Chapter 3
Chapter Three
The forest does not answer her cries. It only listens, vast and unyielding, the greenery wrapping close as though to smother the sound.
Marian does not know how long she has lain there.
Eventually, gentle hands, familiar and sure, find her shoulders and coax her upright. Marian resists at first, body limp, but Tilda is insistent, whispering soft, indistinct words.
Marian lets herself be pulled. Her muscles are spent, her head heavy as stone against her neck. She stumbles when she tries to stand, the skirts of her frock sodden with earth and clinging to her shins. Tilda’s arm steadies her waist, firm but careful, guiding each step back toward the manor.
They cross the courtyard quickly, the crunch of gravel beneath their boots the only sound. No servants dare approach. Perhaps they see the mud streaked across Marian’s face and gown, the red-rimmed and swollen eyes, and think her cursed.
Inside, the manor is warm with torchlight, though Marian feels no heat.
Tilda keeps them moving, murmuring that it is only a few steps more, only one more turn, only one more stair, until they’re safe inside Marian’s chamber.
Tilda closes the door behind them and guides her toward the bed.
Marian is pliant beneath Tilda’s hands as her maid unlaces her frock and pulls it free.
It lands in a heap on the floorboards, dark with wet earth.
Stockings are peeled from her legs, braid unravelled until damp strands fall in a dishevelled curtain about her shoulders.
Tilda does not bother with cloth or soap. She lays Marian down as she is: a girl returned from the edge of something vast and terrible.
Marian curls onto her side, knees drawn tight to her chest. The pillow muffles the shallow breaths that shudder through her ribs as if her body has forgotten how to move without breaking.
She stares past the bed, past the worn curtains, past the wavering torchlight on the chamber walls.
Beyond the glass of her window, the night stretches wide, an ocean of black ink scattered with pinpricks of silver.
She can feel the grit on her skin, the sting of a split lip, the dull throb of her cheek where her father’s hand landed. None of it matters. What burns deeper is the knowledge that no part of her is safe any more.
So she begins to empty herself.
Piece by piece, she strips away what remains of softness.
She pulls out every tender thought, every fragment of hope, every corner of herself that might still love or long. She leaves them behind where the Sheriff can never reach them.
Her body shakes, though not with sobs. The tears are gone, wrung dry in the forest. What comes now is quieter, a slow unravelling. She feels herself becoming smaller, harder, until there is nothing left inside her for them to ruin.
When dawn finally breaks, it does so softly. Light spills across the sill in muted ribbons. Dust motes stir in the shaft of it, floating without weight or destination. The warmth does not touch her. It slides across her face, her hair, her rumpled bedding, and she feels nothing.
The door creaks and, even without looking, she knows it’s Tilda; no one else would dare. She does not waste words, knowing there is nothing she could say that Marian would hear. No questions, no fuss.
Tilda steadies Marian by the elbows and eases her onto the stool near the hearth, before crossing to the armoire. She opens it with a creak and rummages for a moment before drawing out a dress the colour of old smoke.
It’s plain – severe, even. The fabric is a heavy wool that drinks the light rather than reflecting it.
The sleeves are long and narrow, meant more for penance than comfort, and the skirt falls straight to the floor without embroidery or trim.
The collar is high and a faint scent of cedar clings to it from years of being folded away.
A gown fit for a funeral.
Limbs stiff, Marian allows herself to be moved like a marionette. She doesn’t meet Tilda’s eyes, afraid of what she might see: grief, or worse, pity. Her reflection in the warped glass of the mirror looks like a ghost.
Tilda brushes the salt from Marian’s cheek, the gesture tender as a lullaby.
‘You’re going to survive this,’ Tilda finally mutters.
‘I don’t feel like surviving.’ Marian’s voice is a rasp, scraped raw by the long night.
Tilda turns, reaching for the brush in her apron. She begins gently working through the tangles in Marian’s hair. ‘You don’t have to feel it. You just have to choose it. One breath at a time.’
She braids Marian’s dark-cherry strands carefully, tucking them into a woven crown before reaching into the depths of a trunk.
She withdraws a small scrap of velvet the colour of dried roses.
With trembling fingers, she unwraps it slowly, the fabric falling away to reveal a delicate fox-shaped hairpin of old silver, tarnished but still gleaming faintly.
The fox’s body is lithe and delicate, inlaid with copper eyes like wildfire.
The edge of its tail has been sharpened to a fine, lethal point that no one but the wearer would suspect.
