Scarlet

by A. C. Gaughen

  He gripped tighter. “Don’t do it, please. Please, let’s run.”

  “You can’t run.” I shook my head.

  His hands came on either side of my face, holding me up to him. Waves were crashing in his eyes, sure and strong and sweeping. “You are my whole heart, Scarlet. And this is breaking it.”

  My heart cracked open and clear dropped out of me. My mouth opened, and I looked round me and stamped my foot. “Does this look like a good time to tell me that, you damn stupid boy?” I meant to sound mean but my voice wobbled. “Now?”

  He gave a little smile. “My foul-mouthed warrior.”

  “Marian,” Gisbourne said, and it felt like a slap.

  Shaking, I leaned up and kissed Rob’s cheek, blinking back watery eyes. Hell would rise up to Heaven before I cried in front of Gisbourne, even for Rob. “This isn’t over, Robin. You have an awful lot you need to explain.”

  He squeezed me tight. “Stay alive, Scar, so I can have that chance.”

  “Go.”

  He slipped away from me and struggled down to the people. Their murmurs rose like water to catch him, and several stepped up to support him, carrying him like the prince he were meant to be. Guards brought Godfrey forward and let them both go from the hall free. It were a strange thing to see, outlaws walking away without so much as a skirmish. Rob didn’t look back at me, and I felt Gisbourne’s hand close over mine sure as if it were closing over my throat.

  “I haven’t a ring for you, but I hope you’ll forgive the oversight.”

  “Nonsense,” the sheriff cried, pulling the silver band from his finger and passing it to Gisbourne. He knelt over Ravenna’s body, pried the band from her still finger, and handed it to Gisbourne too. “Someone might as well use them.”

  My stomach disagreed as Gisbourne took it and handed me the man’s ring, still warm from Nottingham’s hand.

  “Sh-shall we begin?” the priest asked. His hands on the Bible shook.

  “Yes,” Gisbourne snapped.

  The priest’s voice wobbled as he said the ill-fated words for the second time that day. He turned to Gisbourne first, asking, “Guy of Gisbourne, will thou have this woman to thy wedded wife, will thou love her and honor her, keep her and guard her, in health and in sickness, as a husband should a wife, forsaking all others on account of her, so long as ye both shall live?”

  “I will,” he growled, clawing his short nails at my hand.

  “And Marian Fitzwalter of Leaford, will thou have this lord to thy wedded husband, will thou love him and honor him, keep him and obey him, in health and in sickness, as a wife should a husband, forsaking all others on account of him, so long as ye both shall live?”

  I waited three breaths, and I felt them rush through my lungs like the last gulps of air before drowning. “I will,” I said. I felt dizzy. All this time, all this fighting it, and I had married him.

  “You have the rings?”

  Gisbourne nodded, taking my hand and pushing Ravenna’s pretty ring on my finger. “I take you, Guy, as my wedded husband,” I said, my voice shaking. “And thereto I plight my troth.” Sickness washed over me. I trembled as I put my ring on Gisbourne, and he smiled, big and smug.

  “I take you, Marian, as my wedded wife,” he told me, pulling me closer. “And thereto I plight my troth.”

  “Receive the Holy Spirit,” the priest told him, kissing Gisbourne’s cheek. Gisbourne turned to me, grabbing my chin in one big paw and pushing my mouth to his. It were hard, so hard my teeth bit my lip, and he pushed his tongue at my mouth but I kept my lips closed tight. He pinched my side vengeful-like, but I didn’t open.

  He let me go.

  “You are now married in the eyes of God,” the priest said. He sounded mournful.

  I didn’t wait longer.

  I pulled away from Gisbourne, turning to the gibbet, but he grabbed my shirt and threw me back. He stamped his foot on my chest. “Running so soon, my dear?”

  I drew a knife and snarled, trying to drive it into the tendon at the back of his heel, but he jumped free of me. I whipped up, wincing at the pain in my back, and the sheriff caught me, bringing his knife to my throat.

  His beard rubbed my cheek and he laughed. “Gotcha.”

  “Let go of my wife, Nottingham,” Gisbourne growled.

