“You have put the twitch on the beast’s nose. Who rules, the herd or the herdsman?”
“Give me Wat and his bloody rogues, and that grey friar—I’ll speak fire to them, and show them the sword.”
They re-entered the city, and were stared at by people whose eyes were sullen and threatening, men whose blood was ripe for violence, men who thought of the plunder and the wine and the bodies of women surrendered to their desires. Here Merlin came by his own again. The sheep were pattering back to their fields, but the wolves remained.
Fulk met the eyes of these lust-hungry men. His face grew more bleak, his eyes full of a hard, cold light.
“Sir, this pleases me better.”
“These curs that snarl?”
“By my troth, yes. Have we no swords, no good men to read these scullions a lesson?”
“Gently, by God, gently. Fifty thousand men are not to be whipped by five hundred.”
“Fifty thousand!”
“The scum of the city is with them. Who does not love plundering a rich man’s house?”