Wolf’s Redemption (The Wolves of Langeais #3)

Chapter Eight

Lothair paced the floor of his underground chamber. One dead guard. One living. No werewolf. Ulrik Voclain had escaped. The silver shackles and a ring of keys lay beside the body. The surviving guard trembled before him, his face ashen and a bloody gash on the back of his head. Free, Ulrik would have easily overpowered the inexperienced guard. And the battle-hardened veteran. But how had he gotten free? How had he gotten the key to the shackles?

“How did this”—he waved his hand over the scene before him—“happen?”

“Mon Seigneur Comte, there was—”

Archeveque Renaud stepped into the room, the candle in his hand casting shadows over his gaunt face, making him seem more like a walking corpse than usual. “After all the trouble I went to, to catch him alive, you let him go?”

Lothair leveled a glare at the clergyman. “You are treading on dangerous ground, Renaud. The hour is early, and I am not in the mood for your disrespect.”

He shifted his hand to the grip of his sword. If the threat perturbed Renaud, he did not show it. Lothair gritted his teeth. The hour was early, not yet dawn, though he had not been sleeping. Neither, it seemed, had Renaud, but his appearance so quickly after the change of guard had raised the alarm suggested only one thing. Renaud had an informant in his keep guard. Maybe more than one. His grip on his sword tightened, and he itched to draw it from its scabbard.

He would not stand for spies in his own guard. He would rout them out and hang their entrails from the ramparts as a warning. Or place their severed heads on pikes at the gate. He would like nothing more than to place Renaud’s head on a pike and be done with it, but the repercussions for killing an archeveque were more churchmen in his county. That he did not need. Not when he had plans involving werewolves.

I wonder… Could he sniff the spies out if he were a werewolf? Would his sense of smell be that strong?

Renaud retrieved the ring of keys from the floor. The archeveque was almost salivating at the prospect he would take the risk of being turned into one. Baiting him to take it. The archeveque played a dangerous game. Lothair relaxed his hand, releasing his grip on his sword, finger by finger. Best to avoid temptation.

He returned his attention to the quaking guard. “Explain.”

The guard’s lip trembled and his hands shook. “I heard voices. We came to investigate. I… I do not know how it was possible, Mon Seigneur. No one passed by us. We did not open the grate for anyone, but…”

The pack had used the amulet . A risky move that could have resulted in two werewolves trapped. Lothair had not taken Gaharet, or any of Gaharet’s vassals, for fools.

“But?” demanded Renaud.

Lothair bit back a snarl. The guard’s eyes bulged, his gaze shifting between Renaud and him, settling on him. As it should.

The young man’s throat convulsed. “There was a woman in here.”

A woman ? Lothair’s eyes narrowed. One like Kathryn Beauchene? One of them ?

“I swear, Mon Seigneur Comte, I do not know how she got in here, but she was in here . Hiding in the corner.”

Renaud snorted in disgust. “It is obvious how she got in. One of you let her in, fooled by the charms of the flesh.”

“Renaud.” This time Lothair did not hold back his snarl.

“Did she ply you with wine, flaunt her bosom at you? Smile prettily and ask to the see the chevalier chained beneath the keep?” Renaud’s thin, bloodless lips pressed into a straight line. The guard trembled. “Fools. I will see you punished for this. It is fortunate for your fellow guard he is dead. In time, you may wish your fate had been the same.”

Fury surged through Lothair, his blood pounding in his ears. “Renaud! You overstep yourself!”

Renaud turned to him, red splotches on his cheekbones and his eyes blazing with barely contained rage.

Lothair narrowed his gaze on the archeveque, his hand tapping against the pommel of his sword. “Careful, Renaud. The church may have appointed you archeveque, but you are in my county, at my pleasure.”

Indeed, the archeveque remained living only so long as he deemed it inconvenient to kill him. The time was fast approaching when Lothair would not care about the consequences of dispatching such a high-ranking member of the church.

Renaud opened his mouth to respond.

Lothair slid his sword partially from its scabbard with a scrape of steel. “Do not tempt me.”

