Hey guys. I'm in a hurry today so I'll just thank you for the comments, wish you all a Very Merry Christmas and leave you with this sad yet somewhat sweet chapter. Enjoy!

Oh, also, I agree with you Requiem. There is a little good in... well most people at least. There is certainly a lot of good in Allan. ;)

Love,
Trix

Chapter13:

Titanium white

It scared Marian to see how Robin reacted to her condition.

In her mind she chose to think of it as a fall rather than an illness or a predicament since 'fall' somehow summed it all up. She had walked a thin road for a long time now, balancing upon a knife's edge while reality pushed and pulled her unsteady figure. Time and again she worked through it, but even with her body feeble from the blood loss Marian knew that this might be the end of the road. If she lived or if she died was in the hands of God alone and Robin must know it to be so as well. She gazed up at the sombre, troubled man by her side and felt her stomach flip. She had hoped for anger, feared it yet hoped for it all the same. Robin used anger to handle situations. He raged when he was scared, yelled when he wanted to cry because it was easier that way. But he didn't rage now. He didn't yell. He didn't even cry. He simply rode silently by her cart, throwing the odd glance at her to make sure she still breathed, and every time her eyes fell on him he seemed painted in grim determination. The possibility that she might not live was not even in his universe, as incomprehensible as the colour red to someone who only had the visual ability to see greyscales.

In this moment of time, as her world was on its very edge threatening to fall and she could feel her life disappearing from her with every heartbeat, Marian came to think of Orpheus. The Greek hero who travelled into the underworld to bring his love back from death had always captured her interest when she was younger. He failed because he turned to make sure she was there, and Marian spent some drowsy minuets musing over what Robin would do in that situation. He would follow her to hell if he could, she knew him too well to doubt that, but would he manage to not turn on the way back? He was an anxious man, quick to sacrifice himself but even though he gladly played the role of a hero he consistently failed to see where it would be better to step back. The key word was control. Robin needed to have control over every situation, and Orpheus failed his mission exactly when it required that he let go.

Marian winced when the cart hit a bump in the road and sent a jolt of pain through her abdomen. Perhaps she should be lucky that she felt it still, that her mind was fairly astute and her body still functioning, but it was hard to savour a life when there was little in it but pain. This was no Greek saga, she was no nymph and Robin was nothing but a mortal man. If she died he would not be left with the option to bring her back.

Thus it would have been better if he raged, at least that meant that he accepted all possibilities. She wanted to tell Robin not to worry. To live on no matter what. She wanted to reassure him that this last year had been the best and worst of her life, but she wouldn't trade it for anything. She wanted to tell him that sometimes love just isn't enough, and that all things, good or bad, come to an end. Even grief would fade with time if he just let it.

But in spite of this a treacherous though wiggled its way into Marian's mind, a little devil saying that she did not want Robin to ever stop grieving her. She knew that would be the same as saying she did not wish him to be happy without her and she mentally slapped herself for being so very selfish. Knowing that she might die and Robin might have a life after her made her feel hollow and jealous, because the day he found someone new to love she would be truly dead. There would be nothing but a faint memory left, like ripples on the water surface from a stone that sunk long ago. Did people ever mean it when they asked their loved ones to move on when they lay on their death beds? Or did they just do the people they loved a favour, a final sacrifice to the living?

Never forget me. Never let me go. Never love anyone new. Promise, promise you will live your life waiting for me.

Marian looked up at Robin and gave the world a bitter smile. She could never tell him the truth in this. In the end she would lie to him and make sure she left with a clean conscience. She would tell him to love someone new, to forget her and move on. She wouldn't mean it but she would wish him to believe it all the same. After she was gone people would tell him that Marian didn't want him to grieve her year after year, and there would come a day when he listened to them.

Marian's lip trembled and she stifled a sob, swallowing the anguish of being forgotten. She didn't want him to be miserable. She really didn't. It was just that she wanted to be the one to make him happy. She shut her eyes in frustration and sighed inwardly. A couple of moments in heaven and a lifetime in hell. Sometimes the universe just didn't have any sense of proportions.

