Chapter Text
Matilda stepped inside Knighton Hall, brushing the snow away from her cloak.
Autumn changed into winter and the fields around Knighton were all covered by a white blanket of snow.
The healer went near the fireplace and held her hand to the flames, then she glanced at Sebastian.
“Where is everyone?”
“Sir Edward is upstairs with Sir Guy, they’re playing chess, while Lady Marian went to the market in Nottingham.”
“She did? With this snow? Blessed child, always so incautious! I just hope she’ll be back before the weather worsen.”
Matilda sighed and went upstairs.
Guy and Sir Edward were seated in front of the chessboard, but Gisborne wasn’t paying attention to the game: he kept looking at the window, a frown on his face.
His face lit up for a moment when Matilda entered the room, but he sighed when he recognized her, disappointed.
“This isn’t the best welcome I could get, love. You shouldn’t look so unhappy to see someone who cares for you, boy, it’s rude.”
Guy looked at her, startled.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Matilda. I’m happy to see you, I really am, I swear!”
The woman burst into a hearty laugh.
“I know, I know, you were just hoping to see somebody else. I bet that you are worried for Lady Marian.”
Guy blushed a little, embarrassed that his thoughts were so transparent, but it was Sir Edward who answered.
“He’s right to be worried. It’s snowing so much and it’s going to get worse, I’m afraid that the roads could be blocked if there is a storm. Like four years ago.”
Guy nodded.
“I remember it, it was the first winter I spent in Locksley. There was so much snow that people were trapped in their houses and they had to burn furniture because they couldn’t go out to cut wood.”
“There is still time before the storm comes.” Matilda said, trying to reassure both men. “By then, Lady Marian will be here, warm and safe in front of the fire. No use in getting worried now. That girl is smart, she’ll be home before she can be in danger.”
Sir Edward sighed.
“I hope you are right, but I wish that my daughter wouldn’t be so willful.”
Matilda chuckled.
“You can’t change her nature.” She glanced at the chessboard. “Who’s winning?”
“Try to guess,” Guy said, with a resigned smirk.
“You’d have a chance, if you pay attention to the board.” Sir Edward answered, smiling. “I’ll have to chide Marian even for this unsatisfactory game, I guess.”
The old man stood up and went downstairs, leaving Guy with Matilda.
The healer glanced at the window.
“Don’t fret, my dear, she’ll be safe.”
“I hate to think that if she should be in trouble, I could do nothing to help her.”
“I’m here to fix this, so now be calm and let me do my work. Stand up, sweetie.”
Guy put his hands on the table at the sides of the chessboard, and he pushed himself upright. He was favoring his damaged leg and he didn’t put his weight on it, but now he could stand without effort and he was able to walk a few steps with the help of a crutch.
Matilda knelt to the ground to examine his legs, then she stood up again.
“You are getting better, but months will pass before you can walk without a crutch or a staff. Your broken leg is slowly improving, but the unharmed one is still too weak. Do you use it enough?”
“I try to walk as much as I can, but there’s not much space in this room.”
“Don’t you go downstairs? In the hall you’d have more room.”
“I can’t on my own, and the servants aren’t happy to help me, so I prefer to avoid asking their help. Sometimes Lambert helps me to hobble downstairs, but he can’t stay here for a long time, so it’s not worth the trouble.”
Matilda nodded and pointed to a stool.
“Now take away your tunic and shirt and sit there.”
Guy obeyed, and Matilda carefully checked his ribs, touching them to see if they still hurt and asking him to take deep breaths.
“Did you have any trouble breathing? Pain?”
“No, not in the last few weeks.”
“It seems these are perfectly healed, then.” Matilda said, handing his clothes back to him. “You should be happy, love. You are alive and you are better, just as I always said. Now you have to get your strength back and to be patient until your leg heals too.”
Guy put his tunic back on, and he took the crutch, using it to reach the window.
He let out a sigh of relief in seeing Marian in the distance, carefully riding her horse on the snow.
“She’s back.”
“I told you. Remember: Matilda is always right.”
The woman reached him at the window, and she looked at the girl too.
“Don’t you think it’s time to give this room back to her?” Said Matilda, and Guy looked at her, frowning.
“Do you mean that I should go away from Knighton?”
“No, silly. But you don’t need to sleep in her bed anymore. There is a spare room downstairs. Now it’s used to store a few old pieces of furniture, but I guess that Sir Edward could find another place for them, and it could become your room. It’s warm and dry, and you could walk around freely, without stairs to climb. It would be good for your health, and she’d have her room back.”
