"WHAT DO WE TELL THEM?"

"I can't do this."

"You have to, Guy."

Robin looked across at Guy's pale, grim features, and watched his hands tighten their grip on his wine goblet until the knuckles were white.

I feel for him, I really do, but there's no way around it. Marian is right, the time has come. We have to make a decision, a solid plan, and we can't leave this table tonight until we do.

He and Guy, and Marian and Meg, sat near the fireplace in Locksley Manor. The fire was crackling merrily, but Robin felt a cold chill settle over him. All of them were anxious about the coming conversation with their children, none more than Guy. As the one with the darkest and most regrettable past, he stood to lose the most by revealing that past, and he knew it. They all knew it.

"Why?" Guy demanded, his voice rising. "Why can't we wait until they're grown up? Why do we have to tell them now?"

"Because our children have been hearing things."

"What things?" He set the goblet down with a bang. "Who's been talking?"

"People talk, Guy," said Robin. "They gossip. People in Nottingham, people in the villages. There's no point in getting angry about it. You can't stop them. All our shared history was out there for everyone to see. You and Vaisey, and me and my gang—everyone saw what happened."

"And they're not always careful about who might be overhearing them," Marian added.

Guy sighed heavily, and poured himself another cup of wine. "So, what have our children heard? About me and Vaisey and all that good stuff?"

"We don't know yet. That's what we're trying to find out."

"To start with, Eleanor asked me about the Nightwatchman," Marian told him. "She doesn't know it was me. But she has heard that the Nightwatchman was stabbed by—"

"By me?"

"I'm afraid so."

"And what did she say to that?"

"Not too much. I mean, she didn't seem very upset. More like surprised. She knows that you worked for Vaisey, and she's heard bad things about him. She wanted to know if it was true that you worked for him."

"What did you tell her?"

"As little as I could, to satisfy her curiosity. Somehow, knowing Eleanor, I think she'll take it all in her stride. Meg and I are more concerned about Rodger."

"Just what has he heard? Did Eleanor say anything?"

"As far as I know he isn't aware that it was me, or anything about, well, the rest of it."

"And now you want me to tell him the truth, Robin? What is he going to think of me when he finds out I stabbed Marian?"

"Come on, Guy, Marian doesn't hold that against you now. Even I don't hold it against you! You didn't know it was her, after all. How could you have known?"

"And how do I tell him the rest, about the crimes I—?"

Guy stared down at the table and ran his hand across his brow. Meg laid her head against his shoulder. He turned to her, and took her hands and held them in his.

"How can I tell him what I've done?" he said in a low voice after a moment's silence. "He'll hate me for it. He'll be ashamed of me."

Robin knew Gisborne too well not to know what he was likely to do as far as revealing his past to Rodger. When he had turned himself in to King Richard after the siege, he'd confessed to, and had recorded on paper, every crime he'd ever committed. When that signed confession was read out at his trial, the shocking thoroughness of it had very nearly overcome any mercy that King Richard and his court were inclined to show him.

That's Guy, thought Robin. He's an all-or-nothing man. It's one of the things I admire about him. He's honest. Even when he's up against the wall, with no way out, he tells the truth. Under this circumstance, though, I'm not sure it's such a great idea. Rodger is still just a boy. Does he really need to know everything his father has done?

"He's your son. He's not going to hate you. Meg doesn't hate you. I don't hate you, do I? And I've had plenty of reason to. Marian doesn't hate you, either."

"Robin is right," said Meg gently. "And you don't have to tell him everything, darling. Just tell him what he needs to know for now. The rest can come later, if it even has to be said at all."

"Guy, I've got to tell Eleanor about things in my past that I'm not proud of, either," Robin continued. "I fought in the Crusades just like you, and I took the lives of other men, some of them unjustly. Few of us in this day and age don't have blood on our hands, one way or another."

"True enough. There's some comfort in that, I suppose. So, are we going to tell them how we fought with each other for years? They think we've always been the best of friends."

"I guess we'll have to. But it's all water under the bridge now. That's all behind us."

