and looked as if he regretted not staking Sparrow out as a tidbit for the wolfhounds. “The sheriff just happened out of nowhere—”
“He was behind the Bawd when Gil’s arrow went sniffing,” Sparrow provided helpfully.
“… and when she was pushed out of the way—”
“The shaft found him a ready target!” the elf concluded happily.
Friar and the Wolf both stared.
“You shot Onfroi de la Haye?” Friar asked at length. “Is he dead?”
“He took the arrow in the belly,” Gil shrugged, indicating the worst could be assumed.
The Wolf continued to maintain an unbroken silence for a full minute before he released a short, sharp gust of air from his lungs and turned away.
The four were standing near the main gates. There, the early pastels of dawn and an alert sentry had conspired against the two culprits’ attempt to regain entry to the abbey grounds unnoticed. Sparrow’s face and hands were smudged with sap, his clothes torn from his journey through the tree-tops. Gil was not so leafy, nor so sticky, but a seam of his deerhide jerkin had parted at the shoulder and the flap hung down like a limp pennant on a windless day. Both recalcitrants were wary of their leader’s temper. Both squinted upward from time to time, curious to know how the sun could continue to shine so brightly up above while the gathering storm clouds bristled so ominously below.
Friar, debating whether or not he had ever seen a blacker expression on the Wolf’s face, shook his head sadly and looked down at his hands.
“The Dragon will not be pleased with this turn of events,” the Wolf said, almost to himself. “To have his puppet sheriff slain in the midst of a kidnapping, with an unholy wedding pending and a conflict with a brother he thought long dead … all at a time when the secrecy and stealth of his actions should have commanded the utmost priority? Nay, the sheriff’s untimely death will not please him. Not that it pleases me—” he added with a pointed glance at the two penitents. “But knowing it will please him less and prick Prince John’s ears to attention sooner, takes away some of the sting that should have been applied to both your hides. You, Gil Golden, are still guilty of disobeying direct orders; and you” —the piercing gaze launched a daggar in Sparrow’s direction —“should have had better sense than to go chasing after Gil on your own.”
“There was no time—”
“There was no mischief to be made, you mean, in sharing the hunt with someone else. Suppose Gil had been a traitor seeking to sell information to the Dragon’s camp? Suppose the pair of you had been caught and plied with milord D’Aeth’s special talents for prying secrets? Or suppose you had spilled headfirst out of a tree and lain somewhere broken and bleeding the night long with no one the wiser for your absence?”
“No one would have mourned the loss,” Sparrow said petulantly and kicked a pebble with the toe of his boot.
“To be sure,” the Wolf agreed, narrowing his gaze to suggest a cataclysm had not been entirely avoided, “no one will mourn either one of you if your recklessness brings the hounds too near Thornfeld. The abbey is not so darkly steeped in legends of druids and pining ghosts as to have completely escaped the memory of local foresters—some of whom might be only too willing to lead the Dragon’s men here in exchange for a coin or two. We will have to double the guards for insurance.”
“I will see to it,” Friar nodded.
“Aye, and while you are about it, see to fetching these two a pair of stout shovels. My nose has been telling me it is long past time to fill in the old privy trenches and dig new ones. That should quench their sense of adventure for the time being.”
Friar grinned. “Their ‘scents’ of all else too, I warrant.”
Gil looked dismayed, Sparrow was plainly indignant. Neither was foolhardy enough to protest the punishment, knowing it could have gone much worse for them. Still, Sparrow would not have been Sparrow if he had not delivered the final, parting comment. Luckily the breeze was kind enough to delay the words “like a pissed newt” from reaching the Wolf’s ears until he and Gil were safely around the corner of the pilgrims’ hall.
The Wolf was still scowling—perhaps not in exact accordance to Sparrow’s description, but near enough to deserve fair comparison—when his morning solitude was interrupted a second