I'm sorry I have no better news. On the bright side, we have had an unusually good year in all the eastern bartons, and the grange-lands themselves, and can help those west of us who are short. I've heard that some granges can't make their Hall share; you can see from our rolls that we can help out. I hope to come in sometime next spring—do you still have that dappled gray? I'll make an offer you can't refuse.

Sulinarrion

Marshal of Seameadow Grange

To Leward of Highgate Grange

Greetings:

Leward, why on earth did you place Paksenarrion with Keris? You must know what sort of rough clod he is! He came ramping in here complaining of her cowardice, and the dishonesty of Girdsmen, until I nearly hit him on the head to shut him up. Didn't you warn him that she couldn't fight? He fired her after a bandit group attacked the wagons and she didn't defend them. Of course she didn't defend them. I know plenty of men—some of them, unfortunately, yeomen—who would run like rabbits in an unexpected attack. When I finally got the whole story out of one of his guards, it turns out Keris himself simply fell off his horse and bellowed the whole time. Now she's disappeared, and Gird alone knows what's happened to her. Next time you need something handled with delicacy, don't go to Keris.

Sim Arisson,

Marshal of Lowfallow Grange

To the Marshal-General of Gird

Greetings:

In accordance with your request for information about the whereabouts and welfare of Paksenarrion Dorthansdotter, I am writing you a full report of recent events in this area.

Several weeks ago, I was touring the bartons and was not in Lowfallow for some days. When I returned, the innkeeper of the largest inn called me to attend one of his grooms, who had been badly burned in a barn fire. The short of it is that the innkeeper blamed one of the stablehands for the fire, and claimed she had been in league with two thieves, who had robbed the inn on the night of the fire. I think this person was Paksenarrion, from the description and name given by the innkeeper. Apparently she sought work there a few weeks before the fire, giving her name but no reference to the grange. She worked well, according to Jessim (the innkeeper), and slept in a shed near the kitchen. A few days before the fire he had said she and another stablehand might sleep in the barn, trade being slow. When the fire broke out, the groom discovered her in the barn, with her clothes as much off as on. He could see a candlestick in the midst of the fire. Jessim assumed she'd been whoring, and either set the fire as a distraction for the thieves or made it carelessly. Jessim drove her out that night, being angry, as he said. No one saw her leave town; it was bitter cold and windy, and most were fighting the fire. The next day he reported her description (but not her name, which he had forgotten until I questioned him) to the Duke's militia, as an accomplice of the thieves.