A score of shaggy shadows hissed assent, but Molly Grue’s laughter fell like hail, rattling and stinging. “Mayhap he will,” she mocked, “but it won’t be to such chattering cravens he’ll pay it. His castle rots and totters more each day, and his men are too old to stand up in armor, but he’ll rule forever, for all Captain Cully dares.”

Schmendrick raised an eyebrow, and Cully flushed radish-red. “You must understand,” he mumbled. “King Haggard has this Bull—”

“Ah, the Red Bull, the Red Bull!” Molly hooted. “I tell you what, Cully, after all these years in the wood with you I’ve come to think the Bull’s nought but the pet name you give your cowardice. If I hear that fable once more, I’ll go and down old Haggard myself, and know you for a—”

“Enough!” Cully roared. “Not before strangers!” He tugged at his sword and Molly opened her arms to it, still laughing. Around the fire, greasy hands twiddled dagger hilts, and longbows seemed to string themselves, but Schmendrick spoke up then, seeking to salvage Cully’s sinking vanity. He hated family scenes.

“They sing a ballad of you in my country,” he began. “I forget just how it goes—”

Captain Cully spun like a cat ambushing its own tail. “Which one?” he demanded.

“I don’t know,” Schmendrick answered, taken aback. “Are there more than one?”

“Aye, indeed!” Cully cried, glowing and growing, as though pregnant with his pride. “Willie Gentle! Willie Gentle! Where is the lad?”

A lank-haired youth with a lute and pimples shambled up. “Sing one of my exploits for the gentleman,” Captain Cully ordered him. “Sing the one about how you joined my band. I’ve not heard it since Tuesday last.”

The minstrel sighed, struck a chord, and began to sing in a wobbly countertenor:

Oh, it was Captain Cully came riding home
From slaying of the king’s gay deer,
When whom should he spy but a pale young man,
Came drooping o’er the lea?

“What news, what news, my pretty young man?
What ails ye, that ye sigh so deep?
Is it for the loss of your lady fair?
Or are ye but scabbit in your greep?”

“I am nae scabbit, whatever that means,
And my greep is as well as a greep may be,
But I do sigh for my lady fair
Whom my three brothers ha’ riven from me.”

“I am Captain Cully of the sweet greenwood,
And the men at my call are fierce and free.
If I do rescue your lady fair,
What service will ye render me?”

“If ye do rescue my lady fair,
I will break your nose, ye silly auld gowk.
But she wore an emerald at her throat,
Which my three brothers also took.”

Then the captain has gone to the three bold thieves,
And he’s made his sword baith to shiver and sing.
“Ye may keep the lass, but I’ll hae the stane,
For it’s fit for the crown of a royal king.”

“Now comes the best part,” Cully whispered to Schmendrick. He was bouncing eagerly on his toes, hugging himself.