38. Baron
BARON
The part of the woods we entered was dark and foreboding.
Moss draped from the trees in long green sheets, and cobwebs stretched across the abandoned path as if no living creature had used it in years.
It took half an hour of walking before I reached the cottage the physician had described.
At first, I worried that I wouldn’t recognize the crooked tree.
How was I supposed to know which one the physician meant?
Every time I passed a tree with the slightest bend in its trunk, I strained my eyes through the gloom, searching for any sign of a house.
But as soon as I saw it, I knew.
The tree was blackened and twisted, growing at a sharp angle from the ground before bending completely in the opposite direction halfway up.
It continued that way for nearly ten feet before clawing toward the sky again.
Dead branches hung from the trunk, and a massive vulture perched at the top, watching my approach with wide, hungry eyes.
I shifted Laurel’s weight in my arms and held her closer.
The cottage beyond the crooked tree would have terrified me as a child.
A large iron pot boiled over a cook fire outside, its contents giving off a foul smell that caught at the back of my throat.
Ravens clustered in the surrounding branches, their caws grating against the heavy silence of the clearing.
Though it was a cloudless summer morning, shadows seemed to cling to the small shack as if sunlight was afraid to permeate the gloom.
Every step toward the door made my skin prickle.
Blue-tinted smoke curled from the chimney.
Several shingles were missing from the roof, and the shutters hung crookedly beside grime-covered windows.
The walls had perhaps once been white, but thorny vines had climbed over them until green mildew and dark leaves swallowed nearly every inch.
Weeds grew unchecked around the path and something slithered through the tall grass near my boots.
When I looked down, I saw bones scattered among the moss-covered stones.
Animal bones, I told myself firmly, trying not to look at the one that looked disturbingly like part of a human skull.
It felt as though I was being watched by thousands of unseen eyes, and a thousand unheard voices were crying out at me to run away.
For the briefest moment, I wanted to do just that.
Forget this place being able to frighten a child; as a grown man, I was frightened now.
Every sensible instinct I had told me to go back, to take Laurel somewhere else and to refuse to place her life in the hands of a woman who lived among bones and smoke.
But if this was where I could find help for Laurel, I would stay.
As I neared the front door, it creaked slowly open.
An ancient, hump-backed woman emerged, older than anyone else I’d ever seen.
Wispy white hair streamed behind her as if stirred by a wind I could not feel.
She wore ragged, patched clothing and clutched a heavy black shawl around her bony shoulders with one knobby hand. In the other, she gripped a thick cane.
“Baron,” the woman rasped. “Do come in.”
The use of my name sent a chill through me.
“Do we know each other?” I asked.
She smiled. It was not a comforting expression. Broken, yellowed teeth showed between her thin lips, and several large warts dotted her face, including one on her cheek with a small tuft of hair sprouting from it.
“I know all about you, dear boy,” she said. “But you do not know me. You may call me Mother Margarite.”
Her appearance didn’t matter. The state of the cottage’s repairs didn’t matter. The bones, the smoke, the watching birds, the cold feeling crawling beneath my skin… None of it mattered. Only Laurel did.
“Can you help her?” I asked, lifting Laurel a little higher in my arms.
“Of course.” Mother Margarite gestured toward a wooden table in the center of the room.
I hesitated. Everything here felt so wrong. Or perhaps I only thought so because I was exhausted, terrified, and carrying the woman I loved while her life slipped away with every passing second. How much was my instinct trying to protect me, and how much was paranoia?
Mother Margarite watched me without blinking. “Lay her down.”
I looked at Laurel and slowly laid her down. Her face was pale, her lips dry and parted. She had stopped making sounds, even when I had to shift her. Was she so far gone that she no longer felt the pain?
Margarite moved closer and placed two wrinkled fingers against the side of Laurel’s throat. Her expression didn’t change. “She doesn’t have long at all,” Mother Margarite said. “You brought her just in time.”
Mother Margarite only gazed at me. What was she waiting for?
“Please,” I begged. “Please help her.”
“Only the truly desperate come to me,” she observed mildly. “Are you desperate, Baron Blackwellson?”
“You know I am.”
“And you don’t want her to die. She’s more than just a friend to you, isn’t she?”
My jaw tightened. “That’s complicated.”
“Most worthwhile things are.”
I didn’t have time for her riddles. “Are you going to help her?”
“What will you give me in return?”
I fumbled for the heavy pouch of coins James had given me and held it out. Mother Margarite glanced at it and chuckled. “I don’t deal in things as trivial as coins, boy. You’ll need to do better than that.”
“Then name your price. I’ll give you anything.”
Her smile returned, slow and unsettling. “Anything?”
