Yet it would take a man with ice water in his veins not to worry when such a brute showed up on his doorstep for reasons unknown. Bikker was smart, he was disciplined, but Malden was counting on the fact that he had hot blood in him. If Bikker wouldn’t respond to the ogre’s presence, Gurrh had been told to make him react.

“Now, Gurrh,” Malden said, as if the ogre could hear him.

Perhaps he could—who knew what the hearing of an ogre was like? Without apparent provocation, Gurrh rose to his feet and went over to the fence that ringed the villa. He grasped one of the wrought-iron uprights and tore it loose from the crossbeams with a noise like a demon being dragged out of the pit—a groaning, shrieking sound that set Malden’s hair on end. The upright came loose with a clang, and suddenly Gurrh was holding what looked very much like a wicked spear.

The ogre, smiling broadly, swept it through the air and brought it clanging along the other uprights of the fence. The noise was rhythmic and intense and impossible to ignore. A guard shouted for the ogre to stop but his voice was lost in the clamor.

It was enough, perhaps. The guards rushed backward, away from the fence, caterwauling in their fear. Just as Malden had hoped, at the side of the house Bikker pushed himself away from the wall and came striding out toward the gate.

“You there,” the hairy knight called. “You—beastie. What in the name of all that’s perverse do you think you’re doing?”

Gurrh shrugged and brought his spear around for another pass. The clanging, banging noise was even louder this time. It was enough to hurt Malden’s ears, even so far away. Gurrh seemed to pay no attention to Bikker’s demand—he looked for all the world like some mindless brute who had just taken a fancy to making that dreadful racket for his own reasons.

The fact that he was obviously there for some distinct purpose must, Malden hoped, be driving Bikker mad. Bikker might be a ruffian, but he was also a trained soldier, and Malden had learned from Croy that the one thing soldiers hate more in the world is an enemy doing something they don’t understand.

“The master of this house doesn’t want to be disturbed,” Bikker announced. “I don’t know your game—though I can guess your owner, I think. Leave now or I’ll set my dogs on you.”

Gurrh made a third racket, and suddenly Bikker was moving, taking long strides toward the barrier. “Lower this damned thing,” he shouted, and the captain of the guard came running forward to salute. “You three—and you, boy, drive this thing off.”