Accompanied by the unaccustomed sounds of predawn barge traffic along the River Thames, Robin and Marian dressed themselves in their most elegant court clothing.

The couple had arrived in London the previous day and had been housed in the finest suite of rooms in the Palace of Westminster, a far cry from Robin's forest camp where they used to live, or even from Locksley Manor. Both husband and wife were King Richard's most honored guests, as each had survived a mortal wound saving His Majesty's life...wounds that Allan joked were a "matching set," being given by Gisbourne.

Being used to clothe themselves, Robin and Marian felt no need of manservant or maid to help dress them. Any lacings that proved difficult to reach were handled by each other. It made getting dressed so much faster and also more fun, a matter-of-fact yet intimate act, a time they could talk uninterrupted. They never tired of talking with one another.

Marian did not interrupt Robin telling her about his upcoming audience with King Richard to ask him to lace her bodice on her right side. She listened intently while simply lifting her arm and turning her side to him.

"What will you tell him," she asked anxiously, "if he should ask you to fight alongside him in France? Oh! Not so tight! Don't forget, I'm expecting your child."

"Sorry." He loosened her laces and tied them off. "Our child, I think! But I won't go, Marian. It would be different if England were threatened. But I won't leave you again, I swear it, to fight a war to reclaim Richard's Angevin lands. My family, and my people, need me."

Relieved, Marian kissed Robin's cheek. "Our people," she reminded him.

King Philip of France, despite promising not to, had taken advantage of King Richard's absence in the Holy Land and Prince John's weakness, to wage war and steal away Richard's Angevin holdings and make them part of France. And now that King Richard had made a three-year peace with Saladin and had settled the unrest in England, he wanted to take his army into France to fight to regain the lost lands he had inherited from his father.

Marian knew he expected her husband, the hero of the battles of Acre and Arsuf, to fight alongside him.

"The king will be angry, I'm afraid. I'll pray for you," she told Robin, having risen early on purpose to attend early morning mass in Westminster Abbey.

Westminster Abbey was just steps from the palace, and Marian loved celebrating mass there, being awed by its beauty and grandeur.

Robin grinned sheepishly back at her. "Not as angry you'd be, if I decided to go with him. I don't know if I could take another homecoming, like the one you gave me before."

"You mean when I ordered you off my father's property?"

"With an arrow pointed at me!"

"You didn't seem phased, with your wooing looks and your, 'Marian, it's me, Robin!' as if that made everything alright. Not to mention your beard."

"I was just so thrilled at seeing you! It had been five years, after all! And most of that time, I'd thought you were married." He held her in his arms and smiled down at her. "So, you never told me. What did you think, when you first saw my beard?"

Marian laughed. "I couldn't decide at first, if I liked it or not. Just like when I first saw your tattoo. But it didn't take long. The minute my heart stopped racing and my head spinning, after I'd slammed the door, I decided I did like it. Too much, in fact."

Robin looked smug, but only for a moment. Remembering how he'd felt when seeing her again after five years apart, he admitted, "And I couldn't believe how gorgeous you were! Even more than when I'd left."

"And now?"

He smiled lovingly at her. "Marian, you just keep getting lovelier every day."

They enjoyed a kiss, then she pulled away, realizing the time.

"You'll be late!" she warned. "We need to go now!"

They went their separate ways, Robin toward the throne room, Marian outside the palace toward Westminster Abbey. The world was still in semi-darkness, with dawn about to break. Marian was used to rising early with two small children at home. She missed her girls, but knew they were in very good hands with their nurse, a household of servants who adored them, as well as an entire village watching over them. Thinking of them as she approached the abbey, her face wore a lovely smile.

Two young noblemen, sycophants of Prince John, were just returning to the palace from a night of drunken debauchery. Their bleary eyes spied Marian, and they assumed her smile was directed at them.

"Who's that?" the eldest son of the Duke of Buckingham asked.

"Don't know, Young Buck, but I'm in love," the Earl of Spencer's heir answered. "Let's follow her."

Marian quickly realized she was being followed. She quickened her pace, only to realize the two men behind her quickened theirs.

She darted into the cathedral, hurriedly dipped her fingers in the font of holy water, then hastened to a pew.
To her annoyance, the two young men sat directly behind her.

"You can't hide in church all day," one of them told her. "Once the mumbo-jumbo's over, you'll have to make our acquaintance."

Marian tried to ignore them, all the while knowing they would be sorry if they tried.

They reeked of alcohol and continued whispering rude things at her, while she tried to dismiss them from her thoughts and focus on the mass. When one of the them took a handful of her hair in his fist and said, "Oooh! Silky!" she yanked her head away, then moved to a different pew.

She could hear the two men's drunken laughter.

Luckily, they did not follow her. But unluckily, whether for her or for them, they stayed in the cathedral waiting for the mass to end.

They had no idea who they were annoying, but would learn soon enough, and be sorry.