Chapter One: The Devil's Own

(Author's Note: This fanfic deals with the BBC Robin Hood universe before Season Three, in which pretty much everything about the series changed, and we got a lot of extra characters and stories not in the legends. I have also included some traditional characters from the Robin Hood legend, and I will riff on some of the traditional Robin Hood stories. And there is some fix it. Because, ergh, you need fix it when CANON is OOC! Yes, Sir Guy remains a Magnificent Bastard. But if you don't like him bad…don't read on.)

Sir Guy of Gisbourne dismounted from his horse.

He walked, softly, with slow steps, through the high grass, to stand among the burned out, overgrown ruins of a homestead that Sherwood had nearly reclaimed.

He sat down on his haunches, took off his glove, and picked a few blades of the sweet grass the blacksmith had planted, there were so few that had not yet been overwhelmed by the wildflowers and weeds.

His hair, and his clothes, would often smell of that sweet grass; the scent of it, and that of rich, dark Earth, often clung to him for days.

That was what she always smelled of.

But, she was a wild girl, the blacksmith's daughter.

They came from all over Nottinghamshire, though, to the cottage on the edge of Sherwood Forest that Erik Blackthorn, her father before her, had built.

His father before him was called Ragnar, and his father was called Erik Skull-splitter and he was a Dane, who had c0me raiding.

Erik brought a wife to what was then the Danes' realm, and his son, Ragnar, married a woman of Danish blood, and Erik also married a woman of Danish blood.

The blacksmith's daughter was yet a Dane; she had their shrewdness and their wildness in her blood, and their skill with axe and sword, and fire and the hammer in the forge.

The same men who called her wild, and whore and witch, because she was a fine smith, they brought their work to her, because she did the finest work in the Shire; That was why, whatever they thought her, no one denounced her.

To burn.

That, and though he was not yet Lord Gisbourne, they feared young Gisbourne.

He was a cold man with hot blood, and bore a grudge as a man against all those who had shown him cruelty, when he was a boy.

Every man's wife who had said he was a changeling, a son of the Devil, and every man's son or daughter who had jeered him and tormented him and ignored him, and against every man who said it would be a dark day when he was Lord Gisbourne.

But Guy, who had no particular feeling for anyone, save contempt, had feeling for three souls in his father's shire.

He worshipped Marian, the Sherriff's daughter, as a pagan worshipped his goddess of love on a high pedestal.

He hated Robin, the son of Baron Locksley, the Earl of Huntingdon.

And the blackmsith's daughter was the only friend he had in the world; the only soul kindred to his own.

Only she had a smile for him when he passed over her doorstep; only she had a kind word for him that didn't come from obligation.

Filling the doorframe of her smithy, he came like a shadow, young Gisbourne, pale and tall and black-haired, with the wolfish blue eyes of a wily animal.

And though her back was turned to him; she knew the sound of his hobnailed jackboots.

As she worked, one strand, just one long, curly strand of her butter-yellow hair had came loose from the long sloppy braid that came all down her back.

Guy stood close by her, and wound that strand of hair around one of his fingers.

He nuzzled his nose against her neck, and her shoulder and her ear, encircling her waist with his arm, nipping at her ear, finding the nape of her neck to bury his face in her butter-yellow hair.

"I'm working, you wolf." She told him.

"You're not working. Your hammer isn't in your hand."

"Neither is yours. Did you shut the door?"

"No. I don't care, if they all see. Let them look."

She turned around, and her blue eyes were wilder and more wolfish than his.

"The sun's out, today. And the trees are getting green. Let's go into the wood."

"It's still cold out."

"Then make me warm, you son of a bitch!"

She ran out the door, there would be no work, today, tearing her hair loose from the braid.

And all her butter-yellow hair, flying loose in the wind.

Years later, squatting amongst in the ruins of the blacksmith's house, Guy could still hear her laugh.

And he could feel that strand of hair, around his fingers.

Her blue eyes and her white skin, whiter than his, white as milk, and her butter-yellow hair.

The wind was cold, and Sir Guy of Gisbourne's tears were bitter.

The bitter tears of a bad man, who had lost all in his life that was good and true.

And like all bad men must, he cried them, alone.


Young Guy did not tell his father that he was afraid of thunder and lightning.

Had he a kinder father, he might have, but Guy's father had little kindness in him, and none for his ten year old son.

