“Like Hood,” he countered with a smile of his own.
Their loving afterwards was fiercer and more frenzied and, much later, as they lay entwined together, Emma could do nothing but laugh in wonder, with a shake of her head at hearing her lover speak.
“Wife, what are you called?” Arthen asked raking a hand through his tousled brown hair and looking rather flustered.
CHAPTER 22
Emma had not wished them to hide the truth from Maggie and John, and Aunt Royse already knew the right of it. At first Maggie had been incredulous, marvelling at the tale, but she was a kind, good-natured woman always looking for the best in others and had found it easy to forgive Emma's deceit. To Emma's deep surprise, John had looked relieved rather than angered by her revelations.
"I see now how it is," he'd muttered with a smile and a shake of his head, and a look of shared understanding had passed between him and Arthen.
"What?" Maggie had asked with raised eyebrows.
"Never you mind. Men's talk," John had tossed out with a wink and a grin.
"Better say, foolish talk!" Maggie had countered with narrowed eyes.
Both John and Arthen had shrugged and they had left it at that, but Emma had felt somewhat wary of John still not liking her as Arthen's wife. However Arthen had later set her mind at ease.
"He'll change towards you. He now plainly knows you're other than you were."
And as weeks passed and summer came fully upon them, Emma began to see John's coldness towards her had indeed melted. And she came to value his friendship, as well as the new bonds she was starting to forge in their neighbourhood. She'd always felt lonely and unable to befriend those around her, due to her former family's harsh sway upon her life. Upon this new life of hers she looked with awe and wonder each day, eager to discover those things which had been denied to her in her cold, wealthy prison. And while her love for Arthen and Robin felt like a bond that would never be severed, it was not a bond which would ever make her feel confined. Emma often thought upon Rowena, hoping against hope her sister's new life as a noblewoman did not feel like a dire prison. And she often thought upon Lady Marie, knowing that, just like Emma herself, the girl wished fiercely to be free.
"I fear for her," she whispered, clasping Arthen's hand tight within her own.
The Archery Contest was upon them, and Arthen had been pleased with his pupil's progress, and had deemed her fit to compete in the event which took place at the end of summer.
"So do I," Arthen muttered with a frown and a shake of his head. "She's to compete against her brother."
Marie's brother Gilbert was not only older by a couple of years than his sister. He'd also been training hard, since a young age. And he was vicious and ruthless and always craving to be the victor.
"You fear he'll beat her?" Emma asked.
Arthen shook his head, and Emma closed her eyes in sheer dread. She saw why Arthen feared for the girl. It would be far worse if Lady Marie won than if she lost. Her brother was a spiteful boy, and he would not take this humiliation lightly.
"She's a true-born archer, just as I thought. And obstinate. And mightily diligent. In spite of her short, delayed training,she's already better than he is. But I thought well upon what you've told me of your former life. If she wins..."
He trailed off, and Emma said nothing.
"And I cannot tell her to make herself lose before him. I can't," he muttered, raking a weary hand through his hair. "It's not that I am a vain teacher willing to brag of my pupil's skill, it's just that, if I tell her to lose on purpose, it will break her. It will break her as an archer."
For a while, neither of them spoke, as they stood before the tent where Arthen was to meet the lady Marie, to offer her his final advice before the contest.
"Well, then she has to win," Emma said at last, pulling her shoulders back.
"Yes, but at what price? They'll hate her for it and they'll try to break her. It's just as you said when I agreed to do this. I did not think upon it, because I did not see it as you did. But now that I do, I know you were right. I erred. And the child is to pay the price of my error," Arthen said with a chagrined shake of his head.
"They've always tried to break her," Emma countered in an impassioned voice. "No,youwere right. Sooner or later she will have to free herself from them. She–"
Her talk was cut short by Lady Marie's arrival. She was dressed in an archer's garb, different from the fine gowns she usually wore, and upon her head she wore a hood of deep green. Young and lean as she was, you could easily mistake her for a wood sprite, and not many of those who would glance upon her without knowing who she was would realize she was a girl.She could easily flee. Disguise herself as a hooded archer boy and flee her cage forever.And they would never imprison her again. Emma's thought came unbidden, but she chased it away, knowing she had no right to harbour such thoughts over the fate of another.
Lady Marie lifted her chin, looking calm and detached as she conferred with Arthen in a low voice. Emma did not catch all they were saying, but the girl was composed and she seemed firm in her resolve to win the young archers' contest.
"I wish you luck, my lady Marie. May your arrow strike strong and true," Emma called to the young lady when it seemed the talk between pupil and teacher was done.
"No need to call memy ladywhen my father's not around. And I was christened both Marie and Anne. Just call me Marian," the girl countered with a smile.
Emma nodded, returning the smile, and they parted from the young archer. As they took their place in the stalls, it seemed to Emma, by the tense way in which Arthen held himself, that his pupils' contest was far more portentous to him than the one for master archers, in which he'd already competed and which he'd effortlessly won today. The contest in which Marian was to compete was meant for archers-in-training, and to Emma it seemed unfair that her brother would want to enter it, as by his own words, he had already finished his training as an archer. However, it seemed the sheriff's son already knew he had no chance against the seasoned archers who'd come to Nottingham to show their mastery, and had on purpose chosen the competition for green archers where he thought to humiliate his sister for what he perceived as her presumptuousness.