Chapter 6

It was still dark outside when Dunstan dropped a bundle of surcoats and sword belts on the parlour table.

"Put those on. You're the baron's men today."

Wolfram picked up one of the sword belts, admiring the blade that hung from the waist loop. It was old and the guard was dirty, but the metal gleamed when he drew it from its oiled sheath. He'd practised with real swords before, perhaps even this very one, but this wasn't practise. Today he would carry this weapon as a symbol of his status and authority. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Gavin surreptitiously swap the sword Dunstan had given him with one he kept hidden under a pile of wash rags behind the clothes chest. It was a personal favourite he'd pilfered from the armoury, and he always liked to keep it close to hand.

Though the surcoats weren't tailored for them, Wolfram and Gavin were tall and broad enough to fill theirs out well enough. Only Robin looked a little awkward in his oversized garment. The material was quartered in red and black, just like the surcoat Lady Ingrid wore at her father's banquets. They were bold and imposing colours for a noble household. There was no mail for them to wear, but they had thick gambeson jackets and half-helmets with nose guards. To Wolfram, his new outfit felt like the finest clothing he'd ever worn.

They headed out to the stables where Dunstan issued each of them with a coil of rope and a short wooden cudgel that looped into their belts alongside their swords.

"Use those if we get into any trouble. We're not looking for a fight, but folk do desperate things when they think they're headed to the noose. Remember, we can't hold a trial for dead bodies."

"What if one of them's got a knife or something?" Gavin asked.

"Then use your sword." Dunstan handed Robin a stick of charcoal wrapped in a roll of birch bark. "And you–use that. I want you to write down the names of everyone we talk to and anything important you hear; where folk live, who they know, whether they're willing to testify. You two," he pointed at Wolfram and Gavin, "don't talk to anyone. Just stand there and look frightening."

There were no spare mounts at the castle that day, so they rode the noble family's horses. Dunstan and the other man-at-arms accompanying them took two of Lord Erik's horses while the squires rode palfreys belonging to Julia and Ingrid. Loddy Kilwick met them at the castle gates, eager to be off.

"Follow after me, sirs," he said.

"I know the way to Kilwick," Dunstan replied shortly.

The young man rode ahead all the same, leading the way down the winding path as the sun came up. The wind and rain of the night before had mercifully abated, promising a fine day ahead. The path was only wide enough for two horses, and Wolfram found himself riding next to Dunstan.

"So, are we going to arrest this Percy Butcher fellow?" he asked his instructor.

"Who?"

"Percy Butcher. Loddy said that was who killed his cousin."

"I don't care what he said. We're not arresting anyone till we get the whole story."

Wolfram frowned. "Don't you believe him?"

"Always get both sides of a story before you believe anything, Wolf. That's why we have courts. We're going to talk to everyone, Percy Butcher included, then we'll decide who we're arresting. The victim was Loddy's cousin, so the only side he's interested in arguing is his own. He could've had a hand in it himself for all we know." He glowered at the young man riding in front of them. "How does a farm labourer like him afford a horse, anyhow?"

"We could ask him?" Wolfram ventured.

"Go on, then. Solve our first mystery for us."

"Loddy!" Wolfram called. "Where'd you get that horse?"

Loddy turned halfway around in the saddle. "It's my uncle's. He said to take it and ride straight to the castle."

Wolfram looked back at Dunstan. "That sounds fair enough."

"It does," Dunstan replied with the air of a teacher imparting a lesson. "And why's that?"

Wolfram paused to think about it. Patient as always, Dunstan waited for his answer.

"Oh!" Wolfram said as they turned a bend in the path. "His cousin's the one who got killed, so his uncle's probably the victim's father. Obviously he'd want him to ride up here fast."

"There you are," Dunstan said. "There's a drop of sense in that thick head after all. If something doesn't make sense to you, ask about it. If it still doesn't make sense, keep on asking. Folk who can't give you straight answers are usually hiding something. It's important to get these things right. Arrest the wrong man, and you'll stir more problems than you had in the first place. Remember, we're wearing the baron's colours today. Everything we do is going to reflect on him."

Wolfram nodded. He understood the weight of the responsibility, and he was determined to do right by his lord. They would find the culprits and see justice done.

Kilwick was about two hours' ride down the road from Firfallow in a low-lying area of woods and meadows in the south part of Elkinshire. The road began to dry out as the temperature rose, and soon Wolfram was sweating beneath his helmet. They passed by several fields and farmsteads as they travelled. Most of the harvesting was over at this time of year, and now the water mills were turning as labourers tossed grain in baskets to winnow out the chaff. Some of them came over to the roadside when they saw the group of colourful riders approaching. They pointed and stared, calling out hails of greeting. Dunstan ignored them, so Wolfram did, too, even though he wanted to smile and wave back. He enjoyed cutting such a distinguished figure

"Lord Erik's got a lot of land, doesn't he?" Wolfram said to Robin as they rode over a small hill that commanded a view of the surrounding area. In the distance, he could see a cluster of buildings and fields that must have been Kilwick.

