III.9 A Dangerous Deal

Stories That Hold Back Hell


Everyone is something to someone. And everyone has someone. This story was a crash course in the Hell Isabella survived as the child bride of a monster, but this was also a test of the theory developed around the previous Sheriff of Nottingham. Because if you let go of Isabella, listen to Tuck and Kate with their absolutes, turn away from the ever forgiving Much and understanding Allen, then whose someone can she ever be?

But the real question is this: who did the child bride of Hell reach out to in the long dark night those seventeen years? Who was her someone when she needed someone most? The father she barely knew or the brother who abandoned her? A clue: no. It was the mother who was glorious and strong on the day she stood before the people and explained cheerfully and beautifully that there would be no lord of the manor. There would be a Lady.

That is how Isabella tried to ransom her soul, by clinging to the one person who has remained fixed in her heart. The one precious memory that allowed Ophelia to survive Elsinore, the one thing Thornton could never take from the child bride of Hell. And we don't recognize Gislaine's proud and beautiful and kind and exhilarated stance in her daughter, because we have not met her yet, but that is who shone out of her on the day she pardoned the lovely Meg who tossed her head and said screw it to the entire world because she refused to be sentenced to Isabella's fate – refused to play Ophelia and be sentenced to Hell, took whatever punishment Earth could devise sooner than that. And the child bride of Hell set her free.

Until the Demon she married at thirteen returned. Because Isabella could not take Meg's path, could not let Prince John and the world do whatever they liked to her so long as she was ransomed from Thornton and Hell. Because Gisbornes believe that Hell is a place on Earth. They have lived there all of their lives, since the Flames of Jealousy and Treachery took Gislaine. They don't understand the difference between Earth and Hell. And they alone have no one to love anymore. No one to care if they die.

Until they are both given Meg. Who retells, in the dungeons the Demon Thornton shackled her to, the story of Guy of Gisborne's life – in simple words so he will finally understand. He smiles at her, and he treats her at his lowest with a simple kindness he was always so bad at showing Marian, when he thought the only valuable kindness came from power and money, not brushing the worms out of a piece of rotten bread. And he finally sees what kind of woman Marian was, what she offered to him though she could not ransom his soul in the ways he demanded. Meg lends him the strength, and the perspective from an Earth he has not seen for twenty years, to escape from Hell the third and final time. When Isabella sets her free again, she becomes the first person he allows to save him. And it doesn't work, because no one can save you if you cannot save yourself, not even Marian, but that he let her protect him shows growth. Meg ransomed his soul, told his story and loved him anyway, and she finally blocked a spear with her own body to save him. The angel Guy of Gisborne tried to force Marian to become was waiting, all this time, fending off even crueler suitors, to whisper softly that he can leave now. He is free. You cannot sell your soul to the Devil, it is not a thing that can be bought and sold. For the third time, in payment for the three strikes, Guy of Gisborne leaves Hell behind. He is ready for what is to come.

And Meg, who retold her story so that the men sounded ridiculous and evil, as they were, stood her ground and said with the Earthly Perspective Gisbornes lack that she would rather suffer whatever Earth can throw at her than suffer Hell. And she did, because it wasn't a bluff, but she was an Earthly Angel whom the world tossed low enough, for her defiance, to reach out and touch the Gisbornes who are struggling for light. She went first to Ophelia, before the Demon returned and tried to consume her in fire. She tried to buy Isabella freedom, because she did not know she was in the Realm of Devils.

Who have come to claim their child bride, all grown up. Her name is Isabella, but they demanded that she be Ophelia. They bent her soul over the Flames and melted down whatever she was before they began until she dripped like wax into the steel mold of the child bride of Hell, the abused doll of Elsinore, and when she escaped, she was still burning. She shifted and she changed and she flowed between every man's fingers until she was caught in the ice of Cocytus and had to choose her own shape, because she least of all could remember her original one. And she transfigured herself into Claudius.

If Ophelia were too strong to go mad when her father died, if Laertes could not be bothered to return to Denmark to belatedly protect her, if the men in her life were actively rather than callously cruel, if Ophelia were too strong to go mad and die, if she had a mother to give her a choice besides being a man's silent doll – she would grow up to be Claudius.