A particularly loud thunderclap sent young Gisbourne climbing out of the pew and running for some kind of safety.

No one seemed to notice.

The Sheriff's daughter, Marian looked over her shoulder at him, but she didn't leave her pew.

Robin, the Earl of Huntingdon's son smirked at him, and Guy stuck his tongue out.

He found refuge behind a large, forbidding statue and sat there with his legs tucked up absent his chest, and his face against his knees.

"What are you doing?"

It was the blacksmith's daughter.

The wild girl, with the butter-yellow hair.

"Go away."

"No."

She came and sat beside him.

"Don't be afraid. That's just Thor, killing frost giants with his hammer, Mjolnir. I'm not supposed to talk about him, in Church. But if God made everything, He must have made Thor, so I don't think he minds."

"They're Devils, aren't they? The old gods of the Danes?"

"Do you believe that, Guy?"

"I don't believe anything they tell us here. I hate God. He took my mother and left me with my father, and he's a mean old man."

"Don't hate God. He was probably busy doing something else. Hate your father. Everybody else does. My Da says he's a miserable old prick."

Guy laughed.

"He is. You don't have a Mum, either, do you, Jamie?"

"No. I don't."

"But Erik doesn't hate you. Why does my father hate me? Everybody hates me."

"I don't hate you."

"Everybody thinks you're father is crazy, and they say you're a changeling."

"Maybe I am, Guy. Maybe we both are. That's what I thing. What I really think. Your real mother and father? They're faeries, or Elves or …something. Like my Mum is. And someday Thor, or Loki, or the King of The Fairies, or somebody like that will come and get us. And take us home. But they'll have to take my Da, too."

Thunder crashed again, but it didn't bother Guy as much.

"Do you think if I prayed to Thor, he'd throw a thunderbolt at my Da? Just enough to knock him off his feet. To scare him a little."

"Well, Jesus wouldn't. But I'll bet Thor might."

Jamie reached into the pocket of the apron tied over her pain green cotton dress.

"Do you want a little piece of marzipan? My pockets are full of it. Just don't tell my Da."

Guy looked at the bit of cake in Jamie's hand, warily.

She laughed, and her blue eyes laughed with her, making her whole face light up.

"It's not poison."

Guy took it and ate it.

"It's very good."

"I made it. I do all Da's cooking."

Then, the great statue moved and there was Lord Gisbourne, looming over them, his face a mask of disapproval.

"There you are, you little heathen! Come here!"

Lord Gisbourne reached for his son, but Guy scrambled to his feet and grabbing Jamie's hand, he ran to the back of the cathedral, and out the back door.

He didn't know where he was going, only that he was finally running away.

"Come on, Guy! This way!"

They ran, and didn't stop, until they got to the blacksmith's cottage, and smithy, on the edge of Sherwood Forest.

"I'm never going back to him! Ever!" Guy decided.

"Okay. You can hide in our barn. In the hayloft. I'll hide you."

"For how long?" Guy asked.

"I don't know. Forever. Or at least until we're grown."


Guy stayed hidden in the hayloft for three days, with Jamie bringing him food, three times a day.

Then, on the fourth day, Erik, the blacksmith came and got him, and brought him outside, where his father was waiting.

"Erik, I don't want to go!" Guy howled.

"You can come back whenever you like, young Master Guy."


Lord Gisbourne locked his son up in his bedchamber, and told him he'd stay there for two fortnights, that the bishop would come in to see him, on Sunday.

The very first night, all three of them came, even Robin.

Robin had got some rope, and he threw it up to the window, and had Guy tied it to something sturdy, and he and Jamie and Marian all climbed up.

After a few days, Robin and Marian both quit visiting, but Jamie came, every day.

She brought him little presents.

A bit of cake, a ring made from the end of a spoon, a pony's horseshoe, a shiny rock, a hard-boiled egg; things like that.

She'd sit there with him and talk to him for hours.

At first, Guy didn't know what to do, but then he started talking to her, too.

He stole a big book from his father's study, hand written and hand-painted.

It was all about gods and faeries and devils and angels and heroes and myths and demons.

They read to each other from it, and talked about running away to live in Sherwood Forest, and go looking for those Faery halls, beneath the hills.

Guy worked up the courage, when the month was almost over, to ask her.

"Jamie, why do you like somebody like me so well?"

"Because you're my friend. I don't have any other friends. Nobody feckin' likes me."

"Nobody feckin' likes me, either. So, why should you want to be my friend?"

