The inhabitants of Knighton stopped their activities for a moment on hearing the sound of the hooves of Gisborne's horse, coming along the road that crossed the village.
Women scurried to bring back the children into the house before following them, closing doors and windows behind them, while men limited themselves to keep an eye on the horse and his rider and clutched more tightly the grip on the handles of their agricultural tools.
After what had happened the previous week with their refusal to pay taxes, everyone expected some retaliation by Gisborne and they were ready to react accordingly, but for the moment it had not yet happened.
Guy of Gisborne appeared stubbornly in Knighton every morning, inspecting the land. He gave orders and instructions that the villagers pretended to listen and to which they did not obey, and then he went to work alone in the reconstruction of Knighton Hall for the rest of the day.
"He's surely plotting something." A woman whispered to her friend. Both the women were peeking at the passage of the former black knight through a crack of the closed window shutters.
The other one sighed, with a pained look on her face.
"He will surely take revenge for that matter about taxes. Sometimes I don't sleep at night thinking about what he might do to our men. I always pray that at least he won't hurt our children."
"I pray that he dies." Said the first one, dismissive. "If he's dead he can't do anything bad to our children or our husbands."
The friend shuddered.
"You think what they say is true? That he has made a pact with the devil to come back from the dead?"
"I don't know, but I hope he goes to hell soon."

Guy crossed the village trying to act normal, but he clearly felt the hostile stares and terror that his presence stirred in the inhabitants of Knighton.
According to Robin, they'd eventually get used to him and he would be accepted as their lord, but Guy strongly doubted that. Probably it was already good that none of the farmers had openly tried to attack him and Gisborne suspected that this was due only to the fact that they were afraid of him.
After all, ignoring him completely was a strategy that would have paid off if Robin Hood had not helped him: if Knighton could not produce enough to secure the payment of taxes, the sheriff would take it from him, while for the inhabitants of village things wouldn't change that much, they would simply found themselves working for a new lord.
Gisborne thought that he should unlock the situation somehow, but how?
If Robin Hood were in his place, it would probably be enough for him to make a speech to the inhabitants of Knighton to convince them to follow him without hesitation, but he was not Robin, the hero of the people, he was the monster hated by everyone and he wasn't good at all with words.
Trying to talk to the people of the village would be an embarrassing failure without any utility. Indeed, Guy had the sensation that it could only make things worse.
They would listen to the Nightwatchman.
If they only knew that he was the person who risked his life to bring them food and assistance, they wouldn't look at him with so much disgust, Guy thought bitterly, but he couldn't do anything to change the situation.
He spoke with some of the farmers to give them short and unnecessary orders on the management of Knighton, then he led the horse towards the ruins of Knighton Hall.
He tied the animal in the shade of a tree and he brought him a bucket of water, then he took off his jacket and headed for the spot where once Marian's home stood.
Since he had started working, he had managed to take away the debris of the house, but it were a few days that Guy didn't call any workers to continue the work.
Accepting tax money from Robin was already humiliating enough, but necessary, but he would never ask for help for the reconstruction of Knighton Hall.
That was a damage that he had done and it was only his duty to put a remedy to it, even if he had to put together an entire house by himself, if he could not afford to hire the workers.
Residues of charred wood and most of the debris had already been taken away, and where there was once a house, only a layer of burnt soil and ash was left. They formed a large black spot in contrast with the green of the surrounding lawn.
That dark spot had become a kind of symbol in the eyes of Guy. That was what he had done in the past: he destroyed, stained and contaminated everything with which he came in contact.
He took a shovel and he began to dig, throwing the blackened earth and ashes on the wagon that he used to clear away the debris. Alone, he wouldn't be able to do much, he could probably clear just a few meters of land before evening, but he didn't have much choice, anyway, and that work was less depressing than having to deal with the villagers.
He had worked for only a few minutes when the shovel met something hard, buried in the ground.
Guy found a small wooden box, partially blackened by smoke. The ground around it was burned and Gisborne thought that probably it had been buried under the floor of the house before the fire.
