During the medieval times, there was no police force. Law enforcement or medieval punishment was usually held within the community or by the manorial court and this was for lesser offenses. For crimes of treason or more severity, it was heard by the King's court.
A lord was responsible for any crime committed on his land and criminals were brought to the castle's prison. In bigger cities, criminals caught in the outskirts and in the further parts of town were sent to jailhouses out of convenience. They will complete their sentence or punishment there instead of travelling all the way to the lord's manor or castle.
Sir Lee was in charge of inspections for these jailhouses and he wrote monthly reports of the occurring events to Lord Bullock. On a monthly basis, there were reports of theft and vagrancy, which was the crime of being jobless or homeless. It sounded ridiculous that it was considered breaking the law if a person was jobless or homeless, but soliciting, scavenging, and sleeping on the streets caused disturbances to the businesses and to the townspeople.
Other common crimes were not working hard enough and drunkenness. The punishment for not working hard was flogging and for drunkenness was being put in the stocks or pillory. Stocks chained people by the ankles while pillory chained them by the head and the wrists. Serious crimes like murder was given death penalty by hanging or beheading. For treason, the culprit will be hung and cut up alive. The pieces of the body will then be sent to different cities and put on public display.
Today, the knights and the squires were visiting the jailhouse located off centered of the market square. It was the same prison that the knights brought the lad to when the lad was captured. In the jailhouse, there were underground prisons, temporary cells, flogging stations, stocks, and pillory for all the common crimes that come in from the day to day basis.
"Sir Lee, a few days ago we brought in a man who was drunk and assaulted another man in the town square. He has spent two night at the stocks and will be released this afternoon." The guard reported to the baronet.
The baronet looked over at the stocks to confirm the number of criminals. The man was sitting in a cell with a metal chain tied to his ankle. He was sleeping on the hay piled on the ground. It was important that the guards did their jobs properly and did not use excess violence on the prisoners.
"Has the prisoners been fed?" The baronet asked the guard.
"Yes, twice in a day." The guard answered. "And we give them water when they ask us to."
"Good."
While the baronet asked the guard more questions, Sir Williams and the two squires silently waited on the side. They walked to the next cell and the person inside the cell started to fidget. This prisoner was chained by the ankle and had disheveled long hair covering his or her face.
"Ye, over there. What is this person in for?" Sir Williams asked another guard.
The guard came over and answered the knight's question.
"Sir knight, this prisoner is a woman. She cheated on her husband with the neighbor next door and was arrested for committing adultery."
From the books that Everin has read, she learned that marriage in the Midlands was perceived as a legal and spiritual union of two people. Adultery was extremely looked down upon and was considered breaking the law. However, other nations such as Farlands and Northlands, a man could have more than one wife. In the Farlands, a man could have a harem of women who weren't necessarily his wives, while in the Northlands, a man could have a main wife and many concubines.
"Where is the man who committed adultery with her?" The knight asked the guard.
"He completed his sentence and was released yesterday." The guard said. "The man is an unmarried carpenter. He was coming home after drinking with his friends and mistaken the female prisoner for a prostitute. He claimed that he was drunk when the female prisoner seduced him."
"The punishment for adultery is the same for both parties. Why is the woman still here when ye released the man?" The knight asked the guard.
"This is not her first time. According to the mother-in-law, the female prisoner has been unfaithful to her husband before." The guard said explaining why they lengthen the woman's sentence.
"Taylor." Sir Lee called his squire over to carry the reports.
"Yes, Sir Lee."
The squire ran past the cell and the woman curled herself up in the corner. When the lad peeked into the cell, it saw the female prisoner trembling in distress. The food and the water in the cell have not been touched and the female prisoner's clothes were torn and ripped. Visible bruises could be seen underneath the female prisoner's torn clothes and there were obvious signs of physical abuse.
"What happened to her? Why are her clothes like that and why is she covered in bruises?" The lad asked the guard.
"She was already in that state when we arrested her." The guard informed the lad. "The mother-in-law seemed to have locked her up in the storage room and punished her before we arrived."
No matter how the lad thought of it, something was not right. The lad squatted down to the woman's eye level.
"Ma'am, what is your name?"
The female prisoner did not answer and crawled herself further into the corner. When the lad asked again, the woman seemed disturbed. She didn't look like someone who has committed adultery. There was no sense of poise or shame, all the lad saw was fear. Was the woman afraid of men?
