xiii.
Guy stood at the castle walls and recognized her entering the city gates, picking her way slowly through the people who lined the streets. She had been gone nearly a month, and despite Vaisey's insistence that it was a weak-willed thing to do, he had been anxious to be the first to greet her.
Rushing down the stairs in front of the castle square, he was quick enough to catch her, still mounted, staring dazedly at the scaffold and its noose. "Lady Marian!" he shouted, looking down, abashed at how eager he sounded. He must not make this more awkward than it needed to be.
She turned and stared at him, looking through him as though she did not recognize him. Even he could see that she had been weeping. Her face was red and blotchy, and while his first instinct was to recoil in disgust, part of him wondered—they had said she had gone to Skipton to see a kinswoman . . .
She frowned, sitting heavily on the saddle as her horse pawed the ground impatiently. "Sir Guy?" she said, at last, with an effort. The explanations, the haughty and arrogant barbs, died on his lips. With a supreme effort of will, in the weeks following his conversation with Pitts, he had made no move toward enacting the disgrace that Vaisey had strongly hinted at. Mercifully, Marian had left Nottingham before Vaisey had arrived, so she was not upper-most in Vaisey's thoughts. Vaisey would have raked Guy's honor and manhood over the coals had he not been distracted by much larger concerns. "If you had to be so namby-pamby about it, Gisborne," Vaisey would have said, "just get one of your hired gang to do it. Get the whole gang to do it, that would be something she'd have trouble forgetting, eh?"
But Marian had left. He surmised she had been distracted by whatever was happening at the household of her kinswoman. If she hadn't, surely she would have seen the tactical disadvantage of leaving her father at such a time. True, his health had improved rapidly after the sotto voce conversation with Pitts, but Guy's sally into turning the people of Nottingham against Edward Fitzwalter, by bribery, intimidation, or blackmail, had been effective enough for Edward to recognize that something was amiss. Had he written to his daughter of these vague rumblings? Did she have any idea of what had changed in her absence?
"Sir Guy," Marian repeated, "what has happened?"
Guy took a deep breath and held out his arm to her. "Will you dismount?"
Marian backed her horse away from him. "I will not." She glanced back at the scaffold and the Nottingham townspeople who were padding toward them, looking up at her curiously.
Guy bit back an angry retort. "If you will come with me, my lady, I will be happy to explain in some more private place."
Marian's eyebrows lifted witheringly. " 'Some more private place'? Can you not say what you mean to say in front of these people? Is it some secret?" She barely gave him chance to draw breath. "Where is my father?"
There was no mistaking the low rumble of distrust and agitation from the populace, and Guy could barely prevent himself from barking an angry oath at them. He looked back up at Marian, whose eyes were now swimming with tears. Ordinarily, a soppy woman's cry filled him only with annoyance and disgust. Oh, if she begins bawling, he told himself, it will not look good. To be truly touched, a woman like her would be silent in grief and shame. But he knew these were words and feelings implanted by Vaisey, and his honest reaction was that he did not wish her distress. Her situation was distressing enough, and he wanted her for an ally, not as an enemy. At least, that was, he preferred her fighting than weeping.
"He is in Knighton," he said gently. "If you will allow me a few words in private before you go to him, I swear that—"
"Tut tut, Gisborne," said Vaisey loudly as he exited the castle and came down the steps to survey Marian. "Is this the fabled Lady Marian, daughter of the ex-Sheriff of Nottingham?"
"My lord, I—"
Marian peered at Vaisey, wearing ermine and richly embroidered velvet. "What do you mean? Who are you?"
Guy did not meet her gaze. "This is my lord Vaisey."
Marian's glance was a sheet of ice. She addressed Vaisey. "You are wearing my father's robes of office. This cannot be right."
"La di da di da," Vaisey replied contemptuously. "Didn't you hear me, chook? You're the daughter of the ex-Sheriff of Nottingham. As in, no longer. As in, bye-bye-, back to Knighton! As in I'm now the Sheriff and you'd better get used to it!"
He waited for his words to take their effect. "This cannot be," she murmured. At last her gaze sought out Guy. "Sir Guy, do you know this man? What has happened to my father?" Guy cleared his throat.
"Oh, just tell her!" Vaisey roared.
"We took you into our home," Marian murmured. "My father welcomed you, even though you were a stranger."
"The lords acted as one," Guy said with the emotion of a stone. "Sir Edward was deposed, and the people saw fit to elect a new Sheriff. I am sorry if it is a shock, but that is the truth."
"I don't believe you," Marian snarled, and without warning, she kicked her horse's flank hard and sped out of the town, so quickly no one had a chance to call after her, much less stop her.
"I think she's upset with you," Vaisey sing-songed.
"She is in shock," Guy snapped. He was trying to avoid the gaze of the people gathered in the square who had seen the entire incident. His face was burning with embarrassment.
"No matter, we'll soon marry her off and that will shut her up," Vaisey continued. "Though not to you, obviously. Now that she's shown you up in front of the entire town, couldn't let it get around that you're some soppy tool of women, could we, Gisborne, hmm?"
Guy was barely paying attention to what Vaisey said. The peasants with their lined and weathered faces were staring at him with bald hatred and condemnation. He remembered how Edward had looked when he had been forcibly removed from the council chamber following Vaisey's "election." It was not at all dissimilar to the look of shock on Marian's face.
"My lord, I will handle this."
Guy noticed that Pitts had left his dwelling and was also staring across the courtyard at him, no emotion discernible upon his face.
"Oh yes, Gisborne, now that I've seen her, I can believe you'd want to handle her." Vaisey made some lewd hand gestures that created repulsed and shocked mutterings from the people still watching. "But I think I'm going to reassign you for awhile." He turned to return to the castle and gestured for Guy to follow. "Yes, I've got something quite different for you in mind, something that will take you far away from any thoughts about Knighton . . ."