Sir Guy of Gisborne's Diary

Entry 26

After a night free of nightmares of wetting the bed and both it and me crashing through a soggy ceiling, or of being held hostage in Hood's camp, naked, the Saracen woman tickling my nether regions with feathers, I woke up this morning in fine fettle.

A short while later, my fettle was no longer quite so fine. The sheriff was missing.

That Prince John lickspittle, Sir Jasper, was sitting at the sheriff's desk in the sheriff's bedchamber. The sheriff was not in his bed. Jasper informed me that if he did not obtain Vaisey's seal forthwith, then Prince John would assume something had happened to the sheriff and would send an army to raze Nottingham to the ground.

He went on to tell me that the troops would be here by sunset and that soon after Nottingham would be as flat as a pancake and a crispy one at that. Christ! Give me fucking pigeons any day!

We searched everywhere, but couldn't find him. I even resorted to checking the local brothel in case the sheriff had gone off his latest pretty boy and decided to reacquaint himself with the female sex. No joy there regarding the sheriff, but I did spend an enlightening hour with an old floozy with a fetish for leather. Returning to the castle, somewhat uncomfortable in my leather thong, I asked the guards if the sheriff had returned. When they said no, I ordered them to triple their efforts. Search everywhere, even in the most unlikely places. I did the same, though I'll admit that when I started to look behind wall tapestries, under floor rugs and in the sheriff's bird cages, I might have been losing the plot a little.

Eventually, worn out and despondent, my buttocks chafing on the tight thong, I gave in to Marian's suggestion and asked Robin Hood to help find the sheriff. I also donned my more usual undergarments. God forbid that the town burns to the ground and they find me, unburned, but having died from smoke inhalation, and I am wearing that revealing thong. Certainly not a way I would want to be remembered!

Sunset approached and still no sheriff. The troops gathered outside the town walls, ready to do their worst. Hundreds of them. Thousands, even! I went to my bedchamber, packed a few things in my beloved leather bag and changed my underwear. I also asked Marian to marry me so we could take advantage of Jasper's promise to let me and my family walk away and live. She refused, several times over. Then, just when all hope of saving Nottingham seemed lost and Marian still hadn't married me, the sheriff turned up. Shame, in a way. I honestly think Marian was close to caving in and my head had gone off into a pleasant daydream where we escaped via the sheriff's secret tunnel, Nottingham burned to the ground, the sheriff had died by sleepwalking off the edge of a cliff and I spent the rest of my days helping Marian make babies atop a beautiful leather bedsheet (occasionally we'd slip off and much laughter would ensue).

***

A new day.

The birds are singing, the sun is shining and Nottingham is not a smouldering ruin. That's the good news. The bad news is that I've just found out that Marian is the masked man who goes by the name of the NightWatchman. Marian, the woman I almost married yesterday. The woman I think of every time I play with Mr sexy-sausage-knob. She's that fucking do-gooder. And do you know the worst part of it, oh diary of mine? I thought the NightWatchman was a bloody man! If I can't spot a woman at less than twenty paces, then what hope do I have of finding that bit of her that's supposed to drive her wild? Damn, but I should have been paying more attention when I had my way with Annie! Now, I wouldn't get my chance to find out with Marian because she was about to be hanged.

While all this Marian business was going on the sheriff was battling it out with Hood, his gang and a big fellow called Legrand over the capture of Queen Eleanor. I couldn't give a flying fig about the queen, the sheriff or any of them. Marian was the NightWatchman and was about to die. My life was in tatters!

A bit later . . .

Marian didn't hang and my life became decidedly less tattered. After my ire at her duping me all this time faded, I concocted a plan with a-Dale and tricked the sheriff into thinking the NightWatchman had escaped captivity. Later, I made Marian promise me that her masked days were over (unless it involved wearing a leather mask in our marital bed [I didn't say this bit out loud]). She agreed. I also asked her to stay in the castle and make my life bearable, to which she also agreed. She even hugged me and kissed my cheek. I was over the moon, so much so that for the second time in as many days I needed to change my underwear, though for entirely different reasons!