He pulled it off the ground and carried it under the tree where he had tied the horse to open it. He took a knife from the saddle bag and he used it to force the cover, then he set it aside to examine the contents of the box.
There was a small cloth doll looking battered, a few ribbons and simple trinkets that certainly had belonged to a little girl. Guy thought that objects contained in the box reminded him of the little treasures that, at the time of their childhood, had been dear to his sister. Only, on the edge of the skirt of the doll there was a name embroidered in flickering and lopsided letters: Marian.
The image of a little Marian who hid the dearest treasures of her childhood under a floorboard of her home appeared incredibly vivid in his mind and it hit him like a stab to the heart.
He and Isabella had done something like that too, when they were children and even those precious memories were destroyed in the fire, along with the rest of their lives.
And it was always his fault.
A tear stained the dress of the doll and Guy stared at it for a moment before realizing that it had slipped down his face before falling on the toy.
He ran a hand over his face to wipe his eyes and the gesture brought him to think of another painful memory: the flames of the fire, his sister clinging to him, stiff and unable to say a word, and the desperate cries of Robin who begged him to do something, while Guy was unable to do anything but stand and watch the blazing fire, occasionally wiping the tears with the back of the hand with that same gesture.
Instead of fighting back the tears, as he had wanted, Guy covered his face with both his hands, let out a sob and began weeping uncontrollably.
Guy had burned his own future and the one of his sister, as well as Marian's past and now he was afraid that this was the only thing he could do: to burn and ruin things. He was distressed at the thought of not being able to reconstruct anything of what he had destroyed.

"What is he doing?" The little girl asked. She was the only girl in the group of children who were hiding in the bushes. She tried to move her brother's arm to be able to see, but the other kids immediately silenced her.
"Lower your voice, Mary!" Her brother hissed, giving her a pinch on the arm. "Do you want him to find us out?"
The eyes of the sister filled with tears, but she didn't say a word, scared by the last sentence.
The two of them had escaped the surveillance of her mother to go and play in the fields with their friends and for a while they were content to compete in races or shooting with a sling, then someone had thrown a challenge, a test of courage, and the others had been ready to accept it.
They had approached the ruins of Knighton Hall, a place that Mary thought it was scary even when there was no one. The black soil looked like it had been burned by the flames of hell itself. But now that place wasn't deserted: there was the man everyone feared, even their parents seemed to be terrified of him.
Mary had heard all sorts of stories concerning that Guy of Gisborne, most of them terrifying. Some said he was a murderer, a monster capable of every wickedness, others reported that he had returned from the dead to do even more evil, other ones were about how he had dragged into sin an innocent girl like Lady Marian, the woman who once had lived in the burned house.
Spying on a so dangerous man was a big risk for all of them and even the children who were more ready to accept the challenge, now were quite frightened and hesitant. If they were alone, none of them would have had the courage to stay there, but to be the first to escape would have been a terrible humiliation, so they were all peeking, hidden in the bushes.
"So, Jack, what is he doing?" Mary repeated, this time in a whisper.
"Nothing." Her brother said, a little disappointed. "He's there, he has been sitting under that tree for a while and he didn't move."
The girl finally managed to find a way to watch and she looked at the man in black. Until then she had only glimpsed at him because when he arrived in the village her mother always closed her and her brother inside their home.
She had expected to see some kind of a vicious monster, but she was a little disappointed to discover that the tremendous Guy of Gisborne that everyone feared was nothing else but a man like any other. She wished she could see the man's face, but Gisborne was leaning forward and holding his head in his hands.
"I think he's crying." The girl said and her brother gave her a slap.
"Don't be silly, stupid girl! Evil people do not cry!"
Mary let out a yelp of pain and the children were horrified to see that Gisborne must have heard her because he lifted his head up and in a moment he was on his feet, looking in their direction and then he moved toward them.
