King's Warrior (Renegade Lords Book 1) Page 2

  Tadhg squinted back; it was difficult to see much in the dimming twilight and the bright circle of torchlight behind the man’s head. He shifted to the side, scowling at this, the third, question about his travels, but he could hardly blame the man.

  Tadhg was travel-stained after weeks on the run, heavily armed, and wearing no device to mark him as crusader or bound knight. He could easily be a criminal or an outlaw.

  Or both.

  Nothing like falling back to your roots.

  Still, he had not come though fire and tribulation and a dozen war-torn lands carrying contraband that could get him killed only to be questioned by a middling dock rat about his purposes.

  On the other hand, he hadn’t yet come through it, had he? He was still on the run, outlawed, carrying contraband that could get him killed.

  From cave to king’s hall to outlaw once again.

  Rowan, Máel and Fáelán would just laugh and laugh.

  Then possibly aim an arrow at his heart.

  “Something like that,” was all he said.

  Detecting Tadhg’s growing unease with all these questions about his travels, the captain finally subsided with a shrug. “Well, I can take you, sure enough.”

  Tadhg looked over the man’s shoulder to the small boat he’d indicated with a jab of his thumb. The boat was peeling and listed to its right in the slack tide like a lame dog.

  “In that?” he said incredulously. “I’m paying four deniers to cross the Channel in that?”

  “Aye.” The grizzled captain sounded offended. “She’s sturdy.”

  He nodded doubtfully and reached for his pouch.

  “Won’t be on this tide, though. Nor maybe the next.” Tadhg stopped reaching. The captain looked at his stilled hand. “Nothing I can do about that, traveler.”

  “Why not?”

  “Haven’t you heard?” The captain tipped forward and his words sailed out on malodorous breath laced with hard drink and unscrubbed teeth. “There’s a bandit on the loose.”

  A chill unrelated to the damp air crossed Tadhg’s skin.

  “Someone wants him bad. Or a whole lot of ‘someone’s’. Half of King Philippe’s army is hunting the rogue, as well as that great hulking English baron out there.” He hooked a thumb at the ships behind him.

  Tadhg could see soldiers moving along the quay, bending here and there to lift canvas covers, stopping seamen with rough hands.

  “They say the English Prince John is in on this hunt too.”

  “How is any of this my problem?” Tadhg asked coldly, ignoring the fact that it was precisely his problem.

  The captain wiped spittle off his bearded face with the back of a grimy, calloused hand. “Well, you know your own business best, sir, but as you seem a man who enjoys his…privacy,” a shrewd glance accompanied this description, “you’ll not be pleased to know that, on account of the heightened security, there’s no ships going out, not without being searched, everyone on board questioned.”

  His heart took an extra beat. “Every ship? That seems excessive.”

  “Maybe yes and maybe no. They want this bandit bad.” The captain leaned a little closer. “Wouldn’t know anything about that, would you, traveler?”

  It took all Tadhg’s strength not to step back into the shadows. The habit had become so ingrained, it was now an act of will simply to stand in the daylight.

  He took a sweeping survey of the boats tied up at the quay and the larger merchant cogs out in deeper waters, tugging at anchors embedded in the muddy bottoms. He could see the figures of men-at-arms moving across the decks. The livery emblazoned across their tunics proclaimed they belonged to the baron of West Sherwood, Geoffrey d’Argent, one of the most rapacious, ambitious lords of England, who also happened to be hunting Tadhg down.

  “I have to be on that tide,” he said grimly.

  The captain shrugged. “Won’t happen here, nor at any large port within forty miles. They’re all under watch, guarded and searched. Gates, too: no one in or out without being searched. This bandit must have got hold of something precious valuable, what with half the kings and noblemen in Christendom fighting to find him first.” He grinned, revealing sizeable gaps where teeth used to be. “Makes a man wonder what it is.”

  “What do men always fight over?” Tadhg said absently, eyeing the ships.

  “The size of their cocks, the size of their coffers, and the size of the throne they sit upon,” came the captain’s quipped reply. “But I doubt a English baron sailed all the way to France to chase down a man over the size of his cock.”

