Marcus and Addis reined their horses up thirty paces from the execution. Marcus surveyed the crowd of stunned villagers, and his gaze quickly lit on two men wearing the livery of Arundal, the powerful lord who held some marcher estates, including Clun to the northeast.

They sat on stools near a tree stump to the side of the well, calmly drinking ale and munching cheese. Not their ale and cheese, Marcus guessed.

A stormy darkness began seeping into his head. He dismounted and pushed through the crowd. He heard his voice speak with a calm he did not feel. “What has happened here?”

One of the soldiers, a burly red-haired man, brushed his mouth of cheese crumbs. “They attacked a merchant from one of our towns. We were sent after them, and we caught them here.”

“You are no longer on Arundal’s lands, but mine.”

The man shrugged. “Saved you the trouble, then, didn’t we?”

The madness in his head grew. He looked at the hanging bodies. “You are sure these were the thieves?”

“Followed them here, as I said.”

The old woman released her grasp on the legs and spun around to Marcus. “My son had not left this village in weeks,” she said defiantly. “These men are not bandits or thieves. Ask anyone here. We tried to tell them, but they listened to no one.”

Addis led three members of their troop to the tree, and they began the task of cutting the bodies down.

Marcus watched the morbid ritual, and heard the wails of the women as they claimed their menfolk. The fury in his head turned ugly.

“It sounds as though you hanged the wrong men. I think that you wearied of tracking thieves you could not find, and decided to end the duty quickly. After all, one dead Welsh man is as good as another.”

They protested, but the glint in their eyes showed they agreed with the last part.

Marcus walked over to them, and absently poked at the stolen cheese. “You have dared to usurp my rights of judgment on my own land, and then execute innocent men while you eat their families’ food?”

The two ceased chewing and froze. Their nonchalant demeanor disappeared.

“Hard to say where one estate ends and another begins in these hills,” the red-haired man offered. “If we have erred, my lord will compensate you.”

“If you erred, it is not for your lord to pay, but for you.”

Silence fell all around them. The two men rose, and with quick, nervous glances took in the wall of armor and horses. It grew so quiet and still that a low whimper to Marcus’s left sounded like a scream of despair.

He turned, and saw a woman staggering from a tiny hut. Blood trickled from her lips where she had been struck, and other marks showed on her face and neck.