When I woke the following morning I quickly got dressed and headed to the map room. I had a quick look at the maps of Membe's border with Kincarn while I waited for Erdal to show up.
At forty-four, Sir Erdal Spaci was the scion of a once-prosperous family of knights that had two generations ago fallen on hard times and was slowly recovering its strength. He wasn't exactly what anyone would describe as the ideal knight having to wear a pair of spectacles due to his short-sightedness and while he had been handsome in his youth, he was no longer so due to a scar that ran from just below his right ear to his mouth and another smaller one on his forehead. He had gone bald a few years ago and was a widower twice over with a ten-year-old daughter who lived with his mother whom he would try and see at least once a year if not more.
"Milord you have summoned me and thus I have come, so what do you wish of me?"
"Erdal last night I received information that a band of bandits will shortly commence operating in Kincarn from a base just within our side of the border with them, what do you say to that."
"Well, first I shall ask if you trust your source?"
"In the short term explicitly, longer-term well time will tell."
"Was he able to be more precise than just within our side of the border?"
"Alas no."
"In that case do you already have a plan in mind for how to find it or do you wish my help in formulating one?"
"I have a plan."
"Well let's hear it."
And thus did I explain it to him and he took a few minutes to think about it before responding.
"Well now that seems perhaps overly complicated but nothing else readily comes to mind so why not. I suppose you wish to take an active role in this endeavor."
"You are correct."
"And I cannot I suppose talk you out if it can I?"
"No you cannot and before stating that my time would be better spent elsewhere I must reply that our next moves have already been worked out and until negotiations with the escheator run their course I am not really needed."
"In that case, I must insist that two bodyguards accompany you, and please don't even think about ditching them, not for a moment."
"If you insist but I get to pick them."
"You can pick one of them only, I will supply the other."
"All right."
"In that case are you ready to turn this plan of yours into something more concrete?"
"Of course, who else do we require to do so?"
"Best to keep the numbers down, two or three others should be enough I think."
"Elias, Dusti, and Turell if he's about, work for you?"
"The master of the hunt?"
"If he isn't familiar with the border area himself he likely knows everyone who is."
I had a page send for the three of them and not knowing the whereabouts of Turell I was unsure if he would be available or not but luckily, he was and when they were all gathered in the map room, we began to turn my basic plan into reality. As I had suspected while Turell wasn't himself knowledgeable about all of the border area one of his assistants by the name of Andrey Henao was and he was promptly sent for.
"Well sir if you think they're hiding in the border area somewhere then there are only a few places that I know of where that might be, but I can't claim to know every inch of the place. That being the case I think it likely that one of them must be from the area or know someone who is. Perhaps you should ask the Bailiff if he knows of anyone from the area that has run afoul of the law."
"Good idea Andrey, I should have thought of it myself, page if you please send for the Bailiff."
The bailiff, Gustav Varian arrived and was questioned about criminals from the area.
"I can only think of two individual that meet your criteria Sire but one of them is dead and the other is in the dungeon so it can't have been them, not directly anyway though perhaps they told someone when they were still free or a family member did it out of spite. If you want I can question the prisoner and see if he know of any hiding places in the area but it might take a while to get an answer out of him.
"What's he in for and what crimes did the dead one commit?"
"Well sire the dead one, Callan Sawka was killed three years ago while trying to steal from the baronial horse herd two years ago but he is also known to have committed a wide range of other crimes from theft to selling stolen goods."
"Does he have any family do you know?"
"Well if I remember correctly his father died some years and his elder and only brother took over the small family farm just at the edge of the forest about a mile from the border."
"I wonder how that farms doing, Seneschal have someone look it up on our records now what about the prisoner?"
"Edison Sturgess sire he's in for nearly killing a man in a bar fight shortly before your return but he's wanted in Barlean for housebreaking and in Kincarn for clipping. He has no remaining family that we know of they having all died in a forest fire when he was twelve."
"See what you can get out of him Gustav and even if they haven't fallen on hard times we'll have to pay Callan brothers farm a visit during our search of the area."
Gustav left us to pay a visit to Edison and Dusti sent a page to ask a clerk to search for information on the Sawka farm and then report to us.
While we waited to hear back from either we planned our search of the border area as best we could.
The clerk showed up an hour or so later and informed us that the Sawka family had been late paying their taxes four years ago and the lease on their farm was up for renewal in two years but other than that everything seemed normal.
Gustav took over twice as long to get back to us and was only able to add one more likely hiding spot for the bandits.