.
Marian felt queasy and tired and watched her reflection in the mirror, her face pale and the eyes puffy and red. She treaded her fingers trough the hair and sighed, thinking that it would take a man very much in love to find her pretty now. Not that it mattered, Robin hadn't been around for days and last time she saw him he was troubled and distracted. A knock on the door made her flinch and turn away from her sad reflection.
"Come in," she said and put on an aloof little smile.
The door creaked open and Allan-a-Dale swaggered in with his usual innocent grin.
"Hey," he greeted her. "Just came to say I'm out 'ere... watching or whatever. Taking over from the guard for a while… Best place to sleep on the job really, not being funny but nice touch to put that cushioned stool outside your door..."
Marian smiled. "I do like it when my guards sleep on the job," she said and then hesitated for a while before she added. "Do you want a plum Allan? Some wine perhaps?"
Allan cocked an eyebrow and closed the door behind him, walking into the room. "Don't mind if I do," he said. "You want a little company?"
"I want a little information," she responded with a frown briefly passing over her features as a shadow. "Allan what is it like… the camp?"
"You should know," Allan said absently and picked up a sun-warmed plum from a bowl on the windowsill. "You've been there."
"Yes, but I haven't lived there. And you have. I was wondering, is it… well-sheltered? Safe? Warm?"
"It's rather comfy… Yeah," he hesitated a while. "Like a draughty cottage," he admitted. "Good enough for shepherds good enough for outlaws."
"But it keeps out the cold?!" Marian exclaimed. Her breathing was fast and a bit strained as if she was out of breath. "And food - is there food?"
"Alright, alright, calm down…" Allan turned to her and took a bite of the juicy plum. His voice was muffled by the food when he continued. "It is cold you know, never enough to eat… but it is…"
"Comfy?" Marian scoffed and Allan suddenly became aware of the silent screaming despair in her face. He knew that look, he had seen it reflected in blank surfaces and every time he washed his face in a bowl of water. It was the look of someone who was running out of options and didn't know what to do. He swallowed and put down the rest of the half-eaten fruit on the windowsill.
"Hey are you alright there Maz?" he asked carefully and she gave him a cringing smile.
"Maz?" she said with a snorting laughter. "You take liberties… I'm fine, just a bit queasy. Something I ate perhaps."
"You're not sick? You want me to get Robin for you?"
"That is hardly an option," she said smiling bitterly. "I'm fine... I am… I'm just…"
"Woo… you're not pregnant!?" Allan had called out the thought as soon as it hit him as a vaguely possible option, but as soon as it left his lips he knew that it was true. It was written all over her face, the way she flinched and stared at him completely taken aback.
Marian sighed and sat down on a small wooden stool, leaning her elbow against a table and resting her head in her palm. "Oh God…" she exclaimed in a hushed voice. "Yes…"
"How long?" Allan said, his tone soft and a bit puzzled by the revelation.
"I don't know… I mean does it matter?" He realised that she was crying, yet she smiled through the tears and laughed bitterly. "A few weeks," she said. She had her fist pressed hard against her abdomen, pushing it as if she could force the unwanted foetus to sink back and go away.
"It doesn't show," he reassured her.
"It will," she laughed. Her father is still in the dungeons, Allan thought. The child won't survive in the forest. Sir Guy will kill her if he finds out. She is stuck. Marian straightened her back and rose from the chair, nervously arranging her jewels in neat rows on the table. "You don't seem that upset," she said, her carefully crafted façade back up even though it was flaking and had cracks in the veneer.
"Nah, not my thing really," Allan answered with a small smile. "Anyway, where I come from these things happen."
"Has it happened to you?"
Allan snorted and threw out his arms, displaying the flat chest and rather less flat areas further south. He let his gaze flickered down over his body and then back up to Marian with cocked eyebrows.
"Not being funny but I think you're missing something 'ere."
"You know what I mean! It takes two to tango Allan."
"How should I know? It's not like they come with a label mind you… Come to think of it that would be practical wouldn't it? 'Descendant of Allan-a-Dale'… Better throw that sod down the well before 'e learns to talk…"
"Is that what they do? Throw them down the well… When they can't… you know."
Allan frowned and watched Marian, wondering if she was mocking him. But the noble woman only looked questioning and a bit nervous, tensely awaiting his answer.
"Well… It happens alright? Some leave 'em by the church… Some… well you know. There are other ways if you know who to ask." He looked at her, hesitating for a while. He was not a moral man but he was practical and empathetic, and Lady Marian was a woman deep in trouble. "You know I could help you," he said carefully. "If you need an option."
"How?" she exclaimed disbelieving, her eyes dimmed once again by desperate tears.
"Well…" he sighed. This was such a bad idea. "Listen… This is no good for a lady like you alright? They're not your kind… They're good lasses don't get me wrong. Just different, yeah? They do stuff differently down there… In the gutter or whatever."
"I think you will find I am beyond 'kinds' now…"
"Well I'm just saying… They got ways. There's this lady called Mistress Aud, she… helps."
"She could help me?"
"Yeah… She could, if I took you to her. You'd have to pay though."
"What pay you?" she snorted.
