The following morning was glorious with sunshine, and Robin and Marian were happy as they dressed, discussing how they might spend their day with their daughters.

Robin, ready well before his wife, did not mind waiting. Even though he considered Marian every bit as gorgeous when she lived with his gang in the forest as she was living in luxury, he knew she enjoyed such things as polished nails and silken stockings and perfectly styled hair, and he did not begrudge the time she spent "making" herself beautiful.

"We might take the girls on horseback and visit-"

A knock on the door to their suite interrupted Robin's suggestion.

"Excuse me," he said, going through a series of rooms to answer it.

The same servant who had brought him Marguerite's flowers yesterday stood in the corridor, his arms filled with an enormous bouquet of yellow tulips.

"What is this?" Robin asked.

"Tulips, from the Lady Marguerite," the man answered, "signifying 'rejected love.' "

"Is that what tulips mean?" Robin grinned, remembering how he had used the name of the flower last night to woo Marian.

"Yellow ones, my lord. Red tulips mean a declaration of love."

"I thought that was roses."

"There is a subtle difference, my lord, between conveying true love, as red roses do, and declaring love, when giving red tulips," the servant explained. "Red tulips are sent when you have not expressed your love before."

Robin slowly shook his head, wondering again how servants in Aquitaine were forced to remember such nonsense. "I wish I'd known that years ago," he admitted, grinning. "I might have saved myself and someone else a lot of trouble, telling her how I felt by simply sending flowers." He was thinking that Marian might have married him then before he left her for war if he'd only sent her a bouquet of red tulips, so she would have known beyond question that he loved her.

But he refused now to accept any flowers from Marguerite. Paying the servant for his trouble, he said, "Rejected love, you said? I suggest you return the bouquet to its sender, letting her know once and for all-""

Robin was interrupted by Marian joining him at the door. Her gasp of delight when she saw the flowers ended his words.

"Tulips!" Marian exclaimed, taking the enormous bouquet in her arms and burying her nose in its blossoms.

"I guess we'll take it after all," Robin told the servant, who then departed.

Marian lifted her face from the flowers to smile radiantly at her husband. Robin thought she looked adorable, her eyes shining and her nose dusted with yellow pollen. Grinning somewhat sheepishly, he reached out and lightly wiped the pollen off her nose.

He wondered whether he was deceiving her by letting her think he had sent the flowers. He wanted to always tell her the truth, but this was different. Why not let her keep them, since they made her happy? He was giving them to her, after all, since they were his to give. Besides, they could replace the bouquet he had truly tried to send that had been given to Marguerite by mistake.

"Tulips," Marian repeated, smiling up at him, a gleam in her eyes. "I'd like to kiss your two lips, Handsome, to thank you, if I could reach them without crushing these flowers. Where can I put them?"

"Why not in your wash basin, until I can order a vessel to hold them?"

"A vase," she agreed. "When did you have time to order them? And how did they find them? It isn't the season for tulips, surely."

"I don't know," he answered, ignoring her first question. "I suppose it's part of the magic of Aquitaine."

Placing the bouquet in her wash basin, Marian smiled secretly to herself, remembering the magic of the love they had shared last night. Happily, she rejoined her husband, and together they left their chambers to go the next suite to gather their daughters.

Just after Robin closed the door, before they could take a step further, they were stopped by a short, portly, red faced nobleman smelling of drink, who drew forth his sword to challenge Robin.

The man, clearly drunk from last night's revels, swayed unsteadily on his feet. His speech was slurred, but his threat was deliberate.

"Hold on, Locksley," he demanded. "You dare try to seduce my wife?"

"Whoa, Sir," Robin said, smiling, but easing Marian well out of the way. He knew the man must be Marguerite's husband, and he wondered if she had lied about him rejecting her to get revenge, as Isabella frequently did. "I did nothing wrong, I assure you. I respect you and your wife, and would not think to touch her. I am happily married myself, and am here with my wife, as you can see."

"Don't lie to me, Locksley! I found the flowers you sent! Love, and passion! I know you had my wife when you were here before, and now you try for her again."

"It was one time, years ago," Robin said, "before either of us was married."

"She was, to me!" The man staggered on his feet, but pointed his sword menacingly at Robin. "What's the matter, Locksley? Afraid to fight?"

Robin had not known Marguerite had a husband in the past, but that was beside the point. He didn't want to fight this man, knowing he could disarm him with his eyes closed and one hand tied behind his back. But the man seemed determined. "Really?" Robin asked, giving the man a chance to back off.

"Coward!" the man cried, while a crowd gathered to watch. "So it's true what they say. You hate fighting."

Marian spoke up, wanting to defend Robin's honor. "You are wrong," she scolded. "My husband loves to fight. It's only killing he despises."

"Then why doesn't he join King Richard?"

"Go on," Marian told her husband, having heard enough.

Robin was preparing to draw his word and disarm the man without any effort, but the sound of light running footsteps brought a panting Marguerite to their side.

"Please!" she begged Marian, grabbing and squeezing her arm. "I did not tell Francois anything! He guessed my desires by watching me last night, and then he found the flowers! He is very jealous, and will take his humiliation out on me, if Robin hurts him!"

"He won't hurt him," Marian assured her.

"But he will humiliate him, and that is even worse!"

"I am sorry, but-" Marian looked at Robin, who had heard every word.

"Don't worry," he assured both women, quietly so Francois and the growing crowd would not hear. "I'll let myself be caught and then just disappear, so he'll think he won."

"If I only had a vase now," Marian realized, "I could hit him on the back of his head with it, and he wouldn't know what happened."

Marguerite stared at Marian in dismay, but Robin chuckled at her suggestion, then stepped away and drew his sword to begin his pretend fight.

Among the crowd watching, Ghislaine and her lover Alain, whose filthy songs against Robin and Marian were already circulating among the castle servants, took everything in.

"I thought he was supposed to be a brilliant fighter," Alain whispered.

"He's faking being weak," Ghislaine whispered back, "but use this, too, in the next songs you compose."

When Robin saw Francois tiring, he deliberately dropped his sword near Marian's feet, pretending he had lost. "Sir, you have me," he said, just as he'd said once before to Sarah's father, the furrier, but this time speaking French. He was about to duck underneath his "opponent" and dash away, but Marian, unable to stand seeing her husband "defeated" before a crowd, picked up his dropped sword and brought it forcefully down on the back of Francois' head, its blade flat so as not to wound him, but only to knock him out cold.

"Marian?" Robin asked, surprised by her act.

"Before you ask, that was teamwork," she said, sheathing his sword back on his hip, then taking his hand so they could gather their daughters and enjoy the rest of the day.

"Merci," Marguerite called after them, admiring the sight of Robin's trousers as he walked briskly away with his wife.

"Excellent," Ghislaine added. "The 'bold' Robin Hood, having to be saved by a woman. Start composing."

"But that part is true, isn't it?" Alain asked her. "Didn't she really save him before, several times in fact?"

"But not like this," Ghislaine reminded him.