Hi, so here is the final update for Christmas and i hope wherever you are you really enjoy this chapter.

Anything to do with Djaq's past is my own. Anything historical is my own and any inaccuracies i apologise.

Disclaimer-Nothing here is mine.

Again TRIGGER WARNINGS

Please Read and Review.

Faith Based Initiative

Chapter 10-Judge, Jury And Executioner

Marian and Djaq talk about their childhoods. Erin tells all she knows before she turns to Matilda and a plan is put in place that will hopefully see them all reunited.

It seemed to take Matilda an age to come around the curtain she had insisted Will help hook up so that the woman could have her privacy during what she called an 'Exam'. Will had no idea what one was but he thought it could be nothing good and once again he felt a surge of almost dizzying rage hit him so that he had let his axe drop to the ground least he cut his fingers off with how hard he was gripping it.

Allan and Robin had come back with their goods neatly folded but there was nothing to do but wait. Finally, after what felt like an age Matilda came around the curtain took the wine of Robin without saying anything and then took a deep and fortifying swig wiping her hand on the back of her mouth.

"Fucking filth" and with that she spat on the floor. "Cast em all to hell for what they've done to that girl." She caught them all looking and elaborated as best she could for Will knew that Matilda had a strict code that what passed between patient and wise woman should stay secret.

"She'll live?" Robin asked finally. Matilda nodded. "Aye, and perhaps she might have children one day. She's young and I've seen women come back from worse. She's not pregnant herself which I think was a relief to both of us. The rest of the wounds will heal. The physical ones anyway. Of course the mind plays tricks" she eyed them all sternly.

"I shouldn't have to tell anyone that went to the Holy Lands that. I know some here suffer from bouts of Crusader's Sickness. She's going through a little bit of that herself I imagine. I can make a tonic for her but…I assume she's safe to stay here? I could move her Robin but she's like a startled bird and if she comes to my house someone's going to notice her and ask questions"

"She can stay" Robin said shaking his head. "God knows I couldn't turn her away now. Besides we need her. We need to know where Marian and Djaq are."

"Caves"

They all whipped around. Peeking around the curtain was the girl. Will looked at her and felt another little thing inside of him shatter. If this was what this girl looked like then what was happening to Dja—he had to stop that train of thought and shake his head because he was sure he was going to do something dangerous. He was keeping a lid on his temper by the skin of his teeth and he did not want to lose control.

His father had told him that you did not lose your temper with women. It had been one of his lessons. Will could remember his Dad taking him out to the woodshed where they worked on the boxes for the taxes and in between telling him about how intimacy between man and a woman came about (which was a conversation Will never wanted a repeat of) he had told him about woman.

"You never raise your hand to a woman son" he'd said seriously wiping his brow on the back of his hand. "And you never force them. Men who do that are scum in my opinion. I'd never raise so much as an eyebrow to your mother never mind my hand because I was raised to be a man. And I've raised you and your brother to be the same. Love is one of the most important gifts in this world. Doesn't matter who you love, personally I don't hold truck to all that sin and blasphemy. Love who you want as long as your happy"

Will had thought that the reason his father never raised a hand to his mother was because if he had she'd probably remove it. His Dad had laughed and then cuffed him on the shoulder and told him he was probably right.

He had been too young to understand the importance of that conversation and it had been a conversation that had stayed with him for a long time even though there had never been a woman.

At least until Djaq.

"Caves?" Allan said and Will forced himself out of his memories to take stock of what was going on in front of him.

The girl…the woman…whoever she was had peered round the curtain Matilda had half put up with a blanket. She hobbled forwards a little her feet bare on the wood. There was still raw sores on her ankles and bruises up and down her legs but Matilda had cleaned up the worst of her injuries. The same with her arms and her face. Underneath the blood and the mess Will could see that she had a rather nice face, big blue eyes and sharp cheekbones. She was in need of several good meals but she looked a bit more like a human woman rather than the ghost that she had been in the forest. She was still in that ratty shirt and she trembled a little on her legs. Will sat up to free the seat but she stared at him with that same unreadable look on her face. Matilda gently touched her shoulder and nodded and the girl sat down eventually as her knee seemed to give out.

"Caves?" Allan repeated his voice oddly gentle. The girl nodded again as if she was picking her thoughts up each and every time.

"I don't remember much" she said finally. "The…the…Black Knights I think they were called moved me around at night a lot but there were caves. One had a small hole through the top, there was a big one where the men were, huge like a castle chamber and then several smaller ones. Djaq and Marian are in one of them but I couldn't tell you where."