There is a danger to both shapes, and it is Hamlet. But not just you, this time. Ophelia was married before, and the other Hamlet is far crueler than ever Shakespeare has written.

A wild man, who killed at the slightest excuse, who robbed a grave and tried to explain to his men that they served a Demon – the torturer of the dead, not one to fear them. And if you had ever seen him circle Isabella, if you had heard his threats of what he would do to her in a small, dark room, you never would have blamed her for killing him. Not you who casually kill guards when it is not necessary, now that Marian is gone. Isabella lost Gislaine long ago. Now we understand the fire that fueled her Proteus-like changes, which made her so careful and so afraid and so desperately furious when the hope she had was yanked away. This man whose mind is a madhouse that offers no asylum. Mirrors and lights and tricks flutter over him every moment, twisting the world into fantastical shapes, telling him this and that – and he demands that his wife have not a thought in her head because he has too many for both of them. It is not misogyny. He hates everyone. Her response is the Dark Side of Feminism, the kind that turns you hard and cold and makes you hate everyone. The kind that Enlightens and Empowers no one.

But in the Face of Hell, there are worse things than a Debilitating Feminism. So Isabella ran into the forest, not caring that the briars stabbed at her, that the Thorns caught her dress, and when she fell into your arms at the end, it was already too late to save her. And she knew it, but she clung fast because she was always so good at gathering protectors for herself. Because even if you were a hope that had fled, you were the first hope, the first ray of light, that she had seen in seventeen years. And you held her, because if nothing else you owed her that for bringing Marian, however briefly, back to touch your heart – for playing that role in your resurrection. Because a frightened, broken woman stood at the Crossroads Alone and while she was waiting there for someone to save her, Hell caught up.

But she knows better than to hope you will love her again, Little John's warning was a reminder, not news. She looked you up and down in the dungeons not so long ago and realized what you are. This man she thought was save her is running so fast the pieces of your heart and soul just keep their alignment even though you had shattered, sheer momentum allowing you to pretend to be whole. Your needs are changing so fast, what you want and needs and fight for runs so wildly about it would take a Proteus to stay with you now. But she has felt the flames of the Crash and Burn when such a legend must finally stop, when such a race to escape time itself fails and Hell catches up at last. She has no desire to run, and God only knows what shapes you'd ask her to be along the way.

But the saddest thing is that Hell did not catch up with her in order to force her back into Ophelia; it came to claim the new Claudius. The Realm of Devils could not quash or take away the beautiful light in the depth of their child bride's heart that was Gislaine the Great all those long years. So even as she hardened herself around a fantastic and Dark shape, they watched for when Gislaine would shine through, and then they defeated her. Took the bright and shining Mother Angel, the Gorgeous Side of Feminism, and crushed it in an instant, knocking the Lady Sheriff flat like she was nothing, turning her Feminism Black. So that Isabella would break and lose the precious light that kept her soul from their clutches for so long. She protected it too well even in the Depths of Hell, so they waited until she let the light out herself, and, at the moment she released it and gloried in it, such that she was dazzling to behold, then they pounced with Thornton and they smothered it at last. Hell won its new Claudius today, whether or not Thornton fell.

So she tosses Meg, who tried to show her that she didn't have to bow to Hell, especially now, into the dungeon with her brother and kills them both. And once you deal with Thornton – as if an Earthly madhouse could hold a man who keeps one that burns with Hellfire in his head – she turns on you. Because you could have saved her, but your heart belonged to another. So did Guy's, the tragedy of Meg as she was a woman, the glory of her as she was an angel sent to save both Gisbornes.

And when Isabella finally feels the heat of Thornton so close she can change again, shift and melt into what will destroy him at last – once she finds that shape, that miraculous shape she searched for for seventeen years – she kills the Demon and becomes once again Mistress of Hell. And I can't help thinking: she loved Gislaine so beautifully, she chose you so often, did Hell have to take its new Claudius today?

