King of the Oak (2/3) Robin/Guy
Jul. 6th, 2008 02:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grenegomeTitle: King of the Oak (2/3)
Pairing: Robin/Guy
Rating: PG-13
Warning: A bit of swearing.
A/N: The trees in the Sherwood forest in my head do not look like the trees in the forest in the show. That may or may not be evident here.
Summary: Sequel to Lion's Heart. In this part: Guy does not have concussion, and your topical issue is deforestation.
Part One
Guy sat at his hall table, staring at the trinkets he had pulled from the box.
A necklace, a bracelet, a ring. They featured some kind of green stone, which didn’t look particularly precious. Certainly not worth Hood or his servant risking their lives, or leaping off a roof. Not worth Guy’s bruises.
He wondered. Diamonds, perhaps he could have understood, or gold…
His thoughts were jarred by raised voices and the sound of a struggle at the door. Now he might learn why the guards had come stampeding into his house whilst he was in the roof space.
One of his men appeared, dragging an unfamiliar looking crone behind him. She was showering the man with expletives Guy had never even heard before, despite all his years spent around vulgar men of combat.
“Sir, we’ve found a witch, sir.”
“A witch?” He asked wearily.
“Yessir, she drove into the village with an ass and an old cart, and started handing out spells to the peasants sir.”
“Spells?!” The woman howled. “I have been coming through Locksley every five years, from before you were born, till after you die, you dung witted, slime brained, malodorous cretin, may your balls wither and die!”
Guy was impressed, but the guardsman looked terrified.
“Sir, see, she cursed me!”
Guy dropped the trinkets on the table, and prepared to tell the woman to get out of Locksley, when her narrowed attention made him pause.
“Oh, well now, where have they been hiding for so long?” She murmured.
“You recognise them?”
“Oh yes, they’re his mother’s.”
He waved the guardsman to leave.
“His? Hood’s?”
“Is that little Robin’s new name? Well, it will fit him I suppose, but Wood might have served him better. Of course I mean him, what other he could there be round here?”
Guy stared at her, searching for defiance, or scorn, but she simply held his gaze with an intensity that made him shift uncomfortably.
Christ, it was like being looked through.
She watched him move, silently, and then continued.
“That boy’s mother was the bravest woman you could ever hope to know.”
He suppressed a smile, and thought of Marian.
“I doubt it.”
“Well now, Sir Guy of Gisborne, is that so?”
She considered him again.
“Hmm…in the interest of civility, shall we have a trade?”
“I want none of your spells.”
“Good. Because I don’t cast them. But I can tell truths, and I can tell you why you had to fight for those baubles you’re holding, provided you allow me to finish up my business on this estate.”
He nodded his agreement. He could always have her arrested after she’d said her piece.
The crone grinned, and looked a little bit wicked, before taking a seat without asking.
Guy took a sip from the cup next to him before she began. It tasted bitter.
“The woman that wore those was full of such love like you’ve never seen, and Robin was her darling. She was strong, and fierce, but she’d never tell him no.”
That explained a lot.
“And she loved Locksley. Her husband died, when the babe was little, so she loved the village instead of the man. And she loved its people, and she fought for them in bad harvests and cold winters, and in plagues as well. She helped one sickening starving thing too many though, and sickened herself and died. And Robin only half a man, running an estate, and no one to love him but some servants and these peasants, and the shadow of a distant king…but, by the look of you, that’s more than you’ve had, yes? You’re brave, stepping between him and his people. His ground. Or stupid.”
Guy’s discomfort didn’t blossom into anger, as was usual. He was lost somewhere in her words, vaguely comprehending the idea that she could tell him more than that Locksley had loved his mother.
“Ground?” He repeated, and wondered why it was hard to say the word, why everything was suddenly soft, and distant.
“Oh yes. This ground knows him, knows him deep. Must be his blood is in it, but it’s more than that. You can feel it in the woods too. The trees know him. This whole place waits for him when he’s not here. Even someone as dull as you must feel that? All that silence whilst he was gone. The cold dark quiet nights that called him, waiting for him, and now. Now all the noise and the fire and the life! Because he’s back. Back!”
She paused for a moment, because her words had been whipping out faster and faster, and Gisborne was struggling to hold them in his mind.
She began to whisper.
“The ground has remembered how to breathe. Here there is nothing really real unless Robin has a hand in it. Strange times.”
“What…what does this have to do with me?” He struggled with his question, struggled to sit up straighter, but everything was sliding away.
“Oh, Robin’s truths are the ones that matter round here.”
No, he wanted to say, but couldn’t.
Then she was leaving, and Guy’s eyes were slipping closed.
Thornton shook him awake gently.
“Sir, I believe you told me you had a meeting with the Sheriff today. It’s past time for you to be gone.”
“I…what? Why was I asleep?”
“I imagine that knock to the head could have made you drowsy sir.”
He didn’t feel drowsy. He felt new, and fresh. If a little bruised.
