Chapter 16
It took us a full day’s journey to return to the sheriff’s camp on horseback.
Many travelers did a double take when they saw me with bound hands and a collar and chain around my neck.
“Get Robin Hood!” I mouthed to each one, but the simple farmers seemed too shocked to do anything but gawp in amazement as we rode by.
Baron warned me that if I called out for help, he would have to bring along whoever I spoke to as prisoner as well.
I debated calling out to everyone so Baron would have a trail of dozens of farmers traipsing across the country, but I’d met so many poor villagers in my work with my father that I knew better.
Even one day of not working could devastate their families.
Best let them continue in their day-to-day business.
And besides, if there was a long line of farmers traversing the countryside to attract attention, who would come and actually be able to best Baron in a duel so we would be able to escape?
Before Baron, I’d had no trouble with any of the men I had to deal with, both at the sheriff’s camp and in my journeyings as a member of the Merry Men in the years prior.
But Baron…with him, I had met my match. He was a worthy opponent.
I gritted my teeth in frustration. I didn’t want a worthy opponent.
I wanted one of the men that I usually encountered, the ones that were easy to fool or overpower.
As expected, upon our arrival, the sheriff was livid.
He raged on and on at me about all the trouble I was causing him, about how I was costing him guard after guard, and that he didn’t even know if I was worth all this effort, and it may be better to kill me now.
He shouted that Robin Hood was within his grasp yet again and managed to elude him once more.
All during his shouting, I listened with a self-satisfied smile in place as I observed the beautiful bruise I’d left on his jaw.
“It’s a family trait,” I told him smugly. “Locksleys can’t be contained by incompetent fools.”
Baron, standing sentry at the tent entrance, groaned quietly.
The sheriff glowered at me and backhanded me hard across the face.
Blood trickled from my lip and I knew I’d have a bruise to match his blossoming on my cheek.
I laughed mockingly, “That’s all you’ve got?
No wonder you can’t even keep a teenage girl under control. You’re old and weak.”
Baron clapped a hand over my mouth from behind, forcing my head back against his chest. “She didn’t mean that.”
If looks could kill, I would have died in that exact moment. The sheriff’s gaze was pure, undiluted hatred. “She did, but she’ll regret it,” he snarled. “Whatever food you were giving her before, cut her to quarter rations. And give her a good whipping—at least twenty lashes.”
“We should just let her go,” Baron said, and my heart leapt. “She isn’t worth keeping.”
“No,” the sheriff said, glaring at me. “I want to make her father water as I kill her. He came once. He’ll come again.”
I wished I had a way to hurt the sheriff.
I wished I could snatch the dagger on his hip and slash his belt so his trousers dropped and he was publicly humiliated.
But with Baron holding me, I couldn’t. I couldn’t do anything.
If I mocked him again, I would get executed on the spot. I’d already antagonized him enough.
Men came in to snap a new handcuff onto Baron and reattach the remnants of the original chain, Baron holding me fast the whole time.
The other men flinched and tried to stay as far away from me as possible.
Whatever myths Sneeds had told must have sunk deep.
Just like the knife in Dorian’s thigh, no doubt.
Good. The more they feared me, the better.
While they clanked about, adjusting the chain and collar, the sheriff told Baron, “You are not to leave her side ever. Under no circumstance do you let her out of your sight.” He flashed me another deadly glare.
“Understood,” Baron said crisply.
“If you need sleep, I’ll post a dozen guards around her.
” Beads of perspiration popped into existence on the sheriff’s red face.
I reveled in the fact that I was causing him so much stress, but as much as I wanted to taunt him, I couldn’t.
Baron’s hand was still over my mouth and I knew if I said a single word, it wasn’t just decreased rations or a whipping on the line, it was my head.
The sheriff pulled hard against each section of chain to ensure its durability. Since I had broken the chain in half last time, I now only had six feet of chain between myself and Baron. He would literally be by my side for the foreseeable future. Lucky me.
Once secured together again, Baron and I were told to leave. I was greatly amused to see the men hastily backtrack away from us and give me a wide berth as they all refused to meet my eye.
“Honestly, Laurel,” Baron vented as we trudged back to his tent. “You’re not doing yourself any favors.”
I swallowed, trying to fight down the anger and fear welling inside me. “It’s not like it matters. You know he’ll kill me eventually. Better sooner rather than later.”
“Don’t say that.”
I glared at him. “Are you about to give me some motivational speech telling me that my life has value here? You know I’m a bargaining chip and nothing more.”
He let out a sigh but didn’t contradict me.
As we walked through camp, the men parted before us.
No longer did they try to trip me at every chance but backed away cautiously.
A few even called out words of encouragement to Baron, as though they half believed he wouldn’t live through the night.
I saw Sneeds poke his pimply face out of a tent, and I puckered my lips at him.
His face went ghostly white and he quickly pulled the tent flap over his face to hide. I hoped he wet his pants.
Before Baron let me in his tent, he insisted on patting me down to make sure I wasn’t hiding any weapons on my person.
“You keep finding knives,” he muttered as he did so.
Once he found me unarmed, he ducked his head and entered the tent, dragging me in after him.
To my surprise, I wasn’t whipped. He gruffly told me to act injured for a couple of days and said he was going to lay down for a bit.
So I had to sit there, practically next to him with nothing to do but ruminate on my new, yet now familiar, situation.
I refused dinner that night. After antagonizing the sheriff so much, I didn’t trust a single morsel of food or drop of drink, regardless of whether Baron would sample it for me or not. All I wanted was to wake up from this living nightmare.
When Baron and I retired to the tent for the night and he lay again on his bedroll, I encountered a problem I hadn’t foreseen—and one I had failed to notice earlier amid my fresh worries and the threat of being lashed: I had buried the arrowhead under the rock that I could see on the far side of the tent, but with my chain now halved in length, I had no way of reaching it.
To have a weapon so close at hand, but still impossible to get, was maddening.
I tried to turn my body, but the very tips of my toes were just centimeters shy of touching the rock. There was no way I would be able to dislodge the rock and dig out the arrowhead without alerting Baron to my actions. A thousand curses. Time for a new plan.