Chapter 24 #2
She spits. It lands on his cheekbone, shining in the forge-light.
The guard twists Marian’s arm until her shoulder nearly dislocates. She ignores the pang slicing behind her eyes, and laughs, blood dripping down her chin, a feral grin splitting her bruised mouth.
The Sheriff leans in to wipe his cheek on her shoulder as if she were a cloth he owns. When he looks up, his smile has curdled into something knife-thin. ‘Bring them both in Hallomere’s cells and ready the courtyard. At dawn, the forest learns what becomes of thieves and traitors.’
Iron bites Marian’s wrists, the cold cuffs making the hairs along her arms lift as if a storm is crawling over her skin.
She fights with everything left in her. She kicks backward, heel catching a shin; she twists, shoulders screaming; she drops her weight so suddenly that a guard stumbles and swears and another hammers his baton into the meat of her thigh to make her move.
Allen is a dark smear being heaved ahead, head lolling, chains clanking like a butcher’s bell. The forge’s heat chases them to the door, then cold seizes all at once as the early dawn wraps around them.
They drag her through the yard at a trot, her heels carving trenches through the dirt. The oak doors of the manor yawn open before them – and there, waiting at the threshold, her father looms like a ghost.
Eamon Hallomere’s hair is greyer. The flesh at his jaw sags as if a string’s been cut.
When he sees her, something collapses and hardens at once in his face.
Marian can practically see the shame crawl up his neck, but habit wins out.
He glances at the Sheriff first, as if seeking permission to breathe.
Marian bares her teeth like an animal and lunges, but the chain yanks her short.
The guard on her right jerks her arm higher until the cuff bites bone.
Another shoves her forward with a palm to the spine.
She stumbles through the same doors she’d crept through as a child, barefoot and silent, now hauled like wild game.
Eamon doesn’t move. Guilt flickers across his face but is strangled by pride and smothered by cowardice until his gaze drops.
‘You don’t get to look away now,’ Marian roars, chest heaving as they pull her past him. ‘Look at me, you coward!’
Her father’s eyes twitch upward but slide away again, as if her fury is too bright to bear. His knuckles whiten on the ledger clutched to his chest, and he takes one faltering step backward.
‘You would rather bow to a butcher than lift a hand for your own blood! Did you get what you wanted?’ she spits, her words cutting under his ribs. ‘A county’s worth of silver and a daughter delivered like a side of meat? Did the Sheriff pat your head for being a good dog?’
He flinches as if she’d struck him. His bottom lip quivers as he turns to the Sheriff. ‘Please, Baldric. She’s my daughter—’
‘You no longer have a daughter.’ Marian laughs, harsh and ragged. ‘You sold her!’
The words ricochet off the stone, her insides shattering with every word, but burning too hot to be held. The cuffs cut until her wrists are slick, but she doesn’t stop yanking against them.
‘Look at me!’ She thrashes, throwing her shoulder into a guard’s chest hard enough that he grunts. ‘LOOK AT ME!’
At last, his gaze meets hers. He opens his mouth, but the Sheriff cuts in.
‘Best keep your tongue, Eamon. It’s the only thing you haven’t squandered yet.’
The words fold her father smaller, and Marian seizes the opening like a blade. ‘You’ll die as you lived – a coward, back bent and gagged, while another swings the axe. And I will die before I forgive you for it.’
The guards curse and wrench her down the spiral staircase, into the belly of the house. The air thickens, damp with mildew and the metallic tang of rust and old blood. Torches gutter in sconces along the walls, throwing bars of shadow across the stones.
The guards haul her to a row of cells, each reeking of piss and despair.
They throw her hard against the far wall and she hits the flagstones and hay with a grunt, cheek splitting against rough stone, as the guards slam the door behind them.
When she looks up, the Sheriff’s gaze glints at her through the bars.
He’s wiped his face, but blood still rims his nostrils.
‘I suggest you try to get some sleep. When your backwoods bastard comes for you, I will make him watch as I drape you in silk and pull wedding vows from that pretty mouth of yours. As for your precious Robin Hood,’ he spits the name, ‘I will bind him to the pyre and let the flames singe the life from his skin as a wedding gift.’
The guards laugh as their leader turns the key, and they walk away, leaving only the echo of their boots behind.
Hours pass in the small, brutal geometry of the cell. Marian sinks back against the wall, wrists throbbing where the cuffs bite. The damp crawls through her clothes, into her bones. Allen’s breathing is shallow and uneven – a slow, stubborn rhythm that tells her he’s alive, for now.
Time folds strangely in the dark. The torches burn low and spit, throwing their light in slow pulses, like a faltering heart. Every drop of water that falls from the ceiling sounds louder than it should. Every breath she takes tastes like rust.
When the scrape of boots returns, Marian tenses, every muscle braced for her captor’s return. But instead, she’s met with the mousy, fret-filled expression she’s known since childhood.
‘Tilda?’
Marian’s handmaiden takes the last few steps two at a time, her hazel eyes shining with shock and guilt. She rushes to the bars and reaches for Marian without hesitation.
‘Saints, you’re alive.’
Her voice cracks on the word. She grips the bars like she could pry them apart with her bare hands, knuckles white. Her eyes are rimmed red as if she’s been crying for hours.
Marian drags herself upright, every joint protesting, and crosses the short space between them. Her knees nearly buckle on the first step, but she catches herself against the bars. ‘Barely.’
Tilda’s trembling hands are warm against her cheek. ‘I tried to get the keys.’ She glances toward the stairs, voice dropping to a whisper. ‘The guards – there are too many of them. And the Sheriff’s men don’t drink enough to be bribed any more.’
‘You shouldn’t be here. If they—’
‘I couldn’t sit back and do nothing.’ Tilda shakes her head, eyes glistening. ‘Not again.’