“Collecting moon flowers,” I said simply, lifting the small basket I carried. “I think they’re pretty.”
Walter and Otis waved me on and returned to their conversation. As I walked back to the servants’ wing, I squared my shoulders. Three weeks. I would give myself three more weeks, and then I would have something to show for all my time here. Something that proved I did not need Baron Blackwellson.
BARON
Iwas resolved to follow James’s advice.
I gave Laurel a wide berth and redoubled my efforts to prove that I would stay loyal to the mission, whether she wanted me or not. My duties often took me away from the castle, for which I was grateful. It was easier to avoid looking for her when I was drilling troops in the fields, training captains, or assessing taxes in the nearby villages. Every day, I worked to maintain an image identical to my father’s—ruthless, hardened, and devoid of any pity.
Such a façade was easily managed when the only ones watching were soldiers. Most of them expected cruelty from the Sheriff of Nottingham, and they seemed more comfortable when I gave them what they expected. They understood barked orders and harsh punishments.
The most difficult times were when we visited the small towns toassess the tax situation, as Prince John called it. A better phrase would have been raiding and pillaging the poor.
I’d never been intricately involved in such dealings before. When my father had been sheriff, I had usually been left behind or sent to scout ahead. I had known, in a vague way, whathappened when the tax wagons went out. Everyone knew. But knowing something and standing in the middle of a cottage while a mother begged for enough food to keep her children alive were two very different things.
Now it made my stomach churn to witness the cruelty dealt to humble peasants who had no way to defend themselves. Prince John would list the towns he deemed behind on taxes, and I would be sent with a band of men to force the villagers to hand over whatever gold they had. When there was no gold, we took what was owed in material goods, from livestock and furniture to grain and blankets. Anything that could be sold, eaten, stored, or used, we took.
Prince John chose these villages because he knew they were weak. Poor peasants barely able to scrape out a living did not have the strength or resources to fight back. They could only plead, and pleading was precisely what my men enjoyed most. It gave them power over people who had none.
I hated every second of it.
Surely my pretense did nothing to improve Laurel’s opinion of me as word of my doings spread far and wide. If she heard even half of what the villagers said about the new sheriff, every fear she’d ever had about me would harden into certainty.
But the more ruthless I appeared, the more Prince John trusted me, and that was what we needed most. With every cartload of gold and goods I brought back, he divulged more of his plans. So I kept a running list of which villagers most needed help and passed the information to James. He and Lincoln would do what they could to bring supplies back to those families or else rob a wealthy nobleman and redistribute the fortune.
It wasn’t enough, but it was all I could do while maintaining my cover.
On one such raid, we were sent to the village closest to the castle, one which I knew well. I recognized the road before we reached the first cottage, and a cold weight settled in my chest as the cart wheels creaked behind me.
“No, no. It’s all I have,” the woman in front of me begged.
Two young children clung to her skirts as I ordered my soldiers to capture the chickens in their small yard. There had been nothing of value in the house. There was nothing worth taking, and still, we took. The chickens scattered in a frantic flurry of feathers, and one of my men laughed as he chased them around the yard.
“You should’ve paid your taxes, then,” I thundered.
The woman dropped to her knees in the dirt. Tears ran down her face, leaving pale tracks through the grime on her cheeks. “Please, kind sir. Please. Have mercy. I have nothing.”
For one moment, I saw my mother. My memories of her were few and fuzzy at best, but I thought of her anyway, of what it might have been like if soldiers had come to our door when I was small and taken the last thing keeping us alive. My throat tightened.
I forced my face into a sneer. “It’s merciful that I’m not taking your children. Be grateful for that, madam.” The words were vile and the woman flinched as if I’d struck her.
I turned and strode away before my expression could betray me. Behind me, my men laughed and mocked as they gathered up the few chickens she owned and hauled them toward the cart. Her sobs followed me down the road long after I was out of earshot.
By late afternoon, the cart was loaded with furniture, livestock in crates, sacks of grain, tools, and bags of coins. The villagers cowered in their homes as we passed. Curtains snapped closed. Mothers pulled children away from windows. Old men lowered their eyes. Doors that had stood open when we arrivedwere now barred from within, as though wood and iron could keep the sheriff’s cruelty from finding them.
The last home we visited stood apart from the others, set back from the road with a distinctive pointed thatched roof.
I knew that cottage. I knew the path leading to the door. I knew the smell of the herbs that hung near the entrance and the way the roof dipped slightly on one side. Sam and Tildy had welcomed me there once. They had fed me and had watched my initiation into the Merry Men. They had known me as someone trying to become better despite my past. And now I stood at the edge of their yard with Prince John’s men behind me.
“Sheriff?” one of my soldiers prompted.
I tightened my jaw and walked up the familiar path. Then I pounded on the front door. “Sheriff of Nottingham. Open on behalf of Prince John.”
The door opened, and Sam stood there. When he saw me surrounded by armed men, his mouth dropped open into a perfectly round circle. “Wha’… wha’ be goin’ on ’ere?” he asked nervously.
“We’ve come to collect taxes, old man,” I spat.
Inside, I prayed he would keep his tongue and senses. If he said my name, if he gave any sign that he knew me, this would become worse than it already was. Sam’s eyes darted from me to the soldiers behind me, then back again. “I done paid me taxes, I did, er… Sheriff.”
