“Come on out with me to the keep, will you?” he asked. “I’d like to hear what happened. My cook should have something ready, too.”
Paks nodded. She realized that Sir Felis might want her to be present when he questioned the prisoners. She wondered what the customs were.
“And you too, yeoman marshal, if your duties permit,” said Sir Felis smoothly. “Since the Marshal is not here, I would like a representative from the grange to be present.”
“The grange’s honor, Sir Felis,” said Ambros. “May I ask how long this might take? It is customary for the yeomen of Gird to give thanks in the grange for the success of such a mission; I would like to tell them when—”
Sir Felis pursed his lips. “I am not certain, yeoman-marshal, but surely by dark. These men do not look so desperate as I thought.”
Paks had feared that Sir Felis might, like Alured the Black of Aarenis, torture his prisoners; he did not need to. By the time Sir Felis, trailed by Paks and Ambros, came down the stairs to question them, the brigand leader had decided to tell what he knew.
“We was all honest men once, sir,” he said weakly. “I was a farmer, myself. Some of the others was trade or craft, but most was farmers. But that bad drought three years ago, in Verrakai lands—that’s what drove me out. The taxes—and then no grass, and the cows dying—so my lord Verrakai put me out, and I went wandering. No one had honest work, sir, and that’s the truth of it.” He closed his eyes a moment; Paks looked around at the other brigands. The wounded lay quietly; the rest squatted against the dungeon wall, heads down. “I suppose Elam and I were the first,” the man went on after a long pause. “He and I’d known each other back home—we traveled together. We come on this place in a storm—went in to get dry—and then—seems we couldn’t leave.”
“What stopped you?” asked Ambros.
“I don’t know. Something. It—it called, like. We stayed there a couple of days—shot a bird for food, Elam was a good bowman. I stuck one of those things in the moat, but we couldn’t eat that.”
“What thing?” asked Sir Felis.
“You know. One of them—big things, like a frog only near man-sized. Smell rotten. They have teeth, too. Anyway we stayed there. Took a goose from a farm nearby—I’d asked for work, and they drove us off. Called us robbers, they did, and we hadn’t robbed before that. Made me mad.” He stopped again, and rubbed his nose. “Elam wanted to go on somewheres else, but when we got an hour or so away, we both got the cramps bad. Had to come back. Then the others came.” He nodded toward the other men. “One or two at a time, every week or so. Soon we’d hunted out all the woods around. If we took from the farms—well, most of us had farmed. We didn’t want to.”
“So then he said take caravans,” put in one of the others, leaning back against the wall and tilting his head up to look at Sir Felis. “He says what’s a caravan to you—them merchants are all rich, and what has rich done for you? That’s what he says. Steal from caravans, and get rich yourself.” The man spat. “Rich! Heh! All we ever see’s enough to eat, and that not all the time. A few coppers now and then—a new cloak—that’s all.”
“You shouldn’t talk about him,” said the first robber, pushing himself up. “It’s bad luck. He’ll—”
“He can’t do much here,” said the other. “Teriam, think! It’s listening to him has got us here—in jail, when we were born honest men. Robbers, we are, and it’s him as profits by it.”
“But you know what he said. He can reach us anywheres—that’s why we couldn’t leave. He could touch us here—right now—and—”
“And what? Kill us deader than they will, when they’re through talking?” The man gave Sir Felis a bitter grin. “Tell you the truth, sir, if you can kill that devil, you’ll do yourself more good than killing us. And I’ll be glad of it.”
Paks saw that some of the other brigands seemed very frightened, but they said nothing. The leader had fallen back, and now lay silent with eyes closed and jaw clenched.
“Who is this man that ordered you to rob?” asked Sir Felis. “Was he captured or killed?”
“Not him,” said the spokesman angrily. “Not him. He’s got his own place, safe and deep, and all we know’s his orders. I don’t know his name, sir, or who or what he is—and I’m not sure he’s a man, even. Teriam knows, I think—” He glanced at the leader.
“I don’t.” It came out as a harsh whisper. “I swear I don’t know—I never seen him but the one time, and after that I couldn’t—I couldn’t—” He gripped his head, rocking back and forth. “He—he had black robes, that’s all, and some kind of—of thing on a chain—it—like a hand spread out, only it had too many fingers—”
Paks felt, rather than saw, Ambros stiffen beside her. “Gird’s arm!” he said softly. Then more loudly, “Like a spider, maybe?”
The man’s head turned towards him. “It—it might be—if—NO!” He began to flail about on the straw. “No! Don’t let him—not here—!”
Sir Felis swore, a soldier’s curse Paks had heard many times. She could see nothing but the frightened man, waving his hands at nothing and trying to flee something no one could see. Ambros moved forward before the others shook off their surprise, and caught his arm.
“Be still, man—Teriam’s your name? Be still; Gird will ward you from that evil.”
“No one can—he said he could—”
“Gird’s grace on you, Teriam. Gird Strongarm will ward you; give him a chance.”
“You-you’re a Marshal? Of Gird?”
“I’m the yeoman-marshal of this grange,” said Ambros. “I am sworn to Gird’s service, and known to him. I give you my word that I place your name before Gird.”
“Please—” The man’s eyes were open now, and fastened on Ambros. “Please, sir—I’m not afraid to die—just not that filth, please, sir—”
Ambros freed one hand and held out his medallion. Teriam touched it with the tips of his fingers. “You have been spelled by some evil, is that not so?” asked Ambros. “You fear that it will take your soul?”
Teriam nodded. “He said—he said he could do that. Wherever we tried to run, whatever we did—he would find us, and see us in—” He stopped, and lowered his voice. Paks could not hear what he said to Ambros, but she saw the sudden twitch of Ambros’s shoulders.
“Well, and do you believe that the High Lord and Gird are stronger than that one?”
“I—I know I should, sir, but I’m feared—I’m feared they won’t be for me—”
Ambros looked around at the other robbers. “And you? What do you think of the power of that evil one, when you are here? Do you think the High Lord is weaker?”
Some shook their heads; some simply stared. The man who had spoken so boldly before pushed himself to his feet. “Sir—yeoman-marshal—I was a yeoman of Gird once. Not a good one, you’ll say, and I won’t argue that. I never thought to find myself bound by such evil—just a drover like me. I don’t know what that black-cape can do, but I will say the High Lord is right, if he kills me for it.”
Ambros gave him a bleak smile. “Yeoman of Gird, you must face the Count’s judgment, but the High Lord knows his own servants.”
The man’s face lighted. “I swear, yeoman-marshal, that it was not fear of the Count’s court that kept me there. Whatever the grange-court demands—”
“Gird will have somewhat to say in that, yeoman.”
“Aye, yeoman-marshal.” He turned to Sir Felis. “Sir, if you will, if the court demands my life, permit the grange to report the death of a yeoman.”
Sir Felis looked at Ambros, brows raised. Ambros nodded.
“The Marshal would say the same, Sir Felis. A yeoman may be spelled into evil deeds; I judge it was so with him, and perhaps with some others. The punishment must fall, but their names remain on the grange rolls. Only those who willingly serve evil, and refuse to repent, are cast out.”