"Don't you know about anything, Guy? I mean anything that's important."

"No. I only know the lies they tell us. The ones everyone else is stupid enough to believe."

"Listen. People like you and me have to stick together. They didn't make things for us; they've made things just so for them, and against us. That's the way it is. And it's the way it will always be. If people like us don't stick together? They'll get us. And they'll either kill us, or make us like they are."

"I'd rather die. I would." Guy snorted.

"Me too." Jamie agreed.

"Promise, Jamie."

"Promise, what?"

"That we'll stick together."

"Oh, that. I promise, Guy. Always, and forever."


No matter what a dirty blighter you are, there's always someone who does your dirtiest work for you.

I know.

As dirty blighters go, you don't get much dirtier than the Right Dishonourable Sir Guy of Gisbourne.

What do you call a peer of the realm who plots to overthrow and kill his King, a Christian who dressed up like a Saracen to do it?

And that's not even the worst of his crimes.

There's a reason his peasants in Nottinghamshire think he's either the Devil, or of the Devil.

He's a cruel man, vengeful and vicious, I won't lie and say he is not. I have seen him torture and murder to justify his own ends, and without a second thought of it. My master doesn't give a damn about the great multitude of men and women, and whether they live or die, or whether he kills them or not.

This is largely because he endured a lifetime of cruelty and scorn, that began with his own father and extended to almost every man, woman and child who knew him, since he was a boy.

They treated him like he was the Devil's Own, so that's what he grew to be.

He does have some good points, though, even if I am one of the few who can see them.

I just thought, though, that I would be honest with you, so you didn't think I was laboring under the impression that my Master is a good man, with some bad qualities.

On the contrary, he is a bad man, with some good qualities.

What do you call a bad man with some good qualities?

Well, I call him Master Guy, that's what I call him.

Among other things.

I am reminded, daily, of how I would have burnt at the stake if not for him, and how if he wanted to, he could send me right back to torture and fire.

Oh, I was in the Holy Land, alright, fighting for King, and Country and Church, or something like that.

Honesty, I was there because I'm a mercenary, and I'm paid to fight.

I was a damn good mercenary, and it wasn't such a bad life.

My father was a Dane, and his father was a Dane and his father came on the Viking ships, to conquer.

War is in my blood, like fire and iron are.

At least I had me freedom, then and I wasn't serving a dirty blighter like Sir Guy, to do his dirty work.

You might say it's just more mercenary work, and better paying, for you get a little room for yourself, a warm bed, three meals a day, and far less chance of losing your head.

A fine job for a peasant's son, serving a peer of the realm, and what does it matter to someone of your class who is King and who is Master, one toff is like another, and Sir Guy isn't so bad, for a dirty blighter.

Well, you have to tell yourself something.

Especially when you are, and have been, for most of your life, bound upon a wheel of fire with Sir Guy of Gisbourne, the Devil's Own.


It wasn't much of an engagement party, anyway.

No one likes Sir Guy and everyone likes Marian, so even the rich brown-nosers who showed up couldn't hide how melancholy they were to see a formal announcement of their engagement.

It was more like a funeral, and when Sir Guy put that ring on Marian's finger she looked like she wanted to chew her finger off.

My master died a little, to see it.

But, every minute she's in a room with him, she just looks at homelike she's starving ad he's made out of beefsteak,

He really does love her, and he thinks that will be his ultimate salvation.

Well, I think it will be his ultimate undoing, but he doesn't listen to me.

All in all, then, it was a bit of a relief when Robin crashed the party, robbed everyone and got into a fracas with my master.

That is nothing new.

Meanwhile, Sir Guy had lectured me, on how the food was for his guests, not for me.

Well, as he was currently a little short on guests, I decided it was time for me to eat.

Sir Guy took exception to that.

"Blackthorn? Will you just sit there, stuffing your face, and let this outlaw murder me?"

I slung my boots up onto the table.

"I'm just a peasant, milord Gisbourne. I can't get involved in the quarrel between two noblemen." I says.

I grew up with Guy and Robin; I know better than to get involved in their endless quarrel.

It was all very dramatic, except it wasn't, because whether they were men arguing about king and country and honor or they were boys arguing about war games in Sherwood, it was the same fight, and it always would be.

I value both men, so I will not choose a side in it.


After Sir Guy rode off after Robin Hood, in a huff, Marian turned her attention to Blackthorn, his ever-present bodyguard and valet.

