THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE
When does true love begin? How do two people come to a mutual realization that friendship is not enough to satisfy them any longer? What moves them chose to travel together on the same journey through this world, and what causes their two hearts to inseparably become one, so that each cannot imagine life without the other?
It has often been said that the course of true love never runs smooth. Whether or not this is generally true, it certainly had proven true for Robin and Marian.
Robin of Locksley had loved Marian of Knighton from the day she had accepted his bouquet of wildflowers, hastily plucked and bundled together, and gone somewhat limp, from hands that were sweaty with fear that she would reject his gift, and himself.
Lady Marian, all of eleven years old, hadn't rejected the gift, or him. Instead, she'd stood on the toes of her dainty slippers and kissed his dirt-streaked cheek. As he smiled down at her sweet face, his heart had thudded against his ribs in the ecstatic throes of a boy's first infatuation. From that moment on, they had been together nearly every day.
Years later she had accepted his proposal, and they had spent many a happy hour planning their wedding and their life together. Then, one fateful day, the call had come. Robin, in a fit of patriotic fervor, left Locksley Manor, and his beloved Marian, to follow Richard the Lionheart to the Holy Land. 'To serve king and country', he said. 'To seek glory', she said.
Almost, Marian's youthful love for Robin had died when he abandoned her. She had nursed her resentment against him until she was certain she no longer loved him. And then she had been introduced to Guy of Gisborne. Handsome Guy, whose dark, brooding looks and fiery temper swept her up, heedless of danger, into a headlong passion.
Years passed and Robin did not return, and so Guy had almost taken Robin's place in Marian's heart. But like flame set ablaze in a pile of straw, so had her love for Guy quickly burned itself out when she saw what he was becoming under Sheriff Vaisey's evil tutelage. She had finally rejected him in fear of her life, and almost lost her life in Acre to the man Guy blindly followed and served.
Love had not come easily to Guy, either. He had loved Marian from the moment he saw her at a banquet of the nobles in Nottingham. One look, one glimpse, had been enough. His whole soul was instantly consumed by her; his every waking thought was of how he could win her.
When she left him at the altar, his humiliation had been such that for a time he hated her. But his desire for her grew into an obsession, so that in time his pursuit of her became more determined than ever. Encouraged by the softening he'd seen in her toward him, he had pressed his suit ever more boldly, until that terrible day in Acre when his cherished dreams of Marian had blown to bits before his face and fallen into cold and bitter dust.
For more than a year he had believed she was dead, killed by the Sheriff, only to learn that she had survived her wound, and had married Robin.
Marian had been taken from him forever. But Meg had been there to fill her place. With her innocent love and her firm belief in the goodness she saw in him—when he could discern nothing but bad—she had brought him comfort, and at last he had let himself love her in return. His broken heart had been made whole again with Meg's unswerving devotion. He would always love Marian, but he had seen that it was possible, when one's first and deepest love was irrevocably lost, to learn to love another and be happy.
Love had perhaps come easiest for Meg, for her one and only love had been Guy. Her chosen path as his wife had not been an easy or a smooth road, but she had no regrets. Guy was the center of her world. She lived for him and for their children.
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Rodger and Eleanor, it seemed, had followed in their parent's footsteps when it came to true love. For them, love, or something like it, had begun nearly twenty years in the past, and its opening scene went something like this:
"Come here, Eleanor, come see the baby!"
"Come on, sweetie, come see baby Rodger!"
The little toddler girl hesitated. She wasn't sure she liked the look of immensely tall, black-clad Uncle Guy, who stood behind the chair whereupon sat pretty Aunt Meg with a baby in her lap. Next to the pretty lady stood her mama and papa, coaxing her to them with their voices and smiles. But there was that scary man! Dare she walk any closer to him?
"It's okay, Eleanor! Come here!"
She stuck out her lip, frowned, and shook her head at them.
Her papa took hold of her arm, and gently led her to the pretty lady.
"Don't be so silly. Look, see the baby!"
The little girl stared down at the baby. He was wrapped snugly in a snow-white blanket. He had curly black hair and a wee white face, and his eyes were closed. The grown-ups were all watching her with smiles on their faces. What did they want her to do?
"Say hello to baby Rodger!"
Not knowing what else to do, she reached out and gave the blanket a sharp tug. The baby opened his eyes, and his white face scrunched into an ugly red grimace as he let out a piercing wail.
"Oh, dear," said the pretty lady, as the baby continued to scream, but little Eleanor knew how to shut him up. She lifted her hand to slap him!