“Wait, the crone, where is she?”
“Doing business I expect. You’ll be late sir, and you look a bit of a state I’m afraid.”
He looked down. He did.
Well, Vaisey had seen him dusty and battered before, it wouldn’t come as a shock.
His ribs complained as he struggled into the saddle, marring a moment that was usually as natural as breathing. Though breathing didn’t feel that natural right now either.
Perhaps he’d broken something. He’d wager his horse that Hood didn’t have a mark on him.
He’d probably bounced. Or landed on Guy.
He usually galloped to the castle, but Hood had ruined even that simple pleasure for him today. Still, there was the smug realisation that he had kept something Hood wanted, and the jewellery rattled in his pocket as he rode.
It took him longer than he thought it would, trotting to the castle, so when he dismounted he went flying up the stairs at a less than dignified rate in an attempt to reach Vaisey’s chambers on time. He probably would have been fine, if the man hadn’t decided to take a stroll just to spite him.
They collided on the last corner that Guy flung himself round, and for the second time that day he found himself on the floor.
Except this time he was lying on top of the Sheriff, whose face seemed to be wavering between outraged, amused, and…something Guy wasn’t going to think about.
“Well Gisborne, if I knew you were so eager to see me I would have scheduled you in earlier.”
It didn’t matter what words the Sheriff actually used, there was always a tone in his voice that suggested Guy has become the butt of a dirty joke.
He hadn’t the defences to play this game today, so he scrambled upright, abandoning all pretence at decorum, and instead of helping Vaisey up, ducked his head and mumbled unintelligible apologies.
Once on his feet, Vaisey had time to run his eyes up and down Guy, an inspection he had become used to and was now almost undisturbed by. Almost.
“Well, you look a bit battered. Did that happen just now? Because I don’t feel nearly as bad as you look.’
“I fell off a roof.”
The Sheriff threw back his head and laughed.
“Taken up thatching? I’m almost sure you have peasants to do that.”
“No, I was chasing Hood.”
“Hood, well, you do get all the fun don’t you? And what was he after?”
“My valuables. But I saw him off.”
And that wasn’t exactly the truth, was it? But Guy had discovered a quiet thrill for knowing things Vaisey didn’t, about things that couldn’t really matter to him.
“Well, if you’ve had enough adventure for one day, perhaps we can continue business as usual in my chambers? Or would you rather go for a jog round the battlements?”
Guy obviously wasn’t supposed to answer that, so he followed in silence instead.
He’d sort of been hoping the conversation wouldn’t come around to ploughing and so, inevitably, it did.
“No matter what the season’s like, you’ll have a higher yield of course, now you’ve persuaded your peasants away from this only working two thirds of the land laziness.”
“Actually, we need to talk about that…”
“Talk? Guy…have you been indulging in creativity again? Really, it’s sweet of you to try and impress me by doing things you aren’t actually instructed to do with the idiot notion that it might somehow mean you can get me what I want whilst wilfully ignoring my orders, but I assure you, I find you just as captivating when you do what you’re damn well told.”
Well. This was off to a good start.
“I, Sir, it’s my duty to do what you want. And if I know a way of getting you what you want that you…don’t, then I should tell you. You’d be angry if I didn’t.”
Vaisey raised an eyebrow, and twirled his fingers in a gesture that may have meant continue, or possibly, I’m bored.
Guy decided to interpret it as permission.
“Well…have you ever ploughed a field?”
“Gisborne, when you fell off that roof, did you land on your head?”
“Sir, it sounds stupid, but really…”
He explained it to Vaisey, and was careful not to push it, to leave the man to his own conclusions about the yield.
“Hmm…Gisborne, is there actually a brain knocking around in that skull of yours? This kind of planning is only valuable in the long term.”
“Well, exactly.”
“Oh, you dolt.” Vaisey smiled, looking almost affectionate. “We are here to bleed the place dry, to get the resources to get John on the throne, and when he is, well, do you think we’ll be languishing in this backwater? No, we’ll be set up in the midst of civilisation. John’s favourites. And the favour of a king, Guy, is golden.”
Hood had the favour of a king. And twigs for blankets.
“Really Gisborne, I expected that to be greeted with something a little more like enthusiasm. Does the threat of luxury and security really depress you?”
“I can have that here. I thought…I thought you’d given me Locksley for my own, forever. For my line…”
“Gah! This sentimentalism of yours does gush all over the place at the strangest times. In future, I expect at least a day’s warning before you indulge in all this mushy…mush.”
He looked down, embarrassed.
“Oh, for the love of! Very well, Guy, I indulge you terribly, but seeing as it would make you happy to have empty fields littering your estates, and it’s always a pleasant change to see you actually smiling, you sulky bastard, and because I’ve had guardsmen knocking around the castle with nothing particular to do for a couple of weeks, I have a convenient solution to our problem.”
Guy left considerably more cheerful than he had arrived. It felt like he had achieved something, and he had the strangest urge to tell someone about it, but no one really to tell.
