Guy and Marian came back into the house when the others had almost finished their meal. Matilda gave an inquiring look at them, and smiled to herself: they both looked flushed and emotional, but their eyes were shining with a secret joy.
It seems that she made a choice at last. Poor Robin, but I'm happy for Guy.
The knight shyly glanced at the little girl who he had found in the forest, and Matilda thought that he looked ashamed and worried, while Marian took his hand and gently squeezed it, as if she wanted to encourage him.
The child was startled when they came back, and jumped to her feet to run away, but Matilda put a hand on her shoulder to stop her.
"I understood that he wronged you and your family, it's the sort of things that his donkey's crap headed self used to do in the past, but he's changed, I can swear it to you. At least listen to him, and then you'll decide what you want to do."
Guy looked gratefully at her.
"Thank you, Matilda."
"Don't thank me, but tell us what you did to this poor child. She said that you condemned her mother to live in hell."
Guy paled.
"Is it so bad?" He asked to the child, and the girl walked to him, scared, but decided.
"How can you ask that? You must have known who he was! You sold your own sister to that devil, and she wasn't older than me!"
Guy shook his head, sadly.
"I didn't know him at all. He said that he would take care of her, and he offered me the money I needed to become a knight. I didn't know him, but he was young, rich and good looking enough. I actually believed that it was the best chance Isabella could have in her life…"
The girl pointed a finger to his chest.
"The best chance?! Being beaten and menaced every day of her life looks like a 'best chance' to you?! My father is cruel, he's a monster! I heard her crying at night, when she thought that we couldn't hear her, and when she talks about you, not often I'd say, she always says that you should have put a dagger through her heart, instead."
Guy staggered, in shock, as if the girl had hit him, and Marian glanced at him, worried.
Then the knight let Marian's hand go, and knelt in front of the girl, taking her hand and looking at her.
"I see, now. I have no excuses for what I did, and only now I realize how much I wronged Isabella. I was young, stupid and scared, full of resentment and rage, and I wanted to believe to Thornton's words. I wanted that responsibility lifted from my shoulders, I wanted to be free to conquer again the lands that were mine, and not to worry every moment of my life, wondering if I were able to keep my little sister alive and safe..."
The girl looked at him, surprised to see tears in his eyes. Her mother used to say that her brother Guy was a heartless monster, but now that man, a knight, was kneeling in front of her, weeping, and humbly asking for her forgiveness. She hesitated, but she answered in a cold voice.
"Maybe she was alive, but she'd never been safe. Not if my father was around."
"You were searching for Robin Hood so he could help Isabella, weren't you? I'm not him, but I swear that I'll do anything I can to make up for what I did to her. You will have my help, whatever the cost." Guy unsheathed his sword, and laid it at her feet. "My life is at your service until Isabella will be safe or I'll be dead. This is my pledge to you, and to my sister."
The girl looked at him, impressed, not sure of what to do. She didn't know her uncle at all, but she had the impression that he wasn't lying, and she found herself desperately wanting to believe him.
She bent to pick up his sword, holding it with both hands: it was a big weapon, not as heavy as she had imagined, but lethal and dangerous looking.
Maybe he can really save maman.
She handed the sword back to Guy.
"I accept your pledge," she said, "but you will have to earn my trust. Now please rise, uncle Guy."
Guy nodded, and he stood up, sheathing his sword.
"Thank you," he said, his voice choked, then he stifled a sob. "You are my niece, and I don't even know your name!"
The girl looked at him, a little softened in seeing a grown man so moved and repented. She looked better at his face, and she found a resemblance with her mother, especially when he was so upset.
They have the same way of crying.
Unexpectedly, probably because he resembled her mother so much, she felt the instinct of soothing his sorrow. When she answered, her tone was gentler.
"My name is Guinevere, but people call me Gwen."
"Guinevere..." Guy smiled, sweetly. "I should have guessed… Isabella loved those stories.
Maman used to tell them to us when we were little, and she always said that one day she would marry a brave knight, or a king..." His voice broke, remembering that instead she had married a cruel man, and that it was his fault.
Matilda came to his rescue.
"I can guarantee that he will keep his word or I'll make sure to knock that silly head of his. But he won't disappoint you, he's a good boy now that he had learned to swallow some of his pride and to admit his errors."
Guy blushed.
"Matilda, please!"
The woman chuckled and she patted his cheek, motherly.
"Those were good apologies, my boy. Now sit and eat something, we already had a meal, but you and Marian must be starving."
