A/N: It's Guy! Whose mother is French! Title comes from the original ballad of Robin Hood and Guy of Gisbourne. The line basically means "It takes no skill to know a knave"

Disclaimer: Hey! Robin Hood belongs to the BBC et al! I only wish he was chained up in my bedroom. With Guy. (Okay, creeeeepy...)

Sir Guy lay in bed, neither asleep nor awake, just letting his mind wander. His hair, longer than he had ever let it grow and matted with filth, trickled down his cheeks like tears. His eyes saw nothing, barely registering the flicker of the candlelight that illuminated the bedroom.

He was thinking about death.

Marian, the only woman he had ever truly loved, was dead.

He had killed her himself.

He rolled over, leather garments pulling the sheets he lay on to one side and staining them with dirt and sweat and maybe even blood. He was always covered in blood these days. Because Marian was dead, he didn't care about hurting anyone. She wasn't going to get angry at him for killing innocent people. She was dead too. He had killed her.

Just like he had killed Hood.

His eyes focused and he sat up, throwing out a hand and knocking over his candle with a clang. It went out and rolled on the cold flagstones, sending a rattle into the night air. The sound died away, leaving Guy in silence again. He rubbed his eyes and growled.

He had sent Hood over a cliff. He had picked him up, and, almost deadened to the protest in his muscles by anger and pure bloodlust, lifted his over his head and let him fall onto the rocks. Into the river.

He was dead.

But there was no body.

Hood's body was missing.

Guy stood up and walked to his washbasin on the little table across the room. The water was cold, of course, but that was what he wanted. He wanted to be shocked into understanding, not soothed into believing.

Why was it that he wanted Hood dead?

He had taken Marian. Because of him, Guy had lost the only thing that he lived for. And now he was dead inside.

But hadn't Robin lost her too?

Guy slammed his fist on the wood of the table. Damn him.

He had tackled him to the ground and smashed his head against a rock and then, instead of finishing him, he hadn't even moved. He had crouched over the outlaw, recovering his strength, and Hood had let him. He had given up. Somehow, he had decided not to fight anymore. But a knock to the head was nothing to Hood! He could be shackled to moving cart and still find a way to fight back!

He must have had some trick, some wile, to get away.

Guy stormed out of his room and down the stairs. A servant rushed out of the servants' quarters after him, holding her nightdress to her chest with one hand and fumbling to light a candle with the other.

"Sir?"

Guy payed her no heed. When she put out an arm to stop him, he hit it aside and she yelped. He threw open the door and nearly ran into the chilly night air. The door closed behind him with a thump, and then he really did run. He ran to the outskirts of Locksley and then into the forest. It was even cooler there, and his boots made the dead leaves and twigs crunch and rustle as his feet hit the ground.

What was he looking for?

He was looking for Robin.

He reached the river, sweating and out of breath. It was dark, but the moonlight was bright enough to reflect off the churning waters of the river a hundred times over, giving the rocks a milky sheen and letting Guy see the many things caught in its watery turmoil. He stood, chest heaving, and scanned the area for a sign, any sign of Hood. But nothing.

He had searched that day, and had found nothing. There was nothing there.

There still wasn't.

But then a splash!

Guy whirled around.

"Hood?" he shouted, voice reverberating off the rocks and the water and sounding strange and wavery when it reached his ears over and over again. "Hood, by God, show yourself! HOOD!"

There was no answering call.

Guy waded into the water, up to his waist. He splashed and yelled and made enough commotion that if anyone had been passing by they would have been sure that there was a spirit haunting the river, or a madman. He shouted himself hoarse, then sat down on a rock that stuck out of the flow, not caring that he was getting wet- he was soaked already- and put his head in his hands.

"Hood. Please."

Why did he care? Hood was dead. There was no way that he could have survived that fall.

He wanted proof.

He wanted to see him dead.

He wanted to see him.

He slipped off the rock, and sat on his knees in the river.

He wanted Marian. She would help him.

He finally drifted to sleep.


TBC...