Diary of Sir Guy of Gisborne TOP SECRET

Sadly, his efforts were in vain: Isabella had poisoned her dagger, and in the struggle, managed to graze Robin. It was a mere scratch, but sufficient to be fatal. When they realised that both Guy and Robin would die, Isabella and the Sheriff were overjoyed. They fled to rejoin their army and enter the castle. As Death's icy grip closed around him, Guy spoke of a hidden cellar where the people could hide as the soldiers passed, and thereafter escape to safety. Then he bade farewell to Archer, the brother they had so recently found, who would now lose them both. In Robin's arms, Guy breathed his last.

Robin survived long enough to lead the people safely out of the castle. His final arrow flew unerringly through a window of the Great Hall, and lit the barrels of Byzantine Fire we had created and stockpiled there. I am sure there has never been an explosion like it in all England. Nottingham Castle fell, obliterating the Sheriff, Isabella, and all their men. The people are freed from their tyranny at last! With his final strength, Robin retreated into Sherwood, wishing to die alone. His friends are heavy with grief, but his spirit is now with Marian.

I stay also because of Robin. He may be smug, arrogant, reckless, sanctimonious, and vain, but he is a great leader... and he is a hero. Notions that do not occur to others – or if they do, they dismiss them immediately as wild dreams – are to him as good as done. He inspires others to achieve the impossible. And he would die for the very humblest of these people. He even believes in me. I think I see something of his goodness in Archer, too. I am glad he has come over to our side – although I fear he will not live to fulfil his potential.

I could never hope to match Robin, but I can emulate him, can follow him, and begin to learn as I do so what it means to stand up for an unselfish cause. I do not love each and every smelly peasant – I do not have it in me! – but I see their bravery in facing an enemy so much greater than them, I see how they have been driven to it by the cruelty of their betters, and I begin to understand why a man might wish to stand with them, though it means his life. And I remember Marian, and Allan, and Meg, and wish to honour their memories. I am strangely easy with the decision. As though my heart and mind are no longer at war.

I cannot blame the Sheriff for the man I was. I chose his way, knowing what he was like – I chose him as my route to money, power and security, knowing that what I did was wrong. I selfishly hoped that it would bring me to the fulfilment of my ambition. Of course it did not – the road was accursed. I should have chosen to follow Marian in the Holy Land. She would never have been mine, I know, but she would have lived, and I would not have this heavy weight of guilt upon my shoulders. I might have become a man she could respect – and maybe one day I might have found someone else I could love, who loved me in return.

We took the city, and made Isabella our prisoner. But the moment of our triumph was short-lived: at the gates lay our first casualty. Allan. We had suspected that he betrayed us – Isabella proclaimed him pardoned, and we could not risk it – and so we had left him tied up in Sherwood. Somehow he must have escaped – and someone had killed him, and left him outside the gates like a cat leaves its prey. When we looked up from our grief, the perpetrator was before our eyes. An army approached – Blamire had fled to join them – and at its head rode...

The Sheriff.

He is alive!

When I saw him, I felt a thrill of fear and dread that set my hairs on end and knotted my stomach. But how did he survive – and why did no one inform me at the time? He must have had loyal men – or ambitious ones – amongst the Nottingham soldiers. He was grievously wounded, he says, but I missed his heart. I begin to think that he does not possess one. He is an implacable enemy – my blood, and our unconditional surrender, is the only apology he will accept. But even after all I have done, Robin refused to hand me over. How different he is to the Sheriff! I was so wrong about them both.

Worse news is that the Sheriff has Byzantine Fire (sold to him by my foolish brother!), and will attack at dawn. So tonight, I go with Robin, Tuck and John to quietly damage their trebuchets. Kate has returned – she and Robin had some idiotic dispute over Isabella's necklace, but it is now settled. She is to be sent away again to Loughborough, to fetch King Richard's troops.

Isabella is in the castle dungeon, where once she imprisoned me. She is wild with rage and fear, to the edge of madness. Whatever the outcome now, she has lost: Prince John will not forgive her for losing the castle. I found I could not bear the thought of how she might suffer, so for our mother's sake, I brought her a bottle of poison. She may use it as a last resort, if she chooses.

But there are ill omens for this venture. We have heard that Isabella has a new lieutenant, one James Blamire. I know him. He is a mercenary, and a friend – as much as the man ever had them – of the old Sheriff. I do not like that Isabella has now found him – I mistrust what it means. Even if I ignore the shiver of superstition that I feel, Blamire cannot be underestimated. He is clever, and entirely ruthless.