The cart moved more smoothly the last part of the trip as the roads became better when they left the forest behind for the plains around the convent. Marian stared up into the sky where the sun was sinking towards the horizon, preparing to end what might be the last day of her life. She felt drowsy and a bit puzzled, not sure if she had slumbered or been awake the whole journey, and when the cart stopped she was only vaguely aware of the commotion around her. People spoke over her head. She could hear Robin's voice focused and determined and the voice of a woman who spoke with considerable authority, not arguing as much as discussing with the young man who was so resolute in his desperation. Then there was a feeling of two arms gripping around Marian and she was scooped up tightly to someone's chest. She would recognise Robin's embrace anywhere, his body was so familiar as if she belonged there, and she could feel his heart pounding and the trembling breaths as he carried her gingerly into the convent. He mumbled as they went, soothing nothings in her ear more aimed at calming himself than her it seemed, and she answered by pressing her head to his bosom. The steady thud-thud-thud from his heart fastened slightly by her reaction and she felt him swallow hard and bury his face in her hair. He fell silent, stopped the hypnotic mumbling and instead his body finally started to shake in silent, restrained sobs. So perhaps there were tears after all, Marian thought with a sad smile before she drifted off into an exhausted slumber.

-----

It was all so blurry. The entire trip from Allan's room to the convent felt dimmed as if Robin had watched it all through a weatherworn window. It seemed so surreal, the pain too big to handle so he shuffled it away and focused his entire energy on being practical. This was not the time to panic and despair, life meant hope and there was life still.

There was life still.

They arrived at the convent and he could remember in a sort of dreamy haze that he argued with the abbess. He wished them to hurry and she insisted on following the pace of the monastery, taking care of Marian once the prayers were done but not before. As arguments go it was futile, you couldn't make the earth spin around the sun with all the willpower in the world. (The world was, obviously, already spinning around the sun, but being a medieval man Robin was convinced that it was the other way around).

Eventually he gave in, lifted Marian from the cart and carried her into the convent. He could vaguely remember talking, mumbling soothing words into her brown locks. Then she pressed her head to his chest and in one merciless moment in time he fell apart.

That was then and he hadn't managed to collect himself since. Marian was in one of the rooms with the nuns and Much and he had escaped the scene. He wasn't good at facing disasters when they became personal, the intense suffocating intimacy made him cringe and shy away. The closer to his heart the further away he kept it. He didn't speak to Much about the Holy Land because Much had seen him cry and his pain lay barren before the former manservant. Robin never felt as naked as when he was stripped of all facades. So he escaped Marian, his Marian who lay so pale against the rough linen sheets, and rushed through the corridors until he shuffled the heavy doors of the convent's chapel open. The silence hit against him as a wall. No one breathed in the empty room, no steps echoed on the hard floor. The staring eyes of the saints gazed down at him with indifferent expressions as he went in with cautious steps.

Robin cleared his throat and folded his hands awkwardly. It felt alien and forced to be here, something that he had once learned to do as naturally as swinging a sword seemed so much like a charade these days. He knew it would take despair deeper than any mass grave of the holy land to get him pleading on his knees in a chapel. Yet here he was putting the very last splinters of his feeble hope to a disinterested God in his distant heaven. He coughed and cleared his throat in self-conscious embarrassment.

"I know we haven't spoken lately--" He could hear his voice trembling, weak and artificial, and cleared his throat again. "Not since the Holy Land," he continued a bit louder, "and I think you know why. You cannot send man into hell and expect them to turn to you easily. I could not thank you so I would not ask anything of you. I felt it evened out. But please, please--" his voice trailed off into a sob, got squeaky and strained. "Please God don't take her away from me! Anything, I would give anything you could have anything!!! Please, I do not know what to do--" His knees lay hard against the cold stone floor, ached by the uncomfortable position and he had knotted his hands so hard that the nails dug into his palms. He felt that it helped, the pain helped, it kept him focused and his thoughts somewhat collected. Praying came easier now as the first barriers had given way to the pressure of his grief. Yet the buzzing rose higher in his mind, a plain titanium white agony that swallowed everything, and he trembled so violently that he could hardly speak.

