Title: A Shadow of a Man
Rating: 14A
Summary: Much came back from the Crusades a different man.
It's hard for the others to believe, but only several years ago Much was a very different man. Here in the woods, he is a mere shadow of his former self, a sycophantic follower of Robin, devoid of free will or personality.
But Marian remembers how he used to be.
She remembers how he used to run ahead of Robin, not behind him. How he used to tease them both, his laugh and smile always ready to cheer them up. How Robin followed him around, adoringly.
How much they have all changed since then.
She doesn't know what happened to them, what changed between Much and Robin in the Holy Land. They left as friends and came back as something very different.
She thinks that it is probably Robin's fault; it usually is. When they were younger, her father used to watch Robin anxiously while they played, never quite certain what the boy's next move would be. He has so much potential for cruelty and selfishness, and sometimes Marian thinks that her love and Much's friendship are the only things that prevented him from growing up to be another Vaysey.
What if, she wonders, he gave into that brutality while he was gone?
She knows what men do when there are no women to comfort them. As a young girl, she had listened uncomprehendingly to the gossip spread by her nurse, tales of the monks who delivered the family's ale and honey. Her father's books on the ancient Greeks, books he had encouraged her to read, had improved both her greek and her knowledge of human peculiarities.
And, even though it pains her, she thinks Robin is capable of taking comfort wherever he can find it. Even when it is not willingly given.