King's Warrior (Renegade Lords Book 1) Page 4

  Everyone wanted something.

  Sherwood wanted everything.

  “Whatever is found on him is all yours, my lord. Or rather,” the mayor added with a shrewd smile, “King Philippe’s. I know our French king is very grateful to have an Englishman so devoted to his royal cause. As am I.”

  A trickle of grease had left a slick trail down his chin.

  Sherwood looked away and pushed the shutter open to peer down into the muddy streets. The town was cast in shadow as the sun set. Far below lay the quay, and the Channel, and, almost within sight, the shores of England. So close.

  Too close.

  For a fortnight now, the cursed Irishman Tadhg had run Sherwood and half the mercenaries of the French king on a merry chase. He’d slipped through holes in the net of informants and soldiers Sherwood had cast across western Christendom. Men had been paid off or tortured for information, ports had been closed, towns had been blockaded, officials threatened, but despite all this, no one had yet found a cocky Irishman with the means to overthrow England sheathed in his sword belt.

  Tonight, that would change. Sherwood felt it in his bones.

  Tadhg may be cunning, but he was only one man. He’d been slowing of late, hunger and cold wearing on him, every friendly port shut to him. He was being horned, like toes in a boot, into Saleté de Mer. This muddy little shit-town was going to kick him to ground, then Sherwood would dance on his head. Then cut it off.

  Then slide the ruby-hilted dagger out of its sheath and sell it to the French king.

  After which, King Philippe of France would have the means to become King Philippe of France and England.

  For his part in assisting with the transition of power, Sherwood would earn the high praise and obscenely large rewards of land and titles one expected from an exceedingly grateful new sovereign.

  One of the mayor’s men arrived with yet another report. Sherwood listened with his back turned, idly picking dirt out of a fingernail as the soldier ran down the litany of men who’d been rounded up and locked in the town cells. None of them sounded likely, but then Tadhg was a master of disguise, his capacity for trickery unsurpassed.

  If Sherwood hadn’t been hunting him down, he’d have admired the bastard.

  “…and the reeve’s assistant reported an incident down at the quay, with a merchant.”

  Sherwood straightened off the wall. “What sort of problem?”

  “A verbal altercation.” The soldier paused. “Dame Thread was involved.”

  The mayor’s face, heretofore etched in idiotic brightness, dimmed. “Oh dear.”

  “Well?” Sherwood snapped.

  “Dame Thread, you say? Well…to tell the truth, my lord, I’m not entirely surprised it was she involved in an disturbance.” The mayor laughed merrily, which grated on Sherwood’s nerves. He looked over coldly and the mayor cut it short, as if coughing on a piece of fat.

  “What happened?” Sherwood asked shortly.

  The soldier replied. “The port reeve’s assistant said he was accosted.”

  “Accosted? By Dame Thread? Oh, that’s a good one.” He fell back in his chair, laughing.

  Sherwood stepped forward and took over the questioning. “Was there anything else?”

  The soldier shook his head. “No, my lord.”

  “You see, Sherwood?” The mayor smiled. “Do not be so concerned. It was but a merchant, a woman. She is of no account.”

  “They rarely are,” Sherwood agreed coldly, and addressed the soldier directly. “No other word?”

  “Nothing, my lord. No complaints filed, no word from the merchant.”

  “And no men involved?”

  “No sir.”

  Sherwood turned away, unaccountably irritated. He’d felt that little flicker inside, that sense of the Irishman being this close…then slipping away.

  “Unless…,” the soldier said.

  Sherwood stilled.

  “Unless you were to account the man who showed up afterwards.”

  He turned around slowly. “I might indeed account such a thing.”

  “Bayard—the assistant reeve, sir—he said a nobleman showed up, interrupted his conversation with Mistress Thread. Lord of some duchy to the south.”

  “What duchy?” he snapped.

  “Bayard didn’t recall.”

  Sherwood scowled and turned to the mayor. “Well, what of it? Who is this Mistress Thread?”