"Please God, please God, please--" he continued desperately. "I cannot do this on my own, please don't take her, please, please, please--" The words lost their meaning, became a desperate pleading yelp with every breath, breathe in breathe out beg, breath in, beg, beg, beg--- He could hear the pleading words as if they came from far away, his body still trembling crouched down in front on the Madonna Dolorosa and suffering Jesus. He pushed the hard fists to his stomach and curled up until his forehead hit the cold floor. Every breath he took was warm and stifling from being heated up and confined to a narrow space by his body that surrounded it like a cave. He would let himself fall, just this once the world would have to do without him. Somehow he felt conned, as if the universe had broken some unwritten agreement. It was never supposed to end like this. When a man gave up everything the world would give him something back, God would maintain a balance. He gave everything, and in return he would have her. Why else had she still been there, waiting for him, when he came back from the Holy Land!? Why else did she survive the dagger wound in that cave, against all odds? And why else had she turned from Guy at the altar? As she ran out into the sunshine, out of that church, she had been shimmering and beaming and she had been his. Their love broke her shackles and his, even though he didn't know he had them in the first place. He had not known how much he had relied on destiny after that day. It had seemed meant to be and the world made sense.

Robin stifled a sob and tried to draw some air into his lungs, but it felt heavy as if it was coated with lead or his lungs were filled with water. Tears hurt when we keep them buried in our chests, and he didn't have enough eyes to cry them all out. He heard the door to the chapel creak, carefully as if the person entering was afraid to wake someone. People often treated grief like this, Robin mused, tiptoed around it with so much suffocating respect…

"Master…" Much's voice came from the far end of the chapel and Robin took a deep breath and stood up. He sensed a slight dizziness as he took some steps toward Much, and for a moment he felt embarrassed by being found like this. He studied his old friend warily, dreading what unspoken words the man was carrying to him, but found nothing but worry. He swallowed.

"Is she--" Robin said as his voice came back. He knew that she wasn't. If anything had changed, for better or worse, he would have seen it in Much. Yet, he had to know for sure.

Much shook his head. "No change I'm afraid. Or I'm glad. Depending on--Well--" he smiled nervously and changed the subject. "How are you holding up?"

Robin gave him a sad glance but didn't say anything.

"Ah," Much continued and nodded knowingly. He let his eyes dart around the room. Colourful, as churches was, gilded and every bit of wall crowded with painted pictures or carved icons. Apart from that is was mainly empty, a few common benches on the sides for the elderly being the only furniture. "Well, it's a nice church," he said in a light chit-chat voice.

"Chapel," Robin corrected him absently.

"Sorry? Oh yes-- the convent's chapel. Though the commoners use I hear."

Robin snorted at the world in general, but without either joy or scorn. The sound seemed oddly dejected and Much fell silent, waiting for Robin to say something. When it finally came, the outlaws' leader's voice was a mere mumble.

"It's my fault--" he croaked.

"What?"

"It was my fault," Robin repeated a bit louder and turned to Much, a sudden fire in his eyes. "If he takes anyone it should be me!!! It should be me Much!"

Much flinched by the abrupt change of mood and stared at Robin, their eyes meeting for a few tense moments. This was bad. Robin crying was bad. Robin this distressed, confused and irrational was very bad. There was a kind of insanity in those red puffy eyes, something very un-Robin-esque that made Much realise that he would never be able to reach his old master now. They had been through hell in the Holy Land, but they had been hell together back there. This time they were alone in completely different kinds of misery.

The sun filtered down through the panes of glass the little window and painted colourful spots of light on the floor. Red from the saint's coat looked like faint ghost reflections of blood, floating over the stones. Blood. The word made its way into Robin's head, past the salt and the pain, and he saw Much's worried face in front of him. He had expected Much to say something vain and futile like 'It's not your fault', and the fact that he remained silent felt somehow important. It meant something, like it confirmed that the world was turned upside down. Fear clutched around Robin's heart and something resembling a mission, or rather a to-do list needing to be checked off, started to materialise through the fog. To-do: Make sure the nuns don't bleed or leach Marian.

