Dear Reader,
This little piece was written for the 2010 LJ GuyxMarian Secret Santa for the lovely Perteltote. I hope you enjoy this as it is the longest piece I've written to date. Helpful comments are gratefully accepted.
Disclaimer: Guy and Marian belong to legend, and actually Sir Guy of Gisborne belongs to Richard Armitage. No money is being made and no copyright infringement is intended or implied.
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The Christmas Wish
Nottingham Castle
Lady Marian of Knighton leaned her back against the door to her bedroom, her hands still on the handle. The servants' laughter echoed through the door. She lifted her face and closed her eyes tightly. Afraid the tears would come unbidden and unstoppable in so public a place, she hurried through the castle hallway, wrapping her cream and gold cape about her, her hands clenching her cloak and long dark blue skirt so not to impede her quickening steps. She passed servants here and there lighting torches along the castle hallway in answer to the fading light of the winter late afternoon. Lady Marian kept her head down in an attempt to keep the tears that threatened at bay.
It was Christmastide.
She had thought that having lasted through Christmas Day, the day before, that she had weathered her loneliness rather bravely and that the worst of the storms was behind her. In fact, truth be told, she had congratulated herself on her strength and fortitude.
Then, while dressing she chatted with the serving girls, Sarah and Jenny, whilst they finished dressing her hair and tidying her room after her bath. The talk had turned to Christmas and the family celebration Sarah and Jenny, both sisters, had enjoyed. The emotional blow, as the realization came once again, without warning, was devastating.
"I am an orphan," she thought. It took all of her strength and will to prevent her knees buckling from under her. The fear, uncertainty, loneliness along with the precariousness of her daily situation overwhelmed her. Thankfully, Sarah had just finished dressing her hair, having wound a lovely braid around the crown of her head, allowing the rest of her dark hair to flow down her back almost to her waist. Trying not to convey the urgency to leave that she felt, Marian expressed the desire for a walk before dinner. She grabbed her cloak, threw it about her shoulders and hurried to the door, closing it quickly and somewhat forcefully behind her. She exhaled deeply.
This was the first Christmas alone after losing her father Edward, her mother having been lost in childbirth. "Alone", she thought sorrowfully.
Marian kept walking, without purpose, lost in her memories, stopping suddenly in front of a set of double doors. Coming back to herself, she looked up, "Chapel" read the etched stone in the lintel. Lady Marian's tears started to fall. Her heart and soul had led her here to this place of peace and solitude.
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Sometime Earlier That Afternoon
Sir Guy of Gisborne, Master at Arms for the Sheriff of Nottingham, finished working up the guard assignments for the next twelve days and ran his last round of inspections for the afternoon. He was pleased that not a single man in his guard had been drunk or dead after the Christmas Day revelries. Every man reported for his post on time. "They knew I would be watching", he thought. "And they were right."
"Christmastide". Guy sighed, memories of the twelve days after Christmas past welling up, threatening to break through his carefully built façade of danger and violence, power and strength. He quickened his step, reaching full stride. No one could know the want and longing he harbored for warmth, affection...love. He had had it...once. "Mother", he thought, "Father". They had been a family, three strong, until his mother, Ghislaine, had died in childbirth delivering his sister, who also did not survive. His father, Robert, had languished in his grief. Eventually, all that was left of the man Guy loved was the empty shell of his body. Then one day, his soul took flight to join his wife and daughter. Guy was thirteen years old. "Alone", he thought, remembering.