Guy obeyed, and Matilda turned to Gwen.
"Please, child, sit with them too. It's time that you and your uncle get to know each other."
"That stupid little girl! She resembles you in everything, especially in your common stupidity!" Thornton shouted, pushing away Isabella, who clung to him in an attempt to convince him not to resume the journey.
Nottingham was near now. Very near, less than a day of travel, nothing more, and he would have all the money, the position and the prestige that his old companion, Alexander of Shewsbury had promised him.
He smoothed his fine, refined clothes, as if to cleanse them from the unwelcome contact with his wife, who kept insisting, lost between anger, fear and pain and sorrow, that they could not leave the place without little Gwen.
"Please, she must have just gone away for a moment, maybe she lost her way, we have to search for her, we can't leave her here," Isabella said, in tears, her hands clasped in a silent, desperate prayer.
"We can't, wife? I think, I decide. That empty head of yours doesn't have to think. You, Isabella don't have to decide anything at all, you just have to please me, your lawful husband. Now, bring me a cup of cool water. Right now, Isabella!" Thornton shouted.
Everyone looked at her, someone openly, someone less openly. Pity and amusement in their eyes.
Another humiliation, in public, for her. One of the many, too many. The more years they spent together, in their unhappy and indissoluble bond, the more he was humiliating her in public.
At first, humiliations were private. Something between them. Something she could hide and he didn't want to show.
At the beginning of their wretched marriage he had been haughty, and demanding, but not completely bad. But he didn't care for her, and never showed her affection.
She had nice clothes, but every time he gave her new, shiny clothes, he said it was because he didn't want her to disfigure him when they came out in public. He liked to show her around to his friends.
His beautiful and young wife, so different from the young British ladies from the countryside, more refined, more intelligent, more lively.
Isabella wasn't happy, but she had hoped that when she'd have children, things would settle between them, and she would finally be really appreciated from him.
She would have someone to love, someone who would love her, their children. She wanted them so much. And Thornton kept asking her for a boy.
Before the birth of the male heir, three daughters were born.
One after the other, females. Beautiful, tender, lively little girls. Her blood, her hope for the future.
Isabella loved them.
She was happy, every time she was pregnant, waiting for a new life to come, to love and care for. Her family grew larger.
Her house was filled with colors and sounds. But Isabella was also worried about not being able to conceive a son.
What Thornton wanted, and that never came, year after year. Instead of cementing an already difficult union between husband and wife, the three little girls, their presence, their games and their crying, had made life at home more difficult.
From her husband, every time she gave birth, words full of disappointment and anger. Thornton constantly told her that she was not able to give him a son, a real son, a son. She was "half french", "half woman", "half wife".
Half of anything, in his opinion, loudly spoken, shouted.
He barely talked to her every time he saw a newborn daughter, until his anger decreased.
When their third daughter, Viviane, was born, Thornton did not speak for weeks.
They had given up hope when Isabella had been pregnant for the fourth time.
When his son was shown to Thornton, for a moment, every pain, every disappointment, seemed gone.
But that moment had lasted little, and too much time had passed in mutual misunderstanding. Too many years.
So, with Roland still a little baby Thornton had begun to deal with his wife with significant and growing discomfort.
But then, after the birth of the first male son, the much-hoped heir, he had begun to deal with her with significant and growing discomfort. In a few months he began to be aggressive.
At first with words, then with threats, and finally with gestures.
And from the first time he'd given her a slap, he never stopped. He had crossed a border from which he had never returned.
He liked to see her begging for mercy, letting him do anything he wanted, just to obtain his forgiveness. This excited him, more than her beauty, which had become now just habit and boredom.
Then he began to become aggressive with their children, to punish them, hardly, for anything, and she had begun to suffer more abuses from him to save them from him.
But Isabella knew, felt in her bones, that her husband no longer needed her. The children were born, one after the other, beautiful and gentle little boys and girls and she knew that in her heart her husband hoped that she would die of childbirth or some deadly illness.
Despite this, in bed he still looked for her, because she gave him something that no other woman would give him, and that he wanted. Their relationship in their room had passed from restless passion to oppression. To struggle, to dominance.
She quickly brought the water to him, handing it to him with extreme kindness, invoking his help with his eyes. He took the pewter goblet with a studied gesture, drank, then he threw it away. The chalice struck the ground with a dull sound.