"No, no, Eleanor, no! We don't hit baby!" cried Mama. She and Papa pulled her hands away.
The tall, dark man chuckled. "Like mother, like daughter," he said.
"Guy, behave yourself!" said the pretty lady, and the tall man snickered again. Eleanor frowned up at him, and then at the shrieking infant. He was such an ugly thing! What was wrong with slapping him to make him stop?
"Eleanor, like this, see? Be gentle with baby, okay? Give Rodger a kiss, like this." Papa bent over the baby and kissed his head.
Eleanor sighed, and toddled forward once again. The baby had stopped crying, and was now whimpering instead. She thought back to the puppy in the barn that had been kicked by Papa's horse. The baby was making the same plaintive sounds that the poor puppy had made while Uncle Allan bandaged its injured leg.
"Give baby Rodger a kiss, Eleanor," said Papa. "Tell him you're sorry."
Eleanor looked down at the flushed face of the infant, and suddenly the ice blue eyes opened wide and gazed right into hers. She smiled at him, and, out of curiosity, took hold of one of his flailing hands. The tiny, softly dimpled fingers wrapped around hers with surprising strength, and held on tight. The infant didn't look so ugly anymore. She bent over him as Papa had done, only instead of pressing her lips on his forehead, she kissed Rodger right on his milky mouth.
She could not for the life of her understand why all the grown-ups started to laugh. Nor could she fathom the prophetic words of the tall, scary man, "Would you look at that, Robin and Marian? It would seem that our children are now betrothed."
The baby grew quiet after the kiss. He stared up at Eleanor with big, fascinated eyes. The sight made her giggle with warm delight.
"Rodger!" she thought. "You like me!"
"Wah-da!" she said to him, and she kissed him again.
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Eleanor of Locksley had grown up to be a fair amount of Robin and a good deal of Marian—the best and worst of both her parents—and a sprinkling of her own unique self, too. Rodger of Gisborne had grown up to be, most of the time at least, the best of Guy and Meg. He faced his future as the heir of Gisborne with a modest confidence that he was prepared for the responsibilities that lay ahead. There was only one thing he lacked—a lady at his side to be his helpmate, his confidante, his friend and lover.
Rodger was very much in love with his chosen lady, but would Eleanor have him? She had taken some hard blows, and had learned some painful life lessons, but now that her bruised heart had healed, no obstacles stood between her and Rodger anymore. The rocky path of true love had smoothed out before them. They had only to choose to take that road together, and from the day of Rodger's return and their reunion in Locksley, they did.
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As was to be expected, the mothers caught on to what was happening between their offspring faster than the fathers.
"Grow up, Robin! Leave them alone. Stop teasing them, I mean it! You're going to spoil things if you don't stop."
"No, Guy, Rodger does not need to go with you to Nottingham today. Take Allan. Rodger wants to spend the day with Eleanor."
With time and a few subtle, and not-so-subtle, hints from their wives, the fathers at last caught on as well. Rodger and Eleanor were left in peace. Even the servants tiptoed around them so as not to disturb their growing intimacy.
The stone walls of Locksley Manor and Gisborne Hall rang with laughter as Rodger and Eleanor reminisced about their shared childhoods. They retold old jokes and relived pranks and games they had played with the village children and with each other. They teased one another over their endless archery rivalry, their regrettable "crushes", and the many fights that were memorable but the causes of which were long forgotten.
Then their voices became quiet and serious. The laughter ceased as they delved into deep and painful feelings of jealousy, hurt, and anger. The weeks of winter passed and spring returned to the English countryside while they opened their hearts to each other. And they found at last that they could forgive one another for the past, put it behind them, and look ahead to the future.
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One pleasant morning early in May, Rodger went to the manor straight after breakfast to see if Eleanor wanted to take a walk with him. There was a particular corner of a meadow at the edge of Sherwood Forest that he had discovered on a ride the day before, and he wanted to take her there to see it.
It was an enchanted place—a little, sun-dappled hollow where a brook splashed over a pebbled bed and spilled down a cascade of moss-blanketed stones into a deep pool. All around the pool, flowers grew thickly, filling the air with their scent. He had pulled out and arranged several of the smoothest stones to make seats near the pool, one for himself and one for Eleanor.
Today was the day, and this place was the spot, for him to ask the most important question he had ever asked in his life, and he wanted everything to be perfect. Eleanor deserved it. He loved her, had always loved her. And he was sure, quite sure at least, that she loved him, too, and would give him the answer he longed to hear.
