Everything is a Choice

Chapter 9

Previously...

Carefully, Salim sets the jug on the deck and comes to his feet.  He walks over to the mast and picks up the one arrow that did not fall into the sea.  He lumbers back to me and places the arrow in my lap.

I curl my fingers around the smooth ash shaft, the sleek line of it blurring as I stare at its deadly beauty. 

Salim touches my shoulder. “There is an answer, Robin Hood. Always, there is an answer.”  He gives me a sad little smile.  Then, along with his jug, he waddles away. 

An answer.  I stand up, nock the arrow and take aim.

Chapter 9

The grey and white goose feather-fletched arrow arcs out over the water, in the direction of the Holy Land, towards Marian’s resting place because, suddenly, it all makes sense. I have my answer.

Since leaving Acre, I’ve been trying to find a way forward.  Now, I am convinced the answer does not lie in front of me, but behind, in the place I’ve just come from.  Now I understand what my conversations with Gisborne have been all about.  I wanted to make sense of her death, so that when I get back to England I will be able to finish what we started: to put England back to rights. But it hadn’t worked, to the point where I can’t even shoot straight. And the reason it hadn’t worked is that there is no sense to be made of it.  Because death in such a manner is senseless, – Marian’s death had been senseless – and I know I don’t have it in me to carry on, no matter how much she would have wanted me to, not without her.

When the ship docks in France, I will bid farewell to my friends, and I will return to the Holy Land, on the pretext of helping King Richard make peace, but really in the knowledge that I have returned to be with Marian.  For I am certain my death will come swiftly, and then I can be buried alongside her, and, right now, that is the only notion that makes any sense at all.

Feeling calmer, I pick up my bow and empty quiver and make my way below decks.  As I walk, I ponder on why Salim had hidden his ability to speak English and guess that he has his reasons.

I still need to apologise to Much, see if I can make up for the way I’ve treated him these past few days; but before that, I decide I could do with a bit of light relief and, certain I can rely on Allan on that score, I resolve to seek him out.

~

My hunch about where I might find Allan proves correct. When I enter the crew’s galley, I find him sitting in the midst of a group of less than sober men, bandying about the odd word of badly pronounced Arabic, juggling both coins and his tatty rectangles of parchment in rapid succession.

I watch him for a moment, envying his simplistic life, and then smile when I see his frustration beginning to show as he fails to make them understand how the game works.

“Can I help?” I ask, squatting next to him.

Allan turns to me, eyes my empty quiver. “Bad day?”

“Something like that.”

He turns back to the game. Salim is among the group of players. Face screwed up in puzzlement, he is busily studying his bits of parchment and, for the moment, doesn’t notice me.

“Salim speaks English,” I whisper in Allan’s ear. 

“You what?”

“He speaks English, and I’m guessing some of the others do, too.”

“But they’ve been gibbering away to me in Arabic.”

“Of course,” I smile. “They want to win.”