“Off with a cohort checking a report of bandits,” the man said. “Where’s our pigs?”

“Trouble,” Arvid said. “It was an ambush. Headman claimed he’d sold for a better price, refused to give the advance back, and then someone started shooting at us.” He showed the arrow that had been stuck in the seat back. “There are more of these on the tailgate and back of the seat.” The sentry craned to look, then nodded. “If you want my guess, this is some of the same sort you had in Vonja last year. Can I send someone to let the Count know?”

“Captain Garralt is in camp. Tell him.”

“Thank you,” Arvid said. He drove into the camp, turned the team over to the supply sergeant, and went looking for Captain Garralt, taking with him the arrows yanked from the wagon.

“Damn,” the captain said when Arvid told what happened. “Cooks were asking when you’d get back with the critters. They have the poles up and ready. Market open today?”

“Not for live meat,” Regar said. “Day after tomorrow.”

“Should I bring back a carcass?” Arvid asked.

“Probably best,” the captain said. “Any idea of the price?”

Arvid didn’t know, but Regar did; the captain whistled, but handed Arvid the money. The team hadn’t been unharnessed yet, so they took the same wagon into the city. The only large carcasses left were not worth the price; Arvid managed to haggle them down but not, he thought, enough. Arcolin was not going to be happy, and neither were the troops.

“How many is this for?” Regar asked as they started for the camp again, three rather scrawny beef halves in the back of the wagon.

“Over three hundred,” Arvid said. “Safer to figure three hundred fifty.”

“That’s … a town.”

“Yes. And they eat a lot.”

At the camp, the cooks scowled at the quality of the meat—and no wonder, Arvid thought—but Garralt had told them what had happened, and they did not complain to him. When they’d pulled the halves out of the wagon, he and Regar drove down to the stream and spent a half-glass cleaning the wagon bed.

“I don’t see why,” Regar said.

“Because the Count insists on it,” Arvid said. “For a man engaged in the business of killing and wounding, he has a surprising dislike of bad smells.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

As Regar had insisted he did not want Arvid in his house, Arvid expected they would spend the night in the camp, and so it proved. Before full dawn, they walked back to the city and Regar’s home and stoneyard. Regar banged on his house door, and his wife passed him a leather bag of tools, then shut the door again. By daylight, they were hard at work. Four other men showed up and began work under Regar’s direction.