"His ancestors had even more," Robin replied. "Elkinshire used to be about three times bigger. It was its own county back then."

"Why isn't it anymore?"

Robin shrugged. "The count of Tannersfield probably decided he wanted this land for himself. So now it's part of Tannersfield. That's how it usually goes."

"Lady Julia says it's good land. Lord Erik's knights are just useless."

Robin grinned. "We'll be replacing them soon if we do a good job today."

When they reached Kilwick, it was obvious there was trouble afoot. The village wasn't particularly large, only about a dozen buildings clustered around a well, but Loddy said there were several farmhouses nearby. The yard around the well was full of people. Dunstan held up a hand and the group slowed, approaching at a cautious pace. Wolfram urged his horse aside with a nudge of his knees so he could get a better look. Something strange was going on. He'd expected to see peasants dressed in the browns and greys of homespun wool, but the people standing by the well were as colourful as Wolfram's group. There were half a dozen of them, and they all wore coats of green, orange, and yellow with mail shirts and sword belts. One of them was holding the bridles of several fine horses. Wolfram heard Dunstan curse under his breath.

At the sound of the baron's men approaching, one of the well-dressed men broke off his conversation and stepped forward to greet them. He was young and handsome, with a head of wind-tousled brown hair and a look of cocksure confidence. He set his feet squarely in the middle of the road and put his hands on his hips, showing no fear as Dunstan approached.

"It's the baron's men!" he called, speaking loudly so that everyone could hear him.

One of his older companions eyed the group over. "More like the baron's boys."

The handsome man laughed. "Good morning, Dunstan. You're quick off the mark."

"Master Aldrich," Dunstan replied with forced courtesy. "I hope you're not taking the baron's business into your own hands again."

Aldrich looked around with a smile. There was something unnerving about his demeanour. It reminded Wolfram of some of the boys he'd known back home, the sort who were polite in front of their elders and bullies in private. All smiles and charm until your back was turned.

"This is Sir Tancred's village," Aldrich said. "It's his duty to keep the peace here, and we work for him."

"Really," Dunstan replied, his voice heavy with sarcasm. "Last I heard, you were working for Sir Daniel."

"We work for anyone who can pay us."

"It's not for sellswords to uphold the king's law."

"Who else is going to uphold it?" Aldrich eyed the three young squires deliberately. "Sir Tancred doesn't seem to think he can rely on the baron."

"I'm not here to have a pissing match with you, pup," Dunstan snapped, his patience reaching an abrupt limit. "Keep Tancred's money if you want, but stay out of our way. We're here to arrest the men responsible for a murder."

Aldrich seemed momentarily uncertain, hesitating as he weighed up his options. Wolfram didn't like the coldly calculating look in his eyes. He was cocky, but he didn't seem to be stupid. He spoke like an educated man, and his mail gleamed as if it were brand new. He came from money.

"We don't want any trouble with the baron. I'll tell you what–how about we join forces? We're looking for a man named Percy Butcher, but no one seems to know where he is. With a dozen men between us, I'm sure we can find him somewhere."

"I'd rather you went on your way."

"Don't be unreasonable, Dunstan. Like I said, we don't want any trouble."

It seemed like Dunstan was about to spit out another aggressive retort, but he held his tongue this time. "Don't get in our way," he repeated, and kicked his horse forward.

Aldrich stepped aside to make room.

"Who are they?" Wolfram asked Dunstan as they rode past.

"A bloody headache," Dunstan replied. "Boys who like to swing their cocks around because they think no one's going to stop them."

Wolfram looked back at Aldrich and his men. " Should we stop them?"

"No. That's not what we're here for, and believe me, it's more trouble than it's worth trying to handle a man like Aldrich."

"If they want to help, I say we let them," the other man-at-arms said.

Dunstan snorted derisively and swung himself out of the saddle. They stabled their horses at the local public house and made their way back to the road.

"Loddy," Dunstan said. "Show us the place where it happened."

A short trek across the fields took them to a large farmhouse with an attached barn. They found the farmer and his family inside along with half a dozen labourers. None of them seemed to be working that day. The body of Loddy's cousin was still in the barn, shrouded beneath a pair of large rush mats on a table. Dunstan lifted the mat covering the young man's face. His flesh was pallid, still discoloured with bruises around the eyes and nose. Brownish-red blood had dried and cracked in rivulets streaming from his nostrils.

It wasn't the first time Wolfram had seen a dead body. When he was ten, one of the merchants who worked with his mother had taken a fall from his horse and hit his ribs on a sharp rock. He'd lain in the inn all evening making horrible wheezing sounds and moaning in pain every time he coughed. The next morning, after the moans and wheezing had stopped, he'd looked a lot like this young man.