She looked like she was about to cry and Will felt something else twist inside him as he looked at her. He chewed his bottom lip thinking hard, there was something about what she said that made sense, a memory flickering like a weak candle in his mind. A memory half forgotten of Luke and him climbing in the forest, exploring. He remembered getting lost in the darkness, losing his brother for a time and then Luke's panicked shouts, the five year old screaming for his older brother and Will finding him.

He remembered the look on his father's face as he and Luke had come staggering home well after dark covering in mud and bramble patches.

Bramble…

He stared into space remembering. There had been a place once where the children of Locksley had been forbidden to go by the elders. A child of Luke's age once had gone exploring after they had, many of the children had believed the place haunted and he had died cutting his head on a rock. His father and mother had rocked them both to sleep that night. Will had been ten he had not…understood…

Bramble. Caves. Darkness. A small hole where a child could fit through and smash his head on the rocks below. A small hole where an emancipated woman could crawl out from. The perfect place because nobody would go near it not even children.

And then it clicked.

"The Ghost Caves"

For a moment he did not realise he had spoken out loud.

"There where?" Robin said.

"You were in London" Will said shaking his head. "After your father you went to spend some time in London with your Aunt. It must have been a year or so, so you wouldn't remember Robin. There was a cave, a tunnel of caves built high in the mountains surrounding the borders of Locksley, Nettlestone and Treeton. It was supposedly build during the invasion by the first King William so the women and children could escape the battle. We used to play in them as kids, all of us. Our parents, well no parents liked us playing in them because it was dark and dangerous and rumours flew around it was haunted so we called them the ghost caves. Luke and I got lost there once, my dad went mad when he found out we were there. First time I'd ever seen him get really angry, usually it was my mum that shouted—anyway a boy went in there once and jumped through a hole, he miscalculated and smashed his head on the rocks below after that—"

"After that" John said cutting across "If I remember rightly, granted Alice and were just courting but didn't Marian's father pass an edict as Sherriff forbidding anyone to go near them?"

Will nodded.

Robin stood up. "Do you think you can find them Will"

Will nodded again. Something hot and dangerous was flooding through his veins. He had long ago believed in a trial, the process of law, a jury. He still did. For these men however he believed it was a waste of time. For these men he wanted to promise them nothing but blood and death.

"Matilda stay here and prepare some beds and some herbs. We'll be back with Marian and Djaq and…" he leaned closer and then reared back as the girl he had been speaking too flinched again.

"Thank you" he said his voice gentle. "You have no idea how much this means to us."

He turned to leave and the gang rushed to follow him when a voice spoke up.

"Erin"

They turned all of them. She had stood up again looking like a gangly baby horse but there was a strength in her Will thought that had nothing to do with her physical condition. She managed to look Robin in the eye though it was clear she was conditioned not to do that. Again he felt a surge of hot rage.

"My name's Erin"

For a moment Robin seemed stunned into silence. But then he nodded.

"Thank you Erin" was all he said and then he was gone and Will was following him and the promise of blood and revenge and anger was in everyone as they all in their own way prayed that they were not too late.

Marian winced again as the pain flared up so strong she had to choke back vomit. The pain in her ribs and in her knee was so strong now she was feeling dizzy. She had sat up and her whole body was aching with the process. She was desperate for water but she couldn't reach it with one hand chained to a wall and the other broken.

"Djaq" she said finally into the silence and Djaq who had been silent for a very long time made a small noise with Marian took as sign of life.

"What are we supposed to talk about? Before? You said that we had to talk to keep awake, but what about?"

Djaq was silent for a long time and then she shifted a little. "Home" she said simply. "Tell me about your home"

Marian was silent for a long time and then she spoke.

"I was an only child. My parents...there were other pregnancies but they never came to much. I survived childhood…my father was appointed the Sherriff when Richard came to the throne. He was a good Sherriff I know. He cared for the poor and the sick and he opened the house to the poor. My mother used to nurse them. It had been an arranged marriage but the love had come easily. And she'd been a nurse, a midwife, she'd learnt skills that the daughters of noblemen didn't. Perhaps that was why it was easy for my father to teach me to fight. He wanted me to have choices in the world like she did."

"How did she die?"