"Not quite cool. I said cool. Have you become deaf, Isabella?" The woman lowered her eyes to the ground. "Look for her! Find her yourself! Your task. The daughter is yours. For me, that stupid girl, it 's just one more mouth to feed, clothes to buy, a rich husband to find. But if she is not here within an hour, we leave anyway. Our friends in Nottingham can't wait for us. They are waiting for me. I can leave you and your children here without protection and without food, and I will, if you don't leave this place with me. I can and I will. You're much older now, my dearest wife, but you should remember well how to survive in the world without food and without protection. You could teach it to your children," Thornton said, venomously. He put his hand under her chin, threateningly.
"My husband, but they are also your children..." Isabella tried to intercede, to take time, hoping her daughter would suddenly reappear.
"Oh no, they are your children now, they are rebellious and insolent like you are. Useless as you are. My true children obey me, my true children fear me, they are the way they should be, and if they are not, now, because you spoiled them, they will be. Now go, Isabella. Seek her, find her. In an hour we leave." Thornton concluded, and gave his back to his wife.
While Isabella was running around, increasingly troubled, looking everywhere for her daughter, calling her with a crescently distressed tone, she felt him laugh and say: "A good beating, and you will see that she won't try it again!"
But Isabella searched everywhere, and couldn't find her. After an hour, the husband approached the best carriage, looking at Isabella, and she appeared shocked and terrified.
"Get the boys and the girls in the other carriage, now, and stay with them, and, for God's sake find a way to make yourself presentable again, I don't want to give a bad impression in Nottingham because of your neglect. Guinevere will reach us in Nottingham, she knows where we are going. A day or two on the road will make her finally docile and obedient, and... as soon as I put my hands on her..."
Thornton got into the carriage and locked himself in, leaving Isabella and the children to make do with the second carriage. In silence, still looking around, hoping for a miracle, in a change of heart of her daughter, she brought the children into the carriage.
"Just arrived here at the castle, the Thorntons, and there are already problems and mishaps, Alexander, huh? Don't think that I waste the wages of my men to find a girl of thirteen across the county!" Vaisey said, clearly bored with the situation.
Within a few hours the castle had been literally invaded by Thornton, with all his pride and contempt, his agitated, worried, wife Isabella, the presumed sister of Gisborne, and a nest of annoying, noisy, wailing children. And when they were not crying, the older ones tried to slip everywhere, curious about a much bigger place compared to their home.
Not that Thornton lacked to discipline them. Looking at the numerous and remarkable marks on their arms, and sometimes on their faces, Vaisey had the impression that the man knew how to regulate his accounts with his children, and especially with his wife.
But ultimately, men so menacing and violent with a woman and children were almost always incapable of real fighting against other men. Thornton was therefore a useless man in Vaisey's eyes, and he was easily attracted to Nottingham.
Apparently, Thornton was used to spend far more than their income. The beauty and wealth of Thornton and Isabella's clothes didn't equally represent economic stability from their lands. It was too much.
Not that Vaisey cared about them. It was just an excuse to get the woman there, and to use her against Gisborne to his liking.
A desperate Isabella had begun to ask for their help the moment they arrived in Nottingham. A little girl, they had lost a little girl. Within an hour Vaisey had come to see the pathetic scene of a woman on her knees asking, begging for help, crying, desperate to get help, men, horses, to find her daughter, while her husband was only talking about exemplary punishment on her return, while he did absolutely nothing to find her.
In any case, it was a huge boring hassle for Vaisey.
"It's up to you, Shrewsbury, with your men, to find the tiny, tender, lost sheep, my men remain here at the castle, they are needed a lot more here, by me," the sheriff said ironically, and he left the room, leaving Alexander to solve the problem.
An entire day now had passed without news of her child. And she had never spent a whole day without her. Ever since she was born. Without seeing her smile, so similar to her, without seeing that attitude of being a little woman. So like her in appearance, in ways, more than her other children.
Isabella looked out of the castle. She had come so high, climbing stairs, after stairs.
And now that with her gaze she could see the vastness of the County and the forests, her idea of seeing her, searching her, from up there was evident for what it was: an illusion.
Her little, naive, brave Gwen. All alone, in an unknown world, by day and by night, without a bed, without the things she loved mosts, without her brothers and sisters. Without her, her mother.
She felt desperate.
Perhaps it was a curse, that was repeated from mother to daughter. She had also been a single, lost child, without a bed, without bread, cold, with just a cloak to protect her from the cold. Lost in the world, with no one helping her.
