She shook her head, eyes fixed on the giant who loomed even larger from the shadow thrown from the candle glow. ‘Where are they?’ he asked again.

She licked her cracked lips and pointed vaguely. ‘Everywhere,’ she whispered.

‘Did they take over the houses?’

She nodded.

‘Where are the majority of them? Is there a town square?’

She nodded again. ‘They hanged our mayor and his officials. The square. Yes. The square. They took some of the women there.’

Blackstone glanced down at the dead man. ‘Your husband?’

She nodded again, too exhausted and hurt for more tears. There was evidence enough on her stained face that she had wept until she could weep no more. She licked her lips again. ‘They are everywhere. They will kill you. You will die here like the others. There are so many of them.’

Blackstone reached for a blanket and draped it over her. ‘Stay here. The man who hurt you is dead. I will come back when it’s finished and we will help you bury your husband.’ He turned at the door. ‘Don’t be alarmed when you hear screams, they’ll be from the routiers when we kill them.’

*

Blackstone’s men ran silently through the alleyways. Voices rose from the darkness. Killbere laid a restraining hand on Blackstone’s arm. ‘Over there.’

They crouched as thirty or more drunken men tumbled out of the tavern and across the town square. One taunted another; a fight broke out. Those sober enough to stand encircled the two men, who slashed at each other with knives. The onlookers cheered their favourites until one fell dead. Someone kicked the body to make sure the knife wound was fatal and then those who could still walk staggered back inside the tavern. Blackstone signalled for a dozen men to follow him. They dashed from shadow to shadow until they reached the tavern’s window. Men sprawled on the floor; even more slumped across the crude wooden tables and benches. If thirty men had spilled into the night there would be another twenty too drunk to join them. Two women were tied to an upright post, their clothing torn, their hair soaked from the routiers pouring wine over them. One was not young, a matron of childbearing age, the other likely her daughter: mother and child licensed to run the tavern. These men were followers of le Bête, and beasts begat beasts. No woman or child of any age was safe from their violence.

Blackstone scrunched down. ‘Fifty men crammed into one room. Kill them and we reduce our odds.’

John Jacob pointed to a blacksmith’s shop. ‘Let’s burn them out. There’ll be a coal bed there.’