If only you'd given her a chance to feel free, to realize as her brother did when he took the Keys that now she can set free like her mother rather than lock away like Claudius, perhaps she would have escaped Hell as well. Perhaps Meg's words, her simple words that sang of freedom, could resonate when Thornton was gone, but you forgot the burn of Flames and the fragile pieces of the burning woman who once stood before you and offered to be anything you liked, so long as you would love her. Be the someone who would care if she died, if she fell into Hell again. And you declared her unfit to rise from the ashes of her Pyre. Which is the worst thing you have ever done, even if she was already mad.

This story could have ended very differently.

But you chose the Small Stories of Kate, who was in another tale entirely. Who could not understand the swirling Parables of Hell, the beautiful Tales of Angels, who brought you back to life in the shifting form of Isabella and who ransomed Guy at last in the form of the wonderful Meg. You chose the cold Epics of Tuck because they kept you from Suicide and the Small Stories of Kate because they were easier once you came back to life. Was it for this, Robin, that Marian touched your heart in the darkest place of Hell? To leave Kate to deal with Much so cruelly rather than talk to him yourself as a man should to his equal, to his best friend? To stand beside Kate Potter in battle rather than Much the Magnificent? As if the Holy Land never happened. To kiss a blonde by the fire because she is clever and kind and beautiful with no other thought in either of your heads?

In a way, in makes sense, because a living heart is even more fragile and at risk – just ask the Gisbornes. You can cover the Great Love Story of Robin Hood, the story to break a Legendary Heart, with the tale of a pretty blonde in the Forest. But I hated watching it, watching you turn away from the endlessly patient love of Much and the understanding, free forgiveness of Allen to the unforgiving Epics and vengeful Small Stories of Tuck and Kate, as you have been doing since the Holy Land – rubbing your resurrection in the loving face of John Little. Whose endorsement of this new love is the only thing that makes me happy to see it, because he may be beginning to understand – he too can be redeemed.

And, examined closely, there is a simple but unmistakable beauty about the romance Kate offers you with this small story destined to be lost in the Grand Legends of Robin Hood and his Merry Men - stories I miss telling, stories I haven't told since the Holy Land. Even when her comments to Much show just how well she understood what it would do to him. Because there is a catch to anyone loving you now: any woman who deserved you would deserve better than to play second fiddle to Marian her entire life. Kate says screw it and tosses her head ten thousand times and refuses to care that she deserves neither. She throws herself on the altar of your happiness knowing about Marian, knowing she can never hold a candle to your wife, your Legendary Partner, the Night Watchman. As Meg knew she could never equal Marian to Guy. Both women offered their hearts, knowing they would receive but a fraction of their lover's in return – because it would save a dark soul entrapped too long and, in a smaller story, brighten the new life of a man who deserves love more than anyone except Little John. The most selfless choice we have yet seen, the best thing Kate will ever do. And we will all hate her for it.

But Isabella, who would not know the touch of an Angel if the light of her shone all around her, who has missed the moment twice when an Angel wrapped herself around her shuddering form, looked into a Mirror and loved the smell of a Demon's blood on her hands. Saw herself there, with no shadow of her mother anymore. And she turned away from the image she held to for seventeen years, became harder and colder than her mother could ever bear to be, and she decided she would keep her own. Because what good was Gislaine's beautiful proclamation if she left her children to suffer Hell all the same?

And your rejection of "the woman Isabella really is" was the worst thing Kate's Small Stories will ever do. It is a small story indeed that damns a magnificent soul to hell because she is the sister of Guy of Gisborne who dared to love you. You spoke of Isabella turning from her better angels as if you hadn't shouted over them while they tried to whisper in her ear. So Isabella turned from the light of Gislaine she had sheltered so long, and she wrapped the Shadows around her, and she loved them – what they protected and what they obscured and what they gave: power that would succeed where Gislaine's failed, power to take what she wanted, and she understood what had intoxicated Thornton for all of these years.

Everyone needs someone. Even Vaisey had Davita. But not Claudius, who was once Ophelia. Not the frozen Proteus, who quenched the fire and tossed her soul to the winds – let Hell come for her someday and do its worst, she would defend this patch of ground upon the Earth. Let Hell come, she holds the Keys.