It's Not Over

Another Shock for Robin

Another Shock for Robin

It was clear from their raised voices that Guy and Marian were arguing.

Still unsure of my intentions, other than my desire to be alone with Marian, I crouched by the window and peered through the knothole in the closed shutters that I’d peered through yesterday.

It seemed they had moved on from the thorny subject of Marian’s sword practise.

“When the council of nobles meets,” Guy was saying, “I expect you to be there, at my side. You cannot possibly have anything more important to do.”

He slammed a goblet onto the table and poured wine from a jug, spilling some of it in his haste.

“I am sorry,” Marian said, tucking stray wisps of hair that had escaped her hairpins behind her ears. “I was busy.”

Guy downed a mouthful of wine and glared at her. “Busy! Marian, we have a house full of servants to be busy. What were you so busy with that you could not attend your husband?”

Marian glanced towards the window. I ducked down even though I knew she could not possibly see me through the closed shutters.

“I was fitting Pegasus with a new saddle. The old one was no longer comfortable and I wanted to make sure this new one was right for him and for me. I lost track of time.”

Her voice betrayed no hint of a lie, though I suspected it was one, or at least only a partial truth.

I returned my eye to the spyhole.

Guy took another mouthful of wine while making his way around the table, closing in on her.

“You spend more time with that damn horse than you do with me.”

“You know I like to ride.”

“Then perhaps you should have married your horse,” he flared, banging his goblet on the table, slopping wine in the process.

“That would not have helped my father, Guy.”

“Your noble, wonderful father,” he sneered. “Perhaps I should remind you about him more often. Perhaps I should remind you that all it would take is a few words from me and the sheriff will learn about your father’s clandestine meetings with his sympathetic noble friends and those cowardly outlaws that roam the forest.”

“My father no longer meets those noble friends you talk of. As to the outlaws, they are simply poor people driven out of their homes by the sheriff for doing nothing more than trying to feed their families. John Little is a good man. They are all good men. Their only crime is despising the sheriff’s crippling taxes and cruel authority.”

Guy eyed his goblet. He picked it up and then put it down again.

“Marian,” he said, tender now, his earlier sneer replaced by an apologetic smile. He placed his bare hands on her sleeved arms and lightly ran them up and down the gold-threaded brocade. “I am sorry for upbraiding you. It has not been an easy day.” 

For all my dislike of the man, I believed his apology sincere.

“The sheriff took great delight in humiliating me at the council meeting,” Guy continued. “I should not have taken out my anger and frustration on you. However, next time I expect you to be there. The sheriff needs to know that we stand together. It is bad enough that I have lied about your father. I do not wish to stand there in front of Nottingham’s elite and lie about my own wife’s activities.”

“You are hurting me,” Marian said, glancing at his hands, which were now gripping her upper arms.

Guy let go with a mumbled apology.