Chapter 6

Barely two months prior, just before the start of the Mid-Summer’s Court at the palace, Ben had been out doing field training for a week with a ha’wing, or two squads of about twenty troopers, focused upon practicing small cavalry unit operations in broken terrain, when Prince Carl came riding up hard late one morning quite unexpectedly, his horse nearly in a lather.

“Lt. Greene,” he loudly shouted out to the senior field training officer, “I must have the assistance of you and all of your men, and also Lord Baad ... immediately. We have a long ride ahead of us and precious little time that can be wasted, for danger and bold adventure both do await us on this day, should fortune smile upon us!”

“Marie de Mont has struck us again,” the prince explained to Ben and the lieutenant as the cavalry force rode back towards the capitol at a fast quick-trot, “she’s robbed a group of nobles on the highway about a ha’day’s ride south from Kaisburg and the palace not two hours ago. Killed the four guards and both courtiers, stripped them down naked in the road, disfiguring their corpses as well, and now I mean to find her and see her hung at last! I swore to track her down last year ... and now my oath shall be fulfilled!”

Ben had never heard of her, and said as much ... entirely to Lt. Greene’s amusement.

“She’s the most infamous highway bandit of the entire 27 kingdoms”, he told Ben, “and if she didn’t have the nasty habit of killing most of the people who cross her path, she’d be lauded as the greatest highwayman in living record. Also, if she even tithed a portion of what she’s stolen over the years to the poor and needy, she’d likely be venerated as a living folk-hero!”

Apparently, as a bandit, no one held a fiercer reputation, or had enjoyed such a long (and successful career) as a highway-woman. She travelled extremely widely, harassing several other kingdoms and principalities beyond these borders each year, and now had returned here and had struck once more preying upon one of the main roads heading to the palace, plundering the nobles and courtiers heading for the mid-summer court.

This had been a most successful and profitable strategy for many years for this infamous highway robber, as she had taken down armed groups of up to a dozen armed guards with seeming ease, to then prey mercilessly upon the then unprotected wealthy travelers. The terror of her name alone was enough to cause most of her victims to drop all of their valuables to the ground just at the very sight of her veiled face, even before she could issue the command to do so.

As for anyone who resisted or failed to ‘deliver’ their wealth ... this invariably had the unhappy result of the bandit promptly picking over their now dead bodies. Dead or alive, she was going to take their money ... either way.

Nothing was known whatsoever about the woman, other than she was said to have originally come from the furthest south, probably the foreign duchy of Arianne, near the shores of the inner sea. It was said to be a warm, lush land of vineyards and olives and a sensible person probably would have never left it. About six or perhaps even seven years ago she crossed into the 27 Kingdoms of the High-King and nearly at once made a reputation for herself as an utterly ruthless bandit that didn’t appear to care a fig whether her victims paid up (and lived) or she looted their dead corpses instead.

Her face had never been seen, as she always wore a large veil over her head, divided into two colors, half red and the other half black, almost like a harlequin pattern. Those that survived meeting her saw only the black veil, so it was assumed that when she was driven to kill her victims, she pulled the red fabric side across her face instead. Her garb was all black leather, pants and jacket with bright silver buttons. Her sword was said to be fancy, with an elaborate silver hilt and scabbard with black and red gemstones mounted. She was said to be very, very proficient with that blade. She was also an expert with the use of a women’s hunting crossbow, able to strike the heart with nearly every shot, and reload and fire fast enough that even a squad of mounted guards chasing her stood little or no chance, as she picked them off one-by-one.

Her horse was described as a very unremarkable dark brown color (just like Mather’s), a match for at least a quarter of all of the mounts to be found on a road, or stabled at local towns, taverns and inns, but it had been chosen for pure speed. On at least four occasions she had been chased by guards or soldiers and each time her mount could quickly outdistance her pursuers and then disappear from sight before she could be cornered.

To further make the hunt for this bandit a nearly impossible challenge, Marie was clever ... and at least as sly as a fox. She also appeared to know every rock, tree, gully, steam, outhouse and barn within several leagues of the capitol and could hide seemingly in plain sight. In court season, when pickings were especially ripe, she would attack fresh victims sometimes several times during a day, even while dozens (or like now, hundreds) of soldiers were out frantically searching for her. She’d seemingly also only left clear tracks to follow if they would mislead and lead her pursuer away from her, instead. Often the tracks she left through wet or muddy ground would suddenly disappear, leaving no further trace, as if she had used some sort of Fae magic to conceal her path, or perhaps she was even of that very rare race herself!