"Not me! Her! You pay her and she… does her thing."
"Well…" Marian frowned, trying to get a grip around this new, unsettling option "But is it safe?"
"Well you know…" Allan shrugged. "Is it safe to have it though?"
That was the core of the problem. It wasn't safe, not any of it. This wasn't a time for children, not with the king away and the child's father outlawed. Not with her in house-arrest and her own father in the dungeons. The forest might be romantic, so long had it worked as a symbol of freedom for Marian that she imagined it a merry place far away from the grim reality of Nottingham politics. But she wasn't naïve, in the end she knew that a life in the forest would be harsh. Little food to share, constantly hunted and on the run and when winter came it would get worse. This was in a time when the forests of England were wild and savage places, and the winters were cold under deep, silent snow with flocks of wolves roaming the white death for easy prey. The sheriff was clever enough to know what hardships the winter would bring to the outlaws. There would be dogs and in the end you couldn't outrun them, not with the tracks in the snow, so you would have to stay in the trees or underground, hiding in caves or huts. No the winter wouldn't be easy, it would be a time to freeze and starve and run for the outlaws. As for a pregnant woman? A newborn baby? For them the forest would be a place to die when the ground froze and the hunt was on.
"The child will come in the winter," Marian said and Allan gave her a rather sad crocked smile. "I thought… I was hoping that the king would come back before that. But he won't, will he?"
"Nah I think the bets are through the roof on that one. Sorry."
"Not you fault…" Marian said automatically, then hesitated and added. "Notcompletely your fault."
Allan looked down to avoid her accusing eyes, but then he realised that the young noble woman seemed only barely aware of his presence in the room. She had paced over to the window and gazed out over the dark green trees of the forest, longing for something that would never be real - a dream that both broke her down and kept her alive. It went on forever, mile after mile of trees turning the horizon into a fluffy green cloud. Somewhere in there her salvation, or somewhere under those harmless leaves her demise. Love and tragedy were so tightly intertwined as the ivy hugs the oak, and it strung a chord in Allan's chest to see Marian's silent desperation.
It could be debated for years what kind of man Allan-a-Dale was, a traitor with a soul so cheap it could be sold at The Trip to Jerusalem inn, but as he stood before Marian Fitzwalter on this cruel day it was with a genuine empathy and honest will to help her. Thus it was with every good intention that he offered her his assistance, rooted in his own background where this solution seemed a little less dramatic. Among the sleepers and barmaids unplanned pregnancy was a disaster that happened from time to time, and where there is a market there will eventually materialize someone supplying the desired service. In Nottingham her name was Mistress Aud, she was despised as a hangman and just as feared, but with that also came a tremendous amount of disgusted respect. She would have been burned a long time ago if it wasn't for the fact that she was needed, not only to the trashiest of the human trash but also occasionally to daughters of more respectable men. People spat at her in the market but came crawling as subdued slaves before her when disaster struck down as a flaming spear of thunder and lightning. She was one of those people that were the object of a collective guilt, they all knew that she shouldn't be living amongst them, yet it was an embarrassing but unmistakable fact that she did, and in the end no one did anything about it.
"Looks nice from up here doesn't it?" Allan said and went to stand with Marian by the window. "All the people… Tiny little dots."
"Yes," she agreed and smiled. The guards seemed like toy soldiers down on the court yard, the spears harmless little twigs in their hands. "They all got routines," Marian suddenly blurted out and leaned out a bit to see the yard better. "The washing maids… The farmers coming with deliveries. The soldiers… They always take the same routes, like a life is just made out of a series of habits. That girl," Marian pointed down to a maid that was carrying a big basket with cloth. "Her name is Erin. Every day she crosses the yard to go with the linen to the washing areas, and she always walks in the shadows even if the day is grey or it means that she has to take a long detour. And you see that stout guard over there, the one that glances up to the western wing? He is looking for someone up there, sometimes he will see what it is he is searching for and he will stand over there by the tower, where he is hidden under the straw roofs, and just watch."
"What do you think he's looking for?" Allan said curiously, captured by Marian's little peeking game and all these people that he'd never given a fleeting thought.
Marian shrugged. "I don't know. Perhaps he is in love with some maid. I'm just thinking… Life goes on... People are born and live and go by their little habits and die. History will never remember most of them. A life means so very little."
"Nah I don't know about that," Allan said. "Look, that maid, Erin right? I bet she means stuff to loads of people."
"I'm sure she does… But what about the bigger picture Allan?" Marian said with a frown. "We are tiny little dots, you said it…"
"Not being funny but I said they were tiny little dots. You look rather big to me."
Marian smiled. "My point is that most things we do doesn't matter. We're just little dots going about our business. But what Robin does is important. It is about the future of England."
Allan saw her putting a hand on her belly, cupping it a little as if the child was taking up room there already, and then gingerly graze the green wool almost absently.
"Don't worry," he said with a grin that could be either disarming or provoking. "You don't look fat."
Marian gave him a sharp look but then she relaxed and started to laugh lightly. "Allan, do you get slapped a lot by the women you meet by any chance?" she smirked.
"Well you know…" he shrugged with a grin.
