40. Baron
BARON
Ineeded to see Mother Margarite again. She must have misunderstood me. That was the only explanation I could cling to. Perhaps she knew of me from my former life, when I wouldn’t have hesitated to kill King Richard if ordered to do so. My allegiances had changed. I wasn’t the same man anymore.
I couldn’t kill the king. If I killed him, I would never be accepted into the Merry Men.
I would lose Laurel forever. She would hate me until the day I died, and rightly so.
I didn’t want to be a murderer and thwart the very cause that Laurel and the Merry Men believed in so much. But nor could I lose Laurel.
I’d been given an impossible task. And of course, the moment I was grappling with the decision was the moment Laurel had asked to get back together. She said she chose me. She must know how badly I wanted to say yes.
But what sort of future could I give her? How could I be with her while carrying the knowledge that I had sworn to murder the very man she devoted her life to protecting? But if I didn’t kill Richard, would Laurel truly die?
Mother Margarite must have been bluffing.
Or maybe she was testing me. Perhaps I had misunderstood her in my panic.
The moment I had seen Laurel breathing easier, the moment I knew she would live, I had grabbed her and fled with no thought beyond getting her away from there.
I hadn’t asked the right questions. I hadn’t clarified the terms of our bargain, that was all.
I would do that now.
The moon was a thin crescent, casting only the faintest glow over the path.
I tied my horse to a tree on the outskirts of the forest and began the journey toward Mother Margarite’s derelict hut.
The area had been unsettling enough in full daylight.
Now, in the pitch-dark of night, every slight noise sounded ominous and threatening.
Twigs cracked beneath my boots and more than once, something rustled in the bushes.
When the cottage finally came into view, it looked even worse than before.
The crooked tree loomed in front of it, black and twisted against the sliver of moon.
The darkness around the clearing seemed thick and unnatural, though I could still see the pale sky beyond the branches.
Small bones crunched beneath my boots as I walked up the path, and a cold draft of air washed over me as I neared the door.
There was no light inside the house, but I knocked anyway.
This couldn’t wait until morning. At first, nothing happened.
Then a lamp flared inside, and I heard shuffling footsteps.
I squared my shoulders and fixed my expression.
I prepared to say that I needed to renegotiate the terms of our arrangement.
I planned to offer something else. I could give her power, wealth, titles, land… whatever she wanted.
The wooden door creaked open. Mother Margarite stood on the other side, just as ancient and hunched as before. Her skin hung off her, thin and nearly translucent in the lamplight, and her wrinkles seemed to have wrinkles.
“I knew you’d come back,” she said with a wide, terrible grin. “Everyone does.”
“I need to renegotiate our agreement.”
She was already shaking her head. “Baron, Baron. We made a bargain. You can’t go back on it now. A life for a life. That’s what you promised me.”
“But you don’t understand.” Desperation roughened my voice despite my efforts to control it. “I can’t do what you asked. It’s impossible.”
“It’s not an impossible task.” Her voice lowered to a rasp. “Difficult, yes. But impossible? No.”
“I can’t kill King Richard.”
“Can’t?” She tilted her head. “Or won’t?”
“If anyone found out…”
“I never said you had to tell anyone.” A wicked smile spread across her face. “Do it discreetly, and you’ll be able to stay with the woman you love. No one ever needs to find out.”
“I won’t do it,” I said.
“Then don’t.” Mother Margarite stepped back into the cottage and shuffled toward the table at the center of the room. “But if you choose not to fulfill your oath, the girl will die.”
My hands curled into fists. “But you healed her.”
“I preserved her temporarily.”
Preserved her temporarily? What was that supposed to mean?
“You said she would live.”
“I said I could save her life.” Mother Margarite looked back at me. “And I did. You saw it yourself. She’s getting better, isn’t she?”
“She is. But…you’re asking my to assassinate a king.”
“I’m asking for payment. If I’m not paid, then Laurel will never be truly healed. Without my help, she’ll get ill again and eventually die.”
I took a step toward her. “Do you mean to say that you didn’t keep your end of the bargain?”
Her eyes gleamed. “Not at all. But my methods take time, and I have to ensure that you keep your promise as well. If I just healed everyone right away, no one would ever return with my payments and I can’t have that.”
My pulse thudded in my ears. Rage flared through me, hot enough to drive out some of the fear. I wanted to seize her, shake her, drag her to Nottingham Castle in chains and force every secret from her lips. But something in her expression held me back. She wasn’t afraid of me, not even a little.
