Matilda walked slowly at the edge of the road, looking at the ground. That was a habit that she had developed over the years: wherever she went, she kept searching for useful herbs, picking the ones that she could use in her remedies.
That morning she had no hurry to reach her destination: she had no emergencies, it was very early in the morning and surely the inhabitants of Knighton were still asleep. She had time to enjoy her walk through the forest.
She thought to the outlaws: they too would be asleep at that time of the day, tired after staying up a good part of the night to help the poor and rob the rich. Matilda sighed, thinking to the last time she had seen Robin, when he went to search for her because Marian was sick.
She hadn't the chance to talk to the outlaw after that, but she had spotted him from afar in the villages, helping people with a troubled expression on his face.
She knew that the young man had to be worried for Marian, but he had obeyed Matilda's orders to let her rest and recover in the quiet of her house. The outlaw wandered near Knighton, and sometimes he talked to the servants, but he kept away from the manor.
Matilda knew that it had to be difficult for him, and once again she felt sad, knowing that one of them, Robin or Guy, or both, was going to suffer for Marian.
She was deep in those thoughts when she noticed the sounds of horses and wagons.
She hurried to hide, afraid that it could be the Sheriff's men, when she recognized Guy, sitting on the wagon that leaded the convoy.
She stepped out of the bushes and waved at the knight.
Guy gave the order to stop, and pulled the reins of his wagon.
"Good morning, Matilda."
The woman looked at him: it was strange to see him out of Knighton Hall, and the light that shone in his eyes was even stranger. She was used to see him hurting and afraid, often sad and discouraged, but now he looked decided and strong. Proud.
"Where are you going, love?"
"To the villages near York, to sell our flour."
Matilda looked at him, in surprise.
"It's far from Knighton."
Guy nodded.
"We'll be back in a few days."
The healer examined him with a worried glance.
"I didn't give you the permission to exert yourself with such a long travel. Your leg could get worse. What will you do if you feel pain and I'm not there to treat you?"
"My leg would get worse without a roof over my head. We have to do this, or the Sheriff will get Knighton, if we can't pay the taxes."
"That slimy, rotten slug!" She exclaimed, with rage, then she looked affectionately at Guy. "But it's nice that you want to help Sir Edward. I'm worried for you, of course, but your heart is doing the right thing. I'm proud of you, love."
Guy smiled at her, blushing a little because he wasn't used to be praised.
"I wanted to do something for Marian and Sir Edward," he said, softly, "and now I finally can."
"Be careful, sweetie, the roads can be dangerous."
"I have some guards. And Allan."
Matilda thought that the men she could see escorting the convoy wouldn't have scared a sickly kitten, and she hoped that Allan was trustworthy, but she didn't express her worries because it was clear that Guy would have gone to sell that flour even if he had been completely alone. She could only pray that everything went well.
"Godspeed then, love."
Guy smiled at her.
"Take care of them while I'm away."
"You know that I will."
Guy gave the order to depart again, and soon the convoy moved, leaving her behind.
The knight turned to wave at her, just before a bend in the road, and Matilda waved back, then the wagons disappeared behind the trees and she was alone again.
She sighed, and resumed her walk to Knighton.
Allan yawned and he wondered if Gisborne was as tired as he was. The wagons had traveled all day, with just a few short stops to eat lunch and to allow the men to relieve themselves. Allan knew that they had to be fast and come back before the taxes were due, but he was tired, hungry, and a little worried too.
Living at Knighton and working for Gisborne, he was well aware of the conditions of the man. He had seen him in pain, still unable to walk without of a crutch or to climb the stairs on his own. He wondered if such a long travel was too much for Gisborne.
Allan himself felt exhausted and sore after sitting for such a lung time on a wagon on a bumpy road, he couldn't help thinking that Gisborne must have been in serious pain by now.
Finally the wagons went to a stop, and Allan was glad to see the sign of an inn further down the road: that meant food and rest at last!
