ruby. Marian knew it well. She’d worn it every day after he gave it to her, until the day Robin left for the Holy Land wearing it on a chain around his neck.
“I am sorry, my Lady.” Gisborne was still cradling her hand in his.
TWO
GISBORNE HAD TWO OF his men escort Marian back to her father’s estate. He remained behind—Marian had foggy memories of his voice as he began to organize search parties for Will. A detached part of her told her she ought to refuse the escort, to stay and hinder Gisborne’s efforts as much as possible, but she found she had little control over her body. She was as biddable as a frightened child.
Though the ride back, at a sedate walk, must have taken over an hour, she remembered none of it. She was abruptly at home, being thrust into her father’s arms. He’d been awakened—by Elena, no doubt, after Marian was safely away—and dressed, and Marian dimly heard him talking with the men who’d delivered her. Through the soles of her feet she felt the thudding of their horses’ hooves as they galloped back out of the courtyard and back to their commander.
Then she was inside, and being eased into a chair before a roaring fire. Her father was holding her hands, down on his creaking knees before her and peering into her eyes. The heat from the hearth brought her back to herself, and she blinked, focusing on her father’s face.
It was like waking from a dream. A nightmare—a hellish gallop through a dark wood, a man’s life she held in her hands, the unbearable weight of a tiny ring dropping into her palm. A ring adorned with blood that flowed across her palm and trickled down toward her elbow.
She was crying. Hot tears fell on her arm. “Father?” she whispered, confused.
“Oh, my Marian.” Her father rose up on his knees and pulled her in against him, holding her as he hadn’t done since she was a little girl. His eyes were wet too, and his breath shaking. “They told me. I’m so sorry. I’m—I would give anything to spare you this.”
“Robin cannot die,” Marian whispered. And it was true. In that moment she would have believed her horse could fly and that time could flow backward and forward and in circles more readily than that Robin of Locksley had fallen in the Holy Land. The world, her world, no longer made sense.
“I’ve sent for the physician from Locksley town,” her father said. “He’ll bring something to help you sleep.”
She couldn’t think why her father wanted her to sleep when she’d only just woken, and more than anything she wanted to avoid slipping back into that nightmare where a ring fell, over and over, into her palm. Then she realized her father had let her go and was offering her a draught that smelled of sweet wine and something else, bitter and herby, and that another man was there too now. The physician from Locksley—how had he come so quickly? She drank, and her eyes were on the window, where the sun was slanting through—but these windows faced the southwest and only saw sun in the afternoon.
The fire, which had been burning so brightly a moment ago, was down to embers.
She’d believe time could flow in circles more readily than that Robin could ever die. . . .
Her thoughts, already foggy, grew sluggish and thick. Her father was plucking at her hand, which was curled into a fist. She found as she tried to open it that her muscles had all but solidified that way, a grip she’d held so tight and so long she could not remember how to uncurl her fingers. But as her vision darkened, as she felt the bitter wine bringing its false warmth buzzing through her limbs and numbing her lips, her hand relaxed too. And her father slipped the tiny ring from her palm as she fell into darkness.
Marian was kept asleep much of the next few days. She’d wake to eat, to relieve herself, to let Elena untangle the leaves and twigs from her hair and brush it before the fire. But it wouldn’t take long before her world would start to swirl again, as if all natural laws were sliding away—her heart would begin to pound, her breath would start to gasp in and out of her chest, and her body would surge as though she were running for her life when all she was doing was sitting