“Shall I have the company begin questioning the rest of the villagers?” Lieutenant Didrik asked.
“It will do you no good. They will all tell you the same as I. They know not who killed the assessor,” Magnilda answered.
Devlin kept his eyes on her father. “Are you certain this is so? There is no one here who is discontented, unhappy with their neighbors? No one who would wish to seek my favor and a purse of the King’s silver for his service?”
Magnus gave a thin smile. “My people will follow my lead. There are none who have aught to say to you.”
Devlin felt his frustration growing. He knew full well that everyone in this village could name the murderer, for such was the way of a small community. And yet he also knew that if this had been Duncaer, the people would never betray one another to a stranger. He would have to try a different tactic.
“Mayhap you are right. We shall see. But if I do not find the murderer, then I will have to summon the Baron’s armsmen, and you will face his justice.”
“And your justice is different than his? We know too well what to expect from nobles,” Magnilda said scornfully.
The Baron might well put the village to the torch, destroying everything these people owned. It was his right, and from the way his people feared him, it would not be out of character.
Devlin wished fervently that they had never stumbled across the murdered assessor’s body. It was the Gods’ own luck that had led them to that cursed spot. And yet, how much worse would it have been for these folk if it had been the Baron’s armsmen who had found the corpse?
“I am no lord,” Devlin said, willing them to understand. “In my life I have been a metalsmith, a farmer, and now I serve as the Chosen One. I have seen much of hardship and sorrow in this province. But I cannot let this crime pass unpunished. You must persuade the killer to reveal himself and accept his punishment. If he does so, I swear by my name that the judgment will end with his death. There will be no further retribution.”
“The Baron will not honor a promise made in his name,” Magnus said.
“I do not make it in his name. I make it in the name of King Olafur, whom I serve,” Devlin replied.
Magnus exchanged glances with his daughter. “Then I—”
“No, Father!” Magnilda interrupted, seizing his arm. “Say nothing.”
He knew then he had won, and he could afford to be gracious. Devlin rose to his feet. “We will leave you to make your decision.”
He left the cottage and went outside, followed by his officers, to find that the road outside Magnus’s home was filled with villagers. They stood there silently, with hate in their eyes.
This village was farther inland than the others, which perhaps had spared it some of the sea raiders’ attentions. And these folk showed fewer signs of hardship, although most looked as if they were in need of a good meal or three.
Didrik’s eyes raked the crowd. “Do you think the murderer is here? Watching us?”
“Unless he has already fled,” Ensign Mikkelson countered.
Devlin shook his head. “If the murderer had fled the village, the speaker would have given us his name readily enough. A shame that Magnus didn’t think to tell us such a tale. We would have no means of disproving him.”
“You cannot wish that a murderer would go unpunished?” Ensign Mikkelson asked.
No. Devlin wished he had never come to this cursed place, nor heard of the missing assessor.
“For all we know, the assessor brought this on himself. Or the Baron did, with his harsh taxes. If I were one of these folk, I do not know what I would have done. But now that we know the murderer is here, it is my duty to find him and see him hanged.”
Devlin could not repress a shudder at the thought. If he closed his eyes, he could still see the image of the inn-wife and her son, their faces turning purple and their bodies jerking wildly as they danced at the end of the ropes. And if ever two had deserved to die, it had been those evil creatures.
He did not know how he could bring himself to inflict the same horrors upon one of these poor folk. And yet the Geas drove him, forcing him to seek justice for the murdered official.
Magnilda opened the door and beckoned to them. “My father wishes to speak with you,” she said.
Devlin entered, and found that Magnus had risen to his feet. “You must swear to me that only the one responsible will be punished. No other will suffer for the crime,” he said.
“As the Chosen One, I swear this will be so, in the name of King Olafur. I call upon Ensign Mikkelson and Lieutenant Didrik to witness my oath.”
Magnilda went over to her father’s side, and he embraced her. Then he turned, and his eyes met Devlin’s. Devlin drew in a breath as he realized the old man’s intention.
