"Beat the hell outta him!" Allan cheered, though Robin hardly needed any urging on to do so.
Straddling Gisbourne's chest, Robin pounded the man's surprised face again and again with his fists, showing no mercy. "Spying on a lady in her bedchamber?" Robin snarled. "Not very gallant, you filthy swine."
Despite being pummeled by Robin's unrelenting blows to his face, Gisbourne managed to draw forth his dagger, a small, curved blade he'd picked up on his failed secret mission to the Holy Land. A single jab to Robin's thigh enabled Gisbourne to break free.
Standing, he unsheathed his sword and pointed it at the outlaw, who lay on his back upon the ground, clutching his thigh.
"Sheriff wants you taken alive," Gisbourne sneered. "But too bad, I don't. Say your prayers, Hood."
"Say yours. Allan, NOW!"
Without warning, Gisbourne found himself attacked from behind by one of Hood's men, the fast talking one Hood had saved from the gallows months before.
This man was no knight, no one of rank who had any right to wield a sword, especially not a sword once belonging to Gisbourne. Guy recognized it as one Hood had stolen from him, and now it was turned against him in a peasant's hands with savage ferocity.
"Drop your weapons," Robin's voice commanded, and Gisbourne saw, out of the corner of his eye, Hood standing, arrow nocked to his bow, pointed straight at him. Having no choice, he threw his sword to the ground, while the low-bred outlaw sheathed his in his sword belt.
"Well fought, Allan," Hood's hated voice said smugly. "Now, where did you say that man in your story shot his two rivals?"
"Right between their eyes," the other outlaw answered, mirthfully amused, though out of breath.
Gisbourne hated being trapped by Hood and one of his cronies. "You won't shoot me, Hood," he sneered. "Everybody knows you've lost your taste for bloodshed."
"I have," Robin agreed. A slow wicked grin stretched across his face. "But he hasn't."
"You want me to kill him?" Allan asked, eager to do the job.
Gisbourne's fear was delicious in Robin's eyes. Smirking at his enemy's helplessness, the archer offered nothing more than an unpleasant chuckle under his breath.
Robin's rage was boiling over, however, and he dropped his smirking manner along with his bow. Striding toward Gisbourne, so that he met him face to face, he demanded, "What were you doing, looking in the lady's window?"
"You seem to forget, Hood, Marian is mine! She has accepted me! I'll soon have the sanction of the Church, to look on her naked body whenever it pleases me. And not just look, either."
"She'll never be yours," Robin vowed.
"What are you doing on her father's property, Hood? Trying to steal a glimpse of her marble flesh, yourself? Go back to your bride, Hood, if you can find her!"
"What bride?"
"You've come down in the world, marrying one of your own peasants!"
"WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE?"
Sir Edward's voice was distraught and alarmed, and Robin turned apologetic, respectful eyes on the kind, old man who stood shivering before them, looking frail and vulnerable in his nightclothes.
"Apologies, sir, for the disturbance," Robin said, sincerely. "I hope I didn't wake you."
"I caught these filthy outlaws on your land," Gisbourne triumphantly told his future father-in-law, "trying to peer into Marian's room."
Edward, bewildered, wasn't sure what to do. He was no fool, knowing quite well that Robin sometimes still paid secret visits to his daughter, with her approval. He also knew the young man would never try to "peer" into Marian's room without her knowledge or consent. But it would be her death, as well as his own, if Gisbourne so much as guessed at their dealings with one another.
"Get off my land!" Edward shouted at Robin. "You're not welcome here!"
"He's not going anywhere, alone," Gisbourne sneered. "With your help, I'm taking him to Nottingham."