  I didn’t think Gisbourne could surprise me, but that fair did it. The sheriff too, far as I could tell, because he loosed enough for me to wrench his arm back and slam my head into the bridge of his lowborn nose.

  Gisbourne slashed his sword at my stomach and I jumped back, hissing as it nicked a light slice. “If anyone’s going to kill you, it’s damn well going to be me!” he bellowed.

  He had to yell for me to hear him. The townspeople were taking the guards and working them over, trying to get to the dais. The bright colors were running blood black, the wedding shattering into violence.

  Maybe there were too much going on. Maybe the fierce pain, like a flame coming from my sliced shoulder, were addling my brain. Maybe the cursed ring on my finger meant I weren’t so interested in staying alive anymore. Whatever the reason, I weren’t as quick as I should’ve been. I backed up again and tripped over Ravenna’s body, and Gisbourne stepped forward and grabbed my throat.

  He dragged me closer to him, and I tried to regain my feet, but I kept slipping in her blood. He squeezed hard enough to hold me up, hard enough to kill.

  I tried to yell, but the sound came out a raw gurgle.

  He tossed his sword up and snatched it from the air by the blade, his hand protected by his thick leather gloves. I started flailing, kicking, and hitting, but I couldn’t get him. And where I could, it didn’t seem to matter—he didn’t notice, couldn’t feel it. “It seems you need a reminder of just what kind of a man I am, Marian,” he said.

  He twisted my head so my left cheek were up, and I drew in a thin little wisp of a breath and tried harder to kick, to stab, to claw.

  He pushed the tip of the sword into my cheek, biting deep and drawing a new gash where the old scar had lain.

  My eyes went starry dark, and without any sound on my lips, I moved them in prayer.

  Whether they meant it or not, my band (and I’m fair sure God, too) were still watching my back, because it were just that minute that the whole place rocked with the force of an explosion.

  He dropped me. My head slammed against the floor and the cut on my shoulder from the day before screamed. A cough grabbed my chest as I sucked in a breath, scrambling to my feet.

  It were chaos. The townspeople had charged the dais, and someone were fighting Gisbourne.

  I took a deep breath, wiping the water and blood from my eyes and scrabbling on top of the gibbet. I gritted my teeth as I started to climb up the chain, pain lancing through every bit of me and blood running down my cheek.

  “Marian!” he bellowed, so loud his voice shook the chain. “You are my goddamn wife!”

  “I said I’d marry you—I never promised I’d stay with you, Guy!” I spat back.

  He felled the farmer he were fighting, and I halted on the chain, watching the man fall. My hands were slipping and I held tighter, not sure whether to go down and help or run.

  “Scarlet!”

  I slipped a bit as I swung to the voice, seeing John thunder through the swinging swords with nothing but his fists. “John!”

  “Get the hell out of here, Scarlet!” He met Gisbourne and smiled. “I’ve got this under control.”

  I watched John strike a blow that knocked Gisbourne’s sword away, and I shook my head. My husband were a fool. John would trounce him in a moment’s time. Relieved and hurting both, I took my time climbing toward the rafters.

  “Honor, obey?” Gisbourne shouted, grappling with John. “This is what you call being a good wife?”

  I stopped. “I never said I’d be a good wife, Guy. Just that I’d marry you.”

  “Guards!” he roared. “Guards! Someone will burn alive for this, Marian!”

  But the guards wer
e all fair busy at that point, and no one paid him a bit of mind. I kept climbing.

  “You traitorous bitch!” he yelled. “You goddamn liar!”

  I laughed. “You knew I were a bitch and a liar when you married me, Guy. It’s your own damn fault for agreeing to it.”

  I made it to the rafters with muscles burning, and I clung to the wood for a long moment, trying to breathe, trying to force down the beating pain in my shoulder, my cheek, my whole body. I searched for John as I hung there, and it took me precious seconds to find him.

  I saw John’s head pressed tight against Gisbourne’s, the two of them twisting as one, whipping each other round. John got an inch of space and fired a ham-fisted punch to Gisbourne’s cruel mug.

  Gisbourne sprawled out at John’s feet. John dropped to his knee to grab Gisbourne’s sword and rose with flashing steel in his hand, ready to make me a widow.

  But he didn’t. John’s face jerked up, and when he saw me on the crossbeam he just froze.

