creaked again, and she heard Gisborne release a pent-up breath with the faintest of sighs. “My father worked for his,” he said quietly. “As a weapons master. When I was a boy, there was a great deal of unrest in Nottingham. My father—” Gisborne’s voice stopped as abruptly as if a hand had wrapped around his throat.
Marian rose to her feet and crossed to the night table to fetch the ewer of wine that Gisborne brought each day. She poured it into a wooden cup, but when she approached, Gisborne was still gazing at her empty chair. He didn’t stir until she touched his arm with her fingertips and then pushed the cup into his hand.
He started at her touch, black eyes flashing briefly before he looked away and took a long swallow. “My father,” he went on, “was one of several men who believed that peasants must insist upon their access to justice and to the protection of law, by any means necessary. And those of common blood with access to nobility—those like my father, who worked for nobility—had an obligation to stand up.” He bowed his head, the cup dangling between his hands as he rested his elbows on his knees. “I do not believe he would have come to violence, though. He could not be beaten with a sword, but he was the gentlest of men. But I will never know for certain what he would have done.”
Marian sat back down in her chair as quietly as she could. “He was found out?”
Gisborne nodded. “The Sheriff at the time, the current one’s father, rounded up those involved and had them killed in the square.” His chin lifted, pointed toward the shuttered window. “There—where the festival bonfires were lit.”
Marian knew she ought to harden her heart against sympathy, that any softening toward her most dangerous opponent could be lethal sometime down the road. And yet she found herself asking, “How old were you?”
Gisborne’s eyes flicked up. “I was at that time seven years of age.”
Marian tried to swallow the lump in her throat, but her voice still emerged raspy and dry. “And your mother?”
“Died birthing me. I had no siblings.” Gisborne leaned close, but Marian’s heart only had time to slam once before he stretched out the hand that held the cup. She took it gingerly and brought it to her lips for a sip to wet her dry throat. Gisborne watched, the now-mild eyes almost curious. “The former Sheriff saw in me the skills my father had taught me, of sword and bow, tracking and riding. He took me in, and I grew up alongside his own son.”
Marian whispered, “But you have no love for him?”
Gisborne’s eyes narrowed, but there was feeling there, buried deep. “He stood and looked on as my father was murdered in front of me.” He reached out to reclaim the cup from Marian, and drained it. “I have no love for any of them.”
Them, thought Marian. Nobles. People like her. She bought herself a few moments to think by pausing to refill the cup from the ewer. Gisborne had never indulged in drink before, not that she’d ever seen—he drank little with meals and had never appeared red-faced or blurry-eyed from intoxication. Perhaps she could gain something from it, if he were to let down his guard.
He’s already let down his guard, she thought, and then buried that guilt deep.
“You seem distressed.” Gisborne was watching her.
Marian replaced the ewer with somewhat more force than she’d intended. “I don’t understand,” she blurted. “You hate them—us—and you hate the Sheriff, but you do as he says and you spend your every waking moment enforcing his will. And you try so hard, so terribly hard, to look like one of them.”
Gisborne looked down into the cup, the liquid inside as dark and thick as blood in the firelight. “It is the only way, in this world.” His voice was quiet. “My father was a rebel. The men I killed in the Holy Land were rebels. I serve order, my Lady, because that is the only constant I know. I serve the law, not the Sheriff. And I mold myself to fit in amongst our noble lords because that is the route to power.”
Marian felt the impact of that word like a slap, and she leaned back, face stinging. “Power? That’s your aim in all this?”
Gisborne looked up from the wine, lips shifting to a wry smile. “Do not mistake me, my Lady. Power is a