In every manner, she was the most wanted criminal in the realm and Prince Carl wanted to capture her at near any cost!

At another hard gallop, it did not take more than half of a glass for the wing of cavalry to arrive at the sight of the murder and robbery earlier than morning. After a brief consultation with the Justicar, who had been called to the scene to help coordinate the searchers, which by now included two full squadrons (each with two wings of cavalry), all went out now patrolling each of the roadways leading to the capitol, and the High-King’s palace.

It was then, while the Justicar was then showing the prince on a map where he had established checkpoints, that a fresh messenger arrived announcing that she had already struck again, this time on a roadway west of the city. This attack had occurred an hour ago, but if the prince’s men could ride fast and hard they could reach the site of this latest outrage while her trail was hot! They remounted, mostly all rested and ready, and Ben and his prince, and their two squads of cavalry were ready for this challenge and less than twenty minutes later they were at the new robbery location and immediately ready to chase down the villainess. And thus began the wildest and possibly strangest next eight hours of his life.

The tracks of her mount were quite readily noted, just off of the roadway they could at first be easily followed for near an entire glass, but when it was clear that this route lead the party in a complete full circle, even Prince Carl began to doubt that this was her true path. Despondently, he began to search outside of her path once more, looking more closely this time for places where an alternative route could have been taken.

“This is the reason why she is such a devious antagonist and has plagued us for years,” Carl sighed, after dismounting to walk for yet another attempt to pick up her apparently lost true course, “as she known she’d have an hour at the least, before we could pursue her trail, and she has used every minute of that time, and now even more, to lay down false track after track to befuddle us. I am now quite at loss ... where could she have so convincingly hid her true path and destination? We have nearly completed yet another grand circle of her original false trail and found nary a trace of her genuine one, wasting precious time that we can no longer afford!”

“Up ahead of us by five or ten minutes or so,” Ben pondered, “we know she crossed though that small creek, as her horseshoes planted well in the mud on the opposite side, and we thought little of it. Had she expected us to possess tracking hounds, which alas are not available, a cunning foe could have backed up their mount and then taken this stream either further west or back east toward the town, after first planting her false path, and she then disappeared and exited elsewhere, where the ground was harder.”

“As I have no other clever alternatives to offer, then let us try that. Lt. Greene, when we reach the stream just ahead of us, take one group of ten men and divide them so that five are searching each side of the riverbank heading further west. Lord Baad and I shall take the rest and divide up, searching the banks heading east towards town. She already has at least a three hour lead on us now and if we cannot find where she has gone to roost within another three, her trail will become cold and worthless by nightfall.”

The prince wagered (a small token sum) that Marie’s ultimate destination was to the north, as she had already preyed upon the southern and western roads this day, but Ben was less certain and eagerly took the challenge. He focused his search upon the southern bank of the stream, while Carl took the northern side, each keeping within sight of each other for support, in the case of ambush. It was slow going, but about a ha’glass into their searches, Ben found something of slight interest.

“My prince, do you see any cattle hoof marks, such as for a cow or steer on your side of the bank, leading south across the stream, right here?”

“No ... across from where you stand on my side there is nothing,” he replied, quite perplexed.

“Then we have found her trail,” Ben shouted with glee, “and this is where she has left the steam, heading it appears on a southeastern bearing likely towards Kaisburg, or nearby it.”

“Yes, indeed you have found her track,” the prince agreed, slapping Ben’s back with glee, but why did you suspect such a commonplace finding as cattle track of being hers?”

“It’s an old trick, frequently used by most of the lords of the north, like my father and Lord Egner both, when engaged in cattle raiding or horse stealing to disguise their trail. We can have snow nearly half of the year in or near Baad, and it seemingly rains nonstop the rest of the time, so even on uneven rocky ground, horseshoes tend to leave clear distinct prints. Every reasonably smart bandit carries about with them a set of horseshoes forged into the hoof prints of sheep, mountain goats and often cattle. My father certainly possessed an extensive collection of horseshoes simulating the prints of every sort of beast other than a horse. Another favorite trick is to use a sturdy flat oval horseshoe wrapping that can bear a standard horse’s shoe in reverse, so that the tracks completely mislead a searcher afterwards, as they follow the prints going one direction while the rider has in fact gone in the opposite way. Even the plain flat shoe, used much like a snowshoe, could leave only flat minimal ground or snow impressions that even a slight wind, rain or powder of snow could swiftly obliterate.”