"To us, yes, but not to our children. Robin, honestly, how many times did we try to kill each other?"

"I'll bet you tried to kill me more times than I tried to kill you," answered Robin with a smile. "There was the time you nearly cracked my skull open on a rock and tossed me off the cliff, remember? I've still got this bump on the back of my head. That, and the time you walloped me in the gut with my bow while I was dangling over Davina's pit of snakes."

"You deserved it."

"I deserved it?"

"Yes. You were a cocky, arrogant son of a—"

"Now, boys," Marian interjected in the same scolding mother tone she took with Eleanor when the girl was back-talking to her, "let's not go off on a tangent here and start finger-pointing about who deserved what."

Guy smiled apologetically at her. "Sorry, Marian. Old habits, you know."

"Yes, I know. But neither you nor Robin have any room for boasting. The pair of you were perfectly ridiculous."

Guy and Robin snickered over Marian's reprimand. In the midst of all the worry over their children, it felt good to reflect back long enough to laugh at themselves.

"Shall we tell our son and daughter?" asked Robin, with a grin at Guy and a wink at Marian. "Shall we admit that we were a couple of nonsensical idiots who wasted our time and youthful energy pounding the stuffing out of each other? Fighting over you and our differing political views, when we should have been cooperating together to get rid of Vaisey?"

"I've no doubt the children would be entertained by your stories, Robin, and if you did admit to them that you acted like a couple of idiots, it wouldn't be far from the truth."

Meg smiled at Marian, and nudged her husband's arm.

"Marian's right. You men, sometimes you are rather—"

"Stupid?" Guy finished, but his eyes overflowed with love as he looked down at his wife.

"Yes, stupid. And stubborn, and proud, and—" Meg gave up when she saw that Guy's amused smirk was only getting wider.

She could say anything to him, thought Marian as she watched them, and he'd eat it up like the highest praise. I never saw anyone so besotted in my life. Was he that bad with me? I suppose he was, once.

"Getting back to what we need to tell our children, Guy," said Robin, "don't you think it's important that your son know the good things you did as well as the bad? Look at what you did at the siege. You saved half the men of Nottingham, let's not forget. You risked your life to save them. You were a hero that day. Shouldn't your son know that?"

"It doesn't wipe out the rest."

"But he needs to hear both sides, not just the bad. You left that behind a long time ago. That's not who you are anymore."

"Perhaps not, but if I find out who blabbed in front of my son, that side of me just might come out again."

"Well, I don't think we'll ever find out. It could have been anyone. Maybe it was us. Maybe our children overheard us talking. What does it matter? What matters is that we need to find out what they know, and decide what and how much we're going to tell them."

"Should we ask them what they've heard first, Robin?" said Meg.

"That's probably a good idea. Something tells me they might know more than we think. We can go from there."

"What about Isabella?"

Guy groaned. "I'd forgotten about that."

"Does Rodger know about her?" Marian asked.

"He knows I had a sister. He's asked me about her several times. I always change the subject."

"That's going to be tough one, then."

"I have to tell my son that my own sister tried to kill me and his mother?"

"Tell him she was off her head when she ordered your heads cut off. That's true enough."

"Very funny, Robin. And then what? Tell him how she died?"

"Good Lord above, Guy! You don't have to spell out every little gory, gruesome detail, do you? The boy's only twelve. Don't give him nightmares for the rest of his life."

"So, when do we sit the children down and have the big talk with them?"

"The sooner, the better. What about tomorrow, after we get back from our business in Clun?" suggested Robin.

Guy grimaced, but slowly nodded his assent.

"We're only including Rodger and Eleanor, right? I mean, Ghislaine is far too young, and I'd rather Richard wasn't told just yet. He's a bit too young to handle this," said Meg.

"Just the older children, then. And only what we need to tell them. Are we agreed? Guy?"

"Yes, Robin. I knew this day would come. I've always known it, ever since my son was born. I have to tell him."

His head sank down wearily into his hands. "I just didn't know it was going to be this hard."