And yesterday we found part of Isabella's necklace in camp. It belonged to our mother, and she cherished it. I am puzzled as to how it got there, but no doubt there is some innocent explanation. I am getting as paranoid as the Sheriff! Nevertheless, I showed it to Robin and Tuck. For a moment they doubted me! As if I would be so stupid as to tell them of its origin, if I were still in league with my sister.

And another odd occurrence, although I do not know if I would consider it an ill omen: Kate has disappeared, and we do not know why. Robin seems disturbed, but I confess I am quietly relieved. She once described me as "pure evil", and I do not think my actions since have gentled her opinion one whit.

I remember when John and Richard rebelled against their father, twenty years ago. I was a boy when the rebels burned Nottingham – I remember the sorrow in my mother's face as she helped to treat the survivors. King Henry forgave the princes – God rot them – but the country has not forgotten that terrible time. If there is to be war, it must be ended quickly. If we can weaken John, Richard will triumph all the more easily.

Tuck is a warrior-priest and an idealist, even more so than Robin. He believes we are fighting a crusade against Prince John and Isabella. I declined his offer of confession – my sins are too heavy for the absolution of one priest, no matter how mighty a servant of the Lord he may be. So now he treats me as he would a sharp tool: he speaks practically of how best to use me in a fight, and he does not trust me not to cut him if I am handled unwarily. He at least does not hold a personal grudge against me.

After all that, Archer refused to join us, as there was no profit in it! And then he stole my horse to make his getaway. He is safe, at least, so our mission was a partial success.

In fairness, Robin did break us out – briefly. If Archer hadn't insisted on taking the other prisoners along with us, and if Robin hadn't agreed, we might have made a clean escape. But we were caught. Archer tried to hold Robin hostage, but it failed – there were guards in the outer chamber, when he tried to make his escape. Isabella's lieutenant is here to ask that Robin and I be handed over alive, so she might have the pleasure of killing us. The Sheriff of York was not interested in bargaining, though, so now we are all set to hang.

Archer says that he was doing very well in his own escape plans – namely seducing the Sheriff's wife – and that our interference was unnecessary. Robin jokes that I should be used to prison by now. Archer is demanding to know what I am writing; Robin is telling him to let me be. Now they are squabbling, and soon – ah, yes, now they are brawling.

If this is what it is like to have younger brothers, I count myself fortunate to have missed out on the experience until now. I had better go and bash their silly heads together before they bring the guards down on us.

He killed my mother. She was dead before the fire took hold.

It is a long story. I must start from the beginning. When my father was believed lost in the Crusades, Robin's father and my mother... became lovers. They planned to marry, but then my father returned home, and all was thrown into chaos. But father had returned with that terrible disease upon him, leprosy. He was banished from the village, cast into an open grave and forced to climb out on his own! I still remember my burning anger at all the villagers who turned out to witness his humiliation. He had been a good lord to them, a generous man – a brave man who fought for his faith in the Holy Land – and this was to be his repayment?

After that, he was legally dead, and mother was free to remarry. No doubt Malcolm's hopes were revived – but she still loved my father. I do not know what might have happened, if not for the fire. It was an impossible situation, but she was the most determined woman I have ever known. If a way could have been found for us to be together as a family once more, she would have found it. I know it.

But as a boy, I did not understand. I discovered that she had been visiting my father in secret, in the leper colony. I was so angry. I thought she was being selfish – why was she allowed to visit him, and yet I was forbidden? But when I confronted her, she told me that she intended to marry Malcolm, that he would take care of us from now on. I was furious – and afraid! I thought he must be forcing her in some way, I could not believe that she would choose Malcolm over my father, although I see now that it was not that simple. I was angry with father, too – if he loved us, why had he left us for so long to fight in the Crusades? Why had he returned with this terrible disease? Why, when they banished him from the village, did he not fight back? Why did he abandon us?

I confronted him in that horrible colony, told him that Malcolm was forcing mother to marry him. I accused him of not loving us. I do not know if my words had any effect, but the next day, he returned in secret to our home, to speak to mother. Isabella and I waited by the hearth, not daring to hope. But father had been seen – by Robin, of course, the keen-eyed meddler! He told everyone that father had entered the village, breaking the terms of his banishment. Malcolm came to evict him. That was when I tried to stop him, and when the fire began.

