A/N: Thanks to LadyKate for her help on this chapter. And thank you to everyone who is following this story and who has left reviews.
Bound Home
Chapter 10
The new year's come, but still the plants don't grow,
First in March I'm startled by grass shoots.
The white snow thinks the colours of spring are late,
So through the pavilion and trees it flies like blossom.
-Du Mu, Snow in Spring
He is speaking with a fellow Englishman, trying to find out what means of work are available to him, when he sees her approach. At first she is just another local, clothed in the typical garb – flowing skirt, long sleeves, an expertly tucked and pinned veil. It is the color that catches his eye at first: bright orange, accented with threads of purple and gold that glint in the sunlight. But then he notices that she is not moving like everyone around her, the shoppers who browse each stall and linger to talk with acquaintances. She is walking directly toward him, her step sure. The market is crowded this morning, but she moves through the crush with ease, and in a few seconds she is standing before him, blank-faced, but with eyes full of both wariness and purpose.
He looks down at her in unconcealed amazement, mouth open but silent. She is waiting, apparently giving him time to decide if he wants to run or if he will stay. His companion clears his throat and asks, "Should we speak some other time, then?"
Still in a fog of surprise, Guy barely registers the question. He turns belatedly and nods, and the Englishman gives the Saracen woman a long, thoughtful look before wandering back into the shade of a nearby stall.
The Saracen – her name, did he ever know it? - takes a step closer. "I did not think to ever see you again," she says.
He swallows past a sudden dryness in his throat. "Nor I you," he answers carefully, "though I suppose that was foolish of me. This city is your home?" She nods. "And you want me gone," he adds, readying himself for a barrage of accusations and threats.
But they never come. She stares at him for a long time, saying nothing. Her face becomes pinched, pained. "Why are you here?" she finally asks.
The same question he has faced again and again since arriving in Acre. He still has no good answer. And his chest burns at the thought of exposing his thoughts to her, of confiding the truth to this not-quite stranger. Though once an ally of Loxley, she is nothing to him.
"I'm not here to kill anybody, if that's what's worrying you." He clamps his mouth tightly shut after speaking. The words feel self-incriminating, a bitter attack on himself, and he immediately regrets giving so much away - but she seems to recognize the paled danger he presents, a man more concerned with nursing his wounds than lashing out at others, because she relaxes just a little. Still frowning, she takes a step closer.
"You came for Marian?"
The breath in his lungs vanishes.
Hearing her name said aloud sends him reeling, as if from a blow to the head.
"You know nothing," he replies, knowing himself to sound weightless and distant, and as he looks away, angled to flee, the woman's face becomes lost in the glare of the sun. He feels her hand grip his sleeve. He pauses, but does not turn. The world has lost all color. It is one brilliant white shadow.
Her voice, somehow right at his ear, keeps him anchored. "Why?"
He pulls away, glances behind. Sunbursts dance in his eyes.
The same question, and never a right answer. He plunges into the crowd, and loses himself in the crush of linen and laughter.
Winter is passing into spring. The lilies are just beginning to bloom, dotting the plains with purple and blue and white. She picks a few fresh blossoms to take to her husband's grave, but when she arrives, the petals are bruised and wilted. She spends a restless hour knelt in the sand. Not knowing what to say, feeling all the cruelty of being so close to him, but so endlessly far away, she only stares at the desert plains, and at the distant mountain peaks that are still covered in last month's snow. The futility of coming here - the absence of comfort, the absence of Will - she feels it in her bones and eventually it moves her to stand. She gathers her skirts and heads north.
The markers are scattered and numerous – the dead are all foreigners. Despite Will's conversion to her faith, he had not been buried with her family. Her father's brothers, still reeling from the loss of Acre to the Christians, had not allowed it, but she thinks on the injustice without anger. The war left many wounds. She was not so foolish as to believe that one good man could recover the ground lost by thousands of invaders.
Now she thinks there is some sort of compensation for the banishment – her husband is buried close to Marian.
Her name is etched into a single whitewashed wooden stake. The air is fragrant with approaching rain, and storm clouds have darkened the sky - she will have to leave soon. But she delays, running her fingers through the cold sand. Her memories of the day they buried Marian are a haze, but she does remember seeing Robin at his dying wife's side, clutching her hand, whispering something to her that no one else would dare come close enough to hear.
She has an idea, now, what those words might have been.
A strong wind blows. She lifts her head to see the heavy gray clouds rolling in from the west. The first spatter of rain - delicate, but a promise of something violent – veils her face. As she turns to leave, she notices out of the corner of her eye a set of footprints, leading from Marian's grave back to the city. She follows them, knowing to whom they belong. Gisborne's strong reaction to her mention of Marian was evidence enough that those memories were weighing heavily on his mind. Marian may not be the whole reason for his presence in Acre, but surely she is the reason why the arrogant, casually cruel Master-at-Arms has been replaced by a quiet, lost man. A man she hardly recognizes.
She wonders what happened to him after he left Palestine those two years ago.
She means to find him again. She has more questions for him, and she will ask them, no matter how cruel they might be. Her fears must be quieted. She must be sure of him.
She stands just outside the city wall, watching the rain come in. The storm gusts, and the sand scatters, and the two sets of footprints, Gisborne's and her own, vanish as if they'd never been.