xiv.
Feast of St Felix
30 May Year of Our Lord 1190
My dear Theodosia,
I honor you in death. For you and Baby William, I spent the whole day in prayer at Kirklees Abbey. I had many wrongs to right, and as I knelt in the prayer of a penitent, I reflected on that which I was most grateful to have—and that which I had lost. You were taken away too soon, Theodosia, you were a good and kind woman who I would have called still a child. Yet, when I came to see you, you were so grown up, I could scarcely recognize the cousin I had known as girl. I had to be truly thankful that I had known you, but I regret it bitterly that you were not longer for this world. I am completely alone now. First, Robin left Locksley to fight in his holy war. Now my father is abandoned by his people, his only sin that he was too fond of them.
An evil has indeed come from the north, and I wish I had paid more heed to the pedlar. His name is Vaisey, and he wrested power from my father to become the new Sheriff of Nottingham. I am full of much foreboding as to what his office will bring. Already the people of Knighton are reeling from new and exorbitant taxes. I have pleaded their case many times before Vaisey, but I am overruled and ignored. Vaisey has threatened to take away my father's place on the Council of Nobles if I continue to cause trouble, and has banned me from the council chamber for the foreseeable future. I am powerless to stop the outrages being done.
The new Sheriff has trebled the guard on the castle, evidence of how the people have turned against him almost immediately. My father's former allies have either capitulated out of fear or abandoned their lands, and my father fears open rebellion for the price that might be exacted on the people. Vaisey says he recognizes the authority of King John but no other. King Richard should know of the usurpations and crimes being done in his kingdom in his absence. You asked me if I had been a man, would I have gone on the crusade? I would have taken my life into my hands to bring Robin back to this place. He may be a blockhead, but he is loyal and just—at least when I knew him. Two years in the Holy Land may have changed him. Not a word, Theodosia. I tried to disguise my disappointment at being forgotten, but now there seems little point.
Vaisey has seized Locksley and says he will give it to one of his followers to develop and maintain it in the Earl of Huntingdon's absence. I thought it earmarked for Guy of Gisborne, the false knight whom we sought to befriend, but the Sheriff has been strangely reticent about rewarding his lieutenant. He is favoring another outlander, DeFourtnoy, with the post of master-at-arms, and perhaps Locksley will be his. I was bitter about Gisborne at first, but my father told me of how all our former friends behaved in my absence—the treachery and deceit—and it seemed much more natural in a stranger than in those we thought we had known. I suppose they are all equally guilty, and they know it.
But I am grateful for my father's health, for there was a time when I thought he would die. But now we have long days filled with nothing, as we see bad decisions made and carried out and enforced. Even to raise our voices in protest is fruitless.
So I go back to your question, Theodosia, about what I would do if I were a man. I cannot openly take up arms, but I can help the poor. I must take to disguise, and the night, and pursuing justice in my own small way. All those years playing at war with boys must not be in vain. When I am meant to be closeted up with my books, I will be training. I will seek the permission nor the protection of anyone. If I must remain silent by day as Lady Marian, then in the shadows I will be wearing a man's clothes, and I will be a whisper that precedes a bundle of medicine or food to those who need it most.
There are many jokes now at my expense for still being a maiden. Vaisey is particularly barbed in his attacks, but I must believe this is because he considers me a real threat. He has no idea how right he is.
FIN