22. Baron
BARON
It was nearly midnight.
When my officers had come for the meeting, I’d sent them away and told them it was cancelled. If I spoke with any of them, there was no telling what I’d do or say, and I didn’t need to give anyone else a reason to hate me.
Everything felt foggy and far away. The candles on my desk had burned low, and the reports in front of me blurred into lines of ink that meant nothing. No matter how many times I tried to force my mind back to supply counts, patrol routes, or discipline records, the same thought kept circling back.
Laurel left me. She was gone.
My father’s voice drifted through my memory as clearly as though he’d been standing beside me all along. “She will hate you and abandon you and then you’ll be alone with nowhere to go.”
I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes until spots of light burst behind them.
I had told myself he was wrong. I had told myself Laurel knew me better than that.
I had told myself the Merry Men were different from the world I had known before, and that if I proved myself, if I worked hard enough and risked enough and changed enough, perhaps I could belong somewhere.
Now I wondered if this meant I was automatically disqualified from ever joining them.
The Merry Men had become like family to me.
The only friends I had in the entire world were among them, and even that had felt too fragile to trust. Without them, what was I supposed to do?
Go back to Prince John? Become the man everyone here already thought I was?
Stay in this stone room and spend the rest of my life barking orders at men I intended to betray?
I stared down at the report again and read the same line over and over but didn’t understand a single word.
Would James even show up to our midnight meeting?
Perhaps Laurel had already told him what happened.
Perhaps he would stay away, and that would be answer enough.
Or perhaps he would come, but only because they were all afraid of what I might do if they cast me aside too soon.
Maybe they would pretend to include me until I was no longer useful, then drop me as soon as King Richard was found and Prince John was defeated.
The thought settled cold and heavy in my stomach.
The things I had said to Laurel kept echoing through my mind.
Maybe I shouldn’t have said them, but the worst part was that I still believed some of it was true.
Laurel needed to understand that when she behaved recklessly, she endangered herself and everyone around her.
I knew she would never willingly divulge information, but if she acted without thinking and was captured, willingness wouldn’t matter.
I had seen how Prince John’s men treated prisoners. My past rose up before me whether I wanted it to or not, full of orders I had obeyed and punishments I had watched or else personally carried out. I knew what could happen to Laurel if the wrong people discovered who she was.
I couldn’t let that happen. She had been the one bright spot in my life, now even that light was gone. Even if she hated me, even if there was no chance of reconciliation, even if every tender look she’d ever given me was gone forever, I still had to keep her safe.
I heaved myself upright and grimaced as my full weight settled onto my feet. I was exhausted. Physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted. And now I still had to pick up the pieces of a broken relationship and find a way to protect someone who no longer wanted my protection.
My future seemed to stretch ahead of me, gloomy, dismal, and empty.
I hated myself for thinking that way. I had work to do.
I had a mission. I had people depending on the information I gathered.
I had no right to sit there feeling hollow because one random girl had decided she was better off without me.
But it wasn’t one random girl. It was Laurel.
I pulled open the door and set off down the barrack hallways.
I needed to meet James, assuming he would even show up.
If only I could cancel my meeting with him as easily as I’d cancelled my meeting with my officers.
The corridor was dim, lit by torches that smoked in their brackets and threw restless shadows along the walls.
Laurel was the only one who had never been afraid of me.
Everyone else told me what they thought I wanted to hear because they feared getting on my bad side. Laurel had always told me exactly what she thought, whether I wanted to hear it or not. She never softened herself because of my size or title.
I missed her.
It had only been a few hours since we split up, but already I missed her so badly that it felt ridiculous.
I missed her independence. I missed her fiery spirit and quick wit.
I missed the way she could rob me blind, insult me to my face, and somehow make me feel better than I had all day.
I missed the way the room changed when she entered it.
I had no idea why people thought I was terrifying. I was a sap.
