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Rafael looked up into the tree and tried to figure out how the hell Olivia had gone about climbing it. The others had split off into pairs as soon as they had arrived at the tree edge, all of them looking at home and happy amongst the leaves. Rafael did not share their confidence and so decided that sticking with Olivia was probably the best option; besides he wanted to talk to her alone anyways.

She had avoided him for the first hour, ignoring him if he tried to speak and climbing various trees to get away. At first he had expected her mood to lighten as the day went on but her sullen silence continued and now he was left thinking that he would have to brave the climb if he ever wanted to have his conversation.

She had a couple of inches on him and normally his height didn't bother him but looking up to the lowest branches, just out of reach, he cursed his limited growth. He walked back a couple of paces and after taking a deep breath ran at the tree and jumped. He missed the first four times catching hold of the branch on the fifth. Dangling from the air he thought that perhaps he should have planned beyond the first jump as now he had no idea what to do. He had grown up in Madrid, in the middle of the city and trees were in short supply, especially ones as big and green as these. Swinging his legs up he wrapped them round the branch and pulled himself up till he was sitting astride it. Smiling, quite proud of his small achievement, he shakily stood to his feet, holding onto the trunk for balance, and looked up to sight the next hand hold. It took him twenty minutes to climb to Olivia's height, him making the mistake of looking down half way up and having to close his eyes and cling to the wood till his heart slowed down. The bark was rough under his hands and the branch he ended up perched on, just to the side of Olivia, who had largely ignored his progress, bent slightly under his weight and he wished that he hadn't had to climb so high; the ground below looking like a brown blur.

'Are you going to mope all day?' he asked of Olivia who still hadn't looked at him. She was sat with her back to the trunk one leg bent up on the branch one leg swinging in the air. Rafael marvelled that she could look so at ease while his knuckles were white. 'We have something in common.' He tried when he realised that she wasn't going to respond to baiting.

Olivia laughed bitterly to herself. 'What could we possibly have that is the same?'

'A desire.'

She turned her head and looked at him with a scowl. 'I'm not in the mood, say what you mean or leave me alone.'

Rafael's smile left his face and suddenly he became deadly serious. In flat monotone voice he said, 'We both want the Sheriff dead.'

'What reason could you have for being bothered about that?' In all the worry about Alex Olivia hadn't really given much thought to the companion they had gained along the way. She knew he was foreign but didn't know, or to be honest care, from where, and that he had come from the castle. The latter was enough to make her suspicious.

'We haven't really had the chance to speak because of how sick Alex was,' Rafael started, 'but now she's getting better it's time I explained why I'm here. I guess it's a long story but to cut it short, I love William like he's my own son.' Olivia's eyes raised in surprise, she hadn't expected that. 'I thought that I would be enough to protect him, to make sure that his father didn't corrupt him and destroy his kind nature but after seeing what he did to Alex, to his own flesh and blood…. I can't let that happen to Will.'

'Why should I trust you?' Olivia replied after a moment.

'I brought you Alex,' Rafael shrugged, 'I risked my life for someone I don't know just to make you happy and destroyed my chance of staying by Will's side. I want the Sheriff dead and you can help me.'

Olivia thought to herself for a time but in the end was too tired to question Rafael any further. 'Don't you think,' she said, 'that if I could have killed the Sheriff I would have done it a long time ago? Everyone may hate him but I would have to leave the country if I killed him outright.'

'Who says you're the one who has to kill him?' Rafael answered with a smile.

Olivia turned her body towards him and Rafael blanched seeing her back leaving the support of the tree trunk. 'I've told you I don't like riddles. Just say what the fuck you mean.'

His smile fell again as he realised that his normal sarcasm and humour wouldn't work in this conversation. Olivia's patience was only enough for straight, blunt sentences. 'The Sheriff is hated in the north yes?' Olivia nodded. 'Before I settled at Sir John's in Northumbria I travelled over the whole north of England, a minstrel is welcome anywhere you know. All the northern Barons hate King John and anyone who works for them. If the Sheriff were to die in a hunting accident say, or from eating a bad meal and the Barons, the nobility, swept it under the rug then no one would question anything.'

'Agreed, but why would they do that, what part would we play in that?'

'They'd need someone to blame.'

'Then that's no different to me going out and killing him now and the Barons hunting me down for it!' Olivia said angrily.

'No don't you see,' Rafael said eagerly leaning forward on his branch and cursing when it bent further under his weight and he heard it groan in the air. 'Yes, if you kill the Sheriff now then the Barons will kill you to send a message, and yes the Barons could kill him themselves but then King John would kill them. But!... if you work together…. I'll write a paper that states that Barons such and such agree that the Sheriff is to be killed. They then all sign and seal it and we keep that as insurance. Then when we kill the Sheriff, the Barons will call off the man hunt after a few days saying we've fled and can't be found or else we make sure King John finds the paper.'

'And you can get the Barons to agree to this?'

'Give me a year and I'll have them all sign it.'

'If… and that's still only an if, I go along with this mad plan of yours, Alex isn't well enough yet and there's no way I'd let you go on your own.'

'I have a plan for that as well.'

'Of course you do.' Olivia sighed closing her eyes.

'Just hear me out okay. I have a friend down in Kent, a noble but not too noble man, who lives with his family on his smallish plot of land. Alex isn't going to get better in a week, in a month. Even when her body is healed, her soul… she won't get better in the middle of the forest and you can't stay here forever.' Olivia opened her eyes again hearing the truth in his words even if she didn't want to accept it.

'Let me go with one of you to the northern Barons. You and Alex will go south to stay with my friend so she can get better. The others can go back to the forest and keep doing whatever it was you were doing. We agree to all meet back here in a year.'