  “Maybe it’s the coffers then.”

  “Or the throne.”

  Precisely.

  “Word is, he stole something from the king,” the captain added in a conspiratorial voice.

  Tadhg’s jaw tightened. He disguised it by shrugging the heavy, fur-lined mantle closer around his shoulders. “Is that so? King Philippe should keep a better watch over his many ill-got riches.”

  That earned a bark of appreciative laughter, but the captain’s gaze did not waver off Tadhg’s profile. “Not the French king, traveler. The English one. Richard, Coeur de Lion. They’re saying this rogue stole something from him.”

  Tadhg looked over coldly. “Do you believe everything you hear, captain?”

  “Well, you’ve a point there, sir. Seeing as how the English king is in the Holy Lands. Or was…” He tipped closer. “Fact is, he’s disappeared. On his way home from Jerusalem. All the other crusaders have returned, save for the English king and a few others who were near him at the end. They’ve all disappeared, right off the face o’ the earth,” he said, his voice low. “So, if anyone had had stolen anything off him out there,” he waved at the rest of the world. “He’d have to have carried here.”

  The captain gestured at the harbor, then shook his head. “Be impossible. A thousand miles or more, alone, in the dead of winter…crossing mountains…and rivers…hunted by kings and counts. No man could have made it. And even if one did, he’d be half-dead by now. Cold, hungry, broken, travel-worn.” His gaze slid across Tadhg, his voice slowing down. “On his last legs…in dire straits.” He looked into Tadhg’s eyes and swallowed visibly. “A desperate man.”

  He’d nailed Tadhg down like a plank on a floor.

  Tadhg slid his gaze back to the harbor. “If a man needed to cross the channel, and cared not for the means or the cost, is there nowhere he could go?”

  The captain shrugged again. “St. Malo, maybe. It’s too big to shut down entirely, and there’s always some daring soul willing to run a blockade or do other sorts of devilry, isn’t there?”

  He peered closely at Tadhg.

  Enough. “My thanks for the information.” Tadhg flipped the man a coin large enough keep his mouth shut and turned away.

  “They say there’s a reward,” the captain said to his back. “For the bandit.”

  He stopped. “How much?” he asked without turning.

  “Oh, a fair bit.”

  “There are bits and then there are bits.”

  “Fairer than most bits.”

  Tadhg looked over his shoulder. “How much?”

  “Twenty silver pennies.”

  He nodded thoughtfully. “I’d turn in many a man for that amount.”

  The gleam of a grin from the captain. “I’d turn in my mother.”

  Tadhg grinned back. “I’d turn her in, too.”

  The captain guffawed, then glanced over his shoulder at the nearest ship. A pair of soldiers was making their way across its deck in the moonlight, holding a man by the elbows, pushing him roughly before them.

  “Ah, see.” Tadhg nodded toward the scene. “It appears they’ve caught their man.”

  “Mayhap,” the captain said slowly, then grinned. “Or mayhap not.” His maritime gaze lifted over Tadhg’s shoulder.

  Tadhg sighed once before unsheathing his sword and turning in a single move, just in time to catch the first of the three blade-wielding dockhands who’d co
me up behind him under the chin with the edge of his blade.

  The miscreant stared in astonishment for half a second, then blood spurted out, and his body tumbled backward in the sea.

  Tadhg’s sigh had been not so much preparation as weariness: he was sore weary of killing.

  He drove forward at the other two, their smaller blades and goals no match for his warrior skills and utter determination. He backed one man up off the edge of the quay, where he fell with a splash. A wide, arcing swing sliced through the other man’s arm, spurting blood, and that was enough for him. He broke and ran, and Tadhg spun back to the captain, who was staring in slack-jawed in amazement, one hand grasping a knife, the other now raised in a supplicating gesture.

  “Well now, sir,” he said in a high, wheedling voice. “I can see we misjudged you.”

  “Most do,” Tadhg agreed. He held his sword in a straight line from his shoulder to its steely tip, which quivered an inch from the captain’s chest as he backed him up across the quay.