The varlet sat there in Sir Guy's own chair, his boots on the table, his long braid of hair slung behind him, with a joint of mutton in one hand and a joint of venison in the other, filling his mouth with food and his goatee with grease and crumbs, as blithely as if it was his celebratory feast.

With his filthy boots up on the table, guzzling wine, all the while.

"Do you care so little for your childhood friend and your master, Blackthorn? You, a man with nothing but a death sentence hanging over your head, stripped of what land and trade you had? You are alive only because of Guy! Why do you not go after him?" she insisted.

"A man can forget his given name, when everyone calls him by his surname. But you all do it. As if I was a feckin' stranger to all of you, you call me Blackthorn! Well, I'm not, am I? I grew up with Sir Guy, as well as you, Marian. I don't recall you having ever been so bloody concerned about his welfare! And you are very good and getting yourself into this kind of trouble. It's your fault. You never should have said you'd marry Sir Guy, just because you get a funny feeling in your belly when you look at him. And all the while you are still in love with Robin. Well, you don't know the black-hearted Devil the way I do. He's not a man you can trifle with."

"Me? Guy would never do anything to hurt me?"

"Why? Because you're a woman? He's killed women. I've seen him kill a man in front of his own children. My master is a dangerous man. He's a magnificent bastard at best, but if you cross him? A ruthless bastard, the Devil's own. You can't have them both, Marian, and now you've set them at each other's throats over you. That is nothing new, though. Let them settle their own affairs, as noblemen are wont to do. I'm a peasant, the blacksmith's son, and I've no say in it. So, I'm eating." I replied.

"But they will kill each other!"

"No they won't. Robin no longer believes in killing. And Sir Guy knows if he killed Robin then you wouldn't marry him in a thousand years. They'll make big windy speeches about England and Richard and politics to each other, and Sir Guy will taunt Robin about how he's had you, whether he has or not, and then they will beat the stuffing out of one another, for awhile. You're in love with Robin and engaged to Sir Guy. You're all of blue blood and to the manor born. You ride off after them."

Marian was not about to let Blackthorn get away with that.

"Will you stop calling him Sir Guy! Everyone knows you two are lovers, and you have been for years!"

"Don't talk like that, Marian! That's a hanging offence!"

"As if they would hang you for it!"


Well, Marian wouldn't let me eat in peace, so after I finished the open bottle of wine and some of the food that was sure to spoil, I got on my horse and followed Guy's trail.

At the end of it, I found him blindfolded and tied to a tree with his arms over his head, quite unconscious, and badly beaten up.

Robin was conscious, but his face looked like it had been shoved through a miller's wheel, and his tunic was torn open, revealing that he had a bruise in the shape of one of Guy's boots, on his chest.

"I see you and Guy have been at one another, again. As usual. This time, you're going to need looking after, Robin. I'll send Marian, when I see her."

"How could she agree to marry him? And wear his ring?"

"You were away too long. And Sir Guy's a handsome Devil. Why have you got him blindfolded and tied to a tree? What were you going to do? Have a go at him in a different sort of way? Did you learn some queer habits from the Saracens?"

"Gisbourne is your lover, Blackthorn. I am not interested."

"Keep that kind of talk to yourself, Robin! They hang men for that! You and Marian are supposed to be my friends, would you stop publicly accusing me of a hanging offence?!"

I couldn't reach my master's wrists, so I stood on a rock to cut him loose.

"I cannot say what pains me more. That I must let Gisbourne go, or that you have become his lapdog."

I hadn't thought on how he'd fall into a heap on the ground when I did, though.

"Sir Guy? Shit, I hope I haven't done him any more mischief! I am a mercenary, Robin. I was a mercenary when we met in the Holy Land, and I am still a mercenary."

"You were the King's mercenary, then! Why did you come back to Gisbourne? How is it that he owns you, as if he had a mortgage on your very soul?"

"I serve him. Because he pays me. That's all. And Sir Guy always paid me the most. That is what it means to be a mercenary."

"No. There is more. I have heard him taunt you. And tell you that he owns you, that it is him or fire."

"He is fire, Robin. You're a merry man of merry Sherwood Forest. With fine ideals and a fine mission. Which is fine for you, because everybody likes you, and they always have. You wouldn't understand. Can you get me a bucket of water?"