If anyone ever discovered how much power this one girl had over me, I would be laughed at from Nottingham to Sherwood and beyond. I trudged on. One of the guards at the gate heard my boots approaching and turned. I straightened to my full height and forced my face into an ugly sneer.
“Out for another late-night stroll, Sheriff?” he asked after saluting.
“Can’t sleep,” I barked. “Too many people asking nosy questions. Now lower the drawbridge at once.”
The guard clamped his mouth shut and saluted again. His companion hurried to give the signal, and the drawbridge began to lower with a groan. I marched over the moat and into the forest beyond.
I made no attempt to quiet my footsteps.
It felt satisfying to crash through the underbrush.
Branches snapped beneath my boots and leaves tore against my legs.
Every time something broke under my weight, a small portion of the frustration inside me eased.
Nature didn’t interrogate me about my past. Nature did not look at me with horror and ask how I could have done the very things I already hated myself for doing.
It simply let me crash through it.
James was waiting in the clearing. In the dim light from the moon, he was difficult to see at first. It wasn’t until he waved me over to where he sat that I could make out his thin profile on a fallen log.
Even if he had already spoken to Laurel, even if he was only pretending to still be on my side, it was good to see a familiar face that didn’t cower away from me.
“It’s a wonder you’re a tracker,” James joked when I reached him. “I could hear you coming a mile away. Thought you were a bear for a bit there.” I grunted and sat heavily on the other end of the log.
James waited a few moments. “Bad day?”
I feared that if I opened my mouth, I would say something else that would drive away one of the few remaining friends I had…if he even was still my friend.
James studied me for a moment, then leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “I’ll just give you a quick update, and then you can get back for some sleep. I won’t keep you long. I know you have a lot to deal with.”
What was it exactly that he knew?
James began to speak about how our information had helped Robin Hood find where King Richard had been held, but Richard had already been moved, and they were trying to trace him again.
He mentioned Philip’s army drawing closer, part of a report from Dale and Will Scarlet, and several other matters that should have been important to me, but it was impossible to focus.
The words slid past me. I heard names, places, fragments of plans, but none of it settled. My mind remained locked in the same room with Laurel, watching her walk to the door and hearing her say goodbye.
“Stop,” I finally said.
James fell silent as I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose.
We sat for a few minutes without speaking, James patiently waiting beside me.
The forest filled the silence around us.
Insects chirped in the grass. An owl called somewhere far off.
Leaves shifted faintly overhead, stirred by a breeze I could feel against my damp forehead.
It was the sort of quiet that usually steadied me, but tonight it only made the emptiness inside me feel even more expansive.
“Did you talk to Laurel today?” I asked eventually.
“No,” James said. “I haven’t seen her in the past three days. We’re supposed to meet tomorrow.”
So he didn’t know yet.
“Is anything wrong?” he asked.
I swallowed hard. He would find out eventually. Better sooner than later, and better from me than from Laurel, though I could hardly imagine any version of the story that made me look good.
“We aren’t together anymore,” I said.
I was glad there was no shake in my voice. I sounded calm and collected, almost bored. I didn’t want James to think I’d dissolved into a pathetic mess because some girl decided she and I weren’t meant to be.
“I see,” James said.
We sat in silence for a long time. That was one thing I liked about James.
He didn’t rush to fill every quiet space.
He didn’t laugh awkwardly or pry for details before I was ready to offer them.
James understood what many others did not.
Sometimes the best thing a person could say was nothing at all.
I was the one who finally spoke. “It was her idea.”
“I figured,” James replied.
I stiffened. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Did everyone think I was so desperate that I would never suggest Laurel and I go our separate ways? That I was some hopeless romantic who couldn’t imagine life without her? Did they know Laurel had always been indifferent to me and it was only a matter of time before she left?
“It just means that Laurel can be flighty,” James said. “She acts first and thinks later. She’s…”
“Impulsive?” I supplied dully.
“Exactly.”