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commandant s leg. My lord, you came after me!
Get away, boy, Burnond said crossly. We re here to settle these
outlaws, not save you. He looked to the other side, where Sandys stood
with her two surviving men. Put them in chains, Burnond said. Add
them to the ones we ve already bagged.
Foot soldiers prodded Sandys forward. She glared at Roder, He
couldn t fathom her expression it was more than anger. Hatred? Or
something like grudging respect?
Burnond ordered the herald to blow his cornet, and more men emerged
from the trees. Some were in the livery of the Fangoth garrison, others
Roder recognized from Castle Camlargo. If both knightly contingents
were present, then there were some two hundred Knights and men-at-arms
in the clearing.
Bring the prisoners along! Burnond shouted.
Lines of captured brigands, chained together in long strings, filed past
Burnond Everride. Roder was astonished at their number. Carefully,
diffidently, he asked where the other outlaws came from.
Burnond cleared his throat. We took Bloody Gottrus s camp last
night, he said. Gottrus himself died fighting, but we captured most of his
gang.
Sandys and her two surviving comrades were thrown in with the rest.
Roder stood quietly beside the commandant until a shackled Sandys
staggered past. The sight of her in chains affected him strangely.
Sandys he said, stepping toward her.
Burnond ordered the prisoners to halt. Is this the bandit known as Lord
Sandys?
She looked at the ferns, trodden into pulp by the Knights. That s her,
Roder said quietly.
Her? There ve been rumors to that effect, but I didn t believe them.
Very well, let her be so marked. A squire hung a wooden tag around
Sandys s neck with her name painted on it. Burnond was about the dismiss
her when Roder remembered the dispatch.
Wait! he said, darting out to snatch the parchment from Sandys s
boot. Your dispatch, my lord!
My what? Oh, that. Burnond took the scroll from Roder and
crumpled it in his fist. It s nothing.
What? It s a vital message for Lord Laobert!
Still playing your part, I see, Sandys said wearily. Give it up! It was
all a ruse, wasn t it? She nodded at Roder. You sent this mercenary into
the forest posing as a Knight, to find us out, didn t you?
Burnond arched an iron-gray brow. Roder s no Knight, and he s no
mercenary, either.
You sent out this clever spy with a fake dispatch, she said, knowing
the forest brotherhood couldn t resist waylaying him. All the while you
were on his trail with your troops, waiting to pounce on us.
In a manner of speaking, my lord. Roder s mission was a diversion,
to distract your kind from our forces moving into the woods from east and
west. I never dreamed this trap of mine would catch such big game as you
and Bloody Gottrus. You re wrong about the boy, though he s no spy,
no righting man at all. He s the stableboy at Castle Camlargo, that s all.
A silence ensued as Sandys glanced from Roder to Burnond and back
to Roder.
The boy s a fool, Burnond said. He has no aptitude for the manly
arts.
Sandys managed to smile through her swollen lips. I m the fool,
Burnond. Roder had me convinced up to the point I discovered he
couldn t read. After that I had him pegged as a bounty hunter. Stableboy?
Your stable-boy attacked me on foot while I was mounted, and only his
quick thinking kept me from getting away. If all your Knights were as
manly as Roder, the bandits would have been cleared from this forest long
ago.
He stared at them both, speechless. Lord Burnond had tricked him and
now exposed him as an utter dunce and now it seemed that Lord Sandys
the outlaw was sticking up for him.
Your eloquence is misplaced, Burnond replied loftily. Those who
resist the forces of order will inevitably fall. That is their destiny. Roder s
destiny is in the stable at Camlargo. In two days he ll be back there, and
you ll be in the dungeon for your many crimes. Move them out, sergeant!
The line of prisoners lurched onward. His face burning, Roder watched
Sandys go. In fact, he found he couldn t keep his eyes off her.
* * * * *
The capture of Lord Sandys and a large portion of Bloody Gottrus s
feared outlaw band created a sensation in the countryside. People flocked
to Castle Camlargo from as far away as Lemish to see the infamous
brigands brought to justice. Burnond Everride compounded matters by
issuing a proclamation that anyone with evidence against Gottrus s or
Sandys s gangs should come to Camlargo and confront the villains at their
trial. People came by the hundreds to do just that.
All of this passed with Roder back in the stable, diligently forking hay
into the byres and mucking out the many stalls. Berry was back, having
been recovered from Sandys s camp by Burnond s men. In his own stoic
way, the old horse seemed glad to see Roder again. He demonstrated his
feelings by stepping on Roder s toes with a heavy iron-shod hoof.
A scaffold was erected in the castle courtyard. Here the outlaws were
paraded before the angry crowd one by one, to receive their howls for
vengeance. Roder waited for Sandys to appear, but Burnond was saving
for last the rare spectacle of hanging a female outlaw. Roder tried once to
visit her in her cell, but the Knights on duty would not allow him in.
Go back to your dunghill, boy, one of them told him. Leave justice
to real Knights.
The second day of the trial went much the same as the first. Chained
prisoners were led out of the dungeon to the wooden platform, to await
their rum before their accusers. It was midafternoon before Roder spotted
Sandys at the end of the line. Her cuts and bruises looked improved, and
she d been put in clothes suitable for her gender. In a simple homespun
shift, she looked more like a farmer s wife and less like an infamous
outlaw.
Things went slowly. Some of Gottrus s worst men were ahead of her,
and the accusations against them were lengthy and many. Some of the
tales of murder, theft, and rape were lurid and horrible. The outlaws were
all crowded together on the raised platform. Between chores Roder
returned to the stable door to check on Sandys and monitor her progress to
the scaffold.
It was late morning. Soon the proceedings would have to break for
lunch. Guards were thinking about their meal, and the crowd was howling
at a particularly venomous outlaw. While the courtyard was distracted,
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