On His Behalf (open)

[Liam Bronte]

"Some people certainly would be," he said, his confident air returning slightly. He reached out and gently took her hand again, replacing it on his chest. "But see? I'm just as real as anyone else here. Just as human as you." He pulled her hand down and held it between his own. "That's what people forget when we return. Knights, Crusaders, aren't human to them anymore. "We're nothing but soulless killers to some of them." Looking at her, he wondered how much father he should take the conversation. Often, when he'd spoken to women the conversations were quick and involved very little truth. But now, with Isabella, he was treading a very thin line, not knowing how he felt. But he was so close now to trust, he could tell, and breaking off now could put all his previous efforts to waste.

[Isabella]

Isabella was starting to see the confidence return to Bronte, but now she saw it in a different light. Maybe he had had to be self-assured in the Holy Lands because if he wasn’t, the reality of facing death on a daily basis would have been too much for him to bear. Now he was in England, the situation had altered, but his attitude hadn’t had time to yet. Everyone had their own ways of dealing with things; perhaps this was his. Perhaps he wasn’t another arrogant, power-hungry noble. Isabella wasn’t sure.
It scared her that she might expose too much of herself to this man, who she knew very little of, who could very well ruin her life in Nottingham, but somehow she was drawn to him as she was drawn to any kindred spirit. Someone who she could understand what they had been through could understand her in return, and Bronte might be one of those someones. In a way, she hoped he was.
“Sir Liam,” she began, “I don’t think you’re a soulless killer. You’re as human as any of us are.”

[Liam Bronte]

Liam laughed, throwing her a kind smile. "I'll hold you to that statement, Lady Thornton." Standing, he held his hands out for Isabella and looked down the hall.
"I'd say a change of scenery is in order. Perhaps that can change the mood of our conversation. Getting a bit deep for two strangers, don't you think?" He paused and puffed the air out of his cheeks with a sigh. "Despite what I might feel about you this conversation, that rather annoying social law says that women aren't to talk about such dark things." The previous feelings all but left him as he switched back into his confident self. Flashing her a cheeky smile he asked, "What do women talk about, nowadays?"

[Isabella]

Isabella smiled. Thank God he stopped that particular vein of conversation from continuing – she’d had no idea where it was going, or why she had a propensity to philosophise with people she had only just met. It seemed to be happening an awful lot recently, and it definitely wasn’t what the gracious lady she was meant to be should be doing. She ought to be charming and polite, with lots of safe topics to speak about, but instead of doing that, she’d managed to talk very seriously with Bronte, in the way that a man might.
If only she had been a man, she wouldn’t be having this problem now. She wouldn’t have had to marry, either – her brother hadn’t, though that was more to do with his utter hopelessness with women. And even if she had married, she wouldn’t have been beaten by her spouse. She could have even married someone she actually liked. Isabella didn’t think the world a fair place; not for women, not for the poor. Not for anyone who wasn’t especially blessed.
She took Bronte’s offered hands and got up, feeling somewhat safer now that his confidence was returned. Now she wouldn’t be able to speak so deeply. Now he didn’t scare her so much. She nodded in agreement when he said that women shouldn’t talk about such dark things as they had just been discussing.
“I don’t seem to be very good at abiding by social law today,” she admitted, “Would you like to go out to the garden? It’s a lovely day.”
Isabella began to lead him outside, amused with how she had, unintentionally, bent the rule Roe had made earlier: no picnics with noblemen. Yes, she was going outside, but the absence of food meant that she wasn’t technically breaking it.
She shrugged when Bronte asked what women spoke about nowadays. She didn’t actually speak to other women very much, and, for that matter, she never had. All the important people in her life, apart from her mother, had been men – though most of them were not important for good reasons. She ought to talk to Thea a lot more than she did, but there were certain problems there. The only women she spoke to were servants, and though she was civil with them – she hated the way some nobles treated servants, and she knew herself what it was like to be hated – they never had proper conversations. Isabella mostly kept herself to herself, and that was the way it had to be now that she was for Robin and the outlaws.
“I’m afraid we rarely talk about anything very important,” she replied, “Which is, I suppose, what we ought to do. What do men talk about nowadays?”

[Liam Bronte]

Liam followed her into the bright garden, letting the sun warm him. He laughed and shook his head at her.
"Men? Well, hardly anything of interest, least of all anything deep. Conversations tend to follows the lines of food, ale and women. Although, I count myself as one of the luck few who can easily converse with both genders. Some of the knights I fought with became little more then stuttering statues when faced with a woman." He chuckled a few times and sighed. "Quite amusing to watch, in a sad sort of way."
A breeze swept through the courtyard, making the flowers and grasses ripple. Liam motioned to a sunny spot by a large, lush tree and removed his outer cloak. Shaking it out with a flourish, he held his hands out to Lady Thornton. "Social law," he said with a wink before setting himself down on the grass to her right. He sat back and enjoyed the sun, warm, but stiflingly so and with enough of a breeze to be quite agreeable.

