Lincoln. As it was, the outlaw was jolted back off his feet and required several paces to reclaim his balance. Servanne’s horse balked indignantly; Biddy muttered an oath which earned stares and grins from the nearby foresters.
“Sparrow!” spat the Wolf with a not altogether feigned grimace of displeasure. “By Christ’s pricking thorns, one of these days I will step out of the way and let you sail clear on past into perdition!”
The squirming bundle disentangled itself from the torso of the outlaw and sprang onto the ground beside him. The man … dwarf … child … was barely tall enough to see the top of the Wolf’s belt. Thin as a reed, as tanned as a roasted nut, he … or she … had huge, shining black eyes that seemed at once too large for the round, elfin face, and far too knowledgeable for such a mischievous grin.
Servanne blinked, and blinked again. She had heard fables of such creatures living in the forests; wood elves who were several centuries old, kept young and childlike through pagan rites and rituals. She had never truly believed in such tales of magic and witchcraft, of course. Magic was only for the eyes and ears of the superstitious, and as for witches and warlocks …
She found herself staring at the outlaw leader again, her mouth as dry as parched wheat.
“So so so.” Sparrow’s voice was as delicately pitched as a woman’s. “So this was to be the Dragon’s new plaything. There is not much to her, is there? But then I suppose such a child would be a welcome change from being clamped between the iron thighs of Nicolaa de la Haye. You sent our demands on ahead?”
“We accomplished what we set out to do,” the Wolf responded. “And you? You found the sheriff?”
“He was waiting at the fens, just as you predicted,” Sparrow nodded, grinning. “He and most of the guard from Lincoln Castle. Slutching fools! Another half league into the forest and they might have upset our plans.”
“They might have tried,” the outlaw replied lightly. “But I am inclined to think a few well spent arrows would have had De la Haye and his men bolting for cover regardless if it had been Richard’s intended bride, Berengaria, he had been sent to meet.”
“The sheriff should know by now to leave such matters to his wife. The Bawd Nicolaa would have stayed and fought us with pleasure.”
“The rest of our men? They made it back without incident?”
“Bah! Old Noddypeak did not even know we had him in bowshot. Mind, he kept scritching and scratching at the back of his neck”—Sparrow gave an imitation of the sheriff scratching nervously—“and shaking off the waterfalls of sweat he leaked”—lie shook himself all over, like a dog emerging from a pond—“so I suspect he was not entirely without grand expectations.”
“A pity we had to disappoint him.”
“Aye,” Sparrow sighed. “The lads had him sighted on their arrow tips every blink of the way.”
“They will have him again, when the timing better suits our needs. Right now, Onfroi de la Haye is of more use to us alive than dead.”
“Aye, my lord,” the little man said, “So you keep telling us.”
“So it shall be,” the Wolf insisted. “The Sheriff of Lincoln is a fool, a weak incompetent puppet; one whose every move we can predict and anticipate with laughable ease. Put someone else in his stead—his sweet wife, for example—and we would see her quenching her thirst for blood in ways we have not even thought of yet.”
“No shy blanchflower, our Bawd,” the gnome agreed.
“And if anyone other than myself makes a target of her brass-tipped breasts”—the tall, copper-haired outlaw stepped quietly forward—“they will have me to answer to.”
Sparrow looked up and, although Servanne could not swear to it, she thought the bold little elf edged a cautious inch closer to the protective bulk of the Black Wolf. “I am not forgetting, Gil of the Golden Eyes. Not wanting to feel the sting of your arrows either. She’s yours, all yours, and welcome to her. God’s teeth, but we are touchy about it, are we not? Not enough Norman blood shed to wet your arrows? Ho! Still most a quiver full, I see. And a string as slack as Lack Jack’s back.”
Gil Golden smiled slowly, ominously. “Easily enough remedied. A daub of sparrow blood should turn the trick.”
“You would have to catch me first, you great lumbering hulk!”
Quick as a wink, the tiny man darted forward, planted a flying