II.10 Walkabout
Solving for Nottingham
Today the Sheriff did not wake up and try to kill the King. Today Nottingham nearly burned, to the very last child and scrap of wood. Today there was no question in your mind.
Questions were the province of others. Of Guy of Gisborne in particular. One big one: Where, oh where, did Vaisey go? In his night clothes, chasing the Pact in his dreams?
The man from London had no questions, only an ultimatum, so Gisborne tried appealing to Prince John and money as high as the New England could reach and to Marian to marry him to save herself, the tiny Lady Locksley, but the answer was simple: the Sheriff and you. Like Marian said, offering to fetch you for him.
Because all bets were off. The little clerk from London was about to spoil the whole game, so suddenly the sides didn't matter. Allen-a-Dale returned to the camp, Marian leveraged your engagement ring to get you to the Castle, and you walked right in through the city gates as you haven't done since you came to read the Scarlett boys' execution degree. Will Scarlett and Allen-a-Dale stood together looking over the soldiers and villagers working together to find Vaisey lest Davita's dying promise come true. And Allen finally asked – if we don't die here, can I finally come out of hell? Will said no, but he shook his head as they were about to die – the first hand to bring him back up as the entire world slides into fire.
And Little John, being ushered every week into being the Father of Nottingham, invited into every family he encounters but his own, just wants to go among the poor. People are starving while the Sheriff roams Sherwood lost. Everything is a choice – remember that? Like you going back for Much when time was tightest, because you know he needs a smile from you to keep going. He doesn't believe in Bonchurch anymore – it feels like a place to stick him to keep him out from under foot. So you can have Marian alone in Locksley.
There is a family in the forest that desperately needs a strong and good patriarch. Their mother is driven mad with the harshness of the world and greets it as it has always greeted her – with a knife and a snarl. They needed Papa Bear, but a false grandfather arrived first. Vaisey played Little John's strings like a master, and he took them back to the camp, carrying three children in his arms because if anyone deserves to be a father it is Little John, but John Little walked away from his family. And again, Vaisey uses a family to smash the great man flat.
But you realized, in the Forest, that Vaisey was still playing for England. He was colliding with the Little Family for the Pact of Hell, and you took him back just in time to stop the fire of Nottingham.
This is the strongest iteration of the question yet – and not just because it turned the game on its head or even because everyone's now literally, immediately, at stake. Because each side has their champion, and they do battle. Sheriff Vaisey plays for England, Robin Hood for Nottingham, and Little John for Locksley. They are damn near evenly matched. And the terrible truth we tried to run from with Carter was acted out again: by fighting at all Little Locksley and Vaisey's new England nearly destroyed everything.
But then the answer, three deaths and two heartbreaks before you needed it: you saved them all by solving for Nottingham. That's where Locksley and England always collide, and that's where they can both be spared – with the incredible Grace of Robin Hood. Think of that, tumbling down the cliff thinking it will set you free when you've trained them to never believe tales of your death – didn't I warn you?
Think, about Marian versus Richard, and remember that if she is Locksley and he is England – you are Nottingham. You are the lynchpin of the whole game.
And think on this. Richard's Mirror is his brother John, yours as always if Sheriff Vaisey, and Marian's is Guy of Gisborne, who always reaches for Locksley first. The game will be decided by you and Vaisey on behalf of the others. But that does not mean they are idle in the meantime.
You could not grasp this yet, no more than you could be the fulcrum of every choice. Those of us without the extraordinary grace of Robin Hood – no wonder you tried to spread its protection to all of your men – must simply choose.
And Marian let Gisborne stand in your place between the people of Nottingham and harm's way to keep him from standing in the place she promised you the week before. She had two engagement rings in play now, and though she told Guy she would not marry him to save herself from the inferno of the shire, she smiled that he came back for her. She realized just what she was doing, by playing him. Perhaps she was his soul's ransom after all, and he's not trying to steal it any longer.
She could love him, if it weren't for you. Locksley could learn to respect him as lord, if it weren't for you. And both would change him, soften him, even make him honorable if not kind. What would Guy of Gisborne have been if there were no Robin of Locksley? Questions we only ask now, when everything is up in the air and the rules are suspended, when the Gates of Hell have been thrown open. Before the Devil arrives to close them again. In the quiet, before the Flames or the Grace arrive.
This is the moment Lady Marian of Knighton Hall could have saved Sir Guy of Gisborne. But she was wearing your ring.
Everything is a choice.