All of the key players had assembled in the middle of the village. Harold and Alain were staring each other down, and a collection of other men and women surrounded the two in a large circle. As I rounded the group to try and find a gap through, I came across Tahar and Cali, who had stopped to watch proceedings from the side-lines.
"What's going on?" I asked, causing Tahar to jump with a start.
Cali sneered, "It seems that they're arguing about the matter we discussed in the quarry. One of the conspirators told the victim's family, and now Harold is trying to punish him for it."
As I thought. The climax to this story had occurred without me. That Alain was at the front defending the one who spoke out was my sole contribution. I had planted a seed of doubt in him when we talked a few days ago. "It's not right!" he hollered in indignant anger, "All of this, and for what? So you can keep secrets from the rest of us?"
"You're just an apprentice boy! You should keep your bloody nose out of our business!"
"I'm man enough to know when you've all stepped wrong. It's madness. What kind of coward are you? You kill a man in cold blood and then lie to the rest of us."
"The dragon killed him," Harold said – firm in his defence to the very end.
"Bullshit. Mersin already told us everything that happened out there, he couldn't let something that terrible weigh on his shoulders any longer."
Harold tried to change the topic, "It's still out there!"
And that was my cue to jump in; "No. It's not." The crowd turned to me with an arm broken, bruised cheekbone and all. A small berth opened and allowed me to pass through into the middle. "We have slain it, just like I said we would." The villagers started to whisper to each other in disbelief. It was an outrageous claim for a stranger to make.
Harold rolled his eyes, "Bah. And where is your proof? Those injuries could have come from a simple fall. We all know how treacherous the landscape is here."
"Those terrible cries, the ones that echoed even here day and night – they've stopped, have they not?" It wasn't the best argument I could make, but I was essentially stalling for time. A contradictory opinion was going to put him on the backfoot evidence or not.
What I didn't know was that Tahar had decided to gather a few souvenirs from the beast while I was out. She walked to my side with an absurdly sized fang resting on her palms. It was yellowed with age and use, and its length was enough to pass the middle of her body. The crowd murmured to each other again as the hunting trophy was held out in plain view.
"Apologies for not saying something, Ren. This was as much as I could gather."
Harold's mouth was held open in disbelief. His eyes bugged out of his head. The bravado soon returned much to my irritation; "It's fake, clearly. There's no way a trio of people like you could have killed that thing!"
"Whether we killed it isn't important though, is it?" I sneered, "An eye witness statement from a trusted member of the community, a collective secret and guilt shared between you. Why don't you just come out with it and stop wasting everyone's time?"
"I won't entertain any false allegations from outsiders! I see your game – you've wormed your way into his head, stitched together this story to try and rip us apart!"
I stared at him. He shuffled nervously, sensing that the people around him weren't so convinced anymore. I didn't have any skin in this game. I backed away and allowed Alain to continue, "Ever since you came back after the first attack – you've been behaving strangely. And it's not just me, everyone else thinks the same." A chorus of affirmative calls emerged from the villagers. He nodded and turned to one of the other men in the crowd, "Mersin told us. You found a holy item buried out there, and then you killed him because you thought he'd reveal it to the Inquisition."
Now that was something I didn't know. It was the kind of thing that only a paranoid idiot would come up with. The Inquisition had no interest in a place like this – where there was neither money or influence to curry. I had heard rumours that the Inquisition collected old Branch Church relics and kept them in a library, whether it was true was ultimately meaningless. They'd acted on the belief that it was.
"They don't deserve to put their hands on any of them!" Harold cried, "Heathens, the lot of them! Abandoning the faithful to protect themselves, and only themselves. They'd put us lot to the sword without a second thought."
"He wasn't going to tell anyone," Mersin objected, "But you just had to go and overreact! You and Parke, you've got blood on your hands." Parke, who I presumed was the man stood beside Harold with a huge, bushy beard – tugged on his collar and swallowed nervously. Mersin had outed him in front of the whole village. "I saw it with my own bloody eyes, I did. You and him, throwing a lit vial at him like a pair of thugs. I can't get that image out of my head now. Poor bloke, it did look like a dragon had mangled him after you were finished!"
Emotions were running high, and Mersin's voice was starting to crack from the stress. Sensing that it was no longer in their interest to hide the truth, the rest of the workers started to nod along with him. There was a profound feeling of shame coming from their group. They had become complicit in a terrible crime, all for the sake of their religion. But they were not willing to sacrifice their livelihoods now for his sake.
