The center of the village clustered along the main road near a little river, a tributary of the Bernum. Wood, stone, and wattle-and-daub buildings with shake or grass-thatched roofs lined the road, beginning just past the wooden bridge and ending halfway up the hillside toward the manor house. Between them were a variety of shops. From several buildings smoke rose, the blackest of which came from the smithy. Their horses announced their arrival with a loud hollow clop clip clop as they crossed the bridge. Heads turned, each villager nudging the next, fingers pointing in their direction. Those they passed stopped what they were doing to follow, keeping a safe distance.

“Good afternoon,” Hadrian offered, but no one replied. No one smiled.

Some whispered in the shelter of doorways. Mothers pulled children inside and men picked up pitchforks or axes.

“This is where you grew up?” Arista whispered to Hadrian. “Somehow it seems more like how I would imagine Royce’s hometown to be.”

This brought a look from Royce.

“They don’t get too many travelers here,” Hadrian explained.

“I can see why.”

They passed the mill, where a great wooden wheel turned with the power of the river. The town also had a leatherworker’s shop, a candlemaker, a weaver, and even a shoemaker. They were halfway up the road when they reached the brewer.

A heavyset matron with gray hair and a hooked nose worked outside beside a boiling vat next to a stand of large wooden casks. She watched their slow approach, then walked to the middle of the road, wiping her hands on a soiled rag.

“That’ll be fer enough,” she told them with a heavy south-province accent.

She wore a stained apron tied around her shapeless dress and a kerchief tied over her head. Her feet were bare and her face was covered in dirt and sweat.

“Who are ya and what’s yer business here? And be quick afore the hue and cry is called and yer carried to the bailiff. We don’t stand fer troublemakers here.”

“Hue and cry?” Arista softly asked.

Hadrian looked over. “It’s an alarm that everyone in the village responds to. Not a pretty sight.” His eyes narrowed as he studied the woman. Then he slowly dismounted.

The woman took a step back and grabbed hold of a mallet used to tap the kegs. “I said I’d call the hue and cry and I meant it!”

Hadrian handed his reins to Royce and walked over to her. “If I remember correctly, you were the biggest troublemaker in the village, Armigil, and in close to twenty years, it doesn’t seem much has changed.”

The woman looked surprised, then suspicious. “Haddy?” she said in disbelief. “That can’t be, can it?”

Hadrian chuckled. “No one’s called me Haddy in years.”