  “Well, I’m always willing to admit my mistakes,” the captain assured him, stumbling as he went.

  “That is good to hear. Drop the blade.”

  The knife fell with a clatter.

  “How can we settle this regrettable misunderstanding, traveler?” the captain wheedled, backing up slowly as Tadhg came forward. “I’ve money, contacts, any number of whores at the ready.”

  Tadhg shook his head. “No, I can only think of one way to ‘settle the matter.’”

  The captain’s face paled. “Jesus.” He swallowed as he backed up another step and hit the side of a building; he’d gone as far as he could. He stilled, his gnarled hands up in the air. “How?”

  “Tie you up and divest you of your clothes.”

  Surprise slackened the grizzled jaw. “Tie me up…?”

  Tadhg grabbed a handful of the man’s tunic and spun him around. “Heed me, pilot: I’ve no burning desire to kill you, but I’ve no aversion to it either. If you make a sound, or look as though you are considering making a sound, I’ll kill you before you finish the inhale.”

  The captain nodded vigorously, in complete agreement with this plan. Tadhg pushed him toward the door of the empty building behind him.

  Hazarding a glance up at the swaying sign above it, the captain suddenly tried to skitter to a halt. “Christ on the Cross, man, you cannot put me in there.”

  Tadhg shoved him harder, propelling him toward the door. “Why not?”

  “’Tis the port reeve’s office,” he hissed. “He and I have been at odds of late over some…missing shipments.”

  Tadhg smiled as he bent to pick the lock.

  He pushed the captain inside, divested him of his clothes, and left his mottled, fleshy, white body tied up in the empty office, a rag stuffed in his mouth, to be discovered in the morning.

  This was the sort of thing a man would normally loiter about to witness, a port reeve walking in to find a fat, naked smuggler tied up in his office chair. But circumstances being what they were, Tadhg would have to forgo the pleasure.

  He melted into the shadows of the nearest alley and sat back on his heels, catching his breath, watching from afar as soldiers dragged innocent men off the distant ships, weary beyond measure to find himself, after climbing as high as he had, to find himself once again, here, hiding in the shadows.

  One could almost think he was destined to be iniquitous.

  And hiding was precisely what he needed to do, and fast.

  Not himself; Tadhg could disappear in an empty room if had had to. His early training with Fáelán and the others had been refreshed with violent intensity these past weeks, being hunted through the Rhine, Low Countries, and half of western France.

  His ability to hide was now honed like a blade. He could all but shape-shift, blend into his surroundings, change his looks, his accent, his mien. He could be anything, to anyone, for any purpose.

  What he needed was somewhere to hide his contraband. The ruby-hilted dagger lodged in his belt, being sought by the French king, the English prince, and one of the most powerful, ruthless barons in both lands.

  For this dagger was quite the opposite of Tadhg. It would not blend in in a room full of daggers.

  Indeed, it had been constructed to draw attention: that was an essential part of its danger.

  Its long, shapely blade was hard steel, cunningly curved near the tip to impart maximum damage, yet it was engraved with delicate, almost feminine etchings that flowed silkily up the blood gutter like filigree. Most noticeable of all: the fat red ruby laid deep in its hilt, like a drop of blood caught in a raven’s throat.

  It was a spectacular piece of weaponry, worth more than a warhorse, clearly royal.

  Therein lay its promise and its peril.

  And if Tadhg wasn’t careful, his death.

  Sherwood was closing in on him. Every outlet to and from the city would soon be plugged. The moment Tadhg tried to leave, be it in the guise of a wandering minstrel, a drunken peasant, or a wealthy, outraged nobleman—he’d used them all in the past weeks—he would be searched. Sherwood knew his tricks by now, and would have issued orders to that effect.

  No matter the guise, Tadhg would be searched, and the dagger discovered.

  What he needed was someone who would not be searched. Someone gullible. Someone innocent.

  Or better yet, he thought, turning toward the sound of a woman’s voice coming down the quay, all three.