Perhaps more of them had been involved. Mersin may have taken the chance to throw them under the bus to protect himself. I didn't know, and I didn't really care. In reality the one who pointed the finger first got to set the opening salvos of an emerging narrative. Harold and Parke didn't even try to wriggle their way out of it. They didn't accuse him of making it up. Like a shifting tide, the argument changed.
"What we found out there is more important than any of our lives. Something buried and hidden from the inquisition for hundreds of years, perfectly preserved, a piece of a real Branch tree! I couldn't take the risk. This is our salvation I'm talking about! We can be something more than just a small village."
Alain was furious, "What in the Gods' names are you talking about?"
"We can be the starting point for the second birth of the church. We, who've held onto our faith through the toughest times, does it not make sense that we will be duly rewarded? This artefact is a sign sent to us by the Branch!"
I was getting embarrassed just listening to this guy. Starting a church, especially one with hundreds of years of pre-existing history was a profoundly stupid idea. What authority could they claim to have over it and its followers? Where was the money, influence and men at arms that allowed the former Church to control a vast swathe of territory in Sull and the Petty Kingdoms that eventually formed the Federation? It was tantamount to declaring war on the world. The Kingdom of Sull had seen to remove the influence of the Church for a reason. Anyone trying to stir up trouble and bring it back would be put down by force. This was a small village of a few hundred people.
"You really are crazy, aren't you?" I laughed. "What a stupid idea. The Head Minister would personally ride up here just to stick a knife in you."
"T-The Branch will protect-"
"The Branch isn't going to do shit," I spat, "Hoping that a divine force comes to do the hard work for you is insanity. Do you think that anyone here would be willing to bet their lives on something as nebulous as that?"
There may have been a few in the crowd who were filled with a similar feeling of bravado, but peer pressure won the day. There was a gallery of disapproving faces and shaking heads around us. Nobody wanted to lose their community on a mad bet like restarting the Church. It had provided them with comfort and faith – but earning true devotion was difficult without a formal structure to hold the reigns.
Alain wasn't going to let him dance any longer; "So, you admit it then? You were the one who killed Francis? How can you live with yourself, you fool! I dare you to look his poor lady in the eye and tell her all of this."
The crowd roared to life, "Yeah!"
"How could you?"
They were not pleased. All of his excuses had worn their patience thin, and to think that a member of the community had committed such a huge betrayal. Crimes in villages like this were rare. Everyone knew everyone. You could be identified easily and people liked to talk. Harold had admitted to his part in the murder. The question was what kind of punishment would be doled out. It would be a slap on the wrist or a quick and stomach-churning end.
"I think we need to get a clearer picture of what happened," one of the women at the front demanded, "So we know how many people were involved in this plot."
"Aye!"
"As the lady says!"
"Mister Franz, would you please take the lead on this matter?"
The oldest man at the meeting was allowed through to the inner circle. He was one of the village elders. While it was an archaic and strange system, older men and women were still often placed into positions of responsibility by their people. It was a popular stereotype that they were experienced and level headed. This particular elder was very, very old. His face creased in on itself and he was almost completely bald.
He steepled his hands together and bowed, "If that is what the village demands. I shall question the parties involved and present a conclusion. Then we can decide on an appropriate punishment. Until then, we shall lock these two away so that they may consider their defence properly."
With nowhere to run and people on all sides, Parke and Harold had no choice. Two pairs of old iron cuffs were passed through the audience and into the elder's palms. He approached both men and shackled them. The whole thing was over in a matter of moments. They faded back into the crowd, several of whom followed them both to an unseen destination. One of their homes would likely be used as a temporary cell until they decided what to do with them.
The punishment for murder was usually very simple – an execution using their method of choice. The villagers may also choose to defer the matter to a warden the next time they head into the city, an easier way of warding off accusations of an unfair lynching. Not that it mattered. The wardens were just as emotionally compromised as the victims were. I had even seen some of those criminals released in exchange for a shockingly small bribe.
"We should go," Sandra whispered into my ear.
I never did learn what happened to them. Cali, Tahar and Sandra led me back to the old chapel atop the hill. In a roundabout way it had been partly responsible for all of this in the first place. A man blinded by ambition, without the insight to know when he had gone too far. When all was said and done, it was a relatively successful excursion. I'd gotten away with some injuries and eight years to burn, Cali and Tahar were unharmed, and we'd only spent less than a week in the village.
If only every job I took went this smoothly.
Work was the last thing on my mind though. As soon as I was ready to make the long walk back to the city I was going to take a few weeks off to rest my mind as well. It had been a very stressful period. With any luck we could find somewhere nice to stay and take stock of what we'd done and learned before the next thing came kicking down my door.