15. Laurel #3
The thud of the knife was cut short as James let out a long, loud, piercing scream.
Panic shot through me so suddenly that I forgot the crowd, Nero, and every scrap of pride I had.
I rushed forward to stop the wheel, my stomach dropping so hard I felt sick.
What had I done? How had I been so irresponsible and arrogant?
My hands trembled as I fumbled to remove the straps from James’s wrists. His body was shaking horribly, and the scream still rang in my ears. All of my insides threatened to emerge and panic made my vision narrow. I tore one strap loose and heard laughter behind me.
I jerked my head around, furious. What sort of inhumane brutes laughed at a stabbed man? Then my eyes darted over James’s body, searching for the knife handle, for torn fabric, for any sign that I had hit him… and saw nothing.
I paused in unfastening his other wrist strap and looked up at his face. He was laughing. His entire body shook with it, and the knife was embedded exactly where I had aimed it, in the blue wooden section between his left arm and leg.
For a second, relief left me so weak that I could hardly speak. My breath still came in choking, uneven gasps, and my hands had not stopped trembling.
“I hate you,” I told James, and punched his shoulder.
Nero was doubled over, laughing so hard he could hardly breathe.
“You were getting too conceited,” James told me, eyes from tears of laughter. “You deserved it, admit it.”
I frowned then turned the wheel so he was dangling upside down from his bound ankles. Blood rushed to his face at once.
“Hey,” he protested, while the crowd howled.
Every time James tried to curl upward to reach the straps around his ankles, I swatted his hands away.
“I give up,” James finally cried, his arms dangling toward the ground and his face turning alarmingly purple.
I figured he had been punished long enough. I rotated the wooden disc back into place and released his ankles. James stumbled when his feet hit the ground, then grabbed my arm to steady himself.
“James, you are truly one of the most sadistic people I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet,” I told him.
He grinned, utterly unrepentant. “Hey, I don’t get an opportunity like that every day. I had to take advantage of it.”
It had been a long time since I had seen him so playful.
Nero approached us, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes. “Thank you both for the entertainment.” He picked up two knives from his display and offered them to me handle first. “Here. For the lady. Even if they are off balance. You earned them.”
I accepted the knives. “Good throwing today.”
“Likewise.” All his previous haughtiness was gone, replaced with a cheery attitude.
“It was a pleasure to meet you, miss. You’re welcome here any time.
” He hurried off to tend to several customers who had lined up at his stall.
Our performance had brought him a good amount of business, which was probably more than he deserved after shooing me away from his knives, but I was feeling generous.
I had judged him harshly as well, just as I had with Aalis and Gwendolyn, and felt slightly guilty for it.
After the crowd around the wooden wheel dispersed, James and I went for a meal at the local tavern.
Several people congratulated us as we passed, and James received enough slaps on the back that he began to look genuinely concerned for his ribs.
Inside, the tavern was loud and warm, filled with the smell of stew, ale, old wood, and smoke from the hearth.
We found a table in the corner where we could talk without being easily overheard.
“You really need to be more careful,” James said in a low voice once the thrill of the moment had faded and his calm, steady manner had returned. “It’s not wise to show off like that when you’re supposed to be undercover. Why aren’t you at the castle, anyway?”
I told him all about my friends who had stepped in to help me. When I described Walter’s apprehension of Baron, James frowned.
“Did he say why?”
I shook my head. “He said it wasn’t for a lady’s ears. So who knows? It was probably just rumors. Baron’s only been sheriff for a couple of weeks.”
“Hmm.” James leaned back in his chair, his expression thoughtful. “Maybe.”
I didn’t like the tone of that maybe and decided to change the subject. I pulled the leather pouch of coins from my bag and tipped the contents into James’s hands. “Here.”
“What’s this?” James asked. Then, with an anxious glance around the tavern, he lowered his voice. “You haven’t robbed Prince John, have you?”
“Not yet,” I said with a twinkle in my eye. “No, this is from the honorable Sheriff of Nottingham.”
“Willingly?” James asked.
I shrugged. “More or less. Some of it will have to go toward replacing this.”
I lifted the ruined dress I had worn the previous day. The torn seams and damaged fabric looked even worse in the tavern light than they had in the servants’ quarters.
“What about the rest?” James asked.
I grinned. “Give it to the poor. The sheriff can afford it.”