Tears fell on her face. As she remembered her childhood, many years ago, in the streets of the world, from country to country, on the land and on the sea, in England and in France, sleeping in the most improvised places, eating whatever was found, asking for money on the streets, trembling from the cold, Isabella trembled too, thinking of her lost child.
She had buried that past behind her, focusing on her so long-waited and beloved children, her unhappy wife's life. But now, her daughter's sudden escape had put her back in the years.
Her most secret memories.
She didn't want to return to Nottingham County, those lands had brought her only pain, and shame, and fear. She had tried to oppose her husband, in his absurd decision, but she only had the usual slaps, and the usual insults, the usual threats from him. She had given up, as always, for the sake of her children.
And now her little girl had fled, alone.
Maybe she'll have more luck than me. Maybe she'll find someone who will help. Maybe she will be free, as I am not. How could I leave my children alone to be finally free from my husband?
Alone. Free. Isabella realized that she was never really alone or free in her life. She had been into the tender arms of her mother, then into her brother's protective arms,and then in a few painful, scary days, she had been left from him into her husband's rough and hasty arms.
Her brother. Her brother sold her to Thornton, to become a knight, right when she was becoming a woman.
Maybe he was waiting for that, to obtain a better price for her purity.
Isabella had told many legends to Guinevere, her little, sweet Gwen, but in no one of them a boy sold his sister to buy horse, armor, and become a knight. The knights she had described to her daughter were beautiful, strong and courageous, always ready to save a young lady. Not to sell her.
Isabella closed her hands to fists, instinctively.
She had spent years without thinking of him, that brother, older than her, apparently so mature, and strong, and gentle, and tender, so taciturn and so present in her life, in those years of wandering.
She had slept so often embracing him, snuggled close to his warmth, and in the morning she often saw him more tired, dividing with her any little breakfast he had earned, working between a barn and another, between a field and another, from stable to stable.
He had told her stories: in France they surely would help them, they would return home, to a warm place, with beds and pillows, and tables to have their breakfast. And lovely clothes. And people who would love them, and help them.
Nothing of what he had told her had come true.
They were and remained alone. But he was there, for her, and she never felt lost.
Then, one day, her brother had begun to barely speak to her, to look at her uneasily, to sleep far away from her, to no longer answer her questions.
Very often he let himself to be involved in fights, sometimes he took her and ran away suddenly, without explanation and without even the little money he had earned.
And he was angry with her, but she wondered why. Getting just a hostile silence.
No more jokes, no more tenderness between them. No more attentions to her from him.
She didn't know what she had done, what she had done wrong, so much he had changed his way to her. She must have done something very wrong, but she didn't know what it was. She couldn't remember what it was.
But he had changed. He never left her alone then, not even to work, and at the same time he was elusive, as if he no longer wanted to be with her. He scolded her continually after having pampered her for years.
He no longer said 'we will live together' but 'you will be fine', 'you will survive'. But he didn't almost speak to her anymore.
She tried to be kind and cute to make him smile, her brother had a pretty smile she had almost forgotten, but nothing seemed to interest him. Neither her tears nor her smiles. He had other plans, and they didn't take her into account.
Until the day he took her to the man's house, Thornton, who became her husband and her jailer.
So cowardly, without giving her an explanation, and leaving her there, with few words and without any defense. He hadn't even seen her wearing the wedding dress, the coward, the day of her marriage.
Isabella hoped that Guy Crispin. his brother, was dead, pierced by the spear of some other knight hungry for money and power as he was.
She left, and found the way for her chamber, to change the dress for the dinner in the hall.
Thornton saw her coming to the great , dark hall for dinner. Perfectly dressed, her hair combed, but with a tired and afflicted air on her face. He looked at her, silenly threatening her, and Isabella changed instantly her attitude, her face seemed to lighten, she sat with natural grace, not studied, and she smiled, as if nothing had happened. The conversation flowed naturally at the table.
Watching her behavior now, Thornton wouldn't have said that he had collected her, literally bought her, for a sum of money, on the street.
So much money, but he liked her, and he wanted her for himself, and immediately. She was miserable, poor, but beautiful, pure, naive, dignitous, proud, and so stupidly attached to that brother, equally miserable and proud.
She was manipulable. Both of them were, brother and sister.
Who knew what had become of him, that brother, that boy so desperate and stupid.
Who knew what kind of man he had become.
He wanted to become a knight. Thornton was convinced that with all his desire for reward and pride, he wouldn't make so far away. He turned from his wife to face, with a friendly smile, the Sheriff of Nottingham.