  Panic rushed through me. “JOHN! DO SOMETHING!” I shrieked, but he couldn’t hear me.

  The sheriff broke from the crowd behind John and came at him, his sword raised and an awful snarl on his face, like a wolf in a fight.

  I screamed to the high heavens and pointed, but John still couldn’t hear me. He saw me point, and his face folded like he were fair confused as the sheriff made it a step closer to him.

  My feet ran on the rafter before I knew what I were ’bout, but there were no way I’d get to him. This weren’t a battle I had a place in, and I were set to watch my friend die for it.

  The sheriff’s foot struck the ground, coming to my eyes unnatural slow, like it were staged so that I could see every move, every turn. His sword came down at John’s neck as John just bare started to turn. I screamed again, and screamed and screamed.

  The blade never cut. The steel flashed and flew in the air as the sheriff were swept sideways. Men poured over him like a tide, and I could see James Mason in the fore, pinning the sheriff down. Someone dragged the sheriff’s chin back, and Mason didn’t hold but for a moment before he made the sheriff’s neck bloom like red roses, drawing the same line over his throat that been done drawn over Ravenna’s. The blood poured down over the side of his neck and dripped down, and from the rafters it all looked like one big puddle, Ravenna’s blood and the sheriff’s mixing together, married in gruesome truth as they died side by side.

  James Mason had avenged his daughter, even if it were his awful fixings that got her into the marriage to start. It weren’t as if our problems were over, but on this day the villagers, and not just Rob and my mates, stood up and fought back the flood.

  Even if the wave of evil and pain and injustice would break over us again, just this once it were pressed back. And that were more a start than anything we’d done.

  Gisbourne got on his feet again, and John fought back against him, moving like lightning so none could interfere. They circled and fought, and I hung on the rafter. Part of me thought I should be fighting ’longside John, but part of me thought damned little of that plan, and so I hung there, not moving.

  I heard a sound like thunder outside, and breath snaked away from me as the rafters shook; one broke off, snapping from the side and falling to the ground. The whole structure began to wobble and I moved like I were sparked. The roof were made of thick layers of thatch, and I clung to a beam and kicked my way through it, running along the edge of the roof to the castle wall. My whole body hurt and ached and burned, but I weren’t stopping till I saw Robin again.

  Making it to the outer wall of the castle, I scrambled up, huffing hard with breath. I slid off the wall and ran into the forest, my heart pounding louder than I’d ever heard. I didn’t know which way they’d take to the cave, and it were a long time before I heard footsteps crunching over leaves. I ran faster, feeling tears streak out of my eyes and my heartbeat break into a fluttering.

  I saw the shapes ahead, small and slight for Much, tall and thin for Godfrey, and the last shape, the one that meant everything, leaning a little on Godfrey.

  “Robin!” I shrieked.

  He turned, standing away from Godfrey as I came at him, slamming into him and tumbling him to the ground. I gripped him tight, sobbing into his chest. I felt hot blood from his back on my hands, but I let it wash my skin, pulling his weight on top of me so his back weren’t in the dirt. I didn’t care none, even knowing how much we both were hurting.

  I heard a ragged sound, and I felt water on my neck. “Tell me you didn’t marry him, Scar,” he whispered.

  “I had to,” I mewled. “I gave him my word.”

  “But you’re here.”

  I nodded. “And married or not, I ain’t never leaving you, Rob.”

  His nose rubbed at my neck, then along my right cheek. “You’re married, Scar.”

  New tears squeezed out my eyes. “I know.”

  “To him.”

  I nodded, hiccuping.

  He rested his face against mine, blood and all. “Let me heal up a bit, and we’ll see if we can make his part of ‘so long as ye both shall live’ a little shorter.”

  I gave a short, watery laugh, and I sat up, dragging him with me. I pressed my hand over his heart, and he covered mine.

  “Those eyes,” he murmured, stroking hair back from my face, careful to avoid the new slice on my cheek.

  “Come on, Robin Hood. I’ll heal you up fast as I can,” I told him, taking his hands and pulling us both to our feet.

  “As soon as we stitch you up, Scar,” Much reminded.

