A/N: So, here's a heavily-revised chapter. I wanted to spend just a tad more time exploring our main characters' changing feelings. This section includes a lot more on Djaq's side, and you'll find that the following chapter (the last one!) has also been quite altered to deal more with some of Guy's lingering issues. This means that this story will have one more chapter than the earlier version, which makes me happy because I like even numbers. :p Please let me know what you think of the changes.
Thank you all for your lovely reviews. They mean so much to me.
Bound Home
Chapter 23
"Yes, I live here, by the river;
I have sailed on it many and many a time.
Both of us born in Changgan, you and I!
Why haven't we always known each other?"
- Cui Hao, A Song of Changgan II
Robin insists on having a celebration to mark the completion of Guy's home. Guy, exhausted by the matter – work on the house was delayed due to a succession of three rainy months, and he spent those months consumed with concern for the half-finished building and its grounds – is not thrilled at the idea.
"I allowed you this land in return for your attendance and accommodation, Sir Guy," Robin tells him with mock gravity. "Your obedience to your lord is part of the agreement."
Guy cannot think of a time when Robin did not get his way, so he throws up his hands and lets him do as he pleases. The celebration ends up lasting three days, thanks to Robin's generous gift of several barrels of wine and to the large number of people involved. Many of the villagers come to pay their respects and discuss the handling of Guy's acreage, giving advice on farming, and requesting consideration for poorer family members who wished to work the land.
"I think I almost cut out the tongue of that miller some years ago," Guy murmurs to Archer on the second day of the festivities. "And he just came to counsel me on the best fields for planting."
"The prospect of good work can do much to repair damaged relations," his brother replies, which turns out to be one of the last coherent sentences he speaks that day, thanks to his appreciation for Robin's wine.
After the villagers, stomachs full with good food and drink and hearts lifted at the prospect of more work, leave to stumble back to their homes, and while Archer is sleeping off his revelry next to the hearth, Guy rides out with Robin to the edges of the property to give it one final survey before the spring sowing.
They crest a hill and look out over the fields. "I cannot thank you enough for this," Guy says. "For all your kindness, Robin – thank you."
Robin accepts the expression of gratitude with a small, warm smile. "We deserve this," he says with quiet certainty, his gaze sweeping over the distant treeline and the sun-washed meadows. "We have fought for it, and now it is ours."
The horses munch on the bright green grass. A cool March wind blows. Guy thinks of his parents, of his sister. Of his father's name, now landed again and enriched, not with money, but with honor. He thinks of the future, and what he wants it to be.
"I plan to court Saffiya," he blurts, the sudden noise startling his horse into a small side-step. Heat rushes to his face. He risks a glance at Robin.
He is frowning, head cocked to one side. "You mean you haven't been?"
Guy sighs away the anxiety he felt at the possibility of meeting with disapproval and scowls at Robin's laughter. "I have not," he replies.
"You have done a poor job of hiding your interest," Robin says, still laughing. "I think all of Loxley knows you plan to court her."
"And Saffiya?" he asks, horrified, which sends Robin into another round of laughter.
"She is far too perceptive a woman not to have figured out your intentions. You spend much more time with her than any man would who wishes to remain only friends."
"Very well," Guy mutters. He turns his head to hide the flush of embarrassment. When Robin has quieted, he faces him again and says, "She is strong, beautiful. She has such joy... I do not think she will have me, but I must try."
"Do not doubt yourself," Robin says gently. "You are a good man, Guy of Gisborne. She knows this."
Guy bows his head and closes his eyes. A good man. Had he ever been called that before? Perhaps once, many years ago, by a woman who believed...
"You never ask me about Acre," he says.
Robin does not answer right away. The air is filled with a breeze and the sound of faraway insects. Their horses flick their ears against the gnats they stir up from the grass. Nearly a minute passes, and still the silence is unbroken. Guy fears he will never get a response, but Robin finally takes a breath and says softly, "I must move on."
Guy lifts his head. Robin meets his eye and says, "You have made peace with her." When Guy considers and finally nods, he adds, "Then so have I."
They linger for a few minutes more, and then guide their horses down the hill. Guy thinks they are ready to return to the house, but Robin stays east, heading to the treeline – to Sherwood forest. Silently, Guy follows.
