Chapter 4

The door to the tavern swung open with a groan. Isobel waved her hand, causing all the candles to spring to life and the firepit to erupt in a roaring blaze all at once.

“You’re upset,” said Samuel.

“Nonsense,” said Isobel. “That buffoon of a lord mayor simply bored me to tears. I wish only that we were not obligated to wait until the meal was complete before abandoning his company. That idiotic recessional took nearly an hour.”

“It is an unfortunate aspect of court society,” Samuel said. “I didn’t expect to be held to the same standards during a village feast, but apparently Lord Erick has been studying. I arranged for our departure as quickly as I could.”

Isobel stopped in the middle of the room and exhaled, more heavily and with more meaning than Samuel had seen from the mage in the short time he’d known her. She spun on her heel and turned to face him.

“Thank you, Samuel.”

“For what?”

“For taking on the brunt of the conversation, and keeping that foul oaf distracted from laying his hands on me any further. You promised to assist with the putting on of appearances tonight, and you have more than lived up to your word.”

Samuel smiled at her. “You’re quite welcome, Sister. And I must say, as dreadful as the company may have been, the food was excellent. Easily the best meal I’ve ever eaten in the countryside. Remind me to compliment his cooks, if we ever get the chance to meet them.”

The sound of someone softly knocking echoed across the common room. Samuel looked up, reaching for his dagger instinctively, but the sound hadn’t come from the front door. Isobel stopped him with a hand on his arm, looking towards the bar and the galley.

“My lord, my lady,” came a gentle voice they’d heard before. A woman stepped cautiously through the swinging door from the galley, and as she took down the hood of her cloak they recognized Clarissa, the woman serving them at the head table during the banquet. “I apologize for the disturbance, but I must speak with you.”

“The clandestine manner of your entrance belies the importance,” said Isobel. “I believed the rear entrance to this building to be locked.”

“It, ah, it is, my lady.”

“I see. Also, we have already been introduced. You may call me Isobel.”

“Of course, my—” She caught herself, smiling nervously.

“Please,” Samuel said, “take a seat. What troubles you?”

Clarissa sat, arranging her cloak about her and smoothing her clothes nervously as she did. “I hardly know where to begin, but our village is desperate and we have nowhere to turn. Our people toil for long hours and are beaten for no reason. Our land lord is a despot and a murderer—”

“A murderer?” exclaimed Samuel.

“Perhaps you should begin at the beginning,” said Isobel.

“You’re right, of course,” Clarissa sighed. “My lady, I know that you are not a stranger to this village.”

“That’s correct.”

“And when you were last here, our minister, Paul, was in charge.”

“I remember him. He was a kind man.”

“He was my brother,” Clarissa said. “He was kind, and he did his best for us. But he was not the wisest when it came to knowing which way the winds were blowing. Of course you also know of the goblin tribe that lives in the Red Forest, and the troubles we have with them.”

“Indeed I do. I have dealt with them before on behalf of the village.”

“The rumor about town is that you somehow managed to forge diplomatic ties with their hobgoblin leaders.”

“That is correct; I have found them receptive to such an approach.”

“Whatever you were able to do, it worked. For a while, at least. After your last visit, we went an entire growing season without a single goblin raid. Our livestock flourished, and our harvest festival was the best we’d had in years. But then everything changed.”

“What happened?” said Samuel.

“At the end of the growing season each year, we bring the livestock in from the grazing fields. It gets cold at night, and it’s just easier to keep track of them if they’re in the barns. It’s also safer, because the goblins prefer to hit the outlying fields where our militia can’t get to them fast enough. And then one night, out of nowhere, a band of goblins attacked. They actually came all the way into town and set fire to one of the barns. We put it out, but they made off with most of a flock of sheep, and killed whatever they couldn’t carry.”

“But you said they hadn’t been raiding you at all?”

“Up until that night, they hadn’t. I don’t know what happened – maybe we got lazy, or just stopped paying attention. But that was the first time they’d ever come into the town like that, and people got scared.”

“Something must have driven them further out of the woods, or made them more desperate,” said Isobel.

“And how does this relate to Lord Erick?” said Samuel.

“As I said, we got scared. They turned to my brother for help, but he had no answers for them. We are not a warlike people, and Paul was not that kind of leader. But it was around that time that Lord Erick came to town. He told us he’d heard of the goblin raids and had been given the task of defending Harburg from invasion. I was suspicious, but Paul seemed happy to have someone there who wanted to take charge and knew what he was talking about, at least in terms of defense.”

“That seems fairly reasonable, as these things go,” said Samuel.

“But it didn’t make any sense,” Clarissa insisted. “It hadn’t even been a full week since the raid. No one had come to visit Harburg since, and we sent no messengers asking for help. Unless Paul took it upon himself to seek aid through some other means, I don’t know how anyone could have heard about our troubles. And I mean no offense to the Queen, but when have her lords ever acted that swiftly in service of one of the outlying villages?”

“Are you suggesting Lord Erick had something to do with the goblin raids?” said Isobel.

“I don’t know how he could have done,” said Clarissa, “but there has to be some explanation.”

“Go on,” prompted Samuel.

“Erick started gathering up volunteers to train for a new militia. It wasn’t hard to get people interested; there’s not a lot going on around here in the winter, and other than the fact that he had them drilling outside I think folks were happy to feel like we were doing something. But the raids kept coming.”

“It sounds like you were prepared for them, though.”

Clarissa laughed, but there was no mirth in it. “Hardly,” she said. “We’re still farmers and tavern-keepers at heart. Sure, we fought off the goblins, and we didn’t lose as much livestock as before, but we buried four villagers that weekend. Often it was fewer than that, but sometimes it wasn’t. Soon enough, the entire town was clamoring for more.”

“More what?”

“I don’t know, exactly. More weapons? More militia? More blood. More anything. Paul knew that the goblins had been willing to negotiate in the past, and he wanted to hold out for your next visit. He tried to calm people with prayers, saying that life on the frontier was hard and that we had enough reserves to get through, but they wouldn’t listen. Too many of them had developed a taste for blood, thanks to Erick’s warmongering. Erick promised us better defenses and the chance to take the fight to the goblins instead of sitting back and waiting for them to attack us.”