"Lad, there is no point of speaking to her. She won't answer ye. She is mute."
The guard smacked the wooden bars of the cell and the loud sounds startled the female prisoner. She covered her ears begging for the noise to stop.
"Ye husband will be returning today. When he arrives, he will decide what to do with ye. How unfortunate he is to be married to a mute and to an unfaithful wif-," (The lad grabbed the guard's arm to stop him from making more ruckus and pushed the guard away from the cell.)
"She is mute, not deaf. She can hear you perfectly fine."
The guard stood up straight and eyed the lad. "Young lad, ye shouldn't fall for tramps like her. She has broken the law and betrayed her husband. She doesn't deserve any sympathy."
"And the man who you released does?" The lad said.
"Quit it." The knight told the lad to stay put and not to cause a commotion.
"The woman can't speak for herself!" The lad argued. "They arrested her solely on the drunken man and the mother-in-law's words. The man said that he couldn't even tell the difference between his neighbor's wife and a prostitute. How would you know if she was the one who seduced him or if he was the one who forced himself onto her?"
"Are ye questioning my competence?" The guard asked offended.
"No, I am simply pointing out the flaw in the man's statement."
"That's enough, step outside." The knight ordered the lad.
"But...,"
"Outside!"
The lad clenched its fists and exited the jailhouse. It patiently waited outside the jailhouse for the baronet to finish his inspection. When the men exited, they saw the lad on the side waiting for them.
"What did the guards say? Will they bring the male culprit and the mother-in-law in for questioning again?" The lad asked.
"Do that again and I am never bringing you out of the residence." The knight warned the lad.
"What did I do wrong? I was only pointing out a flaw!"
"Who are you to do that!? If I haven't spoken yet, you are to not speak." The knight said reminding the lad that it was a servant.
Taylor, who observed from the sideline, tugged the lad's sleeve and whispered something to the lad.
"Pretty Face, what is wrong? Did ye and Sir Williams get into another argument? Why are ye two always arguing?"
"The woman can't defend for herself and everyone is ganging up on her! How is that fair!?" The lad argued.
"What is fair is not for you to decide." the knight told the immature lad.
How could the knight be so heartless? Did the knight not see how terrified the woman was when they walked past her? The woman was afraid of men and was stuck in a prison surrounded by them.
"Stop arguing, you two. The woman can't speak. There is nothing we can do besides wait for her husband. Fighting among ourselves won't help the situation." The baronet intervened.
The baronet still had some matters left to attend and suggested that the squires walk around the market for the time being.
"We will meet at the resting area where the horses are around none." (None = around 3 pm)
"Yes, Sir Lee." Taylor said.
The squire wrapped his arm around the lad's shoulder and guided the lad away. The two left the jailhouse and a big argument was averted. The baronet glanced over at the enraged knight. The baronet knew that the knight didn't like to be challenged.
"I understand how you feel but the lad isn't attuned to our customs yet. The north is very different from the middle parts of Midlands and you know that the lad can't stand the sight of injustice." The baronet asked the knight to be more understanding.
"He has been studying our customs and he knows enough to understand when to keep his mouth closed."
The knight was positive that the baronet was aware of the lad studies, after all, the baronet permitted the lad to borrow books from the baronet's personal library.
"I don't need a squire who speaks when he isn't told to." The knight coldly said.
The baronet exhaled finding this situation occurring way too often.
Everin and Taylor wandered in the town square until Taylor met eyes with two ladies at a jewelry shop. The squire waved sending his handsomest smile to the ladies.
"Nice to meet ye, I am Taylor Owen, and who might ye two gorgeous ladies be?" The squire asked the two flowers.
The ladies tittered and proceed to introduce themselves. Everin, who was uninterested, took a seat on the stairs of the shop. She kicked the tiny pebbles on the road. What was the point of studying when she couldn't do anything to help anyone?
"Forget about women rights, human rights didn't even exist during this era." Everin quietly reminded herself.
She watched the people bustling in the market while the squire flirted with the ladies.
"What brings ye here to Smithtown?"
"We heard that the best jewelry is made in Smithtown." One of the them answered.
"Well, jewelry isn't the only thing that Smithtown can offer. Ye won't be able to find another handsome face like mine anywhere else in the Midlands." The squire winked showing off his charms.
