I weren’t doing much to capture their attention. De Clare and several knights were going for the cart with children and adults alike still scrambling for food, his sword outstretched.
“Gisbourne, de Clare’s going to kill them!” I shouted.
Gisbourne’s eyes never left me. “He will end what you started, Marian.”
He swung his sword again, and I ducked, but he tamped his foot down on my bedraggled skirts. With a cry I fell to the ground, and in a swift breath he caught me up, forcing the knife from my hand and pinning me to his chest. He clutched my one good arm and turned me toward the cart.
I struggled hard as I could as the knights and de Clare grabbed as many people as they had hands. De Clare grabbed a little girl by the arm. I yelled and yelled, and Gisbourne ducked his head to my ear. “This is what you have done, Marian.”
“Thief!” de Clare cried at her. The little girl sobbed and tried to jerk and twist from his hold, but he paid no attention as he dragged her to a short stone wall. “Do you know what the punishment is for those who steal from the prince?”
“Leave her alone, you bastard!” I screamed. I knew what he were about as he called a knight over to him.
“Hold her hand out, sir,” he said, showing the knight how to stretch it over the stone wall so that the wrist were flat and bare.
“No!” I screamed, fighting against Gisbourne as hard as I could. “Stop it!”
The little girl understood as de Clare raised his sword to hack at her arm, and she screamed too.
So did Much. He ran down the wall to barrel into de Clare, knocking him over. Rob took the knight and Godfrey took the little girl and ran.
Gisbourne’s chest pounded and rolled with deep, hearty laughter. “Robin Hood,” he said, not loud enough for Rob to hear. “Seize him. No one else matters,” he said, and turned to drag me into the castle as the guards and knights flooded past us.
I slammed my foot into his knee as he tried to walk, and he dropped me, still holding to one arm so I fell and jerked, twisted and hurt. He gathered me up again. “Behave or I will make you still,” he said.
I did it again, and he dropped me in full, throwing me on my rump so I winced.
“Damn you!” he growled. “Won’t you stop? Don’t you see what you do, how you hurt these people? That girl would have lost her hand because of you.”
“No,” I snarled. “That girl will eat because of me. You cannot do your violence and blame it on me. If she lost her hand it would have been because you sat idly by and watched de Clare hurt an unarmed child. It would have been because de Clare is a bully. If anything the only thing I see is how goddamn powerless a noble lady is meant to be, and I am not powerless.”
He dragged me up. “You’re bruised all to hell, your hand is broken, and can you even imagine how much more pain waits for you tonight?” he asked. “Why won’t you just learn? Why must you make me keep hurting you?”
“I’m not making you do anything, Gisbourne. Hurt me if you want, but I’ve felt pain. I know what pain is. And it’s less than love, than loyalty, than hope. You can make me cry, or scream, or whatever else. All that will mean is that I feel the pain, that I’m still alive. And as long as I’m living I can promise I’m not afraid of you, Gisbourne. I’m afraid of sitting quiet while the people that are meant to protect others do their best to hurt them. I’m afraid of people like you and Prince John going by unchecked. That’s what I’m afraid of. I’m stronger than your damn pain, and I do not give up.”
His eyes met mine, his terror-dark brown ones bearing into me. “Neither do I, Marian.”
My breath caught and I just hung there, staring at him, both of us too damn stubborn to look away.
I weren’t sure I liked the notion of sharing something with my husband.
He shook his head and started marching me, holding my arm and walking me on my own two feet, and we stopped and turned to hear a clatter behind us.
It took about seven knights with their hands on him, but they held Rob fast, dragging him into the castle and sealing the gate behind them. All the brave words I’d just spoke drained out of me as I met Rob’s eyes for a moment. In the dark and the distance, I couldn’t even see the ocean blue of them.
The last time he were in this castle he were tortured. He had come back to me broken, and my mind tumbled now with all the new horrors they could inflict. All the things his hurt heart couldn’t withstand and should never have to.
Gisbourne dragged me out of his sight, and I prayed with everything I knew that I would see the ocean blue again.
Chapter Sixteen
Gisbourne didn’t bring me to the chambers we shared. He went up, straight to the prince’s chambers. Gisbourne entered without being announced; the prince were awake, in a heavy brocade mantle, the princess in a chair facing away from me. Gisbourne pushed me in front of him and I stumbled, catching her chair to stand. The girl jumped out of the chair and stared at me, but it weren’t the princess; it were one of the young ladies that had attended the princess in the market, in nothing but her underdress and a mantle.
“Out,” Prince John ordered her. She looked at him, pale and wide eyed.
“My lord?” she questioned.
“Out,” he repeated, glaring at her.
She looked at all of us and ducked her head and scurried.
“Sit,” Gisbourne said, pointing to the chair under my hand.
“No,” I said, standing straight.
“She can stand if she wishes,” the prince said, looking at me. “It makes little difference.”
I stared at him. It weren’t so simple as saying it were his evil heart what made him ugly—Gisbourne had the same such heart and I still knew he looked well. The prince were different, like gazing into the eyes of a snake; there were a beauty there, but the only thing it had ever been used for were terrible things, and it made the prettiness terrible too.
“Do you have any idea the ways you have vexed me?” he asked, turning away from me to the window. He opened it, and I could see him watching something. “You and your lover.”
“What have you done with Robin?” I asked, my voice rushing higher than I wanted. I stepped forward but Gisbourne grabbed me back and pushed me into the chair. I cast about; there were a knife by a tray of cheese on a small table too far from me. There were heavy cups in my reach. Gisbourne’s knife were tucked into his belt now, not far from me.
“He’s simply in the stocks. If he doesn’t freeze to death by morning, I’ll deal with him then.” Something caught his eye outside and he sniffed, then looked back at me. “But you. You are a problem.”