The Forgotten Keepsake

Chapter 24

XXIV

Human beings are one of the very few species upon the earth to worship the ideal of monogamous love. And as romantic and beautiful a concept it is, the truth is that for many, this concept does not fit. Indeed how could it? There are so many different people in this great wide world, how can one ideal of love apply to us all?

Perhaps we are more like other species that we would like to admit and as much as our sentimental side rebels at the notion, it is absolutely possible to love two people at the same time.

One could argue that in such a case that the love in question could not be a great love or that the person who loves is not loving with their whole heart but then again, how exactly does one quantify how great a love is? And what of other forms of love other than romantic love, such as for example, familial love? Is our love for our parents or siblings diminished by having more than one parent or sibling? Of course not. We love our family members with our whole heart and having more than one person to love in this way does not diminish our love in any way.

Please do not misunderstand dear reader; this is not a treatise to cheat on your spouse – we have not totally lost the plot here, it is merely an attempt to understand that at this point in the story, our man – Sir Guy of Gisborne was very much in love with two people.

We cannot see into his head, we cannot read his mind, we cannot see what he was thinking or feeling, but on that summer night in Castlebrook, as he lay by the river entwined with Mina - one of the women he loved, he loved as only a man could love who knows he shall not see his love again – that is to say with his whole heart and nothing less.

He made a small fire and they lay down beside it, touching and talking, kissing and caressing, being everything to each other before the morning came and they would have to part.

It was here that he finally found the courage to tell her of his life, to answer her many questions, to take comfort in whatever consolation she could give and to unburden himself of so much he'd had to carry with him for as long as he could remember.

He talked of his childhood on the Gisborne estate, of his parents and sister and of the sad fate that had befallen them all. He talked of his youth, of swearing fealty to Vaisey, of having to prove himself and all that had entailed – not leaving out the dark day he and Mina had stood embracing in the ruins of Castlebrook all those years ago. He talked of Vaisey and his schemes, the terrible things that he'd had to do to satisfy a man who was never satisfied and how it never seemed to end; there was always another person in the way, another enemy to be defeated, another setback to their plans. He talked of how he had come to live with it all – the man he'd had to become to live this life, where doing the most godawful things was practically routine.

He talked of his former betrothed who Mina was astounded to learn was the very same Lady Marian who had sat eating lunch with herself and Mary a day before the attack on Clun. It shocked and angered her that the lady had deliberately withheld having any connection to Guy and she wondered what motive could Marian have had to deceive her so. She wanted to ask Guy about it but then decided to let it be, to let him tell her of all that had happened between them - the engagement, the failed wedding, the aftermath and the current situation. She could see that in many respects he was taken in; that everything between Marian and Guy was on her terms, she was receptive to his advances when it suited but then had no problem to leave him high and dry when not. It made her blood boil to hear him speak of Marian as if she was some innocent but she held her tongue – she hardly knew the woman and had not had the opportunity to hear her side of the story. She also knew that her own love of Guy and the jealousy she naturally felt where Marian was concerned was clouding her judgement here. As Guy then told her that Marian had recently lost her father that cemented her decision to remain silent on the subject, she knew all too well the pain of loss and could not speak ill of somebody currently suffering such pain.

And so she let him tell her all he wanted and needed to tell her and made no move to interrupt.

And because she loved him, and was the only person to have ever listened to him in this way, he laid it all bare and told her everything; from attempting to assassinate the King to the never ending cat and mouse chase with the outlaws, from the appalling things Vaisey had on occasion done to him to the desperate hope that maybe someday Marian might learn to love him.

He told her and she listened to it all.

He talked on into the night - sometimes burying his face in her hair so she would not see the tears welling in his eyes, sometimes pulling her so close she could hardly breathe, sometimes kissing her with such abandon that she knew not how she had lived all this time without having tasted such kisses.

It was in the last hours before the dawn that he made love to her by the embers of the fire and as they lay sleepily kissing in the afterglow, he slipped the stone into her palm.

Their story had come full circle.

He was giving back to her the gift she had given him all those years ago.

The way she looked at him, the look of wonder on her face as she realised what it was he had just given to her was an image he hoped would never fade from his memory for all of his remaining days.

"You kept it?"

"Yes little one, I did."