VII

 

 

Dover – 20 November, 1191

 

THE RECEPTION AT Dover was as icy as the weather.

There had been no fresh snow that morning, but so cold was the air that the fall of past days sat everywhere in stubborn refusal to relinquish its numbing grip. A freezing wind blew from the sea – not gusting, not giving any hint of respite, but a constant blast – hurling the tang of the sea at his face. Even before it came into view he could taste its salt on his lips, already feel, in his mind, the queasy heaving of the ship that was to carry him across its leaden, foam-streaked swell the following morning. He wondered if the ship would even set sail in such weather. Brow furrowed in concern, he shuddered, urged his steaming horse on, and tried not to acknowledge the part of him that hoped it would not.

Then there was the castle itself. Glimpsed tantalisingly between the leafless, skeletal trees as his horse – crow-black against the white, snorting plumes of fog – had plodded the final few miles towards the coast, it at last loomed upon the misty horizon in all its monstrous permanance. Great, grey turrets thrust upward from the hill on which it sat. A stone fist clenched towards the continent. The gatehouse of England. As if on cue at Gisburne’s creeping approach, the sun broke free of its prison of slate-coloured cloud and beamed down upon the awesome expanse of those forbidding walls. The great gates clanked and groaned. His horse whinnied and tossed its head as they parted, the cold eyes of the guards staring down from the castle’s towers. “Easy, Nyght,” muttered Gisburne, and gave him a reassuring pat. But he knew the animal was merely reflecting his own unease.

The vast stronghold commanding the clifftops had been Henry II’s most ambitious project – at its centre, a square keep against which even the Conqueror’s paled, surrounded by concentric walls and enormous ditches, with a succession of elaborately guarded gates and towers. It had benefited from the lastest wisdom in castle design, and Henry had spared no expense. It was said he built it, in part, out of guilty conscience, to welcome noble pilgrims who came to visit the tomb of Thomas Becket – Archbishop of Canterbury and England’s newest saint, whose death Henry had, perhaps unwittingly, brought about – and had fitted it out with all manner of luxuries, including running water and sanitation. But none who set eyes upon it could fail to consider the warning note it sounded. This would have tested the ingenuity of Llewellyn to its limit – perhaps, even, was beyond it. Although its doors were flung open to Gisburne, and he able to ride freely in, this approach in the crisp light of that cold November morning somehow seemed infinitely more daunting than the nocturnal assault upon the White Tower.

From the moment of his arrival, the contempt in which Gisburne was held could not have been more obvious. The castle’s Constable, Matthew de Clere, managed the opulent royal residence on behalf of the monarch. With Richard far away in the Holy Land, however, de Clere was its undisputed master, and lived like a king. He was also, Gisburne knew, an ally of Longchamp. Of de Clere, or any other welcoming face – beyond a haughty, sour-faced steward, and the sullen youth who led Nyght to the stables – there was no sign. At the feast, which commenced that morning in the castle’s guest hall, and to which he was immediately and peremptorily ushered, he had been seated about as far from the noble castellan as decorum would permit – at the extreme end of one of the two rows of benches flanking the long, black-beamed walls. This placed Gisburne with his back so close to the doorway that another few inches would have had him sitting outside the chamber altogether. He felt only half arrived – had not, in fact, even been given time to change his clothes. He mused upon this as he was subjected to a lengthy and unnecessary wait within the hall – still dishevelled, sweaty and damp. A roaring, crackling fire blazed in the huge arched fireplace half way up the hall – but he was too far away to benefit from its heat, and merely shivered in the persistent, icy draught that was sucked in past the curtain that barely covered the doorway. This blew at his back with such unyielding vigour that the white tablecloth flapped about his knees and the flames on the iron candelabrum at his right shoulder leapt and guttered with every gust.

It was the position at formal table that Gisburne’s father would have referred to as “one up from the dogs”. Though the old man never said as much, Gisburne had a strong sense that his father – a knight of faultless record and high principles but precious few means, and entirely deficient in the art of flattery – had endured the position on many occasions.

It soon became clear, however, that his father’s assessment had been an exaggeration. The dogs had by far the better deal. Whilst Gisburne froze in the unrelenting draught – and half way up the hall, a young knight, far too decorous to complain, suffered the opposite fate, roasting to a beetroot red just inches from the huge, arched fireplace – de Clere’s hounds were left free to caper on the freshly strewn rushes covering the wooden floor. They gradually identified the most comfortable distance from the source of heat, padded in circles a few times and then lounged there as de Clere, on the high table at the head of the hall, tossed them some of the choicest cuts of meat from the platter in front of him. Gisburne, who had yet to be served – who was destined by his position to be last, and would therefore eat less well than any creature in the room, including the fleas in the rush matting and any opportunistic mice – swore that de Clere caught his eye as he did so.