  “She is nobody. A tailor, widowed, abides at the far end of Thread Lane, very proper. She knows no lords from the south, east or west. Quiet and respectable, pays her taxes and then some. Although….” His face looked troubled.

  Sherwood slapped his glove across his palm impatiently. “Well?”

  “Well, my lord, she’s shapely enough, with the face of an angel some say—don’t see it myself—but unfortunately, the spirit of a stallion. That spirit was the death of her father, and her husband too, some say. I tend to agree. Her husband drank himself to death. After that she was trammeled down pretty well into docility, thank God. But….” The mayor gave a little shudder. “It is not entirely outside the realm of possibility that she might have been involved in a disturbance. You see, she has notions.”

  “Notions?”

  He nodded. “Upon a time, as a child, she took a notion to build a device to fly, if you can fathom it. Built a set of bird-like wings and took them up the cliff faces, atop the town, was all set to leap off, when—”

  “And the man?” Sherwood interrupted sharply.

  The mayor blinked. “My lord?”

  “The man who showed up afterward?”

  “Bayard said he just appeared whilst he was talking to the tailor,” supplied the soldier.

  “Just ‘appeared’?”

  The soldier nodded. “Said they did not appear to know each other.”

  “And yet there he was,” Sherwood murmured.

  “Aye. And he was there later, too, with a whore. Taking her up against the side of a building. Bayard said it looked…well, like the tailor.”

  The idiotic mayor burst into laughter again.

  Sherwood turned to the window, deep in thought as yet another messenger hurried into the room, this time the mayor’s clerk, his face distressed. “My lord,” the clerk huffed. “There’s been another disturbance.”

  Mayor Albert tossed Sherwood a wary look. “Go on.”

  “Down at the quay. One man’s arm slashed, another dumped in the sea, and a captain gone a’missing.”

  Sherwood turned slowly as the mayor said, “Who?”

  “Pepin, sir.”

  “Oh, well, Pepin.” The mayor laughed. “He is of no account, my lord. He marks himself among the seediest class of captains, found in all the seediest ports of the realm.”

  “Such as yours?” Sherwood asked coldly.

  The mayor opened his mouth, then shut it. “Such men are always getting in fights, my lord. I do not think it need concern us.”

  “Do you not?” Sherwood broke away and strode to the lower end of the hall, saying over his shoulder, “Brawls on your quay, merchants accosting your reeves; one would think your town is turning entirely to villainy, Albert.”

  As the mayor sputtered in indignation, Sherwood drew up beside the table where his men sat, shoveling food into their mouths. He bent beside them.

  “Visit a tailor on Thread Lane,” he ordered quietly. “Female, widowed, comely. Search her place, see what, if anything, she knows. Or what she has in her possession. Be circumspect if you can. If not…” He dipped his head. The meaning was clear: circumspection came a distant second to success. “First man to come back with my dagger gets a new mount and all the whores he can suckle for a month.”

  They shot to their feet and left in a clatter of boot heels. Sherwood turned to the mayor.

  “Let us go see about your missing sea captain.”

  Chapter Five

  MAGDALENA WAS IN her narrow shop, set deep amid the warren of close-set, leaning-in buildings that netted Sal
eté de Mer in an endless catch of noise and stench. Despite having gained a reputation for her work, there were still some who did not wish to engage in trade with a woman. Others saw payment as a flexible matter, since she did not have much recourse to insist.

  As a result, her prospects had never matched her skills since her husband had died. Neither had her income.

  And so, her shop sat at the farthest, darkest end of Tailor’s Lane, close enough to smell the animal refuse tossed out by Butchers Row each day, and the human refuse tossed out of the ale-houses and wine shops at night.

  She was looking through inventory, but in her heart, she was still pressed up against a wall, hard against the chest of the dark-eyed stranger. The flushes and leaps of excitement this occasioned were not conducive to inventory-taking: she’d just restarted her count of the long needles for a third time when the sound of boots drew her attention to the door.