I needed it, to wake my Master. You see, I am not a very big fella. I am a few inches over five feet, three or four and I weight ten stone and seven. Whereas my master is an inch or three over six foot and he's got to weight 13 stone.

I'm a strong man, for my father was a blacksmith, and, in happier times, so did I used to be.

So I made a good go at it.

Robin came back with the water, as I was trying to lift Sir Guy.

He threw the water over my master, who came slowly to consciousness, sputtering.

I put his arm about my shoulders.

"Blackthorn? How the Devil did you get here?" he snapped.

"You ought to know, Sir Guy. Come on then, milord Gisbourne. I can't carry you to your horse. You'll have to help me get you there."

"Why don't you just run away from him, Blackthorn?" Robin asked.

"Because not everyone is like you, Locksley." Guy retorted.

Robin lunged at him and I drew the war axe from across my back, and stood in front of Sir Guy.

"That's enough for today! Feckin' nobleman! You don't care how much mess you make so long as somebody's there to clean it up for you! One swing from either of you, and I'll cut your bollocks off."

I managed to get Sir Guy onto his horse and got myself onto mine.

"You should never have come back here." Robin told me.

"Well, you can have your movement, and your laws and your kings and your princes and alliances. But Nottingham is my home, and I have sworn to serve Sir Guy. It's only a matter of time before some son of King Henry's gives you back your lands and then Guy will just move back to his father's manor. Neither of you stand to lose a damn thing. You never have and you never will, because your blood is blue. Mine isn't. I have my master's trust, which I have had since we were children, and since my lands were stolen and my house and smithy burnt, that is all I have. You have what's yours, Robin, one way or the other. Don't try to talk me out of what's mine." I told him.

"It was your precious Richard who stole my Jamie's land, and burnt Erik Blackthorn's smithy and his cottage, and tore the headstone from his grave! Don't forget that!" Sir Guy reminded Robin.

"At least I made sure Blackthorn enjoyed the party." Robin wisecracked

"You certainly livened it up, some. Of course, you owe my master some thanks. After all, he's agreed to make a nice white wedding for a girl who's no virgin." I replied.

Robin was dumbfounded at that, and before he could make his retort, I pulled on the reins of Sir Guy's horse and nudged my own, and we began our journey out of Sherwood.

"Blackthorn, do you mean to say he's had her?" Sir Guy asked me.

"I mean to say I think she's had both of you, and acts to each of you as if she's only been touched by the one touching her."

"But I haven't!"

"Just because my beard is short, that doesn't mean I was born yesterday! You've had them all, and all their mother's, too! Women go mad over you, the good ones, and the bad. If you've not had Lady Marian, in at least two ways, I'll eat me feckin' boot, pickled in spiced wine!"

"You might have something, Blackthorn. It will bedevil Hood's mind, if he thinks that I have had his ladylove. Let him think that."

Notice that the wily son of a bitch didn't tell me whether I was right about him having Marian, or not?

"Don't gloat too much, milord. You'll fall straight off your horse, and I can't lift your dead weight."

"I've been lifting yours for years, Blackthorn."

Well, I couldn't help it, I had to laugh, even if the jab was at my expense.

He's also a witty bastard of a sardonic son of a bitch, Sir Guy is.


Jamie Blackthorn was the village blacksmith, as her father before her had been.

Eric didn't have a son, and his wife died in childbirth, so he passed what he knew, about war, and life, and blacksmithing, on to his daughter.

Eric was of Danish stock, and they didn't find their women to be weak or stupid, unless they proved that they were.

Jamie was neither.

She was also a good blacksmith, and she was the lifelong comrade of the future Lord Gisbourne.

So even if anyone had anything to say about her, they didn't say it too loudly.

Some people said that Gisbourne's son is drawn to the witch, because he, himself, is a young Devil.

They played and laughed, mocking God in his Church, when they were children.

Born bad, to be sure.

But Guy wanted more than to be Jamie's friend.

She had yielded to other men, he knew, and they treated her with the same contempt that women treated Guy.

But not to him.

She knew Guy wanted her, but if he did, he'd have to prove it.

She was thinking that, as she rode to the castle.

The Guard was used to letting her in.

Lord Gisbourne wasn't fond of her, but he was fond of her work.

Today, she had an audience with him, and his heir.

The mean old prick was in an awful mood, as usual.

And Guy was looking more of a handsome Devil, with every passing day.