  The woman walked hurriedly at a fat man’s side. She looked stricken. The man looked satisfied, wearing a chain holding many keys on it and a fine velvet tunic. He emanated a veritable cloud of officious self-importance.

  Officious.

  Official.

  “Dia ár sábháil,” Tadhg muttered, then followed it up with the more declarative Saxon, “Fuck me.”

  They were heading straight for the port reeve’s office.

  Chapter Two

  “IT’LL COST YOU A SOU.”

  Magdalena tried to stifle the anger that threatened to well up in her chest as the words sunk in. Anger would not serve here. There was nothing to be done but pay the fee. But one did tire of being extorted. By port officials.

  She did not even rate the head reeve himself this time. Only his ruddy-faced, fat little assistant, Bayard.

  But this…this was too far.

  “Twelve deniers?” she repeated, incredulous. A basket of Yuletide greens swung dangerously off her arm. “An entire sou to claim my shipment, in addition to the usual fees?”

  He nodded complacently. The package she’d been waiting for was thrust under his arm, a fat little green bundle of decorative buttons to affix to the cloaks she’d just finished stitching, a special and expensive order. If this order was found satisfactory, others might follow. Why, she might be able to heat the house to full warmth. Might be able to keep sewing until her neck ached and her back burned and her fingers tightened into knots from stiffness and pain for years.

  She stuffed down the despair that rose inside her and stared at the little pouch under his arm. It was so close she was tempted to snatch it and run.

  But then what? One did not just grab and run, no matter how much bribery was required to grease these wheels.

  But she was angry.

  “That is robbery, sir,” she announced. “You are no better than a brigand on the highway.”

  Bayard’s shiny round head turned to her. “I suppose I’m a bit better, as I can hold your shipment until you pay.”

  “But I have already paid the custom,” she insisted.

  He stuck his pudgy hand under his cloak and extracted a key. “Consider this an additional custom, Mistress Thread. A surcharge, if you will.”

  “That was a surcharge,” she said coldly. “Over and above the usual fees. Paid directly to your master.”

  He grunted and moved toward the office door. “I collect my own surcharges now.”

  The long, wide quay was growing cold as twilight descended. The winter’s su
n had left behind nothing but a weary pink glow on the horizon. There were a few distant calls from the far-off boats, and the creak of rocking wood and thick ropes, but almost everyone had retreated indoors as the sun went down. Along the quay, it was only Magdalena, the port reeve’s assistant, and his extortion of her.

  A scuff from behind barely drew her attention as she stepped forward.

  “Methinks the mayor would be interested in knowing your practices,” she announced.

  Bayard gave a burst of laughter. Likely because the mayor was the most corrupt official in all of salty, seedy Saleté de Mer. If her case weren’t so dire, Magdalena would have been tempted to laugh with him, at the absurd notion that she had any recourse available to her at all.

  Still, one must try.

  “Or perhaps the guild court?” she said sharply. “Yes, I think I shall visit them first thing in the morning.”

  Bayard turned suddenly, the hump of his belly pressing against her as he grabbed her elbow.

  “You wish to see the guild about this? I’ve something better for you to see.” He fumbled at his belt, then held up one of several leather pouches that dangled there. He yanked on the string at the top and drew out a little mottled bronze key, and thrust it in front of her nose. “See that?”

  “I certainly do, as you are holding it so helpfully close.”

  “Then see how helpful you find this, Mistress Thread. That’s the key to the coffer that holds the mayor’s seal. One of those gets affixed when the merchant paid the custom, going out or coming in. If you want your goods, you pay the fee, you get one of these. You don’t, no goods. ”

  He pushed the key back inside its little pouch with an unnecessary flourish and scowled at her. “The fee’s now fifteen, Mistress Thread. I don’t like women with bollocks.”

  They stared at each other.

  If she did not get those buttons, she was in grave danger of having her reputation ruined. But tailors were not made of money, and she did not have fifteen deniers. How was she to come up with such coin?

  Sell the pony. It was the only way.

  “And if I cannot afford the fee?” she asked dimly.