Robin turned away from the grisly sight, deliberately staring out of the open barn doors. Wolfram unfastened his helmet. Dead bodies didn't bother him. He'd wrung the necks of enough birds and rabbits on hunts with his father to be familiar with the process of death. As long as it was quick and merciful, he could look past it and move on.

The man on the table didn't look like he'd died mercifully. He must have been kicked and punched till his skull cracked. An indignant anger rose in Wolfram at the thought of the poor fellow's final moments; cowering on the barn floor, his strength slowly leaving him, the pain of the endless blows overwhelming his will to fight back. That was no way for a man to die.

"Definitely looks like someone beat him to death," Dunstan said.

"It was Percy Butcher," the farmer said. "Him, his brother Tom, and Charlie Black from the charcoal camp."

"I didn't think they'd go that far," said Loddy, his voice sombre as he stared at his cousin's body. "By the time I called the others in to break it up, it was too late."

Dunstan looked at the farm workers. "And you can all swear to this? You'd stand witness in court?"

One by one, they all nodded. Robin unrolled his birch bark and went over to the open doors so he could write down names in the light. Wolfram suspected he wanted to get away from the dead body. The villagers lined up to give him their names while Dunstan continued speaking with the farmer.

"Where can we find Percy?"

"His family's got a swine farm about a mile south over yonder. You'll see the smoke from the charcoal camp by the woods if you head that way."

"Wolf, Gavin," Dunstan called. "Go back and fetch our horses while we finish here. We'll be riding out to that swine farm next."

"Do you think we'll find Percy there?" Wolfram asked. "Aldrich said no one knew where he was."

"We'll see for ourselves. Go on. I want those horses here before we're done."

Wolfram set his helmet down on the table and jogged back to the village with Gavin. He was perplexed. It felt like Dunstan was being too slow and cautious. They'd known the culprit's name from the start. Aldrich had already told them he was missing. Surely they should have embarked on a search right away rather than stopping to gather names and ask questions? If Percy Butcher had decided to run, he could be miles away by now. The baron's men would look like bumbling fools if they spent all morning dawdling while he escaped. He shared his frustrations with Gavin as they approached the public house where the horses were stabled.

"You don't know better than Dunstan," the other boy replied. He was loyal and stubborn, and while he had a sense of mischief when he was on his own, that proclivity for independent thought didn't extend to his martial duties. He did what he was told without question.

They gathered up the horses and had the villagers help string them together so they could be led in a group. Just as they were getting ready to leave, Wolfram heard a commotion from the other end of the village. He looked around the side of the public house and saw the bright outfits of Aldrich's men. By the looks of the man sprawled on the ground in front of them, they'd found someone to interrogate.

"Go on with the horses," Wolfram said, thrusting the lead into Gavin's hands. Before his companion could protest, he was already halfway down the road. As he jogged toward the group of men, he saw one of them drag the sprawling villager to his feet. Aldrich moved to intercept Wolfram when he saw him coming.

"Did Dunstan change his mind?"

Wolfram stopped, his heart beating fast. Now that he was alone, he didn't feel so confident about confronting the well-dressed men, but he didn't want them to think he was afraid. He pointed at the villager and asked: "Who is he?"

"His name's Tom Butcher, the brother of the murderer. We were just about to ask him where Percy is."

Again Wolfram felt a tug of frustration. While Dunstan and the others were wasting time at the farmhouse, Aldrich had already caught one of the culprits! He looked back down the path and saw Gavin waiting with the horses.

"Go on back!" he called. "I'll be right behind you."

Gavin shrugged and turned away. Dunstan would be angry, but Lord Erik would be angrier if they let the murderers escape. It seemed counterproductive to ignore Aldrich if they were both working towards the same goal.

"What do they call you?" Aldrich asked. Now that he didn't have a crowd watching, his cocky demeanour had left him. He looked like he might be a couple of years older than Wolfram, with a similar build and a relaxed bearing.

"Wolfram."

"Good to meet you, Wolfram. I'm Aldrich Merchant."

The familiar surname caught Wolfram off guard. "That's what they call me. I'm from a merchant family, too."

Aldrich smiled. "I thought all of Dunstan's boys were noble lordlings. Well, I'm glad to be surprised."

The cordial moment was dispelled when Tom Butcher groaned in pain as one of Aldrich's men punched him in the stomach.

"Leave him be!" Wolfram called out instinctively.

Aldrich raised a hand to signal his men to stop. "Let the man speak. He knows what's coming if he holds his tongue."

Tom Butcher looked pale and frightened, his stringy fair hair stuck to his face with sweat.

"I didn't do anything, I swear! I was just there when it happened. I never killed him!"