I fled the house with Isabella, and there I believed the story ended. But more happened than I knew. Father and Malcolm fought, and Malcolm was the stronger, would have despatched him, but my mother intervened. It was an accidental blow, Malcolm said. He knocked her to the floor, and she hit her head, and did not rise again. My father regained his sword, and could have killed Malcolm on the spot – but he decided to show mercy. He spared Malcolm's life, and stayed behind in the burning house with my mother's body, choosing to end his days there rather than rot slowly in a leper colony. Sir Malcolm fled – coward that he was! – preferring to orphan Robin rather than burdening him with the shame.

Sir Malcolm of Locksley. I hated him then, and I hate him now, no matter that he is dying, and will not live to see Robin again. I will never forgive him for seducing my mother, for causing her death and the death of my father. And yet, guilt is heavy upon my own shoulders. We are damned for the same sins.

Robin was distraught at the tale. He always worshipped his father, I recall. To my surprise, I felt some sympathy for his distress. I know the cruel pain of discovering that you were mistaken in someone you love. Robin was an annoying child, a braggart and a tattle-tale – from the day he picked up a bow he boasted that he was the best in the village, until it became the truth! And he was not so honest, either: he never confessed to the crime that nearly had me hanged as a boy, when he shot down the wheel that nearly crushed the priest. The villagers all believed I had done it – he did not step forward to tell of his guilt. But the fault lay with his father: he was shielded from reality by Malcolm, protected from harsh truths, and regarded by all the villagers as a golden child. He was brought up to believe himself the centre of a benign universe.

Isabella and I were distrusted, because of our beloved, strong-minded French mother. She oversaw the lands herself when we believed father was dead, and the villagers hated her for the presumption. They believed the lands – gifted to my father for his services to the King – should have reverted back to Locksley's care, as they had been before. And of course they did return to that family in the end, after Isabella and I had fled, and with all our parents dead. Robin, lord of the manor at eight years old! I heard that Bailiff Longthorn tried to take over, taking advantage of Robin's youth, but that Robin expelled him, supported by the villagers and that foolish priest. It is no wonder he has such an over-inflated opinion of himself.

But then there is Malcolm's other revelation: Robin and I share a brother.

Mother bore the babe in secret, and would have brought him home if she and Malcolm had wed. His name is Archer – named for a birthmark he bears in the shape of an arrowhead. All we know of him is that he has travelled far and wide, and possesses exotic weapons from the Orient that may be useful in our fight against Isabella. He is in York, and he is set to hang – I don't know whether to blame the Gisborne or the Locksley blood for that! That is why Malcolm tracked us down. He wished us to put aside our enmity, and to find Archer and save him – together. Robin and I. He is clearly mad.

I think Robin and I must be mad, too, for we have agreed to do it.

Robin told me he cannot forgive me for what I did to Marian, and seemed surprised that I did not expect such a mercy. But why should he? I will never forgive myself. Nor will I forgive his father for his crimes. After telling his gang – who were less than pleased to see me! – Robin and I headed to York. We robbed one of Isabella's toll booths on the road, and it was surprisingly easy to work with him. He is sharp and professional. We reached York and have booked rooms at this inn, and I am taking a moment of quiet before I go down to share a meal with him, and plan our invasion of York prison.

I needed to stop and think – and writing this diary has become a way of laying out my thoughts so I can make sense of them. It is almost a compulsion, now – I am amazed that I have managed to drag it with me throughout my exile. The only other person to have seen it is Meg, and I believe what she said, that she did not read what I had written. I read her note with a pain that I cherish close to my heart. I was not worthy of her trust.

I will go after Hood, and if I survive, Isabella. And then Prince John. I will put an end to this torment, one way or another. Isabella has betrayed me, time and again. It is her fault that Meg is dead. Hood... I cannot even remember all the reasons why he is my enemy.

I do not think I can win – I am in no state to fight. It will be a relief. I am so weary of this world, where the good and innocent die, and animals like myself must live on in pain and fear and anger.

I have lost everything – my love, my home, my hopes. Even when my intentions are good, I cause death and destruction to those around me. I seem to be born to fail, and to cause pain and unhappiness. Well, I will not trouble this world for much longer.

And then Hood intervened – and a wretched job he made of the rescue! He certainly was not there to that purpose. If not for my poor Meg, he would no doubt have remained a spectator, and I would be lying in a traitor's grave right now. He shot the executioner, and then the falling axe (which landed wildly, nearly beheading me), and then he left to raid the castle. That must have been his original intention.