And like the Devil, he had a way of making women, from the most virtuous to the least, lie down and open their legs for him. Guy had laid his cock, which she had heard was quite a thing to behold, to nearly every woman in Nottinghamshire, between 15 and 50.

They spoke of him in whispers, and they were even more convinced after lying with him that Guy was of the Devil; a mortal man of a mortal father couldn't be hung like that, and no man not of the Devil could be that kind of lover.

They hated and feared him more after they'd lain with him, but they could never shut up about it.

Indeed, you got the impression that every time they lay down with their husband or lover or sweetheart, all they could think about was Sir Guy of Gisbourne.

And they hated him the most for that.

But they deserved what they got, these stupid women who would pick a good man with a candy heart and a shallow soul over a bad man with a stout black heart and the soul of a noble wolf.

They deserved to be treated like playthings, or cattle, those who wouldn't give a Devil his due.

Jamie planned to.

It was half the reason she had done the business she was seeing Lord Gisbourne about, that day.

"I did not know we had business with you, to-day, Miss Blackthorn."

"With your permission, Milord, I have come to collect the bounty you offered on the wanted outlaw, Brian the Black. Thirty silver pennies, and a good horse."

Lord Gisbourne raised his eyebrow.

Guy looked alarmed.

Brian the Black worked for the future Lord Gisbourne; he was a highwayman, protected from capture by Guy, and it was Jamie's job to melt down gold and silver coins and jewelry into ingots, which Guy would then sell, at a great price.

It was a good business, and Jamie had a few of those ingots, buried in Ragnar's secret place, but Brian the Black was a greedy, stupid man, and it was only a matter of time before he blabbed to somebody.

She decided to cut hers and Guy's losses, and call their business a day.

"That reward is for apprehending the outlaw, dead or alive."

"Yes milord. You'll have to settle for dead."

Jamie took the pack off of her back, and lifted a large jar out of it.

Brian the Black's head, pickled in dandelion wine, an expression of shock will on his face, floated, therein.

"He came out of Sherwood to have his horse re-shod. And he came looking for trouble, because he heard the smith was just a woman."

Jamie laughed at the head.

"He got trouble, too, the son of a bitch."

"Edward, would you say that was the head of Brian the Black?"

Sir Edward, the Sheriff of Nottingham took a good look at the head in the jar.

"It could be no other man. Where's the rest of him, Jamie?"

"Oh, I sold the rest of him to the swineherd, to feed to his pigs. Got a ha'penny a pound, and the outlaw were a big bastard, so I made out."

Sir Edward was taken aback, but Lord Gisbourne cracked a smile.

"You're a piece of work, Jamie Blackthorn, and not the Lord's!" Guy snarled.

"They say the same about you, milord Guy."

Lord Gisbourne gave Jamie her sack with thirty silver ha'pennies, and a sturdy young stallion, saddle and all.

He was about to confer with the Sheriff, about how the girl had managed to kill the hulking Brian the Black, but Guy left the Great Hall, in great agitation.

"Where are you going, Guy?" his father demanaded.

"To meet my fate, father! I will not be mocked, or taunted by that woman, not one more time!"

To the Sherriff's surprise, Lord Gisbourne let him go.

"But Roger, after what she did to that beast of an outlaw! Do you not fear for your son?"

"Guy is the Devil's son, Edward. And she is the Devil's daughter. I will leave it to the Devil, to decide their fates."


Guy was surprised that Jamie was waiting for him, on the road through Sherwood.

"Did you need money and a horse that badly, Jamie? That you would slaughter Brian, and end my business with him, before it was finished.?"

"It was feckin' well finished, Guy. Brian was a dumb oaf, Guy. He very nearly botched his last job, and left your arse waving in the breeze. And he would have blabbed the moment he was nicked. Well, the son of a whore won't feckin' blab, now. I'll spilt the money with you, of course. But I need the horse." Jamie told him.

Mockingly.

"You don't tell me what to do, girl! And you don't make decisions like that! When the old man dies, I will be your Lord and Master!" Guy fumed.

"Will you now, Guy?" Jamie taunted.

"Don't taunt me, Jamie! I am not afraid of you!"

She dismounted, and drew her sword with one hand and the axe from her back with the other.

"You ought to be, you son of a bitch! Why don't you draw your sword and come on over here and feckin' prove it!"

Guy had sparred with Jamie, behind her father's barn, many times, almost every day, indeed, since they were children.

