“God in heaven,” Onfroi muttered, and fought to suppress the urge to cross himself. It was worse than he thought: Among the warlike faces of Wardieu’s vaunted army of mercenaries, was the one countenance in particular that caused his sphincter muscle to lose control.
D’Aeth. A huge, brooding bulk of a man whose face was so hideously scarred it went beyond the normal bounds of ugly. As bald as an egg, as broad as a beast, he was Wardieu’s subjugator, and there, dangling from his saddle like a tinker’s wares were the dreaded tools of his profession —iron pincers for the crushing of bones and testicles, leather straps and studded whips, a long thin prod with a wickedly barbed five-pointed tip (the purpose of which did not bear thinking). Who was Wardieu planning to have tortured?
De la Haye willed away a wave of nausea as the baron’s warhorse pounded to a halt in a swirl of grass and flayed earth. Wardieu sat a long moment, glaring around the makeshift camp, then swung a leg over the saddle and vaulted to the ground.
“M-my lord Lucien,” Onfroi stammered, rushing over at once. “I did not anticipate your arrival so soon.”
The piercing blue eyes came to rest on the sheriff’s sweating face. “Obviously there were a great many things you did not anticipate these past two days, De la Haye.”
Onfroi repressed a shudder. The baron’s voice was calm enough, but then so was the wind in the eye of a hurricane.
“You have prisoners?”
“P-prisoners? No, my lord. Unfortunately no, the outlaws moved too swiftly. By the time the survivors had reached us at the fens, the men who had perpetrated the ambush were scattered in a hundred different directions. That is their habit. To strike with the speed of vipers and vanish in the undergrowth as if they had never been.”
Wardieu’s face was as blank as a stone. “You know them well enough to have established their habits? Then this is not the first time this particular band of vermin has appeared in these woods?”
A violent tic in Onfroi’s cheek closed his left eye completely. “Th-there have been rumours, my lord, nothing more. Rumours of a man who dresses in wolf’s pelts and plagues the merchant caravans traveling to and from Lincoln Town. But they are only rumours. You yourself are aware of how these local peasants exaggerate the smallest incident into an adventure of epic proportions, especially when the outlaws perpetrate their crimes in the name of Saxon justice.”
“The Bishop of Sleaford will be pleased to hear you refer to his mishap last month as a ‘small incident,’” Lucien remarked coldly. “As will the Lady Servanne.”
Onfroi’s tongue slid across his lips. “There is no proof the two crimes can be attributed to the same villains, my lord.”
“Oh? Then you would have me believe there are two packs of wolves hiding out in these woods? Two separate packs who have managed to elude your patrols for … how long? A month? Two months?”
“We have searched, Lord Lucien,” Onfroi whined. “The patrols have been doubled and their frequency increased. Hounds have been put to the scent every day. Foresters have been brought from the villages to aid the search. No one sees anything. No one hears anything. Spies do not return, and, if their bodies are found, they have had their throats slit and their tongues pulled through the gap. The Saxon rabble do nothing to help. Why, only last week we burned an entire village to the ground and hung the peasants one by one, but none would betray the outlaws. Not a single man, woman, or child would speak to save his own life.”
Wardieu’s lips compressed around a grimace. “Your methods are as crude as your abilities, De la Haye. Did it not occur to you that slaughtering an entire village would only provoke this Black Wolf—if he is one of them—to retaliate twofold? Did it never occur to you to warn me that guests traveling to my demesne might have some reason to fear for their safety?”
“The men ambushed this time were your own!” Onfroi blurted unthinkingly. “Christ above! Who would have thought for an instant that Bayard of Northumbria could not outwit a band of half-starved woodcutters and thieves! He was well aware of the threat, if you were not. He at least ventured out of the castle now and then to listen to tavern gossip!”
Wardieu halted in the act of removing his leather gauntlets. The look he gave De