“I am the one you seek,” Magnus declared. “The responsibility for the killing is mine, and mine alone.”
The old man’s withered hands lacked the strength to wring a chicken’s neck, let alone to strangle a grown man.
“And you killed him with your own hands?” Lieutenant Didrik asked.
“I am speaker of the village. The responsibility for the deed is mine,” Magnus said firmly.
Devlin looked at Magnilda, who stood by her father’s side, supporting his withered frame with her strong arms. And he suddenly knew whom Magnus was protecting. The father had decided to sacrifice himself for the sake of his daughter, and for his village, to spare them further pain.
“Your courage does you honor,” Devlin said. “I grant you the burden of this guilt.” Every man had the right to decide when he would die, and for what he would give his life.
“I have one more request. Will you tell me why you did this?” Devlin asked.
Magnus nodded. “The assessor came, with his new taxes. But we were prepared, and had managed to save enough from the fall harvest to sell this spring and earn the coins we needed. When he saw we had the coin, he laughed, and said our taxes were now doubled.”
“It was unfair,” Magnilda broke in. “We had already paid, and yet still he wanted more. I told him he was taxing us into our graves, and he just laughed. He said the Baron had no use for us, and that the sooner we were dead or gone, the better it would be for all. So I—”
“So you were enraged,” Magnus interrupted. “As was I. I said harsh words, and the assessor promised that the Baron would hear of my disloyalty, and that the armsmen would come and drag me before the Baron’s court. I knew that such a thing would mean my death, and so in a fit of rage I killed him.”
He could see how it happened. The assessor had made the same threats in Nanna’s village. But Nanna’s people had been too cowed to defend themselves. It was the assessor’s arrogance that had proved his undoing, for in this village he had encountered someone who would not back down, and whose strength was coupled to a fierce temper.
Devlin wondered whom the assessor had threatened. Had it been the speaker Magnus? Or had Magnilda been acting to save her own life? In the end, it did not matter. The crime had been done, and now he must exact punishment, according to the law.
“I would pardon you if I could,” Devlin said. “But I cannot. The assessor was wrong, but that did not give you the right to kill him. You should have brought your complaints to your lord, or if you did not trust him, to the King’s court.”
“And who would have listened to one such as I?” Magnilda asked.
“I would have,” Devlin said solemnly. But it was too late for what might have been.
“Speaker Magnus, I give you this day to make your farewells to your family and people. I will carry the sentence out tomorrow at dawn.”
Magnus nodded, only a faint tremor in his hands betraying his nervousness.
Devlin’s mind flashed ahead to the coming dawn. He could see it already. Magnilda crying or cursing his name. The old man’s trembling courage. Devlin’s own hands shaking as he forced himself to fasten the rope around that frail neck. He wanted to vomit.
“I have give
n you my word that the punishment ends here,” Devlin said. “Know also this. When I leave here, I go to seek Lord Egeslic to confront him for his deeds. Should he prove himself guilty of a crime, I promise you that his judgment will be equally swift, and far less merciful.”
“For that I thank you,” Magnus said.
Stephen was stunned when Devlin and the others emerged from the old speaker’s house with the news that Magnus had been found guilty of the assessor’s murder and was to be executed at sunrise. He was certain it was a horrible jest. The old speaker lacked the strength to harm anyone.
Then Devlin ordered that a watch be placed on the speaker’s house, and instructed the troops to camp at the outskirts of the village. The grimness in his voice convinced Stephen that this was no jest.
The afternoon wore on, and a steady procession of visitors passed in and out of Magnus’s house, as the villagers made their farewells. Their mood was grim, and Ensign Mikkelson ordered a night watch as if they were in hostile country. Stephen had little appetite for the evening meal, and he saw most others felt the same.
