Outlaw Guy

A Way Back

A Way Back

Guy, (no Dear, he notices, but then why should there be)

Plans are in hand. My father and I leave the castle tonight. Robin knows. He will meet you at Dead Man’s Crossing three days hence, at sundown. Come alone and make sure no one follows you. When Robin and his men see you are by yourself, they will show themselves.

Marian.

He stares at the letter, willing the ink to bleed something other than the impersonal Marian onto the parchment; even a Yours preceding it would suffice. But no.

Post scriptum: Burn this after reading.

Guy glances at the horn-covered window. Though it is hard to see through it, greyed as it is by wood-smoke from countless fires in the airless room, he can still make out the blue sky beyond.

If all went well, Marian is long gone. If, as she slipped the letter underneath his door last evening, she had knocked to say goodbye, he had heard no such knock. The jug of wine had done its job; for a short while, he had escaped the pain of knowing that Marian loved Robin Hood and intended to marry him, along with the pain of his stitched leg. He even escaped his nightmares for once.

He had promised Marian he would take her place, become Robin’s spy. He would happily have promised to become a monk and spend the rest of his days in prayer if it meant getting Marian to leave the castle, lessening the chances of the sheriff discovering her treachery and sentencing her to death. He is almost glad that his fever will put paid to such a foolish promise; Guy knows he has neither the wit nor the guile to deceive the sheriff the way Marian has deceived him these past years. His only regret is that he will not be able to keep the proposed rendezvous with Robin. Marian will think he has let her down – yet again.

Trying to still his trembling hands, he returns his attention to the letter. Marian has such neat handwriting. He wonders if Djaq knows how to read and write and suspects she does, and probably in more than one language.  

He reads the letter one more time, memorising its contents (even though he knows he has little chance of making it out his bedchamber alive) and then shoves it into the feeble fire burning in the grate. The parchment smoulders, blackens at the edges.

Footsteps echo down the corridor: a servant with his wine and meal.

Dragging the thick blanket from his bed, Guy wraps it around himself and then limps back to the fire. He stabs the smoking parchment with a poker and, at last, it catches light, fiery orange and blue flames obliterating Marian’s carefully inked words. Guy watches, transfixed, until it is nothing but crispy black fragments.

The footsteps pass by his door and fade away. Perhaps they have forgotten about him. He doesn’t care. He is beyond wanting either food or drink. He wishes only to stop shivering, to be warm. His teeth are banging together so hard he fears they might shatter.

He turns towards the bed intending to lie down. This is how they will find him when someone, a guard or servant, eventually unlocks his bedchamber door: face upwards, staring blindly at a canopy of trees that aren’t there.

Eyeing the stained bedsheet, he thinks, let it not be the sheriff.

An image of a nine-year-old Isabella, his sister, comes to mind. With her free hand – the other caught up in her thick wavy hair, curling it around her fingers – she points at his unmade bed. “Two and ten and you still wet the bed, Guy Crispin.” She gives him a spiteful smile. “Mama will not be pleased when I tell her.”

I hope your husband, Thornton, makes you cry, little sister.

Shivering uncontrollably now, Guy lies on the cold wet bed. Staring at the ceiling, he waits for the darkness he knows must surely come soon.