Everything is a Choice

Epilogue

Here is the last chapter. Thank you to everyone who has read, voted, or commented. I appreciate it.

Previously...

"Tomorrow," I tell him, "we will go to Locksley. For tonight, the gang, such as it is, will have to put up and shut up."

The temptation to unfasten his leather breeches and show him just how much I want him is so overpowering that it's all I can do to turn around and walk back to the camp, trusting Guy is following.

Tomorrow, I tell myself. Tomorrow we will be alone, behind closed doors. Not Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne, but simply Robin and Guy, our longings satisfied; an exciting, frightening, life changing journey ahead of us.

Slowing my pace, Guy catches me up. I offer him my hand and he takes it.

I wish it were tomorrow already.

Epilogue

My fingernails fill with earth as I scrape away the rock-hard soil, digging a hole in which to bury Marian's ring.

It is time to say goodbye, to let go of her. I have made my choice. I have turned my back on the freely offered love and affection of a young girl who, in many ways, reminded me of Marian, in spirit if not in looks. I have chosen, instead, to lie with a man: Guy of Gisborne. My friends don't understand, cannot accept it. I don't believe Marian's shade will understand or accept it any better. After all, Guy professed to love her and then murdered her, albeit in a fury-filled moment of madness. The best I can hope for is that she will find it in her eternal heart to forgive me, forgive us.

I glance up at the spread of branches above my head. I am kneeling among the gnarled roots of The Kissing Tree, as I used to call it and still do. Our tree; Marian's and mine. The one we used to meet under, flirt under, kiss and fight under. The tree beside which I said my brusque and inadequate goodbye to her before I headed off to the Holy Land, battle-hungry and filled with vain dreams of glory, to help King Richard reclaim Jerusalem.

My eyes travel from the upper branches, their winter leaves tearing off and whirling away in the stiff breeze, to the thick, fissured trunk. Our names, Robin and Marian, are still visible in the bark of the oak, cut by my blade in my carefree youth, when the only things I was concerned with were escaping chores, playing with my bow and pursuing pretty maidens, Marian especially.

For a moment, I picture her, laughing and tossing back her dark curls, when she surprises me at my labour. I can still make out the uneven letter R in her name where my knife slipped when she poked me in the ribs, catching me unawares. I remember being annoyed with her; I'd meant the carving to be a surprise. I had told her not to come to the forest until I sent her word. As ever, she had wilfully ignored my request. I recall I thought about carving the letter Y after the R in order to pay her back. I didn't, though, because she kissed me and promised to let me have a peek under her skirt at her un-stockinged legs in exchange for me letting her practise with my bow.

I hadn't planned on this being a tearful farewell, but memories, both good and bad, have a way of breaking down my defences; it's why I try never to look back.

I let my tears fall; warm tracks on my freezing face. It seems only fitting. I'd been too shocked and angry, still reeling with disbelief, to weep over her grave in the Holy Land, only able to let go afterwards in my solitary room on Acre's harbour-front. I am certain Marian's shade followed me back to England, to Sherwood, so she might roam through the forest, a place she loved dearly when alive. This, as far as I am concerned, is her true resting place; my tears should fall here for her.

The ground is hard after last night's heavy frost. I unsheathe the dagger hanging from my belt. Jabbing the point of the blade into the earth, I dig a hole that would accommodate a medium-sized goblet, putting off the moment when I must drop the ring into it and say a final goodbye to the woman who was my wife, albeit only for a heartbreakingly short space of time.