“How did Liam know?” Maddie asked.
Will shrugged. “It’s part of a Ranger’s job to know what’s going on in a fief. We travel round the villages, collecting news and information, looking for unusual events. He probably saw this pattern across the three villages.”
“And someone killed him before he could do anything about it,” Maddie said.
Will held up a cautioning hand. “That’s assuming that these three are missing, or dead, or that something bad has happened to them. There could be a lot of explanations for those dates.”
“Such as?”
“Such as I don’t know.”
“But think about it, Will. It must be something like that. After all, Liam went to the trouble of hiding those names and dates in his strongbox. So they must mean something important. And somebody killed him. He must have been asking questions about those three kids and whoever took them found out about it—and arranged his accident.”
“It’s a reasonable hypothesis,” he admitted, “but that’s all it is.” Maddie had a vivid imagination and he needed to rein it in. All too often with a situation like this, there was a temptation to arrange the evidence to suit the theory, and ignore any that didn’t fit.
“Let’s not jump to any conclusions,” he continued. “I think it’s time we did a little investigating. I’ll need to get some equipment from the castle first thing.”
“A handcart?” Maddie said, looking at the shabby little vehicle that Will had brought from the castle. “What do we want with a handcart?”
“It’s to carry all our worldly belongings,” Will told her. “We’re posing as an itinerant worker and his daughter. I’ll be looking for work and you’ll be tagging along with me.” He paused, then reached into the cart and tossed a patched, ragged dress to her. “While I think of it, you’d better dress the part.”
Maddie regarded the tatty garment with distaste. “Do I have to wear this rag?” she asked.
Will nodded. “Bit of a giveaway if you’re wearing a Ranger cloak and carrying a bow,” he said. “We don’t want people to know who we are. All too often, country folk clam up when they see a Ranger. What we have to do is go into these villages and nose around. Odds are you’ll have better luck with the local kids than I will with their parents. Kids tend to talk to other kids, while they’ll be more wary around adults.”
“What about our horses? What will we do with them?” Maddie asked.
“When we reach a village, we’ll hide them in the woods close by. A farm worker would hardly own one horse, let alone two. Mind you, Tug’s not going to be too pleased about all this. He’s going to have to pull the handcart for us and that may well be beneath his dignity.”
Indeed, Tug was incensed when he saw the small cart.
You expect me to pull that? I’m not a cart horse, you know.
“And I’m not an itinerant farm worker,” Will told him. He’d glanced around to make sure that Maddie was out of earshot before he answered the horse. “But we’re undercover, and it’s an excellent disguise.”
I’m not letting people see me pulling this.
“You don’t have to. We’ll unharness you when we get close to the villages. You can wait for us in the woods.”
And who’ll pull the cart then? Tug wanted to know.
“I will. It’s a handcart, after all. And people will see me doing it.”
People will see you? Lots of people?
“Dozens of them, I should think. I’ll even wear a big straw hat with a raggedy brim.”
That sounds fair to me.
As it turned out, Tug pulled the little cart easily. It was quite light and even with Will on his back, he wasn’t overburdened. His pride was another matter, however, and he snorted angrily at Will whenever they passed anyone on the road.
Danvers Crossing was the closest village and Will selected it as their first destination. They stopped on the road about two kilometres before they reached the village. They found a small glade some ten metres in from the road with plenty of fresh grass and shade for the horses. Will unhitched Tug from the wagon. There was a large water skin hanging from the rear tray of the cart and he used it to fill a leather bucket for the two horses.
“I’ll come out to check on you tonight,” Will told the horses. “For now, stay silent.”
The last two words were a command taught to all Ranger horses. It ensured that Bumper and Tug would remain in hiding in the glade when people passed by, and make no sound. Both horses nodded their heads several times, understanding the command. Then Will took hold of the cart’s two shafts and started out down the road to Danvers Crossing, Maddie tagging along beside him.
As he reached up to place an old straw hat with a ragged brim on his head, Will was convinced he could hear Tug sniggering.
Thirty-three
Danvers crossing, as the name suggested, was situated on the banks of a small river. Maddie had expected that the crossing might be a shallow ford, but the river was deep and the current swift. Crossing was effected by means of a large flat-bottomed punt, which ran on thick rope cables set on either bank.
It was a pleasant-looking village, with its groves of willows stooping down to the water and providing cool, shady retreats along the bank. The gurgle of the river was ever present in the background. Maddie found it to be a soothing sound.
Aside from the punt, the village itself was typical of its kind, with a blacksmith, a tavern, a small tannery, a lumber yard with a sawpit and a seed and grain merchant’s shop. Set by a river as it was, it was logical that Danvers Crossing also boasted a flour mill, the massive grinding wheels driven by the fast-flowing river. Farms from the surrounding countryside would bring their grain to the mill to be turned into fine-ground flour.
In addition to these businesses, there were the villagers’ homes—most of them small structures, and all of them single storey, built in the ubiquitous wattle and daub method, and with steeply sloping thatched roofs. They stood on either side of the main street. Side lanes between them led to barns and sheds and other outbuildings. All in all, there were about thirty such dwellings.
The tannery stood at the near end of the village street. Maddie wrinkled her nose as they trudged past it.
“Yuck. What’s that dreadful smell?” she asked.
Will, bent to the shafts of the handcart, looked up at her. “You don’t want to know,” he said.
There was a sizeable space between the tannery and the first of the village buildings proper. The next was the smithy, and they could hear the dull clink of hammer on metal, and the rhythmic roar of the bellows as the blacksmith’s assistant kept a constant draught under the bed of glowing charcoal. It was a logical arrangement, and one that could be found in most villages. Businesses like the tannery, with its unpleasant smell, and the smithy, with its inherent risk of fire, were kept at arm’s length from the houses, the taverns and inns.
A few villagers were on the street and they glanced at the newcomers with interest and, in some cases, suspicion. One or two of them nodded and Will replied by touching his hand to the battered hat he wore.
As they moved further into the village, he glanced up and saw the two-storey building that stood in pride of place by the riverside.
“That’ll be the tavern,” he said quietly to Maddie. “In a place like this, it’ll also serve as the inn, I imagine. We’ll head there first.”