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Then again, I thought, blinking as I sat up to await my punishment from my captors, I have two of the worst killers of all in here with me. So perhaps that’s protecting her in some small way?
The longer I could withstand my punishment—even if it brought me to death—the longer I could keep my enemies’ focus on me and away from Robin and the Merry Men.
I let out a sigh that sounded like a rattling wheeze from the way it escaped my bruised lungs and ribs. All this circular thinking made me feel like I was going mad.
“Are you ready to talk today, John?” Sheriff George asked. His stubby finger tapped his chin, where he’d started to grow a laughable excuse for a beard—patchy more than rugged.
“What did you want to talk about?” I asked in a raspy voice, trying to hide the pain wreaking havoc on my body and psyche.
George rolled his eyes and faced Guy. “Can you believe this hellion? Always with the comedy, even knocking at death’s door.”
“I’m far from death’s door, Sheriff.” I hated to admit it, but the cool, grimy stone felt nice against my bare back.
“You’re much closer than you think,” George assured me in a deadpan voice. He stepped forward, crouched in front of me, and wrinkled his nose. Probably at my stench.
I hated the way he looked down at me. How all nobles had looked down at me ever since I worked as a farmhand for his brother, Baron Easton.
The same Easton I murdered after he discovered I had bedded his noble daughter, Imogen. The same Easton who beat Imogen to death, breaking my heart for the first time in my life.
All these bastards wrinkled their noses at me like I was beneath them. They shot me sly little smirks, eyes roving over me just how Sheriff George’s were now, as if to tell me they held all the power. As if seeing me as a slab of flesh used for labor and good for nothing else.
With the Merry Men, I had reclaimed some of that power.
Now it was lost again.
“You still haven’t told me what you want with Robin and the rest of the Merry Men,” I said.
He scoffed. “That’s because you don’t get to ask the questions. I do.”
“Then I suppose we’re at an impasse.”
Sir George let out an exaggerated sigh. With Prince John leading England while his brother King Richard was absent in the Crusade, Sheriff George was the political and military leader of Nottingham.
He carried himself like a snake. A man of such insignificant value would never scare me, and I told him as much on a daily basis.
That would usually be the time he looked over to his strongman, Guy, and said, “What about him? Does he scare you?” And then Sir Guy would beat me senseless.
Now, George gave me the first glare I’d seen that truly froze my blood. It made me rethink my position and attitude, because for the first time I worried he might actually kill me.
I’m too valuable for him to kill, I thought, trying to convince myself it was true. For killing his brother, he’d rather string me up and leave me as a living husk than a dead soul. He wants to make me suffer, and he’s done a good job of doing it so far.
The longer I’m left alive, though, the more opportunity I have to escape . . . and that look he’s giving me seems like he’s finally realizing it. As if my time for stalling is running out.
“I must bring your little gang of thugs to heel so the people of Nottingham know they can trust me,” George said.
It was the first time he’d ever given me anything of substance, in all the days I’d been here.
My brow lifted. “They’ll never trust you, George. You hold the catchpole. As long as you control the taxation of Prince John, and carry out his will, the people will hate you and find you untrustworthy.”
“I don’t need them to like me, Little John. I don’t want them to like me, because then they won’t fear me. As the preeminent lawman of this shire, I simply need them to bow to me. Perhaps I misspoke. Love and trust are irrelevant . . . yet I would see them understand my predicament. The bandits scouring the woods pose the most annoying problem of mine. You vermin must be eradicated.”
He spat the last word, and it almost made me smile.
This was not a man who could hide his emotions well, unlike the tall specter looming behind him. Sir Guy stood with his arms crossed, staring down at his crouched lord and shackled prisoner with disinterest.
In a flash, I lunged forward with a growl, my muscles flexing. The shackles went taut and rattled, and the satisfaction of seeing Sheriff George recoil and flinch made me smile.
Sir Guy didn’t flinch. He knew the manacles would keep me in place because he designed them and put them on me.
