Chapter 2
Chapter Two
The bathwater smells of lye, lemon peel and earth.
Marian’s wrinkled fingers rub at the mud embedded within her cuticles, at the dried sap nestled in the crook of her elbow, but with every fleck she scrapes away, another clings tighter.
The water clouds brown around her, a thin film collecting on the surface.
She sinks lower until all but her collarbones vanish.
Wet curls plaster her temples as she closes her eyes and tilts her head back against the rim, only to be met by those unblinking emerald eyes.
A shiver ripples up her spine, despite the steam rising off the copper tub.
Her eyes snap open and she scrubs harder, as if she can erase the forest from her pores, but the wild doesn’t wash off so easily.
The door creaks and Tilda slips in, carrying a threadbare towel. ‘You’ll scrub yourself raw if you keep at it like that,’ she scolds softly, setting it on a chair and gesturing for her charge to stand.
Marian sighs and slides out of the water, skin pebbling as cool air rushes over her. She reaches for the towel and begins to blot away the water.
Tilda clucks her tongue as Marian tugs the towel around her shoulders.
‘Best steel yourself, girl. Your father’s in a mood already.
’ She lowers her voice, glancing toward the door as though the stone walls themselves might carry the sound.
‘And the Sheriff’s not much better. Strutting through the forge-yard like a cockerel, demanding to see your latest sketches. ’
Marian stills, towel clutched to her chest. She doesn’t need to ask which sketches he means.
The Sheriff had insisted she make alterations to the hook-netting she’d already laboured over for weeks.
The unique design required an intricate weave of ore-thread and tempered steel that she had to calculate perfectly, until the balance was precise enough to hold against fae strength without tearing apart the human hands that dared wield it.
But precision wasn’t what he wanted.
The Sheriff had sneered at her tidy columns of numbers and sketches, jabbing a finger at the pattern of interlocking mesh.
Too clean. Too quick, he’d said. He desired cruelty woven into every knot and ordered her to rework the braiding so that the ore didn’t just bite, but burned.
So that flesh would blister and peel the moment it touched fae skin.
Marian dresses slowly, ignoring the bitter taste in her mouth as she pulls a plain brown frock from the peg near the hearth. The neckline is high and the skirts unadorned. It is the closest thing she owns to invisibility.
When she dares to lift her gaze to the mirror propped in the corner, an exhausted reflection stares back.
Her auburn hair, still damp from the bath, tumbles in long waves nearly to her waist, the strands heavy and wild.
Her skin is warm, its golden undertones kissed with pink.
Rounded cheeks that taper to a sharp jaw mark her father’s blood.
But her eyes – sage rimmed with molten flecks of hazel – are every bit her mother’s.
And she suspects it’s why her father can’t bear the sight of them.
Tilda tugs her backward to the stool by the hearth. Marian sits, fingers tight on her knees, while her handmaiden parts the thick curls into sections and begins braiding. Each twist of Tilda’s hands pulls her further from the forest and back into the cage of the manor’s stone walls.
When the last strand is tucked and the braid tied off with a strip of leather, Tilda pulls a small vial out of her apron pocket. ‘Don’t forget your tonic.’
Marian’s nose wrinkles before Tilda even uncorks it. The scent is sharp and herbal, like nettles left too long in the rain. The liquid inside glints a murky green-brown, catching the light like swamp water.
‘It smells like it was brewed in a boot,’ she groans.
‘Better a foul brew than a fae curse,’ Tilda chides, planting her hands on her hips. ‘It’ll keep the wild out of your blood and the forest from your bones.’
Marian tips it back before she can talk herself out of it. The tonic hits her tongue like metal and moss, bitter enough to make her gag. She coughs, grimacing. ‘Sometimes I think I’d rather face the fae than taste that vile liquid again.’
Tilda’s mouth quirks despite herself. ‘Mind your tongue, girl; your mother brewed that tonic herself. Thank the saints she left the recipe behind before she . . .’
The humour slips from their faces like a curtain drawn shut.
Marian wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, grimacing at the lingering taste; bitterness clings stubbornly to her tongue. ‘A lot of good it did her,’ she mutters before she can stop herself. The words fall between them like a blade dropped point-first.
‘That’s not fair,’ Tilda says softly, her voice wavering. ‘Your mother did what she thought would keep you safe. She . . . She gave everything she had to protect you from what’s out there.’