Providing a sufficient number of servants to tend to every visitor’s needs, however humble they may be, was considered the sign of a good host. It appeared that de Clere, deep in smug communion with an elite core of sycophantic guests for most of the evening, was not greatly concerned with the fate of those at the margins of his hospitality – or, if he was, had instructed his servants to deliberately withold it from Gisburne. On the table’s end, by Gisburne’s right elbow, the dish of grimy water in which he had washed his hands prior to dining still sat, perhaps intentionally overlooked.

To his left sat an aged, rank-smelling cove who avoided eye contact as if his life depended on it, and whose size suggested he had never let a crumb of food get past him his entire life. He was styled a knight, but Gisburne noted no scars upon him, and if there had once been even a ghost of decent physical condition, it had long since been engulfed in layers of fat. “There are two kinds of men who lack scars,” Gilbert de Gaillon had once said. “Those who never fight, and those who afford their enemy no opportunity to do so.” Gisburne had taken the point – and perhaps even this one had had his day once. But his apparent need to assert superiority over the lowest in the room – along with his general corpulence – suggested otherwise. It was some time before Gisburne realised that the odd rasping sound he could could hear, even over the echoing hubbub of the chamber, was his neighbour’s laboured breathing. The only other thing to pass between them that day was when the knight, through great effort, rocked his enormous bulk to one side and broke copious wind.

As Gisburne toyed with the dregs of the soup – stone cold, by the time it came his way – and waited for whatever gristle was left of the mutton, he distracted himself by listening to the scarlet-clad musician seated in the corner opposite, who plucked with affected seriousness on a stringed instrument. A single musician, Gisburne noted – and tallow candles, and wine that was certainly not Longchamp’s good stuff – but the most lavish burgundy and gold wall hangings that the king’s fortress could provide. Behind the high table hung a great banner bearing the three royal lions, and either side of it tapestries depicting lively, stylised scenes of hunting – an activity about which Henry had been fanatical. De Clere obviously enjoyed luxury, as long as it wasn’t at his own expense. The music plinked away against the rasp-rasp of his neighbour, the pop of the fire and the hum of the two dozen or so guests – a string of interminable French tunes that went nowhere, doubtless the latest thing from the court of King Philip. On the whole, Gisburne felt peasants understood music better.

It inevitably brought to mind the songs so beloved of Richard. He shuddered at the thought – though perhaps that also had something to do with the gale at the back of his neck. Richard – a prolific composer of songs – had a fine voice, and knew it (Gisburne pictured his doting mother, the redoubtable Eleanor of Aquitaine, applauding Richard’s boyhood efforts heartily whilst the subtler talents of his brother, John, went utterly unnoticed). He had himself heard Richard sing on many occasions, and had found it instantly captivating. By the fifth or sixth verse, however, interest began to wane. By the twentieth, he was ready to cut his own throat.

De Clere himself cut a superficially impressive figure. He was tall, broad shouldered – every inch what was expected of a knight. Some, apparently, considered him handsome. Yet, to Gisburne’s eyes, his forehead was somehow too high, his teeth too gappy, his lips too moist and petulant to warrant such praise. Scrutinising his face now, Gisburne was reminded of dough that had swollen rather ludicrously beyond its required size, his eyes two currants stranded in its midst. His wife Richeut (in a bizarre moment, Gisburne had thought she was being referred to as “Richard”) was her lord’s opposite, with mean, pinched features and an expression he supposed was meant as a smile, but which looked like someone had just farted in her face.

She also looked oddly familiar, in ways that troubled him. It was not until part way through the evening – when Gisburne overheard an initially baffling reference to Longchamp, and was moved to picture Richeut with a beard – that he realised Matthew de Clere’s wife was William Longchamp’s sister.