For the barest flicker of a moment Hood was in his mind, before the utter stupidity of that thought overwhelmed him. He hadn’t done this because of Hood. It was done because information presented to him demanded this action, because he was a responsible lord. One who could build a successful legacy with what he had been given.
Marian. He should tell Marian.
Her father looked uneasy, as he always did when it was Guy at the door, and he announced that Marian was riding through the village, visiting the sick or some other noble endeavour.
Well, he was here, he might as well find her.
In the end, it wasn’t that difficult.
He rode around the side of a peasant’s shack, and saw Marian, stood beside her horse, deep in conversation.
With the crone he had met earlier.
He stilled his horse, and listened.
“My lady, I know you are respected, very respected, by the people here, but I have no time for witchcraft. There are things I have to do.”
“Witchcraft? No, of course you don’t, clever little girl like you. But the truth is Marian, there are no witches. There are just women. Women who think too much, who say too much, who do too well. Women like you. Which is why I have a truth for you, sister to sister, kindly told perhaps, but not easily heard.”
Marian smiled politely, as if she wanted to break away from the conversation but didn’t know how.
“This is a truth for your beauty, and your intelligence, and your passion. It is an old truth.”
“Yes?”
“You can save no one but yourself.”
“That’s a harsh doctrine.”
“I’m not talking the food or the clothes or the money you bring, girl, that’s all the kind of saving that can be done, and you do it well. I’m talking about saving souls.”
“I’m not a priest.”
“No. You’re a woman. A bright, beautiful woman who has drawn men to her with more than a touch of darkness in them. That’s not yours to fight, child, they have to do that themselves.”
Marian recoiled slightly at this information, but Guy became very, very still.
“What-what is that supposed to mean?”
But then the crone caught sight of him.
“I think there’s someone better fitted to answer this question.”
Guy fled.
Unfortunately, Marian seemed to be his equal as a rider. Guy tried to tell himself that this could be explained by his bruises.
“Guy, Guy, wait!”
And fleeing from his intended on horseback was just a little too ridiculous for Guy, so he reigned in, and started the conversation on his own terms.
“That woman, who is she?”
“Morgan.”
“Morgan. What kind of answer is that?”
“The best I can find. She rides through, every five years or so. She always has.”
“Always?”
“My father says his father remembers being told she always rides through. She brings healing herbs, and advice.”
“The kind of things peasants would call magic and soothsaying?”
“I suppose. But you don’t need to worry about her, Guy, she doesn’t take sides.”
“Really. She seemed quite interested in your welfare.”
“Yes, well…it’s said she takes an interest sometimes, no one knows why. But she just talks. She won’t do anything.”
“Is she interested in Hood?” Guy snapped, quickly.
Marian blinked, and looked hesitant.
“Well?”
“I…I wouldn’t know. Why were you looking for me?”
“I need a reason?”
“You usually have one.”
Guy paused, to catch his breath, to calm down.
“I…I wanted to inform you I was enlarging my holdings.”
“Really? But Locksley is bounded by other estates to the east and west, the river to the south…and the forest to the north.”
“Of course. We will be chopping into the forest.”
Marian’s indrawn breath was audible.
“The forest? But those are the king’s woods!”
“I have permission from the Sheriff who will, no doubt, have permission from Ki…Prince John. I wanted to invite you to see the first trees fall tomorrow. We’ll burn them, make a proper celebration of the thing.” Marian stared at him blankly. “Aren’t you pleased?”
“Oh, yes, of course, it’s just, a feel a little dizzy. I should head home.”
“I’ll accompany you.”
“No! No, please Guy, its out of your way, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
When he rode away he felt agitated, and he didn’t sleep well that night.
The next day, when he rode to meet Vaisey at the outskirts of the forest he was positively shocked at the number of guardsmen he had felt necessary to bring with him.
“Is there anyone left actually defending the castle?”
“Why hello to you too Guy.”
“Sorry sir. Good Morning. Really though, does it take this many men to chop down trees?”
“It will if Hood shows up.”
“Why should he?”
“Well, wouldn’t you object if someone started chopping your home down around your ears?”
“I suppose.”
And in fact, it did seem to need more men to heave through trunks than Guy had realised. He felt a thrill every time one of those towering monarchs was beheaded, crashing down to the ground to a chorus of protest from birds and rodents, as they fled, twittering and shrieking.
By the time the men started on a particularly large oak, Marian had arrived and she looked downhearted.
“What’s the matter?”
“I used to climb that tree.”
“There are lots more oaks in Nottingham.”
“Not like that one. It’s a rite of passage for the children round here. You get the lord you serve to write your name on a ribbon, and tie it round the highest branch you can reach.”
No one had asked him to write on any ribbons.
“And where did you tie yours?”
“It’s on the second highest branch ever reached.”
“Of course”, he smiled, “whose was higher?”
But before Marian could reply, the protesting shrieks of birds were drowned out by something more articulate.