Silence gathers between them, only broken by the crackle of the fire burning low.
Marian keeps her eyes fixed on the hearth, memories thawing beneath it – her mother sitting by a similar fire with her shawl drawn close.
The way her hands had begun to tremble when she lifted a cup, how her once-bright eyes had dimmed to grey as if something inside her was ebbing away.
Isadora had faded by degrees, like a candle guttering in its own wax.
Every season, she’d grown smaller, quieter, her laughter thinning into whispers that never quite reached her lips.
The physician had called it consumption, but Marian remembered how her mother would stare at the forest from her window, her fingers twitching as though reaching for something she could no longer feel.
In the end, she’d simply . . . emptied. Not violently, not with any great spectacle, but in the still, unremarkable way a well runs dry. And every ounce of kindness her father was capable of went with it.
Marian looks down at the empty vial in her hand, its glass slick with condensation. ‘If that’s what safety looks like,’ she murmurs, setting it down with a hard clink, ‘perhaps I don’t want it.’
Tilda flinches, the sound of the glass against wood too loud in the small room. ‘Don’t say that, child. The world’s teeth are sharper than you think,’ she warns, but there’s no heat in it. ‘Now hurry along. Best not keep your father or that wretched Sheriff waiting.’
Marian rises and gathers the loose bits of parchment on her drawing table, the paper edges soft from use and smudged grey with charcoal.
Her thumb traces over the top sketch. The dark, cruel smudges feel wrong against her skin. These were not her drawings. They were forced from her hand by command.
She presses them flat against her chest, as though their lines could shield her heart, before turning and marching out the door without another word.
If she’s lucky, she can slip them onto her father’s desk and vanish before either he or the Sheriff darkens the doorway.
The scent of smoked meat and boiled starch clings to the halls. Boots thud across stone, followed by the sharp bark of a steward’s reprimand and the hurried shuffle of servants trying to rush past.
Marian moves through the manor like a phantom.
Her skirts brush against her ankles with every step.
She avoids the main staircase, instead cutting through the narrow side corridors used by housemaids and scullions that don’t meet her eye.
The paintings that line the walls are of ancestors she’s never met and hopes never to resemble.
Lords and ladies with pinched mouths and jewel-studded collars, expressions carved from granite.
Her mother’s portrait used to hang here too, in the alcove at the turn of the stairs, but it was taken down the week after she died, with no explanation, no ceremony.
Marian arrives at her father’s study to find the doors closed. A warm amber glow seeps out beneath them. Her palm stills on the handle as her father’s voice, low and irate, echoes off the stone.
‘We lost thirty blades, a dozen crossbows and bolts! It was the better part of a month’s worth of work, and you expect my men to replenish that in a mere few days?’
The voice that answers is oil-slick and unconcerned. ‘Your so-called men should have thought about that before allowing that fae bastard and his pack of mongrels to strut off with my weapons.’
‘Be reasonable, Baldric,’ her father whines.
‘Reasonable?’ the Sheriff hisses. ‘I was reasonable when I let your men crawl back alive after failing me. I was reasonable when I didn’t string you up beside the forge as an example.
But now? Now I’ve no patience left to spare.
The people of Nottingham need a show of strength, not excuses.
While our king bleeds heathens in the Holy Lands, I am here.
I am the one keeping order. I am the one who shows strength. ’
Marian presses her back to the wall; the stone leaches any warmth from her spine, anchoring her while she strains to hear.
‘We need more time,’ her father replies, a tremor of desperation beneath his pleading.
‘The ore veins run shallow this side of Sherwood and the fae grow bolder the deeper we go, snatching my miners and leaving nothing but their boots in the soil. The men will not go deeper into Sherwood, and if I press further, I’ll lose what little workforce I have left. ’
‘Then I’ll find you men,’ the Sheriff snaps. ‘Criminals rot by the dozen in my dungeons. If they’re to be wasted, better they waste their lives for something useful.’
Marian’s throat tightens. The wool of her skirts scratches rough against her knees, the sound loud in her ears though the men beyond the door hear nothing but each other.
A chair scrapes harshly against stone, followed by the heavy thump of boots pacing. The Sheriff’s voice lowers, but the venom in it is unmistakable.