"Much, what are you doing here?" he said, his voice desperate and a bit perplexed. "You should stay there with her, you said you'd stay! They must not bleed her and no leaches, no leaches Much! You were going to keep an eye on her!" It suddenly felt deadly serious that Much was by Marian's door, guarding by her bedside as he had guarded by his in the holy land. He had to protect her from death like he protected him once, as if the world depended on it... To-do: Make sure Much guards Marian from death. Much shouldn't be here in this chapel by the red spots of light and the crying Madonna in her gilded dress. "I ordered you to be there! Why are you here?!!"

"Master there is nothing I can do there - they won't let me into the room."

"They must!"

"Robin she is a woman and I am a man, they would leave me out of this even if I was her man by law and not merely an outlawed manservant ordered there by my old master! It is not my place!"

"But someone has to make sure! The blood, she lost so much blood--"To-Do: Get Djaq!!! "--Djaq, we need to get Djaq!"

"We left Djaq behind because she is a Saracen remember? Anyway, they won't bleed or leach her, I made sure of that. They promised, do you believe the nuns would lie to us? Master it will be fine."

"It will not be fine--" Robin scoffed and went over to the cross again, his legs trembling and weak, and gazed up at the suffering Jesus. His chest looked like a washboard, the ribs so pronounced and sharp on the meagre body that was painted pale like a corpse. He had a gash in his side, spikes in his hands and feet, the eyes stared into the sky eternally frozen in pain. The thorny crown on his head and the cloth around his hips were gilded but flaked in a way that made Robin suspect people had scraped it off, and then there was the Madonna. Mild, meek, grieving, she too was dressed in flaking gold that revealed the plain wood underneath. Will would have liked the craftsmanship, her features so finely carved out of the wood and painted to life. There was no real joy in the holy pictures in this chapel, the icons and sculptures showed only sorrow and grief in spite of the rich gold and many colours. All over the walls there were pictures from the bible, here and there broken by a geometrical pattern or a little scene from the everyday life of the peasants that came here to pray. This was an open chapel, a convent that reached out instead of just shutting the doors and taking vows of silence. Many men just like him must have been standing here and gazing up at the sculptures and the holy cross, begging for salvation or the life on a loved one to be spared. Did these pieces of wood ever listen? Would they listen now? He felt a surge of hopelessness overcome him faced with the realisation that he was not the first to beg like this and he would not be the last. In the eyes of God this must be merely another mortal man overreacting, struggling against the tide of time with futile stubbornness. Robin was a man of war, and as such he knew that once you faced death, it always won. He could only beg death didn't face his Marian. He could only hope against hope. God would not care.

"I went to war for you," he whispered with a dejected shrug. "What more do you ask? I bled for you. Left everything behind for you, everything! I have given up my wealth and position to care for my people when you let them suffer-- I killed for you! Time and time again I risked my life for you!!! What more do you ask?! What more do you want from me?!!"

"Master I'm not sure this is a good way to get God's mercy," Much pointed out carefully.

"Hismercy, Much?! What mercy!?"

"With all due respect master, God's ways-- He gives life and he takes. And well-- Marian did disobey-- him-- slightly--"

Much's words trailed off at the sudden change in Robin's demeanour, and his master's gaze hit him like a hammer. He had seen pain in those eyes before, he had seen irritation, but he was for a moment completely taken aback by the pure hate that emanated from Robin's eyes. There was so much resentment, as if obedient, loyal Much just channelled all that was wrong with the world and now had to serve as a symbol for the cruel reality that was taking his love away from him. He didn't say anything, didn't yell or scorn Much, simply turned away from him with disgust and fell down on his knees again.

There was a sharp pain as Robin's already sore knees hit the hard stone floor, and he winced automatically from the sensation but his mind hardly noticed it. Then he put his head in his hands, grabbed the wet face and shut out the light from the golden chandeliers and colourful spots from the window, and cried. From somewhere deep inside the words 'love wept, and sometimes I wept with him, from whom my steps never strayed far' emanated from the fogs of a distant memory and flashed by briefly. He had been fond of poetry when he was younger, fond of all words that were big and dramatic, but he rarely gave that life of childish chivalry much thought any longer. There were very little coherent thoughts left, his mind finally painted over by the titanium white agony that left everything blank and empty. His chest and stomach hurt from the convulsive, tense cries, his knees hurt from the hard, cold floor, his eyes hurt from the tears, his hands hurt from the nails that had dug in so deep into the palms. It hurt, just hurt so much and yet it didn't hurt enough. My fault made an appearance in his mind, strangely clear and rational words shooting arrows trough his chest. She dies because I love her. She tried to tell me about this but I didn't listen-- Did I ever listen to her?