Aldrich tutted. "You helped though, didn't you? Someone's getting strung up for this. If we can't find your brother, we'll have to make do with you."

"He didn't mean to! It was Hundolf who started it. We just fought back. He must've fallen and hit his head or something. It was an accident, not murder."

He was lying. The man in the barn hadn't suffered a bad fall. He'd been beaten far beyond the point where any reasonable person would have known to stop. The bare-faced deception angered Wolfram.

"Don't lie," he cut in. "I saw the body. If you've any decency, you'll give yourselves up and accept the judgement of the law."

Aldrich nodded as if he and Wolfram had been working together all along. "Are you going to lie to one of the baron's men?"

The combined pressure broke the last of Tom Butcher's resolve. His eyes fell to the ground.

"If I tell you where they are, will you let me go?"

"It might help you at your trial," Wolfram said.

Tom pointed to the east. "Out that way, by the stream. I'll show you."

"Anyone have some rope?" Aldrich asked.

Wolfram untied the coil Dunstan had given him. Aldrich's men bound Tom's hands behind his back and used the leftover slack to walk him forward like a hound on a leash.

"You should come with us," Aldrich said to Wolfram. "It's only right we lend assistance to the baron's men."

Wolfram hesitated. The path Tom had pointed out led away from the farmhouse. If Dunstan and the others rode off to the Butchers' farm, it might be hours before Wolfram found his way back to them. Then he'd really be trouble. But he wasn't a child shirking his chores; this was a matter of life and death. As wary as Aldrich made him, he was the one getting the job done, and Wolfram wanted to be there when they caught Percy Butcher. He imagined telling the story to the others when he returned to the castle, and his excitement got the better of his trepidation.

"We'll find him together," he said decisively.

Aldrich smiled. "That we will. Have you got a horse?"

Wolfram remembered that Gavin had taken all the horses, and he felt foolish.

"Don't worry, we'll get you another," Aldrich said. "Men like us only have to ask."

Wolfram wasn't sure what he meant by that, but he didn't want to appear any more clueless in front of these older men who seemed more like real soldiers than anyone he'd met at the castle.

A few minutes later, Aldrich's group had rounded up their mounts and saddled a workhorse for Wolfram. It didn't ride very well, but it was better than nothing. They set out east from the village, walking Tom Butcher on his rope leash in front of them. It looked like there were more farms out this way, but the fields were sparser, intercut with stretches of forest, overgrown meadows, and a winding stream that made travel awkward. Before long they had to dismount and lead their horses through a dense copse with low-hanging branches by hand. The trails here were narrow and ill-suited for riding. Percy Butcher must have come this way on foot.

"Perhaps we should have left the horses," Wolfram panted as he dragged his boots out of a patch of sucking mud on the stream bank.

"We'll be glad for them as soon as the land opens up," Aldrich said from behind him. "Our outlaws won't be able to run from us if we're on horseback."

Wolfram got clear of the mud and led his horse aside so that he and Aldrich could walk abreast.

"Do you do this often?"

"Someone has to."

"And the knights pay you for it?"

Aldrich nodded. "They need men to keep the peace, and we're the best men around."

"Whenever there was trouble in my village, we rounded up a group of people and dealt with the culprits ourselves."

"There's too much outlawry here for the locals to deal with on their own, especially when we don't get paid. The people here need our protection."

Something about Aldrich's words made Wolfram frown. Hadn't Lady Julia said there was relatively little outlawry in Elkinshire? He certainly hadn't heard any talk of footpads on the roads recently. This murder was the most dramatic thing that had been reported to the castle in months. Dunstan's warnings echoed in the back of his mind once more.

"Dunstan doesn't seem very fond of you."

Aldrich scoffed. "He wouldn't be. He doesn't think upstarts like us deserve to take over the divine rights of the nobility. I used to play with Lady Ingrid when we were little, you know. She'd come down to the village for the day with her parents, and we'd play in my mother's parlour. But every time I went up the hill to try and see her at the castle? Dunstan would shoo me away like I was a stray dog. Never mind that my mother's richer than Lord Erik's been in years."

"That's just how Dunstan treats everyone. He calls us dogs, too."

"But we're not. The nobles, they're the real dogs, Wolfram; doing everything their royal masters tell them, never having to work. They get born into money, so they think they deserve castles and feather beds. Men like you and me, we know what it's like to work for our supper."

Wolfram felt uncomfortable as Aldrich reached over to squeeze his shoulder, as if taking it for granted that they were both complicit in his improprietous views.

"I thought your mother made all your money?"

Aldrich was silent for a moment, then he let go of Wolfram and laughed.

"You watch what you say, or we might just string you up alongside our murderers!"

Wolfram forced a smile that he didn't feel. He was almost certain it had been meant as a joke.

Almost.