Thunder crashed as the rain poured outside. The common man huddled with his family inside of their homes. Repairs were needed but the money for such went to taxes. In only six short years of reign Prince John interim King of England devastated everyone from the highest of high to the lowest. Only helping the ones whom he felt were worthy and kissed up to him enough. A land that once flourished with life and laughter existed on rotting homes and a slim hope that one day soon the rightful King would return.
Marian walked into a foyer carrying a pan from the kitchen. Carefully she eased down the painting moving it away from the leaking ceiling. As she positioned the pot underneath the drip grumbling, "A person would think Matilda that Prince John would grow up and ease the burden he has put upon the people."
Matilda wrapped a cloth around the painting covering the framed portrait, "Prince John is doing what he thinks is best. I'm too old for you to try to make me speak out of class and you old enough to know better Marian. Not to mention these are dangerous times and we need not endanger the good you do nor the people of Nottinghamshire."
Marian reached up taking a pin out of her hair letting it fall. She glanced over at her maid's greying hair, "I'm sorry. I tend to speak my mind you know."
Matilda chuckled taking down another painting, "For years I've tended this family, and if you tell anyone I said this I'll tan your hide. You have the best head of the lot and the biggest heart. You'll take care of this country better than the men of this family."
Marian smiled and shook her head laughing. Thunder rolled as a loud banging was heard at the front door. She turned and walked toward it. Matilda shook her head as if she never revealed what she just said and mumbled, "Who could that be with your Father gone and Grandfather sick in bed?"
Marian opened the door and gasped. There stood a man with more blood than skin showing. Just beyond him a horse pin-cushioned with arrows lay dead. The man gasped coughing. Arrows pierced his back as his clothes were torn by a whip lashes. His side oozed with a mark from a broadsword that snaked down his front. His ankles exposed pants torn as if they had been shredded. Marian screamed orders at the top of her lungs, "I need hot water and as many sheets as you can find in my chambers now! Matilda help me get him up. Oh dear God in heaven have things fallen as far as this?"
Matilda and Marian rushed to the coughing gasping man. He looked over at Marian choking out, "Help me," before his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he collapsed.
Struggling they carried the man upstairs and paused before the hall. This was not the first person Marian nursed to health. To amuse his daughter Lord Matthew had set a room across from his daughter's to harbor her patients. "No Matilda, my room and no one is allowed to come in. It's a woman who is having a bad birth remember that. That is the story."
Matilda ran ahead and opened the door to Marian's bedroom turning down the bed as the girl held the man's weight, "This isn't proper. Who is he that you need to hide him so?"
"Help me get him on the bed. While you are at it take the top cover off only leave the sheet underneath. I hope we have an extra mattress because this is about to be ruined." Marian began to explain as the women laid the man on his stomach leaving the arrows in his back pointing upward. Quickly Marian used her sewing scissors to cut the clothing from the man's body. Matilda ran to get Marian's illegal surgical tools from the hidden passageway. Marian snapped the arrows off leaving a little to show outside the skin and finished, "This man is Robert of Locksley."
Matilda gasped unable to move for a moment, "That means..."
Marian placed a hand upon Robert's back and a knee on the bed her other hand grasping the arrow, "Hold him Matilda he is going to rise off this bed. It means that his Father is dead and the castle at Locksley has been burned to the ground and all hell has broken loose. We are now harboring an outlaw."
Matilda slammed the screaming man back down onto the bed as Marian removed the other arrows, "It isn't the first time. Let's get him cleaned up and sewn up. The Sheriff, Prince John, and your Father will be home at any moment."
Marian rubbed her neck and moaned, "What time is it?"
Matilda finished shaving Robert's beard, "Nigh onto midnight. I best get cleaned up and ready to serve the men. Think you can finish alone?"
Marian went over dumping the bloody water and taking the fresh bowl over to the bed, "Yes I can. We left proper long ago." She began to clean the cuts underneath his beard, "At least the wounds are clean."
Matilda began to leave the room and muttered, "At least you two are betrothed."
Horses hooves clattered outside as the men arrived home. Everything in castle appeared as if nothing had happened. Marian's presence was not missed among that late night dinner. Upstairs she worked placing bandages to slowly bleeding wounds. Robert in a feverish sleep woke up to see a woman leaning over him working. Confused he tried to grasp where he was. The last he remembered was getting off a boat arriving home from the Crusades and a message begging him to come home. The woman put her hand on his lips motioning for him not to try to speak. His body was burning with fever aching with wounds worse than any he received from battle. Robert squinted his eyes focusing them on her mouth trying to make out what she was singing through his delirium.
Who will stop the false king running the land to its death?
Return home wanderer and heal the sick,
Cut out the plague before it gets to us all.
Brother is against brother
Our land is ruled in fear and greed
Where is our king?
Who will avenge the deaths of the right?
Murdered brutally in the night
In a land lying still and forgotten
A kingdom with a broken throne
A king has lost his home
A war called from far away
Causing our warriors and king to forget the war
Right here
Matilda came into the room and motioned for Marian to step out and get some air. Carrying the last bowl of blood red water Marian dumped it in the kitchen while the conversation drifted down the hall.
"With the Locksley dead that breaks your old contract Matthew. Perhaps time to make a new one?" Prince John's voice drifted down the hallway as Marian stopped to listen.
"I still hate it that my old friend betrayed us in the end. We did what needed to be done," Marian heard her Father reply.
"I'd take good care of your daughter. Besides, Matthew this would insert me into the royal family and the Locksley land is now rightfully Marian's," the third voice of the Sheriff of Nottingham's joined the other two.
"You will announce the engagement soon Matthew. You won't betray us like Locksley did? I'd hate to kill family," Prince John threatened.
"No I will announce it. At the month's end. A wedding as soon as the weather turns warm. March that will give Marian four months or so to prepare. When it's proper. We wouldn't want the people to talk," her Father said.
Marian shook her head no in horror. The Sheriff a man thirty years her senior wanted nothing but the power she'd bring in title. Odds were he would kill her within a month stating some tragic accident. Marian ran up the back stairwell into her chambers. Her only hope for life now lie in keeping her greatest childhood enemy alive.