“NO! This is OUR TREE. You can’t have it!”
Leaning precariously from the branches of the oak, yelling at the soldiers, were a couple of brats that looked vaguely familiar to Guy.
“Cut it down!” Called the Sheriff.
“No!” Cried Marian. “Please!”
But the soldiers were taking their axes to the ancient wood.
“They’ll climb down if they’re smart enough to deserve to live.” Growled Vaisey.
And in fact, one of them was scrambling down, fast as could be, dodging round axe blows to scarper off into the greenwood.
“Stop! Stop, you…you…can’t you see he’s stuck?”
And as the blows thudded further into the trunk Guy spotted a brown haired lad, whose limbs could be seen thrashing wildly in panic, apparently hooked to the tree by the back of his jerkin.
“Evidently too stupid to live. Continue.”
And then Marian tried to bolt forward. Guy was faster.
“No. It’s more than your life’s worth.” She struggled in his grip.
“I don’t care. That’s my decision to make.”
And goddamn the woman, but she was hard to hold when she didn’t want to be. His hands snatched at bright fabric, and she was away. Guy was racing after her, without thought.
“Gisborne! Get a hold of her!”
And he did. Pinned her against the tree where the men had ground to a halt, not willing to catch Guy with a blade.
“Marian. The Sheriff will not be disobeyed.”
“And I will not be party to the murder of a child, Guy. Not now, and not ever.”
“For once in your life will you just listen!”
“No, you listen! What kind of wife do you want Gisborne? One that smiles blankly at you when you come home with blood on your hands? Who laughs at the number of poor you’ve starved? Who makes the dead lying at your feet not matter because there’s something pure and good lying in your bed? Because that isn’t me. And it never will be.”
Guy recoiled, as if she had struck him, and stood staring. She stared back, cold and certain.
And then Guy was climbing the tree.
He began to understand why this would be considered a rite of passage. The branches were far apart, and some of them bowed unnervingly beneath him. He’d passed more than a couple of ribbons on his way up, old and tattered, and he began to wonder if this hanging child had been aiming to break the record.
Vaisey’s angry yells weren’t getting any further away, no matter how fast he moved, and Guy tried to shift his attention to the placement of his hands, so he could plausibly deny hearing any instructions to come down.
A frantic scrabbling and sharp gasping came to his ears, and the lad’s feet were in view. They weren’t placed on anything, and the boy’s hands were free too, reaching desperately in front of him, to a higher branch.
There. A snapped limb protruding from the trunk had ripped through the boy’s clothes, leaving him to swing from the tree. He must have slipped.
But if he was trying to get free, it would have made more sense to reach for the branch to his left.
“What are you trying to do, you idiot boy?”
“Win. I’m going to be King of the Oak.” He didn’t seem phased by Guy’s presence, but kept stretching upwards, crumpled length of ribbon in his hand.
Guy snatched it away and read:
“Simon of Locksley. I didn’t write this for you.”
“No. I asked Morgan, on a dare. You’d have had my head. Chris said she’d turn me into a frog, and that would be worse, but she never did.”
“Well, the Sheriff is probably going to have your head anyway, when we get down.”
“It’ll be worth it, to break the record.”
Guy began shredding the lad’s jerkin, widening the tear to detach him from the oak.
“Enlighten me then. Who was stupid enough to scramble all the way up here before you?”
“Don’t you know anything? Robin’s been King of the Oak for years and years. I want to beat him. How amazing would that be? Beating Robin Hood!”
Guy started laughing.
The boy looked shocked. Peasants didn’t generally see him laugh.
Guy looked at the piece of jerkin he had in his hand, and then reached up, higher than a boy could reach. He tied it to the tree, and he grinned.
Beating Robin Hood.
Then the world began to tilt.
“Hold on!” The boy yelled, as if he needed advice from a twelve year old.
It was sickening to feel something as huge and stable as the oak lurch so violently under his hands, but the movement was short and swift.
When it stopped, everything was balanced at a precarious angle.
“What happened?” The boy hissed quietly, as if anything louder would bring the ground rushing up to meet them.
A familiar voice broke in.
“The Sheriff’s soldiers happened. They’d cut into the oak before Gisborne climbed up it, but lucky for you, it fell sideways into this tree and not straight down. Doubt it’ll hold for long now, better shift.”
“Robin Hood!” The child yelped in amazement.
Light eyes peered at them from between greenery.
“Hood, why do you look like a walking shrubbery?”
The outlaw had twigs and dirt and leaves all about him, nothing but the eyes betraying the man.
“Because I have a healthy aversion to parading myself in front of your men. Simon, get hold of Gisborne, Gisborne, get hold of this rope.”
The boy, freed from the tree, was attaching himself to Guy’s shoulders without even a by your leave.
“Why?”
“Because the tree I’m standing in made a really nasty noise when the monster you’re clinging to crashed into it, and it won’t last long. Now shut up and take hold. We’re going for a swing.”