“You aren’t the first man to consider violence,” she said mildly, as if commenting on the weather. “But hurting me won’t help the girl. Kill me, imprison me, burn this cottage to ash if it comforts you. But none of that will give you what she needs when the time comes.”
“You’re bluffing.”
Mother Margarite’s laugh scraped through the room. “You don’t have to take my word for it. Wait and see for yourself. Within a few months, Laurel will start to weaken again. She’ll probably even claim that it’s nothing.” She leaned closer. “It won’t be nothing.”
My throat went dry.
“She’ll grow sicker the longer you wait,” Mother Margarite continued. “But it’s up to you. Either Richard will die, or Laurel will.”
I stared at her, unable to move. “So Laurel is only partially healed then?”
“Now you’re starting to understand. And once you kill Richard, I’ll gladly give you the rest of the remedy.”
“I can give you something else instead,” I offered. “Just name it. Land, gold, protection. I can make sure no one comes near this place ever again.”
“I already have protection.” Her eyes gleamed. “Fear does a better job than soldiers. I already named my price and I expect you to keep your oath.”
“I’ll bring an army and take your remedies,” I threatened. “I have many people at my disposal.”
I was certain that would frighten her as it had frightened so many villagers, but she simply laughed.
“And who would know which one to use?” She gestured and the rows of hundreds of bottles.
“Take a guess. Some of these are poisons. Not even the best healers know them all. That’s why they couldn’t help Laurel. But by all means, try.”
A whine of panic rose in the back of my mind. This was a situation I had no hope of winning. What was I supposed to do? No threat I could make that would force Margarite to give me what I needed. I couldn’t command her. I couldn’t arrest her. I couldn’t frighten her into doing what I wanted.
For the first time in my life, all my strength and power were completely useless. I stumbled back.
“But…how?” I croaked.
“By whatever means you wish.” She leaned one bony hand against the doorframe. “But I suggest you hurry. I’m an old woman. Once I die, my secrets die with me.”
The door shut in my face.
I stood there, staring at the warped wood.
Once I die, my secrets die with me.
I backed away from the cottage then turned and ran into the blinding darkness.
Thorns clawed at my sleeves and roots caught at my boots, but I hardly felt them.
The darkness swallowed the path ahead, and still I ran faster, as if speed alone could tear me free from the choice tightening around my throat.
Laurel or Richard.
Laurel or Richard.
Laurel’s face flashed before me, pale and sunken. Her fingers had been so weak around mine. Her voice had been barely more than a breath.
You make me feel safe.
I stumbled and caught myself against a tree.
Safe.
A ragged laugh tore out of me, sharp and broken. I couldn’t keep her safe. I had delivered her life into the hands of a woman who had turned it into a weapon against all of England. I had been so desperate to save Laurel that I had not asked the price until it was already too late.
My father’s voice slid through the darkness of my mind, horribly familiar and cutting. You thought it would be that easy?
I clenched my teeth and pushed away from the tree.
You thought you could choose better once and be clean?
“No,” I breathed.
You’ll always be my son.
I drove forward through the underbrush, but the voice followed and I thought I’d be driven mad by it.
How could you think they’d ever accept you?
Laurel would know. Somehow, someday, she would find out. She would look at me with those vividly green eyes and see exactly what I had done. I would be a murderer who had traded England’s king for the woman he loved, and she would never love me back.
What if I refused?
I saw Laurel again, not as she had been after Margarite’s cure, but as she had been before it. Her hand had gone limp and cold and her breathing became so shallow that I knew death was coming for her.
I stopped beside the blackened tree, my chest heaving.
There had to be another way.
There had to be.
But I couldn’t see it.
With a shout of fury, I drove my fist into a blackened tree beside the path. The bark cracked beneath the blow, and pain tore through my hand as my knuckles split open, but even that did nothing to ease the helplessness clawing through me.
I slowly withdrew my hand and stared at the blood trickling down to my wrist.
Heroes didn’t make bargains like this.
Heroes didn’t weigh the life of one woman against the fate of an entire kingdom and wonder, even for one terrible moment, whether the kingdom should burn.
But I wondered.
Saints help me, I wondered.
Because it was Laurel.
If Richard died, England would fall to Prince John.
But if Laurel died, there would be no world left worth saving.
I closed my bleeding hand into a fist.
Richard or Laurel.
England or the only person who had ever made me believe I could be more than just my father’s son.
Richard or Laurel.
One of them had to die.
And the choice was mine to make.
TO BE CONTINUED…