John had been at pains to distance himself from the arrangements for Gisburne’s stay here, ensuring that the introduction had been made through an untraceable – and deniable – chain of intermediaries. But de Clere clearly had his suspicions. He must also have been stung by the events of the past months – the growing hatred and ultimate ejection of Longchamp, who secured this place for him, but whose patronage had turned to poison. Then there was the utterly humiliating episode of his brother-in-law’s bungled escape from England after his rout in London. The tale of the weasel Longchamp being caught in a dress – looking, by all accounts, like a bad approximation of a cheap Parisan whore, and rumbled by the misguided gropings of a randy sailor – had given the whole of England occasion to guffaw. Longchamp had been let go, to slink back to Normandy – blown on his way by gales of laughter, no doubt. After such universal ridicule, what further – or worse – punishment could possibly be inflicted? England was glad to be rid of him – but it was likely to keep the good folk of the realm clutching their sides for weeks to come. And it had happened in Dover. Assuming de Clere’s wife had not been born with that peevish expression (although Gisburne was certain she had) it was not difficult to imagine how she might have acquired it, nor de Clere himself.

Gisburne was startled out of his reverie by a dish of mutton, which arrived at his left hand with an unceremonious thud. Or rather, it arrived at his neighbour’s right. As this gentleman was clearly senior in both years and status – to the extent that talking to the shabby knight at the end of the table was either beyond his aged capabilities, or beneath him – it was Gisburne’s duty to serve him from the dish placed between them. Since the man was the size of a barn and had shown nothing the entire evening but the back of his oily head, Gisburne decided he could go hang. He hacked away whatever morsels the already well-picked bone had to offer – occasionally imagining his knife blade plunging into his neighbour’s blubbery flesh – and fought the childish urge to make furious, obscene gestures behind Sir Fatarse’s idiotic head.

It was at that moment, as Gisburne had accepted his complete invisibility and abandoned all pretense at etiquette, that de Clere addressed him from the far end of the hall. Or so it seemed. He had for some time been deep in conversation with the esteemed personage to his left, a large man with a face like a ham and an unpleasantly self-important expression. Dressed, Gisburne thought, somewhat in the manner of a Flemish bureaucrat, an absurdly overstated gold chain hanging beneath the folds of his wobbling, porcine neck. Gisburne had no idea who this man actually was – had not, in fact, been granted the courtesy of an introduction to any of his fellow guests – nor had he been party to the conversation that prompted de Clere’s unexpected comment. Their host had, without warning, raised his voice to the extent that all present could not fail to overhear him, and, gesturing limply in Gisburne’s direction with the point of his eating knife, had said: “Our guest at the far end of the table was squire to Gilbert de Gaillon, I believe...”

Surprised, mid-mouthful, the clamour of the table suddenly falling away, Gisburne looked up to see all eyes upon him – some in pity, others outright disdain. Richeut de Clere’s nose wrinkled up further than he thought possible. For a moment, he was unsure whether the comment was even meant to invite a response, but before his thoughts could cohere, de Clere’s whine filled the silence. “Let us hope that he is one day able to creep out from under that shadow.” There was laughter at this, then the thrum of chatter resumed as each member of the assembled company turned back to their neighbour, and their meat.

Gisburne continued to be ignored by most of the assembled company for the rest of the evening.

The one glimmer of light in this unrelenting gloom was Marian.

Seated close to the high table, on the same side as Gisburne, she had caught his eye briefly as the feast had been about to begin, and then had all but disappeared from view behind her fellow guests. In that moment, however, she had shot him a smile of such warmth that it hit him like a breath of summer air. All thought of winter was banished. Every trace of the hostility and meanness about him melted to nothing. The joy that rose up in response was total and unrestrained. Its power shocked him.

She was even more beautiful than he remembered. Her lips so finely curved, and so ready to laugh; her hazel eyes sparkling but also curiously sad; her gestures so disarmingly open, so honest. She was just so... alive. All the more so in this frigid and sterile company. Like a spring bloom in winter. He found himself actually thinking those words: like a spring bloom in winter... Gisburne did not regard himself as sentimental – far less a poet – yet here he was, somehow reduced to the moronic dribbling of a lovestruck adolescent. He had forgotten what this was like – had buried it deep in some part of him that was resigned to perpetual winter. Now it had sprung up, as fresh and green as ever it was, and he had fallen to his knees before it.

If John had meant this to present some sort of opportunity for Gisburne, however, the evening did not appear to be following the prince’s plan. Marian’s tantalising proximity – and unbearable distance – became a kind of torture. He would lean forward to catch a glimpse of her, as casually as he could, then someone else would lean in – reaching for a jug of wine, or turning to engage their neighbour – and obscure his view. Each man who did so, he wanted to kill. But he knew his anger arose partly because it so accurately reflected the one-sided nature of their relationship. She did not miss him, he was sure – did not yearn to catch a mere glimpse of him, had no inkling of the torment that she inspired. Yet he hungered for more, like a deluded beggar wishing soup from a stone. And he knew that if this were all he had – if it were this or nothing – he would accept it, and all the agony it entailed.

