“THERE IS NAUGHT to worry on, my lord,” said the mayor of the little sea-shit town, Saleté de Mer, as he wiped his chin free of duck grease.
Geoffrey d’Argent, Lord of West Sherwood in England and, assuming all went well, soon to be lord of a great many duchies in France, watched the mayor shovel more food into his mouth.
“We have the quay locked up tight,” Mayor Albert assured him as he chewed. “There’s been no word of men seeking passage on any ships to England, but in an excess of caution, we’ve rounded up anyone who looked even remotely suspicious, for you to question.”
“Good.” Sherwood took a restless turn around the well-lit great hall of the mayor’s abode. “And no ships are allowed to leave port until they’ve been searched by my men?”
“No ships.”
“Bien.” His boots thudded softly as he paced the plank floors.
The mayor went back to his repast, which appeared to be never-ending. It was only the two of them, and a few servants and soldiers scattered at the far end of the room. But down here, by the braziers, it was only Sherwood, the mayor, and his endless dishes of duck and goose.
Sherwood took another impatient turn around the hall.
The mayor lifted the edge of a linen tablecloth blotched by old stains and dabbed at his chin. “Never fear, my lord. Your outlaw won’t make it out of Saleté de Mer alive.”
“You do not know this outlaw,” Sherwood muttered as he stopped at one of the tall, narrow windows.
“What is there to know? He runs. We catch him. We hang him.”
Sherwood turned from the window. “And turn him—and anything found on him—over to me, as the king’s representative. Trinkets, keys, coins, messages: everything comes to me.”
The mayor waved his hand. “Of course, of course, you’ve said that several times already.”
Impatience sharpened his words, but Sherwood did not care. Mayor Albert was not assisting him in this mission out of a sense of goodwill or some civic-minded ideal; Sherwood had the weight of King Philippe of France behind him in this. The French king wanted what Sherwood was seeking, and the mayor wanted the king’s goodwill.
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?”