And then the floor of Nottingham forest swung out beneath Guy’s feet. He might have screamed.
Pairing: Robin/Guy
Rating: PG-13
Warning: A bit of swearing.
A/N: The trees in the Sherwood forest in my head do not look like the trees in the forest in the show. That may or may not be evident here.
Summary: Sequel to Lion's Heart. In this part: Guy does not have concussion, and your topical issue is deforestation.
Part One
Guy sat at his hall table, staring at the trinkets he had pulled from the box.
A necklace, a bracelet, a ring. They featured some kind of green stone, which didn’t look particularly precious. Certainly not worth Hood or his servant risking their lives, or leaping off a roof. Not worth Guy’s bruises.
He wondered. Diamonds, perhaps he could have understood, or gold…
His thoughts were jarred by raised voices and the sound of a struggle at the door. Now he might learn why the guards had come stampeding into his house whilst he was in the roof space.
One of his men appeared, dragging an unfamiliar looking crone behind him. She was showering the man with expletives Guy had never even heard before, despite all his years spent around vulgar men of combat.
“Sir, we’ve found a witch, sir.”
“A witch?” He asked wearily.
“Yessir, she drove into the village with an ass and an old cart, and started handing out spells to the peasants sir.”
“Spells?!” The woman howled. “I have been coming through Locksley every five years, from before you were born, till after you die, you dung witted, slime brained, malodorous cretin, may your balls wither and die!”
Guy was impressed, but the guardsman looked terrified.
“Sir, see, she cursed me!”
Guy dropped the trinkets on the table, and prepared to tell the woman to get out of Locksley, when her narrowed attention made him pause.
“Oh, well now, where have they been hiding for so long?” She murmured.
“You recognise them?”
“Oh yes, they’re his mother’s.”
He waved the guardsman to leave.
“His? Hood’s?”
“Is that little Robin’s new name? Well, it will fit him I suppose, but Wood might have served him better. Of course I mean him, what other he could there be round here?”
Guy stared at her, searching for defiance, or scorn, but she simply held his gaze with an intensity that made him shift uncomfortably.
Christ, it was like being looked through.
She watched him move, silently, and then continued.
“That boy’s mother was the bravest woman you could ever hope to know.”
He suppressed a smile, and thought of Marian.
“I doubt it.”
“Well now, Sir Guy of Gisborne, is that so?”
She considered him again.
“Hmm…in the interest of civility, shall we have a trade?”
“I want none of your spells.”
“Good. Because I don’t cast them. But I can tell truths, and I can tell you why you had to fight for those baubles you’re holding, provided you allow me to finish up my business on this estate.”
He nodded his agreement. He could always have her arrested after she’d said her piece.
The crone grinned, and looked a little bit wicked, before taking a seat without asking.
Guy took a sip from the cup next to him before she began. It tasted bitter.
“The woman that wore those was full of such love like you’ve never seen, and Robin was her darling. She was strong, and fierce, but she’d never tell him no.”
That explained a lot.
“And she loved Locksley. Her husband died, when the babe was little, so she loved the village instead of the man. And she loved its people, and she fought for them in bad harvests and cold winters, and in plagues as well. She helped one sickening starving thing too many though, and sickened herself and died. And Robin only half a man, running an estate, and no one to love him but some servants and these peasants, and the shadow of a distant king…but, by the look of you, that’s more than you’ve had, yes? You’re brave, stepping between him and his people. His ground. Or stupid.”
Guy’s discomfort didn’t blossom into anger, as was usual. He was lost somewhere in her words, vaguely comprehending the idea that she could tell him more than that Locksley had loved his mother.
“Ground?” He repeated, and wondered why it was hard to say the word, why everything was suddenly soft, and distant.
“Oh yes. This ground knows him, knows him deep. Must be his blood is in it, but it’s more than that. You can feel it in the woods too. The trees know him. This whole place waits for him when he’s not here. Even someone as dull as you must feel that? All that silence whilst he was gone. The cold dark quiet nights that called him, waiting for him, and now. Now all the noise and the fire and the life! Because he’s back. Back!”
She paused for a moment, because her words had been whipping out faster and faster, and Gisborne was struggling to hold them in his mind.
She began to whisper.
“The ground has remembered how to breathe. Here there is nothing really real unless Robin has a hand in it. Strange times.”
“What…what does this have to do with me?” He struggled with his question, struggled to sit up straighter, but everything was sliding away.
“Oh, Robin’s truths are the ones that matter round here.”
No, he wanted to say, but couldn’t.
Then she was leaving, and Guy’s eyes were slipping closed.
Thornton shook him awake gently.
“Sir, I believe you told me you had a meeting with the Sheriff today. It’s past time for you to be gone.”
“I…what? Why was I asleep?”
“I imagine that knock to the head could have made you drowsy sir.”
He didn’t feel drowsy. He felt new, and fresh. If a little bruised.
“Wait, the crone, where is she?”
