[WATTYS2023 - GERMAN WINNER/Most Engaging World] ** Marian, a thieving nobleman's daughter with too big a heart, meets Robin Hood, a daring thief with a huge ego. Will they be able to overcome pain, longing, and, finally the cruel Sheriff of Notting...
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The following night seemed so peaceful as if nothing terrible or remarkable of the day had happened. The moonlight, bursting from behind heavy clouds, cast dim silvery-white light on Nottinghamshire. The wind drove the clouds lazily across the night sky, and the balmy summer breeze made the ivy of Castle de Burgh's ramparts rustle softly. The corridors of the fortress, usually sparsely lit at late hours, shone with the golden light of numerous torches since the last raid of the tax money.
Only a few servants still tiptoed through the corridors. The tiring veil of late evening settled over the halls with its accompanying silence. The metallic >>clonk<< and the soft scratching, on the other hand, seemed treacherously loud.
Boot soles scuffed across the stone floor, bounced over the rise of a threshold, and then disappeared behind a door. Robin Hood stuck his head out of the gate and cast an appraising glance first to the left and then to the right.
"Nothing in sight," Robin murmured softly.
"Then stop standing there and help me!" Behind him, Marian's hands, with the wild thumping of her heart, tugged at the tabard of the guard they had just knocked unconscious and were now trying to hide in one of the castle's myriad chambers.
Robin let out an indignant snort, took one last look down the hall, and quietly closed the wooden door. He could barely hold back a chuckle as he turned. "What a sight you are!" he pressed out, panting while trying earnestly not to burst out laughing.
Marian had pulled on the guard's tabard. She was wearing trousers - which was amusing enough to look at - but what did the rest for Robin was the shapeless bulge on the higher part of her hips. The fair maiden had tried to stuff the silky-white nightgown into the waistband of her trousers - but the folds bulged under the chainmail like a big fat belly. It looked particularly amusing as the rest of the clothes hung on her like a sack. The tabard was too big for her, although the guard had not been a giant
"You look as if a scarecrow had the clothes of a watchman thrown over it," Robin murmured, reaching for a corner of the doublet to somehow adjust it. Although the two long-fingered men were surrounded by the inch-thick oak door and solid stone walls, neither dared raise their voices above a whisper.
"Do you think you look any better?" hissed back Marian, pulling the tip from Robin's hands. It felt strange to be talking to him so intimately. To allow him to call her by her first name. She struggled to maintain a wall between them. He had hurt her, and just because they were now brought in together, she would not forgive him. Marian snorted, then tugged at her tabard so that a little more of the night garment would spread around her waist.
Robin raised her hands in surrender. "Oh, please forgive me. I didn't mean to offend your sensitive, delicate, maidenly feelings," he chirped, flinging the guard's helmet at Marian. She caught it and rolled her eyes at the same time. Robin couldn't help but notice how adorable it looked when she was euphoric.