He gave the reins of the wagon to the peasant who was sitting near him, then he jumped down and walked to the head of the convoy.
Guy had already got down from his wagon, and he was standing, giving orders to his guards to have the wagons parked and secured in the courtyard of the inn. The men from Knighton and the guards would take turns watching the cargo and resting, so that the wagons were never unguarded.
Allan stretched his back, walking to reach Guy.
"Hey, Giz. Long day, uh?"
Guy nodded. He looked pale and tired, but he smiled at the former outlaw.
"Indeed, but everything went smoothly. Tomorrow we'll leave the County and we'll travel in lands under the jurisdiction of York, and I don't know what we can expect. I've been there just a few times in the past and I don't know where we could be attacked by outlaws or which roads are safer..."
Allan could see that Guy was worried and tense. He was, too, but he knew that for Gisborne there was so much more at stake than for him. If things went bad, Allan had always the option to go back to the forest with Robin and his life wouldn't change too much, but Guy would find himself stranded, with no place to go and his failure would ruin Marian and her ailing father too.
"We have the guards, Giz, and in case of an attack from outlaws, the peasants can fight too. I know that Robin uses to protect them from every danger, but those men are young and strong. If they can use a spade in the fields, they can use the same strength to hit the head of an enemy as well."
"I hope you're right."
"Well, if I am not, there's no use in worrying about it, don't you think? There's nothing we can do now. And of course we can hope that nobody will attack us. Let's go inside, eat something and take a room, Giz. I'm hungry and tired and I'm sure you are too."
Later, Guy filled the basin with warm water, and he used it to wash away the dust of the road from his face. He removed his jacket and the shirt and kept washing even if he was so tired and sore that he could suddenly fall asleep, even if he was standing. He glanced at Allan, who was already snoring. The young man didn't care about dust or grime: once he had filled his belly as much as he could, he dropped on his bed and fell asleep immediately.
Guy dried himself with a towel, and decided that he was clean enough, so he hobbled to his bed, and finally allowed himself to lie down, wrapping himself in a thick blanket.
Guy was exhausted, but he couldn't sleep. His leg was really sore, but it wasn't it that kept him awake.
He was afraid.
Merchants were always at risk of being robbed, and the roads weren't safe. Moreover they were headed to villages that were far from Nottingham, and for sure the outlaws there wouldn't adopt the no killing policies of Robin Hood.
Traveling was dangerous and Guy was terrified that he was leading his men to a gruesome death. In his past, he had never the chance to be a real leader, he only did what Vaisey ordered him to do and the Sheriff always pointed up that he was an idiot, that he couldn't do anything right without his guidance.
He was just undermining me, as usual.
But the whole plan to sell the flour far from Knighton was his idea, and Guy was afraid that it would turn into a failure. If that happened, he would destroy the lives of many persons other than his own: Marian and her father, Allan, the guards, the men from Knighton and their families…
They had all decided to trust him, and Guy didn't want to disappoint them.
He touched the little silver cross resting on his chest, and smiled, feeling a little reassured.
Marian believes in me.
Allan turned in the bed, hugged the pillow and continued to snore.
Guy glanced at him with an amused grin. His snores didn't bother him too much, some of his guards used to snore even more than the outlaw, and he was glad for his presence.
Still holding the silver cross in his hand, Guy closed his eyes, trying to sleep. He forced himself to take his mind off all the things that could go wrong, and he remembered Marian's hug, the sweet warmth of her body pressed against him, the scent of her skin. Her trust.
I will succeed. For you. He thought, finally slipping in an exhausted sleep.
It had been strange for Marian to suddenly find herself in the house without the presence of the black knight around her, or better, near her, as if, despite the fact that there were still so many people living and working in her family home, her house was quieter, emptier.
With the prudence that Matilda had widely reminded her to use to avoid a risky setback of her fever, Marian sat on an old rocking chair near the window. She didn't want to sew anymore, or to read, and she had been recommended not to go visit her father in his room, at least for another day, for his sake.