"Sir, ye sure know how to make a lady laugh." The other one said.
"And ye sure know how to make a man's heart flutter." The squire responded.
While the ladies were busy squealing to each other, a man bumped into one of them.
"I'm sorry." He apologized and continued walking.
The ladies gave a strange glance at the passing man and then realized that one of their pouches was missing. She patted down her dress and realized that the man have snatched it when he bumped into her.
"Thief! He stole my pouch!" She shouted.
The thief was alerted by the scream and dashed down the road. Everin stood up from her seat and Taylor was already running after the pick pocketer. She followed from behind and ran after the thief. The thief combed through the crowd of people and the squires followed not too far behind. The thief jumped over the vendors and destroyed a couple of venues.
"Watch where ye going!" A couple of people shouted at the thief for bumping into them.
The squires jumped over the obstacles and continued the pursue. The thief passed a cart of baskets and he knocked it down to slow the squires down. Taylor smacked the flying baskets out of his view and saw the thief gaining a great distance.
"If I catch ye, ye are dead meat!" The squire shouted.
"Taylor, go around!" Everin suggested as she ran pass the squire.
The squire turned into the alley street that connected to the main road. In front, the thief had stopped to rest, he thought that he has lost the squires, but when he saw Everin appearing, he cursed under his breath.
"Cruds." He resumed to running.
The thief and Everin ran down the garment district passing by shops that sold fabric, perfume, and shoes.
"Stop running!" Everin suggested to the thief as both of them were exhausted.
"Why would I do that, to let ye catch me?"
"You can't run forever! Give up!"
The thief made a sharp turn and encountered Taylor coming from the alley.
"Caught ye."
Cornered, the thief headed back to the main road. He collided into nearby clothing stand and the stall collapsed on him. The bolts of fabric in the storefront toppled over like dominos burying the thief underneath.
Shaking outside of the collapsed pillars and planks was the thief's hand was still tightly clasping onto the pouch. While the thief was stuck and unable to move, Taylor took the chance to retrieve the stolen goods.
"This doesn't belong to ye." The squire said snatching the pouch out the thief's hand.
"Help me." The thief cried unable to get out of the buried mess.
The squire stood up while ignoring the thief's cry for help.
"I told ye, if I catch ye, ye are dead meat. Ye are coming to the jailhouse with me."
Just when the squire pulled out some rope from his satchel, the shopkeeper ran out of the store panicking.
"My shop! What did ye people do to my shop!?"
The squires apologized to the shopkeeper and explained that they were catching a thief. However, the shopkeeper didn't seem to care. He was more concerned about the damage that was done to his store front. He demanded that the squires pay for the damage done to his shop, otherwise he won't let them leave.
"Sir, I wasn't the one destroyed ye storefront. It was him!" Taylor pointed to the thief who was now tied to a nearby wooden pillar. "If ye want to be compensated for the damage, ye will have to come to the jailhouse with us and talk to the guards! If anyone is going to pay ye, it is going to be him!"
The squire was busy arguing with the shopkeeper while Everin was keeping an eye on the thief. Taylor had tied the thief to the pillar, so the thief won't escape. The thief was young, probably around the same age as Everin and Taylor. His hair was unkempt and his clothes were very worn out like no one has mended them for some time.
"How long are ye going to be speaking for? Hurry up and bring me to the jailhouse, I am getting hungry." The young thief complained.
Everin spotted the wet bloody patch on the young man's arm.
"You are bleeding." She said inspecting the gash on the man's forearm.
When she took a closer look, it was a very deep cut.
The young man groaned as Everin pressed on the tendered parts of his arm.
"Stop pressing on it, it's painful!"
Without a second to waste, Everin pulled out some cotton fabric and temporarily dressed the wound. She needed to stop the bleeding first. When the young thief saw the lad wrapping the cloth around his arm, he was muddled. Why was the lad helping him?
"The punishment for pickpocketing is three days in prison. If you are a repeated offender, your hands would be cut off. So, tell me, why are you so eager to go to the jailhouse?" The lad asked securing a knot around the bandages.
"How can ye not know about what's happening in the outskirts? The poor people are starving while the rich people in the inner parts of the city are eating rice. At least, prisoners get fed." The young thief answered the lad.