Why she affected him so, he could not understand. Others had lips as full, or eyes as bright, or cocked their heads in just that way. Many had more than hinted at a willingness to return affection. But, for all their beauty and charm, most had meant nothing to him. They were not her.

He had not seen her for over a year. Even then, it had been fleeting. That had been almost at the nadir of his fortunes, as he had been heading north to see his father for the last time. He had not seen the old man for six years – not since they had fallen out over Gilbert. But this time, Robert of Gisburne was dying. His lands had been seized and sold by Richard, his heart all but broken by the fate of his only son, whose quest to become a knight had ended in disgrace and failure, fatally tainted by the blackened reputation of Gilbert de Gaillon. Robert’s reaction to the affair all those years before had been harsh – and young Gisburne, by this time a man as well as a son, had not stood for it. He had hotly defended his old master – even castigated his father for allowing himself to believe the worst of his old friend. For reasons that were so trivial that Gisburne could now barely recall them, things had escalated, and taken an irrevocable turn. Gisburne sensed, even as it was happening, that both had struck deep into the others’ territory, doing violence to defences that had never before been challenged, and which afterwards could never be rebuilt. In retrospect, he understood the old man had only meant the best for his son, and in time both would come to feel the gnawing bitterness of regret. But by then, it was too late. He was then a world away, steeped in the blood of battle, fighting for pay under a foreign king.

His return, and their final reconciliation, had barely been in time. Robert’s mind had turned. There would be moments of clarity – then he would call out for his long-dead wife Ælfwyn to bring ale, or ask Guy where his little sister Adela had got to. Adela had died when Gisburne was seven years old, and she four. The pain of this confused collision of memories proved almost too much for Gisburne to bear. He had stood before the mightiest armies, had been battered by combat in a dozen lands, had lived through the Hell of the most damaging, scarring conflict of his age – which, even now, was spoken of only in hushed tones. Yet fighting his father’s phantoms to reach the rapidly dwindling places in the man’s mind where sanity had not yet been overthrown was the hardest battle he had ever fought.

There was more – far more – that Gisburne wished to have said. But during those grim weeks, it had been Marian who had been the shining light. Her sympathy – he did not dare use the word “love” – had been total, unconditional, given without judgement. She had always been pure of heart, thinking of others before herself – he used to make fun of her for it when she was a child, and he the older, more worldly-wise teenager – and of that she had given freely.

As a young boy, Gisburne had a special attachment to Marian. Everyone could see it. Perhaps it was because she had been the same age as Adela, and he felt some compulsion to keep this little, pretty creature safe from the world – to provide the protection he had been unable to extend to his sister. His father and Fitzwalter had long been friends, and when the younger Gisburne went to Normandy to train with de Gaillon, it followed that he would visit Marian’s family, who also spent their summers there. In time, both fathers came to regard them as a natural match – even though, Gisburne had to admit, Marian could have attracted someone of far higher status than he.

Then came the rift.

Fitzwalter had come to admire Richard. Gisburne’s father could not stomach the idea of Richard as a future king. Their conflicting loyalties divided them. Contact between Gisburne and Marian withered.

One day he met her and found she was a woman. But her youthful idealism had not faded. It had found a cause. She had grown to become a passionate champion of the wretched and the suffering – if anything, with more fire in her belly. Part of him still dismissed it as naivety. Yet there was a part of him, too, that admired her dogged refusal to accept injustice in the face of an unjust and chaotic world.

There had been a time in Poitou when they had quarrelled over exactly this. They had not seen each other for nearly five years. Gisburne was then serving as a serjeant in Henry’s army, during the old king’s last struggle against his son, Richard. Richard eventually emerged the victor, and Henry died, leaving his errant son the throne.

Perhaps driven to greater cynicism by this turn of events, he had told her she would always be let down by life if she had such high expectations of it – always disappointed. But what would the world be, she said, without people who earnestly believed things could be better?

The quarrel had been politely resolved, but left a bitter taste. He had been too high-handed, too familiar – trying to speak to her as if she were still the same silly girl and he the overconfident older boy. Now he thought back, it had been patronising and arrogant in a way that was not like him at all. But what had seemed so dismissive had, in fact, been desperation – desperation to recapture something he feared lost. Afterwards, he knew for certain that it was.