He found Eleanor alone, as her mother had gone out to see a neighbour, and the servants were working in another part of the house. She was seated at a window, with the shimmering folds of a new gown in her lap. Her face wore a frown of concentration as she worked the needle in and out. Rodger smiled at she looked up.
"Rodger, I didn't hear you come in!" she exclaimed. "You made me jump! I nearly stuck myself with this silly needle."
"Sorry. I don't mean to interrupt."
Eleanor laughed. "As if I mind. You know how much I hate sewing. My mother used to punish me by making me work on embroidery for hours at a time."
"Never learned your lesson though, did you?"
She hesitated, and then laughed again. "No, I guess I never did, did I?" She smiled up at him. "Remember the time I taunted you and called you a baby? And you climbed up on the fireplace mantle and tried to take down your father's sword, and knocked your mother's vases on the floor instead?"
"I've yet to forgive you for that one," he replied. "I got the worst beating for it, and Father sent me away to the orphanage for a week to teach me a lesson."
"Well, perhaps you'll forgive me some day. Does it help to know that my mother sent me to my room for the rest of that day, with a whole pillow to embroider? It came out terrible, too. I was so miserable. I still have that wretched pillow to remind me."
"I'll consider forgiving you if you come with me for a walk."
"Right now? Um, can it wait just a little bit? I want to finish this gown for the feast at the castle tonight. It's almost done, honest. I just need to finish the hem."
"Of course. It's very pretty, your gown."
"Thank you."
"I can't wait to see you in it."
"You're a flatterer."
Rodger smiled. "So, who's taking you to the feast?"
"I'm going with my parents, I guess, unless someone else asks me to go with him."
"So you'd agree to let an unattached man escort you to the feast?"
"Perhaps, if the right unattached man asked me," she answered, while she kept her eye on her sewing.
"The right man?" Rodger swallowed hard, and paced slowly around the room before coming back to stand near the window.
After a long pause, during which he alternately gazed down on Eleanor, and stared out the window, and Eleanor sewed industriously on her gown, he said in a low voice, "What if I were to ask you?"
Eleanor looked up, needle poised, her brows arched.
"Are you asking me," she said, "or is this a rhetorical question?"
"I'm asking you, Eleanor. Will you do me the honour of accompanying me to the feast at the castle tonight?"
She twisted her face in a wry smile. "Really, Rodger, you do take a long time getting to the point. And the answer is yes, I would be pleased to accompany you."
He gave her a smirk in return. "I take a long time, do I?"
"Yes, you do. What's the matter with you, anyway? Why are you so nervous? It's only me."
"I don't want to get my face slapped again, if you don't mind."
"Oh, Rodger, you know how sorry I am for that—" She saw his grin. "Now you're teasing me!"
"Of course I am. You don't get to do all the teasing around here. Sometimes it's my turn." He smiled. "So, do you mind riding with me into Nottingham on Starlight?"
"No, that would be lovely." She stood and shook out the gown. "There, it's done. Now we can take that walk, if you'd like."
"There's a spot near the woods I found yesterday that I want to show you," he said. Then, gently taking her hands in his, and looking deep into her eyes, he added, "And, Eleanor, there's something I want to ask you when we get there."
Rodger had planned for their first real kiss—one that was mutual and didn't end in any face-slapping—to take place by the flower-encircled brook after their betrothal. But as he looked into Eleanor's beautiful sea-green eyes, and then dropped his gaze to her waiting lips, his patience and resolve crumbled. What might have happened next they never found out, however, for just at that moment, Allan burst through the front door of the manor, red-faced and out of breath, and confronted them both.
"Rodger, Eleanor, where are your parents?"
"Papa's with Hugh, and Mama's visiting Bess," stammered Eleanor, her face as crimson as Allan's. "It's okay, we're not alone. The servants are here—"
"Rodger, where's your father?"
"He's with Reggie, I think. Why, what's wrong, Allan?"
"Get them, now! Tell them to meet me here, as quick as they can. And help me round up as many men from Locksley as we can get."
"What's happened?"
"A fire! There's a fire in Nottingham!"
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Author's Note: Arrghh! Sorry again for the long delay! Blame it on real life getting in the way, combined with a lengthy bout of "writer's block". Anyway, there are just two chapters left to go in this tale. Thank you to my faithful readers who've stayed with this story for so long! More to come ASAP.