Nevertheless, Meg and I seized the chance we were given. But as I helped her down from the scaffold, a soldier came at me with a halberd. I did not see him – but Meg did, and pushed me aside, taking the blow herself. She should not have done so!

The wound was fatal. I could do nothing. I carried her deep into Sherwood, and held her as she faded. She asked for a kiss. I could not refuse her last request, although I do not understand why she would want a kiss from such a despicable revenant. She died in my arms, and I found that tears had not been burned from my heart, after all.

I do not know how long I cradled her body as it grew cold. I have scratched out a grave in the soft earth, and soon I must lay her in it.

I cannot endure this.

How many more innocents must die because of me? Why does God allow this?

I was so glad to leave him and to be taken under Isabellas wing. I thought I had found freedome, that at last no one would tell me what to think, whom to love. I thought she understode why I want to make my own choises. I was ecsited to think I might help the new lady Sheriff, and that together we might work to make life better for the wimen of this town. But I was wrong about her. She wanted me to follow her blindly juste as much as my father did, to hate all that she hates, to share her bitterness towords all men for the wrongs done to her by her husband – and by you, Guy. But I can not.

You have hurt Isabella but I do not beleave you deserve this death. I am glad I met you, Guy of Gisbourne. Im glad I got to knowe you, in spite of evrything, and Im glad you say I helped you (tho I don't see how). You have done some, horrible things, in your life, but you have been kind to me, and askt nothing in retern. Theire is one personn in this world who would have morned you, had she not all so been about to die! I hope the priests praye for both oure souls, for none else will.

One last thing, in case I don't get the chanse to tell you: dispite what I said, I think youre very handsome.

I should have kept my distance – should not have responded to her kindness... I should have stayed strong, stayed contained. I should have been hard, cruel, so she would be glad to be rid of me, like the rest of the world.

She sits beside me now – the guards threw her in my cell rather than bothering to unlock the second one again. She did not cry, but her whole frame trembled with terror and shock, and I could offer no solace but a shoulder to lean on. Now she is dozing. I feel her warmth against me, and I cannot help but be comforted, though the guilt bites hard. I wish I'd been able to push her away.

So when Isabella returned to free her (having apparently dealt with Thornton), it was to my utter surprise that Meg interceded on my behalf, asking for my freedom. For a moment, I felt... I am not even sure what I felt. Disbelief, confusion... and a distant flicker of hope – an emotion that has become almost alien to me. But Isabella would not listen, of course, and my sentence stands. Her bitterness is almost frightening – I begin to wonder if she has been driven mad.

So now Meg has gone, taking hope with her, and I am alone again in this dank cell. I do not fear to die, Marian – I know the Nottingham executioner keeps his blade sharp! – but I fear what awaits me. I have earned myself a fine seat in Hell – and I earned it upon your body. You tried to help me, but I was greedy, I wanted more than you were ever willing to give. And when I finally realised that you would never be mine, I cast aside every last scrap of humanity I might once have possessed. My wrath, my selfishness, my pride, my fear – they were my undoing. But my worst crime was that I brought you down, too.

She asks about the state of my conscience. What business is it of hers? What's done is done. I cannot change the past, no matter how much I would.

She even has the nerve to comment on my personal appearance. She would not be so bright-eyed and rosy-cheeked if she too had spent the last year in Hell!

She laughs at me.

So instead I worked up my plan for a royal execution. Prince John's greatest triumph would be followed by his fall from grace – as he did to me. I infiltrated the coronation ceremony, dressed as a guard. But Isabella thwarted me again, damn her! She took the crossbow bolt meant for the Prince, and Hood shot me in the shoulder before I could reload. I believe he escaped with the crown that Prince John was attempting to usurp (Hood claims that Richard is not really dead – not that I care), so at least the coronation cannot go ahead. Now Isabella – with her wound as a badge of honour – is made Sheriff. She tells me she will sign the writ for my death with great pleasure.

When I came to Locksley, I planned to kill her. But when I held the sword at her throat, I could not make that final cut. Why not? She has betrayed me, time and again – why could I not despatch her? Because she is a woman? Because we are family?

No, I think it was because she stared back at me with such hopeless defiance, daring me to strike her down. I recognised it – I understood it. Seeing that look – knowing how it is earned – I could not do it. We are kindred spirits, she and I – and it has nothing to do with the blood in our veins. We are equally lost.

I am glad. Perhaps it can be as it was when we were children left alone in the world – fighting and clawing for our survival together.