A Conspiracy of Wolves

‘Of course.’

‘We are all in your debt.’

‘I failed to prevent your husband’s death.’

‘I watched from the wagon, Captain, I saw him walk into that burning building.’

‘The hounds–’

‘He walked into the flames for his sins, Captain. I was beside him in the wagon when we saw the flames, then heard the baying. When I cried out – no matter what I thought of his passion for them, they were God’s creatures and I quaked at their danger – he patted my hand, assured me that they must have been rescued from the fire.’ She kissed Owen’s cheek, then went to kneel beside her husband’s body.

Owen withdrew to the stables to see to the injured.

Joss, Galbot, and Cilla huddled in a corner away from four others, talking quietly. When Owen appeared, Galbot called down curses on him and his family. Owen ignored him as he called Stephen and two of Hempe’s men over to help him hold the man down while he removed the arrows, cleaned the wounds, packed them with the paste Lucie prepared for deep cuts, bandaged them, all to a litany of curses.

Next he saw to Cilla’s leg. She no longer struggled – he’d slipped a bit of poppy juice in the wine he told her to drink before he pulled out the arrow. But she muttered to herself, and something she kept saying intrigued him enough that he tried to talk to her.

‘Is that what you were doing, playing the wolf?’

‘I am cat, hear me hiss at you.’ She did a fair job, baring her teeth as she did so. The paint was quite like her daughter’s.

‘Who is the wolf?’

‘And I am wolf.’ She growled. ‘Goldbarn told Gerta the privileged four were a wolf pack, bent on ruining all for us. Conspiring to destroy all that we gleaned from the wood.’

‘Richard Goldbarn said this?’

‘Gerta thought he meant to wed her. My beautiful Gerta.’ She whimpered, tucking her chin in her chest. As Owen wrapped her leg she made animal sounds, little cries and yips. A chilling performance.

He moved on to Joss, his face bloody, one eye swollen shut, and, of course, the arrow in his shoulder. He told Stephen to hold Joss down.

‘Righteous ass,’ Joss muttered.

‘I thought this was all about family vengeance, yet you beat your own daughter.’

‘She betrayed us. The lying hag lives.’ Joss spat, though he took care to face away from Owen.

‘Only a coward beats his children,’ Owen said, and yanked out the arrow.

The man howled. Cilla took up the cry, howling beside him, and continued all the while Owen bandaged Joss’s shoulder. When he moved on to Joss’s eye, Cilla batted him away.

‘Come,’ Owen said to Stephen and the others helping him, ‘we’ll leave him until she’s asleep. Let’s see to the others.’

Rat was obvious from his appearance, though his face was bloodied and his eyes were blackening. He said nothing, staring off to the other side of the stall where his companion, Otto, lay beneath a blanket. He’d fallen from his horse and broken his neck. One death.

The man who’d been about to set fire to the fence had burns and a broken arm. He remained stoically silent, nary a whimper, while Owen tended him.

Another man had plenty to say while Owen set a broken finger and smoothed salve on a wrenched ankle.

‘Galbot tricked me. He said you were coming for the hounds and we had to defend them.’

‘You worked in the kennels with him?’

A nod. ‘No more.’

‘No, you set fire to them.’

‘To fool you! But the mistress will never believe me. And Master John – he’ll see me hanged.’

‘You will have a chance to state your case,’ Owen assured him.

Elaine Braithwaite insisted that Owen, Hempe, and their men stay the night before returning to the city in the morning with their prisoners. Her hall was open to them.

They were more than happy to accept. It had been a long, tiring day, and two of Hempe’s men were in no condition to ride this evening, one limping badly and the other with his eye bandaged after being struck by a burning cinder. Minor casualties for a job well done. Except for Paul Braithwaite’s death.

Owen, Hempe, and their hostess dined at a small table in the hall. The other men sat at a long board nearby. The company was hushed, the food plentiful and hot, the wine much appreciated.

‘My son said there was a woman among them, and that she had been wearing a wolf’s hide,’ said Elaine.

Owen explained who she was.

‘Bring her to me. I would speak with her. Afterward she may rest in the warmth of the kitchen. I have set some dry clothes for her by the door.’

‘You know that she is not innocent of the charges?’ asked Owen. When he had returned to Joss, thinking Cilla asleep, she cursed as he confessed for all of them. Why now? Owen had asked. They’ll be singing a ballad about us this winter, mark me, the wolves of Galtres, Joss had said. Cilla had howled at that, and Joss had joined in. ‘And I cannot vouch for whether she’ll appear animal or human.’

‘Even before this, folk in York thought her mad,’ said Hempe.

‘It is what I wish,’ said Elaine.

Hempe went to give the orders.