The Baron of Locksley had nothing to say to that.
“Robin, I want to go home,” Marian said.
“And so we shall, my love. We’ll leave at dawn.”
iii
MARIAN HAD NOT GROWN up in the north, in the shadow of the forests and the wilds of the moors. She had been raised in Norman courts, taught courtly graces and speech, learned to hold herself like an ornament, to flatter men of power. The north had seemed a wilderness then, full of outlaws and danger. But after twenty years, it had become home. The road from Surrey went past towns and villages, chapels large and small with pealing bells, market squares, pastures full of sheep, fields full of farmers. Then the villages and settlements gave way, the first of the twisted, ancient oaks appeared—far off on distant wild hillsides, like ghosts in a haze. Then closer, until their shadows touched the road itself and the air grew thick with the scent of the forest, old wood and rich earth, and the sunlight seemed to take on a green cast. This wilderness was home, and she was happy to return to it. When she was young, she couldn’t imagine a life outside court, which seemed the center of the world. Now she was sure Robin had rescued her from something grim and stifling.
Finally, they arrived back home at Locksley, in the comforting shade of Sherwood Forest.
“All seems well,” Will said, shading his eyes and surveying the manor, its lands, tenants in the fields and in their workshops. He kept sword and bow on his saddle, close to hand.
“Expecting to see it all burned down, were you?” Robin said.
He’d meant it as a joke, but Will’s look was somber. “You have enemies. Especially now.”
“What can they do to me now?”
Marian exchanged a serious glance with Will. Here they were, watching the man’s back, just as they always had. The manor gates stood wide open, as they ought, and Marian sighed. She needn’t have worried. She trusted the men and women they’d put in charge of the place—many of them had bee
n with Robin in the old days.
Robin kept pressing Marian the whole trip. “You’ll speak to Mary—”
“No, I will not. I will not defy you on this, but you must be the one to explain her duty to her.” Marian was the last woman in England who would force her daughter to marry anyone she did not wish. Surely, Robin knew this.
The hero of Sherwood sighed, defeated.
Will worried about threats from without, but they entered the stable yard to find Mary and John shouting at each other. What a greeting, after so many months away.
“You went without me!” yelled John, their middle child, son and heir of the great Robin of Locksley. “You said I could go along next time you went to the forest!”
“I did not,” Mary muttered, trying for dignity and only managing flushed and furious. She was scuffed and sweaty, wearing boy’s clothes. She still had height on her younger brother, but probably not for much longer. “You want to go out to the woods, just go; don’t make me carry you.”
“I don’t need to be carried!”
“Yes, every time we go to the woods, you get lost!”
“Which is why I asked—”
“I don’t need to tell you whenever I go somewhere—”
“So, instead you sneak out like a thief—”
Well, that was a bit cutting.
“You’re very tiresome, John,” Mary said flippantly, which drove her brother to further rage.
“Now then, let’s have a proper hello for your long-absent parents, shall we?” Robin said in a calculated interruption.
The pair managed to put on cheerful faces to greet the crowd of horses and riders coming in through the gate. Not so full of righteous independence that they were ready to turn outlaw. Not quite yet. Her two eldest were both lanky and awkward, growing too fast and struggling to stretch their wings. Especially Mary, who was by most counts a woman grown, but Marian blinked and still saw the child she’d been. They both had Marian’s chestnut hair and Robin’s rich brown eyes.
Hostlers and folk of the house came out to greet them, telling how things were and what had gone wrong in their absence. Marian smiled at the stableboy who took her horse’s reins, and he blushed.
Mary and John came to her, offered a quick curtsey and bow in turn before she scooped them into an embrace and buried her face in their hair to take a deep breath of the smell of them, full of sweat and dust and life.
“You’re both alive, good,” she said. Mary had grown. They looked straight at each other, the same height. Marian suddenly wanted to cry, but instead she hugged them again and passed them on to greet their father. Mary wasn’t ready to go off to be married, she wasn’t.