Being locked in the house, in her room, in a tight border between the bed and the window, she felt that she was becoming almost crazy.
She had been there just for a few days, and they had seemed a lifetime to her. How did Guy endure all this, trapped in her room for months, with much more pain, much more fear, knowing that he was neither loved nor well-liked?
Marian felt guilty, for all the times she had avoided his gaze and his company during the months of his illness, for having taken care of him, but perhaps with little heart, to have been distrustful of him, of his feelings for so long. She felt sorry. It seemed to her she was beginning to understand him better. To understand Guy. And now she was sorry, and sad.
So her mind began to wander. She missed going out. She felt the lack of open air in the morning, though the heat of summer was still far away. She felt the lack of the exercise that she was used to do to be ready to get into action as the Nightwatchman, when she was needed, in the quietest nights, in the darkest nights.
She missed the precious time she dedicated to refining her movements, listening to every noise around her, breathing in perfect synchrony with the action of her hands, arms, and body.
Finding the perfect coordination between her eyes and arm, throwing knives, with ever greater precision. Throwing arrows with her bow.
She missed her exercises with the sword. Hit, parry, dodge, playing on her speed and her young, feminine agility against the power and strength of men, of Vaisey's guards.
Guy came to her mind, when he didn't know anything about her, when he didn't know her secret 'life with a mask', when he was fighting hard against her, believing her to be a boy.
She remembered his blows against her. He was strong, powerful, agile, lethal. A single moment of distraction and she would have been finished.
Often, she had saved her own life with small tricks, mostly visual deception, or speed against his powerful body.
A little smart fox against a big, strong, dark wolf.
But now, with every deception among them revealed, Marian realized how big was the risk she had actually taken in battling against him for so long.
If someday, in a battle, he had hurt her, wounded her, if he had taken the mask away from her, Marian imagined now his face, looking at her, unmasked. Amazement, confusion, fear, horror, pure pain.
She imagined Guy, saying: "No, not you," chocking on his own words, losing his voice in his fear. She imagined deep pain in his eyes.
For the first time, Marian imagined what could have happened between them in the light of the feelings he felt for her. His feelings of love for her, that now she knew.
"My God, what would have been of us," Marian thought, "of me, of him."
Now that he was away from her, now that he was traveling, risking his life and his health to ensure the survival of Knighton and her family, Marian realized that she had not told everything she wanted to tell Guy, that there were things that she had understood just now.
She missed him. A sad tear came down on her cheek.
She closed her eyes, trying to think of something else, and imagined instead herself in a sunny morning, in the garden, training hard and smooth with her sword, and him watching her training.
Would he ever accept her, besides being loved, wanted, from him, for what she was, for what she felt to be?
Something at the real bottom of her heart told her that it was already so, that she just had to wait for his return. The hours now seemed longer to go, waiting to see him again.
One day, perhaps, they would have their training, together, in the morning.
And, if he had been a good comrade in arms to her, who knows, maybe one day she would teach him one of her tricks.
Maybe.
Marian smiled, while another tear ran down her face.
Guy looked at the men who were unloading the last sack of flour from the wagon, and he smiled.
They had reached the villages with no effort and everything went well. Only a couple of outlaws tried to rob them on their way there, but they were so scrawny and battered that the guards managed to keep them at bay with no effort.
Actually, they were so young and looked so miserable that, when the guards arrested them, Guy ended up giving them a piece of bread before letting them go. He knew that he should have them killed or at least flogged, and the Sheriff would have punished him for showing humanity, but he remembered too well when he was their age and in the same situation, so hungry and scared that he would have done anything just to find some food for his sister and himself.
After that, nobody else tried to attack the convoy and they quickly sold all the flour.
Allan reached Guy and looked at the money he got from this last sale.