Renaud’s mouth snapped shut, and he gave a perfunctory bow of his head. “My apologies, Mon Seigneur Comte. The incompetence of these men made me forget my place for but a moment. I am grateful for the considerations you allow me while in your county.”

Lothair masked his revulsion as Renaud’s sudden obsequiousness settled over him, thicker than pitch. “Speaking of, when are you leaving, Renaud? Surely you have duties elsewhere that need attending to. I would not want the spiritual health of your other jurisdictions to suffer on account of the time you are spending in Langeais.”

A muscle ticked in Renaud’s jaw, and the archeveque’s hand clenched around the ring of keys.

“If you are uncertain if your chaplains are saving enough souls and damning enough sinners, Renaud, I would be happy to keep them in line for you. In fact, I will send a message to your cardinal and suggest that very thing.”

Renaud smiled, the grotesque grin of a corpse. “Thank you, Mon Seigneur Comte. I appreciate the offer, but it will not be necessary. What I have come here to accomplish is almost complete. Once it is, I doubt I will have any need to return to your county.”

“And what is it exactly you are trying to accomplish? Perhaps I can be of some assistance.”

“Church business, Mon Seigneur Comte. Nothing you need be aware of.”

Lothair’s nostrils flared. Anything happening in his county he needed to be aware of, especially if Renaud was involved. He grunted. This conversation was getting him nowhere.

He turned to the guard. “Dispose of this body. Tomorrow you will report for cesspit duty.”

The guard’s obvious relief disturbed him. Had he been too kind?

He slammed his sword back into his scabbard and turned to Renaud. “I believe you were to arrange for your informant to meet me. Do not keep me waiting too long.” He turned to his capitaine. “Assemble the guard. We have an escaped prisoner to hunt down. And check with the guards at the postern gate.”

Lothair swept past the scowling archeveque and climbed the stairs. He would waste no more time with Renaud. He had an escaped werewolf to find.

* * * *

Renaud gritted his teeth as several guards maneuvered the body up the narrow stairs. Damn Voclain. Damn the useless keep guards. And damn this unknown woman. He had spent many moons working on his plan, using the information his informant had given him. It had not been easy capturing a werewolf. Indeed, many had willingly chosen death over capture.

Renaud wiped a hand across his brow. He had thought himself so clever, targeting the women, but he had killed them all through his own ignorance. Before he had found the balance between making them weak and making them dead. Before his informant had approached him with the knowledge of wolfsbane and its effect on werewolves. And still, they had fought to the death. And they had those damned amulets. They would disappear before he could bind any of them.

He glared at the silver shackles glinting in the candlelight. He had finally captured one. Finally had one at his mercy. He had poked the wounded beast that was Ulrik Voclain, certain the man’s lust for revenge against Lothair would aid his plan. Now, all because of a woman and the idiot guards who had let her in, Voclain was gone.

He turned away from the shackles. He would have to start again. Only now, Lothair knew how to control the werewolves, too. His usefulness to the comte was ending. That would not do. He needed another werewolf, chained and bound. As for arranging for his informant to meet with Lothair… No. That must never happen. His informant was as likely to turn on him. Renaud suspected he already had. It could only have been he who had contacted that pretentious git, Eveque Faucher.

A flicker of white in corner caught his eye and he knelt to retrieve it. A piece of white parchment. Thinner, whiter than any parchment he had seen before. And smooth. He turned it over and held the candle up to it.

Lines of writing flowed across the page. Twelve of them. Four in the now familiar script found only on the beast’s amulets. Another four in what appeared to be some strange form of the language of Bretaigne. Not at all like the example he had seen of Caedmon’s hymn. He lifted his gaze from the parchment.

Had not d’Louncrais’ betrothed hailed from Bretaigne? Coincidence? I think not.

He returned his attention to the writing. The final four lines he recognized. Latin. The language of the church. His lips curled into a semblance of a smile, and he slipped the parchment into the folds of his robes. Even that wretched Eveque Faucher did not have what he now possessed—the key to the amulets, to the werewolves’ disappearances. The translation of the spell. With this, he no longer had need of his informant. Time to sever his alliance. And he knew exactly how to do it.

With a smile hovering on his lips, Renaud climbed the steps and left the dark, little chamber.