Chapter 11
Iwas forced to shadow Baron everywhere he went. After morning exercises, Baron claimed that he normally would have had weapons training next. “But for some strange reason,” he added lightly, “No one wants you near any weapons.”
I smirked. “I wonder why.”
The sheriff had already forced Baron to remove any and all weapons from his person the day before, fearing that I would come into possession of one while Baron slept or was distracted. I wasn’t even allowed to watch the weapons training. Instead, Baron and I were sent to gather firewood.
We ventured into the woods, and he hefted heavy logs back to the campsite while I casually picked up a few slender twigs along the way. “We’re supposed to be collecting actual firewood,” he said to me as he saw my pitiful collection.
“I’m a prisoner. What incentive would I have to help out around camp?”
“Because everyone gets cold.”
“Everyone else has blankets!” I snapped. “In fact, I hope they all freeze to death tonight. I’m not going to collect firewood for other people to use after they have had a night under warm blankets.”
“I told you that you can have one of mine. I meant it, you know.”
There it was again, Baron pretending to act kind to try to ease me into a false sense of security. It wasn’t going to work. Robin of Locksley had taught his daughter better than that. I didn’t answer but rather just picked up another twig and lobbed it at the back of Baron’s head.
As the day wore on, I began to notice how the other men behaved around Baron.
He was clearly respected—feared, even—by the sheriff’s men.
They straightened when he passed, lowered their voices, and answered him promptly when he spoke.
Yet, despite that authority, he seemed to have no real friends among them.
There was none of the easy laughter I was used to around the Merry Men.
There were no shared jests or joking conversations by the fireside.
He carried himself like a man accustomed to solitude, or perhaps one who had simply chosen it.
Not that I minded in the slightest. The rest of the camp was full of the sheriff’s usual variety: rough-voiced, foul-mouthed, filthy-handed brutes who thought themselves to be clever.
They called out lewd remarks whenever I passed—crude insults and other things not worth repeating or remembering.
I ignored them, or else answered with a swift, slicing retort that left them blinking and open-mouthed.
Father always said words were as fine a weapon as any blade, and I had spent years sharpening mine.
Baron, to his credit, stayed well clear of their rabble. He would speak to them only when duty demanded it: requesting scouting reports, issuing orders, checking the horses or supplies. Otherwise, he kept to himself, working on tasks or maintaining his weapons, his expression calm and unreadable.
More than once, when the men’s comments grew too bold, Baron cut them off with a low, commanding, “Don’t speak to my prisoner.”
He claimed it was protocol…simply a senior officer establishing lines and discipline. But since I was always chained or seated near him, his rule meant that no one spoke to me at all—not unless he allowed it—and I was grateful for it.
At mealtimes, Baron would take bites or sips out of my portions to show me that they weren’t poisoned, then pass the platter or cup or bowl over to me. We always ate by ourselves, which was curious to me. All the other men seemed to congregate at the mess tent for meals.
“Do you always eat alone?” I finally inquired at dinner.
Baron had once more produced a surprisingly tasty meal, and I wondered where a high-ranking official from a camp full of mercenaries would have learned to cook.
Why didn’t he have the camp’s cook bring him his food if he didn’t want to eat with the others?
Surely his position would have entitled him to certain privileges.
He shrugged his massive shoulders. “Most of the time. Why?”
I shook my head. “I was just wondering.”
“Did you want to join the others?”
“No,” I said a little too quickly.
He grinned. “Ah, you like our little romantic firelit dinners alone together, do you?”
I shot a look of disgust at him but then saw how genial his expression was, as if he were joking with a friend, rather than taunting a prisoner.
The realization made me pause. He wasn’t irritated by my questions at all.
There was no sharpness and no weary sigh beneath his words the way there had been with Goric, Flavius, or Dorian.
So I kept going, this time not out of defiance or boredom, but because I was actually curious.
“Why don’t you get your meals from the cook?”
“Because I don’t count anything he prepares as worth consuming. I only get the ingredients from him.”
