“We lost twenty-one men last night,” he muttered. “Twenty-one men drowned by the de Wolfe bastard at Wark.”
“The youngest cub,” someone muttered.
Hobelar looked around to see his men nodding grimly. Most of them were still wet from the dunking they had taken last night. They smelled like rot and mold, and of a river that had claimed far too many victims over the years. That cold and clinging water had nearly claimed more, but those sitting around Hobelar’s fire were strong.
They were worthy of the fight.
“Aye, the youngest Wolfe cub,” Hobelar repeated. Then, he pulled something out of his belt, something that one of his men had brought to him– a beautiful dagger with a wolf’s head handle. Hobelar had seen that wolf head before, on the shields used by the de Wolfe armies, and he held it up to inspect it. “There are cubs at Berwick and Kale Water Castle, and as far west as Monteviot and Sibbald’s Hold in Scotland. When I was a wee lad, the Wolfe himself was only just risin’ tae power. Now, his sons command the castles around here. They are all the same tae me– all killers, the bleeders of Scots. I looked the youngest cub in the face last night and saw the murder in his eyes. But we are not enough tae face them; not as we are. But we canna be silenced. We may not be able tae raise a great army against de Wolfe and his cubs, but we shall cause him pain. Aye, we will.”
The breathless man was not so breathless any longer. Hughes was his name, and he sucked the last of the meat off of the skinny bird bone he’d been given. He was also English, andfrom the north, and he knew the de Wolfe name well. Everyone in the north of England did.
“Then what will we do?” he asked Hobelar, watching the man as he fixated on the wolf’s head dagger. “William de Wolfe is still alive, in command of his seat at Castle Questing. It is quite possible that it is the man himself coming from Wark with his trunks loaded with gold. Who else would command such fine horses and weapons and trunks?”
Hobelar looked at him. “What colors are the escort flyin’?”
“Red and yellow, but it could be a ruse. It could be meant to confuse.”
Hobelar shook his head. “They’d be flyin’ the de Wolfe black and silver proudly were it the man himself,” he said, finally lowering the dagger and looking at his men. “They would not try tae deceive anyone. Still… whoever it is, he must be important. We can cause great trouble for de Wolfe by attackin’ his allies.”
“Then we shall attack them?”
Hobelar nodded. “We must meet him on the road and we must move swiftly,” he said. “We dunna want tae let him get within range of Etal Castle; the garrison could send out help should they see us. Nay, wemustcatch them on the road before they reach Branxton. Beyond that, we will lose them. We will show de Wolfe that he canna destroy us. We will make the man hurt.”
Already, the wet and exhausted reivers were moving, putting out the fire and gathering their weapons. The horses, those that had made it out of the river, were resting beneath the overgrowth of trees that infested the bailey of Heton, and the men rushed out to prepare them.
The day was advancing and they had little time to waste. Soon enough, they were charging from the bones of Heton’s stone rib cage, out into the landscape beyond as they headed south to the road where the party from Wark had been seen.From the delay of the report, they estimated the party to be less than an hour out of Wark, which would put them on a particular stretch of road that passed through a heavily-wooded area. It was forested and it was hilly, providing an excellent opportunity for an ambush.
The reivers had swords and axes, but they also had crossbows, stolen from the dead. Hobelar sent those with the crossbows up ahead to begin the ambush and by the time they intercepted the party from Wark, the arrows were flying and men were falling, including a well-dressed lord at the center of the escort. When he went down, his men panicked.
After that, it was chaos, but Hobelar’s men were the better for it– the wagon containing all of the expensive trunks somehow ended up back at Castle Heton, and just a couple of hours after the ambush, Hobelar and his men were celebrating a very lucrative ambush of a de Wolfe ally.
Victory was theirs.
Hobelar fell asleep in the sunshine of the afternoon wearing the expensive silk robes of Edmund de Vauden.
CHAPTER NINE
Edenside
It wasn’t whatshe had expected.
In truth, Maitland wasn’t sure what to expect, but the dilapidated tower and outbuildings hadn’t been among any of her hopes.
It was worse than she could have imagined.
Edenside had been a fortified pele tower complex once, built with the gray granite stones so prevalent to the area. There was a two-storied tower, overgrown with weeds and moss, and two long outbuildings, single-storied, with roofs of sod that were badly in need of replacement. The entire fortress looked old, worn, and crushed.
Stepping into the walled bailey, there was only a pair of dilapidated gates to keep those inside safe, gates that a child could have kicked down. In fact, as Maitland and Thomas and Desmond entered the bailey, which was covered with grass and weeds, Thomas had a couple of his men take immediatenotice of the gates to see what they could do about making them more secure. If Thomas was feeling disillusioned and a little apprehensive of the place, he couldn’t even imagine what Maitland was feeling.
The whole thing seemed deserted. No sounds of children, no signs of life. As Maitland and Tibelda left their fat palfreys just inside the wall, over near the gates, Tibelda went towards the yard to the east of the outbuildings to look for children while Maitland made her way towards the two-storied tower, hoping to find someone there who could tell her where her charges were.
The tower, in fact, was rather large. In its prime, it must have been a mighty sight, indeed. It looked as if it could hold thirty people simply by the sheer size of it. It could certainly hold twenty children, as there had been at one time.
But now, it appeared dark and vacant.
“Halt!”
A shout came from off to her left and she immediately stopped, turning to see a skinny, ill-dressed boy standing in the doorway of one of the long outbuildings. He was barefoot, filthy, and very cold, with blue lips and pale skin. But he had a big stick with him and he came towards her, wielding it menacingly.