Everin didn't expect such answer from the young man. The young man risked his life to end up prison for a meal.
"Ye are one of them, aren't ye? A son of another rich noble family." The young man mocked the lad. "What would a nobleman like ye know about the common people!?"
After arguing for a long time, Taylor paid the shopkeeper a few coins to shut the man up. The money, the squire will get back from the thief after bringing the thief to the jailhouse. When the squires arrived at the jailhouse, Sir Lee and Sir Williams was exiting the jailhouse.
"Great, ye two are still here." Taylor said haling in the thief from behind. "I caught a pick pocketer when we were in the market."
"A pick pocketer?" Sir Lee saw the young man bleeding on his arm. "Did you two get injured?"
"No, only he got injured." Everin answered while looking at the young man.
Taylor pulled the young man into the jailhouse.
"Hurry up, ye owe me money!"
The baronet turned to the Everin for an explanation. Everin explained to the two men that Taylor had to compensate a shopkeeper for the property that the thief damaged. From what Everin knew though, Taylor wasn't going to get his money back. The thief rather stay in prison for a meal than be starving on the streets.
"Sir Lee, is it true that the people in the outskirts are starving? How come there is nothing mentioned about this in the reports?" The lad asked wanting to know what the knights were keeping from her.
Everin has been working in the filing room for quite some time and she has never read anything about the outskirts. The knights also rarely mentioned it. Everin only remembered hearing once from Sir Williams that there were guards preventing people from the outskirts from entering the inner parts of town.
The lad didn't know, but the outskirts was where the poorest of the poor gathered. The people living there lived in extreme poverty and on arid land that has become barren from the excessive scavenging. People living in the outskirts will do anything for a small bit of change and that's how the streets became infested with petty crime.
"You haven't read a report on the outskirts because there aren't any. The outskirts are too dangerous to station any men there." Sir Lee told the lad.
Commotion broke out in the jailhouse and it interrupted the baronet and the lad's conversation. The knights and the lad rushed into the jailhouse to see what was going on.
"What is with all the shouting?" Sir Williams asked.
Theguards were going to put the thief into the jail cell, but they scuffled withhim and reopened his wound. The young man gripped his forearm as blood seeped through the cervices of his fingers.
"The bleeding won't stop." Taylor informed the knight. "If he dies, my money dies with him!"
"Bandages!" The knight ordered.
"Yes, sir." The guards went to get what the knight requested.
The knight unraveled the bloody bandages to inspect the reopened wound. There were no broken bones, only a deep gash that curved slightly around the forearm. When the guard came back with bandages, the knight pressed the fabric on the wound to contain the bleeding. He pulled out a pouch of herbs to help subdue the bleeding, but the lad stopped him. They could close the wound once more, but one little movement and it would reopen again. The curvature of the wound made it hard for the wound to stay closed.
"You won't be able to stop his bleeding with that alone. That kind of wound won't close on its own. He needs stitches." The lad suggested.
The men in the room was shocked by the lad's idea. They have never heard of such method to treat a wound.
"How unorthodox! He is not a piece of fabric, how can ye plan on sewing a person?" One guard accosted the lad.
Reading the books from Sir Lee's library surely paid off. Everin was studying about herbs and stumbled upon a brief passage about old civilizations. The book didn't mention much, just that there was a civilization that had a peculiar way of burying their dead.
"In the past, there was one civilization that cut open the bodies of the dead and removed the organs of the deceased. After wrapping the organs with cloth and placing them into jars to be buried, they will stitch the body back together and wrap it with cloth to send the deceased to the afterlife. Interestingly, they also practiced suturing on the living to close wounds. Once the wound heals, the stitches were removed." The lad informed the men.
The baronet was the only other person in the room who understood what the lad was saying. "Everin, what you speak of, I have only read in books. I have never seen someone perform such procedure."
The civilization that the lad was speaking of was before how the Midlands and Farlands came to be. It fell due to repeated invasions and the practice of suturing discontinued. The remaining records and artifacts from the civilization were either lost or destroyed after many years. Only a few records still remain today and most were written accounts inside of books.
The lad wanted to discuss with the men, but they didn't have the luxury. The young man was going to bleed out.
"If we don't close that wound, he will die from blood loss." The lad reminded the men.
The lad kneeled down next to the knight, who has been applying pressure on the young man's wound. Little did the men know that the future of medicine will include sutures.
