The men seated behind us burst out cheering. I was still confused, and I could tell Baron was baffled as well. “What?” Baron blurted out, completely lost.
Father laughed. “Oh, you should have seen your faces. I really had you going there! Now, I do need to let you know, because of the special circumstances here, you will be on probation for a year. But pending your adherence to our rules, you’ll be formally inducted after that.”
“Wait a second!” I said loudly. “I thought you were about to get after him for making a move!”
“Please,” Father said, utterly unconcerned. “You’re an adult, and you can do what you want. Besides, if he ever tried anything you didn’t want, you would have him laid out cold before he could sayJack Robinson!”
“That’s true,” Baron agreed, clearly relieved he wasn’t about to get strangled. He then proceeded to tell the story of how I’d flung him clean over my shoulder and blacked his eye the second time he’d tracked me down. The men all roared with laughter at this.
“You don’t have any concerns that he’s the sheriff’sson?” I asked, bewildered.
Father shrugged. “Your mother was Prince John’s cousin. It’s our choices, not our ancestry, that determine who we are.”
“Hear, hear!” chorused several of the men just as Sam and Tildy arrived back from market.
“What’s goin’ on ’ere? What’s goin’ on?” Sam asked as he stepped inside. “What’s all this commotion about in ’ere?”
Little John recapped the story to them, and Sam’s mouth dropped. “That big bear bloke there waskissin’Robin ’ood’s daughter? Poor chap—meanin’ no disrespect, miss, but that’s a right dangerous thing for ’im to be doin’! I seen what you can do wif vem knives ye keep in your belt, and if I were ’im I’d be scared spitless that I’d end up wif no lips or summat if I tried anyfink like that.”
The men all hooted at this and told Sam that he was right to think it. Tildy patted my hand in a motherly way and loudly told me she hoped we would have many children, which caused me even more embarrassment than Father and all his men catching us kissing.
CHAPTER 36
Father and the men scheduled a welcoming ceremony for Baron the next afternoon. Normally, there would be a specific initiation ritual following the welcoming ceremony to formally induct the new member into our band. But the men were still nervous about making Baron a fully-fledged member, so the probation was a compromise, a test to allow Baron the opportunity to prove his loyalty to our group.
Ironically, the men were even more eager than normal for the welcoming ceremony because of Baron’s background. They’d made an excessive number of jokes about it, and Baron hadn’t helped things when we’d first announced the ceremony.
“So, are we talking animal sacrifices or blood oaths or what?” he had asked seriously.
There’d been a moment of stunned silence before I asked in astonishment, “What types of ceremonies haveyoubeen to?”
Will Stutely let out a wild guffaw, and Baron had been utterly confused as to what any sort of induction ceremony would look like without some bloody ritual.
“You sure you pickthisguy?” Father had asked me in an aside, eyeing Baron apprehensively after his remark about blood oaths.
Father’s concern was touching, and I knew the men would eventually come to trust and love Baron as I did, but it would take a while. In the meantime, we would have the ceremony, and I was just as excited as any of the men. It would be a day of games and feasting. I knew that Baron had been to precious few parties and celebrations, and the raucous gatherings that the sheriff occasionally hosted—festooned with scantily clad dancing girls and kegs of ale—could not have been more different from what we had planned.
Normally it was easier to plan such festivities, but since we were in unfamiliar territory and still working hard to avoid any suspicion, we had to lie low. Sam and Tildy had been more than hospitable and now went out of their way to collect all the items the men needed from town. Will Scarlet had disguised himself to enter the marketplace and procure a few of the things that Sam and Tildy weren’t familiar with.
The men became wildly secretive about what was to come and poked an immense amount of fun at Baron, telling him that they still had to find a boar to slaughter or find curved ceremonial blades for the ritualistic slitting of his wrists. Baron, well aware of his naivety when it came to healthy friendships, took all of it in good fun, and I was proud of how well he was progressing when it came to getting along with all of the men.
Finally, the time came. All that morning, most of the men and I had been tasked with setting up for the activities. I’d volunteered to keep Baron out of the way so he wouldn’t see what we were setting up, but Father had put his foot down, saying that he’d seen the way I kept Baron’s attention diverted and that he didn’t want to seethatdisgusting spectacle again. So instead, James kept Baron company as the rest of us set up in a nearby forest clearing.
We allowed Sam and Tildy to attend and watch—an unprecedented honor. Normally, our ceremonies were veryexclusive in who could attend. But we made an exception for Sam and Tildy because of their continued hospitality.
James led Baron blindfolded into the clearing, then pulled off the blindfold with a flourish, revealing what we had been working on. Baron looked around at everything. Targets were set up, circles drawn, and we had even improvised a few colorful banners, mostly made from Tildy’s rag bag, which fluttered festively in the warm spring breeze.
“Welcome, everyone!” Dale stepped up. He was always the one to lead at the games. “Welcome to the welcoming ceremony of Baron Blackwellson! Let the games begin!”
Following tradition, we began with the quarterstaff battle to commemorate Little John’s original defeat of Father when they’d first met. We had constructed a narrow footbridge over a stream, and everyone took a turn pairing off and, each armed with a quarterstaff, and tried to knock the other into the stream below. Father, whose ribs were still tender, sat out. I was lucky and felled a blow to the back of Alan’s knees early on and won my first match. Baron also defeated Will Scarlet. In the second round, I was paired against Little John and was dumped into the stream within a few seconds. Baron, unfamiliar with the use of a quarterstaff, also went down to James. As usual, Little John swept all of his matches and was crowned Quarterstaff Champion yet again. He had never been defeated.
After the quarterstaff battle, we moved on to the footraces. We always bemoaned the fact that everyone except Little John now had to compete while soaked to our skins, but the footrace was to help us dry off quickly. The first race was a sprint, just across the clearing and back. Sam, delighted at being asked to help, acted as our starter and Tildy was the judge. We all took our places, toeing the line that had been dug into the dirt.
“Ready. Set. Go!” Sam called, succinct for once, and we all sprinted off.
Baron and I had a slight advantage over our competition this time. While the men had all been in prison for a few months, starved and cramped in tiny cells, we had fared better and been well-fed. It was a distinctive mark to show how physically fit they all were that they still did so well. Lincoln, lean with his long legs, usually won this event, but his time in prison had evidently taken some of his speed. I surprised myself by taking the lead early on, but Lincoln overtook me and won yet again. However, when we went for the three-mile run, Will Stutely surpassed everyone and took first place.
Arm wrestling came next. This was the event where I came in last place, as usual. Any event that came down to raw strength over skill or speed I would lose. But as I told the men, I would rather lose honestly than have them go easy on me and chalk up a false win. And they always tried their best. Dale, who always lost before I had joined the group, was more than pleased to force my arm down onto the flat rock we used as the table before raising his arms in triumph. The rest of the men all paired off, grunting with exertion as they matched their strength against each other. The final match came down to Baron and Little John, both immense men, with Little John the taller at nearly seven feet. They eyed each other’s arms with well-practiced appraising eyes before kneeling on opposite sides of the flat rock.
