Ms. Armstrong keeps us there for as long as she can which, she says, is not as long as she would have liked. There are tears in her eyes and once again I’m impressed by her empathy and compassion. I want to ask what her first name is but I can’t quite dare to do so.

She gives us a final, teary squeeze, and then shoos us back toward the wagons of the plundered caravan.

Wendy and I don’t hurry.

When we get there, both of us hesitate to climb back onto the driver’s bench. We stand there, looking up at Caedi.

The healer’s motionless face is sad but steady. Her eyes are clear, watching the road ahead, and I can’t decide if they’re gray or green or an interesting shade of blue.

Wendy says, “We should make her a knight.”

I look at her.

“What?” she says. “We are supposed to establish an order of knights.” She nods over at Caedi. “She should be our first.”

“I guess I wasn’t thinking about her when I think of knights,” I say. “Knights are burly and coated in metal plate, but you’re right. That’s silly. Frankly, I haven’t been thinking about that stuff at all. Maybe we could train her as a monk too.”

It’s Wendy’s turn to blink. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

I clamber up onto the bench and offer Wendy a hand, not because she needs the help, but because she’s my wife and I like touching her.

Wendy grins and takes my hand. She gives it a squeeze, then she kisses me and we both take a deep breath. Time to focus and get on with the day.

 

 

We’re greeted at the gate by the watch. The sergeant sends one of his corporals running and asks us what happened.

I pull on the hem of my gambeson. “We’re deputies from Fort Reach sent to try to prevent an ambush of Captain Gray’s caravan. We were too late. We found them on the road. It’s…. It’s a complete loss. No survivors.”

The sergeant clears his throat. There’s water standing in his eyes. “Who…?”

Wendy says, “Captain Wilma Gray.”

The sergeant hangs his head and shakes it then, after a moment, he looks back up at us. “You did well to bring them home,” he says. “You must be exhausted. This street goes right to the best inn in—.”

I shake my head. “No time for that,” I say. “A few days ago, Gray sent some of her people here to recover from another raid. Do you know where they are?”

We’re directed to a small hospital. Where a place like this on Earth has to dedicate a lot of space to operating rooms, machinery, labs, and whatnot, on Green it’s mostly just open space with lots of beds for the grievously wounded to rest and recover.

Most of Gray’s people are recovered and moved on, but Thurston, the healer whose spear I now carry, is still here. His recovery has been slowed because he keeps helping out.

He’s happy to see us.

“How’s the spear working out for you?” he asks me.

“Fine,” I say. “I really like it. Thanks for giving it to me. You sure you don’t want it back?”

Thurston holds his hands up. “I’m sure,” he says. “I’m retiring. Gonna stay in Fort Reach and help with the healing in town. Now, I can tell you need to tell me something I won’t want to hear. Out with it. Who’s dead?”

He’s quiet a long time when we tell him. Thurston leans forward in his chair, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor. He sniffs and says, “She was a good woman. Proud. Good at her job. Gods damn these bandits. They didn’t used to be this bad.”

“When Gray was here last, did she pick up any letters for anybody at Fort Reach?” I ask.

Thurston nods. “Yeah. It’s a basic service. All the caravans do it every time.”

“Anything in the mail unusual that time?” asks Wendy.

Thurston gives it some thought before he shakes his head. “I don’t think so,” he says. “I’m sure I would’ve remembered.”

I have a hunch. “She pick up anything from any of the insurance people in town?” I ask.

“Yep,” says Thurston. “Bea Greensward over at Greensward’s Insurance had something for Olly Crocus.”

I’d gone through Crocus’s correspondence myself. There’d been no letter from any Greensward. “Where can we find her?” I ask.

 

 

Bea Greensward is human, in her early sixties, with more salt in her short updo than pepper. She looks a little like Bea Arthur from The Golden Girls except her face is broader. She sits behind her desk in a storefront much like Crocus’s back in Fort Reach. She’s wearing a smart cream colored tunic, jacket, and long skirt. Her fingernails clack on the wood of her desk as she studies us.

“You’re telling me that Olly Crocus was murdered because I responded to his letter?” she says. “Am I in any danger?” She doesn’t look scared. She’s just gathering her information.

“We don’t know,” says Wendy. “Can you tell us what the message was?”

Greensward sighs and leans back in her chair. “Olly wrote me late last month with a question. He wanted to know how often caravans that originated in Fort Reach were raided between here and Truhaven. He insures the ones from Fort Reach to Bull’s Tavern, you see, but I’m the principal provider for the next leg, from here to the capitol.”

“What did you find?” I ask.

Greensward scratches her cheek. “It was odd. None of the most expensively insured caravans were hit, very few of the least and smallest, but almost all of the ones in between are attacked and most of those attacks are successful to one extent or the other.”

“All?” I ask.

Greensward nods. “Almost. They were all attacked though. A couple of times the guards fought too well, I suppose. I’ve been looking into it since Olly asked me but haven’t been able to learn anything more. Nobody noticed since the Fort Reach caravan statistics get lost within all the other traffic down to Truhaven and, when you look at just that data, it looks like bandits are becoming an increasing problem, yes, but nothing more suspicious. You can only see it when you put all the information together.”

I say, “You told Mr. Crocus that somebody was telling the bandits which caravans to hit, didn't you?”

