“Captain—that village where we took the headman—the brigands must’ve attacked. There’s smoke—looks like two cottages burned—no sign of that herd of cows.”
“They probably attacked the night after we went through,” Arcolin said. “Any sign of the villagers?”
“Could be bodies on the lane, I didn’t go closer to count.”
“They massacred the whole village?” Burek said.
“Probably not,” Arcolin said. “Probably killed a few, took a few prisoner to do work in their camp, and sent the rest away with threats. They want to scare their food supply, not destroy it.” He looked at Devlin. “Devlin, come up the road with me a bit.”
Out of earshot of the cohort, he said, “We may be fighting later today or tonight. Who do you want for sergeant and corporals?”
Devlin shook his head at first. “None of ’em’s ready to be sergeant—but I have been thinking—”
“Well, think faster. They may have set up that village as a trap and it’s less than a glass away.”
“Yes, Captain. In that case … Jenits as sergeant. Kef and Sim as corporals. They’re all young, so they won’t mind being bumped back when we’re back to normal.” His look at Arcolin pled for reassurance Arcolin couldn’t give.
“Or when we have more time to consider,” Arcolin said. “Good point. Go tell ’em; let them know it’s temporary.” So far, he told himself.
Devlin pulled Jenits up to the front, then Kef and Sim, and told them what they’d need to do as they continued on to the village. Arcolin sent additional scouts out.
They all smelled smoke now, wisps of it still rising from ruined cottages. The headman’s cottage—a ruined heap. The one next to it, and the one across the lane, also burned. Heaps of rags that were, as they neared, clearly bodies … three men … four women … two children. The other cottages, still whole, were tight-shuttered in the midday heat. A trampled track across the young grain showed which way someone had come and gone.
Arcolin raised his voice. “If anyone is hiding here: Your former headman is under sentence in Cortes Vonja for aiding the brigands who did this to you. You have no safety here while the brigands prosper; you should go to the city, or a village where you have relatives.”
No one answered, but he was sure there were listening ears, whether villagers or brigands.
“Do we follow them?” Burek asked.
“Not where they want us to,” Arcolin said. “They’ve had plenty of time to set up a good ambush on land they know far better than we do. We’ll go on south and then cut east where I hope they won’t see us doing it. But we will bury these bodies and make sure the village well’s clean. Someday people will live here again.” He looked at the sky. “If we do all that, we might as well camp in the village tonight.”
By nightfall the dead had been decently buried, and timbers and stones from the ruined cottages arranged in a barrier to protect a perimeter around the remaining buildings. Arcolin insisted on checking inside each of the cottages. “Not for survivors,” he explained to Burek. “For brigands waiting to attack us.” They found neither people nor food.
Somewhat to Arcolin’s surprise, they were not attacked that night, and made an early start the next morning without incident. They passed through the village where they had found the merchant and his wagons before; the headwoman grinned at them and waved as they approached.
“We have one friend,” Burek said.
“As long as we bring gifts,” Arcolin said. “You ride on; I’m going to talk to her.”
“I knew you’d come back,” she said, when he reined in beside her and dismounted. “What did them in the city do to that fellow with the wagons?”
“The merchant? Threw him out of the Guild. Confiscated his wagons and his merchandise.”
“Them brigands is mean, angry folk,” the woman said.
“Angry?”
“Yesternoon, it was, when they come riding down the road like a pride of princes. Smelled of smoke and death; I had all my people hidden. Said they was hunting the one as told the Fox army—they mean you—how to find their supplies.” She grinned wider. “I told ’em you didn’t need anyone’s help; you’d done no more than walk past the wagons and you knew about the false floors.”
“Did they find the gifts?”
She shook her head. “Gifts, my lord? I never saw no gifts, nor did anyone else. Nobody gives us gifts; the tax man takes away and so do them villains, I told ’em so. They looked in my house, walked in like they owned it, but o’ course I have nothing of theirs.” She leaned close. “We had full bellies that night, my lord, all the mush even the childer could stuff down, and our hogs had the rest. Wasn’t a single extra grain here when they searched, nor anything but what they expected. And it was good warning you gave us, not to store any. They was looking for that red southern grain in our jars—stirred every one and found only what we grow here, wheat and spelt.”
“When did they come?” Arcolin asked.
She thought a long time, spreading one hand to touch her fingers, then shaking it to cancel the count; he wasn’t sure she knew how to reckon days. Finally she said. “It wasn’t the night we feasted, or the night after, or the night after that, but the next day.”
“Thank you,” Arcolin said. “And now—do you know where the outbounds of Vonja are? We’re bidden to stay within them. Is there another village within the bounds farther on this road?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know, my lord. There was one before Siniava’s War, but I heard it had been destroyed, and I haven’t left here since I got back. There’s our hog-wood just to the south of us—and there’s a sort of ford over the creek in about a sunhand’s walk, but your wagons may have trouble with it. The pigherds say someone should have repaired it. That other village was most of the day’s walk at one time.”
“Perhaps we should look,” Arcolin said. “Thank you, for your time. I am sorry I have no grain for you this time—but this—” He handed her two of the copper coins southerners called pages.
“Thank you, my lord. You was kind before and these’ll hide easy, if them brigands come back.”
Beyond the village, the lane deteriorated even more as it led into the woods. The wheelmarks of the merchant’s wagons showed clear, and old ruts with them, but certainly wagons passed this way only a few times a year. Soon the trees shut out all sight of the village behind. The road twisted back and forth as they climbed a low rise. Around one turn, they came on a sounder of swine, the herdboy trying to prod them off the way, but two were intent on something on one verge, rooting determinedly, and the boy’s stick made no difference to them. A prick from the tip of Arcolin’s sword was another matter; with an annoyed grunt, the two trotted off down a woods path after the others; the boy gaped at Arcolin, then ran after them.
Down the other side of the rise, they came to the stream the headwoman had mentioned, the remnants of a gravel ford now scattered by many a spring flood, and mucky holes on both banks. Rough-trimmed timbers along both sides showed how the merchant had managed to get his wagons across. But with only seven men altogether? Arcolin rode out into the stream and looked upstream and down. On the right bank of the stream, a game trail wide enough for humans ran alongside the stream, and when he looked closely—yes, rain-softened boot marks.
“Checkpoint,” he said to Burek. “The ford’s been deliberately made more difficult. They’d meet the wagons from the south here—check the cargo—help them across—and then meet them again at that village—must be closer to their camp.” He chewed his lip, trying to think out the logic of it. How was the merchant paid? Wait—those two sacks of coins he’d found in the false-bottom of the first wagon, under the sacks of grain. They had not been marked with the seals of the Moneychangers’ Guild. Would a merchant carry so much of his own money after he bought goods and before he sold them? Arcolin had first thought of that money as a bribe … but if the brigands hadn’t taken it—why not? What if, instead of a bribe, the brigands had added it to the load?