There were also women in the company, for the most part looking worn and well-used, though some carried weapons and seemed as lethal as the males. Others made a brazen parade in looted satin finery, rings glittering on their fingers, as if to leave no doubt they were willing to barter their persons for a share of the loot that was to come.
Most surprising were a pair of monks, dressed in dirty robes, with their tonsures growing out. They carried no weapons, but otherwise looked as disreputable as the others.
And as for the loot, the baggage had been brought up on horses, along with Gribbins, who when his legs had given out had simply been tossed across a horse.
The bags and Gribbins were unloaded in a pile, and then two of the bandits jerked Gribbins off the baggage pile, and stood him up with the other captives. When the bag was taken from his head, he blinked about him with milky blue eyes, and seemed not to know where he was. There was a bruise over one eye, and his nose had been bleeding.
Of the prisoners, only Gribbins had been damaged. Perhaps he was the only one who had resisted: none of the stout footmen, whose job it was to protect us, seemed to have suffered at all.
Under the direction of a tall, narrow-shouldered man, the luggage was opened and ransacked. Lord Utterback’s fine court clothes, with their bright velvets and silks, occasioned both comment and laughter. His purse and a bag of silver were emptied into a large wooden bowl produced for the purpose, as were the purses of Gribbins, myself, and the others. Rings taken from Gribbins and Utterback were added to the bowl.
I didn’t feel sorry for my lost clothes—they were loot to begin with, taken from empty Ethlebight houses to replace the clothes lost in the fire, and now they were being looted again. But I winced as the tall bandit unwound the twine on the narrow box that I had found in the ruins my father’s house, and emptied out my entire fortune. The man stared down at the bowl, then fished out the alderman’s gold chain that had belonged to my father, and held it out for the appreciation of the crowd.
“Lo!” he cried “It is a great official we have before us! Give a proper welcome to the liegeman of the King!” The crowd bayed in response.
I couldn’t help but cast a look at Gribbins, who was staring at the chain. The apothecary’s dazed look faded, and for the first time since he had been thrown off the horse, comprehension entered Gribbins’s eyes. He looked at me, then back at the chain, and then at me again.
“You are a liar, sir!” he hissed. “You assured me the chain had been destroyed! You are a liar and a thief!”
I was about to ask if he hadn’t other things to worry about besides a lost chain, but one of the bandits, who thought Gribbins was referring to his chief, clouted Gribbins on the head and knocked him to his hands and knees.
Hearing the apothecary’s moans, I decided to hold my tongue.
The tall robber continued to rummage through my bag, and came up with the two books I had brought with me. He opened the first, and glanced at the title page. “Corinius, is it?” he said. “The Satires—strong stuff! And though he was an Aekoi, he had the measure of Man well enough.” He stuffed the book into a pocket, then looked at the other. “Mallio!” he said, and his voice was full of scorn. “Know you not that the Delward translation is superior to the Rawlings? Rawlings barely knew a fee tail from a defeasible estate!” He looked up at the captives. “A beef-witted, folly-fallen stinkard of a lawyer you would make if you depended on this Rawlings!” He threw the book onto the pile, then continued to sort through the baggage until he lifted Gribbins’s gold chain from the apothecary’s trunk.
“Another magistrate!” he proclaimed. “Should we bow before their glory? Should we tremble in terror before these representatives of public order! Surely the gewgaws on their coach proclaimed their majesty!”
The grand coach, after having been looted—and after the bandits had assured themselves that the ornaments were gold paint and not gold leaf—had been declared useless and tipped into the stream. I had last seen it lying on its side, grinding over stones as the current carried it away.
It might see Selford before any of us, I thought.
Interestingly enough, the carriage horses and postilions had been allowed to leave. The horses didn’t belong to the Embassy, but to the last posting inn, and the postilions were the inn’s hired men who returned the horses to their home after each stage. I guessed that the inns probably paid blackmail to the bandits in order to not lose their horses time and again—and also likely tipped the robbers to any rich travelers passing through.
The bandit leader finished rummaging through the baggage, then mounted a stair that led to the gaping keep and turned to his prisoners. He was tall and lean, and wore a brilliant green doublet and trunks, yellow hose, and tall jackboots—all looted from travelers, I assumed. The man’s dark, pointed beard was shot with gray, and his hair straggled down his back. An overcoat, gray as the sodden morning light of the Toppings, hung to his ankles, and he wore a tall-crowned hat. He turned to his captives.
“Lord, magistrates, and other suchlike blockheads!” He spoke in the rolling tones of north Fornland. “I am Sir Basil of the Heugh. Perhaps you know of me!”
He said this with a sharklike grin, and in fact I did know of him, though all I knew was that Sir Basil was an infamous bandit.
In a purposeful, theatrical way, Sir Basil reached behind his back and drew out a long dirk, bright steel blade and a black iron handle with an acorn-shaped pommel.
“This is my dirk!” he told the captives. “This weapon has been in my family for two hundred years, and was crafted by the dark enchanters of the Nocturnal Lodge of the Umbrus Equitus. Twelve necromancers prayed over the iron for twelve nights, twelve virgins were entombed alive to guarantee the steel’s purity, and twelve captives were sacrificed to provide the blood that quenched the blade.” He drew the blade slowly through the air above his head, as if cutting the throat of an invisible giant.
“Because of its origin in the Nocturnal Lodge and its use in ritual sacrifice by depraved and murderous sorcerers, this dirk lusts for blood.” Sir Basil laughed out loud as his dark eyes sought out each of the captives, one by one. “It is all I can do to keep a firm grip and prevent my knife plunging into your livers! And so”—with another flash of the knife—“I will need your help in restraining my dagger. You must help me to help you to survive! And the best way to help me”—again that sharklike grin—“is to urge your kin to pay me a generous ransom! That is the best and only way to impel me to restrain my weapon’s appetite for blood.”
The grin remained, though the dagger was returned to its hidden scabbard. “I shall first speak with Lord Doubleback, or whatever your name is. Come this way, young sir.”
Utterback declined to move. “I should like my hands untied,” he said. “You need not fear me, as your men have seen I’m unarmed.”
The bandit affected surprise and amazement, then took off his hat and offered a sweeping bow. “I fear my courage may not be up to the task of facing such a foe as an Unarmed Crumpleback, or whatever you claim as your title.” He rose, smiling. “Yet I shall summon up what little valor still attaches to my debased knighthood, and dare to meet with you, tremble though I may!” He made a sweeping gesture. “Cut him free. Cut free them all!”