face I see. The Black Wolf: how appropriate. I should have guessed it right away. The wolf hunting the dragon hunting the wolf.”
“What will you do?” she asked, hugging her arms through a sudden chill.
“Do, Nicolaa? Why, I will do what I must do, of course. Come morning, I will dispatch a party back to the keep to collect the ransom.”
“You intend to pay his outrageous demands?”
“I cannot see where I have any other choice,” he mused, smiling tightly. “If I refuse to pay the ransom, he will take the greatest delight in sending the pieces of De Briscourt’s widow to me in a series of tiny bloody sacks. When he does, whether it is the widow he slices or not, the news will travel the length and breadth of England like wildfire. Lackland will hear of it and panic. He will think at once that his own stupid schemes are at risk, and there will be bodies thrown from the parapet walls before he can be calmed enough to see reason.”
“Calmed? Lackland? I was told he frothed for a week when he found out you were planning the wedding so soon. He should turn into a ravening madman when he hears about this. Can you not find this … this Black Wolf”— she hissed, unable to admit the spectre had another name— “and kill him before the threat goes any farther?”
“Find him? In these woods?” Wardieu scanned the dense fringe of tall pines and sweeping oaks that blackened the horizon. “You forget, he knows every footpath and deer track in this forest as if he were indeed a wolf and this his natural domain. My men could search for months and never come within bowshot. It was a game with him, almost since he was old enough to drag the weight of a sword behind him, to hide in the forest and defy Father’s best gamekeepers and woodsmen to find him. Few ever did.”
“A pity you did not indulge in his games,” Nicolaa said dryly. “Then you might have known one or two of his favourite lairs and spoiled whatever his gambit might be.”
“There is more than one way to trap a wolf,” Wardieu said evenly. “And more than one kind of bait to use against a man’s emotions.”
The second chill that trickled down Nicolaa’s spine caused her to turn slowly and follow the direction of Wardieu’s stony gaze. Silhouetted against the leaping orange flame of the main campfire were De Gournay’s two squires, their heads bent forward as they dexterously cleaned and polished weapons that were already burnished to a mirror brightness. Rolf, the eldest by three years, had been fostered into Wardieu’s care at the behest of a neighbouring baron who hoped his son could learn his skills at the feet of a master. Eduard, taller than his thirteen years would suggest and quicker to accept the increased responsibilities of his promotion from page to squire a year earlier, had also been a part of Wardieu’s household since the tender age of six. Both young men were trustworthy, courageous, and loyal. Both burned for the opportunity to earn their own spurs of gold through deed or battle, and until then, to serve their powerful and mighty liege lord in whatever capacity demanded of them.
Nicolaa had never paid one more heed than the other, treating both with the same indifference she allotted any menial who sat below the salt. Only in moments of great weakness—or drunkenness—did she allow herself to remember the pain of giving birth, of pushing the screaming infant away from her breast, of banishing it into the north country so that no one should know or suspect its origins.
“Eduard has grown into a fine young man,” Wardieu murmured in her ear. “A son any man would be proud of. A year or two more and he will no longer be content just to split Rolf out of a saddle, but will be turning his eye to me.”
“When he was born,” she said bitterly, “I wanted to take him out-of-doors and dash his brains out on the nearest rock.”
“Ah, compassion,” he retorted blithely, echoing her scorn of only moments ago. “It comes back to haunt us all, at one time or another. It will be interesting to see whose back Eduard will protect when he discovers the truth.”
“He need never know the truth. He believes he is yours, bastard-born, as does every other pair of eyes in the shire. There is no living soul who could