Rob were half swallowed. He were on a farm horse, a head and hands shorter than the rest of them, but he were charging through more men than Gisbourne. And every hit he made were followed by cheers like an echo.
Watching him made everything hurt less. He were handsome beyond measure, his face carved stone and living all at once. His body moved with a grace that made me admire every bit of the fighter in him. He were trained for this, the act and practice of war; built for it, honed by it.
And haunted by it.
Part of me cheered with every strike of his sword; part of me mourned.
The main battle line broke as victors like Robin, Gisbourne, and more crossed through to the other side where the infantry would have lain in wait if it were a battle in true. Their horses galloped free and were wheeled back by their riders, ready to clash again.
A great horn sounded, and the horses slowed, halting and turning toward the ends of the arena.
The first round were done.
Nobles stood from their chairs quick, drawing close to the huge braziers as servants hurried to fill wine glasses and offer food, like a moving banquet set in the snow.
Eleanor waved her fingers and her ladies drifted in front of us, blocking out everyone else with carefully turned backs and angled bodies. She handed me a cup of wine and I drank it fast, eager to put off the shivers and pain both.
“Your husband did this, or my son?” she asked.
There were dregs of something in the wine and I spat it out, not caring a whit if I looked like an ill-mannered heathen. “You really thought he’d let me go?” I asked her. I looked to her, to her face like white stone and her eyes of cold water, and I stared down the great Eleanor of Aquitaine. “You left him full of fury and me lashed to a chair. If you didn’t know how that would end, you didn’t want to know.”
She looked away from me, and the white cliff of her throat worked. “This was not what I wanted,” she whispered. “Not for you.”
“You let him do it.”
Her eyes shut and her fist opened, like she were letting a secret out into the air. “No. He must grow; he must be a stronger leader and he cannot do that if I do not give him the trust to make the best decisions for his people. I must not be his puppeteer.”
“He deserves no trust.”
Her eyes opened and looked to the back of his chair, ahead of us on the dais. “He will. He must.”
I were tempted to lift my hand, but I didn’t dare. I couldn’t feel much of anything of it now, and I weren’t ready for the pain to start again. “Why bother for me?” I asked her. “Why bother about any of this for me?” Isabel’s words drifted back to me—what interest did Eleanor have in me that I didn’t know?
She looked to me, warm and sad now. “You’ve had a difficult journey, Marian. I feel for you, very keenly. And I don’t like to see any woman harmed.”
My gaze ran back to the empty mock battlefield. She may care for my harm, but few others did. And they cared for Rob’s life even less. How many noble sons had been sent to war? And for each of those, how many tens of common sons? Live or die, their lives were nothing more than this battle: a game.
“Can I see him?” I asked her. My voice bare croaked out; it were a strange thing. For all the times I spoke when I shouldn’t, when it came to speaking words that my whole heart were bound up in, it were a difficult thing.
“Not yet. Perhaps after the second round; there should be a longer break then.”
She clicked her fingers and one of the ladies turned. Eleanor ordered for more snow to fill the cloth on my hand, and I shut my eyes and waited for the tournament to continue.
It weren’t long before the next round; this time all the remaining competitors—roughly ten in all—were on foot, and for the close combat, the weapons had been replaced with blunted versions, scattered around the outside of the arena. They were all clustered in the center, shoulder to shoulder, their backs to one another, shields touching like a chain to keep them in.
The horn sounded, and everyone ran for the weapons—except Rob, who immediately swiped his leg down to take out the competitor on his right. Not near expecting it, the man launched into the air like a hound trying for a scrap and Rob stood straight, the sole person still while all others raced for the weapons.
He retreated back to the center, and my heart beat fast as he watched them all. They chose weapons and turned to him, and the grounds held a breath.
Gisbourne turned and swung his heavy, blunted broadsword at the competitor nearest him, and the man howled as the rest of the fighters leapt into action.