Marian inhales sharply. It’s one of her mother’s. She remembers it vaguely from childhood, a glint she always had tucked into her hair. A shimmer of steel disguised as beauty.
‘My mother,’ she whispers, ‘used to tell me that foxes survive not because they’re the strongest or the most aggressive, but because they’re clever.’
‘Aye.’ Tilda nods, her voice barely more than breath.
‘Because they know when to vanish . . . and when to strike.’ Tilda takes the pin and weaves it into the back of Marian’s braid. Her fingers linger there a moment longer, as if casting a prayer into the strands.
A knock splits the silence. Too loud. Too soon.
Tilda stiffens, smooths a final strand of hair into place and stands, shoulders squared. She moves to the door and opens it just a crack.
Four guards stand on the other side, already bristling, the Sheriff’s crest gleaming on their shoulders. One of them moves inside without waiting for an invitation.
‘It’s time.’ His voice is flat, disinterested, as if he’s fetching the laundry.
The words land like a stone in Marian’s chest.
She forces her spine straight and stands. Her father would want her bowed and the Sheriff would savour it. So she does not bend. Even as her knees tremble beneath the weight of wool and despair, she walks.
The corridor stretches long and cold, skirts dragging across the flagstones as she is shepherded down the hall. Her fingers twitch at her sides, aching for her bow, for parchment and charcoal, for anything that belongs to her alone.
A guard pulls open the manor doors. Cold morning air rushes in, carrying the scent of damp earth, forge smoke, and distant pine. The Sheriff’s carriage waits in the yard like a beast crouched in ambush, the crest of his house painted in garish strokes across the door.
Marian braces for his grin, his gaze, his stench of command, dread sinking into her limbs at the thought of the close press of him during the ride to Nottingham. But when the guard wrenches the door open, the interior gapes empty, dark velvet cushions untouched.
And the Sheriff is nowhere to be found.
Relief slams through her so sharply, her knees nearly give. She climbs inside, skirts bunching in her fists to keep from tripping on the step. The door slams behind her.
She does not look out the window. She cannot bear to see whether her father stands at the threshold watching her go, or whether Tilda waits in the doorway with her fists clenched and tears unshed.
Four of the Sheriff’s guards flank the carriage on horseback, one at each corner, like wolves pacing near the bones of a kill. A sharp rap on the roof is the only warning she has before the driver cracks the reins and the carriage lurches forward.
Outside, the yard blurs until the manor recedes, stone walls and smokestacks dwindling until Sherwood rises to meet her, its branches arching high and wide, an endless colonnade of green shadow.
The carriage plunges into it without hesitation, wheels biting deep into the rutted path to Nottingham.
The forest closes in on either side, trunks crowding and boughs weaving tight overhead, until the light itself feels strangled and the morning dims again into shadow.
Marian sits stiff-backed, hands folded neatly in her lap.
Her eyes fix on the window, though the view is nothing but endless green.
The road jostles beneath the wheels; every bounce makes the boning of her gown bite harder beneath her arms. She grips the seat’s edge with her fingers hidden in folds of fabric, nails digging against plush cushions until they ache.
Suddenly, the rhythm breaks without warning.
The carriage halts and jerks her forward, her palms slamming against the opposite bench, pain sparking up her arms. Outside, the horses snort and stamp, the driver swearing as leather reins snap taut.
‘Saints, what now?’ one soldier grunts.
‘Looks like a felled tree,’ another answers, his voice tight. ‘Cut clean through.’
Marian leans forward, her breath catching as she strains her ears to listen.
The horses toss their heads, reins snapping, leather creaking as the driver fights to keep them steady. Marian can hear the scrape of hooves pawing at the earth as though they, too, want to turn back.
‘We’ve no time for this,’ the driver growls. ‘The Sheriff wanted her at the chapel by the first bell.’
‘And what do you suggest?’ another grunts. ‘Drag the tree aside with our bare hands? By the time we clear the road, Nottingham’s knell will have rung twice.’
The fourth voice, lower and scratchier, comes from behind the carriage. ‘He’ll have our bollocks on pikes if we’re late.’
A heavy silence follows, the men shifting uneasily in their saddles. Marian’s heart hammers, but her face remains fixed, still as carved stone. She presses her palms flat against her thighs, willing her fingers not to tremble.
Finally, the driver’s voice cuts through, low and decisive. ‘We’ll take the Roman road.’