CHAPTER Seventeen
I watched the fire die, shaking with cold and pain in the chair, the lot of which made me feel thin like worn-out rags, like wind would pass through me
and not notice me there.
Gisbourne hadn’t moved in the bed. I didn’t much think he were asleep, for something still crackled in the air like he were watching me.
I wanted to push open the shutters and let the cold in and wait for the sun to rise—it couldn’t be much longer—but I couldn’t move. I could bare
think. Words and notions crossed my mind like whispers.
Robin were to compete.
Thoresby.
Sacrosanct.
Eleanor.
They’d never let Rob win.
This last bit made me shut my eyes against it every time. He were the best archer in England, I fair thought, and it were an archery contest. They wouldn
’t never let him compete without a way to keep him from winning.
I couldn’t turn my thoughts to my hand.
I hadn’t changed clothes from the day before. Gisbourne must have dragged me here after I passed out; I had woken up in the bed in the middle of the
night. I woke to pain, brutal and awful, and I cried out before I knew better of it. Gisbourne were awake, watching me in the bed beside me, and he just
stayed there as I struggled to get up, staggered like a drunk, and collapsed into the chair. He didn’t say a word.
Tears stopped and started and I weren’t much aware of either part. I crushed my head into my knees and struggled to think of anything that were light
and lovely and safe. I tried to think of the first kiss Rob had ever given to me, at the edge of Nottingham when everything felt, for a moment, like
glittering light and sun.
It twisted dark, and all I could see were flames flickering into demons and frost stealing over to freeze the world, and Rob withering and dying like
crops in winter.
Moments and decades passed all at once till the sun rose and Gisbourne rose with it. His eyes were dark and his face worn as he stared at me.
“I didn’t intend for this,” he said. That were all, and then he turned to his manservant and readied for the melee.
I wouldn’t let Mary touch me when she came. Pain were spreading through me like a spider’s web and I didn’t want to move, much less to change and
dress. Gisbourne told her to just bring me a heavy cloak, and she obeyed.
It took me several moments to stand on my feet, but I weren’t never going to miss this day.
Gisbourne strode off to the fields, and I followed slow behind, pulling myself tighter with every step.
I would get to the tourney grounds.
I would sit there and stare at the prince.
I wouldn’t never be defeated by such a coward.
I would cheer for Rob with my heart and soul.
My whole body were shaking by the time I made it outside, and the cold rushed around me like a bear hug. It made it easier to breathe, to think beyond
the pain, and I loved it.
Even walking toward the grounds, I could see what difference a day had made. The place were overrun, packed with common folk everywhere you could look.
Children were hoisted on shoulders and people pressed together in a crush, wedged together to get a glimpse of the people’s champion.
Guards appeared to escort me into the nobles’ dais. One reached out to cup my elbow and help me along the path, and I wondered how rough I looked. My
hand, still tucked safe in the sling, weren’t bleeding through; save for any sign of it that showed on my face, no one should be able to tell what had
passed, and I were glad for it.
It were the first time I wanted to hide their cruelty. I didn’t want them to use me to hurt Rob; I didn’t want him for one moment to take my pain and
make it his. And I hated that in so doing, it seemed like I were ashamed they’d done it.
I slid into a chair, feeling more like the washing run over a washboard than a whole girl. A trumpet sounded and the contestants were led into the arena
—it had been rearranged from the day before into one wide space, the grounds for the melee, a mock battle where all the men fought in chaotic hand-to-
hand combat.
A mock battle they were placing Rob dead in the center of.
Robin were one of the last to enter, and the whole place broke open with cheers and noise and sound. He were tired, that were fair clear, his face
shadowed and dark. He walked cross the arena and his eyes set to searching the nobles.
He were looking for me.
His eyes moved past me, then roved back, his face folding into a frown, looking me over like a mother searching her cub for scratches. I met his eyes and
smiled at him, but it felt weak and sad on my mouth.
His eyebrows wove together like knitting and he looked more worried ’stead of less.
The prince stood and spoke, but I didn’t hear it. I weren’t sure if it were the wind and where he stood that carried his voice off, or if it were the
awful pounding in my hand that rang back through my skull what made it hard to hear. Didn’t matter none; I knew he were saying something about fight,
fight, fight, someone will win when you are all mock dead.
The fight didn’t start just then. The players vanished from the field like smoke, and I shut my eyes for a moment, trying to breathe as pain rushed over
me in a wave. Time dipped and swung, and I weren’t sure how long they’d been shut when someone called to me and touched my arm.
It were close enough to my hand that it felt like a knife, not a finger, and I fought back a howl as I turned to the source.
Eleanor’s blue eyes, made fierce and cool by the white, white skin around them, stared at me from her seat beside me.
“What did he do to you?” she said soft. She blinked, and it felt like whatever tether had bound us in her eyes were broke. My eyes slipped back and her
next question sounded far off. “Marian, what happened?”
I heard her voice, murmured to her ladies near her, and soon I opened my eyes into leaping fire.
For a breath, I thought I were back at the monastery and the pain had come from Rob, but then the threads of reality braided back together and I saw a
brazier fire had been brought on the dais before us, the guards banking the coals to lower the flames. Were I too cold? Were that what were wrong?
“Marian,” she said quiet, only to me, and her hand slipped along mine, fishing into the sling. I hissed; it felt like it were a hundred times too big,
too sore, too everything.
