He got waylaid by an argument between a few drunken townsmen. When the shouting escalated and he heard the words “Bloody fricking bastard,” shouted near his right ear, he stepped back just as a man’s body was flung through the air and landed with a sickening thud on a tabletop. The table shimmied convulsively, then its four legs folded. The table, with occupant, crashed to the ground. Griffyn stepped over the wreckage and continued on.
The table he’d spied was still open. He edged onto the bench behind it, back to the begrimed wall, and waited for Fulk, the mysterious message-sender, or Satan to approach him. He was making bets with himself on which would show first.
It was Fulk.
He plunked his armoured body down onto the bench next to Griffyn, two pints in his fists. “Truth be told, my lord,” he said, shoving one pint at Griffyn so hard a portion of it splashed onto the table, “those Scottish women are good to behold.”
Griffyn reached for the mug. “How can you tell, behind the cosmetics?” he asked, truly curious.
> “Och,” Fulk said with a confident air, sitting back and pushing his belly out. “Ye can tell.” He took a long pull from his mug.
“Umm.”
A figure pushed through the bodies filling the room and approached their table. “My lord,” the man said in a low voice. “You came.”
“Call me Pagan,” Griffyn said swiftly, then his eyes focused and his breath jammed back into his throat.
De Louth. It was de Louth, Marcus’s henchman, the one who’d tried to kidnap Guinevere on the London highway, the one who almost killed Griffyn.
Griffyn pushed to his feet, his breathing slow and controlled. His hand moved to his sword. Fulk rose beside him. Tension pushed out of them like waves into the air, ready for a fight.
“De Louth,” Griffyn said, then flicked his gaze around the pub. It was crowded and smokey. Men stood in small herds everywhere, leaning over each other’s shoulders, guffawing, clicking dice across the tabletops. No one seemed interested in this little corner of the room. He shifted his gaze back.
“You’ve nothing to fear from me,” de Louth said quietly. “I give you my word.” He stood a few paces back from the table, his hands near his hips, but palms turned forward, splayed. He had no weapon. At least not in his hands.
Griffyn’s eyes ratcheted back up to de Louth’s. “You sent me a message?”
“I did.”
“Why?”
“That’s what I’m here to tell you.”
“You, or him?”
De Louth shook his head. “Not him. Just me.”
“He doesn’t know you’re here?”
“If he knew I was here, he’d cut off my tongue. And my prick.”
Griffyn smiled thinly. “So, your lord cannot trust you, but I should?”
De Louth dropped his hands. “Sir, you’ll either believe me or you won’t. But what will it hurt to listen?”
Fulk crossed his arms over his chest. “It might hurt the backs of our heads, if we were to get smacked upside them with a club while we were listening.”
“I’ve come with no tricks, or men.” He looked to Griffyn. “So, aye or nay? Do you want to hear what I’ve got to say?”
Griffyn felt the hilt of his sword butting up against his wrist, a comforting pressure. De Louth might be dirty, or not. There was no way to know except to listen.
He slid his gaze deliberately down to de Louth’s thigh, where he’d punched through the flesh and bone with an arrow on the king’s highway. De Louth was waiting for him when he looked up again.
A twisted smile lifted a corner of the knight’s mouth. “It still hurts, if that’ll make you happy.”
“Some.”
Griffyn looked around the room one last time, then gestured them to sit. Fulk took a deep drink from his mug. Griffyn sat back and said, “So? What do you have for me?”