face and tied me over a lamp so that I could feel its heat rising against my skin, and had to hold myself back against the ties or else be burned. When I refused to tell them of the King’s plans for battle, they cut the bonds. I was too weak to stop myself falling against the burning lamp.”
Marian felt sick, unable to look at Gisborne without also looking at the scar, which did look, now she saw it, like a ribbon of fire had dripped down from his cheekbone and under his collar.
Gisborne remained unmoved. “When you spoke to the boy, did you see evidence that he had been burned?”
Marian’s vision swam, and she looked away, pressing her lips together. She would not cry for someone like Gisborne, but she knew she had to maintain the illusion that she was not wholly averse to the prospect of marrying him. “They really are godless infidels,” she whispered.
Leather creaked as Gisborne shifted his weight back in the chair. He was silent so long that Marian looked up, and she found him staring once again into the hearth. But now she could not tell whether he was seeing the ruins of the fire Elena had laid that morning or another scene entirely, burning sand and perfumed oils.
“I have seen Englishmen do worse,” Gisborne murmured. He seemed almost unaware of her in that moment, rigid not with proper posture but with memory. But his next words proved he had not forgotten she was there. “It is war, my Lady. There is no God in war. Not on any side.”
The words made her stiffen in spite of herself. She would never be accused of overbearing piety, but the sacrilege in his speech plucked at lessons she’d learned from infancy. A coal in the fireplace popped, and she flinched. She hadn’t intended to ask Gisborne about his wound in the first place.
Gisborne seemed to sense her discomfort, for he gave a sharp shake of his head as though ridding himself of memory and straightened. “If I should not have told you, my Lady, forgive me.”
“I asked,” Marian replied.
Gisborne’s lips twisted a fraction. “Most people don’t.” The answer was quick, informal in a way he’d never been with her before.
Emboldened, Marian asked, “Why has this business with Robin Hood driven you to such distraction?”
Gisborne’s eyes darkened again. “Robin Hood is a criminal. I am tasked with keeping order and peace, and he threatens that order.”
“But there are other criminals,” Marian countered. “There have been before, and will be again. Why—”
“Because he doesn’t just break the law,” Gisborne blurted, “he makes a mockery of it.” He lurched to his feet as though unable to stand the warmth of the fire any longer. He reached the window again and looked out, his jaw clenched in sharp relief. In profile, his hair still damp with sweat and curling over his ears, he looked younger than he did when charging after Robin Hood or when trying, in his inept way, to woo Marian.
“He breaks the law,” Gisborne went on, “and the people cheer him for it.”
Marian rose cautiously, carefully, but did not quite dare to join him at the window. “Perhaps the laws he breaks are unjust.”
Gisborne made a slicing gesture with his hand, dismissing her words. “Just or unjust, the law is absolute. You, Lady, have the luxury of safety here. You’ve never seen chaos, true chaos. Chaos makes no distinction between those of noble birth and those born low—a man with a sword in his gut will die whether he owns the land or works it.”
Marian’s hands gripped the back of her chair. “You killed people there—in the Holy Land.”
“Yes.” Gisborne’s answer was quick and ready.
“You had to,” said Marian, before she could question the urge to comfort her enemy. “You had no choice.”
Gisborne shook his head. “I killed because I was ordered to. Not because I had to.” His shoulders rose and fell in a long, silent breath, and he turned away from the window to look at her. “Order, my Lady. That is all the certainty there is in this world. Good and evil are questions for philosophers and holy books. I cannot say what God wants of men—but I know what my King demands of me.”
A little voice in Marian’s mind made itself heard, but it wasn’t Robin’s. It was her own, defending her actions to her father. It’s what Robin would have wanted.
Robin, Marian realized, had been increasingly silent in her thoughts.