  Three men stood there. They wore thick padded leather gambesons and tunics bearing an unfamiliar crest. All bore swords. They did not look interested in commissioning a new pair of hosen.

  A cold chill slid down her back as they crowded into her shop.

  She got up off her stool. “May I assist you?”

  “Best hope you can,” one of them muttered.

  “How?” she retorted curtly. She’d learned how to deal with oppressive, imposing men, and it was not by cowering. “I was preparing to close.”

  “We’re looking for something.”

  “How unilluminating.”

  Their leader, the burliest one, took a step more into the shop. “We want a blade.”

  She frowned. “Ironmonger’s Row will serve you better.”

  “They haven’t got the one we’re looking for.” The burliest soldier cupped his hands as if he was holding a ball. “This one’s a dagger, and it’s got a big, fat gem in its hilt.”

  She regarded them levelly. “A big, fat gem?”

  He nodded.

  “Do I look as if I have big fat gems lying about?” She waved her hand at her humble shop, with its needles and thread and bolts of fabric. “Try Jewelers Lane, or up on the High, where the rich folk live.”

  “No. You’re the one we want.” It was a simple and chilling statement.

  She clapped her account book shut. “I am entirely bereft of bejeweled daggers at the moment, sirs. Should you wish for ribbons or needles, I am happy to serve, but….”

  They moved into her shop fully and began touching things.

  “I must protest,” she exclaimed, coming forward. “You must leave now. I am closing soon—”

  “Are you?” The largest man turned and kicked the door shut. “Consider yourself shut now, Dame Thread.”

  Her jaw fell, but everything else was paralyzed with fear as she watched them move in like an army and begin to destroy her shop.

  They upended carefully-packed crates and dumped out precious inventory across the floor. They hauled things off shelves and threw them to the ground, then pawed through the piles. Bolts of fabric and spools of thread, carefully arranged by color and quality, were flung to the ground, then trod on by their big, dirty boots as they moved on to the next item of desecration.

  They flung open chests that weren’t locked and hacked open the locked ones. They flung her wardrobe to the ground for the sheer joy of hearing the pottery within smash and break. Boughs and berries she’d had decorating the shelves went flying, flinging bright bits of green and red across the shop.

  She stared in stupefied horror.

  One of the men lifted his head and glared at her. “Where is it?” he snarled.

  “Where is what?” she cried, confused and terrified.

  One of them started up the rickety stairwells to her tiny bedchamber, while a second rooted through the shelves in her kitchen, and the third, burliest one, snatched up the few, precious cushions she owned and slashed them open with his blade. Then he stuck his filthy hands inside and felt around.

  Something lit inside her, a low flame in her gut.

  With a curse, he flung the pillows aside, their bellies ripped open. Soft white down, collected for over a year, drifted through the air like snow. He turned to the debris from the overturned wardrobe next. He picked up, then tossed aside, a tall, fluted vase. It smashed as it hit the ground.

  He reached next for a long, low wooden box that sat amid the wreckage. Made of deeply polished walnut, its simplicity was deceiving; it was hand-turned, a magnificent piece of work, the only remaining relic Maggie had from her ridiculously hopeful, long-dead mother.

  He reached for it.

  Think small. Do something, anything, however small.

  Blindly, she bent and snatched it out from under his grasping hand.

  He stared at her in silent amazement. He looked at the box. Then he lunged for it.

  His hand closed around it, but she held on tight. Snarling, he shoved his hand down further and yanked her forward, certain now that this box held whatever he was seeking.

  She turned her back to him and curled herself around it, hugging it tight to her chest, as if it were a baby.

  Her smallest thing.

  Her hopeless thing.

  She squeezed her eyes shut and held on with a death-grip, knowing the inevitable was coming, that it was only moments now until the true desecration began.

  A loud crash exploded at the door of her shop.

  Magdalena and soldier jerked their heads up and stared in shock as a man in an unmarked tunic with a gleaming sword exploded into the room, flashing steel.

