Everything is a Choice

Chapter 23

Previously...

"Where's Rowena?" I ask.

"She said she had something to do and went off," Allan says. "Look, not being funny, but Prince John is hardly going to leave it at that, is he?"

"No," I say. "He sent those men to fetch Rowena yesterday; I'm certain of that. But it won't be long before he learns we're back, and when he does, he'll send more men than he did yesterday. Vaisey always wanted to make a showpiece of our deaths, but I doubt John wants anything more than to get us out of the way and quickly. We need to make a plan."

John, Much and Allan nod their heads and wait for me to speak further.

"We need to find out what's going on in Nottingham, but we need to do it from a safe distance. Definitely not here."

"The camp," John says.

I nod. Slipping my hand inside my shirt, I clutch Marian's ring. I will bury it in Sherwood Forest, beneath the Kissing Tree. 

Chapter 23

Rowena is loosing arrows at the sapling we embedded our arrows in yesterday morning. She is lost in the discipline and doesn't see me watching her. My God, I think, was it really only yesterday? It feels like a lifetime ago.

As I watch her, my thoughts turn to Sherwood and my decision to move back to the camp. Even though the camp is weatherproof, it is hard living in a forest in cold weather. Although the days are still mild, the leaves are starting to brown and fall. Winter is on its way. However, I see no other option. Prince John will not delay in sending men to hunt us down. We will be safe in the camp and can make plans. Of course, that also means leaving my people and I have no doubt they will be made to suffer because of what we did yesterday. Prince John is unlikely to take the death of his knights as lightly as Vaisey used to take the death of his inept guards.

Yesterday. A day of anger and bloodshed. A day of agonised longing and clouded reason. In the world playing out in front of me now — women hanging washing, men working the earth, children playing — I can hardly believe yesterday happened.

Much had told it true. John and Allan have cleared away all traces of the dead knights, including their dropped weapons. Even the dead horses are gone now. I wonder about the knight who drowned and suspect he remains at the bottom of the pond. I think of my swimming race long ago with Guy and hope to God today's children of Locksley stay out of the pond, at least until the body has rotted away.

The only signs of the fight are the numerous hoof and boot prints on the ground and traces of blood. The autumn rains will soon wash those away. And, like the rains, I will wash away all thoughts of the men I killed, let them pool in the farthest reaches of my mind, just as I did the atrocities I saw and did in Acre. What will be harder to ignore is what occurred in my bedchamber, especially with Rowena close at hand.

"Grief can do terrible things to a person," my father once told me. It was not long after my mother's untimely death. At the time, I thought he meant that that was why he was so often angry with me, why he lashed out. However, since learning about my father's illicit romance with Guy's mother, Ghislaine, I think perhaps I misunderstood.

Terrible things, I think. But not this, surely not this.

I flick my eyes back to Rowena, still happily loosing arrows.  I was not her first, I am sure of it, but she still trembled beneath me like a maiden. And I do not think it was out of desire.

Rowena said she wanted me, but I believe it was the idea of bedding Nottingham's hero rather than my flesh that she craved. She is a young girl, without a home, her only living relative having deserted her. What better way of securing her future than to win the heart, and therefore the hearth, of the Lord of Locksley, Earl of Huntingdon. If she had known my true purpose, my sinful thoughts as I slid into her, I'm sure she would have run back to the castle and Prince John as though fleeing the very devil himself.  No wonder Marian has forsaken me. If, from her place on high, she can read my mind, she must surely know how far from grace I have fallen.