"But you said she was your fiancée," Kalil said. "That didn't sound like a successful offer of marriage."
"No it was not, my friend," Robin laughed and Kalil joined in.
When they stopped laughing Robin continued, "No, I proposed to her again a year later. She was much more receptive the second time."
Marian was washing her clothes in the washtub in the front lawn of the manor house. Her hair kept falling into her face and she kept brushing it back with her wet hands, sending little droplets of water flying, sparkling, scattering rainbows in the sunlight. Robin was sitting on the ground a few feet away, watching.
"Stop staring at me," she ordered imperiously.
"I'm not staring."
"Good God Robin of Locksley, don't you have anything important to do instead of watch me wash my clothes?"
"Not today."
She raised her hand to cover her eyes and squinted down at him.
"Marian," he pronounced. He stood, walked to her, took her wet hand and sank down to one knee.
"Oh no," she muttered. "Seriously Robin get up."
"Marian, I still love you. Even though you are sometimes the most annoying person I have ever met."
"You know you should win a prize for these performances."
"I'm not finished. Will you let me finish?"
Marian pursed her lips but took her hand back and crossed her arms.
"Marian you have been my best friend for four years, my sweetheart for two, and my lover for one. I can think of nothing else but a future with you. And I am tired of waiting to start it. I am tired of waiting for you. I want you Marian, nothing else."
She nodded seriously, and knelt down in front of him.
"I will say yes if you ask me," she whispered jokingly in his ear.
"Marian of Knighton, will you be my wife?"
"Yes I will."
Robin reached into his pocket and brought out the silver band he had been told was his mother's.
"And will you wear this ring?"
"Yes I will."
He slipped it onto her finger and sighed, tears coming to his eyes.
"You're crying," she said in wonder.
"I thought you would say no."
She wrapped her arms around him and held the back of his head.
"If you had actually asked me last year, I wouldn't have said no then either."
"How ever could you leave her?" Kalil asked.
"I don't know."
"Robin," the guard called out. His name was Kahim. All the guards seemed like old friends now, though Robin wasn't sure exactly how long he'd been there.
"Visitor for you."
"I'm allowed visitors?"
"Fahad allowed this one. I expect you'll see why."
And Robin watched a beautiful woman dressed in high French fashion float down the block. She ignored the whistles and calls from the men that she passed by. And by the set of her shoulders he recognized Laena.
He stood grasping the bars of his cell waiting for her. She continued walking until she was just an inch from the bars. She leaned in and kissed him.
"There, we are lovers. It is no longer a lie. My name is Antoinette when I visit here, understood?"
Robin blinked at her in confusion.
"You look awful Robin. I've heard about your torture. I'm very sorry, I'm very sorry I ever told you about Christian. Most of all I'm sorry you ever came to the Holy Land."
"It's not your fault, Laena. It doesn't matter now anyway."
"It should matter. After the letter I've received for you."
Robin looked up, excitedly, gripping the bars more tightly.
"It's from the Lady Marian. I haven't read it, don't worry, it's yours and yours alone."
She handed it to him through the bars, along with a pencil.
"For you to write back to her. I'll be back the same time next week. I've arranged this as sort of a conjugal visit you might say."
Robin laughed shortly. It was all he could do not to tear the letter open right then and sink into Marian's words.
"Listen Robin, the king doesn't care about the ransom for you they've asked for, no one does. But there may be a chance for prisoner exchange. If there is, I'll make sure your name is the first Richard hears."
"Thank you."
It was the first time he had seen her in Western dress and the effect was startling. For one, he could see her hair. It was a dark chestnut brown, wrapped in a knot at the back of her head. And her dress was low cut as the fashion demanded, but she had fashioned panels over the top of the bodice, Robin knew what they concealed of her identity. Her eyes after all this time alone apart from his beloved seemed more like Marian's than ever.
"I will leave you to your letter. I would have come sooner but Richard had forbidden anyone to come visit you who would identify you as one of his men. I finally convinced him that I only had everyone's best interests at heart, including yours."
"And how did you convince him?"
"I don't see why you care. Don't think of falling in love with me because I'm doing my Christian duty visiting the imprisoned. There's your love, take care of her," she tapped the letter clutched in his hand.
"Good bye Robin."
"Good bye…" he struggled for the name.
"Antoinette," she spat back bitterly.
As soon as he saw Kahim escorting her out, he tore the letter open. And there was page upon page of Marian's impatient handwriting.
