That incident seems so unlikely, now, I have to wonder if it's all just a fabrication. It would be nice to believe it did happen though, even if it wasn't exactly like that, even if the sun shining through the trees wasn't quite that bright, even if the leaves on the trees weren't quite so golden.
Anyway, as I rode back into town, into the gossip and greyness of my life, it certainly began to feel like fiction. Interesting things simply didn't happen to sheriff's wives...it was stupid and pointless to hope that they would. When I got back with William, eight hundred years later, the first question everyone asked was - "Why?" It was crazy. I knew that. I was crazy, though, crazy and lost and impossibly scared, and alone in a way you couldn't conceive of, unless you've ever had a mental breakdown in between being blackmailed and the person you trust most in the world listing all the worst things you are, half-knowing you'll see it, which means learning how to look in the mirror and hate the spoilt, wannabe (in every sense of the word, apparently) bitch who's staring back.
So here's the reason I got with my rapist:
I wanted to be bored. I wanted boring and mundane and silly arguments about how much Blue October suck. Granted, making pillow-talk with the guy who ruined my life was probably not the easiest way to win friends and influence people, but I hope that was mostly my Stockholm Syndrome combined with my innate desire to shock people.
Still, what doesn't kills us makes us stronger (or, at the very least, makes us smarter), and of course, as I rode back into the normality of the market place to cheer myself up with something silky, I had no idea one day I'd be craving to be able to do that without going home to feel a razor blade against my wrist. I was quite messed up, that day in the market square, but the only way was down.
It was almost amusing, the first one I saw. Now I suppose I'd compare it to one of those cliche "Wanted" posters from the silly Westerns my dad likes, but at the time all I could think of was what a complete waste of time it was, this silly limp piece of parchment flapping around in the breeze, demanding Rob be bought to justice. I'd seen them before, of course, usually for murderers or dodgy traders, but this was taking silly to a whole new level. The artist's impression was terrible, which probably accounts for the fact the illiterate masses never sold Rob out (I have faith in people, I really do, and of course Rob was the people's hero, the serf who laughed in the face of the authority. I just don't think heroes mean very much when you're a peasant watching your children starve).
And then there was the angry talk at banquets from the landed classes, at having been set upon by a demon-thief with hair the colour of the flames of hell and eyes as green as the forest itself, a wild-man who'd kill as soon as look at you. After that, there were rumours, whispers, of bread being left on doorsteps of poor villagers in the dead of night, of the pregnant girl who'd gone to get water from the well, and bought the pale up to find a gold ring. It occurred to nobody to connect the two, not even me, at first.
Not until I woke one cloudy Wednesday to find the cloak-pin I'd been eyeing for weeks on my dressing table, and my mother's emerald necklace, which had never suited me, gone. How he'd gotten into my bedchamber without even waking me, I'll never know. To be honest, it's a bit creepy to think about, so let's focus on the romance of the gesture and gloss over the stalker-like ease of which he assailed my home, although his methods were probably as un-heroic as asking Agnes to forget to lock the kitchen door. It's a bit of a shame he didn't wake me up, I'd have liked to thank him for not slitting my throat. Again.
Always the subversive bitch, I slept with a dagger under my pillow the next night, just in case I received another midnight caller. I didn't mind getting gifts, but I've never been good at playing the damsel-in-distress, and I couldn't help but feel slightly smug in the knowledge I'd be ready to turn the tables on our little knife/jugular game. Of course he didn't come, and of course I couldn't but feel ever-so-slightly dejected that my plan had backfired quite spectacularly.
Life could have been an unspoilt tesco-value version of Prince Of Thieves, all secret meetings in the forest and exchanging of daggers, had William not stuck his creepy little self into the situation. Which he did, obviously. Good in terms of plot development, unspeakably annoying in terms of actually living it.
"These robberies." It was in his study; he'd summoned me especially, as, apparently, the only person who could calm him down enough to think rationally, "Does anything strike you as odd about them?"
"How do you mean?" Honestly. I had no idea.
"Odd. You know. That all these people are suddenly out of pocket, as soon as that little friend of yours disappeared." I'd like to say Will has grown out of patronising me. But he hasn't.
"I'm sure Rob wouldn't have the brains to carry out such crimes." I've always been good at saying what people want to hear, and terrible at actually meaning it.
"You're probably right." He smiled, genuinely. "I'm tired." He's always tired: I don't think he eats enough green vegetables.