A Drink Between the Wars Chapter I: Night Watch

My father had long since fallen asleep and he snored softly as the carriage rattled along the rutted dirt road. I had tried to sleep at first, but soon gave up. Every noise, every shout across the fields, every time one of the horses nickered I looked for him. He was with his men in the forest, I knew, but still a small part of me hoped; and I berated myself for it.

As we turned up the lane for Knighton Hall, I could swear I heard a whistle and then I knew why. Our outlaws were not in the forest; they were at Knighton waiting for us. Only Robin and Much were in the yard, each returning a precautionary arrow to their quivers, but I knew the others would not be far. The carriage pulled up and father woke with a start.

"Are we home?"

"Yes father. And Robin is here."

"There's a surprise." He commented wryly.

Robin came forward to greet us as we stepped down.

"Not in the forest tonight, Robin?"

"No, Sir Edward. We thought we might keep watch lest Gisborne or the Sheriff decide to put action to their displeasure."

"Just you and Much?"

"Alan is watching the road, Will, Djaq and Little John watch the outer corners of the house. Much will be in the hayloft."

"And where will you be?" I asked him.

"Mine is the most important job of all," Robin replied with a wink, glancing up at my window.

He was, as he was ever, exasperating. It was somehow as though the last few days had not happened. And while there were many events that I'd rather forget, I had thought that, in spite of it all, Robin and I had reached a new understanding. I wished for more light so that I could see his eyes, and so I would be able tell if he felt the same, but he had already turned back to my father.

"Sir Edward, may I speak with you before you retire?"

"Of course, my boy. Come inside."

"Settle yourself from your journey, Sir. I'll just confer with Much and then I'll come."

"As you wish."

Robin moved past me toward his companion without a word, but as he did, his fingers brushed my palm.

"Will you join us, my dear?"

"He asked to speak to you, Father, not me. And much as that fact would normally annoy me, I confess today I am too tired to care. I feel I have lived seven lives in seven hours."

"And you are still not fully recovered."

"Do not vex yourself over me," I assured him in response to his frown, "and do not let Robin keep you up to all hours of the night. Your day has not been uneventful either."

I ascended the stairs to my chamber, lit the candles and moved to close the shutter. In the yard I could see Robin and Much talking. Robin had one hand on Much's shoulder and was looking down as he spoke, driving at the dirt with the toe of his boot. Something was not right between them. Both looked slightly embarrassed, but them Robin embraced Much, clapping him heartily on the back. Whatever had gone wrong, I was glad that it was mended. Our young lord likes to pretend he needs no one, but he needs Much. It is Much who understands what Robin saw in the Holy Lands, a horror at which the rest of us can only speculate. It is Much that he allows to fuss over him when he is sick or hurt, and it is Much who reminds him more by deed than word that it is important to be kind as well as clever. Their voices stilled and I heard Much climb the ladder to the hayloft. It occurred to me to wonder where Robin intended to be, the loft was not only closest to my room, it was the driest and warmest of the watch points. I glanced out the shutter again; Robin stood in the yard by himself, his head tipped to look at the stars. I felt a spike of feeling shoot through me as surely as had I been struck by one of his arrows. As though he felt my eyes, he turned but his face was shaded in darkness and still I could not tell his expression. Then he dipped his head and went inside.

I heard the rise and fall of voices as Robin and my father greeted one another. Most days I would have stayed and made myself a part of their conversations. They both have a tendency to forget that I have a brain between my ears, a brain that is often a damn sight sharper than either of theirs. Today, however, the combination of horses and corsets and the wound Gisborne inflicted when I robbed him had wearied me to the point where I did not care if they were plotting to overthrow Prince John single-handedly, talking them out of it would have to wait til morning. Besides, I knew that having said he would stand guard over us, Robin would begin no other plan, foolhardy or otherwise, 'til sun-up.

I changed to my nightclothes and began to brush my hair but the memories of the day came flooding back, especially one brief moment outside of the gates of the castle. I smiled at the thought.

"Thinking of me?"

I spun at the sound of his voice, pulling my gown about me hurriedly.

"When you said you were guarding this room, I assumed you meant from outside its doors."

"A clue: no," Robin chuckled.

"It's irritating when the Sheriff says that, when you do, it moves to intolerable. So you plan to share my bed chamber?"

"I do."

He blew out the lone candle

"And where do think you'll be sleeping?"

"I won't. I'll sit myself there," he indicated the wide bench beneath the window, "and watch."

"You plan to watch me sleep?"

"I plan to watch you breathe and to give thanks to God for each and every breath."

