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From up and down the street came little scuffling sounds, like feet scurrying, perhaps dodging in and out of the piles of refuse that lined the alley, crates and broken pottery, piles of what might have once been clothes. The dog barked rabidly for a moment, then was abruptly silenced.
Tadhg banged on the doorway again, and shouted, “’Tis I.”
That could not be good, that he was an ‘I’ to whatever decrepit souls lived here.
He blew out an impatient breath. “Christ’s mercy,” he shouted, tipping his head back and peering up the height of the building. “Have you changed the password? ’Tis…fucking…I.”
“Och, well, if it’s fucking ye,” replied a deep voice from within. “Then I ought to simply shoot yer heart out and call it a deed well done.”
Maggie froze. Very carefully, shifting only her gaze, she peered at the windows above. Someone was leaning out of one. Long-haired, dark-eyed, with a crossbow aimed at their heads.
Tadhg scowled up at the figure. “Aye, but you have never done a good deed in all your days, Rowan, so why start now?”
“Perhaps I’m feeling virtuous,” called down the crossbowman.
Tadhg scoffed. The crossbowman scoffed back.
Maggie stared at the crossbow quarrel aimed at her head. Or Tadhg’s. It was difficult to tell. It hardly mattered.
Tadhg looked over, then threw an arm around her shoulder. “Stop frightening my Maggie, and let us in.”
“Your Maggie? She looks too fine for the likes of you.”
“Let us in.”
“Why?”
“I bear news.”
“News is everywhere, brother. We hardly need you for that. And upon a time, the things we did need you for,” a pause ensued. “Well, you did not perform, did you?”
“Let me in or I will piss all over your wall.”
The figure in the window snorted, then pulled back and the shutter slammed shut.
Silence ensued.
Tadhg looked down at her and smiled. “’Tis a rare, fine day, is it not? Sunny and not too cold. We’re fortunate.”
“Tadhg, who are these men?”
His gaze swept to the door as the grating, rusty sound of a lock being turned squealed through the streets. “Just do precisely as I say, and do not speak unless it is absolutely required. The less said the better.”
“Did he call you brother?”
“The less said the better,” he repeated softly, and the door creaked open.
A leather-clad, significantly-armed man stood in its opening. No, some sort of half-breed, half man, half god, tall and armed and flatly terrifying. He was at least three inches taller than Tadhg with long golden hair lashed back in a leather tie and eyes of blackened gold. He scowled so fiercely at Tadhg, Maggie’s jaw dropped.
“Jesus wept, the prodigal son is come,” he drawled, but nothing about him was lazy; he was all banked fury. His gaze slid to her, and what had been caged ferocity became lazy male regard. “My lady,” he said with a dark, frightening charm.
Tadhg punched him in the chest, but he grabbed Tadhg’s fist in his huge paw and held it. His gaze swept to the street. “Get in here before you bring all the king’s men down on us,” he ordered.
Apparently he did not know Tadhg was the king’s man.
Tadhg stepped back, allowing Magdalena to go first, but he did not let go of her arm as they passed the half-man, half-god, pausing only to scowl at him.
She stepped inside cautiously. It was one thing to steal veils and hoods in a desperate bid for survival, but this place, that man, carried a more sordid feel, a more permanent one. Something lodged in wickedness, something devoted to brigandry.