“The appalling ingenuity of you northerners, in your endless quests to rob, steal and murder each other in the cleverest sorts of ways!” Carl laughed.

Ben grinned politely, but he wasn’t entirely sure that the statement had been a compliment. His father was a raving paranoid loon, but in the northern petty-kingdoms paranoia was sometimes a very necessary survival trait for survival.

The faux-ox tracks continued for some time, enough so that the prince had time to send off riders at a gallop to recall the other squad, and they returned his main group just in time to find that the lead trackers had lost Marie’s trail once more.

“Using a flat horseshoe, I would now guess” the prince enquired, “as your father ... and of course many others have done, but if so, how much would the horse’s weight have pressed into the ground? Wouldn’t crushed grass and weeds be visible to us here, to relocate her new path?”

“Yes and no,” Ben thought, “we have very little grass like this near Baad, here it’s quite soft and springy, step upon a section and then move away and check its resilience ... it seems rather supple and the ground is also quite moist, especially under these trees where there is little direct or hard sunlight. Perhaps she would use cleats here, under her flattened extra-wide tied-wrapped horseshoes, to very slightly give her mount a bit of extra traction and not slip and fall, as her mounts hooves cannot bite well into the soil otherwise. Try having the men dismount and feel the moisten ground all around here with their fingers. There may be small tiny holes, perhaps the size of an ant mound entrance, but there will be regularly spaced out and an even depth.

And such was the case, where right here some small regularly sized holes could be found every inch or two in the soil, giving the beast a small amount of traction, without causing the least amount of harm to the lush grass.

“You have solved the riddle of her frequent and miraculous escapes, Sir Ben,” the prince laughed with glee,” and while she may be hours ahead of us yet, we can now follow her to her lair. This new trail turns to go due south now, so I wager that she either has a secure refuge nearby or else she seeks the anonymity of travel once crossing a road near the town. We shall soon see.

Surprisingly, Marie did not once more set upon the western road into Kaisburg, but crossed the roadway and set herself now upon a more southeastern route again, directly heading towards the great town. Here the irregular green forest cover had turned instead to large farms and ripe grain fields nearly ready for harvest. Once upon reaching farmland, she changed horseshoes again, back to one with common ox hoof markings. The transition was fairly easy to spot and now the hunting posse could pursue much more rapidly, without the need to regularly stop to search for the nail markings into the turf.

After following a winding series of farmer trails between fields, the ox markings now disappeared while crossing a small stream, being now replaced soon thereafter with plain clear horse shoe markings that turned nearly due east, their backs now to the rapidly setting sun. About a ha’glass later her trail was lost for good as she clearly set upon a local stone paved roadway that lead toward the town.

Before taking that stone road, it was clear that Marie had stopped in a nearby clump of trees for an uncertain length of time. Probably to remove her ‘bandit’ clothing, which was quite distinguishable and well-known, to a plainer costume for travel into town. Traces of two different boot marks could be noted, of about the same size, but different styles and soles. One was clearly a woman’s style boot, the other’s a man’s, both unmarred and with no visible defects, and undoubtedly of rather high quality. She had taken a small meal here and perhaps drunk something, but few other traces could be found of her stay, other than perhaps a very minute dusting of something like chalk powder found on top of some grass leaves at her camp. This near the road, it could have been from a cart carrying lime or finely milled grain of some sort. The traces were too minute for taste testing to provide a definitive answer.

“We have her now, I’m sure of it!” Carl muttered, pacing back and forth as he gave the lieutenant some fresh orders. Just past this grain factor’s warehouse on the road to the right here, is the great north-south road running just west of the town. Every other road for a league surrounding us connects here, north, west or south, before entering the various gates to the town. From here, the western gate is closest. Greene, I want you and two riders to report to the Justicar, I’m sure he’s back at the palace now, and tell him I want every trooper that can ride or run hastily, to meet us here, by that factorage before dark. There’s a dozen quite good taverns and inns nearby as you get nearer to the west gate, and I’d bet my crown that she’s in one of these, within ten minutes of us, but probably very well disguised. Still, at worst we’ll make her nervous enough by our searches that she’ll likely bugger off elsewhere for another season. Even should our nets not catch her now, that will give us time to plan and set better watches over her escape routes so we don’t play as much ‘chasey-chasey, catchy-catchy, kissy-kissy’ the next time around!

