Chapter Five

There were splinters in the palms of her hands. Seven in the palm of her right, three in the left, all positioned like constellations across the roughed skin. She gave them a impatient glance, but this was not the time to dig them out. That would have to wait for later – when that would be, she didn’t know, but at the moment she wouldn’t have given a talking sheep a second glance. There were other things occupying her mind. Escape, for example.
The guards had not expected to be used as step-ladders to hoist criminals over the gates that night, and so it came as rather a shock to be used as such. They had not anticipated, nor known how to deal with, the flying feet they found themselves confronted with, and were so at something of a disadvantage. Much and Marion climbed them like squirrels and left both with a solid kick in the head. The guards had nothing left to do but faint, which they both did. Much and Marion were left with splinters and firmly etched lines from the ironwork, not to mention an entire string of armed men at their heels, but they were on the outside of the gates. This was enough for the moment.
The guards found it absurdly difficult to free themselves from the heavily latched gates, and once they had gotten out, their quarry was out of sight. They cursed and yelled, and stumbled into the darkness. Sir Guy was woken, and he rushed to join in the chase. A circle of gold light covered the men as they ran, provided by the torches someone had thought to grab. This made it easier to see the ground beneath their feet, but much more difficult to see their surroundings – and what hid in it.
When the guards were fresh, they called out and jeered, laughing in the counterfeit safety of their ring of light. When the roads and forest stretched out far behind them, though, they began to slack off, and were soon quiet, except for the clank of armor and the rustle and breath of the horses. The night was a canvas on which they were vividly painted, but their prey was not. This made them antsy, and they longed for either action or their beds. Their nervousness was not reflected on Sir Guy, however. He sat his mount steadily and refused to find fault with the dark. The guards were assured that the lawbreakers were within easy grasp.
Much and Marion, though, had no intention of being caught, even though it meant a night entirely devoid of sleep, running through the damp fields and forest, and fording streams icy with the not-long-past winter. Rough grasses ripped at their legs as they fled, and by the time the sky blushed with dawn, Lady Marion Fitzwater looked as though she had spent the night in a pigsty, and her companion looked no better – both traced with blood from the branches’ blows, and covered in bird dust. They collapsed in an exhausted heap many miles from their homes, not having eaten in several hours, their limbs loose and trembling with their run. They lay protected in a copse of trees deep in a forest that was unknown to them, and slept. Around them, the wood started to lighten, and branches clicked with birds’ feet as they began their waking songs, but the two figures on the ground lay still, silent, and blind to the morning.