Part 11

A week later Marian was out on her own with the intention of blackberry picking, a task that the rest of the gang did not want to participate in. This was because it was still hot and the thought of standing in the sun all afternoon had them retreating to the shade of the trees. Robin was still nursing his wounds and so she left alone with a basket over her arm to collect the fruit in. She was secretly pleased as she had another destination too.

Marian headed to the secret destination first; she planted her basket in the ground and crept closer. The place was heavily guarded but the gardens were full of nobles. Nobles who had been caught at the manor when the quarantine had been put in place a few weeks earlier and now it looked were all in good health. Along side them were Naomi and Simon, the former sitting on the grass making a daisy chain, the latter doing what seemed to be digging for worms. She sighed, it seemed perhaps the outbreak of the flux was over, but with cost, the loss of Judith.

"Marian," a voice said and she spun round to see Tuck. "What are you doing here, it is still dangerous?"

"I needed to see for myself," she told him. "The children look well."

"They are better, the last person to fall ill was the nursemaid, she is not in a good condition."

"Nothing can be done for her?"

"No more than has been. I will pray with her again later if she asks me too," he replied. "I stayed with her most of the night, the people who have not caught it are scared that they will, no one but I perhaps are foolish enough to make sure she is comfortable."

"You are a good man," Marian told him.

"Do not come to close," he warned as she stepped close. "You never know…."

"I…we hope to see you again when this is over," she told him as he bid her farewell.

After Knighton she went to the washing place and unearthed the beeswax soap that was kept in a almost hollow stone, she stripped and washed, not knowing if that would prevent her from catching the illness if indeed Tuck did have it. Then she went on her way to pick the lush and flowing fruit she had seen some days before growing on the hill above Locksley, returning to camp with a basket overflowing with fruit.

-----

"Where have you been?" Robin fired at her.

"Picking blackberries isn't it obvious?" she replied, laying the fruit on the ground and watching as Will helped himself to a handful.

"No, not when I changed my mind and went to help you after all" he told her, his eyes boring into her soul, willing her to tell him the truth but it also appeared she was not going to cave. "You were not there."

"I…" she began as Much sniffed round her.

"You bathed," he said.

"Thank you I think," she told him.

"My pleasure," he told her with a smile eager to see this quarrel not escalate into a fight.

"You did?" Robin said sniffing the air about her and smiling appreciatively.

"I did not smell badly before, not like some of you I could mention," Marian said with a small smile.

"That's not fair," stated Alan "I bathed in July."

"Last year?" she jibed.

"No," he answered looking more than mildly put out, the subject of where Marian had also been temporarily forgotten.