la Haye brought forth an immediate, gasped apology.
“God spare me, what I meant to say … I mean, what I did not mean to imply, er, to say … that is, what I meant was …”
Wardieu turned his back and signaled to one of his mercenaries. “Cull a dozen of your best men and go to where the ambush occurred. Search the area thoroughly. A man on his own can seem to disappear easily enough, but not a score or more, and not if they took women and packhorses. I want to know exactly how many are in this wolf’s pack, and in which likely direction they headed. And I want results, Aubrey de Vere, not excuses.”
“You shall have them, my lord,” declared De Vere and wheeled his big horse around.
While the selections were being made, one of the knights who had gathered with the other silent onlookers from the sheriff’s camp, limped forward, his gait favouring a wounded, bandaged thigh. He was neither tall nor especially pleasant-featured, but he was obviously a seasoned veteran of many battles, and when he spoke, it was with a voice that sounded like two slabs of rock grinding together.
“Sir Roger de Chesnai,” he said in answer to the question in Wardieu’s eyes. “I am captain of Sir Hubert de Briscourt’s guard, and was part of the escort sent to protect Lady Servanne.”
“I should not brag about a job ill done,” Wardieu said, removing his steel helm and pushing his mail hood back off the sweat-dampened locks of tawny gold hair.
De Chesnai blinked, whether to clear his eyes of the fever-induced moisture that slicked his brow, or to absorb the insult to his honour, it was not revealed by his expression.
“Command fell to me when Northumbria was slain,” he said, staring intently at the Dragon’s face. “I would ask for the opportunity to return to the site of the ambuscade with your men, if you will permit it.”
Wardieu glanced down at the blood-soaked bandaging. “Bayard was a good man. Before I would consider your request, I would know what happened.”
De Chesnai flushed and balled his fists. “They dropped on us out of nowhere, my lord. Northumbria had taken the precaution of sending men on ahead to ensure the way was clear, but they must have died between one blink and the next, with nary a cry or shout to mark their passing. We found the bodies later, all four of them pierced clean through the heart; a dozen more were lost the same way when the main party was ambushed. They just came upon us out of nowhere. No sound. No sight of them, not even after they had made good their first kills.”
Lucien waited until the wounded knight paused to grit his teeth through another fevered chill before he queried part of the story. “You said … their arrows pierced through armour?”
“Aye, lord. Some of the rogues use longbows, with arrows tipped in steel, not iron.”
“Steel?” Wardieu repeated, his brow folding with skepticism. “Woodcutters and thieves”—he spared a particularly venomous glance toward Onfroi de la Haye—“using steel-tipped arrows?”
De Chesnai met the blue eyes unwaveringly. “Yes, my lord. And while none were wasted, none were retrieved either, as if they were in plentiful supply.”
Wardieu recognized the importance of such flamboyance and rubbed a thoughtful finger along the squared line of his jaw. That the weapon of choice was the bow and arrow was not as much of a surprise as the fact that these outlaws used precious—and vastly expensive—steel in place of the softer, more readily available iron arrowheads. Iron had difficulty penetrating the bullhide jerkins worn as armour by common men-at-arms; they deflected harmlessly off chain mail worn by knights. Steel, on the other hand, tempered and hardened a hundredfold over crude bog iron, could slice through bull-hide like a knife paring cheeze, and sever the links of chain mail with hardly more effort.
“Go on. What happened then?”
“The leader revealed himself, exchanged a few words with Northumbria, then slew him. Not without provocation, to be sure, for it was Bayard who loosed the first arrow, but I have it in my mind the outlaw would have slain him anyway. Something”—he looked steadily into Wardieu’s face—“in the eyes spelled death.”
“You said they exchanged a few words … what was said?”
“I was not close enough to hear, nor did they speak as if they desired an audience. But again, something in the outlaw’s manner made me believe he knew the captain, and that Northumbria was