Now night had fallen, and Devlin lit a fire near a large elm tree, some distance from the rest of the troops. A soft rain began to fall, but the tree’s large leaves provided ample shelter. Ensign Mikkelson and Lieutenant Didrik joined Devlin, as was their custom in the evenings. But instead of the usual friendly banter, the three simply stared into the fire, each lost in his own thoughts.
Stephen had tried to see the speaker, hoping to discover some explanation that would make sense of it all, only to find himself rebuffed by the old man’s daughter.
Eventually he wandered over and joined Devlin and his companions at the fire. There he listened as Lieutenant Didrik and Ensign Mikkelson argued over their next course of action in soft tones. From time to time they would glance across the fire at Devlin, but the Chosen One remained silent, his face mostly hidden in the shadows.
This could not be happening. How could Devlin kill a man in cold blood? A man who despite his confession, was clearly not guilty of the crime? It would be a monstrous cruelty. And yet as the evening wore on, Stephen began to despair as he realized that there would be no last-minute reprieve.
“We do not know Lord Egeslic is guilty of anything, save a poor choice in retainers,” Ensign Mikkelson said. “The assessor could have been lining his own pockets, under the cloak of the Baron’s authority.”
“Then why are his people so afraid of him?” Lieutenant Didrik countered. “And where are the Baron’s armsmen in this? Why do they not try to defend the coast road against the sea raiders? Don’t they realize if they lose the road, they lose the province?”
Devlin stirred, the first movement he had made in the past hour. When he spoke, his voice was a rusty rasp as if long disused. “The longer I ponder on this, the more I wonder about these raiders, and what their true motives are. Do you not see something strange about their raids?”
Ensign Mikkelson shrugged. “The sea raiders strike where they will, and many provinces have felt their sting. We think they are from the Green Isles, but none can be sure.”
“They seem well organized, for they avoid the Royal Navy. And they can strike anywhere. So why choose this land, these poor folk? Surely they know there is little wealth to be gained, and yet they attack again and again,” Devlin mused.
Didrik rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I had not thought of it in that light. But it does seem odd, as does their habit of destruction. Other provinces have reported theft and looting, but only here do we see destruction and wholesale killing.”
“It is as if there are two different groups of raiders,” Stephen said, thinking aloud.
“Or they are not raiders at all,” Devlin said. “Tell me, who gains if the Korinth coast is decimated, stripped bare of its population?”
“No one,” said Didrik. “If the villagers are gone, there will be none left for the raiders to plunder or to pay the Baron’s taxes.”
“Unless that is their aim,” Mikkelson said. “Say the villages are empty of life. Who will raise the alarm when the next ships bring not raiders but an invading army? Before we knew aught was amiss, they could seize the province. From their bases here they could sweep down the plains, taking the fertile south lands, and splitting the Kingdom in twain.”
Such had happened two hundred years earlier, in the time of Queen Reginleifar. It had taken three years and thousands of lives to drive the invaders from Korinth. It was chilling to think that it might happen again, and there was a moment of silence as they contemplated the scale of the potential disaster.
“There is one thing more to consider,” Mikkelson said. “Did not the Assessor Brunin say that the Baron would be well pleased once the villages were empty? Perhaps the Baron is somehow involved in the scheme, and that is the reason why he has burdened the people with his taxes.”
Was it possible? Could the Baron really be a traitor? It seemed fantastic. And yet it would explain so much. Why the Baron had not reported the troubles in his province to the King and court. Why his people lived in such fear, and why the raiders were allowed free access along the seacoast.
“We did not hear the assessor’s words. We only heard what Magnilda chose to recount to us. The Baron may yet be proved innocent,” Devlin said, though from the grim tone of his voice it was clear he had little expectation that it would be so.
If Lord Egeslic was a traitor, then there was no reason to hang the speaker. Stephen felt as if a great weight had been lifted from him. “This changes everything,” he said. “If the Baron is a traitor, then so was the assessor. Thus the villagers did no wrong, and you can pardon the speaker Magnus.”
“No.”
Stephen sucked in a quick breath. “No? But what do you mean?”
