Threave leaned back in the saddle, straightening his bowed spine. “Husbandman Lusk, isn’t it? Yes, we are seeking information about one Tàmhas Lynn, a man who used to live in this very house you occupy.”
“Used to? Ho, been nigh twenty years ’n I heard that name last—’twas from another gentleman such as yerself. Indeed, I know well enough Tàm Lynn lived in this house. Helped him build it, I did, after he’d shored up our own o’er that way where my brother still lives. He were a good man, but long gone from ’ere. One morning ’e just nae turned up, an’ ne’er came back. Why be his name resurrected now, if I may ask, yer honor?”
“There is . . . new concern, Husbandman Lusk, a belief that the villain has returned to his old haunts. We have reports of him, and it falls on me in my duty to ascertain if these prove true, and arrest him.”
“Sir, who has reported his like, an’ where was he seen?”
“That is not important,” Threave told him.
“Well. A villain, then. That I didn’t know. I can tell ye he has nae tried to move back intae his house, if that’s what you’re askin’. Ne’er set eyes on him again in all these years. I thought sure an’ he was dead. Was given this house by Cardden, the tenant-in-chief, who give us the land tae work, too. ’E’s dead some years himself. His daughter runs it all now. If ye’re wanting answers, you should go ask her, yer honor, that’s what I’d advise. If anybody knows, it’s she. But if you’ve doubt, you’re welcome tae come in, look around, poke in the byre if ye like. He could be hiding, I suppose. Could be ’e’s up in the shieling.” He turned and pointed. “Nobody’s been there for weeks. . . .”
Tàm had told him to blather long and hard. Talking made noise in and out of his head; it pushed his speech to the forefront and masked any thoughts he was blocking and didn’t want them to hear. The Yvags would try to prod at his mind. Babbling a defensible version of the truth would protect him. So he prattled on repetitiously, almost idiotically, about raising sheep and children and crops, until finally the alderman raised a hand to silence him.
“Well enough,” Threave said. “As you seem ignorant of the fellow’s whereabouts, we’ll leave you. But I warn you, Husbandman Lusk, if you harbor or aid him, however kindly your regard, there will be a severe penalty, paid by your whole family.” The alderman wheeled about, the silent soldiers following.
Filib nodded and stepped back into the darkness of his house, closing the door. “Right,” he said, “and then yer arse fell off.”
He knew the matter was far from done. Once the four had ridden out of sight back toward the Teviot, he rolled his quiver and bow up in a small rug and then walked calmly to the byre on the far side of the house as if going to check on his animals. He noted the hoofprints in his yard where the soldiers had all sat: one actual horse, the rest queer three-toed prints. They could glamour the beasts, but not the ground itself, exactly as Tàm had said.
The Yvag knights led by Alderman Threave regrouped with another four beside the Teviot. Thomas and Kester had climbed into the nearby trees before they arrived to keep watch on this group while the alderman visited Filib. Thomas knew Threave was not making the decisions, and that Filib would give him no reason to act in any case. Had he any doubts, the soldiers themselves had already erased them. While most would have walked their horses, or at least gotten down and strode around to stretch their legs, these knights sat immobile and silent, more like statuary than men. Now and then, the pressure from their thrumming voices pressed into Thomas’s mind, but hardly even that. They had little to say, and were far enough away that their communication was wisps of words. Two tiny insect things zipped around them—the hobs. Hidden in the branches, he was more concerned about being discovered by one of those sprites, but so far they swarmed and buzzed around the soldiers. He wondered if one might be the imp called Teg.
Only when Alderman Threave and his entourage rejoined them did the knights show signs of life again. The drone of their speech increased, though Threave did not contribute much. Either he did not communicate well in that way, or he was taking his orders rather than giving them. He spoke comprehensibly to one glamoured knight in particular, who sat tall and looming, with blond, bearded features that were hard as chiseled stone. The knight wore a dark leather eyepatch over its left eye. This was the true leader, the deadliest. Thomas had no doubt of its identity: Ađalbrandr.
Threave said, “Lusk claims to know nothing of our prey, claims not to have seen him since he was a boy.”
“Is that a likely story?” Ađalbrandr asked.
“Who can say? His family did not move in until some time after we snatched this Tàm Lynn. ’Twas long ago here. Rethfreza, who was on hand then as now, already confirmed that much. And the babbling Lusk presented unarmed. He did not seem aware of the threat looming over him.”
“Nevertheless,” the one-eyed knight replied. “Make an example of this one and his family loud enough to call out the riddling idiot. Let us remind Thomas Rimor that everyone else will pay so long as he absents himself.”