Olivia turned and leant back against the tree, letting the wind lift and play with her hair. She'd wanted the Sheriff dead for years, now more than ever after meeting Alex but had never been able to come up with a plan. Now here was a small Spaniard that she'd never met offering to use his influence with the Barons to give her what she'd always wanted, offering a chance for her to help Alex get better in peace. But the plan had holes in it, it required that she trust a lot of people and she didn't know whether it would ever work.

'Give me time to decide. To talk it over with the others. You'll have your answer in three days.'

Rafael grinned again and promised her that everything would work out, that his plan was perfect.

'Trust me Liv, this is the way to get rid of him once and for all.' Olivia just grunted and went back to staring out over the canopy. 'Errr Liv…' she turned her head back in annoyance, 'just one last thing,' he said sheepishly, 'how do I get down?'

Alex woke to the sound of voices and she lay with her eyes closed summoning the strength to face them all again. Munch's words from the day before ran through her head and even though back then she had been able to believe them, here and now, with everyone back inside the chapel it was hard to remember that they didn't want to hurt her.

'How long has she been asleep?' Alex recognised the sound of the Abbess's voice and figured that it must have been her arriving that woke her.

'Munch said she managed half the broth before drifting off around noon.' Olivia this time. 'He told me that he told her that we didn't want to hurt her.'

'Did she believe him?'

Alex didn't hear Olivia's reply and concluded it must have been nonverbal.

'Alex' she felt the Abbess hand on her shoulder and knew she couldn't feign sleep any longer. Blinking a few times she let her eyes flutter open to see both the Abbess and Olivia leaning over her. She wanted to say something, but couldn't think of what.

'Alex I need to check your bandages again.' She simply nodded in response.

'Do you want the others to leave?' Olivia asked. She thought for a moment, wanting to be strong but hating the thought of the others watching as she was stripped in front of them. She nodded again.

'Do you want me to leave?' Olivia asked quietly, hoping against hope for a negative response. Alex was still for a moment before she slowly shook her head, her heart beating widely at the thought of Olivia staying at her side. One part of her wanted Liv to wrap her in her arms and tell her that everything was going to be okay, that she still wanted her, that she wasn't broken but the other part, the part that was speaking sense, told her that she couldn't be fixed. She was too dirty for Liv to touch and nothing would be okay again. She felt guilty for asking her to stay.

Olivia turned and motioned to the others who got to their feet without a word and walked out of the door and into the night.

'Okay,' the Abbess started reaching for Alex, 'We'll do the same as we did last time and work from the top down, finishing with your back.'

Olivia watched as Alex's skin was once again bared to her eyes and tried not to wince at the burns and cuts that had scabbed over on her chest. Alex kept her face turned away to the wall, not wanting to see the disgust she was sure must be in Olivia's eyes. The Abbess worked quickly and soon Alex's torso was covered in bandages again. It was when she moved to Alex's lower half that Olivia felt her heart drop into her stomach.

'You're bleeding!' Olivia couldn't help but shout.

Alex turned her head and with some effort propped herself up onto her elbows and stared down between her legs. The bruises were fading but still looked a disgusting yellow colour that marred her thighs while the rope burns on her ankles had gone from red to pink. 'I don't… I' She hadn't felt anything and wondered what she could have done that caused all the blood.

'When was the last time you bled?' The Abbess asked Alex gently, throwing an annoyed look at Olivia.

'I… I'm not…' Alex felt tears pool in her eyes and her throat begin to close when she realised that it was nothing more than her monthly bled. She wasn't stupid, she knew how children were made but until this moment she hadn't given one thought that she could have been pregnant. All the pain and the sleeping had mercifully driven the thought from her mind and now that the bright red blood on the bandage beneath her brought it into reality she felt herself begin to sob. She didn't know what she would have done if her bleeding had never started.

'Alex!' Olivia ignored the Abbess's hand on her shoulder holding her back and lifted the blonde into her arms. She felt her shaking and her tears soak into the front of her shirt but nothing would make her let her go. She rocked them both back and forth whispering comforts into Alex's ear as she slowly calmed down and her breathing evened out. 'Do you want to talk about it?'

Alex suddenly stiffened in her arms. For all that she knew Olivia shouldn't be touching her she couldn't help but melt into the strong arms that held her, the smell of lavender and soil still clinging to Olivia even after so long out of the forest. Her last question however had ruined the effect. She had told herself that whatever they saw, cuts and burns and lashes on her body she would never tell anyone about the worst of them all. But she had ruined it. She was weak. One little emotion and she broke sobbing all over Oliva and now they all knew! She wouldn't tell, she couldn't tell them. 'Talk about what?' she answered in a shaky voice.

'Alex…' Olivia said gently as the blonde pushed away from her arms and lay back down.

'There's nothing to talk about,' Alex said turning her face back to the wall, 'can you get me some cloth for the week please?' she asked the Abbess.

Olivia opened her mouth to speak again, to ask Alex what had happened, to tell her that it didn't matter to her, that it didn't make her any less perfect but she felt the Abbess's hand on her shoulder again and saw the older woman shake her head. If Alex wasn't ready to talk about it then she couldn't force her, she could only offer what support the blonde would accept.

They continued tending to Alex's wounds and at the end the Abbess got her to eat some mashed carrot and swede before the whole ordeal once again became too much and she fell back to sleep.

Olivia watched as the Abbess left and the others came creeping back in to go to sleep themselves and knew that she couldn't keep asking them to go along with this arrangement; that they couldn't all stay here for much longer. Her eyes met Rafael's from across the room and she knew she wouldn't be getting much sleep tonight.