"Pestilence" Marian said shortly. "It did the rounds in our village one summer. She came down with it in the morning and she was dead by nightfall. I was nine"

There was very staggered pause and then Marian trying to do her best to forget the brown haired woman who had been so gentle and whom she had loved so deeply blinked tears out of her eyes and said thickly. "And you? What was it like in the Holy Lands"

"What before the Crusade?" Djaq said bitterly. Marian winced and tried to pretend that it was the flare in her ribs that had caused it. Either way Djaq did not comment on it. Instead there was another shift against the rock as if she was trying to keep herself awake and Marian had another sick swooping feeling that they were running out of time.

"I had a mother and a father once" she said finally and her voice was so quiet that Marian could barely hear her. "And a brother and sister. My father was a physician. He was a respected and learned man. He read books and spoke languages and made progress in science. My mother stayed at home like most wives did but she was learned too, she read and wrote and used to read to us at night. Djaq my brother wanted to be a soldier, a great man, a warrior, he was a believer in Jerusalem retuning to our rule. Gisela my sister was nearly five years younger than me. She had dark hair that used to curl half down her back and she was always determined to learn how to do things Djaq and I could do. She too learnt how to fight. That was before the Crusade"

Marian listened quietly. She could see the picture that her friend was painting. A house surrounded by sand with marble and water and writing on the wall. A mother, a father and a family interrupted. She had often hated the crusade for taking Robin away from her but now she found she hated it for the violence it had caused. Because there was no way this story had anything other than an unhappy ending.

"My mother died first. To be fair it was the disease that they brought with them not the violence. You do not see it Marian because you are English but your soldiers when they arrived were riddled with disease from their homes, from their ships, from their living conditions. It spread like wildfire with all the people that were killed and dying and infected. I do not know the name of the disease that killed her. My father went to the battlefield to help the soldiers, Djaq went with him, I stayed with my Uncle at his house and my sister stayed in my house with our Aunt. It was easier that way. One day neither came home, my Uncle found out they had been taken prisoner and then killed."

Marian listened not sure what to think or say or feel other than horror. She was glad for once of the darkness because she was not entirely sure what emotions would be showing on her face. Djaq's voice was perfectly bland but there was a sense that this was the first time that she had told this story and that it would be the last. What that meant Marian did not know or even want to think about.

"And your sister?" she asked quietly. "What happened to her?"

"I'm not entirely sure." Djaq said finally. "I found out that the house and the village had been sacked by crusaders. My Aunt's body was found—well what was left of it—my sister never was. She would have been thirteen."

Marian swallowed down bile for another reason.

"What do you think happened?" she said finally.

"I like to think she's dead" Djaq said finally. "In all honesty I suppose that's what happened anyway. But I like to think that she's dead when I think about her rather than being captured and sold as a slave or raped by soldiers on either side. She was thirteen and she was beautiful, and she had a mouth on her like you wouldn't believe. Anyway after that I cut my hair and went around as a boy, it was easier. Then one day I got caught. You know the rest."

There was a long pause where they sat there in silence.

"I'm sorry" Marian said finally. She was not sure what she was apologising for. For the Crusade, for the deaths of her family, for the violence and the bloodshed and the destruction. She thought that she could understand why Robin did not talk about it, why Much got that far away look in his eye, why the two of them seemed to exist in their own little world when it was mentioned.

War was beyond comprehension.

She had been thinking on it for so long that she did not realise Djaq had not spoken or moved. She thought about calling for her but it seemed like an effort she could not comprehend anymore. She was tired, she was so tired and she hurt.

Marian closed her eyes. Bizarrely it was not Robin she thought of which was odd because a week ago when she had been on deaths door he was all that she could think about.

She thought of her father and her mother. Of Edward and Kate not as wasted and old and sick but as they had been when she had been a child, young and happy and they had been together, been in love and Marian had been their well loved, indulged child and the world had been golden.

She felt her cracked lips fight a smile.

She was going to see her parents again.

She did not notice she was crying.

And then just as she was sure she was slipping away she heard it.

It was a voice she had heard many times before and she wanted to keep her eyes open for him. She wanted to fight for him. She wanted to keep herself alive so that that voice filled with all sorts of emotion, worry, anguish, terror, desperation would find her.

"Robin" she said quietly into the silence.

Robin.

Marian opened her eyes.

And there you go, I hope you enjoyed the last three chapters and I will do my best to give you the next before the New Year.

And if i don't then let me say i wish all of you reading this a very happy and safe Christmas and a happy and safe start to the New Year.

Next Chapter-Marian and Djaq are finally found, Matilda gets to work, there is a massacre of knights, the boys wait for news and Allan finds himself the bearer of gifts.