This close to the great castle, barely even fifteen minutes away at a good gallop, it wasn’t much longer before the first squads of mounted troopers and household cavalry began arriving, until by the onset of darkness was fully upon them they had two full squadrons of horsemen available, and with the guidance of the Justicar, an extensive collection of new roadblocks began to be established, with orders to let no one, male or female, pass though.

Then with his smaller assault squad of the ha’wing of cavalry he rode with most of the day, and a full extra wing of troopers surrounding the exteriors of each building in turn, they searched every inn and tavern along the road up to the very walls of the town, finding nothing that seemed suspicious, as even more arriving foot soldiers arrived to place each and every area hostelry under complete martial inspection.

Each and every place seemed much alike, to Ben’s inexperienced eyes, as they supervised their men as they interrogated each and every woman found, regardless of their rank, taking apart their travel bags and searching every inch of each and every stables for at least some of the tools of the highwaywoman’s trade. But nothing incriminating could be found.

The prince began to fear that Marie had not taken an inn, but instead owned or leased another building in the area. If so, it would be nearly impossible to locate her lair, so the searches of the various local hostelries continued.

At one rather resplendent inn that catered nearly exclusively to travelling courtiers and nobles, near the crossroads of two good stone roads just outside of the town walls, an observant trooper did find a ladies hunting crossbow in one of the travelling packs of a minor baroness, and sternly facing the noblewoman’s ire, he quickly called for the prince’s party to be summoned there. In truth, the lady in question seemed hardly to be a prime suspect as her horse was certainly of a different coloration and her husband vouched for her whereabouts for the entire day. Nor did his (or her) boots match the size and shape of the prints they had found nearby at the grove.

Seemingly, this, like every other place their small army of soldiers had searched, had revealed nothing to do with Marie de Mont.

“It seems to be a wash-out,” the prince groaned as he and Ben took a brief refreshment at the bar while a full squad of soldiers was finishing their search of the stables and most of the female guest rooms upstairs ... and seemingly finding lots of nothing anywhere.

It was while listening to the gleeman telling stories to a group of half a dozen children of the various nobs and well-to-dos that Ben had a sudden flash of inspiration. The gleeman was very good, really one of the two or three best he’d even heard, even at the High-King’s court. He could do it all, sing, play at least three instruments, tell stories for children or an epic tale for the adults, and also do handstands, juggle and perform other acrobatics. He was also, from the coin that was regularly dropping into his bowl, raking in a small fortune. Some of the coins in his bowl were good silver!

“I think we’re both in the wrong profession,” Ben muttered to the surly and very unhappy prince, as the gleeman finished his tale to much applause (and more coins) and started telling a new well-known folk tale about two children forced into their forest by their wicked stepmother. With startling precision, the gleeman perfectly mimicked the voice of the evil woman and then gave equally realistic voices to the roles of the abandoned little boy and girl, and then voiced their encounter with a malevolent witch, also presented in yet another entirely accurate female voice.”

“Carl, we’ve both been buggered! She ... or rather HE, has quite nearly outwitted us all, and nearly perfectly too! I’m going to walk over to the gleeman and give him a couple of coppers, and I’ll give you odds of two-to-one that I’ll find traces of chalk, or common wig powder on his shoulders and maybe also on his boots ... which even from here where I sit, seem to be a good match in style and size to the men’s boot prints we found earlier.”

“No bets. I think I’m beginning to see where your thoughts are leading.”

Ben walked over toward the gleeman, close enough to flip a small silver coin into the bowl without disrupting either the seated children or disturb the performance. As engrossing as it was, no one seemed to bear any mind of his approach and slightly quick withdrawal.

“No doubt about it,” Ben whispered to the prince, who being out on the trail all day long in his plain dirty field leathers with no unit markings or insignia, thus appeared much like any common guard, hunter or mercenary soldier who’d spent a long day outdoors. The prince too looked absolutely nothing like the 3^rd heir to the throne or even a senior army officer, either.