It started on some grey Sunday morning, and even then it barely started at all, because I only half-heard it, and dismissed it out of hand. People, I had thought, were really quite vindictive when they were jealous. Anyway: it was just after mass, and St Mary's was a little busier than usual, so I didn't go to confession that morning. I hadn't really done anything wrong, anyway, nothing except that kiss, and that kiss hardly mattered at all. God wouldn't mind, half the bible is about forgiveness. Not that I really had anything to be forgiven for. It was just a silly, harmless kiss that didn't mean anything. So there.
I digress, back to what I was saying: there were these two mousy little wannabes wearing slightly vulgar bear fur cloaks, huddled in the doorway like Shakespearean hags, fervently discussing other people to compensate for their own lives being a dreary whir of mediocrity. I've never been a fan of people who fit in so well they never need to develop a personality. They fitted in so well, in fact, I didn't even notice them until I heard the immortal words, "Her? Well, does she know?"
I particularly like the way she said "her" like she was retching up vomit - yet again, I was the subject of some parochial intrigue, probably about how scandalous it was I was living alone. By now, I'd come to the conclusion that these people had so little to think about, it was inevitable I would come up in gossip every now and again, and that would be okay because it's always better to be talked about than to be invisible. Still, damned if I didn't eavesdrop.
"Uncle Henry." The archetypal boring old man who griped on too much about the rising cost of things and bloody high taxes, turned round to look at me, smiling at the pleasant surprise of having a captive audience for a few minutes.
And so everybody was happy: Uncle Henry thought he had finally found someone who understood what agony he was in (he had toothache, I think, so I nodded and smiled and half-heatedly suggested cloves) and the mousy girls never suspected I was listening to their conversation. Of course, what with Henry's droning I only heard about snippets of their conversation, but still, I can chalk it up as a success, purely because I heard: "She knows nothing. Must be a little slow, I think." "It's quite blatantly obvious, though." ... "Pregnant?"..."Sent off to a convent, poor girl..." "But are you sure?" "Oh yes, everyone was talking about it." ... "Well. If she does know, she's absolutely amoral. You know he was talking to me the other day, and..."
You'd have thought I'd have been able to join the dots and see the big picture, but no. I was really that stupid I had no idea what they were talking about. I'd like to think part of this was denial, rather than stupidity, but that's wishful thinking: I was really trying to work out the connection between me not knowing anything, a pregnancy and someone being sent off to a convent. My first thought was that they thought I was pregnant...and so William would break off our betrothal...and I'd be sent off to a convent by my disgraced family. Yes. That would make sense. Why would they think that? As soon as I got home, I stood in front of the mirror, shifting poses to see if it looked like I'd scoffed all the pies.
Okay, so I perhaps had put on a little weight, but fortunately most of that had shifted to my hips and ass - and I was still slim. Skinny, even. My stomach was, if anything, toned, and although I've always been quite proud of my breasts, they weren't any larger than they had been.
I didn't look pregnant.
Which made me dismiss their silly little rumours and pure spite, and get on with my day, which consisted almost entirely of avoiding Rob. Or rather, avoiding the gossip spending too much time around Rob would doubtlessly incur. Not that anybody would know except the servants, but even peasants gossipped, and I had too much to risk from rumours spreading about some kind of sordid liaison with the stable-boy who'd held a knife to my throat in a drunken brawl.
So I retired to the solaire, where I did some needlework, even though it was a Sunday and the church wouln't like it, and thought about silly pointless things, like the future. I'd already decided my first child would be a boy with angelic curly blonde hair and bright blue eyes, and he'd be a rebel... I'd be disappointed.
And then there were wedding plans to keep me busy, fabrics to look at until even I got bored, and flowers to consider and guests to invite. Actually, William was quite involved with all of that. Not in a controlling way - not everything I'm saying about William is about how absolutely evil he was, by the way - he just liked making wedding plans. I think that's why he's always getting engaged; seriously, what I didn't know then but know all too clearly now, is that the guy proposes more than he sneezes, like a bizarre form of wedding-related Tourettes. Actually, his wedding-fixation is probably entirely my fault. Singletons of the world: I'm sorry. So very, very sorry.
It was in between getting the millionth gown fitted (grey satin, which made me look a bit like a washed-up seal) and sorting out the wine order for the next six months (I was being fancy, and ordering in from France. I couldn't actually afford to do that, but I'd worry about that later) that my life was, once again, disrupted at a completely inconvenient moment.
"Can I come in?" Rob's voice.
"Um..." What would look more suspicious - Letting him into my bedchamber, or making him wait outside? I let him in, reasoning people would talk if they were going to talk? "Come in."
"I've been thinking." In my entire existence, no good has ever followed the words, "I've been thinking..." The moral being: don't think. It will only lead to badness. "This trial. I aint going."
Yes. Just when I had half of Nottingham thinking I was pregnant and my fiance running off to London whilst I was dumped at home with a wedding to plan, exactly what I needed was Rob getting cold feet about the trial I would, eventually, sort out.
"What do you mean?" I'm not sure why I asked that. You don't exactly need a degree in Communications Studies to decode the hidden message behind, "I aint going to this trial."
"We both know I'm not getting off with a slap on the wrist." There was an awkwardly long silence, in which I knew he was right but wanted to argue. "I don't wanna die."
It came out as barely more than a whisper, but I heard every painful word as if I'd said them myself. Suddenly, Rob wasn't the arrogant twit he worked so hard at pretending to be, but a frightened little boy, facing adulthood for the first time. "You know you'll be outlawed."
"Aye. I'll be fine. It'll be better. For you, I mean. You'll...y'know."
I did know. I'd not have to stand in front of the whole city and defend a peasant who held a knife to my throat. I wouldn't have to listen to rumours about why I was doing that. I'd marry William. I'd have a normal, boring life and normal, boring death, and never see Robin again. In that single moment, everything I'd worked for seemed too terrible to contemplate.
"Where will you go?" It was like I was watching the scene from outside of myself, and the girl who both was and wasn't me sounded so cold, so unconcerned, I wanted to throw my arms around him and never let go, to cry like a child until he came back to me.
"I dunno. Not yet. I'll...I'll let you know. Somehow. I'll be fine. It'll all be fine." He stroked my hair as he said that, and I wanted so much to believe him. I didn't, though. How could everything be fine? He was leaving. Leaving me. And this time it would be forever.
He left a little later that afternoon. I didn't watch him go. That would have been to sentimentel, too silly. I stayed upstairs, and worried about how I was going to pay for the wine I'd just ordered.
William was away, and Rob had gone. Whatever happened next would be on my terms.