It was not just his words, though they were powerful, but the timbre with which he spoke them and the fire that burned in his blue-green eyes. I was not aware of moving, but then I was in his arms.

"Marian."

He held me tightly to him, the strength in his arms a gentle cage. I wrapped my own about his waist, and rested my cheek in the hollow of his shoulder. I felt long sigh escape his body with a shudder. He whispered my name again. When I lifted my eyes to his our lips met in a long lingering kiss, and then another and a third and fourth. I felt as though if I breathed at all, it was the air from his lungs. Where his fingers touched me, even through my clothes, I felt warmed as though he held the summer sun in his hands. And every time he said my name I swear it was the sound of angels singing; such was the spell that he had over me.

Without breaking the embrace, he moved backward, drawing me with him, to the bench and then down onto his lap. His face was painted red by the fire and blue from a shaft moonlight that came in the half-open shutter.

"You truly intend to spend the entire night on this rough bench?"

"I swear," he replied, "I have never encountered a more comfortable place to sit."

I felt myself to be smiling like a fool as I stoked his cheek and he turned and kissed my hand.

"Thank you for saving me today," I said, expressing the merest fraction of the gratitude that I felt in not spending my first night as Lady Gisborne.

But Robin shook his head. "That credit goes to Much not me. Tell me, what happened between Much being thrown in the duck pond and you coming out of the church?"

"Well, Gisborne admitted that he knew that the so-called king was an impostor. Then he came dangerously close to admitting all that you have accused him of being. And in almost the same breath he threatened my father. I realised in that instant what Gisborne truly is. So I hit him."

"You hit him? In a church?"

"I'd already told a lie in the church, I thought I might as well make my next confession a long one."

"What lie?"

"Much told the congregation that my heart belonged to another. I said it wasn't true."

"And that was a lie?" Robin asked carefully.

"It was."

The corners of his mouth twitched to a smile. But then he frowned

"Marian, I'm sorry to ask but I need to understand…"

"Ask me. It is better that we talk about it now, before any more misunderstanding takes root."

"Did you really believe Gisborne over me?"

"About Acre?"

"Yes."

It was the point that perhaps most divided us; in part because I had never fully told him what I thought. I was determined to do so now, but I wasn't sure he would like what that truth was.

"I believed that you believed what you were saying was true. You experienced the horror of war in the Holy Land. And then you came home, only to have Guy try and steal from you everything that had been yours. I just wondered if perhaps your hatred of Gisborne and your hatred of the King's would-be assassins had become one."

"And the tattoo?"

I had been afraid he would ask that.

"I questioned how well you had seen it. It was at night, in the midst of a fight for your life, and the King's. I thought that you perhaps misremembered it."

"Then why would the Sheriff burn it off of Gisborne's arm with Djaq's magic potion?" he demanded, trying to contain his anger.

"Why does the Sheriff do anything?"

"To hide his guilt!" Robin stood suddenly, almost knocking me to the floor. "Perhaps you are right. Perhaps I would be better guarding you from a distance."

"Perhaps you should calm down and recognise that things have changed."

As always his temper had sparked my own.

"I do believe you. I do believe that Gisborne tried to kill King Richard. And I believe that we will find a way to prove it."

Robin glared out at the night for a long moment.

"We?" he finally asked, still unconvinced.

"Yes."

"Did you love him?"

He still did not look at me but at least he had finally asked it.

"No."

"But you were fond of him, his certain qualities?"

And so it has always been with us, one minute we are kissing by moonlight the next we are at each other's throats. And I suppose I am as guilty as him, for I do not easily acquiesce to his moods, but tend to match him blow for blow.

"Do you like the forest, Robin?"

"It's alright," he replied with a shrug and a sniff.

"Do you prefer it to Locksley Manor?"

"No," he sighed.

"So go home."

"I can't. You may not have noticed in all the excitement of your wedding, but an ass is living in my house."

"You didn't have to give it up. You could have let Alan and the Scarlett boys hang."

"Marian! You think I could have gone back to Locksley and faced the people of the village if I'd done that! You think I could have faced my own reflection if I'd done that?"

"So it is not all a choice. You find positives in that which you cannot change!"

"Sherwood Forest has a damn sight more positive qualities than Sir Guy of Gisborne!"

"Agreed!"

We stood almost as close as we had before, though now we glared at each other. Then frustrated, he turned and crouched by the fire; his back, pointedly, to me. He rubbed his jaw roughly and muttered things that I couldn't quite hear.

I watched him a moment and then took pity on him. I was angry with him for so long after he left for the war that it has burned most of its fuel; I now seem unable to maintain my ire for any length of time. I crossed to stand above and behind him, gently stroking his hair with my hand.

