A/N: Many thanks to LadyKate1 and Neftzer for their help on this story.
Bound Home
Chapter 8
There seems to be no one on the empty mountain...
And yet I think I hear a voice,
Where sunlight, entering a grove,
Shines back to me from the green moss.
-Wang Wei, Deer Park Hermitage
He does not recognize her at first. He is bewildered by memories of a moon as wide as the sky, of a lone bird stealing something away, a spinning canopy of stars. He wakes to find himself in a large room full of sunlight. His mouth is parched, as if he has carried the desert with him on his tongue.
That is when she comes. Petite, a swarthy bird perched at his side. And another memory comes to him. Underground, hidden in the shadows thrown by a dust-filled shaft of sunlight, his arm on fire, and she was there.
Robin Hood's Saracen.
She wears a head scarf now, white, plain, which initially confuses him – when he last saw her, she had been posing as a male, her head bare of any covering but for a short crop of black hair. It takes him a long moment of studying her face to be certain his mind is not playing tricks on him, that she is, indeed, the Saracen who fought with Robin.
She asks him how he feels, and he does not, can not answer. She says something about water and leaves. He watches her as she walks away, trying to fit her back into a world he thought he'd emptied of all familiarity.
Her, of all people. A straight connection to Robin, to England. A laugh digs itself up out of his throat, but he's so parched that it only sends him into a coughing fit, and his head begins to pound, his vision sparks, spiraling him into nausea-
"Here, drink."
A hand cools the back of his neck. He takes the cup from her and tries a careful sip of water. The irritation in his throat subsides. He wants to close his eyes, wants to fall back and sleep forever, but she must still be something like the enemy, even after the time and miles that have passed between them. He cannot let his guard down.
She is very close, watching him drink with the studied, neutral eye of a physician. Her nearness burns him, reminding him of so much...
"He is awake!" Guy twists around to see a tall Arab man enter the room, carrying a mug. "How are you feeling?" he asks in a thick accent as he comes to the bedside.
"Well," he answers, glancing at the girl. She moves away and busies herself with tidying up a counter across the room.
"My name is Kalid," the man says. "I have some tea for you. It may taste a bit sweeter than you'd like, but it will help your recover." He hands over the mug, and asks, "Do you remember anything from last night or this morning?"
The tea lets off gentle, fragrant steam. Its taste is indeed sweet, but not intolerable. Guy cradles the warm mug in his hands as he tries to put his memories in order. "I was in the wilderness... I – I don't remember much at all. What happened?"
"You were brought here by two men who had little better sense than you," he replied, "as they, too, were traveling in the night. But Allah appears to have smiled upon you, my friend. Those men knew where to find a physician, and got you here in good time. You were unconscious, sickened by the cold. I do not expect your memory of last night to return, but you should otherwise make a full recovery. Finish that tea, and we will see if you are able to eat something."
Kalid sits at a nearby desk and takes out a book – probably a medical text judging by the illustrations he glimpses from his bed – and appears as though he intends to stay there until Guy drinks all of the tea. The girl has vanished. He swallows more of the drink, willing himself not to take it all in one swig despite his immense thirst. By the time the tea is gone, his headache has lessened.
"Would you like something to eat?" Kalid asks when Guy sets the mug down. "Your stomach is probably not very settled, but something simple will help you regain your strength."
As he speaks, another wave of nausea hits – but Guy is impatient with illness, and is ready to do anything necessary to get back on his feet. He nods, and Kalid tells him he will return with some stew.
He leans back against the bed cushion and closes his eyes. He tries to recall what he intended to do last night that caused him such trouble – but all he can remember is having a mouth full of wine (hard on the flesh) and the ghost of an idea that maybe, maybe, he had tried to somehow chase himself away, across the desert and beyond.
Her apothecary is in order; her stock of herbs is replenished; her medical texts sit neatly stacked on one side of her writing table. The candles are all new, their wicks long and white, and all the sheets and blankets have come fresh from a washing.
There are no patients. She has nothing to do but sit and think. But her mind has led her in circles these past few days, ever since Gisborne left Kalid's care to travel on to who-knows-where. She hopes to never see him again, and yet she has found herself glancing about every time she goes out on errands, looking for a white face and a head of dark, curling hair. The man who tried to kill her and her friends. The man who murdered Marian of Knighton. The man who, just days ago, had sat hunched over in her sickroom, cradling a bowl of soup as if it was his lifeline.
Her first thought upon seeing him laid out on the table – pale face tinged with blue, skin covered in a fine sheen of cold sweat – had been that he was truly dead, and now some kind of justice was returned to the world. But it was a bizarre gift to have his body in her house; for her, practically a stranger, to witness his finality.
Any sympathy she had for him, though, had fled when she discovered that the Frenchmen were right, and that he still breathed. Something inside of her loosened when he finally left her home and Kalid's care, something that had been tight and painful while she was forced to go about her business while he convalesced a few rooms away.
It was an oddity that she still cannot wrap her head around. Why on earth was he in Acre?
The silence of her study holds no answers. She throws on a shawl to ward off the chill of evening, lights the new candles, and spends the late evening hours puzzling over the mystery of his unexpected appearance.