"Marian!"
Robin's anguished cry startled him awake, even though he hadn't uttered a sound. The cry erupting from the darkened depths of his soul hadn't reached his lips, and his voice remained silent as a tomb.
He sat up and looked around him in the darkness, his movements static and jerky. He'd remained in Sherwood, sheltering Sherwood, yet he experienced no sense of shelter here tonight.
His clothing was stiff with dried blood. Gisbourne's blood covered him, coating his hands and arms to his elbows. It was smeared and splattered through his hair and beard, on his face and neck and chest. Every inch of him seemed drenched in the bloody effects of his brutal revenge.
Washed in the blood of the serpent, he told himself; he, who had once eagerly taught his bright little girls what the priest meant when he said they were "washed in the blood of the lamb."
The serpent. He had slain the serpent at last. Sliced his vile head from his putrid body.
"Slice off their heads before they strike," King Richard had personally instructed him how to kill venomous snakes when they arrived in the Holy Land. "How else do you think the Saracens get their practice? The Saracens will do the same to you, unless you kill them first. So kill them all! It is no sin to kill a Saracen!"
And Robin had obeyed the king he revered, and killed and killed and killed and killed...being told he was earning his way to Heaven, when all the time he believed Heaven couldn't be earned. It was by grace they were saved. Grace!
"Daddy, let me try! Watch me!" "Do it again, Daddy!" "More dragon story!"
No, Gracie. Daddy can't tell you the dragon story ever again. Daddy slew the dragon serpent; the serpent who had slithered his way into Locksley, torturing its people; the serpent who had sought to steal Marian.
Marian. His beautiful Marian and their two bright little girls. No longer girls...young ladies now. How had they grown up so quickly?
Ellen getting married? That thought alone made his head spin. One day she had been tiny, tripping along beside him, her little hand clasped in his. The next she was singing a love song as she sewed her own wedding dress!
He wondered how he would fare with her out of the house. He knew he needed to let her go, but how he would miss her!
How he would miss her. Robin froze as realization hit him.
The serpent had struck before he'd sliced off its head. Why had he not killed him years before when he'd had the chance? "I live in hell," the serpent had said, and he thought it more satisfying to let him stay there.
But no longer. He'd killed him at last, and taken his head, yanking it off the end of his bow and hurling at those who had stopped him from killing him before, to give him time to make his escape.
He couldn't face the sympathy in their eyes. Let them deal with their own grief, and leave him to his.
Marian! He wouldn't accept she was gone! She had always been there for him, surprising him when he'd least expected her aid. She would come back to him...surprise him again...simply turn up one day, looking fresh and lovely and welcome him with her kisses.
He didn't want to wait for that day. He would search for her now.
"I know I'll find you again," he thought, rising to his feet to begin his search.
That decaying corpse he'd seen buried had not been Marian. No. She wasn't under the ground on the hilltop in Locksley. She would be here, playing hide and seek with him in the forest. But he would find her. He had always found her, no matter where she chose to hide, infuriating her by always winning the game.
He looked around him in the darkness, trying to guess which way she had gone. Of course! East, close to Knighton! He turned his face to the east and took off running, looking for his angel.