The air is much cooler under the thick shade and redolent with the scent of earth and wet leaves. They duck their heads to avoid low-hanging branches and keep the reins loose, letting their horses take their time in picking out a path. Eventually, they reach a clearing where an ancient oak stands alone.
Robin stares at the base of the tree. His voice is hushed. "I buried her ring here."
Guy swallows back a stone of old, heavy pain. His chest burns with all the regrets that have been buried in this clearing. "Do you think they've met?"
Slowly, Robin brings his gaze up. "Marian and...Allan. Will Scarlet," Guy clarifies, never taking his eyes off the ground where, somewhere underneath layers of years and dirt and dust, lies Marian's engagement ring. "Do you think they're together? In heaven – or somewhere..."
Robin stares up through the branches and limbs. "Don't know," he answers, voice thin and distant.
Guy follows suit, and looks up to watch the wind dance through the leaves. The sky beyond is clear blue. "Do you believe in heaven?" he asks, so softly he barely hears his own words.
His horse shifts his weight under him, and Guy sways with the movement. He hears Robin sigh, and then give an answer that sounds very much like what an old friend would say, a friend who sits by the sea every afternoon but who never told him why. "I do believe," is Robin's faint reply. "We must."
She thinks about Kalid as she looks over Matilda's apothecary, wondering how he would react if he knew how greatly admired he was by the English woman. "Don't know why we haven't been usin' this already," Matilda says, sniffing appreciatively at a poultice Saffiya made from one of Kalid's recipes. "That man's a miracle-worker."
Saffiya spends many of her days working with Matilda, exchanging knowledge and helping the sick who come from miles away to be seen by the highly respected healer. She wonders if she will ever see Kalid again to share with him what she has learned from Matilda. She wonders when she will begin to yearn for her home country. That time has not yet arrived, and since she has been in England for nearly two years, she wonders if that time will ever come at all. Little John asked her once if she missed Acre. "Not more than I would miss Nottingham if I were to go back," she said in reply.
And her answer is still holding true. Guy of Gisborne has something to do with that.
He is open now with his affection. He visits her often while she works, occasionally even escorting her when she makes her rounds among the villages. He asks about her patients, and though he readily admits that most of what she says goes far beyond his limited knowledge of medicine, he stays curious and involved. She takes an interest in his lands, and always feels a distinct joy when he gives her a smile and tells her of his success.
They go on comfortably. Robin drops hints about the future, but she doesn't put much stock in his teasing until Guy surprises her one day by stopping her in the middle of the lane and plainly telling her "You have come to be my most beloved friend," and that day she surprises herself, because she touches his face and finds she is nearly able to say that he has come to be much more than that to her.
Her throat closes on the words – her heart shrinks from them – but she knows it won't be long now. He is too good. She is too happy being at his side, though the guilt of finally abandoning her mourning over Will has nearly swept her back to Palestine once or twice. She knows what Guy wants from her, what he wishes them to be. The thought of beginning anew as another man's wife is startling. But if she tries, if she looks back on her life and its beautiful and frightening turns, she can easily trace the path her heart has taken to his.
Her journey from her husband's side started in a sick room halfway across the world. It has taken her through empty days, through nights that stretched out to a terrifying infinity. It has stumbled her and broken her, smashed her into pieces like so much brittle clay. It has twisted her heart into something unknowable. It has changed her soul like the winds change the face of the desert.
Along that journey, she made a friend - one who mended her broken parts. One who saw the depth of her pain and understood it. One who had made that same journey and could feel every bend and break as though it were his own.
Somewhere along the way, she helped him, too.
Her husband was everything to her. But he is gone. The sun still sets and rises. The winds still blow. Things live, die, are born, are growing. Are passing.
She has untwisted herself, escaped from that dark cavern of grief and is living as someone else, for she can never be who she was before Will's death, and she can never know who she would have been had he survived. But she knows who she can be now.
She walks the same lane that she traveled with Guy a few days before, and remembers. His eyes had been as blue as the spring sky above them. His fingers trembled when they closed around her hand. The full morning sun sketched his face in gold. "You are everything to me," he said to her.
In this new life, they are the most beautiful words she's ever heard.