Sir Guy of Gisborne's Diary

Entry 7

The leather thong was a complete disaster! I am thinking of joining Kirklees and becoming a nun.

It started well and then everything fell to pieces. I can hardly bear to write what befell me, but I am told that writing ones thoughts down is cathartic, so with trembling hand I am going to commit this terrible affair to parchment.

Two days ago, I asked a guard to deliver the Lady Marian a message - that I had information about the king and wished to speak to her alone. The stupid guard must have been a bit deaf (I should have realised after he told me that he and his mates were keeping a look out for Robin Wood) and his message to Marian, I later found out, was that I wanted to talk to her about a ring and that I wished to speak to her to atone.

She duly arrived, and there was I dressed in nothing but my thong and a long chemise, which I would be in the act of (innocently) lifting over my head as she entered my bedchamber. Some scuffles and urgent whispers outside my door should have made me suspicious, but I was too busy admiring my exposed butt in the looking glass to pay them any mind and by the time the door was wide open and I turned around, displaying almost all my glorious assets, it was too late. Marian was not standing in my doorway, but that blighter Robin Wood - I mean Hood!

"Well, well, Guy," he said. "It seems you were about to show Marian all your worldly goods."

I reached for my chemise and quick as a flash Hood nocked and loosed an arrow pinning it to the floor. I was about to shout for the guards but thought better of it. I did not want them to see me wearing nothing but a tiny strip of leather even though I was rather pleased with my efforts (I swore the leather-master to secrecy by cutting out his tongue).

"Where is Marian?" I instead demanded. "I invited her here on council business."

"About to tell her of some new tax, were you?" Hood enquired. "A thong tax, perhaps. Or a new directive that from now on everyone must wear considerably less underwear in order to save on materials."

"If you say just one word about this," I threatened, as Hood darted forward to retrieve his shot arrow. "I will have your guts for garters."

"Don't worry, Gisborne," he said. "My lips are sealed. Which is more than your buttocks are."

Then he scarpered and I hastily flung a cloak around my shoulders before the sheriff caught me in my thong. There was no way I wanted to add another one to his list of fetishes.

You would have thought that my day couldn't get any worse. But it did.

I had instructed a guard to take my illegitimate son - courtesy of a one-night fling with a kitchen maid - to Kirklees Abbey. How hard can it be to convey a tiny baby from the castle to an abbey less than five miles away, I ask you.

It seems that this particular guard, however, rather than being deaf, had absolutely no sense of direction. He got lost in Sherwood and ended up dumping my son under a tree. Fortunately, having collected my wits and burned the damned thong, I was in Sherwood at the same time: I had marked the hooves of the castle horses, which Hood had stolen, and so I came across him and his band of outlaws in the forest, much to my delight. I also saw that the outlaw was clutching my baby. After a brief clash with the outlaws, we managed to capture one of them - Roy. I had quite a bit of fun thrashing him in the castle dungeons (not a euphemism!), trying to get him to reveal the outlaw's hideout, until the sheriff told me to stop hitting him - spoilsport.

The only good thing to come out of that day was that one of the outlaws met his end: long story, involving Roy's mother Mary, which I cannot be bothered to write about now. Oh, and the fact that the leather-master is going to be a lot quieter from now on; I cannot stand the little digs he makes about my 'haphazard stitches' or the fact that my constantly sniffing leather will have me on a slippery slope and the next thing I know I will be sniffing the sheriff's nail polish which in turn will lead to latching leeches on my arm, after which there will be no turning back.

On that note, I shall bid you goodnight, dear diary, shove you back under the floorboards where I conceal you and go and find some nail polish and a leech or two.