She saw the red starting to bloom on the bandage, and she fixed my cloak to lay over it. I twisted as my blood pulsed double-hard in my hand.
“Hush,” she said to me, and her hands were gentle on me. “You are strong, Marian. You are well and strong.”
Something cold fell on the bandage and I wrenched at the weight, but didn’t yell. I tried to look past the fire to the field, to Rob, to see if he
noticed, but I couldn’t see past the flames.
The cold sank through the cloth and began to ease the pain, and I were only just aware of myself. My chest were heaving like iron bellows and I were half
out of my chair. I straightened, raising my head up to look out on the field.
The melee were on in full. Most were mounted; I reckoned that losing your horse were probably the first round of elimination. I saw Gisbourne, all in
black on his huge white destrier, slashing with his broadsword. He looked like a demon.
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.
It were a large field, and ten men across it left space by spades. The men started to form clusters of activity, mostly fighting round the edge as they
started to challenge each other. Only one man went straight for Rob, and it were Wendeval, the big hulking fighter that trounced Thoresby. As he ran
across the open field in full armor, I knew the brilliance of Rob’s plan—Rob were as fresh as he could be and Wendeval were half to exhausted already.
He swung at Rob with his blunted sword, and Rob ducked easily and cut up with the shield so that Wendeval dropped his sword and fell backward. I expected
him to go for the sword straight, but Rob waited as Wendeval staggered up, and slammed him again with his shield so Wendeval fell back, out cold and
disqualified.
Rob took up the sword and waited.
A cluster of men were to the far left of the field, and Gisbourne finished dispatching two men before turning to Rob with a wicked smile. He stalked out
to him slow, and without a helmet on his head, I could see him turn to me, staring at me as he went to fight Rob. Even across the field, his cruel laugh
made me shiver.
Rob saw him coming and stood ready. If he were tired, it didn’t show a lick. He were fierce and still and calm, waiting for his opponent. His opponent
in the truest sense.
Gisbourne closed the gap and Rob made the first move, a hard strike with his sword that Gisbourne parried, with a smooth follow by Rob’s shield that
cuffed Gisbourne hard. Rob snapped back to the ready.
I had never seen him fight with a shield. It had to be something he learned at war; he used the defense as another weapon like he’d been doing it all
his life.
Gisbourne charged him with flashing swordplay, their heavy swords clashing and spitting light in the winter sun.
“He’s impressive,” Eleanor murmured to me.
I turned my head; I had forgotten her. In the same look I saw Isabel, gripping her chair, staring at Gisbourne.
“Which one?” I asked. It were a fair question; they were both beyond all comparison.
“Yours,” she said. Before I could ask more, she ducked her head a little and said, “The one who should be yours, at least.”
“He’s beyond compare,” I whispered, sinking back in my chair. With the pain numbed I felt so tired I could bare move. It felt wrong, to be confessing
how I admired Rob to Eleanor, but I didn’t have the strength to care.
Each sound their blows made rocked me, and they were fast and steady both. They turned slow, a foot with each hit, moving with each other, locked.
Endless and eternal. They were too well matched; it was just a matter of how long they could stay moving.
Across the field another man took a knee rather than face down another blow, and it seemed the needed count was reached. A horn blared, and Rob and
Gisbourne fought a few moments more before breaking free of each other.
I waited for them to leave the field, but no one did. Pages ran out onto the field with short fences and made a small ring in the middle of the field.
The final players were herded in there—five in all.
Only moments had passed, and the fighters were still heaving with breath. Another horn sounded, and their weapons raised. I wanted to turn to Eleanor and
accuse her—there was no space between these rounds, no time to see Rob at all.
But I couldn’t. I just watched.
No one rushed forward. Gisbourne were talking—I could see his mouth moving—but I couldn’t much hear his words. Then the four moved closer to each
other, and all set on Robin.
My nails dug into the wood of the chair.
Gisbourne were the first to strike, and Rob blocked it with his sword and swiveled to take another blow on his shield. He ducked another and struck at
Gisbourne, hitting his shoulder.
Rob moved fast, his feet trained for the forest where you could never trust the ground for long. I could hear their shouts of anger, bare loud over the
shouts and cheers of the people.
The four were starting to get their timing better, and de Lacy struck a hard blow to Rob’s shield and Gisbourne swung hard for Rob’s arm.
It were hard enough to make him stumble and drop his sword.
Prince John laughed.
Water pricked at my eyes as they set upon him in true. He were good at using his shield like a weapon, slamming them with it, twisting this way and that,
but without his sword he couldn’t survive. I wanted to shout at him to take a knee, take a knee, but if he ever heard, he wouldn’t have done it.
Surrender weren’t in him.
Gisbourne swept out his feet, and he fell. They all managed to get a sickening blow in to his body before Gisbourne took the opening and heaved a blow at
de Lacy, and they left Rob on the field.
It were Winchester who strode out to the ring and shifted one of the fences to pull Rob out. I watched him help Rob hobble off the field and wiped the
tears off my face.
“Do you know where they’ll go?” I asked Eleanor.
She gave a careful, queen-like sigh. “I imagine the earl took him back to Robin’s quarters. Robin was situated in a low room in the residences, in the
small building,” she told me.
“Right next to the prison,” I realized.
“Yes,” she said. “It was all I could do to talk my son out of that.”
I stood, tucking my hand and the half-melted snow purse inside my sling. My heart beat thick and heavy like it didn’t have many beats left, but I turned
from the nobles and the Queen Mother didn’t stop me none.