Hell Hath No Fury...
I decided I'd try my hand at a one-shot and write a little (belated by about an hour) fic for Halloween. Since I doubt they celebrated Halloween in the year 1193, or if they did it would have been very different to the commercial festival there is today, I thought I wouldn't make it conventionally Halloween-ish, but instead I thought I'd explore a little thing that was left hanging in the air in Series 2 Episode 7, quite literally...
"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." – William Congreve, 'The Morning Bride'
Despite his recent declaration of his love for Marian, there were times when Robin really hated Marian.
Then again, perhaps hate was too strong a word. It wasn't really a want-to-kill-you-and-throw-you-off-a-cliff-and-burn-the-pieces kind of hate, but more a argh-sometime-you-can-be-so-annoying-but-I-wouldn't-want-you-to-change-ever kind of hate. Nevertheless, he hated her now as, suspended upside down above his own gang's camp and forced to look upon her triumphant grin, Robin shot Marian the most unforgiving glare he was capable of.
"Don't even say it," he muttered darkly.
"Say what?" she asked, her eyes wide as she fluttered her eyelashes innocently. He groaned in response, and let his head fall limply, the sudden blood-rush nothing to the realisation that he would be dangling from a rope for quite some time...
***
Seeing as there were seven of them living in so small a space, it was a rare occasion for Robin to find the camp practically deserted. Not that he minded of course; thinking time was a rare thing to come by these days, and quite a nice novelty at that. And it was quite hard to think with questions and conversations left, right and centre from an anxious/jittery/nervy/edgy/jumpy/tense/take your pick Much.
As it was, apart from Will who was sitting on his bed and whittling away at a piece of wood, he was the only one there. John and Djaq had decided to affirm their suspicions that Much served them squirrel by following him on his routine not-squirrel catching rounds, and Marian had decided she was going to practice her skulking by following the pair of them. Satisfied that he would not be disturbed, Robin decided to rest his eyes for a moment; i.e. sneak a quick wink of sleep while the camp was quiet. He closed his eyes and lay back against his bed, breathing deeply in order to relax. As he did so, he became acutely aware of someone coming closer to him.
Robin opened one eye lazily, only to sit bolt upright in shot. There, a mere inch away from where his right eye had been, was a spider of gigantic proportion. It was bigger than the palm of his hand, and was covered in what looked like pitch, black and viscous, and positively horrible.
It was only a few moments later that Robin's intellect took control, and he convinced himself that there was no such thing as a spider this big – at least not in England – that his pulse calmed a little and he forced himself to lean closer to inspect the creature. As he studied its form, he realised that it was only a carving of a spider, covered in black pitch. A very good carving. A very very good carving. One only capable of...
He flung around to see Will's area of the camp empty. That was odd; he had been there only moments before, and Robin had not heard him move from there. The only indication of the young carpenter's previous presence was the knife with which he had been whittling, and which had fallen to the floor. But of its owner himself, there was no sign.
"Will?" called Robin hesitantly. He moved into the centre of the camp, turn around in circles as though that would convince him to emerge from wherever he might be. "You there?"
The dull sound of clanging from the direction of Much's sacred cooking area made him spin round sharply, only to see two pots clashing together with a reverberating cacophony of noise in the breeze. Hang on a moment – what breeze? The air was completely still, and none of the falling autumn leaves were being caught in the wind and whirled away. There was not a breath of wind to disturb the foliage, so how were two heavy pots managing to crash together?
Crack.
The distinctive sound of someone stepping on and breaking a twig made him turn yet again to seek the source of the noise. "Will?" he called yet again, his confusion now accompanied by an undertone of worry.
The creak of a branch overhead prompted Robin to look up, only to see a rotting branch begin its tumbling descent to the ground. He threw himself out of the way, narrowly avoiding becoming an unhappy cushion for its weight, tumbling down the slope and landing among a pile of what looked (and smelt) like pigs slops. Just his luck.
He stood up quickly, defensively, not even bothering to straighten his clothes or dust the mud off himself; someone or something was wreaking havoc with his nerves, and he intended to find out just what.
As he turned back up to face the camp, he noticed his bow lying on the floor to his left. Robin frowned in confusion; he certainly hadn't left it there. When not in use it was kept in pride of place next to his sword, which he could just about see was still hung up next to his bed. And no one – not even Marian – would move his bow without telling him. Before he could lean down to retrieve it however, the eerie whisper of his name behind him made him whip his head round to face the offender. The apparently invisible offender.
"Robin..." There it was again! Like his name was being carried on the wind, though that of course was impossible due to the profound lack of said weather.
"Robin..." Louder this time, and closer. He could almost feel the words being whispered on the back of his neck, but yet again, he could not see the assailant.
"Robin..." A definite sensation of something behind him, but again, nothing there.
"ROBIN..." He could feel his heart thumping loudly in his chest, its beats echoing his unsteady footsteps and he jolted this way and that in him attempt to identify the source of the voice. The sound of his feet thudding on the ground, faster and faster, made his blood surge at an ever increasing pace.
"ROBIN..." Every muscle in his body was tensed as he warily reached to the ground for his bow.
Nothing there. The ground stared up at him obtrusively, taunting him with the bow's absence. It had definitely been there before – of that he was certain.
"ROBIN..." He sprang up instantly, his breathing audible over the ever increasing volume of the whispers, his face frozen with alarm. The hairs on the back of his neck were on end, his fists clenched, and his stance defensive, ready for an attack.
The grating sound of the mechanism to reveal the camp made him whirl round, lashing out at thin air, as the camouflage covering to their hideaway fell into place.
"ROBIN!"
He couldn't help it. He screamed. Robin Hood, scourge of the Sheriff and protector of the poor, screamed.
Even Robin Hood was susceptible to the fears of the mind. And when seemingly bodiless voices whispered your name, someone had apparently vanished into thin air, and your previously missing bow was lying innocently atop the camp roof, not even Robin Hood, after such provocation, could restrain himself.
Only when he found himself suddenly yanked upwards by the foot and swinging upside-down from a tree branch did his winded body stop shouting for help. Only then did he notice the imperceptible strands of thread that were connected at one end to his bow, and were held at the other end in the hand of a very familiar person.
Marian.
As she tugged on the string attached to the bow, jerking it tauntingly, and once more whispered him name into a hollow branch that had allowed her to project her voice around the area, he realised he had been well and truly spooked.
"Don't say a word," he growled. "Don't even say it."
Her grin only stretched wider.
Hadn't she told him that one day he'd pay?
Not my best, I admit, but after a day of writing English coursework, I really wanted a break from World War One poetry...
Please let me know what you thought!
xxx Nia