"Robin, I did not, could not love him. I don't even like him. I never have."

"But you said–"

"When? Friday afternoon, after I'd been to Locksley?"

"Yes."

"There was no time to argue and I did not think I could convince you any other way."

"Convince me of what?"

"My father said you were divided, torn between protecting the King and protecting me. But if you had come after me, not only would the King have been in danger but–"

"But your father as well."

He tipped his head back and I could see that his expression was much softer, but then he frowned.

"That wasn't the only time you praised him though."

"Robin, please, I was scared." It was my turn to look away so that he could not see how much it had affected me. "I could see no way out. And you were demanding that I face the fact that the man to whom the fates had sentenced me had tried to kill the king. You wanted me to admit that I was chained to a monster. The only way I could cope was to focus on his good points, however few, and hope that if I praised them, showed some affection, he might be reconstructed."

"What type of affection?" Robin demanded, but his voice was lighter.

"A smile, a touch of the hand."

"A kiss?"

"Do you do this to torture yourself? Or just me?" I pulled his hair lightly, a gesture I'd used in childhood when he annoyed me.

Robin laughed softly, recognising the shared memory.

"Did you ever kiss him?" he repeated.

"No."

He leaned back slightly against my legs and I let my hand resume its more gentle touch.

"He didn't have to listen to my qualities."

"Well you are an outlaw whom I'm supposed to despise."

He didn't answer.

"Are you upset because Guy didn't have to listen to your qualities, or because you think I wouldn't know what to list?"

Robin remained silent and I knew that I had touched a nerve.

"You are such a fool." I told him.

"You said that you used 'fool' when you meant 'hero'," he reminded me.

"Sometimes, other times I just mean fool. This is one of those times."

"Why is that then?"

"Because you seem to think that I don't know what your good qualities are. Robin, I know them in small detail. You are a hundred times the man he is."

He rose from his haunches and stood in front of me. "I'm glad you think so."

He reached out his hand and stroked my cheek. Suddenly I was conscious that I was alone in my darkened bedchamber with a fully-grown man.

"My lord, it is late. Perhaps–"

"My lord?" Robin repeated, "Who are you talking to?"

"I'm not sure," I admitted truthfully. "It is not as simple as it once was."

"Even with Gisborne out of the picture."

"Even so."

"I think I knew that when I returned and you greeted with me fully drawn bow rather than open arms."

"And yet a bare left hand."

"And yet."

We were close enough to touch but it was as though we stood on opposite banks.

Robin walked over to the bench and sat down.

"Get some sleep, Marian. It's been a long day."

"Robin…"

"It's fine, get some sleep."

But after an hour, I still tossed restlessly.

"Robin?" I whispered "Are you awake?"

"I told you I wasn't going to sleep," he replied.

"I can't either."

"Is it because I'm here? Do you want me to go out to the loft with Much?"

"Yes and no."

"Sorry?"

"Yes, it's because you're here; no, I don't want you to leave."

"So what do we do?"

"You could tell me about the Holy Land?"

"The palm trees, the sands, the women wrapped from head to toe in scarves?"

"Any of it."

"Well," he began, but then stopped.

In the darkness, I could see him doubled over as if in pain, his head in his arms. I slipped from the bed and sat beside him. I gently rubbed his back.

"It's alright. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked."

"I want to be able to tell you but…"

"Robin, you'll tell me when the time is right."

"I brought you a gift," Robin suddenly declared, putting his memories back behind his armour and rising to the satchel he had left by the door.

"Oh don't you start."

"Start with what?"

"Guy and his bloody presents. Every time I turned around he was here with another present."

"You got quite a nice horse out of it."

"Alright," I admitted ruefully, "I liked the horse. But then there was the necklace; such disaster spawned by a few links of silver."

"You told me once that I should bring you a gift."

"You were making fun of the horse, I was annoyed. "

"I think you'll like this. It's something Guy of Gisborne would never think to give."

"Alright," I tried to sound resigned, but we both knew that he had sparked my interest.

"Close your eyes."

"Robin."

"Close 'em."

Reluctantly I obeyed.

He placed his gift in my hands.

I knew what is was before I saw it, but it was only in seeing that I truly believed it. He had brought me a mask, a near copy of the Night Watchman's mask that I burned before the wedding.

"I saw it in Nottingham town as we were leaving. I thought you might need it."

"I might need it?"

"You asked me once to help you do what you believed in, to help you be what you wanted to be."

"And then you told me to stay home with my embroidery."

"Well we both know that you won't do that."