Much watched his master with a feeling of desperate helplessness, wondering if he should just leave him alone. He came as far as the door, then turned back and went up to kneel by Robin.

"Blame God," he said. "Blame me, blame Allan… Blame yourself if you will… or her. It will not help master." Then he folded his hands, shut his eyes and started praying.

Robin glanced at Much, saw that his eyes were firmly shut and made a silent promise to ask him for forgiveness before all this was over. He was loyal, had committed no crime but his usual recklessness with words, and what good did anger do now anyway? The guilt was so big it had swallowed him whole, making his feel like the biggest villain in the world. He felt worse than Guy, worse than the sheriff, worse than Allan-- Robin was a man who betrayed the one he loved more than anything in the world. He pushed back the queasiness, suddenly realising that Much would make him eat something eventually, and the mere thought of ever eating again was so incomprehensible. There were tales if people dying from grief. He would not. The great Robin Hood would make sure that someone else killed him instead if it came to that. It was an insight more than a decision, but in a way it felt comforting. He couldn't face the prospect of life without her, and it was a relief to know that it wouldn't last forever. He sighed and looked up at the statues again. So it came to this. To-do: Pray.

There was nothing else left to do.

---

Nuns came and went, prayed and lighted candles around them as the night grew darker. Robin had never feared the dawn as much as on this dire night, with Djaq's words still vivid in his mind. After a while he stood up and paced for a while, as if moving around made it all more bearable, and sunk down leaning on the southern wall. He must have slept because suddenly his eyes twitched open, his neck stiff and a trail of dried saliva against his chin, and there was light coming from the painted window once again. He scanned the room with the bewilderment of a person with one foot still lingering in the mysterious dream realms and found Much sitting by his side wide awake. Then there was a couple of horrible seconds as he put the current reality together again, every single terror of the last day hitting against him with jolts of pain shooting through his body. He titled the stiff neck, let his head dip down into his palms with a low moan and rubbed his tired eyes.

"No word yet," Much reassured him. Simple, straightforward Much, such a rock when he had to be, and Robin nodded wearily. "No word means not dead," Much continued. "It is good news Robin."

"No," Robin sighed. "It is merely the absence of bad news."

He rose with some effort, limbs screaming in agony, and looked at the door in awe.

"I'll go check on her," he said, as if he was trying to persuade himself that it was what he was going to do. His voice sounded detached and confident in spite of everything being upside down, and Much nodded and stood up to follow him.

They walked in grim silence through the empty corridors, their steps hollow and followed by fainter echoes bouncing off the naked walls. Finally they pushed pen the door to Marian's temporary quarters, wordlessly holding their breaths in fear of what awaited.

The room was big but empty, a single bed at the western wall and a wooden cross above it. A sister dressed in grey sat crouched in prayers by the bedside, a soft mumbling Latin and in her hands a simple rosary moving swiftly through the bony fingers to keep count. Robin breathed out and swallowed hard, forcing himself to look at the bed as he walked gingerly into the room. Once he dared to look at her he found it impossible to tear his eyes away, staring and staring in the velvety morning light. His eyes were glued to the pale face that rested against the pillow, so very still and serene surrounded by a halo of brown curls. Her eyes were shut, the soft lips only slightly parted in the porcelain face, and even now she seemed so immensely beautiful to him. The nun didn't lift her head or disrupt the prayers when he entered and Robin stood in horror for a while scanning Marian for any sign of life. Then he lowered the trembling fingers to her face, dreading the touch because he didn't know what to expect. Would she be cold in death? Would her skin feel cool and hard like china? Or did she merely sleep? Then he took a deep breath, collected all his courage into one single action and cupped her cheek.

For a couple of seconds his heart stopped beating and then her eyes shot open.