Enemy of My Enemy

Chapter Fifteen - Agendas

"You say they want to meet us again?" Robin asked. "Where?"

"Well, that's the thing," Will said. "Allan thinks he's being watched."

Robin gnawed on a thumb, considering.

"He's canny enough to give them the slip. He can sneak out of one of the upper rooms at the Trip, we'll wait in the storeroom where they keep the barrels. Gisborne can get there without arousing suspicion, I assume?"

Will shrugged.

"Don't see why not."

"Good, then that's settled. Tell them it's tomorrow night."

Will nodded, and trotted off.

"I wonder what's happened, why Allan thinks he's being followed," said Marian, as they moved away. She smacked a hand against a tree trunk. "It's times like this it would be useful to have someone in the castle, to find out exactly what's going on."

"Well, I'm glad you're not there. Besides, we'll know soon enough."

"And did you find out from Guy if he'd try to locate my father's seal for me?"

"There wasn't chance to ask."

"You didn't fight again?" Robin could hear her exasperation.

"No. I told you we didn't. Things may have got a little....tense, but no."

Marian was silent, absently picking at the bark.

"Tell me," she said after a few moments, "what happened to Guy when he was younger? Why did he say you'd once seen him driven away?"

Robin had been hoping to avoid this topic. He walked a bit further from the camp, Marian following.

"I know you don't want to talk about this but surely, if there's something wrong between the two of you, couldn't it somehow be made right? Especially now."

"No, it can't Marian. Some things can't be put right, and they're better off left in the past."

"Won't you at least be open enough to...."

"....it was our parents, alright?" snapped Robin. "That day my father and his parents all died."

"What happened?" Marian sat down on a log; she caught his hand, urging him to join her.

Robin tapped his fingers impatiently against one thigh; the memories were uncomfortable. Some more so than others; he dealt with them by telling himself Guy had only gotten what he deserved. He had, after all, been the one to start the fire...he'd never denied Longthorn's accusation.

Do something. To this day Robin remembered yelling it, desperate, restrained by Swain, the villager who'd survived the burning wheel.

"Certain things happened that day which neither of us can forget," he said quietly. "Gisborne's father had returned from the Holy Land a leper....he'd been banished from the village, from keeping any company. But he'd come back, to see his wife."

Marian's thumb stroked his hand as she listened.

"My father went in to confront him. No one knows exactly what happened, but the house went up in flames, all three of them inside. Afterwards – when the bailiff came out of the ruins – he accused Guy of starting the fire. And Gisborne didn't deny it."