"Are they paying that much?" He asked, amazed. It was more than they could hope and, with the money they earned, they could easily pay the taxes. And that money was going to increase when they would sell milk and cheese to the people of Nettlestone.
They would buy them on their way back, and Guy and Allan already had an agreement with some farmers near the border to purchase their products.
Guy gave him a smug grin, and Allan patted him on a shoulder.
"Nice work, Giz! You had a good idea! People will worship us, when we'll go back and save their houses!"
"Let's go back before celebrating," Guy said, pleased, but more sober than Allan, "we still have to face a long and dangerous trip to get home."
"Always optimistic, uh, Giz?"
Allan helped him to get on the first wagon, and then he climbed on it too. Now that the wagons were empty, it was better to protect the one that carried the money.
The first part of the trip was uneventful and they decided to spend the night near the border, at the farm of one of the men who were going to sell milk and cheese to them. Doing so, the next morning they could load fresher milk and take it directly to Nettlestone. If everything went well, they could be back at Knighton before sunset and Guy couldn't wait to be home again.
Home.
He suddenly realized that he had began to think of Knighton as his home.
It was a wrong definition, of course: he was a guest, and he would never have been there if he hadn't been injured.
But the manor had the same warmth of a home for him, and that was a sensation he had almost forgotten.
Guy looked around to check his men: the farmer let them spend the night in the main hall of his house, and the men arranged some beds, stuffing old sacks with hay. They huddled together near the fireplace to keep warm in the cold winter night.
Allan wasn't there, but he came back after a while, dragging a real bed, with mattress and pillows, with the help of one of the farmers.
They placed it near the fireplace, and Allan gave a coin to the boy.
"What are you doing? What's that?" Guy asked, frowning.
"A bed?" Allan answered, innocently.
"I can see that's a bed. Why did you pay that boy to take it here? The others are sleeping on the floor, do you think you are privileged?"
"It's for you, Giz."
Guy stared at him, dumbfounded.
"For me?! I never asked for it. I don't need it."
"And I don't need to endure Matilda's wrath. When we met her in the forest, she managed to tell me that she'd flay me alive if I didn't take care of you. Come on, Giz, I know that traveling all day is painful for your leg, you can't sleep on the floor, on a sack full of hay. Matilda would yell at both of us if she knew that you slept there and that I let you do it."
Before Guy could reply, one of his guards nodded, agreeing with Allan.
"He's right, Sir Guy. We heard the witch menacing him..."
"Matilda is not a witch." Guy interrupted him.
"Yes, Sir Guy. Sorry. But she really said that Allan had to care for your health. And we all agree with her."
Guy looked at him, even more surprised.
"You… what?"
"You have to take care of yourself, Sir Guy. When the Sheriff fired you, we refused to work for him, even if that meant that we had to struggle to feed our families, but then you offered this job to us. Thanks to you, our children won't starve and our wives won't take ill this winter. You're very brave, Sir Guy, nobody would blame you for sleeping in a real bed."
"I'm not brave."
The guard shook his head.
"I was there when the accident happened, I was one of the men who took you to Knighton Hall afterwards. If I may be honest, Sir Guy, I thought that you were done for, that a man couldn't survive such wounds and so much pain. But you're alive, and even if you're still ailing, you're working hard to save Knighton. This is bravery, Sir Guy."
Gisborne couldn't find an answer, too surprised and moved to speak at all.
"Well," Allan said, with a little shrug, "the bed is here now and I'm not going to pay another coin to have it carried away, so just stop complaining and sleep on it, Giz. Or if you don't, I will, but then you are going to explain to Matilda that your leg is paining you because you were too stubborn. I'm not going to take the blame for it."
Guy understood that he couldn't win, so he sat on the bed with a sigh, trying to ignore Allan's grin.
Note from the author
Sorry for the problems in the format of this chapter. I was away from home and I updated from the phone, but obviously something went wrong. Now it should work (hopefully).
