~ by Avellina Balestri
Marian dreamed deeply that night, penetrating the past and feeling it singing through her subconscious. So many memories, so very alive, and the sense of it all slipping away, somehow, into a world beyond memory, and it haunted her…
She remembered that first kiss on the swing when she was thirteen, and she’d nearly hit him, but then marveled at how soft his lips were, and felt that she now really was grown up, and she’d ask him to push her up high on that swing till she could almost touch the blossoms on the lowest branch. He’d shot down the highest cluster with his bow, and tucked it in her hair. She remembered the sweetness of its scent, like young love.
She remembered the harvest festival when she was fourteen and young; mischievous Robin had thrown straw at her, and she’d thrown it back, giving as good as she got – they tumbled in it together and laughed. They’d bobbed for apples, and he’d said she looked like a drowned kitten, and she splashed him. They’d held hands and wandered off into the woods together, all the leaves painted in the many shades of autumn’s rainbow, and watched the dappled deer spring across the clearing. Robin had decided not to shoot the beautiful creature because it was too young; a doe.
She remembered the Christmas feast when she was fifteen, when they had told her not to look so glum as the young men crowded her in the great hall, all terribly boring, vying for her attentions, and how he had rescued her by whisking her outside, and they’d danced around the common fire to the music of the common folk on the Locksley estate. She’d learned the taste for freedom then, in the chill night air, with the roses blooming on her cheeks, from both warmth and cold, and how Robin fit in so very well with the lowest born serf, always seeing every man of honest heart and steady hand as his equal. They were his people, and they loved him for it.
She remembered when she was sixteen, just how much she cried when her father insisted that she go to London and be introduced to the court, partly to get her away from Robin, for the Locksleys had fallen on hard times and would not make a proper match. That fool son of a Saxon lord would be swinging from a rope one day, they all said. He defied authority too many times for his own health, they’d said. It was only a matter of time before he overplayed his hand.
And sure enough, when she turned seventeen, they did send her away. She remembered their last walk through the woods together. Robin had joked the whole time about the fancy dresses she’d have to wear at court and how her tomboy ways wouldn’t ever conform, trying to make her feel better, even though she could tell that the pain of loss tinged his voice. And she’d stomped her foot at him for never taking anything seriously, then panicked and hugged him, and told him she wouldn’t be married off to anyone but him.
She also remembered when she returned from London. She was nineteen, and everyone assumed she had outgrown her childish fancies for the Locksley boy. She had met men of the world now, not least the Lord Sheriff. But Marian’s heart was like the great oak tree that grew in the center of Sherwood, and her roots were intertwined with the roots put down by that man who knew the flow of the forest streams like the flow of his own blood.
He was the embodiment of all that cried out to spread its wings within herself, for he would be no man’s slave, and she would be no man’s pawn. In a world where injustice was accepted without resistance, he dared to turn the tables on it, to strike at its pride – where it hurt the most. Even in his youth, he had broken the poaching laws for their sake, and they had affectionately dubbed him their St. Nicholas for his winter hunts.
Now an outlaw, he had not changed in the least. He would help his people unto his very life’s blood, without asking anything in return. He was a glimmer of hope, assuring them they were not alone, telling them to keep their chins up, and reminding them of the stars in the night that sparkled – much like his own eyes – the color of robin eggs.
She dreaded the thought of that sparkle going out.
But she knew he counted it almost a certainty, eventually. Even his prayers to his one Lady above her always took a dark turn, for it was “when you come to take me, Lady, ask for Jesu’s pardon,” and “when we meet, at last, dear Lady, I’d like to talk more,” and “in that hour coming, remember me to your Son, Lady.” And the beads were so often in his hands, and the cross with the Prince dying between thieves, condemned by the law to die an unjust death. Marian imagined he must sometimes wonder how God judged his choices, and which of those crosses best fit him – the good thief, the bad thief, or His dying Savior, all suffocating together, seeming to display the mystery of all mortal suffering and twisted judgments.
Marian believed she knew which he was, even if he did not. If he was not a living part of the body of the God-Man dying on the tree, she knew not who was. Perhaps this outlaw was a part of the beating, pierced, imperfect heart, pounding down through the ages.
She marveled at how he could be cheerful so much of the time, even with the death sentence hanging over his head, day after day. He was the one always keeping everyone else’s spirits up. His men were mostly merry because of Robin’s own resilience and ability to quip even in the face of death, and constantly outwit it. He was like the wild forest fox, playing his many tricks upon the perusing hounds, never letting them get close enough to tear him to pieces.
His resilience managed to bring smiles to the despairing, from the hard-set faces of his fighting men and the dirt-streaked faces of village children. That was his gift: he gave them just enough courage to go on another day. Robin never changed in this, any more than the North Star in the sky above the sea changed, or than Marian’s own vows to him would change.
For she was folded into him, and he into her, deeper even than the death doomed to kiss him one day. He did not believe death was the end; he believed there was a justice deeper than all the callous cruelty of the world. Even though she found it hard to believe as he sometimes did, she clung to the hope for it all the same. And she prepared to kiss death herself if it took him away before her.
This night, she thought it had come for her in truth, for when all the memories had run their course, her dream began to taunt her… yes, she sensed he was gone from her, and she knew not where. She tried to follow, to find him by a tiny guiding light, but she saw only white, and red… saw white, and red, and heard mocking laughter, and smelled the stench of death, of the nauseating metallic scent of blood… and she screamed.
Then she awoke, perspiration forming on her forehead. It was late morning, on the feast of the Annunciation. Somehow, she had overslept… she would miss Mass if she did not hurry.