“Doing business I expect. You’ll be late sir, and you look a bit of a state I’m afraid.”
He looked down. He did.
Well, Vaisey had seen him dusty and battered before, it wouldn’t come as a shock.
His ribs complained as he struggled into the saddle, marring a moment that was usually as natural as breathing. Though breathing didn’t feel that natural right now either.
Perhaps he’d broken something. He’d wager his horse that Hood didn’t have a mark on him.
He’d probably bounced. Or landed on Guy.
He usually galloped to the castle, but Hood had ruined even that simple pleasure for him today. Still, there was the smug realisation that he had kept something Hood wanted, and the jewellery rattled in his pocket as he rode.
It took him longer than he thought it would, trotting to the castle, so when he dismounted he went flying up the stairs at a less than dignified rate in an attempt to reach Vaisey’s chambers on time. He probably would have been fine, if the man hadn’t decided to take a stroll just to spite him.
They collided on the last corner that Guy flung himself round, and for the second time that day he found himself on the floor.
Except this time he was lying on top of the Sheriff, whose face seemed to be wavering between outraged, amused, and…something Guy wasn’t going to think about.
“Well Gisborne, if I knew you were so eager to see me I would have scheduled you in earlier.”
It didn’t matter what words the Sheriff actually used, there was always a tone in his voice that suggested Guy has become the butt of a dirty joke.
He hadn’t the defences to play this game today, so he scrambled upright, abandoning all pretence at decorum, and instead of helping Vaisey up, ducked his head and mumbled unintelligible apologies.
Once on his feet, Vaisey had time to run his eyes up and down Guy, an inspection he had become used to and was now almost undisturbed by. Almost.
“Well, you look a bit battered. Did that happen just now? Because I don’t feel nearly as bad as you look.’
“I fell off a roof.”
The Sheriff threw back his head and laughed.
“Taken up thatching? I’m almost sure you have peasants to do that.”
“No, I was chasing Hood.”
“Hood, well, you do get all the fun don’t you? And what was he after?”
“My valuables. But I saw him off.”
And that wasn’t exactly the truth, was it? But Guy had discovered a quiet thrill for knowing things Vaisey didn’t, about things that couldn’t really matter to him.
“Well, if you’ve had enough adventure for one day, perhaps we can continue business as usual in my chambers? Or would you rather go for a jog round the battlements?”
Guy obviously wasn’t supposed to answer that, so he followed in silence instead.
He’d sort of been hoping the conversation wouldn’t come around to ploughing and so, inevitably, it did.
“No matter what the season’s like, you’ll have a higher yield of course, now you’ve persuaded your peasants away from this only working two thirds of the land laziness.”
“Actually, we need to talk about that…”
“Talk? Guy…have you been indulging in creativity again? Really, it’s sweet of you to try and impress me by doing things you aren’t actually instructed to do with the idiot notion that it might somehow mean you can get me what I want whilst wilfully ignoring my orders, but I assure you, I find you just as captivating when you do what you’re damn well told.”
Well. This was off to a good start.
“I, Sir, it’s my duty to do what you want. And if I know a way of getting you what you want that you…don’t, then I should tell you. You’d be angry if I didn’t.”
Vaisey raised an eyebrow, and twirled his fingers in a gesture that may have meant continue, or possibly, I’m bored.
Guy decided to interpret it as permission.
“Well…have you ever ploughed a field?”
“Gisborne, when you fell off that roof, did you land on your head?”
“Sir, it sounds stupid, but really…”
He explained it to Vaisey, and was careful not to push it, to leave the man to his own conclusions about the yield.
“Hmm…Gisborne, is there actually a brain knocking around in that skull of yours? This kind of planning is only valuable in the long term.”
“Well, exactly.”
“Oh, you dolt.” Vaisey smiled, looking almost affectionate. “We are here to bleed the place dry, to get the resources to get John on the throne, and when he is, well, do you think we’ll be languishing in this backwater? No, we’ll be set up in the midst of civilisation. John’s favourites. And the favour of a king, Guy, is golden.”
Hood had the favour of a king. And twigs for blankets.
“Really Gisborne, I expected that to be greeted with something a little more like enthusiasm. Does the threat of luxury and security really depress you?”
“I can have that here. I thought…I thought you’d given me Locksley for my own, forever. For my line…”
“Gah! This sentimentalism of yours does gush all over the place at the strangest times. In future, I expect at least a day’s warning before you indulge in all this mushy…mush.”
He looked down, embarrassed.
“Oh, for the love of! Very well, Guy, I indulge you terribly, but seeing as it would make you happy to have empty fields littering your estates, and it’s always a pleasant change to see you actually smiling, you sulky bastard, and because I’ve had guardsmen knocking around the castle with nothing particular to do for a couple of weeks, I have a convenient solution to our problem.”
Guy left considerably more cheerful than he had arrived. It felt like he had achieved something, and he had the strangest urge to tell someone about it, but no one really to tell.