She was out to get some air, despite the cold, for her errands, not at all frightened by the snowfall.
Yet, all the time she was away she had been lost in her thoughts, she had thought of him...
Go back home, Marian. He's waiting for you. You know it. He knows that you know. Don't rush, be careful of the snow, ice under the snow, he is worried about you.
"Are you dressed enough? Perhaps you would need heavier clothing." It’s not jealousy or possession, "I wonder if," he said, about the cloak that covered you for years, ever since you became a young woman, "it’s adequate to this cold weather."
Go back home, Marian, because he's sitting on a chair, near the window, and will see you coming.
You know it. You know he will lift his eyes from a long chess game with your father and he will see you, or, maybe, he has never stopped looking at the road since you left.
You know it, the first days you felt irritable in front of him. Then you felt annoyed, and you started hiding it your when you left him, behind your shoulders. Then you stopped feeling annoyed. It didn’t bother you anymore. You started to smile, in secret, instead.
Above all, there is a time when you come home and come back into the room when, almost imperceptibly, his eyes light up in the exact time he sees you. And you like it, now. And if there is silence around you, you may feel the breath he has restrained and finally let go, seeing you coming back.
And there is his smile, tender, simple, held back sometimes by the pain he still senses when he moves. Perhaps only diminished by the pain. But he smiles. And you didn’t imagine it could be so beautiful, that simple smile.
Go back home, Marian. Maybe it doesn't matter that he doesn't know anything about what you do.
About what you did, because since he's there you don’t do it so often. Since you've seen his wounds, his difficulties, you don’t feel like going out at night as the Nightwatchman, and, when you do it, because people still need your little help, you do your duty with a little less light in your heart, and you try to get back home soon, because it’s full night and maybe he sleeps quietly, or maybe not.
You know people need the Nightwatchman, for a while at least. Although now Robin is back, hood on his face, with a bunch of sympathetic, disillusioned renegades, who love him and lovingly help people. There's Robin, now and you could put your brown leather mask off . But you don’t want to do it. You wouldn’t want to. You still want to do things, you still want to give something of you. To feel the shiver of the night tight between the shoulders, feel the thin anxiety that creeps in your chest, and the awareness of doing good without glory. No hugs from grateful people. You don’t need hugs, you don’t need glory, you don’t need that kind of love. What if you just did your civil duty?
But the man now living in your home doesn’t know this, maybe he doesn’t imagine it, maybe he doesn’t care. Maybe he hated you for that. Definitely hates you now. You are in every effort, in all his limitations, in every breath he takes. It is no longer a challenge. It is torment. But he still doesn’t know that behind the leather mask there is you. You're afraid he'll find out, now, more than ever. But he doesn't know, he is worried, he is waiting for you. Maybe it was so even before the accident: he was worried for you, he was waiting for you; everything was, among you, confused by unwanted, unnecessary gifts, and by his inability to pursue you coherently.
Maybe he was different. He was wrong before. You were just yourself. Or not: you were in a fortress on a rock, and he was, black leather gloves in hand, ready for battle, to storm the fortress, to reach you. He doesn't pursue you, now. He lives with you, lives in your own home, with your own family, shares your own life, but he doesn't pursue you anymore. Maybe he doesn't want, maybe he cannot. But he cares about you. Sincerely. And now, you like that. But you'd never tell him.
You want him to become a friend, but you don't think he can become a confidant. Inside, you're still afraid of him. You don’t know how bad he can be, inside, down into the bones, but you want him to hear what you have to say, the things you care about most, and the most secret ones.
Above everything else, You would like this indefinite feeling that you feel among you, which you see at the bottom of his gaze and when you look at him, and when you look at yourself in the mirror, lying hidden in the folds of a turned upside down daily life, will not hurt you, in the end.
Both of you. And you think this indefinite feeling among you will not end the moment Matilda will declare him healed and he will leave your home. The indefinite, between you and Guy, will end when you least expect, When he least expects. God only knows how much you are afraid of that moment.
And you suspect he's afraid, too.
And you wait: his wounds to be healed, your lives to be defined, yours and his. You wait the fog to dissolve, a less cold day. Maybe then you'll be free again. To be, to do, to risk. But that moment of light when he was looking at you, full of reassurance and relief, of serenity, that silent but constant contentment, in his light eyes, brightened by simpler, less fierce, less defensive, less offensive clothes, you will miss it. You know you will miss it, Marian.
You will remember and forget, even if you want to remember and not to forget.
He will remember and forget. Even if he doesn't want to.
You want something, between you two, to stay different. To be better. Whatever happens. When this long winter is over, and he will not be here anymore.