"You speak as if you know what you are doing, but like the incident at the river, ye have never did this procedure. If you don't know anything, keep your mouth closed." The knight lectured the lad.
"Is there anyone else in here who is more qualified than me?" The lad asked the knight.
The answer was no. None of the men in the room has touched a needle or thread before. The lad was the one who knew how to sew. Everin wasn't a doctor and she knew that this was considered an illegal practice of medicine. However, there was no such thing as a doctor's license in this era. The young man in front of her needed saving and she was the only person capable of doing so.
"He has lost enough blood. Hurry, tell us what you need." The knight gave his permission.
Everin told the guards and Taylor to gather the following materials: a pair of tweezers, a thin curved needle, thread, the strongest wine they can find, and sleep-bearing sponges that were dampened with anesthetic drips (opium, mandrake, henbane, and hemlock). The men and Taylor did their best to find what they could in the market.
"Pretty Face, we got everything, but what do ye need wine for?" Taylor asked.
"To disinfect everything." Everin explained.
She grabbed the wine and used it to rinse the small tin pan that she found. She then dumped all the tools inside the pan and doused them in the pool of wine. The men didn't understand what the lad was doing, but they kept their eyes on the lad. Everin didn't have soap to wash her hands, so she handed the jug of wine to one of the guards and asked him to pour the wine over her hands. She thoroughly cleansed her hands under the cooling liquid and told the guard to save some. The young man was laying on a pile of hay as Sir Williams maintained pressure on the wound.
"I need you to put him under anesthetics." Everin asked Sir Lee who was holding the sleeping-sponge drip. "Drip some into his nose."
The baronet rubbed the sponge along the nasal area of the young man while the lad prepared the thread and needle. When the young man saw the big needle, he freaked out.
"No, I can't do this! I refuse to!" The young man said backing out.
Sir Williams held the man down, as moving will worsen the bleeding. Everin held a cloth in front of the young man's mouth.
"Bite."
Everin poured the remaining alcohol over the exposed wound and the young man camped onto the cloth muffling his screams in the jailhouse. After feeling the burn of the alcohol on his arm, the man drifted slowly away into unconsciousness.
***
The lion crawled out of its den after spending its morning and afternoon writing. It extended its ink stained paws and stretched to relieve the stiffness in its neck.
"Sir Lee, ye called for me." A female servant said to the baronet while lowering her head.
The baronet stood up straight and fixed his posture.
"Miss Lucy, I need ye to give this to the messenger. Tell him to take it to the gates of the outskirts."
"Yes, Sir Lee." Miss Lucy said accepting the scroll that the baronet gave her.
The baronet rubbed his tensed neck and the female servant noticed the tired face on the baronet.
"Sir Lee, would ye want me to prepare some tea?" The female servant asked.
"No need. Tell Taylor to prepare my horse. I am heading out to town with Sir Williams." The baronet informed the servant.
The female servant left to run the errand while the baronet washed the ink off his hands in a basin of water prepared in his office. He calmly wiped the excessive water off with a towel. These days he has been doing research about the medicine and medical procedures of the past civilizations. He found the lad's reference of the civilization that wrapped their dead in cloth. The civilization believed that by preserving the bodies of their dead, the deceased could go to the afterlife.
The method of preservation was called mummification and the people were very skilled in the procedure. They used many techniques including stitching, embalming, and drying in order to create a preserved body, or a mummy. From the records, a graverobber who attempted to steal from a three hundred-year-old coffin was able to find the face and the entire layer of skin still intact on the mummy. Not only did the people know how to treat the dead, they were exceptional great doctors. They knew how to set back bones, treat eye illnesses, and remove tumors.
In his research, the baronet found another civilization that performed similar medical procedures involving the use of cutting or incision. This civilization was known for war fighting and limb amputation was common among the soldiers. The people of this civilization called these procedures surgeries. They would use mandrake, a root shaped like a human, and boiled it in wine to cause insensibility of the soldiers who had had their limbs amputated. This was one of the first records uses of what the lad called anesthesia. Sleeping sponges was later developed to induce sleep or to ease extreme pain.
The baronet didn't expect the lad to be borrowing knowledge from different civilizations; the use of stitches from one and anesthetics from another. However, there was more to the lad that the baronet could not explain. The baronet has read every book that there was to offer about medicine from the past civilizations to the four main nations: Mid, Far, North, and West, and he could not explain where the lad obtained the knowledge of heart resuscitation or disinfecting medical tools before surgery.
