From Ashes, Through the Fire (English) (From Ashes Vol.3)

Chapter 30 - Quench My Thirst

Allan hid his head under the pillow, trying to muffle the crying of the newborns, without success.
With a sigh, he gave up trying to sleep and got out of bed.
He went downstairs, to the kitchen, to look for something to eat and he was about to bite a piece of bread when he realized that someone was trying to get into the house from one of the back windows. He took a poker from the fireplace and he prepared to attack the intruder, but the other reacted and pressed him against the wall, twisting an arm behind his back and pressing a hand over his mouth to stop him from screaming.
"Allan, it's me!"
"Giz?"
Guy let him go and Allan turned to look at him, rubbing his arm.
"Where have you been? And what happened to you?"
Gisborne limped to the chair by the fireplace and he sat down with a sigh.
"Clun."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"In two we would have attracted too much attention."
"And going alone it went well, I see." Allan said ironically.
"It went well until Marian put a knife to my throat."
"Marian?!"
"Apparently she had my same idea."
Allan sat down on the other chair.
"I wonder why it doesn't surprise me. And did she do this to you?"
"This what?"
"You are sore, full of scratches and exhausted. You don't look well, Giz, really."
Guy smiled, amused.
"You don't look well either, to tell the truth."
Allan looked at the ceiling, and they listened to Djaq and Will's children wailing.
"Do you think anyone could sleep with this unbearable sound?" He asked, but Guy didn't answer him. "Giz?"
Allan stared at his friend in disbelief: Gisborne had closed his eyes and had fallen asleep deeply.
He sighed.
"Lucky him, who can sleep."

Isabella looked for a dry spot inside that dilapidated house and she found with relief that dry and fairly clean straw had been amassed in a corner. Probably that shelter was used occasionally by shepherds and travelers who had created a comfortable corner to rest.
The straw would warm them up and allow her and Robin to sleep on a mattress softer than the ground.
She untied her sodden wool cloak and she hanged it on a rope stretched between two opposite walls.
Perhaps in spring and summer the peasants used it to hang the herbs to be dried.
Robin took the water flask out of one of the saddlebags and he looked at it, worried.
"I didn't have time to fill it before leaving, I'm sorry."
Isabella looked at the sky from one of the windows of the hut.
"We should have thought about it earlier, when it rained so much.
"It didn't really occur to me, I've been a fool." Robin admitted, reproaching himself for that mistake.
"Tomorrow we will find a well or a stream." Isabella said, then she rummaged in one of the bags that she had hidden on herself and she handed Robin a pendant tied to a chain. "For now, take this."
The outlaw looked at the stone pendant, perplexed.
"Why?"
Isabella had chosen one too, and she dangled it between her fingers, holding it by the chain, then she brought it close to her lips.
"If you are very thirsty, put the stone in your mouth, it will make it water."
Robin looked at her, surprised and amused.
"And how do you know that?"
The woman shook her head sadly.
"Guy taught it to me when we were in France. Sometimes we could not get even some water..."
Robin approached her and he sat next to her on the straw, watching her. Isabella had changed and she no longer looked like the shy, quiet child he remembered from his childhood. The one in front of her was a woman hardened by suffering, but who in all those years had not lost her courage, though she probably didn't realize it. Perhaps she believed she was a victim, but Robin felt that Isabella was a fighter instead.
He saw her tremble with cold and he instinctively put an arm around her shoulders to warm her.
Isabella jumped at the unexpected contact and she turned to look at him, frightened. Robin guessed that for her to be touched usually meant violence and pain and he thought it wasn't right.
He smiled at her, reassuring.
"Everything is alright," he whispered. "Nobody will harm you anymore."
Isabella stared at him hesitantly, then she answered to his smile. In Robin Hood's eyes there was no malice or cruelty, but only comfort, encouragement, and something else she couldn't define, but that didn't frighten her.
Robin stroked her cheek to wipe away the tears that Isabella had not even realized she had shed and that slow and kind gesture made her heart beat faster.
When Robin started to pull his fingers away, Isabella put a hand on his to stop him. She didn't know why, but she did not want that contact to stop, that kind touch was good for the heart like water for a thirsty person.
"Why are you crying?" Robin asked, seeing new tears appearing in the woman's eyes.
"I don't know." Isabella whispered. And it was true. She didn't feel sad or frightened, just swollen with an emotion that she could neither understand nor control.
Hesitantly, she raised a hand to imitate Robin's gesture to touch his face and slid her fingers down his cheek and down the jawline, smiling as she felt the short beard of the outlaw tickling her.
Robin moved closer and touched Isabella's lips with his, gently.
The woman stiffened for a moment, thinking of her husband's violent kisses, more like bites and that often left her with swollen and bleeding lips, but she relaxed immediately.
This was different: tender kisses, kind and given with the intent to give pleasure and not pain. They were warm and comforting and they made her feel good. When their lips parted, Isabella joined them again.

Marian blushed to see the sign of a bruise on her cheekbone and she wondered how she would explain it. It had been the slap of the fake Nightwatchman to leave it on her face, but she could not blame him for having hit her, since she had tried to slit his throat.
On the contrary, she had to admit that probably the man had saved her life, dragging her with him when they ran away. If he had not wasted his time with her, he would have probably managed to escape without the slightest difficulty, but instead he had risked being captured too, just to help her.
She sighed, irritated. She didn't like the idea of owing him her life, it would have been much easier to hate him for stealing her identity.
She didn't want to feel admiration for him, she felt unfaithful to Guy whenever the Nightwatchman behaved in a way or showed qualities that she would like to see in her future husband.
She could not forget that when Robin was captured, Guy had to bow to the sheriff's wishes and he had whipped Robin, while the Nightwatchman had risked his life to free him.
She sighed.
She would have liked to find out that the fake Nightwatchman was actually Guy, and at first she had hoped he could be him, but Robin's rescue had dissolved that secret fantasy.
Both Robin and Gisborne were in the castle courtyard when the Nightwatchman intervened, so the masked man couldn't be either of them. Indeed, Guy had come out of it rather battered and humiliated.
Marian felt guilty for those thoughts. Guy had been heroic when he had saved her and fought Barret and he was now doing his best to make her proud of him.
And she was, really, even if sometimes she forgot it.
He tried to comb her hair to hide both the bruise and the scar on her cheekbone and she consoled herself, thinking that at least the poor inhabitants of Clun would get back some of their belongings.
Little John had been very happy to receive the cart loaded with food and objects, although at first he was a little surprised to see her wear the Nightwatchman costume again.
She wondered where Robin and Much were, for a while she hadn't heard of any of their deeds, unlike the Nightwatchman who seemed to be more active than usual.
She had tried to ask Little John, but the big man had just taken the reins of the wagon and advised her to hurry back to Locksley.
Marian gave up trying to fix her hair and she looked at the strip of fabric with the eye holes she had used to hide her face. She would have to get a real mask, she thought, completely forgetting that she had promised to give up the Nightwatchman.