“No,” Devlin repeated. “The speaker’s guilt is unchanged. He will be hanged on the morrow.”
Stephen could not believe it. He had thought he knew Devlin, but now he realized that he had been mistaken. The friendly face that Devlin had shown the world in these past weeks had been but a mask. This grim, unyielding man was the true face of the Chosen One.
“Who will you get to perform such a deed?”
“I will do it myself,” Devlin said.
A sick sense of betrayal swept over Stephen. To think that he had admired the man. What a fool he had been. Hot anger rose within him and he leapt to his feet.
“Then you too will be a murderer,” Stephen declared. Turning his back on Devlin, he stalked away.
He headed in the direction of the main camp, and its welcoming fires. A moment later he heard footsteps behind him. “I have said all I have to say,” Stephen added.
“Then you will hear what I have to say,” Ensign Mikkelson’s voice came from behind him.
Stephen stopped in surprise. He had expected Didrik might follow him, or even Devlin. But not Mikkelson. The Ensign remained a mystery, as coldly professional and aloof as he had been on the first day of their journey.
“Walk with me,” Ensign Mikkelson said, leading him in a direction that took them away from the camp, where their words could not be overheard.
“You are acting like a spoiled child,” Ensign Mikkelson said.
How dare he accuse Stephen? It was Devlin who was in the wrong. Anyone could see that.
“How can you take his part?” Stephen asked. “It is as plain as day that the old man is innocent.”
“He did not kill the Assessor Brunin with his own hands, that is true. But he took responsibility for the crime.”
Coming face-to-face with the awful power of the Chosen One must have terrified the elderly speaker. No doubt he would have confessed to anything. “And you believed him?”
“That he killed the assessor? No. It was probably his daughter Magnilda who did the actual deed. But the speaker took responsibility, and that is his right.”
Stephen blinked. Magnilda? He remembered the glare in her eyes as she had denied Stephen the right to see her father in his final hours.
Could one such as she be a murderess?
“I do not understand,” Stephen said. “If she did the crime, surely she was provoked. These people are being terrified and impoverished by an unjust lord. It is only right that they defend themselves.”
“They tell me your father is a lord,” Mikkelson said.
“Yes,” Stephen said, uncomfortable with the turn the conversation had taken.
“Then surely you have seen him and his magistrates pass judgment. It is not always easy, but it must be done.”
“But this is not justice,” Stephen protested. What purpose would the old man’s death serve? And Devlin intended to hang him himself. How could Devlin live with himself, having performed such an act? And how could Stephen live with himself, knowing that he had called such a man friend?
“You reason like a child,” Ensign Mikkelson said sternly. “Only the Baron may pass judgment on his officials. If the Baron is deemed unfair, then the villagers may petition the King’s court for justice. This is the law. We cannot pick and choose who must pay for their crimes. Such would lead to anarchy. If Devlin pardoned this man, what happens the next time a farmer has a grievance with an assessor? Shall he, too, be pardoned for murder?”
“No, but—”
“There are no buts. The Chosen One is as merciful as the law allows. Far more merciful than the Baron would be. If the Baron’s armsmen had found the corpse, they would have hanged Magnus and his daughter. At best, the rest of the village would merely lose their homes and property. At worst, they, too, might face execution, for having shielded the killers from justice.”
Stephen shivered in the cold night air. The Ensign’s words made a dreadful sense.
“But why did not Devlin tell me this?”
“Perhaps because you gave him no chance to explain. Or mayhap he felt the need to keep his own counsel, and to trust that his friends would have faith in him.”
The last held the ring of truth. It was not in Devlin’s nature to plead for understanding. The Chosen One made hard choices and accepted the responsibility for the consequences of his actions. Stephen had declared his friendship, but then, when Devlin needed his friendship, Stephen had turned on him in anger. He had blamed Devlin for failing him, for forcing him to see that this was no pretty ballad, where the Chosen One set all to rights with his mere presence.
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