Go back home, Marian. Now you want to go home.
If Guy of Gisborne was now out of the game, Sheriff Vaisey was definitely in, Robin thought.
Indeed, the situation was, if possible, worse. At least, dogs were no longer used to try to find them and catch them by surprise.
"God, those dogs were really annoying," Robin thought. As Gisborne was no longer able to perform Vaisey's unpleasant, cruel, perverted orders against the people of the County, the Sheriff personally provided with his guards, most of the times, to claim taxes. With every means. House by house. A fire after another. In short: people were scared more than before, and Robin and the gang had gone from rebellion to something that began to resemble insurrection.
Robin did not know if he felt more angry, hearing the Sheriff saying to the terrified crowds, well protected by his soldiers, that all that money, all that bread stolen from the people, was in favor of King Richard in the Holy Land, while Robin had discovered that the Sheriff's climb to power had been largely favored by Prince John, or if he had felt more angry to see fear in the eyes of the people, and their hope wavered more and more despite his efforts.
Sometimes they had arrived in time to prevent attacks from the Sheriff and his men. Other times they had just arrived in time to save the situation, soldiers ready to drag people out of the houses, tongs in their hands, while they, with arrows, sticks, sweat, and heart, and collective effort, had forced the Sheriff and the soldiers to retire. Other times, though, they had come too late, and people had suffered, and lost everything. Sometimes they could only share the pain with them, and money, to rebuild the houses. Money, and their help, were never enough. The raids in the castle, risky, dangerous as they were, becoming more frequent. More than once their escape from the castle had been precipitous, and at the last second. But they had always escaped the jail and the executioner, and they had always found the way to salvation in the forest, and lost their tracks there.
They felt then relieved, joyful, strong and brave, blood pumped into the veins together with pride.
On those evenings, in the forest, eating what they found in the forest, was a joy, sharing a meal whatever it was, all together, once again. All of them still alive. His friends. Renegades, no rank , ready to save one another. Always loyal to each other. And Robin had not had friends like them even before the war. No one had stood up to help him in friendship after being declared an outlaw.
Not even Edward, Marian's father. For fear and opportunity, he had approved his daughter's engagement with the Sheriff's henchman. And he was still helping him now, in his home. Too close to the girl. And Robin was beginning to be very worried.
He was scared that Gisborne could discover the secret identity of the girl, and that he would report her to the authorities, or worse, that he would seek revenge against her, trying to kill her. Having lost power, and his place beside the Sheriff, did not make Guy potentially less dangerous, "The killer in him can always wake up on the occasion." Robin thought. He did not trust Guy, for his recent past and for his more remote . And he did not trust his constant presence beside Marian.
He did not want to say to himself, he did not trust even her so close to him.
By the way, Marian's actions as the Nightwatchman were less frequent and fleeting, now. Less risks for her. Although she was, he had to admit it, good.
But everything had become more difficult. The things, among them, made no progress.
Marian had become elusive. And Marian had never been this way. He had never considered Gisborne as a rival to Marian's affection. If he had managed to marry her, it would have been nothing more than a marriage of circumstance, of convenience. But the condition set for marriage by the girl and the serious physical conditions of the man made a marriage unthinkable between the two, now. But Marian spoke too much of Gisborne when Robin was able to see the girl. And this was disturbing . Robin was beginning to think he had been wrong to leave for war without first marrying the girl.
But the simplest truth was that he had felt too young and not ready to be a husband and father at all.
And his duty to others had been more important. Perhaps he wasn’t even ready now, but he was beginning to think he had made a mistake: he wasn’t entirely sure he could win back Marian.
If only Marian knew, how often he had thought and dreamed her during the war. If only Marian had completely followed her heart, and not the obligations she believed to have toward Gisborne, she would have realized that the admiration she felt towards Robin Hood and his actions was nothing more than a renewed passion for Robin of Locksley, his old betrothed.
But Robin had to think also about the bigger picture. He understood that Vaisey had accumulated a great deal of money in those years in Nottingham. And Vaisey didn’t spend that money for himself.
It wasn’t wasted in whores and parties, or real luxuries. Robin began to fear that Vaisey was something more than a noble grown rich on the backs of others, a staunch and tireless collector of taxes.
Robin had begun to wonder how powerful Vaisey really was and how far his power and influence extended. Nottingham was not London or Canterbury. But it could have a strategic value in the right circumstances.
And, furthermore, it was strange that he had not yet hired a successor to the infamous, but powerful, role of second-rank commander which Gisborne had had. Perhaps his concerns were excessive, but Robin kept both eyes wide open.