  Robin leaned heavy on me, and I looked to Much and Godfrey. I’d forgotten ’bout them. They just stared at us, and I felt my cheeks go red. Under the blood, leastways.

  “I felt the blast. How much tumbled?”

  Much smiled. “Wasn’t even that hard. With everything going on, they never noticed us or the rope fuse. I’ll tell you, the fuse took longer than I thought it would. I thought they must have found it or cut it, but then I felt the blast and saw Robin.”

  “What did it do?” Rob asked.

  “Toppled most of the middle bailey,” Much told him. “What happened in the hall?”

  “John’s still fighting: he told me to go on,” I said. “The sheriff’s dead.”

  “Dead?” Much asked, his face forlorn. “Christ. Christ, we’ll just get a new one, won’t we? Worse, probably!”

  Robin’s mouth worked before he spoke. “The position can never be vacant, and it’s true, we have no way of knowing who Prince John will next appoint, but it’s still something. We needed time. For the moment, the people—their homes and their children and their very lives—are safe.” He closed his eyes and sagged against me. “For now, it’s more than enough.”

  Much stepped forward, his eyes full of worrying. “Let’s get you two back to the cave.”

  Rob nodded, and we started to walk, but Godfrey hesitated.

  “I don’t . . . I can’t go back to my father. Not after he agreed to this, and let her die.” He closed his eyes, like just saying it hurt him. “I don’t know what I can offer you lot, and I know you won’t trust me after all I’ve done, but—” He stopped short, like someone cut his tongue off.

  I slid slow away from Rob, making sure he could stand on his own. I walked to Godfrey, and I touched his hand. “It were your father what killed the sheriff,” I told him. His face twisted up like he were bare keeping something in behind it. “We trust you, Godfrey. You’re one of us now, and you’ll always be.”

  “She told me how you tried to get her out,” Godfrey said soft, his voice snapping like a twig. “And she—she wanted to stay.”

  I nodded.

  “Christ, I’m so sorry I hit you.”

  “I know. Come on, you need to rest. We all need a bit of fixing up.” I went back to Rob, slipping under his arm again, and he kissed the bit of my forehead on the side. It made warm heat shoot through my head, run over my body, and slide around my wounded shoulder like it were healing i
t.

  “I’ll patch you up first, Scar,” Much said to me as we got to the cave. “Your shoulder must be awful and your cheek doesn’t look so good either.”

  I shied away, hugging tight to Robin. “Not a chance. I ain’t the one been tortured.”

  “I’ll fix her, Much,” Rob told him. Close to my ear and quiet he said, “From now on, no one but me sees you with your shirt off, Scar.”

  I rolled my eyes, but fair true, I didn’t want no one but him doing the same. “Come on,” I said, leading him into the cave. “Let’s get your shirt nixed for starting.”

  He chuckled, but he were leaning heavy on me, and it scared me deep.

  “John!” Much yelled.

  We turned to see John jogging into the camp, blood and lumps and a big idiot grin on his face. Robin curled forward a little, swaying on his feet.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  John pushed his thumb over his busted lip. “Gisbourne ran,” he said. “But I either broke his arm or rolled his shoulder. Either way, he won’t be holding a sword for a while. Most of the hall fell after a minute, and we got the people out.” Robin’s face twisted, and John looked to him, losing the grin. “You all right, Rob?”

  I hugged him tighter. “He will be.”

  John nodded, looking at me, but I pulled away from his eyes and took Rob into the cave, helping him sit. “Don’t move none,” I said. “I’ll get the supplies.”

  I went back out and John were standing there, right at the mouth, with his arms crossed. Much and Godfrey were wandering farther, going to get the little food we had stored. John raised his eyebrows.

  “What happened with Gisbourne, John?”

  “Told you. He ran.”

  “Before that.”

  John full looked at me, staring at my face. “I got distracted.”

  “Don’t look at me for your distractions. I didn’t do nothing for it.”

  His face twisted in a funny way, sad and confused. “You did. I went to kill him, and I just thought, if he dies, you’re with Rob. You’re with Rob forever, and I haven’t got a chance. I didn’t mean to think it. It was just there. And it stopped me cold.”

  My breath died in my chest and my skin roared with blood. “What?”