My hand gripped Laurel’s. This had to be a trap. I felt it as surely as I had ever felt a snare hidden beneath leaves. No one asked for anything unless they intended to demand something terrible. But Laurel’s breathing had grown even fainter.
“What do you want?” I asked again.
“I won’t tell you yet.”
“Then I can’t agree.”
Mother Margarite tilted her head. “Then your friend will die.”
I looked down at Laurel’s limp body on the table. Mother Margarite’s voice softened, though not kindly. “I know you’re a busy man, Sheriff. I’m willing to give you time to fulfill your oath.”
I swallowed hard. “Then I agree. I’ll give you anything you ask for if you heal her,” I said. “You have my word.” I would be willing to work day and night for years if it meant Laurel was saved.
“Then swear it.”
“I swear it. Now, please, help her.”
Suddenly, Margarite seemed full of vitality. She bustled about, collecting bottles, herbs, powders, and potions. I checked Laurel’s heartbeat and found only weak flutters, as if her heart was barely remembering how to beat.
“Please live,” I whispered to her. “Please.” I didn’t care that we fought.
I didn’t care that we were different or that she was impulsive, impatient, impossible, and more stubborn than a mule with a headache.
I only wanted her better. Even if she did not want me back, even if she returned to Sherwood and chose a life that didn’t include me, I could survive knowing she was alive and well somewhere in the world.
I would not survive her death.
Mother Margarite began muttering to herself as picked up bottles and ground herbs.
A chill breeze swept through the cottage though the door was closed and the day outside was warm.
I looked toward the chimney. The blue smoke from the fire had thickened, curling low against the rafters before drifting down in pale ribbons so the candles flickered.
My blood ran cold.
I tried to quell my paranoia, but this looked like every dark, cautionary tale I had ever heard whispered to children. Every story of forbidden bargains, cursed healers, and desperate men who paid too much for miracles. I no longer knew what I was seeing, or what my fear had invented for itself.
Mother Margarite moved her bony hands over Laurel’s body then swiftly combined powders, crushed leaves, and a few drops of potions from various bottles into a shallow bowl.
Sometimes she murmured under her breath.
Sometimes she hummed a ghostly melody. Once, she snapped at me to hold Laurel still while she poured a dark liquid between her lips.
“Baron?” Margarite said as she began unwrapping the bandages from Laurel’s middle.
“What?” I asked, trying not to stare too hard at the gashes across Laurel’s middle.
“There are some chickens out back. Go kill one and bring me the heart. The fresher it is, the better it draws out the infection.”
I obeyed. Even though I’d killed and cooked plenty of chickens in my time, this felt different, but I didn’t ask any questions. I mutely handed the heart over once I was finished, not even bothering to wash the blood from my hands.
Mother Margarite cleaned the wounds with a harsh-smelling liquid that made Laurel’s body jerk even in unconsciousness, then placed the chicken heart where the gashes were the worst. I was sickening to watch but then, to my amazement, the swelling began to ease.
It didn’t happen all at once and was slow enough that I almost thought I imagined it at first. But the angry color faded by degrees and Laurel’s breathing deepened. The tightness around her mouth relaxed and the terrible heat in her skin lessened slightly beneath my palm.
Mother Margarite continued to work.
She packed the wounds with a thick green paste, then wrapped thin black bandages firmly around Laurel’s middle. Only when she had finished did she step back and wipe her hands on a rag that looked as ancient as she was.
“She’ll come around in another day or two,” Mother Margarite said. “Keep the wounds clean. Change the dressings twice a day and apply this paste each time.”
She shoved a large jar of green salve into my hands.
“She is to drink water whenever she is awake. Gruel and porridge at first, nothing heavier. She will be weak so don’t let her do any work. Do you understand me? None. She is to lie in bed. Even when she begins to feel better, she’s not to get up for at least four weeks. Preferably six.”
I stared at Laurel.
Sweat no longer beaded across her forehead. Her breathing came easier now, and a faint touch of color had returned to her face. When I bent to listen to her heart, the beat was stronger. Relief flooded through me so powerfully that I nearly sank to my knees. She was alive. She was going to live.
“Thank you,” I said, and meant it more sincerely than I had ever meant anything. “I don’t know how to repay you.”
Who cared that the cottage was unsettling?
Who cared that Mother Margarite looked like every nightmare ever carved into an old woman’s face?
She had saved Laurel. For that, I would have forgiven nearly anything.
I scooped Laurel carefully into my arms and turned toward the door.
As I reached the threshold, the memory of my oath returned.
I stopped. “What did you want in return?” I asked.
Mother Margarite smiled to show every broken, crooked tooth. “I want you to murder King Richard.”