When they met again – his father dying, his fortunes at their lowest ebb – hope had been unexpectedly rekindled. She seemed, quite suddenly, to give more of herself to him than she ever had before. It was not until long after that he began to understand why. He was the underdog. The wretched. All this time he had craved her love – but all she really had to offer was compassion.

Immediately after, as he headed north to his dying father, she had departed for Normandy. Now, she was returning to England just as Gisburne, once again, was heading in the opposite direction.

“My lord Gisburne...”

Gisburne started at the sound. He had been slouched in his seat, chin on one hand, eating knife in the other, stabbing into the soggy slab of stale bread before him in a state of irritated detachment when the voice – familiar and close – snapped him back to the present.

Marian stood before him.

It was considered bad form to move from your place during a meal. What was the point of all that hierarchical seating, after all, if people just got up and wandered about? Nevertheless, the host could always dictate otherwise. And here was the catch. King Henry, who had abhorred laziness, could hardly sit still for more than a few minutes at a time. Even when he managed it for brief periods in court, he would be doing something else – reading, or repairing his saddle for the next day’s hunting, or both – much to the frustration of any bishop or baron who was attempting to converse with him on matters of state. At formal feasts, he would spend most of the time standing up, or pacing about, which provided his guests with the opportunity – perhaps even the obligation – to do the same. Amongst those who had loved Henry, the fashion had persisted. Clearly, this was a matter of great distaste to de Clere. Such liberties, even when taken by a king, were a crude throwback. It was all a bit... Saxon. But in a land where the living monarch was absent in both body and spirit, a dead one could still hold sway.

With her head slightly bowed, and her hands clasped before her, she appeared every inch the demure, modest lady. So different from the Marian he had known as a youth. And yet... Did the mere fact of her standing there, on the other side of this narrow table, not suggest a certain, familiar independence of spirit? He wondered at her words, too. “My lord”? She must be pulling his leg, surely – just as he used to pull her pigtails. He certainly wasn’t a lord, even less was he hers. Just considering the possibility made his heart thump, his brain teem and his face flush with heat.

“My lady Marian,” he managed to stammer. If she was mocking him, he would give as good as he got.

She stood for a moment, eyes on him.

Her dress was blue-grey, her veil and wimple white, topped with a simple circlet of silver. The look was plain – plain enough, almost, for a nun – but if anything it only threw the beauty that it framed into greater relief; the curve of her breasts and hips, the curling wisps of auburn hair escaping the veil about her face, the natural, unaffected grace with which she bore herself. She had always been beautiful – and in recent years had become beguiling – yet stood before him with a familiar, unselfconscious ease. Ever since he had known her, Marian had seemed to have a complete disregard for her own beauty, and a blissful lack of awareness of the effect it had on others. It was yet another reason Gisburne would lose his wits over her.

Her eyes widened and a mischievous smile flashed across her lips – the smile of the girl he had always known.

“Have you been avoiding me?”

“Not at all,” he protested. “It is unfortunate that... matters... have taken me away from you.” He winced at his own words. Away from you. That was too much.

But Marian did not wince. She cocked her head to one side, knotted her brow into a frown of sympathy, and, leaning forward, placed one slender hand on his. “My poor Guy...”

He stared in a kind of disbelief at the smooth, pale fingers wrapped about his own dark-skinned, rough hand, and resisted the urge to crush them to his lips. At the same moment, he seemed to become acutely aware of everything else in the hall: the eyes now upon him, some surreptitiously; the other guests – mostly women – who had taken Marian’s lead and escaped their immediate neighbours to enjoy more promising company, whether with humans or hounds; the piqued expressions of the de Cleres, who now exercised a blank refusal to even look in Gisburne’s direction, as if to do so would impart something like approval.

“I was so happy to hear of your knighthood. So proud!” She squeezed his hand tighter at this. Her voice became a whisper. “Not before time. It is shameful, the way you have been treated. But God rewards the good.” With more presence of mind, Gisburne might have questioned her undying faith in God’s influence on earth, citing all the good men he had known who had gone unrewarded or died in a ditch whilst those less worthy survived and prospered. He might also have wondered whether she would feel as proud knowing it was Prince John who had dubbed him a knight. But, in that moment, he was utterly lost in the feeling of her breath against his cheek. She drew back suddenly, flashing another smile.

“So, tell me – are you bound for the Holy Land?” There was child-like wonder in her voice. But rather less concern than he would have liked. Another image tore at his insides: Marian, proudly waving him off, likely to a martyr’s death. If the situation were reversed, he knew he would clasp her to him and beg her to stay, even if it offended God himself.

