Author's Note: Thank you to everyone who has read and reviewed this story, I really do appreciate your input. The usual disclaimers apply, and I own none of this. Reviews are always well received, thank you again.
Chapter Four: Temptation.
Marian makes her own light as she stands swathed in white; lost in a vellum scroll she is reading in the darkening hallway. She is oblivious to Guy's presence in the outer-gallery, where the light of a solitary torch flickers from its sconce set in the wall. He inches closer, and pauses in the archway that separates the chamber and the passage, and looks on in admiration as she shimmers in the fading light. Slowly, she glances up from the scroll, and a serene smile spreads across her face as she becomes aware of him looking. She rolls up her vellum and slips it down the front of her bodice, an erotic gesture slowly played out for his benefit. Her eyes glitter with playful mischief as she hitches up the hems of her gown, and begins to run, glancing coyly over her shoulder to make sure he is following.
"Let me lead you into temptation," she says in a low whisper that he can barely make it out.
It amuses him to play along; he gives chase and follows her down the long gallery through which she flees. She pauses, concealing herself behind a pillar before she gets too far away, but when he gets too close she takes flight once more. Soundless; wordless, the game continues with her slipping from his grasp at the last minute. Her playful laughter is carried back to him as she darts from the tips of his fingers and around a corner. He can close the gap between them once more. He reaches out and catches a fistful of her gown as it billows out behind her but she evades him, and he is left holding a single solitary silk ribbon that had been tied around her waist. He holds it delicately between his fingers, and presses it to his lips for luck. Surely now, the rest of her will follow?
"Guy," she whispers in his ear, materialising suddenly at his side, "come, let me show you my graven images."
He turns to look at her, and her lips are kissing distance from his cheek. "What man can resist?" he asks, raising his gaze from the swell of her bosom to meet her eyes.
But she ignores the question, her smile widening, as she beckons with an enticing gesture towards a door that stands ajar. He had not seen it before, he could swear it wasn't there at all. But Marian slips inside as nimbly as a fawn evading her hunter. He goes to follow, but as soon as he steps inside, the door slams shut behind him. He whirls around, expecting to see Marian hiding there, but she is gone. Mystified, he looks behind him. At the far end of a room is a table, covered in a fine linen cloth, set for two. A fresh bouquet of wild flowers sit in a glass jar and the table is set with glittering silverware. A large beeswax candle is sitting prettily in a decorative bed of leaves in the centre. Two chairs, already pulled out, are at opposite sides of the table.
Unable to think of anything else to do, Guy sits in one of them and takes a look around. There is only one other way out of this room – through a small side door, probably used by the servants. He studies it for a minute, wondering if Marian had gone through that door to evade him, but when he rises to investigate, he realises he already has company. And it's not Marian.
The man is well dressed with an immaculately manicured goatee beard. Greased with Goose fat, it is curled at the ends to a fine point. His dark, greying hair, is swept back off his forehead, revealing two small, but painful looking, pointed protrusions from his temples. Apart from the horns, it's the eyes that get Guy's attention: slanted, yellow irises with black slitted pupils like a goat's. The man smiles benevolently revealing a row of perfectly even teeth. The only thing letting down his impeccable personage is the acrid smell of sulphur that lingers about his slender body.
"Not quite what you were expecting, Guy?" he asks, reaching into the inside pocket of his pinstriped jacket and taking out two fine scrolls of vellum.
Guy is bewildered. "Er," he replies dumbly, trying to work out who – what – is sitting opposite him. "Satan?" Even as he says it, it seems childish.
"At your service," Satan confirms, his voice rich and resonant, as he glances at another piece of paper. "The House red, I think," he mutters aloud, but not really consulting Guy. He clicks his fingers, revealing long, black talons of nails, and suddenly a bottle of French red wine appears on the table. The Devil pours them both a glass and gives one a gentle nudge in Guy's direction, making the contents spill over the side. "Trust me, Guy, you'll be needing that. Now then, I think I'll have my steak rare …. Er, no. Business first; pleasure later, I think. Don't you agree, old boy?"
Satan drops the menu he was consulting onto the table top and looks at Guy measuredly through the romantic candlelight glow. He's surprised by his own lack of fear. He's not afraid of going to hell. He's not afraid of finding himself dining with the horned one, at all. But then, Guy reasons, he did work with Sheriff Vaisey for several years. After that, Beelzebub doesn't look so bad, after all.
Satan leans back in his seat and gives a thoughtful twirl of his goatee. "You know, Guy, they say the road to Hell is paved with good intentions," he says, ponderously. "So, you'll forgive me for the manner in which I brought you here."