“This barely counts as worth consuming,” I lied, watching to see if he would get offended.
“And yet you finish your portions every time,” Baron observed with a twinkle in his eye.
I chewed my tongue. Normally my condescending remarks made people keep their distance from me, but Baron seemed merely amused.
I was used to dishing out a healthy measure of attitude and sarcasm, but Baron was wholly unfazed by any of it.
Bah! He constantly ruined so many of my normal tactics.
I wished I had any other person to guard me, a man who would be easily provoked and quick to anger.
Someone like that would be easy to manipulate, resulting in them making hasty and foolish decisions, which always opened a world of opportunity I could exploit.
“So where did you learn to cook? I thought most men consider it a woman’s job.”
Baron chewed a large bite then answered nonchalantly, “I was on my own a lot when I was young. If you get hungry enough, you figure it out.”
“It doesn’t look like you’ve ever been hungry,” I jibed.
“And you don’t look like you could drop men twice your size in a fight.” Baron raised an eyebrow at me. “But here we are. Appearances can be deceiving.”
As he prepared to sleep that night, Baron once again offered me a blanket, but I stoutly refused, saying that I didn’t need any coverings at all.
“Your attitude certainly is fiery enough on its own,” Baron commented, then added, “Well, if you want a blanket tonight, all you have to do is ask.”
I vowed that I would die before asking for help from the man who had botched my escape plans not once, but twice.
That night was the worst of any I had yet endured. A cold front came in around midnight, and I went from being chilly to legitimately freezing. Frost began creeping into the tent, and I shivered so hard that my teeth chattered, the chains rattled, and my breath came out in ragged, gasping bursts.
I heard Baron rise from his bedroll and cross the tent.
“G-g-get aw-w-way from m-m-me!” I stammered as my entire body convulsed, shuddering against the cold.
But there didn’t seem to be any malice in Baron’s actions.
Instead, he laid not just one, but two thick blankets over me and returned to his side of the tent.
The blankets he covered me with were still warm from his body heat.
Slowly, my shivering stopped and my temperature crept back up.
Despite my previous assertation that I didn’t need any coverings and would refuse any of Baron’s help, I couldn’t find the stubbornness to throw them off now.
I hadn’t meant to sleep, but the next thing I knew, I was waking up to a bright autumn sunrise spilling in through the tent flap.
The two blankets were still covering me but Baron’s bedroll was empty and our chain trailed outside.
I folded the blankets and placed them back on Baron’s bed, noticing as I did so that the only remaining blanket was a particularly thin one.
I poked my head out of the tent. Baron had stoked the fire to a roar and was adding some of the heavy firewood. He noticed me. “Good morning! It looks like you didn’t burn down the tent last night after all.”
“I thought about it,” I countered quickly, but then my frosty demeanor melted. Whatever his reasoning, Baron had been kind to me. The least I could do was show gratitude while I continued to plot his demise. “Thanks for the blankets,” I mumbled. “You can have them back.”
Baron poked the fire with a long stick. “That’s okay. I have my big fat body to keep me warm.” He grinned good-naturedly at me. “You should be warm too, and you’re skinny enough that you need the blankets more than I do. Oh, and that reminds me. Here.” He tossed a thin piece of fabric at me.
I caught it, confused.
“To put between the collar and your neck. I thought it might help it be slightly more comfortable.”
I instantly understood what was going on.
He was going for the villain/hero routine.
The sheriff was supposed to be the bad guy, and Baron was to portray the heroic knight in shining armor, rushing in to save the damsel in distress—me.
They wanted me to swoon over Baron’s sculpted muscles and goodness and become putty in his large hands. Well it wasn’t going to happen.
“Right,” I huffed contemptuously. I could see my breath puff into a little cloud.
My father would come for me. I didn’t need the false friendship of someone who had held a knife to my throat only a few days before.
But nevertheless, I accepted the fabric and wound it around the collar so it wasn’t quite as bad as before.
At least now, there was a barrier between the metal and my neck.