"Stupid! Look what you did!" One of the other children shouted, giving her a shove that knocked her forward, almost at the foot of Guy of Gisborne, then they all fled in panic.
Mary's brother paused for a moment, he threw a stone with a sling aiming to Gisborne and he saw the man covering his face with one hand, but with the other the black knight had already grabbed the wrist of the girl and he held her close. Jack couldn't do anything to free his sister and the other children were already gone. Terrified, he dropped his sling and ran blindly away.

"What do you think you're doing?!" Guy growled angrily, but when he realized he had captured a little girl who could not be more than seven or eight years old, he calmed down and he let go of her wrist.
Finding out that someone had observed him during his moment of weakness had agitated him and then one of those kids hit him with a stone, wounding him in the temple, but the anger that had driven him to grasp blindly the first of those brats who came near enough, had dissolved immediately when he saw the terrified eyes of the little girl.
"Go back home." He said flatly, turning away. "This is not a safe place for kids."
Guy returned to the tree to collect Marian's doll from the ground and he placed it back in its wooden box. He hid it in the bottom of the saddlebag, covering it with a cloth. Currently he couldn't return it to Marian, but one day, if and when he could rebuild Knighton Hall, he would give it back to her.
The horse turned his nose to sniff at him, snorting slightly and Guy fished an apple from his bag to offer it to the animal. He watched him chew and he scratched him briefly on the head, between the ears, then Guy took a deep breath and decided to go back to work.
When he turned around, he jumped slightly in discovering he wasn't alone: the girl had not obeyed and she had remained there, looking at him.
"Didn't I tell you to go away?"
"Please ... Don't kill my brother." Mary stammered and Guy stared at her, stunned.
"Why should I?"
"Jack has wounded you... But he just wanted to protect me, do not hurt him, please..."
Guy touched his forehead and he looked at his fingers: they were stained with blood. One of those kids hit him with a slingshot, but the rock had barely touched him and Guy had not thought that the wound was so deep that it could bleed.
He looked at the girl, amazed that, despite considering him a murderer who could kill a child in cold blood, she had the courage to be there, trying to defend her brother.
And does Robin really believe that the inhabitants of Knighton will learn to respect me sooner or later?
He gave a resigned sigh.
"I won't do anything to him, but now go back home."
"For real?"
"For real. I do not kill children."
Mary smiled.
"I knew it, I was sure of it!"
Guy looked at her, astonished by those words. He knew that he should better send away that child as soon as possible and return to his work, but it was the first time that one of the inhabitants of Knighton addressed a spontaneous smile at him and could not imagine why.
"What were you sure of?"
"That you couldn't be so bad. My brother says that people who are really evil never cry and you were crying before."
"It's not true!" Guy said, blushing at the thought that those kids had seen his outburst, earlier.
"Yes, it is! Your face is still wet with tears!" Mary looked at him, fearing that she had gone too far, then, realizing that Guy was not going to punish her for those words, she handed him a crumpled handkerchief with a cheeky smile "But if you let my brother be, I won't tell anyone."
Guy made a sort of amused snort as he took the handkerchief and used it to wipe his eyes and dab the blood that was still dripping from the wound to his head.
"Then I'd say we have a deal, girl." He said with an amused smile.
"My name is Marian, Sir Guy, like the girl who lived in this house, but everyone calls me Mary." Said the girl, solemnly and she stared at him, amazed and a little offended, when Guy laughed at her words.
"I should have known." He said, chuckling, then he smiled apologetically. "You have a beautiful name, my lady."

Jack ran as he had never done in his life.
The other children had already disappeared, and certainly they wouldn't say anything to their parents. If adults should find out that they had approached Guy of Gisborne, they certainly would gave them so many lashes with their belts that they wouldn't be able to sit for a week.
But Jack could not keep quiet, that murderer had captured Mary and who knows what he would do to her if he didn't raise the alarm.
He saw his father who was hoeing the earth from the garden and he ran to him.
"Help!" He shouted in tears. "Gisborne took Mary! I think he wants to kill her!"