A penny drops in his mind. "Marian," he replies flatly. That wasn't really her he had chased, it was this creature cunningly disguised as her. He thinks he should have known all along,
Satan pulls a distasteful face. "I hate to be so vulgar, dear boy. But Marian really is the sum of all your lifetime's worth of good intentions. So, you see, I wasn't exactly spoiled for choice when it came to paving your path to my door."
To hide his shame, Guy lifts his glass of wine and gazes thoughtfully into its depths. He casts around desperately for any idea of what to do next, but it's not every day that you find yourself dining with the devil. He wonders if it's a game; if he needs to outwit this entity. But when he looks across the table again, Satan is unrolling one of the vellum scrolls he produced from the pocket of his pinstriped coat when he first sat down. One talon brushes delicately over the surface, where spidery black scrawl forms a list. "Now, where was I before you came along?"
Satan pauses, looks up, and nods to the glass in Guy's hand. "Drink it, old boy," he advises, "because we're starting now." With a pause for breath, Satan turns to the top of the list. "Item: extortion. Boring! Item: arson. Oh! Tut, tut! Item: abandonment of one's own child in the woods. That's not very fatherly now, is it Guy?" Satan breaks off and glances over the top of the vellum, giving him a most reproving look. "Item: murder. My, my; haven't you been a naughty boy, Guy of Gisborne."
Satan wags a finger of exaggerated admonishment at him from over the sheet, bringing a burst of irritation out in Guy.
"Look, I know it's bad-"
"Oh, Guy, I already know you're innocent," explains Satan with a start. "You see, this place is a bit like prison in that respect. It only ever seems to be full of people who've done nothing wrong. You should have heard the chap I got last week..." he chortles to himself as he sinks in to his own private memories of sinners gone-by. "With the Tanner's wife, in the scullery, no less. She was young enough to be his granddaughter!"
With a gasp, Satan turns to the second scroll of vellum. "Forgive me, Guy, I digress. Now, what have we here..." he trails off again as he turns his attention to the scrawl. "Ah yes, the seven deadly sins. Lust: check (see serving girl knocked up with a baby left in the woods. I like how you combine sins, Guy, that's very intuitive of you). Greed: check – how could it be any different working for the dear old Sheriff. Sloth: check – you really should rub your own feet you know, that's not what Robin's servants are for! Envy: does the name Robin Hood ring any bells?-"
"I am so not jealous of Robin Hood!" Guy protests angrily, almost hitting the table. Having his sins and foibles read out to him is one thing, but false accusations of envy with Robin Hood is quite another thing.
Satan raises a thin black eyebrow. "Clearly!" he remarks sardonically and looks back at his list. "Ah, how appropriate. Wrath: yes, I think so, too? Don't you, Guy? Pride: well, that much is evident."
But then Satan pauses, and sighs in disappointment. "You know, for a moment there I thought you and I were going to be friends."
Guy's brow furrows deeper into a frown of utter discontent. Satan really wanted to be his friend? "Really?" he asks monotonously. "I guess that's another deadly sin, isn't it? Disappointing you."
Satan nods thoughtfully. "Now, now, don't be like that. But, yes, you've let me down at the last minute. You haven't committed the sin of gluttony. Not without opportunity either, and that just makes it all the more disappointing, Guy. That was almost a full house you had there."
"I am truly sorry to have let you down."
"And now you've lied to me!" Satan exclaims, throwing his hands in the air, a gesture akin to jubilation. "There's hope for you yet, old boy!"
Guy is still none the wiser, so waits patiently for him to continue reading out his sins. His schoolroom Priests got it wrong, however, the Devil can be quite the charmer – even when he is reading out your charge sheet.
Satan drops the second vellum onto the first, leaning forwards in his seat and studying him intently. "It's just as well I'm not real, isn't it?" he asks, but the question is rhetorical. "All I am, Guy, is a twisted fantasy wrung from your fevered imagination as you hover between life and death because of a knife wound in your shrinking belly. Blame it on the blood loss, dear boy, blame it on the blood loss. But all the same, I think our little dinner date has given you food for thought. Because I'm trying to tell you something: getting the girl won't wipe your slate clean. Getting the girl won't make you a hero in the eyes of the people you secretly crave to please. Nor can you run forever, because all your sins will find you out in the end."
Guy shifts uncomfortably in his seat, looking for the exits so he doesn't have to hear this creature stripping him to the bone and revealing him to himself any longer. If none of this is real, then surely he's free to leave? Satan seems to have read his thoughts.
"You may go by the side door, Guy," he says, "I don't want anyone to see you leaving here; I have my relentlessly unforgiving reputation to protect."
Wasting no time, he darts out of his chair and lunges towards the door. As he passes, however, Satan reaches out and swats him firmly across his backside, an impish grin marring his features.
"Ouch!" he yelps.
