Raffe, still keeping his hands where they could see them, nodded to the wrecked courtyard. 'I came looking for a friend, but the cottage is empty.'
'Friend, is it? Which friend?'
Raffe took a gamble. 'The tanner's wife. She is kin to my. .
He fumbled in his mind for a non-blood relation, but the young man didn't wait for him to finish.
'She's got a lot of kin all of a sudden.'
'What happened here?' Raffe asked. 'Was there an accident?'
The youth took another menacing step towards him. 'Weren't no accident. Soldiers from the castle came just afore dawn. First we knew of it was the hound barking and the sounds of them smashing their way through the door. Giles was roaring and Margery screaming fit to cut through stone.'
Raffe's heart was hammering in his chest so loudly he thought the two men must surely hear it. 'Did they arrest them?'
'Course they bloody did. What else would they have come for?'
'Old Giles, he didn't go quietly though,' his brother added. 'Those shits killed his dog just to stop it howling. When old Giles saw that, he went mad. Gave out a few bloody noses and black eyes afore one of the bastards cracked him over the head and dragged him off. Then Margery went for the soldier with her iron skillet like the old warrior queen herself, but it didn't do no good. In the end they managed to get her on the ground and tied her hands good and tight, but she was still trying to kick them as they led her off.'
The lad's eyes had lost their suspicious glare and were alight with the excitement of a good fight which would lose nothing in the telling around the fire for years to come.
'Course all the tanners came running, trying to help, but we couldn't get anywhere near, for there was a ring of those arse-lickers round the yard holding us off with their pikes. We could have taken them easily enough just with our bare hands, but they said any man that tried to interfere would be arrested too . . . for treason'. His voice dropped to an awed whisper as he pronounced the word.
There was a question Raffe badly needed to ask, but he had no idea how to do so without arousing their suspicion even further. The tanners would sooner die than denounce one of their own, but they wouldn't think twice about reporting Raffe to the sheriff, especially if they thought it might help Giles and his wife. Raffe was still trying to decide how to phrase the question when it was answered for him.
The brother holding the iron bar had still not lowered it, and now he lifted it a little higher.
'Soldiers weren't alone. I saw that little runt standing off at the far end of the lane. I reckon it was him who brought the king's men here and pointed out Giles's cottage, 'cause they went straight to it. No one from the castle would know which was Giles's yard unless it were shown to them. And what's more, he didn't run off when he saw what was happening. He stood there bold as a stag in rut, watching like he was enjoying it. He knew fine rightly he was in no danger of being taken himself.'
The lad's eyes narrowed. 'This man, he only came here to stay with Giles a few days ago. None of us had ever clapped eyes on him afore, but Margery said he was her kin. And now there's another of you claiming kinship. Anyone would think she'd come into a fortune.'
'This man,' Raffe asked cautiously, 'had he a withered hand?'
The two brothers nodded slowly and, glancing at each other, took another step towards Raffe.
'I came here to warn Margery that they were in danger. This man ... he was only pretending to be kin . . . Margery had not seen her real relative before, so she'd only his word.'
'Pity you didn't get here sooner,' the younger of the two said sympathetically.
But his older brother lifted his chin. 'Aye, but that doesn't explain why he should want to pass himself off as family. They'd not got a spare penny to bless themselves with. And why would this man want to have poor old Giles arrested? He's no traitor, just trying to earn an honest living same as the rest of us. Why him? You tell me that!'
He jabbed at Raffe with the iron bar, not hard enough to