Chapter 34: Borig and Felonar

Seeing Stefan distracted by the three nattering monks, Jonathan handed the calves’ lead ropes to Manfred, put his arm around Cyri’s shoulders, and made for the gate.

“Cristiana won! We got the calves!” Manfred shouted gleefully to Garburk, who blanched and backed away, making the sign of the cross.

The calves, frolicking along at the ends of their ropes, seemed as pleased as Manfred—and looked both alert and curious when he twirled around and, skipping backward, exclaimed, “Jonathan, Jonathan, what are we going to name them?”

“Cristiana won them, so she can name them.” Jonathan didn’t mean to sound curt, but he was furious with himself that he’d let Cyri go off on her own. Anxious to get her away, he hurried toward the field where he’d left his wagon.

“What about calling them Bow and Arrow, Cristiana, because you won them with a bow and arrow? Or maybe Beauty and Browneyes, because they’re beautiful and they have brown eyes?” Not stifled by the sharpness with which Jonathan had spoken to him, Manfred gamboled along, trying out possibilities and interspersing his suggestions with “Are those good names, Cristiana?”

By the stiffness in her shoulders and in her voice as she answered, “Yes, very good,” Jonathan could tell Cyri was shaken, either because she realized the danger she’d been in or by his brusqueness—or, remembering that she thought him one of the shrine’s servants—maybe because she thought he had no business putting his arm around her. But this was not the place for explanations, so he kept his hold as he maneuvered through the jumble of wagons and found his own. It was, as he’d hoped, packed and ready.

The men he paid to guard it, however, were nowhere in sight.

In the ten years that Borig and Felonar had accompanied Jonathan to the weekly market and the twice-yearly fairs, they had never done more than nod and grunt when he spoke to them, and in all honesty, he had never been sure which of them was Borig and which was Felonar. Still, while neither man had ever lifted a hand to help him load the wagon, they had always been absolutely conscientious in keeping watch over it while he conducted his business in the village.

Their steadfast vigilance impressed him, since both men must have known as well as he did that their presence was merely for show and that it was the exorbitant fee Jonathan handed over to them at the beginning of each month, and which they in turn passed on to their bandit overlord, that kept him and his goods safe. Though never spoken aloud, that reality had been made clear the only time Jonathan had ever met the outlaw leader, Stilthrog, in person.

Jonathan had spent most of that day getting Cerdig buried—first explaining to the town’s three monks, whom he assumed to be the authorities regarding Christian interment rites, how he had found his servant hanging in the barn, then listening to them argue among themselves over whether, this being a presumptive suicide, there was any reason to hope, for the sake of Cerdig’s soul, that he had repented in his last moments and whether that possibility was sufficient to allow his burial in the church graveyard.

If he’d known then what he learned later, Jonathan wouldn’t have bothered asking. As it was, he accepted their apologetic refusal, took the corpse back to the inn, carried it to the edge of the field where he grew the hops for his ale, and spent the afternoon digging a grave in the half-frozen ground.

It was past dark when he finished. He wasn’t expecting any travelers at that time of year, and he knew the locals were no more likely to enter the inn than invite themselves into a plague house, so he was eating a solitary supper in his empty dining room when he heard the sound of horses.

Paralyzed by some primitive dread, he stayed seated, his soup spoon clutched in his hand, as the front door swung open and Stilthrog strode in with Borig and Felonar at his heels.

Despite a strong family resemblance between Stilthrog and Sedgewig, there was no mistaking the brigand for the shire master. Stilthrog was taller and thinner than his legitimate half brother, and he exuded an air of menace Jonathan had only experienced once before, when he had inadvertently stepped between a death adder and its prey.

Forcing himself to act as though this were no more than an unexpected but welcome late-night arrival, Jonathan got up from his half-eaten meal to serve the three men what he assumed would be the last tankards of ale he would ever pour.

After downing the drink, Stilthrog told Jonathan what it would cost to hire the men to guard his wagon when he traveled on the road.

While Borig and Felonar’s role was more ornamental than real, they had never before left their post.

“Cristiana! Cristiana!” Manfred’s eager voice penetrated Jonathan’s bewilderment. “What about ‘Buttercup’ and ‘Daisy’? Are those good names for the calves?”

The calves!

Even without sharing the local enthusiasm for watching people shoot arrows at straw targets, he should have realized the pair of ox calves was worth a fourth or more of the gatekeeper’s take—just as the private payment he made every month to Sedgewig was a fourth of what his inn earned for him.

Cyri had unknowingly taken the bribe meant for the shire master.

There was no time to waste. He had to get to the inn, empty his strongbox, and get back to Walmsly to pay whatever it would take to salve Sedgewig’s pride and fend off his half brother’s reprisal.

Assuming that it was the shire master he had to placate was the second big mistake Jonathan made that day. Thinking he would be able to buy his way out of the trouble he faced was the third.