He sat beside me. "You did good things for the people. If you choose to continue, I want to help you."

"Do you mean that?"

"I do. It both keeps the Sheriff off-guard and gives the people hope to know it is not just one who fights for the poor, but many."

I still couldn't quite believe what I was hearing. "You're actually encouraging me to keep going? Mr No-need-now-that-I'm-back? Mr Stay-home-and-out-of-trouble?"

"Reluctantly I'll admit, but ultimately, yes. Because I know it is important to you."

I don't think I had ever loved him as much as I did in that moment.

"Thank you, Robin."

"There are some conditions."

"Conditions." I should have known.

"One is that the Night Watchman takes a one month vacation."

"A month?"

"Sir Guy lost both you and his silver within three days of each other. He is out for blood. If he encountered the Night Watchman he would show absolutely no mercy."

"Does he show mercy on other occasions?"

"You tell me, you were the one who saw his qualities."

"Just so I can keep track, how many times are we going to have this fight?"

"You are used to being in his favour. In that mask you are as much his nemesis as I am. He will regard us as one and act accordingly. A month, just a month, is all I ask."

"He will not forget."

"No, but by then he may be distracted. Or think the Watchman died of the injuries inflicted."

Robin paused and swallowed and I suspected that he was remembering the cave. I reached out for his hand, urging him on.

"You said conditions? Plural."

"I want us to start working together."

"So now you want me to take you along whenever I go out."

"Yes, but I know that's not going to happen either. And sometimes, I suppose, you will be better on your own. But when you know that you are likely to confront the Sheriff's men I would like it if you would at least mention it to me. I would like you to take backup, if not me, then one of my men.

"Just the men? What about Djaq?"

"Two women?"

"Have you not learned by now that women may be as dangerous as men?"

"Have I ever doubted it?" He laughed out loud.

"I meant with a sword or bow."

"Oh with a bow; I thought you meant with your eyes."

"Keep this up and I'll show you just how dangerous I can be."

"No, no, I surrender. "He held his hands in front of his face jokingly.

"And I thought you were actually taking me seriously."

I tossed the mask back to him and went to stoke the fire.

"Marian." His tone turned me around.

He held the mask out.

"I take you very seriously. If I could, I would give you a tag, and ask you to ride as one of us. But I know that you will not leave your father. So let this be your tag. Work with me to relieve our people from the misery they suffer."

I looked at the mask, then at him. He took another step towards me. He met my gaze and then looked back to the gift in his hand.

"Thank you," I whispered, taking it from him, but Robin did not drop his hand.

"Do we have a bargain?"

"That the Night Watchman will recuperate for one month and then we'll work together?"

"Yes."

"Yes, I'll agree to those terms."

"Shake on it."

"Shake on it?"

"If you were a man, I'd want your hand to seal your word. You ask for equal treatment; I ask for equal oath."

"So sworn." I spat on my hand and gripped his.

"I didn't ask for a spit shake," he protested, wiping his palm on his shirt.

"Saliva didn't seem to bother you earlier."

"I do have one other present." He told me and seemed oddly nervous.

"Have I not made it clear that emulating Guy in any way is not desirable?"

"As a note, do you suppose you could practice calling him 'Gisborne', if you have to call him anything at all. Every time you refer to him as 'Guy', I want to hit something."

"I'll try to remember."

"Thank you. As I said, one other present."

"And as I said, I require no gifts. I did not before and certainly after all that has just transpired."

"It is something that I want you to have."

Robin pulled a chain and pendant from his neck. "For five years through the Holy Land, I have worn this." He held out the talisman. "Do you recognise it?"

The year before he left for the war, Robin had accompanied my father and I to Lincoln when the King's man had come. Come recruiting, as it turned out, but I did not know that at the time. What I did know was that my father had left me in Robin's care. Robin had taken my hand and bade me stay close. Together we had walked through the market with all its wondrous sights and smells. There had been jugglers and minstrels, and pork and apples and nuts roasting over flame, and every kind of ware for sale. Robin, who had only just ascended to his earldom, was a very careful shopper, comparing the weight of swords and apples with equal concentration. Finally as we had been returning to rejoin my father, we passed a stall of talismans and trinkets.

"Kind Gentleman," the stall-keeper had called. "Will you buy a love-token for the your pretty girl."

It was the only thing all day that he bought without hesitation.

"You bought it for me in Lincoln and before you left for the war I gave it back to you."

"Flung it at my head to be perfectly accurate."

"If you want to be a stickler for details, yes."

Without speaking he took my hand, placed it in my palm and curled my fingers around it, then placed my hand against my heart.