King's Warrior (Renegade Lords)

He watched in distress as his hearty morning repast of cold cheese, hot pasties, and good ale was inhaled by the baron’s scavengers. Sherwood himself downed an entire mug, then signaled for another before dropping into a chair—the mayor’s chair—where his face became visible for the first time in shaft of morning light.

Albert gasped. The baron’s face had been viciously slashed open. He’d attempted a makeshift bandage, a wad of linen laid atop the wound, but dried blood was crusted down his cheek, chin, and neck, hardening within the morning beard sprouting along his jaw.

Cleaning that would hurt.

The thought cheered him somewhat.

“Do you need a doctor?” he inquired hesitantly and, if he was honest with himself, quietly, because he wasn’t averse to the man simply bleeding to death.

Sherwood snapped his head around. The new angle presented the ravages even more visibly. Fresh blood seeped through the rag.

“Jesus God, man, look at me. Of course I need a physic. And send out men to question the gate guards and everyone down at the docks, as well as anyone she does business with. Also, she mentioned a blacksmith. Find him.”

Now, an hour later, the doctor had finished his examination and reports were coming back in. It was not good. No one had any news of two runaways, and the doctor said the wound on Sherwood’s face looked serious and would most certainly scar.

Mayor Albert fussed with his tunic to hide his smile.

The doctor patted more cobwebs into the wound with a competent hand. “It is quite deep, my lord,” he said. “Perhaps if I—”

“Pull a needle through it and be done with it,” Sherwood snapped.

The doctor looked up, startled. “But we must release the humors—!”

“The humors are bleeding down my neck, you fool. Just stitch me up,” he snarled as one of his men limped in.

Sherwood looked over sharply. “Well?”

“Only one ship seems to have gone out on the last tide, piloted by a Didier.”

Sherwood snapped his gaze to Albert. “Who is this man? Is he a virtuous sort? How large is his boat? How far can he sail? Where does he generally port on the far side?”

Albert lifted his hands helplessly, and Sherwood gave a snort of disgust. “Call for your port reeve, he will know.”

As someone was sent for the reeve, the soldier went on with his report. “We found the gate warden and the blacksmith, sir. The porter swears they didn’t leave by the gates, and he was on duty all night, but I brought him to be questioned anyhow.”

The soldier hauled Gustav into the room and thrust him forward. He stumbled as he came. They marched Baselard in behind.

Gustav folded his arms over his chest when Sherwood questioned him, and shook his head firmly. “Allow someone in or out after the gates are closed? Never.” He shook his head at the outrageous suggestion, then smiled at the mayor. “Gates are locked for a reason, are they not?”

Albert knew very well Gustav opened the gates regularly after and before hours. He knew because a portion of the fees Gustav collected for the privilege of doing so went directly to the mayor’s private coffers. But every moment delayed meant another moment Magdalena could escape, so he simply nodded back.

In fact, lying had never felt so virtuous.

Sherwood turned next to Baselard. “You are a friend of the tailor’s?”

The blacksmith crossed his beefy arms over his chest and glared straight ahead in silence.

“How good a friend?” Sherwood asked.

Nothing.

“When did you last see her?” He started walking toward the blacksmith, and the mayor wrung his hands. The entire town had gone rogue on account of Mistress Magdalena. He was reminded, swiftly, of her winged contraption as a youth. Madness it had been, and yet, when she’d climbed to the high cliff, wearing her strange butterfly wings, a crowd had formed, and followed. And cheered.

She’d inspired them.

If Albert recalled a’right, it had been a young Augustus who had dragged her back to terra firma and surely saved her life. But still…

There’d always been a secret part of Albert that thought she ought to at least have been allowed to try.