The fourth Livonian’s attention was also drawn to the arrow, and Andreas took advantage of that drift in the man’s attention to step in and smack his wrist. He followed with two sharp blows—one to the face and one to the forehead—and his opponent crumpled like a sack of loose bones.
Keeping an eye on the Livonian with the arrow in his shoulder, Andreas whistled for his companions, and they were at his side in an instant. Eilif had a second arrow laid across his bow, in case one of the stunned Livonians had any fight left in them.
“The horses,” Andreas said, nodding toward the line of mounts, heads raised now, ears perked, curious but not yet alarmed. “Take all but one and ride out.”
The arrow-shot Livonian scuttled toward the front door of The Frogs, yelling for his Heermeister inside. Andreas scooped up one of the arming swords and flung it at the fleeing man. It bounced off his shoulder, knocking him over, and he shrieked as the shaft of the arrow was shoved farther through the meat of his arm.
“I’ll be along shortly,” Andreas said, shooing the others with a quick gesture. “After I deliver a message.”
*
Having drained the bitter dregs from his tankard, Dietrich von Grüningen stared morosely at the damp stains on the warped table beside him. One more, or should he take his leave from this rat-infested place? Sigeberht would stay to collect the serving wench; she might provide enough entertainment to alleviate Dietrich’s darkening mood.
He was spared any further consideration of this quandary by the sound of a man’s scream. The cry was muffled by the misshapen door of The Frogs, but as several patrons began to jostle one another in an effort to rush out of the dim alehouse, the cries of alarm from the street rang more clearly. “Heermeister!” someone was screaming for his attention.
He struggled to stand, but his feet slipped on the rough dirt floor of the alehouse. Nearby, Burchard was already up and charging toward the door; Dietrich slapped his hand against the wobbly table, trying to brace himself. The damned table kept moving; his tankard fell over and rolled off the edge. He felt Sigeberht grab his arm, but shook off his bodyguard’s help. “I can damn well walk out of this noisome place myself,” he snarled. “No one is going to assist me.”
The sun lanced his eyes as he stepped out of The Frogs, and he raised a hand to cover his face. Forced to squint, he wiped sundappled tears from his eyes.
Burchard had drawn his sword and was standing beside a mewling man with an arrow sticking out of his shoulder. Dietrich blinked heavily, realized that the wounded man was one of his knights, and somewhat blearily, he swept his gaze across the street and took stock of the rest of his men. It took him a few seconds to realize what was missing from this wavering, dismal scene.
The horses were gone. The men he had left guarding them lay sprawled along the wall, not dead—though it might be better for them that they were—but clearly overwhelmed and beaten. They had been neatly and precisely bludgeoned; there was no blood on the wall or in the mud.
Recalling the trouncing his men had received at the bridge, Dietrich felt his face flush. His unsteadiness forgotten, he stalked over to the wounded man and kicked him heavily in the ribs. The man cried out and curled in on himself like a worm. The fletching of the arrow in his shoulder bobbed up and down.
“What happened?” Dietrich snarled.
“Heermeister,” Burchard said quietly, calling Dietrich’s attention away from the stricken man.
A little ways down the street, a man in a stained and threadbare robe sat on a horse.
“My bay stallion!” Dietrich exploded.
“I happened to them,” the man said. “Do I have your attention?” There was a chiseled look to the big man: expressive eyes, smile lines darkened by the grim set of his mouth, and a fierce defiance in his bearing. He held the stallion’s reins in one hand and, in the other, one of the arming swords that had formerly belonged to Dietrich’s knights.
“My undivided attention,” Dietrich replied. He rested his hands on the hilt of his sheathed sword, adopting a stance that suggested he was unimpressed. He heard a creak of leather at his side as Burchard shifted. Very well, he thought, every word that comes out of this braggart’s mouth is only going to increase his suffering.
“The sins of your order have not been forgotten,” the man said, “and you would do well to remember those are debts as yet unpaid.”
Burchard spat in the mud and began walking toward the horseman. The man shook the reins of the horse, and the animal took several mincing steps to one side. “Hold,” Dietrich called to his bodyguard, and when Burchard came to a stop, Dietrich continued. “I owe you nothing,” he sneered, “and it is you, having done violence to my men, who owes me a blood debt.”
The man laughed. “A blood debt? I have but given them a few knocks to remind them of what happens to sluggards who fall asleep while on duty. Surely you would discipline them similarly yourself, Heermeister.”
“I might,” Dietrich acknowledged, “but that decision is mine, and not yours.”
“Was it also your decision to send the priest with a false message?”
Dietrich stared hard at the rider, the fog now completely lifted from his eyes and thoughts, fingers lightly fondling the hilt of his sword.