[Isabella]

Isabella nodded when Bronte told her what men’s conversations frequently included.
“I guessed as much,” she commented.
She couldn’t agree with his statement that he could easily speak to both genders quite yet – not until she had seen him talk with a man – but she knew that he was talking more about how he could speak to women, when other men could not. It was his pride showing through, but now it did not seem to be the overpowering aspect of his character. It was definitely an element of it, but not all. Isabella was glad she could see that now. She smiled when he mentioned the knights he’d fought with that became tongue-tied if they saw a woman.
“I’m glad you’re not one of them,” she said, “That would result in a most confusing afternoon for one party, and a most terrifying one for the other. Though which party is the lady, and which the knight, I’ll leave you to decide.”
She smiled at the flamboyant way he shook out his cloak and set it on the ground, and she settled herself on it, to his left, where he sat on the grass. She soaked in the heat of the sun like a cat, closing her eyes and leaning back to feel it warm her face. Isabella loved the summer – then, she could go outdoors more and be freer.
Going on a summer ride was a useful cover story for whenever she was visiting Robin or his men, but she hadn’t heard much from them – not since the Prince’s calamity of a wedding. But then again, she wasn’t their only contact inside the castle; there was Roe, too. She really ought to stop thinking so much about him now she was in Bronte’s company. She didn’t want to give anything away. Still, she thought, turning her mind back to the outlaws, come winter, when food became harder to come by, they would need her more then. It occurred to her that she ought to stop thinking about the outlaws, too. She tried to think of something else.
God, Isabella, she suddenly thought, There is a handsome knight sitting right next to you and your mind is elsewhere?
She opened her eyes to look at him.
“How long do you intend to stay here in Nottingham?” she asked.

[Liam Bronte]

"Men are rather predictable creatures, I'm afraid." He laughed with her, but noticed after a moment of silence a shadow of a frown between her brows. He sat up so he was facing her and looked at her with his gray eyes.
"What's that frown about? And here I thought you were enjoying my company," he joked with a lopsided smile. He reached out a plucked a small blue flower from one of the beds. He rolled the stem between his fingers for a moment before tucking it behind her ear, brushing a stray lock over her shoulder.
"What are you thinking about?" he asked, his gray eyes level with hers.

[Isabella]

Isabella silently cursed. She hadn’t realised how obvious it was that her mind was wandering, and Bronte could evidently tell that it was. She needed to keep a closer rein on her thoughts when she was around him.
“I am enjoying your company, Sir Liam,” she assured him, though she knew he was joking by the way he smiled.
She watched as he picked a flower and put it behind her ear, surprised by how gentle he could be. Half of Isabella did want to tell him what it was she had been thinking about, but the other half – the more sensible, cautious half – won out.
“I was thinking about Locksley,” she replied, “It’s where I grew up. It’s been a long time since I lived there.”
“It makes me feel quite old sometimes,” she added on a brighter note, “Especially as the only people who remember it are Guy and –” she stopped herself from saying another name just in time, “Guy and myself.”
“Where did you live, before the Crusades?” she asked.

[Liam Bronte]

"How you can seem old, I'll never know." Liam laughed. "Locksley? I've heard of it, but never been there. Tell me about it." Bronte stretched his arms then laid them behind his head, using the side of the flowerbed as a support.
"I grew up in London, stayed there until I was sixteen. We lived right in the heart of it all." He mused, thinking about the somewhat pathetic home he'd grown up in. "Sent quite a lot of time in Birmingham, though. Beautiful town." He sat back and enjoyed the sun, waiting to hear Isabella's description of her hometown.

[Isabella]

Birmingham… so that explained how Bronte knew Thea Linnet; he’d known her when they were children when he was in town. He could have known her quite well then, she reasoned, though equally she may have only been a vague acquaintance. He might just have been surprised to learn that someone he knew was staying in the castle, even though he didn’t know her that well. Isabella couldn’t help but hope it was so. She didn’t want Thea telling him any tales about what had been happening recently. Her own involvement in that girl’s life was far too intricate for her liking, and what she knew could spell a great deal of trouble for her.
“Locksley was a nice village,” she told him, “Nothing out of the ordinary, just farmers and craftsmen, their wives and children for the most part. They were poor but treated well. It was the happiest I’ve ever been, when I lived there.”
Isabella tried not to look so wistful about the past and added:
“I wasn’t the most well-mannered child, if I speak truth, and the woods and stream and meadow were the best places in the world to play in. I was forever outdoors, driving my mother to distraction.”
Isabella failed, of course, to mention the fair-haired boy with whom she’d spent days and days playing with. But as she remembered bitterly, those days came to an abrupt end, with the fire and her parents’ death, and she didn’t want Bronte to know about that. It was another weak spot, and she already had many of those.

[Liam Bronte]

"I would have never guessed you weren't well-mannered. Judging by how you handled my sudden arrival, I would have pegged you for the epitome of grace." He laughed, teasing her gently.

"Sounds very different from where I grew up. Sounds lovely," Bronte thought about his busy life in London as a boy. Traveling from place to place with his father, rarely being home, the constant translating he did. He'd fought everyday in his child with any other boy of knight he could find. He'd taken defeat willingly and gracefully. Where had that gone? Far away, and it had been gone for quite sometime. It would be naive to assume he was the same as he had been in his childhood.

[Isabella]

Isabella laughed at Bronte’s gentle dig. She never thought herself to be graceful or accomplished – those were just masks, something pretty to hide behind if she needed them, if she was putting on a show. She nodded when he said that Locksley sounded lovely.
“It was,” she agreed.
She was silent for a moment, looking up at the blanket of sky, stretched out like a mirror to the world above them. Maybe the clouds were their unfolding lives, always changing in shape, impossible to catch hold of, what lay ahead never certain. A wind suddenly picked up and pushed them away. It was like how she was being pushed in another direction now that Bronte had turned up, but she didn’t know where it might lead. For an instant, the sun was blotted out and a shadow passed across her and the knight. He seemed to be thinking about something too, and the look on his face was… But then the wind died, becoming nothing more than a light breeze again, and the sun burst triumphantly forth as if it had never been gone.
“But everything changes,” Isabella added, “Nothing lasts for long, however permanent it may seem.”
She stopped talking and smiled at Bronte.
“And I am philosophising again,” she realised, biting her lip, “Sorry.”