But he was mad enough now that he raised his sword against her, in genuine anger.

"I have had, at last, enough of your impertinence! And of your whoredom! Put down your weapons, and be a good girl for me, as you have been for the men you meet in your travels! I don't doubt that before you killed him, you seduced Brian on the filthy floor of your smithy, and cut off his head while he lay snoring beside you! After all, why let a man go to waste? I will have you, now, and whenever I like, after this! And you can either submit to me, or I will take you by force!"

"They all lie down with their legs in the air for you, don't they Guy? What would you know about rape? I'm a Dane; it's in my blood. But if it's my arse you're after, Guy, come and feckin' take it, if you dare!"

Guy threw himself against Jamie's axe and sword with a combination of lust and rage, but she was cool and calm.

She played with him, a little, and he realized she was toying with him, enticing him, in his fury, to make a mistake.

Guy realised that right around the time that he made a mistake, and Jamie cleaved his sword in two with her war axe, and laughed at him.

"Jamie!"

"You dumb son of a bitch! You've played right into me hands!"

She planted her boot in his belly, but she didn't kick him, just gave him a push.

Guy fell over on his back, his broken sword flying out of his hand and bumped his head on a large oak.

A few leaves fell on him, as Jamie pinned him to the ground holding his legs against the ground with her knees, the axe poised over his head.

"Do you mean to kill me, Jamie?" he asked, sounding genuinely hurt.

"Kill you? Damn it, Guy, my father was a Dane and his father a Dane and his father a raider and a trader and a warrior! If there is to be raping done, I'll be the one to do it!"

She imbedded her axe in the ground and undid three things.

The laces on her jerkin, the laces on her tunic, and all her long golden hair from her two braids.

She leaned over Guy.

It fell all over him, her lovely, long, curly, thick butter-yellow hair, as he leaned over him and kissed him.

And yanked the lace out of his breeches.

Guy tangled his fingers in her hair and held her body close to his.

He felt as he had never known to feel, with his hands on a woman, before.

Of all the whores he'd had, she was the one he wanted.

"Jamie. My Jamie." He moaned.

"Your Jamie and no one else's, Guy. Always, I've been your Jamie, and no one else's. No matter what they say I've done, or what I do, that's how it is, with you and me. I keep my promises."

"Then what was all this about?"

"I wasn't going to give it to you, Guy! Not like every other woman from here to Birmingham, and back again! If you wanted it, you'd have to feckin' well take it! Brian was an oaf, ready to blab on us, but I knew it'd make you red-hot mad, if I killed him. I wanted to see if you'd fight for it, and you did. Besides, I do need the horse. You fight like the Devil, Guy. If I didn't know what I was doing, you might have feckin' killed me. And I hear that you fuck like him, too? Do you?"

"Like the Devil himself. For you, Jamie? Like the Devil fucks the Whore of Babylon, in the deepest, hottest firepit in Hell."

"Will you, now, Guy? Prove it."


Guy rode his horse to death, on his way back from Nottingham.

His father was in council with Edward, the Sherriff of Nottingham, when he burst into the room.

"This time they mean to burn her, father! I have seen the order, in the bishop's purse, and King Richard's signature is on it! The Inquisitor and the bishop and their butchers do not mean to come for another ten days. You know the King, father. I have asked you for nothing, in all my life, because I know that of all the men in Nottinghamshire who hate me, you loathe me more. Now I will ask that you do this for me. Please, father. I do not ask you as a son, but as a man. Don't let them burn my Jamie. Talk to the King. Tell him she is a harmless blacksmith, who likes to drink, and spar with soldiers, and pick fights in the tavern. Tell him that she is the best blacksmith in Nottinghamshire!" Guy insisted.

"If Richard has signed our blacksmith's death warrant, I can do nothing for her, if it was seven days, or seven hundred." Lord Gisbourne explained to his son.

"Do you have the document, Guy?" Sir Edward asked.

"I could not very well steal it from him, while he slept!"

"You see, Edward? Much good can come from my son consorting with whores."

"Is there nothing that can be done, Lord Gisbourne?" Sir Edward asked.

"Go back to Nottingham, Guy, and buy the fastest horse you can find. Get some provisions together, and some money, in gold and silver coins. Get your Jamie onto that horse, and into the wind. If she can get to Dover, I can arrange passage for her, to Calais, in four days time. Let her lay low, on the Continent, for a year or two. They have need of good soldiers and good smiths, everywhere. I'm sure she could pass, convincingly, as a man."

