Bound Home
Chapter 5
Orioles call for a thousand li, green's reflected in the river;
Waterside village; hillside rampart; wine; a banner in the wind.
In the time of the southern dynasties, there were four hundred and eighty temples;
How many pavilions there are now in the mist and rain.
-Du Mu, Spring South of the River
The sea is dangerous in the winter, the men at the docks all say as they watch ships come in with the high tide. One man tells him he speaks English – and he does, in a heavy, rolling accent. He asks Guy where he comes from.
Nowhere, he thinks. The word sits on his tongue, right and natural.
"England," he answers instead.
The stranger stares at him with gold-dark eyes. "Wait," he says after a moment, and hurries away into the crowd of crates and gulls. Guy watches him disappear into a whitewashed building, and then turns back to look out over the sea, only faintly curious as to what the man is up to. He came here in an effort to decide if he wants to go back to his own country. Robin bid him farewell with the promise that Guy would always have a place among his men. Archer simply said, Do what you must, and don't come back until you have finished.
How will he ever be finished? His purpose in coming here is a mystery. England is no longer the deep scar in his chest; Acre holds nothing for him but painful memories and the false comfort of Marian's bones. It makes sense to go back home.
But he finds he is content to lean against the wall and stare at the stone-blue sea.
"My friend!"
The stranger has returned. He has a kettle and two cups, and he sets them down on a nearby crate. As he pours, steam redolent with jasmine billows into Guy's face. Surprised at the generosity, he nods his thanks and takes a sip of the tea. Its heat is welcome on this cold, gray afternoon.
The stranger takes a sip as well, and briefly closes his eyes in appreciation. "Now," he says. "Why have you come to Acre?"
Guy stares into his cup and ponders. There are many answers, but only one truth. "A mistake," he replies. He lifts his gaze to the stranger's and says as kindly as he can, "I'd rather not talk about it."
"Ah," he nods back. "Yes."
They drink. The stranger turns his dark eyes to the sea. "In this season, strong winds can come suddenly - a terrible storm from a clear sky, even. I have seen it. Very dangerous. But these men...life must go on, I think? It does not stop for dangerous weather."
Guy studies the man standing next to him. He does not appear to belong to the peasant class, and he also does not appear to be overseeing any of the workers. He seems uninterested in the ships themselves. "What brings you to the port?"
"Ah," he says. "To remember. Or, to forget."
The skies are darkening. The shipmen hesitate in their work as they cast wary looks at the clouds. Guy inhales the tea's fragrance and lets the hot liquid pool in his mouth. "Every man has his mistakes," the stranger says. "Every man has something to forget."
The thought comes to her just as she is falling asleep. She sits up, startled – how could she have neglected to let them know? His brother; Robin; Allan.
She stubs her foot in the darkness, a penalty for hurrying and not giving her eyes time to adjust to the moonlight that spreads, like a spider's new web, from the window to the floor. She lights a candle, sits at her desk, brushes aside the pile of physicians' scrolls and books, and lays down a clean sheet of parchment.
Her quill tap-taps against the inkwell, then hovers above the desk. She is uncertain how to begin, or even to whom she should be writing. She does not know where her husband's brother lives now. All she can recall is the healer, Matilda, who is learned enough to read and who would be capable of forwarding the message to Robin, who then, perhaps knowing where Will's brother lives, would be able to send it on to him.
She writes a brief note to Matilda, asking that she deliver her message to Robin Hood or one of his men, and then pulls out another sheet of parchment.
January 4 1196
Robin, John, Much, Allan.
Friends, I do not know how you are faring, but I pray for you often and hope this letter finds you all well. I write to tell you that Will Scarlet took ill late last summer.
The scritch-scratch of her quill ceases. She stares at the black ink and at all the empty page below it.
She scrawls a short phrase about how her husband's fever was swift; how he suffered but a little. His grave is near Marian's, she adds, and again she lifts the nib off of the parchment and leans back to stare at her words, thinking they have come from someone else, a stranger.
Her hand has started to shake. There are too many things she wants to write to them, because they are the only ones who will understand what perfection the world has lost – no one wanted to know him, no one cared about his bravery and his goodness, they only cared about his skin and hers - and now she is overcome with a million words, and it is too much. It is too much.
The letter must wait. She lets the tears overwhelm her, and though she eventually puts away her writing tools and blows out the candle, she does not stir from her chair until dawn.