  The soldier released her with a curse. Magdalena tripped backward in astonishment. It was the knight from the docks. The one who’d kissed her like a whore, who may or may not be a lord, who’d stolen a pouch of buttons to please her.

  How had he found her? And why?

  The second soldier thundered out of the kitchen, drawing his sword as he came.

  She backed up to the wall as the knight slashed his way into the shop, sword flashing steel. A vicious sweep knocked the sword out of the nearest man’s hand with a clang of reverberating steel. Skittering backward, the man fell, his arms wheeling.

  The other soldier lunged, but the dark-eyed stranger whirled completely around, crashing his sword into the thrust, blocking the blow, at the same moment he kicked back at the man trying to get up off the floor.

  Boot connected with head. The man went back down like a rock in a pond.

  Her stranger swung his blade up again in time to meet the next sword blow of the burly soldier, the one who’d gutted her pillows. Steel crashed on steel, and the men moved across the front of her shop, boots scraping.

  A clatter on the back stairs made her heart stop. She turned to see the soldier who’d gone upstairs coming back down, the sound of his advance muffled by the grunts and gritty boot steps of the fight.

  She stared in horror, paralyzed with fear as he crept past her, advancing on the knight, whose back was turned. She threw a frantic, terror-fueled glance at the back door. She could run now; no one would see her.

  Her body shook so hard her teeth clattered. Either Magdalena did something, right now, or all the ridiculous, reckless hope that had welled up when the stranger burst in to save her—again—would be extinguished.

  As would he.

  She forced herself out of the shadows, and crept up behind the creeping soldier, mimicking his careful steps. As he straightened behind the stranger-knight, his sword up for a fatal blow, she lifted her mother’s chest in both hands and brought it down hard on the back of his head. It made a loud crack.

  He gave a surprised grunt and stumbled forward. She smashed again, harder this time, then again, and again. He tripped as he tried to turn, sword out.

  She jumped out of the way and struck him again, on the side of the head this time. He swayed like a drunkard, one boot kicked out, trying to follow her movement, and finally saw who it was who was beating him on the head, repeatedly, with a hard wooden box.

  For a second he sta
red in bleary-eyed amazement, then his eyes rolled back in his head and he crumpled to the floor.

  She stared in open-mouthed shock at her success and…triumph.

  Never had she done something so intemperate as to triumph.

  Her mysterious savior threw one startled look over his shoulder, at Magdalena gripping the chest over head, the soldier crumpled at her feet, then he spun back to finish off the pillow-murdering brute, a task he dispatched with grim efficiency.

  He backed the man up faster and faster, driving him off-balance, and when the brute stumbled the smallest bit, the knight lifted a boot, planted it in the man’s belly, and shoved.

  The soldier flew backward, hit the wall and slithered to the ground, sprawled amid bolts of fabric and bright silk thread. Cold and tall, the knight strode to him and lifted his boot again and brought it down hard on his knee.

  Howling in pain, the soldier writhed on the ground, clutching his leg. The stranger half-knelt beside him and, grasping sword hilt in two hands, he bashed the butt of it against the side of the soldier’s skull. His body jerked then went still as a log.

  Dead silence fell.

  The knight straightened and turned, his sword out, searching for any more marauders who might need to be sliced open like apples.

  Magdalena looked around too, the chest still held high in the air over her head. She was breathing fast, excited beyond measure or reason.

  “I did it,” she whispered, exultant. Chest still in the air, she said it again. “I did it.”

  She’d never done such a thing before. Never defied, never fought back. It quite stirred the blood.

  She felt ten feet tall— no, twelve. Surely her heart was larger now too—it was certainly beating harder, filled with more blood than she’d ever felt before. She was flushed and hot and full of energy and vigor. Like some wild thing, fierce and unrestrained.

  It was…wonderful.

  She spun to the knight, who was examining his sword. “I do thank you, sir,” she breathed, her eyes shining.