Satan winks at him. "Run along now, and remember to play nicely," he warns Guy as a parting shot.
He shoulders the door, bursting outside and slams it shut behind him, shutting out that … thing … forever. But as the door slams behind him, he finds himself being pushed forwards at great speed and before he hits the ground he wakes up screaming into an impenetrable darkness in a room unknown to him.
"Guy, hush!" Marian soothes him gently, two soft hands placed on his shoulders she gently eases him back into bed. "Hush, now, it was only a dream."
His legs are entwined in the damp, twisted sheets his body exposed with a nightshirt riding perilously high up his thighs. Marian is polite enough to pretend she has not noticed as she begins fussing over his blankets. The residue of the dream in still stains his retinas. "The devil was wearing pinstripes," he tells her, squinting through the glutinous darkness at her.
"Very dashing, I am sure," she answers, plumping his pillows, "but you must sleep now. You hear me?"
He can see that she has spent the night in a chair beside his bed, watching over him as he slept. The darkness is cast in to relief by embers glowing in the hearth; moonlight slanting through the shutters on the windows. As his eyes adjust to the poor light, he can see her smiling down at him as he settles against the mattress. She pulls a heavy quilt up and tucks it under his chin.
"He was real-"
"No, he wasn't," Marian retorts, cutting him off before he can dwell further on his fevered meandering mind. "Your wound was infected; you've been unconscious for days. Allan had to fetch a real Monk to administer physic to you; to pray for your soul. It is small wonder you're being troubled by bad dreams".
"Days?" he repeats, and he can see that Marian regrets telling him even that much. "Where are we?"
"Sleep, Guy," she shushes him, placing a sweet tasting finger softly against his lips, "father has it under control. Don't worry about a thing. Sleep."
"No," he whimpers, fighting against his own ebbing strength, he attempts to throw off the bedsheets. All his memories of his last few days of consciousness come rushing back to him, setting his heart beat racing. "We must keep moving. The Sheriff-"
"Guy, no, I forbid it," Marian scolds, pushing him back down and securing him in place by tucking his bedding under the mattress. She may as well tie him down while she's at it. "When you are well, we will move on. But not a moment before that time. You brought my father back to me, and I will not let you die as a consequence."
She may be exhausted, but her fighting spirit is present in its full force. He knows when he is defeated. He lets her do as she will, and when she is done she draws her chair closer to his bedside and cups his cheek in her hand.
"I thought..." her words trail off as she struggles to find the words to say. Not normally a problem for Marian. Eventually, she gives a small shake of her head. "Never mind. Go to sleep, now and the Devil be damned. I won't let him get you."
He wants to tell that she was the Devil, or rather that the Devil was her. "You're my good intention," he informs her as he surrenders to his exhaustion.
For the rest of that night, the Devil stays away. So does everyone and everything else, and his sleep is deep, peaceful and restorative. Marian, however, does not believe him. She hovers over his bed, from the moment he awakens, spooning weak broth and chicken stew into his mouth, refusing to accept that he can feed himself if only she would let him sit up and use his own two arms. Briefly, he is released from his bindings so his dressings can be changed – a job she happily delegates to Allan A Dale as the smell is still rather pungent.
"Thought you'd had it, Gis," Allan breezily informs him as he dabs an evil smelling ointment on to Guy's open wound. It's deeper than he remembers, and raw around the edges were the infection took hold, bringing on the fever that sent him on a dinner date with the Devil.
"I don't know what I'd do without your eternal optimism, Allan," replies Guy, gritting his teeth against the sharp sting of the ointment. Pain, he reasons, is because it's doing its job.
"I'll always be 'ere for you, Gis, don't you ever forget it," he quips, sticking a new, clean linen binding to Guy's abdomen.
"Touching; really touching, Allan."
He won't say anything, but Guy has grown fond of having Allan around. His humour was sometimes grating, his habits would drive a saint to drink, and it was only his practical uses that had seen him retained in the Gisborne household. But now that he had gotten used to the former Hood Outlaw, he would have him there than not have him there.
"Allan, be honest with me, where are we?" he asks just as Allan finishes patching him up.
"They're friends of Sir Edward's, and they're away at Court. This is their summer retreat. That's all I know," he answers, clearly reluctant; clearly having been warned by Marian about divulging too much while he was still bedridden. "We're close to Nottingham, though. Too close, if I'm honest."
"And how long have we been here?"
"Five days exactly."
Much too long. Guy sighs heavily. "Help me pack, we need to get out of here fast before anyone betrays us," he instructs Allan. "Sir Edward's friends aren't exactly loyal, are they?" He suppresses a shudder as recent memories of the earl of Winchester come flooding back. He was the reason they were where they are.
