June 1215, Locksley

In the middle of a warm summer night, Marian awoke in her bed and reached for her husband. Robin was not there. But of course...she had forgotten he wasn't at home. Remembering, she sighed longingly into the darkness.

Robin was south, somewhere near London, trying to fulfill his dream of creating a better England.

Unable to withstand King John's ever increasing atrocities, Robin was standing up for justice, leading many of the nation's nobles to challenge their king. They were readying themselves for civil war, for, as much as Robin hated that possibility, he had convinced the other lords the changes he proposed were truly worth fighting for.

Lying comfortably in their bed, Marian let her mind recall what Robin and the others were challenging. First, there were the results of John's Angevin losses on the continent. Although he had hired a large army of mercenaries, King John demanded Robin and other lords fight his battles on foreign soil, or else pay scrutage, great sums of money to avoid military service. In addition, the losses John suffered...the vast amounts of land now falling to Philip Augustus of France, greatly decreased his revenues. The English king commanded his English lords to make up the difference, bleeding his people dry with more and more outrageous taxes.

Other dastardly acts Robin opposed included John's treatment of his peers' families. Should a lord of the realm die and leave an underaged heir, the king would seize the lord's lands and holdings for himself, only to sell them to the highest bidder. John also suffered no qualms about selling the deceased lord's wife and daughters in marriage to whomever would pay the highest price.

Should a Jew die, everything he had saved went to the king, leaving his heirs destitute. And since it was so advantageous to John for a Jew to die, untold numbers died mysteriously before their time.

King John seemed to take pleasure arrestiing men, women, and children and brutally punishing them for no apparent cause, whenever the whim struck him. His favorite punishment was starvation, but he also enjoyed burning out people's eyes and even roasting them on spits.

He took the unwilling wives and daughters of his lords to his bed, boasting to their husbands and fathers of his prowess with them the following moring. Loving to hunt, as long it wasn't too difficult, he delighted in the forestry laws which ensured there would be deer aplenty, ruthlessly employing capital punishment if anyone was caught poaching. Furthermore, his vile behavior and open mockery of the Church had caused Pope Innocent III to excommunicate him, and no one in England had been allowed to worship in church for three long years.

Marian was in complete agreement with her beloved husband that England needed change. Robin had drawn up a document with twelve clauses protesting John's illegal actions, and had rallied support from other lords. Together, they were developing a longer document and were planning to force the king to agree to their demands, or withdraw their support from him and launch the nation into civil war.

However, even though Marian supported her husband's cause, it didn't stop her from missing him dreadfully.

The years had been kind to Marian. Robin's constant enduring love had made her blossom like a rose, and she was still breathtakingly beautiful. Unable to sleep this night, she rose from her bed and stood at the window, looking out into the warm night.

"Bless you, my darling," she whispered into the night, smiling at her own sentimentality, yet hoping all the same the breeze would somehow carry her love to her husband. "Come home to me soon."

Their sons were dead...tiny Richard just a few short hours after his birth...darling Edward, who so resembled his father, was taken cruelly by the pox when he was only four. Their baby girls were nearly grown. Ellen, sweet and patient, so like Robin's mother, had been busy sewing her wedding gown for her upcomming nuptials with the young Earl of Hereford. Grace, high spirited but kind, forever getting into scrapes, had recently surprised her mother by declaring she wanted to become a nun.

Grace...a nun? Marian didn't know what to think of that! She needed Robin to come home to put it in perspective for her.

In the distance, a dog barked out a warning, then fell instantly silent. "Goodnight, my love," Marian whispered to Robin, then made her way back to bed.

But still she could not sleep. Something felt wrong. Was Robin in danger? She prayed for his safety.

Still feeling a sense of foreboding, Marian climbed from her bed and made her way down the stairs of her home.

All was still. Marian waited in silence, but when nothing happened, she dismissed her feelings and turned to climb the steps back to her room.

Without warning, she felt a pair of large hands grab her, pushing and shoving her up the stairs. She tried screaming, but a hand covered her mouth. In desperation, she struggled, kicking and elbowing and hitting, but her abuser was far too strong. He seemed to know his way through her home.

With a mighty push, he threw Marian face down on the floor of her bedchamber and bolted the door behind him. She could hear his heavy breathing, and she tried to rise and fling herself at him, but he seized her again and tied her wrists to the bedposts.

Her hair had fallen in her eyes, hiding him from her sight, but she knew him the moment she heard his low, menacing voice.

"Thought you'd killed me, you lying whore."

The voice from her worst nightmare seemed to slap her in the face, shocking her to silence. The voice of Sir Guy of Gisbourne, the voice she never expected to hear again, assaulted her in her own room.

"Just like you, I am harder to kill than you could imagine. But now, wth Locksley away, you will not survive. You, Liar, will die tonight."