Greensward says, “Yes. It’s the only way to explain it. Somebody must be telling those kobolds which trains to hit and which to leave alone. Hitting the ones that are most heavily insured would make for quite the reward for criminals but it also would alert the king because of his bounty.”

“Right, the greatest treasures found by the adventurers from Fort Reach are promised to the king,” I say.

“Yes,” says Greensward. “The procedure is that the king’s agent pays the bounty right away in Fort Reach. At that point those items belong to his Royal Highness, and there’s a detailed record. His agent there in town and others would get involved if any of it went missing and the whole scheme would fall apart.”

“So it is a scheme of some sort,” says Caedi.

“Yes. It looks like Gorminiel is buying the adventurer’s treasures at basement prices, insuring it all,  arranging for the caravans to be robbed, and then collecting the insurance money for whatever was taken,” says Greensward.

“He gets paid again when he has those items sold on the black market or whatever,” I say.

Greensward nods. “He’s stealing from me and Olly both in a way I probably never would have suspected without Olly’s letter. Now, if Olly’s dead and Captain Gray is too, they’ll come for me next,” she says, standing. “If you'll excuse me, I’ve got to get out of here right now.” She takes a step or two away, then turns. “You can reach me at my cousin’s in Blackstocking. Let me know when it’s safe for me to return. Could you please turn over my sign to ‘closed?’ Thank you.”

 

 

Wendy, Caedi, and I stand on the sidewalk in front of Greensward’s Insurance thinking.

Wendy snorts.

“What?” I ask.

“Here we are in this wonderful fantasy world with monsters, magic, and lovely goddesses and here we are embroiled in an insurance scheme?” she says.

Caedi smiles.

“To be fair,” I say. “It is a pretty murderous one.”

“We going to take down the evil overlord with tax evasion next?” says Wendy. 

“If that’s what it takes,” I say. “Evil overlords suck. Mostly because they’re, you know, evil overlords.”

Caedi says, “We think it’s Teeg passing word to the kobolds, don’t we?”

I nod. “That makes sense. I think Gorminiel would have to be involved too but we don’t have any proof.”

“We don’t have anything on Teeg either,” says Wendy. “Not really. We might be able to prove to the sheriff that there’s a mole for the bandits in Gorminiel’s organization but not who that is.”

“Even then,” I say. “It’s Greensward’s records versus whatever Crocus has left in his, assuming Teeg didn’t make off with those too.”

Wendy says, “So, Gray took the letter from Greensward to Crocus in the same caravan we took to Fort Reach. Teeg must have found that out, killed Crocus that night, and sent word to the kobolds when Gray’s next caravan went out.”

Caedi says, “Yes, but they attacked while Gray was coming back to Fort Reach instead of on the way to Bull’s Tavern when they were carrying food stuffs instead of packed with treasure. Why?”

I shrug. “The message has to have time to travel to the kobolds, for one thing,” I say. “And maybe they’re trying to preserve the illusion that the bandits are still striking randomly.”

“So, that leaves us with two possible places to go,” says Wendy. “We could try to find the black market the kobolds sell their goods to, right? That’s one.”

I nod. “My guess is that it’s in Truhaven,” I say. “We could ask Cronk but I wonder how well two newbie sheriff’s deputies who aren’t even from this world would do in finding a super-secret criminal underground.”

Wendy grimaces. “Then we’ve got to find the kobolds,” she says. “They have to know who their contact is. Or maybe we could stake them out. Watch for Teeg to make contact and grab that guy. I don’t see what else we can do.”

Nobody can think of anything better so it seems like the first order business is finding a tracker good enough to find the bandits. We get some names from the local guards, split up, and start making inquiries.

There are plenty of people in Bull’s Tavern who are reputed to have the skills, but none seem to be civic-minded enough to do so for free or the vague promise of a reward from Fort Reach once the job’s completed. In short, we can’t find anybody.

By late afternoon, we’ve made no progress. We sit in the original Bull’s Tavern, having a late lunch, when Caedi has a sudden thought.

“No, never mind,” she says.

“What?” says Wendy. “It looked like you had something there.”

“Well, maybe,” says Caedi. “"Hypa helped her years ago but I doubt she’d help us.”

“Why not?” says Wendy.

I’m watching their byplay as they speak. There is something there but I’ll be damned if I know what it is. Regret? Tension? Not anger, surely?

Caedi says, “Her name’s Yenna. People around here would know her as Yenna of the Tower. Years ago she was a young adventurer escorting a wealthy family to Bull’s Tavern. They were attacked. Yenna was… badly injured and left for dead. Hypa found her and healed her and Yenna stayed with us for a time, recovering.” Caedi’s looking inward, remembering, tears standing in her eyes. “I liked her. She was always very nice to me. Hypa and I tried, but the attack was too awful. She left us without a word one morning and started living in an old abandoned tower an hour or so southeast of here. She attacks any who come near.”

“Oh no,” says Wendy. “That’s awful.”

“She doesn’t kill anybody,’ Caedi says quickly. “But she shoots at them until they leave.”

“A bowman?” I say.

Caedi nods. “Born and raised in the woods, she used to say,” says Caedi. “That’s her skillset. Tracking, hunting, woodcraft and everything related.”

“But she won’t help us?” asks Wendy.

“Well, she’ll remember me,” says Caedi. “She used to bring me rabbits and squirrels and other cute little animals. She wouldn’t talk much but we would treat their wounds and feed them before we sent them back home. She might not shoot at me. Maybe.”