Guy looked dumbfounded.

"You would help me, Father?"

"I don't hate you, Guy. I don't like you very much, but you're still my son. And I know there is only one soul on God's Earth that is kindred to your own. I would not see you bereft of your precious Jamie. Indeed, she is the finest smith in Nottinghamshire, and she has furnished me with a museum of the heads of nearly every brigand who has passed through my lands. It may not even take so long. When Richard next holds court, I will go and speak to him, and explain the situation."


Guy sat on the back of his horse, holding a lantern high, watching as the bishop spoke holy words from the Good Book, before the Inquisitors put the witch to the torch.

He waited until the five Inquisitors had soaked the wooden barn, and smithy and the thatched roof of the stone cottage with pitch and oil, and entered the house, to make sure the witch was there.

She wasn't.

Guy had made sure of that.

But still, they had taken her from him.

And they meant to murder her.

So they would pay.

When they were all inside, he lit a torch from the flame of the lantern, swung the lantern around, and threw it onto the thatched roof of the cottage.

The torch he threw at the barn.

Almost immediately, the barn and the cottage were an inferno.

The screams from inside began.

"What is this? What are you doing, young Gisbourne?" the bishop asked.

Guy grabbed him by the collar of his office, and held his sword to the hypocrite's throat.

He smirked, sardonically, perhaps demonically at the frightened bishop in the smoky firelight.

"I am a son of the Devil, and Jamie Blackthorn is my witch, my Whore of Babylon. I am here, you pious fool, to do the Devil's business."

He cut the bishop open, from neck to nuts, tossed his body to the ground, and dismounted from his horse.

Guy barred the door to the cottage, and to the barn, and he threw the bishop's corpse into the smithy and closed it's door, just before the fire from the barn set it aflame.

You could still hear the screaming.

"Let us out! Let us out, you Devil!" one of the Inquisitors screamed.

He pressed his face to the cross slit in the shutter on the windows that Guy had nailed shut, earlier that day.

"You who would burn an innocent woman, because she is good with sword and axe and wears trousers to work in in her father's forge?"

Young Gisbourne laughed in the terrified man's face.

"Do you know what it means to be hoist by your own petard? Burn, you dog! Burn until your flesh melts, until your eyes pop out of your skull, until your blood boils and your bones blacken! Burn as you would have had my Jamie burn, and suffer as you would have had her suffer! And when you are nothing but black bones, I will mingle you all together in a pit, piss on your grave, and fill in the pit as if I was burying the bones of slaughtered pigs!"

Guy calmly walked back to his horse, and mounted up.

He listened to the Inquisitors' screams, and when they were silent, he took all of their personal effects from their horses and tossed them into the inferno.

Guy stayed until the fire burnt itself out.

Then, he stripped to his waist, and dug a great pit where the barn had been.

Guy threw the blackened bones and other charred remains of five Holy Inquisitors and a Bishop into the pit, careful to leave only a few scattered bones. True to his word, he pissed on their upturned, screaming skulls, then filled in the pit with dirt and debris, and heaped a pile of debris over it.

"In pace requiescat." He snarled, with a sneering laugh.


Lord Gisbourne would swear that that his son had been ill for a week, confined to his bed by catarrh, fever, a cough, and aches and pains.

Indeed, several of Lord Gisbourne's servants had seen, themselves, that young Gisbourne was quite ill; especially on the morning that the Bishop and his Inquisitors turned up missing.

The Sheriff went to the site of the blacksmith's homestead and found littlebut ash and the remains of the stone cottage; the fire had burnt so hot and for so long, the villagers of Locksley said, that it lasted all night.

Sir Edward eventually found three human thighbones, a handful of teeth, and the jawbones of two men.

His verdict was that the Bishop and his Inquisitors had misjudged how ferociously the fire would burn, and that they were overcome either by smoke, or flame, and met their deaths along with Jamie Blackthorn.

That was the official explanation.

Unofficially?

Everyone in Locksley believed that Lord Gisbourne had lied for his son, and that Guy had shut the bishop and his men up in the inferno, and sat by, all night, to listen to them die.

They had killed his Jamie, and he had made them pay with their lives.

That story was to travel all over Nottinghamshire, and in some version, all of England.

Until everyone knew that Sir Guy of Gisbourne was the Devil.

Here to do the Devil's Business.