For the barest flicker of a moment Hood was in his mind, before the utter stupidity of that thought overwhelmed him. He hadn’t done this because of Hood. It was done because information presented to him demanded this action, because he was a responsible lord. One who could build a successful legacy with what he had been given.
Marian. He should tell Marian.
Her father looked uneasy, as he always did when it was Guy at the door, and he announced that Marian was riding through the village, visiting the sick or some other noble endeavour.
Well, he was here, he might as well find her.
In the end, it wasn’t that difficult.
He rode around the side of a peasant’s shack, and saw Marian, stood beside her horse, deep in conversation.
With the crone he had met earlier.
He stilled his horse, and listened.
“My lady, I know you are respected, very respected, by the people here, but I have no time for witchcraft. There are things I have to do.”
“Witchcraft? No, of course you don’t, clever little girl like you. But the truth is Marian, there are no witches. There are just women. Women who think too much, who say too much, who do too well. Women like you. Which is why I have a truth for you, sister to sister, kindly told perhaps, but not easily heard.”
Marian smiled politely, as if she wanted to break away from the conversation but didn’t know how.
“This is a truth for your beauty, and your intelligence, and your passion. It is an old truth.”
“Yes?”
“You can save no one but yourself.”
“That’s a harsh doctrine.”
“I’m not talking the food or the clothes or the money you bring, girl, that’s all the kind of saving that can be done, and you do it well. I’m talking about saving souls.”
“I’m not a priest.”
“No. You’re a woman. A bright, beautiful woman who has drawn men to her with more than a touch of darkness in them. That’s not yours to fight, child, they have to do that themselves.”
Marian recoiled slightly at this information, but Guy became very, very still.
“What-what is that supposed to mean?”
But then the crone caught sight of him.
“I think there’s someone better fitted to answer this question.”
Guy fled.
Unfortunately, Marian seemed to be his equal as a rider. Guy tried to tell himself that this could be explained by his bruises.
“Guy, Guy, wait!”
And fleeing from his intended on horseback was just a little too ridiculous for Guy, so he reigned in, and started the conversation on his own terms.
“That woman, who is she?”
“Morgan.”
“Morgan. What kind of answer is that?”
“The best I can find. She rides through, every five years or so. She always has.”
“Always?”
“My father says his father remembers being told she always rides through. She brings healing herbs, and advice.”
“The kind of things peasants would call magic and soothsaying?”
“I suppose. But you don’t need to worry about her, Guy, she doesn’t take sides.”
“Really. She seemed quite interested in your welfare.”
“Yes, well…it’s said she takes an interest sometimes, no one knows why. But she just talks. She won’t do anything.”
“Is she interested in Hood?” Guy snapped, quickly.
Marian blinked, and looked hesitant.
“Well?”
“I…I wouldn’t know. Why were you looking for me?”
“I need a reason?”
“You usually have one.”
Guy paused, to catch his breath, to calm down.
“I…I wanted to inform you I was enlarging my holdings.”
“Really? But Locksley is bounded by other estates to the east and west, the river to the south…and the forest to the north.”
“Of course. We will be chopping into the forest.”
Marian’s indrawn breath was audible.
“The forest? But those are the king’s woods!”
“I have permission from the Sheriff who will, no doubt, have permission from Ki…Prince John. I wanted to invite you to see the first trees fall tomorrow. We’ll burn them, make a proper celebration of the thing.” Marian stared at him blankly. “Aren’t you pleased?”
“Oh, yes, of course, it’s just, a feel a little dizzy. I should head home.”
“I’ll accompany you.”
“No! No, please Guy, its out of your way, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
When he rode away he felt agitated, and he didn’t sleep well that night.
The next day, when he rode to meet Vaisey at the outskirts of the forest he was positively shocked at the number of guardsmen he had felt necessary to bring with him.
“Is there anyone left actually defending the castle?”
“Why hello to you too Guy.”
“Sorry sir. Good Morning. Really though, does it take this many men to chop down trees?”
“It will if Hood shows up.”
“Why should he?”
“Well, wouldn’t you object if someone started chopping your home down around your ears?”
“I suppose.”
And in fact, it did seem to need more men to heave through trunks than Guy had realised. He felt a thrill every time one of those towering monarchs was beheaded, crashing down to the ground to a chorus of protest from birds and rodents, as they fled, twittering and shrieking.
By the time the men started on a particularly large oak, Marian had arrived and she looked downhearted.
“What’s the matter?”
“I used to climb that tree.”
“There are lots more oaks in Nottingham.”
“Not like that one. It’s a rite of passage for the children round here. You get the lord you serve to write your name on a ribbon, and tie it round the highest branch you can reach.”
No one had asked him to write on any ribbons.
“And where did you tie yours?”
“It’s on the second highest branch ever reached.”
“Of course”, he smiled, “whose was higher?”
But before Marian could reply, the protesting shrieks of birds were drowned out by something more articulate.
“NO! This is OUR TREE. You can’t have it!”
