He stood in silence, hearing the scrape of feet, the muttered comments of the soldiers, the nervous laughter of one of the lordlings, the tick of a branch clacking against another, the snuffling of horses, and the thump of a spear haft against the ground. A child whimpered. In the distance, an owl hooted, and he threw back his head, surprised, and listened as hard as he could. As he breathed, he caught the inhalation of the world and the slow trembling and settling of air as the earth cooled with the onset of night. Under the trees waited the wolves who hunted in this night, concealed by underbrush and broad tree trunks and the uneven carpet of the ground with its low rock dikes and knee-deep hollows. The outlaws were a sturdy, cautious band, and he listened carefully, counting each man’s breath: thirty-eight in all—no, there was the thirty-ninth, behind the bole of an ash. Not enough to attack a company some three times greater and better armed unless a cunning intelligence led them, but he smelled and sensed no such mind among their number, not unless it was hidden from him.
“Stay,” he said to the hounds He walked into the trees, as silent as death, and came up behind each crouching man out of the darkness and lay a hand atop each head, each one so unsuspecting that the touch made him freeze in terror.
Alain said only, in a whisper, each time, “Go. Do not prey on the weak and helpless any longer.”
They ran, a scattering of footsteps as the first he touched fled, and then the second. The sound turned briefly into a tumult, like a shower of hard rain, and pattered away into the depths as the last of them bolted. He waited, but all he heard were cautious shouts and answers coming from the camp as Conrad and Sabella shifted their sentries farther out to probe the darkness, and the quiet misery of the score of beggars abandoned betwixt the company and the wild.
He walked back to the hounds, and said, “Duke Conrad, I pray you. If you’ll spare me a dozen loaves of waybread, I’ll give them as alms to these poor beggars.”
“Come into the light,” said Conrad, and Alain did so, coming right up to the wall of shields set on the ruin of the outer wall. After a moment a soldier arrived with his arms basketing half a dozen loaves of the flatbread commonly baked by travelers on the coals overnight. These were several days’ old.
“What has happened?” Conrad pushed past the shields to stand beside Alain, alert to the noises out of the woods.
Back in the camp, Atto sobbed.
“I believe they have fled, seeing a superior force. May I now feed these poor beggars?”
Conrad laughed. “A godly man is a good ally, so the church mothers tell us. I’ll walk with you.”
“I pray to God this shall be enough to strengthen these unfortunates,” said Alain as they came among them. Conrad walked boldly, but it was clear he marked each one, looking closely at their rags and their emaciated limbs for sign of disease before he handed them a hank of bread out of his own hands. Filth and hunger and desperation did not make him flinch. Any person saw such things every day. But even a strong soul might quail at the mark of plague or leprosy.
These were only poor, landless, and starving, nothing out of the ordinary except that they had retreated so far into the wild lands and so near to the guivre’s lair. When Alain and Conrad returned to camp, Sabella scolded them.
“Now the creatures will plague us,” she said, “hoping for another morsel. You have only encouraged them. I hope they did not hear that lad shouting. I’ll not be burdened with a train of beggars.”
“Where, then, should they go?” Alain asked her.
“What concern is that of mine?”
“You are duchess here in Arconia, I believe,” he answered. “Are these people not your concern?”
“Why should they be? What if those thieves creep back and try to surprise us a second time?”
“God have given you these lands to administer, have They not? It is your duty and obligation to be a just steward of these lands. Even beggars and outlaws are among your subjects.”
“As inside, so outside, my clerics tell me. These beggars must have sinned grievously to be punished in such a manner.”
“Do you believe it is only their own sins that have brought them so low? That they deserve whatever suffering they endure?”
“Each of us faces justice in the end. I do not mean to interfere with the punishment God has ordained for them.”
“Justice must be tempered with mercy. What mercy should God show to you if you will show none in your turn?”
Conrad clucked, while the courtiers muttered their shocked outrage that their lady should be spoken to in such a manner by a man who had only the expectation of rank but no actual lands and title in his grasp.
“Do you speak so, to me?” she demanded. “Let them perish, if they have not the strength to survive. I cannot aid them, and why should I, if it will harm my cause and weaken my rule? Food given to these wretches will not go to feed my soldiers and retainers, who aid me. What matters it, anyway? These creatures are the least of God’s creation, far beneath us.”
He shook his head. “Do not say so. In birth and death we are alike. Their bodies will turn to dust, just as mine will. Just as yours will.”
Her aspect grew cold and she clenched her jaw tight before finding her voice. “This I will not endure! Captain! Bind him and cast him in the cage. He who insults me with such insolence will be first to feed the guivre.”
“Feed the guivre?” cried Conrad. “You cannot mean to feed the beast on human flesh!”
“The monster must be strong so it can defeat Sanglant. Human flesh and human blood strengthens beasts as no other nourishment can. Take him!”
Her captain waited with a dozen men, eyeing the hounds and the man, and as they hesitated Alain met each guard’s gaze in turn, looked each one right in the eye.
None ventured forward.