Part 7

"You've been ages," commented Allan as they returned to the cave.

"What happened?" asked Will noticing that they all looked rather drained.

Ignoring their remarks Robin asked. "Where's Marian?"

Allan pointed to the recess of the cave. "Sleeping. It is late."

"Was she not worried?" Robin continued.

Will shrugged. "A little, more than that she was tired."

Robin shrugged and sat down ladling himself some supper into a bowl and the others followed suit.

"So what did happen?" Allan asked again.

Robin, Little John, Much and Djaq shared a look then filled Will and Allan in on the evenings events.

"And you walked Tuck and Eve back to Knighton?" Allan asked.

Robin nodded.

Will added. "And Tuck will go and see Eleanor as soon as is possible?"

Robin nodded again.

"It is good news, not the best we have ever heard but it is a place to start," said Much who up until then had been silent.

"Despite it being a sad occasion you saw Eve," Allan said with half a smile, as Much looked so forlorn.

"I did and I wish I could have stayed with her, but something's are just not meant to be…not yet anyway."

"Yeah," said Allan softly, they didn't really get along well, he and Much but tonight he could fully understand where he was coming from.

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Robin stood looking over the still form of Marian, before sitting down and slipping under the blankets they shared, her body was warm and he snuggled his cold one closer to use some of her body heat to warm him, she stirred but did not wake and he planted a kiss on her cheek before lying down fully and shutting his eyes himself until the dreams that had recently come to haunt his sleep crept into his mind once more………

"She needs to rest. She should stay in her chamber in her bed." The physician told Robert of Huntingdon, who looked at the doctor with a grave expression on his face. "Rest and she should be alright when the time comes."

"She almost died last time." Robert said softly. "As you well know having attended her and the child who lived no more than three days."

"Let us pray with rest, this time will be different, that you will have a fine son, or a beautiful daughter as a companion for Robin."

"My son had a companion, a brother…."

"Alexander," the doctor said nodding remembering the small lad who had died in the accident two years ago.

"Yes Alexander, of course there was my other daughter too, Ella. We named the last baby the one who barely lived Constance. God rest their souls."

Robin sighed from his lofty position on the landing, eavesdropping was never a good thing, they were likely to talk of him next. As much as he wanted to hear what they said about him he walked into his room and sat upon his bed. He didn't see why he had to have another brother or sister especially when the act of carrying and delivering the child would possibly this time kill his mother. He had a lifetime companion, he didn't need another, she was the girl he had been betrothed to since possibly she was a small infant, her name was Marian.

Robin sat back against the bed and looked at his life, his family. He supposed his parents wanted more than one child and there had been. He had vague recollections of Ella she was born two years before him and died from the flux when he was a mere three years old. Sometimes he thought he remembered her and other times he thought it was his mind playing tricks of conjuring up images which didn't exist.

He was the second child, then five years after him came Alex, it still hurt to think of Alex and he supposed it always would, it was his, Robin of Locksley's fault that Alexander had perished. Not wanting to dwell of that he thought of Constance, she had been born when he was nine, old enough in the day and age to understand some of the rudiments of the dangers of bringing a child into the world. He had been allowed to hold her feel her soft body against his, but she had died before he got to see her again and no one really knew why. His mother had been seriously ill after her birth and he wondered if that had anything to do with it, he supposed now he would never know.

Now she was with child again and it seemed to the doctor that she and the child might make it this time if she kept to her bed. He wondered then young as he was about having children of his own, the precedence was set, he would have them with Marian or to be precise she would bear their children. He was fond of her young as she was, in fact she was still a child, he himself wasn't much more than a child only being twelve. But he promised himself that neither of them would have to go through what his parents went through especially his mother.

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It seemed like yesterday he was sitting on his bed promising himself that he and Marian would do things differently. He sat by the unmarked grave, freshly covered with soil, where his mother and infant brother lay…he had been right all those months ago. When the time came for he to be a father he would make sure everything was right as it should be….there just had to be a way, so that a son did not lose a mother and a man did not lose his wife, a wife he knew his father had loved very much.

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The dreams turned then from reminiscing to almost reality but mixed. Marian became his mother and it was at her grave he sat and wept, the images became more intense and he watched from the door as his mother died in her struggle to bring forth life, but the image changed rapidly to Marian and back time and time again, until…………………. in a cold sweat he woke, his breathing rapid as his realised he was in the cave once more with Marian by his side. He reached to her and laid his hand on her belly to reassure himself the child was still there and even in her sleep Marian's own hand moved to cover his.