You know in Bewitched, when Samantha clicks her fingers and everyone is frozen except her and Darrin? It was a bit like that, standing in the market-square on a rainy afternoon with a teenage crush holding a knife to my throat - in an instant, the world had simultaneously crashed and stopped moving. Part of me registered the gathering crowed of peasants, eager to get a front-seat view of some rich bitch's murder, and the buzz of half-excited half-terrified murmurs, but all I could concentrate on was the stench of cider, the warmth of Rob's body and the coldness of the blade against my throat.

And that's how I died.

Kidding.

Obviously. But seriously, though: I knew that if I looked up, I'd see William's eyes, and they would be more full of anger for Rob than fear for me. I also knew Rob had no intention of hurting me. I suppose it was that - those two unconfirmed and completely irrational realisations - that made the next year of my life play out the way it did.

William tried shouting Rob down, then insulting him...and finally, in a spectacularly humiliating display, pleading. I'm fairly sure this is what made William hate my favourite outlaw so much, but he insists there's something much darker and deeper than that, which for some inexplicable reason he can't tell me until my wedding day (as you can tell, he's still a melodramatic twit). Anyway. Rob pulled me closer to him, and whispered in a voice audible only to me, that he wasn't going to hurt me.

William was busy begging for my life like a simpering whelp (I don't mean this in an ungrateful way, but it didn't seem to be doing a lot of good, and I think that if Rob had any actual intention of killing me, he'd have done it, dumped my body in William's arms and made his escape), Rob was busy not killing me, the peasants were buzzing around like ants at a picnic - I swear to God, if popcorn had been invented yet, they'd have had it - and I was in the middle of it all thinking, "This is actually quite embarrassing...wait a minute, he's drunk and except being slightly scared and quite humiliated, there isn't anything stopping me from taking control of this situation (except that this a medieval patriarchy) - but let's not worry about that, I'm a diva..."

On top of that, I was getting a bit cold. So with all the grace and ease of a hippo in a tutu, I repeated my ball-kicking that was becoming my signature move. It's quite lucky, come to think of it, Rob wasn't pressing the knife into my throat particularly hard, otherwise this story might have had an unfortunate ending. As it turned out, he was knocked down to the cobblestones, where he moaned a bit that I'd been a bit of a cow, and he'd just said didn't actually intend to kill me. But you know, I'd only that month given William a good ball-kicking, and I'm nothing if not egalitarian in my beating up of poor, innocent little brigands.

With that, William's little guard friends came and arrested Rob, which I didn't have any problem with, really, on account of his just having threatened to kill me. And like I said, I was a bit cold. So I allowed William to take me home, which was really quite sweet of him, all things considered, and when we got back he didn't even try it on with me...I should have realised then that was suspicious, but I was young and naive, bless me, and didn't think to question the mystery of William's missing libido.

These days, after a near death experience, I'd have had a nice cup of tea and watch Eastenders - 'cause I'm a rock-chick. Back then, a reasonable solution to the freshly-opened devouring abyss of emptiness was to get royally drunk. And that's why I was asleep the next morning, when William came round to check I was still feeling alright.

I don't know if you've ever had to recover from the mother of all hangovers and get yourself looking halfway human in order to hold court in front of the richest guy in the country who has you so high on a pedestal the breath of a hairpin could knock you on your ass, in all of five minutes...but believe me, it's difficult. Anyway, in the time it takes to splash yourself with rose water and lace up a low-cut and devastatingly gorgeous red satin gown, I'd trotted down into the hall to find a rather worried looking William, wearing his usual all-black (seriously. I swear he tries to live up to the bad-guy stereotype, he still refuses to experiment with colour, even now).

Anyway, my head pounded as we made polite conversation about the weather and how nice I looked and how he was, unfortunately, having to leave for London again tomorrow afternoon, but he'd be back for All Saints Day. And then, almost as an afterthought, he added, "Oh, that drunk who assaulted you yesterday-"

"Rob." I think I must have said his name in an overly defensive way, because his eyes changed in an undefinable way (as my friend Anna points out, they're too small and beady to narrow)...

"That was his name, yes. Anyway. We've rushed his trial through, but it's just a formality, really, he'll hang, without a doubt."

Cue violins, dramatic lighting...picture Vivienne Leigh in the final scene of Gone With The Wind, "William...you can't, he's...God. He's my brother's squire, and...I mean, not yesterday, obviously, but usually...he's really sweet. And, my umm...he's a friend. A good, good friend. Of the family, I mean."

"He tried to kill you." William patted me on the arm like I was the idiot child I sounded like, and then said, in a very sympathetic way, "You must be hysterical."

"No, I'm not. Robert's a bit...well, he's a fool, but he's not a bad person. He just doesn't like being told what to do, and..."

Oh. Robin's full name is Robert, sorry I didn't mention that earlier. And to this day, Will refuses to call him anything else.

"He held a knife to your throat. Besides which, he did it in front of half the peasants in the city - he has to be punished, as an example."

"William, please, listen to me. He's really..." hello, Marian, this is you brain speaking, we're having to cease communications for a moment, please enjoy this complimentary music and we'll be right with you..."he's a lunatic."

Yep. He's a lunatic. Of all the massively stupid lies I've ever told...that was one of them.

"A lunatic?" I'm fairly sure William was just humouring me. That, or he's a complete idiot. It's a chicken-or-the-egg question, really.

"Yes. Mad. Completely. Bad childhood, bless him - so you hanging him would give off quite an unsympathetic message, really, you know. You'd definitely lose the support of some of the nobles. The baron De Belleme has a mad aunt, y'know..."

"No. Look, Marian, I'm sorry if he's your friend, but he almost murdered a noblewoman in public..." For the first time, I used my now-classic-way-of-manipulating-William trick, which has come to be known as the thing with the puppy-dog eyes. "...alright. He'll be tried, but you can be on the jury."

In the middle ages, you see, juries were made up of people who knew you - it's quite clever, if you think about it.

"Thank you. I won't forget this."

"Don't thank me, you know he'll probably be found guilty anyway." William leaned a fraction of an inch closer to me, and said something to me he'd say to me again in another lifetime, "He'll disappoint you."

"Perhaps. Perhaps not. As I said, he's a friend of the family. I'm sorry, William, if it offends you, but I can't let him swing for something as silly as..."

"Trying to kill you?"

"He wouldn't have. I know he wouldn't have."

"Funny. From where I was standing, it looked as though he would. And as for you - I'd never been so ashamed as when you-"

"Defended myself?"

"It wasn't your place to-"

"Save myself?" My voice was poisoned with sarcasm, "Oh I'm sorry, I didn't realise it was unladylike to remove myself from a drunkard with a knife."

I'm not trying to make out I was some kind of Germaine Greer of the middle ages, but I've never liked to be insulted. Besides, I'd been raised in a house full of men - if there was one thing I was good at, really good at, it was holding my own. And I wasn't going to let some puffed up little pretty boy put me down.

"Well...it was. You completely forgot yourself..." Realising there was nothing he could say to salvage the conversation from his misogynistic twitterings, he made his excuses and left me to the pile of ash my life had been reduced to by Rob's untimely arrival.