Leaning precariously from the branches of the oak, yelling at the soldiers, were a couple of brats that looked vaguely familiar to Guy.
“Cut it down!” Called the Sheriff.
“No!” Cried Marian. “Please!”
But the soldiers were taking their axes to the ancient wood.
“They’ll climb down if they’re smart enough to deserve to live.” Growled Vaisey.
And in fact, one of them was scrambling down, fast as could be, dodging round axe blows to scarper off into the greenwood.
“Stop! Stop, you…you…can’t you see he’s stuck?”
And as the blows thudded further into the trunk Guy spotted a brown haired lad, whose limbs could be seen thrashing wildly in panic, apparently hooked to the tree by the back of his jerkin.
“Evidently too stupid to live. Continue.”
And then Marian tried to bolt forward. Guy was faster.
“No. It’s more than your life’s worth.” She struggled in his grip.
“I don’t care. That’s my decision to make.”
And goddamn the woman, but she was hard to hold when she didn’t want to be. His hands snatched at bright fabric, and she was away. Guy was racing after her, without thought.
“Gisborne! Get a hold of her!”
And he did. Pinned her against the tree where the men had ground to a halt, not willing to catch Guy with a blade.
“Marian. The Sheriff will not be disobeyed.”
“And I will not be party to the murder of a child, Guy. Not now, and not ever.”
“For once in your life will you just listen!”
“No, you listen! What kind of wife do you want Gisborne? One that smiles blankly at you when you come home with blood on your hands? Who laughs at the number of poor you’ve starved? Who makes the dead lying at your feet not matter because there’s something pure and good lying in your bed? Because that isn’t me. And it never will be.”
Guy recoiled, as if she had struck him, and stood staring. She stared back, cold and certain.
And then Guy was climbing the tree.
He began to understand why this would be considered a rite of passage. The branches were far apart, and some of them bowed unnervingly beneath him. He’d passed more than a couple of ribbons on his way up, old and tattered, and he began to wonder if this hanging child had been aiming to break the record.
Vaisey’s angry yells weren’t getting any further away, no matter how fast he moved, and Guy tried to shift his attention to the placement of his hands, so he could plausibly deny hearing any instructions to come down.
A frantic scrabbling and sharp gasping came to his ears, and the lad’s feet were in view. They weren’t placed on anything, and the boy’s hands were free too, reaching desperately in front of him, to a higher branch.
There. A snapped limb protruding from the trunk had ripped through the boy’s clothes, leaving him to swing from the tree. He must have slipped.
But if he was trying to get free, it would have made more sense to reach for the branch to his left.
“What are you trying to do, you idiot boy?”
“Win. I’m going to be King of the Oak.” He didn’t seem phased by Guy’s presence, but kept stretching upwards, crumpled length of ribbon in his hand.
Guy snatched it away and read:
“Simon of Locksley. I didn’t write this for you.”
“No. I asked Morgan, on a dare. You’d have had my head. Chris said she’d turn me into a frog, and that would be worse, but she never did.”
“Well, the Sheriff is probably going to have your head anyway, when we get down.”
“It’ll be worth it, to break the record.”
Guy began shredding the lad’s jerkin, widening the tear to detach him from the oak.
“Enlighten me then. Who was stupid enough to scramble all the way up here before you?”
“Don’t you know anything? Robin’s been King of the Oak for years and years. I want to beat him. How amazing would that be? Beating Robin Hood!”
Guy started laughing.
The boy looked shocked. Peasants didn’t generally see him laugh.
Guy looked at the piece of jerkin he had in his hand, and then reached up, higher than a boy could reach. He tied it to the tree, and he grinned.
Beating Robin Hood.
Then the world began to tilt.
“Hold on!” The boy yelled, as if he needed advice from a twelve year old.
It was sickening to feel something as huge and stable as the oak lurch so violently under his hands, but the movement was short and swift.
When it stopped, everything was balanced at a precarious angle.
“What happened?” The boy hissed quietly, as if anything louder would bring the ground rushing up to meet them.
A familiar voice broke in.
“The Sheriff’s soldiers happened. They’d cut into the oak before Gisborne climbed up it, but lucky for you, it fell sideways into this tree and not straight down. Doubt it’ll hold for long now, better shift.”
“Robin Hood!” The child yelped in amazement.
Light eyes peered at them from between greenery.
“Hood, why do you look like a walking shrubbery?”
The outlaw had twigs and dirt and leaves all about him, nothing but the eyes betraying the man.
“Because I have a healthy aversion to parading myself in front of your men. Simon, get hold of Gisborne, Gisborne, get hold of this rope.”
The boy, freed from the tree, was attaching himself to Guy’s shoulders without even a by your leave.
“Why?”
“Because the tree I’m standing in made a really nasty noise when the monster you’re clinging to crashed into it, and it won’t last long. Now shut up and take hold. We’re going for a swing.”
And then the floor of Nottingham forest swung out beneath Guy’s feet. He might have screamed.
