I ran, and Winchester didn’t stop me this time. I picked up my skirts with my one hand and flew over the snow, the Archangel’s own wings carrying me forward. People were breaking through the fencing and flooding the field, but I made it to Rob before any of them.
He dropped his bow and picked me up as I threw my arms around him. I were careful to keep my hurt arm up, but it hurt anyway and I couldn’t much care. Tears were overrunning my face and I buried it in his neck, my whole body shaking, though I weren’t sure if it were tears or joy or running what caused it.
“I love you,” he murmured. “I love you.”
“You did it,” I told him. “You won. You did it, my love.”
He rubbed his face into my neck too, and I felt him shudder.
“Guards!” the prince roared, and we broke apart to see him flinging his arm this way and that. “Stop the rabble!”
Guards flooded forward, but Rob turned and spread his hands wide, and the people stopped running but started cheering. Rob raised his hands and lowered them, and the people grew quiet slow. “Please retake your seats,” Rob yelled when they were quiet enough. “I believe I have an oath to take!”
This drew cheers and whoops and unending clapping, but the people, with the prodding of the guards, took their seats again. Turning back to the nobles, I realized Gisbourne were gone from the field.
“Your champion!” the prince yelled.
I laughed, unable to keep it in as the happiness bubbled up in me. The people were cheering themselves hoarse.
“Kneel!” the prince called.
Robin knelt.
“Repeat this oath,” the prince said. The people went silent.
“By the Lord, I will to King Richard and the office of sheriff be faithful and true, and love all that he loves, and shun all that he shuns, according to God’s law, and according to the world’s principles, and never, by will nor by force, by word nor by work, do ought of what is loathful to him; on condition that he keep me as I am willing to deserve when I to him submitted and chose his will.”
Robin repeated it, his voice strong and powerful in the quiet. Snow drifted down on him, crowning his head and anointing his shoulders like holy blessings.
“Stand,” the prince commanded. Isabel came forward and presented a golden arrow on a velvet cushion, and Robin bowed low to her.
“Sheriff,” she greeted, nodding her head. “Collect your prize.”
Rob straightened up. His eyes met mine, hungry and wanting in a way that made my skin rush over with red. He took the arrow but looked the whole time at me. I could see it, then—our future together. That it could happen. That one day soon he might be able to look at me like that and I could kiss it right off his face, in front of all these people, the wife of Robin Hood—a true wife. A loved wife.
Rob broke our gaze and turned to the crowd, holding up his prize. The prince said something further about congratulations or some such, but it were lost.
Nottingham had its hero.
The prince announced that there were to be a feast that night, and the whole castle and courtyard would be open to the common folk. They had their sheriff, and he didn’t want there to be any more mistakes with his orders and generosity. I saw Eleanor nod slow while he said it, and I suspected his true motive were pleasing his mother.
The sun began to set, and I fair floated back up to the castle proper, going to the chambers I shared with Gisbourne eager, for once, to wear a dress. I wanted to try and look well for Rob that night; I wanted to dance with him and bask in the strangeness of this single happy moment.
The first of many happy moments, perhaps.
I opened the door and much of my mood changed. Gisbourne were there, bent over in a chair by the fire, his shirt off, looking broken. I stopped in the doorway and didn’t move farther in.
“Marian, close the door,” he grunted.
I nudged it shut with my foot, coming closer to him. I sat in the other chair, drawing up my feet, resting the hand that had set to aching.
“How did you do it?” he asked, his voice low and rumbling like a dog’s.
Scowling, I asked, “Do what?”
“Switch the arrows back. How did you even figure it out?”
“I didn’t switch anything.”
“I don’t believe you.”
My shoulders lifted. “As a rule, you shouldn’t.”
He sneered. “Of course. Thief, liar, all that. Only you aren’t any of those things, are you? You’re honest, and honorable. Good.” He stood and never looked to me, leaning over the fireplace instead. His body were bruised from the days of abuse. “You knew I’d cheat. And you still believed in him. Believed he’d win.”
“I thought the prince would cheat for you,” I said. “But yes.”
“This isn’t how it was supposed to be,” he said to the fire. “You were mine, Marian, long before you even knew he existed. Your unassailable loyalty and unshakeable belief should have been for me.”