The chambers were empty, until my being there signaled my lady’s maid to come in. I waved her off, dragging one of the furs from the bed to the fire, sitting on the hot stone by the hearth. I pulled my soaked, foolish stockings off and pressed my feet to the brick as close to the fire as I dared. I leaned against the stone, half inside the fireplace itself, trying to curl tight into the fire.
My eyes shut, and a vision of last Christmas, spent huddled in Tuck’s with his girls and my boys and a roaring fire. There’d been dancing—I never danced, even when John asked me, even when Rob stood and looked at me for a long breath. It had burned me then, thinking he looked at me and saw me and wouldn’t choose me, but I knew better now. I knew he hadn’t asked me for the same reason I hadn’t asked him.
The door opened—in the chambers, in the castle, though for a breath I didn’t know where I were—and my eyes dragged opened with it. Gisbourne walked in with his chamberlain clucking behind him, and he looked at me and I looked at him. His shirt were off, and his skin were red and raw like it were holding all the cold in Nottinghamshire. There were patches of darker red too, and I wondered, for the first time, if he’d been hurt during the joust.
“The snow prevents swelling,” he said, and his eyes broke from mine.
I lifted a shoulder, looking back into the fire. “Cold is fair good for you, I reckon.”
He grunted. I weren’t sure if that were meant to be an agreement or not, but I didn’t look over to decide. I shut my eyes, wishing for the dream again, but it didn’t rise in the dark of my eyelids.
“Come along, Marian,” he said after a while. “Supper is soon.”
Supper weren’t the torture it had been the night before. Men were tired and quiet. Isabel led much of the talk and didn’t steer none of it toward me. For once I didn’t raise my husband’s ire, and when the meal ended, he offered his arm and led me out of the hall civil-like.
When we changed for bed and his shirt came off, I saw his body had taken hits; there were dark bruises on his shoulder and chest. For a joust, though, he had taken impressive little punishment. His eyes caught mine, his face dark and closed like a door.
I looked to the fire. “You’ll do well tomorrow,” I told him. “Might even win the joust.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “The archery is the only thing that matters.”
“And bruising your competition, it seems.”
His teeth bared. “Battering them, if I can.”
I pulled a fur blanket around the loose dress for bed and climbed into the chair, curling tight.
There were a knock on the door, and my lady’s maid went to answer it. She spoke in hushed tones and then shut the door, coming back into the room.
“My lady, the princess requests you attend her on a purview of the market in the morning.”
“What does she need my attention for?” I grumbled.
“You know very well that a princess cannot be waited upon by commoners,” Gisbourne said. “It is an honor to be asked.”
“A backhanded honor,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Tell her no.” The order were for Mary, but I were looking to Gisbourne.
“The princess did not wait for a response, my lady,” Mary said.
“You can’t tell her no; that’s why she didn’t wait. Mary, Eadric, you’re dismissed,” Gisbourne said.
The servants left with the milords and miladies and such, and then I couldn’t hear naught but the fire crackling before me.
“It’s cold,” he said, looking at me.
That were as close as he’d ever come to asking for my wellness, and I looked away. “I like the cold.”
“It wasn’t always so,” he said, and I heard him creak into the bed. “I was hard pressed to get you out of the sun in the summer gardens when we first met.”
My chest went tight and my pipes stopped up as I thought of that, chasing Joanna’s streaming blond hair through the garden, watching as it caught the light and glittered. I thought maybe if I could just catch her, I could become her, all blond hair and light and happiness. But it weren’t never to be; the summer ended and Joanna died, and I were left in the dark-haired winter that I were born for. “Things changed.”
He grunted. “Quite.”
“Why did you bring me here?” I asked. “You knew they would hate me. You knew you’d be ridiculed for me. Why do it to yourself?”
“You are my wife.”
“But it don’t help you none.”
“You are the only reason I have a claim here. It doesn’t matter if I speak like a lord, they’ll always treat me like a dog until I have the lands and titles for their damned respect. You were born a lady and these adventures of yours are nothing but a passing fancy. You should know that by now—you can run from it, but you can never unmake your birth, and they know that. For both of us.”
“But—” I started.
“Besides,” he continued, routing me off. “Prince John demands, and I answer.”
“He wanted to see us as man and wife?”
“He doesn’t like people subverting his control. Did you think your follies would go unnoticed?”
I frowned. “Well, it ain’t like it were all my fault.”
“You are more dangerous than a few peasants and a fallen earl, Marian.”
“Why? Just because I’m a noble?”
“Good night, Marian.”