“But will he hear our message, Lord Ađalbrandr? You said yourself that from where he emerged in Italia he might have cut a hundred different exits, gone anywhere. And we found no tracks here. I am concerned—”
“Be as concerned as you like. I know him. He will return to what’s familiar. Alwich hasn’t seen him at the family home. That leaves these places that were part of his life after the Queen meddled with him. We’ve hunted him before and will do so again. You and I will go visit this landlord whom Lusk says grants him the land. This Cardden woman. Learn if their stories match. I expect we will hear more lies, and if so we’ll cut her down along with this Lusk.”
“Someone here must be hiding him,” Threave said.
The knight’s look smoldered. “Yes. That demented old poet’s treachery gave him weeks to prepare. That was carefully planned, an escape that should have been impossible. He’s clever. But he couldn’t know when we would arrive. Tell me, how would you prepare for your doom?”
The alderman answered, “I might enlist the aid of . . .” He shrugged. “Someone.”
The blond warrior chuckled. “Twenty years have passed here. All this one can hope to find now is a rumor of himself, mayhap a handful of old men who’ve lived long enough to recollect a fabled version of his story. We killed his brother and made use of his sister. His father became one of our liches. And he keeps tally.” He shook his head. “But there are no warriors to come to his aid here. No soldiers. We will shortly sort him.
“Tocrajen guards the gate to ensure he does not cut a way out. If we turn him up here, he might attempt to do so. You three, return to the home of the man Lusk. He has family, you say? Haul them all out and slaughter them. Set fire to the house. Kill the livestock. Let Rimor know that we are here and he can go nowhere. Anyone who harbors him dies, and any place he hides burns. I want him to know we’ve come for him. If he has run, it won’t be so far that news of the slaughter doesn’t reach him.”
Threave’s three soldiers turned and headed back through the forest again, riding directly beneath Thomas and Kester. The other three joined Threave and the glamoured Ađalbrandr, and rode off along the river toward Cardden’s keep. The flitting hobs went with them.
When all had gone, Thomas and Kester dropped from the trees as quietly as leaves, and both with their bows. Thomas wore his Yvag armor beneath an old moth-eaten green shepherd’s cloak. He pulled up the hood of the cloak, leaving the helm of the uniform down around his neck.
“Did you understand any of that noise they were making?” asked Kester.
“Some of it. Didn’t Filib’s boy say there were nine of them?” he asked.
“Nine, yes.”
“And Threave wouldn’t have been one of those coming out the portal.”
Kester stuck out his lower lip. “Where’ve they got to, then, the other two?”
“One’s guarding the gate at Old Melrose. But that still leaves one missing. Be on your guard. And let’s go before they get too far ahead.”
As they ran, Kester asked, “What about your wife?”
Thomas shook his head. “Gone to Oakmill already and taken the beast I rode. The servants have been told that she was meeting me to assay a property north of Ercildoun. It’s all they know. Therefore, they’ll be telling the truth.”
They emerged from the woods and raced across the fields. Kester glanced his way. “So who’s this Thomas Rimor, then, Tàm?” he asked.
The knights kicked in the door of Filib Lusk’s home but found no one inside. They’d shed their glamour. They wanted their true nature recognized for the terror it would cause . . . except there was no family on hand to terrorize.
“The out-buildings,” said one. “Byre and stable.”
“Burn both,” said another, who’d assumed command. It carried an elaborately carved crossbow. “We’re to set it all ablaze anyway. Easy to burn straw. Start with the stable.” It gestured at the fireplace, and the third one leaned down and picked up a flaming log.
Then in their spiked and shiny black armor they marched out into the yard, one with a drawn sword, one the crossbow, and one the burning log.
They made it halfway to their target when the arrows struck from two directions: The first came from ahead, from the shadows of the byre. The arrow slid up the arm of the Yvag knight with the log, splitting its hand down the middle. The Yvag screeched and snapped its hand back. The log spun away. It clutched its wrist, but before it could even turn, an arrow from behind battered its helmet so hard that the helm receded. The Yvag stumbled. Gripping its wounded arm, it could not reach and replace the helmet before a third arrow drove through its neck side to side.
The remaining two Yvag had scattered away from the log-carrier. They quickly re-glamoured as human soldiers. “We represent the law!” shouted the one in command. “Lay down your weapons in the name of—” but got no further as two different arrows struck at once. One in the belly merely gouged the glamoured armor harmlessly. The other shot straight through its mouth. The Yvag seemed to leap froglike backward to land unglamoured and dead.
