“Why waste food on that flea-bitten cur?” he asked curiously. “Better it should fill your belly than his.”
“Hers,” Klaas corrected, tossing the dog the last of his bread. “I’ve named her Gerda, after a whore I once knew in Ieper.”
Kort did not comprehend the appeal of the scrawny brown beast curled up at Klaas’s feet. But as long as it wasn’t his ration of food the dog was eating, he was prepared to overlook his friend’s eccentricity. “I’m trying to decide who should be more insulted by your choice of names, the whore or the dog.”
“Well, they’re both bitches.” Klaas’s heart wasn’t in his bantering, though. Absently stroking the dog, he glanced sharply at Kort and then away. “I wish I’d never set foot in this accursed land..”
Kort’s jest died on his lips. “Why?”
“Did you hear that nightjar crying out last night after we made camp? A sound to make the hairs stand up on the back of a man’s neck. The Welsh call it Deryn Corff… the Corpse Bird.”
“Since when did you let yourself be spooked by a bird, even one of ill omen? Did you forget the time you brought down that raven on the wing with one well-aimed stone?”
Klaas’s fingers clenched in the dog’s fur, not loosening until she began to whine. “I heard it in my dream, too,” he muttered. “It was a bad dream, Kort. It foretold my death.”
Kort instinctively made the sign of the cross even as he scoffed, “Bah-dreams like that are as common as lice. Your nerves are on the raw and why not? I’d wager half the men in camp have had death dreams in the past fortnight.”
Kort continued on in that vein and eventually seemed to have convinced Klaas. He thought he’d convinced himself, too, but he was still awake hours later, staring up at a sky afire with stars and listening for the nightjar’s shrill whistle. When he finally slept, it was deep and dreamless and he awoke with a start, momentarily disoriented. The blackness of the night was retreating before the milky greyness of coming dawn and the air was cool and damp. All around him men were stirring, yawning, cursing.
The object of their wrath was Klaas’s little dog. Surrounded by shouting men, she was cowering between Klaas’s legs, barking frantically. Scooping her up into his arms, Klaas swore to disembowel any man who laid a hand upon her, and since he was known to be very handy with a knife, that was no idle threat. Shoving forward into their midst, Kort demanded to know the cause of this brawl.
Klaas glared at his dog’s tormentors. “I got up to take a piss. But as soon as I started off into those trees over there, Gerda began to bark and she kept it up. I think she heard some Welshmen on the prowl-”
He was hooted down by the other men. When someone rudely suggested that the dog had likely been scared by a rabbit, Kort had to step between them. “Whatever caused the dog to bark, it’s done and we’re all up now. There’s not a dog alive worth shedding blood over, so let’s rouse the cooks for an early breakfast.”
Hunger won out over irritation, as Kort expected it would. Klaas fell in step beside him, still insisting that his dog had warned him of unseen danger. Only half-listening, Kort found himself gazing over at a blanket-clad form beside a smoldering campfire. Recognizing that shock of bright blond hair, so fair it was almost white, he said, “I know Jan is a heavy sleeper, but even so… Jan? Wake up, lad!”
Unable to explain his own urgency, even to himself, he strode forward. “Jan, you hear me-God in Heaven!”
Klaas was now close enough to see, too, and sucked in his breath. Jan’s eyes were open, staring up sightlessly at them. There was no horror on his face, no contorted grimace, just a look of puzzlement There was blood on his blanket. Kneeling by Jan’s body, Kort pulled the blanket back and exposed the death wound: a lethal thrust to the jugular vein. Kort’s fists clenched. After a moment, he said in a scratchy, harsh voice, “There are faint bruises on his cheeks. A hand was clamped over his mouth to stifle any outcry as the dagger was driven home. The whoreson knew what he was about.”
Flies were already buzzing about the body and if Jan were left unprotected, they’d soon be laying their eggs in his mouth and nose. In less than a day, his flesh would be crawling with maggots. It occurred to Kort that he’d seen too many corpses, buried too many friends.
Klaas leaned over to close Jan’s eyes, for there was something unnerving, even accusing, about that blind, blue-white stare, only to recoil as soon as he touched the dead man’s skin. “Jesu! He’s still warm!”
“I know,” Kort said grimly. There was no need to say more. Jan had died as the night waned, slain by a killer bold enough to venture alone into an enemy encampment, his presence observed only by a small stray dog.
Henry’s wrath was volcanic. Seething and swearing, he paced the cramped confines of his command tent, raging at the murder of his men and the treachery of the Welsh and the appalling ineptitude of his guards. No one interrupted his harangue, knowing from experience that it was safer just to let his furies burn themselves out.
“A half dozen men dead, throats slit! And no one hears or sees a bloody thing? I’ve a mind to hang some of the sentries. I daresay that would encourage the rest of them to stay awake on duty!”
Rainald didn’t really think his nephew would carry out that threat, but he deemed it prudent, nevertheless, to deflect his anger away from the sentries and back onto a more legitimate target. “The Welsh know these woods the way one of our soldiers knows his local alehouse. They can shadow us at their ease, knowing they’re well nigh invisible in that God-awful tangle of trees and brush, awaiting their chance to strike. If you ask me, it is a craven way to fight a war, a coward’s way.”
“It is that,” Henry said tersely. “There is no honor in stabbing a man whilst he sleeps.”
The other men echoed their heartfelt agreement, all but Ranulf, who was conspicuously silent. Henry’s eyes narrowed. “What say you, Uncle? Surely you have some thoughts about these loathsome killings?”
Ranulf knew he should keep quiet. But he’d been keeping quiet for far too long, a mute and unwilling accomplice to this English invasion of his homeland. “If my house was broken into, my only concern would be to protect my family and my home-any way I could.”
“That is a peculiar comparison, by God,” Henry said incredulously. “You would equate an outlaw’s crime with a king’s campaign to punish disloyal vassals?”
“The Welsh do not see themselves as disloyal vassals.”
“Do they not? Well, they will soon learn different, that I can promise you. For all their delusions of grandeur, they are no more than malcon tented rebels on the run, afraid to face us in the field.”
“If you truly believe that, you’re in for a rude awakening.”
“Indeed?” Henry’s tone was sardonic. “So you think, then, that they might yet find enough backbone to fight us fairly?”
Ranulf’s mouth twisted. “If by that, you mean in the field, one army against another, no, they will not do that. Why should they? They are winning, after all.”
“The Devil they are!” Henry strode forward to glare at his uncle, as the others marveled at Ranulf’s audacity. “I have enough Welsh foes skulking about in the woods, need none in my own tent!”
“I thought this was why I was here-to tell you what the Welsh are thinking. Or am I only to say what you want to hear? Like it or not, my lord king, the Welsh do think they are winning this war, and why not? Those men we are burying this morn are not Welsh, and I’d wager that the next graves dug won’t be for the Welsh, either.”