“Not to the Holy Land,” he said. “But on a pilgrimage.” The words almost caught in his throat, but her eyes widened in delight at them. He felt wretched.

“Return soon,” she said. “We need more good men in England.” That’s all I am, thought Gisburne. A good man. He had striven his whole life to be exactly that – yet sometimes, it felt far from enough. How good was he, anyway? He couldn’t hope to satisfy her purity of expectation. His pilgrimage was a bitter lie. But there was also something much deeper, much more fundamental. In spite of the fact that he had fought the most bitter battle of his life against Saracens on the parched plains of the Holy Land, he knew he’d convert to Islam on the spot in exchange for her.

“I will do what duty and conscience demand,” he said, with a bow of his head – then, casting his eyes towards the de Cleres, added: “It does indeed seem a world turned upside down.”

Her eyes flashed with a sudden passion – passion that he knew was not for him. “I’m always saying it!” She straightened, let go of his hand, raised her voice so it could be heard. “You know, there is a man in the northern shires outlawed simply for making a stand against the iniquities of the corrupt officials there. A good man before God made a criminal, whilst those with dubious loyalties squeeze the ordinary people for ever greater taxes.”

A murmur ran around the room in response. Gisburne’s blood ran cold. Was every part of his life doomed to be infected by Hood?

Marian’s brow knitted into a frown again. “Such a man should not be outlawed. He should be applauded, for doing what duty and conscience demand, as you are so proud to do.” She turned, and cast what to Gisburne seemed a challenging look towards the de Clere’s. He had never felt more proud of her – nor more sick at his situation.

Several guests, taking her words as their cue, literally applauded in support. Voices rose above it.

“Someone needs to stand against John and his cronies,” muttered one.

“They scheme while the King is absent... taking advantage of his divine mission,” came another.

“It’s not just treason,” trilled a woman. “It’s blasphemy!”

Gisburne gazed about him at the eyes of his fellow guests, struggling to comprehend how his status had shifted. Because of his association with Marian. Because of his association with Hood.

“I do not believe John is a bad man,” said Marian, as the sound lulled. She did not believe anyone was bad – just desperate, or unfortunate, or misguided. “But if men like Hood can bring him to his senses, then I shall cheer them.”

This time, a cheer. Gisburne felt himself trapped in some kind of Hell. A Hell of truths he could not utter. That the taxes were not John’s. That Richard was a monster. He wanted to shake her, to make her realise. But he could not jump to John’s defence – not in this company. And there was something else he feared even more. Their fathers had fallen out over exactly this. He could not stand to lose her over it – what little he had of her.

“There are those of us who still stand for justice,” he said. It was the best he could muster. And it was at least true. But the assembled guests eagerly murmured their approval, and Marian – misconstruing its meaning entirely – continued her impassioned speech.

“Robin Hood is a symbol of the stout English heart,” she said, her voice now quavering with emotion. “Of all that is right and good in this land. The spirit of the Lionheart!”

All cheered and clapped. Even the de Cleres now made a reluctant show of approval. As Gisburne looked around in disbelief, he realised that they were also applauding him – that by some strange sorcery whose mechanics he could not fathom, he had become Hood’s proxy in this chamber. A fleeting incarnation of something deemed heroic. Marian, the wielder of this magic, beamed at him, eyes filled with pride for the man he knew he was not.

How could he tell her that everything Hood possessed – his title, his reputation, the loyalties of those around him – he had stolen? How could he begin to explain to one so untainted by cynicism, that this symbol of the stout heart of England had no heart himself – that the black space where it should have been was a chaotic void that threatened everything they both believed right and good? How could he hope to convince her of any of these things, when he was sent by England’s detested prince to steal the head of the baptist of Christ from the most respected holy order in Europe?

He gazed at Marian in the midst of momentary triumph and unending torment. He marvelled at her, at her beauty, her purity of spirit, her faith in him. And he felt sick. False. A lie. In this moment, he felt every bit as untrue and fabricated as Hood. Yet lies had won her over, and would continue to do so. The truth risked driving her away. Most miserable of all was the realisation that this thing so precious to him, which he had fought so long and hard to attain – and to which Hood attached no value – was already falling so easily into the outlaw’s hands.

The company had hushed. All eyes were upon him again. It suddenly struck Gisburne, with a kind of horror, that they expected some utterance from him. He looked from expectant face to expectant face. He clenched his teeth, and raised his goblet.

“To King Richard,” he said.