iron-bossed door to enquire of their business, and whatever reply he received made him race to wrench the great doors open. He scarcely had time to get them wide enough before five mounted men trotted into the courtyard. Walter, bellowing for the stable lads, ran forward to take the reins which the leading rider tossed to him as he swung from the saddle.
The horse pawed the ground nervously, rolling its eyes back. Raffe at once saw the cause of its restlessness. Something was tied behind the beast, being dragged along the ground. For a moment he thought it was a pair of poles with a bundle fastened between them, such as might be used to carry a bale of dried fish or hay. But as the beast shifted sideways, pulling the bundle over the ground, Raffe saw the smear of scarlet blood on the white frosted cobbles.
It was not a bundle of stock-fish. It was a man, tied by his wrists to a long rope fastened to a horse's tail, or rather, what is left of a man after he has been dragged face-down over a frozen stony track. What few clothes the poor wretch had been wearing clung in shreds to his battered limbs. Every inch of visible skin had been grazed and ripped, till his flesh resembled a slab of fresh raw meat on a butcher's block.
Old Walter stared down at the seemingly lifeless man, his toothless mouth gaping wide in horror, then he looked helplessly up at Raffe, silently asking what he should do. Raffe gestured to Walter to back away. Until they knew the men's business it was prudent not to interfere. Most likely the man was a wolf's head, an outlaw or a murderer, and had been captured by these men who were taking his body to a sheriff to claim the bounty. Whoever the man had been, he was beyond help now.
The stranger who had dismounted first strolled towards the steps of the Great Hall, beating the dust of a long hard ride from his dark blue tabard. He came to a halt at the front of the steps and stood squarely, gazing up at Raffe. Raffe descended the last few steps with caution, his gaze, like any trained soldier's, assessing not the man's face but the position of his hands relative to the hilt of the sword slung about his waist. But the man's fingers were not creeping towards his blade, nor to the knife dangling from his belt. Instead, the stranger was pulling off his gold-trimmed leather gloves, slowly and casually, like a man standing at his own fireside.
He was not as tall as Raffe — few men were — but what he lacked in height, he made up for in the broadness of his frame, strong square shoulders, and a bull's neck, thick and corded from years of wielding the massive weight of a sword and jousting lance. A razor-straight scar pulled at the side of his mouth, carving a fat white line through the clipped, grizzled beard, grown in a futile effort to hide it.
The memory is slower than the eye, but Raffe felt a convulsion of loathing shudder through his frame even before his mind could put a name to the face before him. The man had gained weight since Raffe had last seen him, and lost what little hair had still clung to his pate, but there could be no forgetting the expression of mockery in those cold grey eyes, as pale as slug slime against the sun-ravaged skin.
'Osborn of Roxham. My lord.'
A bow or, at the very least, an incline of the head should have accompanied these words — it was only courtesy after all to any visitor of rank - but Raffe's back had locked rigid.
'What brings you to our hall, m'lord? If you've come to call upon my master, I fear you are too late. Have you not heard —'
'That Gerard is dead. Yes, indeed I have. God rest his soul. A useful man in a fight, so I recall.'
Raffe's lack of deference, which might have enraged another man, seemed only to amuse Osborn. His beard twitched as if he was trying to conceal a smile beneath it. He turned as two younger men strolled across to join him.
'Raffaele, you remember my little brother, Hugh. And Raoul here has newly joined my company.'
Raffe's jaw clenched so hard that it was a miracle his teeth didn't shatter. He barely glanced at Raoul for his whole attention