Sir Guy of Gisborne's Diary

Entry 19

My last diary entry was almost a month ago. Had I developed writer's cramp or even writer's block since then? Had I been spending all my spare hours having rampant sex with Marian, my wife of almost four weeks? Had I turned over a new leaf since marrying Marian and become a do-gooding tree-hugger like Hood, decked out from head to toe in forest green? No, no and no is the answer. True, I get a bit of cramp in my writing hand from time to time, but that has nothing to do with clutching a quill and penning my thoughts. Nor have I been spending all my spare hours having unbridled sex with Marian because she has not been my wife for the past three and a bit weeks; indeed, she wasn't even my wife for three and a bit minutes because the wedding day, which started so well, went disastrously wrong (given my track record, I suppose I should not have been surprised). This, of course, ruled out the do-gooding, wearing green thing, the only chink of light in the ginormous pit of darkness that I found myself in.

I am told that putting ones woes down on parchment is cathartic, so, with that in mind, I have decided to record the events of my wedding day, after which, if I don't feel any better, I shall go boil my head in a tub of scorching hot pitch.

I spent the eve before my wedding deciding which shade of black I should wear and eventually plumped for a dark black with matching boots. I also tested out a few different hairstyles, including having a go at curling my hair with an old pair of Isabella's curling tongs that I found at the back of a cupboard. There were no instructions, so I simply guessed how long I should heat them up for. One burned scalp and a lock of scorched hair later, I decided on a simple slicked back style. Earlier in the day, I had picked up the ring. I'd told the jeweller I wanted a rock people would notice. What he fashioned for me was more boulder than rock, but I figured that if Marian thought it too big, or indeed too heavy, then we could always get a bit chipped off.

On the wedding morning, full of nerves (I must have visited the garderobe at least twenty times) I sought out Thornton. I asked if his wife, long dead now, had understood him, to which he said that he thought she had. Then I told him that I had committed heinous crimes but that by taking Marian in holy wedlock I would wash away those crimes. To be honest, I'd probably have to marry her, her dead mother and the Abbess of Kirklees to wash away the number of crimes I've committed, but I figured marrying Marian was a good start. Afterwards, I thought it was perhaps a mistake admitting such a thing to Thornton, but decided that once Thornton had dealt with our bloodied sheets the following morning then I could quietly do away with him.

Marian's coach duly arrived and she walked towards me. She was beautiful even though she'd decided on a white dress rather than black. I walked up to her and said that I hoped the decorations around and in the church pleased her. I didn't add that I'd spent much of the previous two days scrunching up ink-dipped parchment in order to make the black roses the peasants of Locksley had been unable to provide me with. Marian said, somewhat flatly, that the decorations did please her. She didn't even look at them! She then said that I should not be there. What did she mean? That another man should be in my place, Hood perhaps. I wanted to hit somebody, anybody. Who should be here? I asked, biting down on my rising ire. Marian told me I should be inside the church, waiting for her. Silly me. How embarrassing! I'd never been to a wedding before, other than in my head, where the only thing that happened was that some churchman rattled off a load of incomprehensible Latin after which the bride and groom kissed chastely and then headed straight for their bedchamber where they ripped off their clothes and spent the next three days humping like rabbits. Feeling somewhat chastened, I went inside the church and waited. That was the point at which it all went terribly wrong.

Without warning, the church bells began to ring wildly. Even though I'd not been to a wedding before, I knew that wasn't right. I knew it was even more not right when that stupid idiot servant of Robin Hood started shouting 'Stop the wedding, Stop the wedding! It's not the king.' After, and if, I boil my head in pitch, his will be next! 'The king is an imposter,' he continued. 'The king is not in Nottingham!'

Canon Bond, performing our wedding spoke: Whether the king is in Nottingham or not, that has no bearing on a wedding.

Halleluiah, I thought. This day might yet turn out all right. Marian asked me if I knew about the king being a fake, to which I said that it made no difference. I tried to tell her that what mattered was our happiness, that and having lots of sex and making babies to carry on the Gisborne line, dressing them up in little leather baby-grows and so on. She cut me off on the word happiness, accusing me of lying to her, and from then on in it was downhill all the way.

'Gisborne went to the Holy Land,' the idiot yelled. 'He tried to kill the king.'

I stared straight ahead, fighting tears. There would be no rampant sex with Marian, no little leather booties. 'I have done wrong,' I told her. 'But you will wash away my sins.' As excuses went, I'll admit that this one needed some work.

Marian wanted to know who the supposed king was, so I told her that it was a ruse by the sheriff to flush out his enemies. She immediately realised her father was in danger. I told her that as my father-in-law he would be protected, big emphasis on the words father-in-law.

The idiot continued to shout stuff about me (all true, of course) and I ordered my men to drag him away. Unfortunately, he kept on spouting truths, about me being a traitor and a liar, which he topped off by saying that Marian's heart belonged to another. My own heart dropped to my boots because I knew who that other was that he was referring to.

'Remember your father,' I growled at Marian.

She told the simpleton he was wrong and agreed to go ahead with the wedding. I snapped at the priest to get on with it and then slipped the ring onto Marian's finger. Rampant sex and leather cot mobiles here we come! Marian removed the ring from her left ring finger and slid it on her right. Oh dear, stupid me, I thought. They must have changed the rules about wedding rings, which I wouldn't know about, of course, having never been to a wedding. Then Marian punched me. God, how I regretted buying her such an enormous rock. She ran out of the church. I rubbed my throbbing cheek while trying very hard not to bawl my eyes out.

My guards offered to catch her for me, but I told them to let her go, all thoughts of rampant sex and soiled leather nappies replaced by that of revenge.

And that, dear diary, was my wedding day, the supposedly most joyful day of one's life. I'd been embarrassed, revealed as a traitor and punched by my bride-to-be. As I stood in the church, peasants and nobles whispering and tittering all around me, I pictured the freshly laundered black sheets on the marriage bed I'd prepared for that night. I thought of the cheese and cucumber sandwiches that would remain uneaten, their corners curling in the summer sun. I thought of the hours I'd spent making those black parchment roses.

They say time is a great healer, but it's been nearly a month since that day and I'm still angry and miserable and, most of all, embarrassed by the whole shambles of a wedding. Writing this account has not helped. This leaves me with two choices: revenge or boiling my head in pitch. I think one can take being decked from head to toe in black a step too far, so revenge it will have to be.