Marian smiled and rubbed roughly over the dress, as if she tried to erase the shadow of her own tender touch, and straightened her back with a look of determination. "Anyway," she said. "What Robin does matters, it matters for a lot of people. But if he knew bout this then this would matter more."
"You think?" Allan cocked an eye brow in disbelief. "He really likes that king of his mind you."
"It is your king also," Marian chided him. "Even if you seem to have forgotten it. And I am sure - Robin would leave all that to save me and the child. I do not want him to do that, yet he will… He will not listen."
"Yeah it must be a real problem to be loved like that…" Allan muttered. "Look, you want me to help you or what?"
Marian studied him and Allan got an eerie feeling of looking into Robin's eyes, honest, astute and strangely intimate. "Why?" she said. "Why would you help me Allan?"
He shrugged. "I think the little dots matter… Listen, you need help and I want to help you alright? I got a little good in me as well..."
"I'm sure you do but that is not it is it?"
Allan frowned. He felt uneasy, Marian's manners were unsettling for him and his last meeting with Djaq had been…. Djaq. If there was another reason then she was it, it all came down to those big soulful eyes. The mere thought made his heard pound faster and his skin felt animated where she had last touched it. One embrace and a night of watching her from afar, watching all of them from afar... "I want back," he said with a voice that sounded weak and dejected. "You're Robin's lass… Not being funny but if I help you… you know…"
"You want to be the good guy again?" Marian scoffed a bit harsher than she had intended. "Just like that? I wave my magic wand and everything is forgotten? You are more naive than I thought… If Robin knew… if he knew that I am even considering this then I'm not sure he would forgive even me."
"Not being funny but you could get away with murder, Robin loves you."
"This is worse than murder…" Marian mumbled under her breath. "To him this will be much worse than murder, I'm sure of it..."
"Well anyway… We won't tell him right? Look, you just put in a good word or two, he listens to you."
"I can't make him take you back Allan. To be honest I'm not even sure I want to… He is right not to trust you."
"But I'm not expecting redemption!" Allan suddenly exclaimed, and threw out his arms in frustration. "I just want it to be enough!"
"Marian frowned, puzzled by the sudden emotional outburst. "Enough?" she said. "Enough for what Allan?"
"Well…. You know. Enough not to get killed next time I meet him… A little truce or whatever," Allan mumbled and shied away from Marian's intensive stare.
"A little truce?" she said disbelievingly. Drop it, Allan thought, but she knew that it was more he wasn't telling her and she wasn't one to yield. No wonder she was such a good source of information for Robin.
"Look," he sighed. "It's simple enough alright? I just want to be able to see my old mates."
Marian continued to stare at him.
"One mate actually," he mumbled. "In particular."
Marian went over to the little table, pored up a glass of wine, cocked her eyebrow and continued to stare at him.
"Djaq… actually…"
Marian titled her head, smiled and stared at him.
"I think I love her," he mumbled with his ears burning. "There, I said it. Not being funny but you're bleedin' good at this…"
Marian went over, gave him the glass of wine and continued to stare at him with her arms folded.
"You want her," she stated finally with a rather mysterious smile.
"Well… Yeah," he shrugged and drank the wine in one gulping sweep. He felt dizzy and a bit queasy, and realised that he'd just given away exactly how nervous he was. The trickster in him blushed with embarrassment.
"What if I can't give that to you Allan? This has to be a secret…" Marian said with a tone that was soft and strangely detached. She had already put up an emotional wall between herself and this decision, forcing herself to be rational as she had done so many times before.
"Look, I will do it anyway," Allan said and gave her one of his innocent a-Dale looks. "It would be a nice bonus that's all."
"As opposed to the usual bonus of pain and misery," Marian mumbled bitterly. "Yes," She took a deep breath and let out a resigned sigh. "We do it, I will… It is the best way."
"You want my help?" Allan said to make sure he got everything right.
"Yes, I do… Will you help me?"
"Not being funny but I said I would didn't I?"
"Glad to hear you're a man of your word," she snorted with a sarcastically raised eyebrow. "I would like to be alone now if you don't mind…"
"Sure… I'll just go sleep on the job then," Allan grinned and left the room with a little half-bow in her general direction. When he came to the door he halted for a moment, turning to her with his hand on the doorknob and a knowing smirk in his face. "And oh by the way," he added mischievously. "If Robin comes… keep it down will you?" He winked at her and disappeared out into the corridor before she had time to throw anything hard at him.
Marian stood for a while and watched the place where Allan had been standing, her heart beating nervously in her chest.
"What have I done?" she mumbled to herself and paced over to the window with her arms folded as if she was cold, even though the shudders that ran trough her body had very little to do with the weather. "What am I about to do… God forgive me…" There was still a half-eaten plum on the windowsill and she took it between her fingers, pushing the window shutters open and plunged the fruit into the air. It floated for a while, spinning in a graceful arch against the blue sky, and then lost height and fell helplessly to the caste yard. You could live free and die fast, but such a vain dream it was when gravity would take its toll in the end. She sighed and closed the window, trapping a green curtain between the shutter and the frame, and went to rest in the soft, warm bed of her comfortable prison.