Allan does as he's instructed while Guy steadies himself after getting out of his bed. All the time, however, he's trying to reason. "The servants left to look after this house are on our side," he explains to Guy, trying to be reassuring. "They scout the roads looking out for the Sheriff's men for us-"
"Yes, but can we trust them?" Guy retorts, pulling a shirt on over his head. His weight has dropped, and he's light headed from lack of activity. "The only people we can trust is each other. Now go and tell Marian and Sir Edward we're leaving."
Not ten minutes after Allan leaves the room does Marian's shrill voice ring down the hallway outside, loudly protesting against the decision to leave. But Guy is adamant, his heart back flips every time he thinks about how long they've been in this place, open and exposed to anyone who could pop by at any minute. Her voice draws nearer, accompanied by the deathly thump of her footsteps pounding rapidly down the corridor outside. He busies himself with packing his few belongings, the ones retrieved from the barn during his illness, and pretends he has not heard her when she barges in.
"Guy, you cannot be serious about this?" she snaps at him as she bursts through the door.
Guy continues packing up. "I'm quite well -"
"It's not just you!" she interjects. "My father is elderly, and cannot be whisked off like this. He needs time to prepare and somewhere to go."
Guy stops and turns to face her. "We'll find somewhere," he tries to assure her. "Just as long as it's not here."
Marian is not pacified. She steps closer to him, he can see her eyes ablaze with indignation, her cheeks flaring red with anger. "This constant running will be the death of him," she shrieks. "We might as well have left him where he was, for all this. Guy, please, reconsider?"
They have already stayed too long, he is sure of that. Vaisey isn't just going to give up searching for him; they need to keep moving. They will spend the rest of their lives running. But she's so hard to resist and he can't bring himself to enrage her any further. "Prepare to leave," he tells her. "We can stay; so long as we're prepared to leave at a moment's notice. Bags packed, and horses saddled. I mean it: we must be ready to flee at the drop of a hat. And I'm sending a scout out to look for somewhere else for us to move on to as soon as possible."
Mollified, Marian takes a deep, cleansing breath and allows the smile to return to her face. "Thank you, Sir Guy," she finally replies, the relief etched in her face.
It wasn't until dawn, the following day, that they finally came for them. Guy was almost relieved when it happened; waiting for the inevitable was never a pleasant task. But he regretted the hour. They had been asleep, and the scouts had spotted the approaching soldiers only two miles on the road from Nottingham. Through the confusion and semi-somnambulent fumbling, they all had to dress to escape by the back road or face another fight, when the strongest of them – Guy – was still recovering from the last. They had no option but to run for it, and hope for the best.
Outside the door, Guy bumps into Allan A Dale. "Are the horses ready?" he asks.
"Yes," he replies, fastening his jacket and prepared to leave already. "I'll bring them round the back, you help Marian with her father."
"Thanks, Allan."
The older man is slow. Even after five days of rest he is impeding them, but Guy knows better than to ask Marian to leave without him. She remains at her father's side, letting him lean on her as he tries to hurry himself out of the back door. He himself hoists Sir Edward onto his horse with Marian jittery and nervous as she watches in the early morning mist.
"Go on ahead him," Guy tells her, "I'll get your things and follow."
Marian starts. "Guy, no-"
"Marian, just do as I say," he retorts firmly.
He doesn't wait for an answer, he rushes back inside for their few bags of belongings, and is relieved to see that Marian and Sir Edward have already gone by the time he returns. Only Allan A Dale remains, waiting to load up the pack horse they've purloined for their journey. But he starts to fumble with the straps as the sound off approaching hooves draw nearer all the time – it sounds like there's a whole army tracking them. Guy sends up a silent prayer that the sounds are just carrying further than usual on the still morning air, but he can almost smell the horses sweat as he and Allan finally get their belongings secured.
As soon as he's in the saddle, he hears the familiar voice of his former Sergeant at Arms calling out to the servants. "Open up, or we'll kick the door in!" Followed moments later by the sound of boots tramping around the side of the house.
"For God's sake, Guy, get a move on!" Allan hisses from his mount.
His own men sent out to hunt him down. It makes his blood run cold, but there's no time to dwell. He digs his spurs into the horses flanks just as a foot soldier rounds the corner of the yard and spots them as they make their getaway.
The soldier's voice carries clearly: "Round the back! They're getting away!"
Both Allan and Guy spur their horses on as fast as they can go as the Sheriff's men give chase. Guy tries to estimate how far ahead Marian already is, despite being just grateful that she had a head start. But to avoid leading the soldiers to her, he diverts anyway, and steers his horse down a side track just to try and shake them off. He says nothing to Allan, but he knows Guy's intentions, and steers off at another angle to confuse their pursuers even more. If it does not, only God knows what will become of them, now.