it exchanging ribald comments with a patron who was evidently haggling over the price of something more than ale. There were other, dark, surly looking characters seated at the tables. Their voices, likened to a low droning of bees, fell silent the moment the three knights came through the door. Ariel felt the chill of a dozen pairs of watery eyes questioning their presence in this swineherds’ paradise. Some of them, she guessed, had never ventured more than a stone’s throw from these walls and could not begin to understand why anyone beyond their fetid little community would venture in.
Others might have chosen this place deliberately as being a low enough and sordid enough stew to bypass any close inspection. These were men who would slit a throat for a penny and not care if the throat was noble or common.
The wench behind the counter was not so impartial. Seeing Henry start to walk toward her, she gave the already loosened laces across her bodice an enthusiastic tug and swatted away the hands of the dullard who had been pestering her.
“Oui, monsieur? And what might your pleasure be on such a fine, lusty evening as this?”
“A tankard of ale to wash the dust from our throats,” Henry said, his words slowing noticeably as the truly awesome size of her bosoms came into the light. Fully as large as two ripe melons, they earned as hard a stare as the large, fat cockroach that lay belly-up on the counter. “And a word with the innkeeper, if you please.”
“Monsieur Valois is not here,” the wench laughed. “He has spent the last few nights fettered in iron bracelets for smashing a bottle over the head of one of the justicar’s lackeys.” She leaned farther over the counter, crushing the hapless roach under the smothering weight of her breasts. “My name is Lizabelle. Is there nothing I can help you with?”
“There … might be,” Henry agreed cautiously.
“Speak, monsieur, and it is yours.”
“Have you any rooms to let for the night?”
Lizabelle grinned. “For the whole night, monsieur?”
“If it is not too much trouble.”
“It is never any trouble, m’sieur. In fact, it would be my very great pleasure to accommodate you”—she took a deep enough breath to send a brown, puckered nipple popping over the neck of her bodice—“so long as you have the coin to pay.”
“I have the password,” Henry assured her, lowering his voice. “A outrance. I was told it would provide us with all our needs.”
“Password, m’sieur?” she asked guardedly. “No coin?” “I have coin, which I will not grudge parting with for fair value.”
“I am relieved to hear it, m’sieur, but just in case—” In a wink, her grin disappeared and her hand came up from beneath the counter, the sharp glint of a dagger flashing in her fist. Henry jerked back, but not fast enough to completely avoid the needle-like point. It slashed a thin red line along the side of his jaw and came back for a second stroke, but by then he had moved out of her reach … into the grasping clutches of the two burly men who had obviously been waiting for a signal to close in behind him.
Each grabbed an arm, preventing him from drawing sword or knife. A wild glance over his shoulder found Sedrick in similar straits, swarmed by half a dozen stout men at least, all of them straining mightily to bring the roaring giant to his knees.
Ariel, standing a little to the side and behind, had seen the men shifting stealthily into position, but before she could shout a warning, a thick, sour-tasting hand had clamped itself over her mouth and an arm had circled her waist, lifting her and dragging her back into the corner. Kicking and flailing, she watched as Henry was disarmed of his weapons and flung so hard against the wall, his brow cracked against the solid planking. Dazed, he wavered on his feet and staggered a half-turn before stumbling into one of the trestle tables. Tankards, ewers, and chunks of stale bread were scattered across the floor as one of his attackers started beating him with a wooden truncheon. Hampered by the weight of his armour, and with his brain still spinning from the contact with the wall, Henry floundered under the rain of heavy blows, barely aware of a second man searching his clothes for a purse or money belt.
Sedrick lunged like a mastiff, carrying the shouting wave of assailants with him. He managed to wrestle