My love,
I think you wrote back those twelve lines just to spite me for being so brief. I see now with you thousands of miles away we cannot play the games we used to, teasing, laughing, baiting, and above all never saying how we really feel. Because all I felt was that you were so furious with me perhaps you would never come back. I am writing this letter the day I received yours, and I have Will Scarlett to run it to Nottingham with the next shipment of soldiers that leaves tomorrow.
It is nothing without you here. All the people love me. Thornton has helped me immensely manage the house, and after watching you handle the land and people for four years I can manage well enough. No one has given me any trouble, they are all so eager for you to return. Nearly every day someone asks me whether I have heard from you, and I become more and more frightened that the reason I have not heard from you is that you are dead, instead of anger or hurt pride.
We had an excellent harvest but I can feel a terrible winter coming on. There was frost on the ground this morning, the grass crunched as I walked through it to milk the cows. You know I have always worked hard alongside you, alongside our people. But this is something I have never experienced before and I feel my body hardening. My hands are rough, nearly as rough as yours, and my face got very dark over the summer. I do not know you would recognize me if you returned tomorrow.
Oh and every day Robin, every day I hope that you will suddenly be riding down the path from Nottingham. Or that some morning you will surprise me at our bedroom door. Please prove me right, Robin; please come home some day soon. Please already be on your way home and never receive this letter. Please let it reach Jerusalem after you have already left it. Your bed stopped smelling of you long ago. When I work in the fields and at the carpenters or the dairy I wear your clothes. Don't laugh. I know you're laughing. I especially like that one green shirt you hated so much. I think it looks better on me than it did on you. I imagine they still smell like you even though they do not. I think I could smell you from a mile away now, so perfectly I have remembered you.
I have gone down to our tree several times to lie there where you first ridiculously asked me to marry you. I can't help wondering what would be different if I had said yes and not been the intolerable know-it-all that I was. We would already be married, and I might have a little baby Robin to comfort me. There was a moment I thought I might have been pregnant after you left, foolish, I know, but I hoped for it. And Thornton's wife Daisy somehow caught on and told all the villagers. They treated me like a queen, then, saying I carried the future lord of their home. They realized soon enough though that I was not. I didn't even try to convince them I wasn't; I wanted to believe along with them as long as I could.
You must come back. I love you.
Marian
Robin eagerly read it again.
"What did she write to you my friend?"
"She writes that she still loves me," Robin said with exuberance, still pouring over the letter.
"And what else does she write?"
"It's hard for her. It is hard at home. She writes that I may find her different when I come back."
"See, you are not the only one who will have changed."
Robin nodded grimly.
"She encloses an extra sheet of parchment, for me to write back. But what can I tell her of?"
"Write to her as if she will read it in three minutes instead of three months."
He curled up on his blanket and began to write. The blanket had been a reward for his last session with Fahad. They had taken his arms behind his back and lifted him up by his bound hands, a torture as old as the book. He did not cry out once until after one of his shoulders had dislocated and they had brought him down. In six months he had learned mind control and now he did not utter a word. He just ceased to be.
Dearest Marian,
Yes, my twelve line letter was a test, and a stupid one I see now. I'm sorry I caused you a second of doubt or fear because I am, as ever, yours.
As to you thinking that you are aging and ugly from your hard work, how could you say such a thing? You are working for me, for us, which can only make you more beautiful. I can hear you mocking me and laughing when you read this but it is true to me. Furthermore, you are so incredibly beautiful, so lovely, that it might be nice to have that lessened a bit. I could stand to have fewer men staring at you and trying to catch your eye. And there would be fewer people saying, why is he with her. (That was to make you laugh, I know how rakishly handsome I am, you don't need to tell me.)
I am sad there was not a baby in some ways, because some days I feel like I may die here, and I want us to have had or to have a child. But for you I am glad there was not because we are still not yet married; though in the eyes of Locksley we may be, in the eyes of England we are not. And what kind of half-life would that be for our child?
I pray this letter reaches you because I cannot stand the thought of you doubting my love, or thinking somehow that I am still here because I want to be, or because being home with you is somehow less important to me than so-called eternal glory. There has never been a more terrible lie-there is no glory here of any kind. If there was any possible way I would be leaving to come home to you tomorrow, believe me when I say I am trapped here, but that I will return to you.
An interpreter named Laena is handling my letters for me. She is the most trustworthy person I know here, so know that what we write each other is in safe hands. I have met a Muslim man named Kalil who has become dear to me. He listen patiently to all my stories of you. You are my only prayer for salvation, Marian. Do not give up on me.
I love you,
Robin