If it wasn't from the residence library, the past, or from any other nation, then where did it from? Where did the lad obtain this knowledge from?
Three days has passed and the knights and the squires returned to the jailhouse to check on the young man's condition. The guards were told to take special care of the prisoner. They were to follow the lad's instruction to not let any liquids come close to the wound for the first two days and to change the bandages every day or whenever the bandages got wet or dirty. If there was any signs of infection, such as pus, they were to contact the knights.
The lad went inside the jail cell to examine the prisoner while the knights and the guards gathered around outside the cell.
"How are you feeling today? Any pain or discomfort?" The lad asked while kneeling down on the floor.
"My arm has been tingling and I have the urge to scratch it." The young man answered.
The lad placed one of its palms on the young man's forehead and the other one on its own to check the man's temperature.
"No fever." The lad said before washing its hand in the basin of clean pre-boiled water.
The guards took the used water and replaced it with a new basin. The lad unraveled the bandages and looked at the wound that has closed nicely under the line of stitches. There was no signs of pus which meant there was no infection.
"No pus, that's a good sign." The lad stated.
The lad damped a towel to clean the wound area. Supposedly after two days, the young man could take a shower and clean the wound area, but since he was in prison, he didn't have the chance to. Everin wiped off the remnants of dried blood around the wound.
"Let him take a shower just for today." The lad requested of the guards.
"There is no other prison that will treat their prisoners this well!" One of the guards complained about how the lad was asking for so much. "We already provide them with food and water, and now a shower? Is this an inn or a prison?"
Sir Williams glared at the talkative guard and the guard lowered his eyes immediately.
"Well, this prisoner owes me a lot of money! If anything happens to him, just know that ye all will be responsible for his debts!" Taylor reminded the guards.
"Taylor." Sir Lee asked the squire to settle down.
"Please cooperate, this is a special circumstance." Sir Williams told the guards.
This was the men's first time encountering someone receiving stitches. They were new to this and everything seemed unfamiliar to them. Whether the procedure was successful or not, they wanted to see the outcome of it.
Sir Lee noticed that Sir Williams has been very tolerant of lad today. Usually, the knight would have told the lad off by now, but the knight has stayed rather quiet. Sir Williams kept his arms crossed as he carefully watched the lad redo the dressing on the young man's arm. Previously, the lad bothered him about wanting to learn from him and the knight refused to teach the lad. He didn't want the lad to become more arrogant than it already was, but even without him helping the lad, the lad learned how to dress wounds on its own. There was nothing he could do to stop the lad from doing what it wants.
The lad exited the cell and gave the guards another set of instructions. In four days, the lad will come back to remove the stitches. It asked of the guards to continue to change the man's bandages every day. The guards didn't like that they were being ordered around by a squire, but with the two knights standing behind the lad, they didn't have a choice.
"Your sword."
The knight uncrossed his arms and handed the lad back its sword. When the knight extended his arm out, Sir Lee saw the almost unnoticeable mending patch on the knight's sleeve and unconsciously reached over to examine the stitches.
"Do you have something to say?" The knight asked the baronet, who was holding onto his sleeve.
"No, my apologies." The baronet released the knight's sleeve.
The knight fixed his sleeve while the lad walked away to ask the guards about the female prisoner who was waiting for her husband. The lad wanted to know what happened to the female prisoner. When the lad was a certain distance away, the baronet proceeded to ask the knight his question.
"Did Everin mend that sleeve for you?" The baronet asked only now spotting the handiwork of the lad.
The knight reservedly hid his sleeve. "He did, although I didn't think I need to report to you about what my squire does for me."
The baronet chuckled. "You are right."
The baronet was starting to see how the prejudices he once held against mending and sewing was wrong. Whether it was the stitches on a human, on tapestries, or on a sleeve of a shirt, sewing was skill. A skill that the baronet misjudged.
"If you are tired, you should return to the residence to rest." The knight told the baronet.
The baronet shook his head. It was not necessary, it has been a long time since he had this kind of motivation to work. He didn't want to waste it by sleeping. While the knights were conversing, a guard ran into the jailhouse alerting the guards that there was a murder that occurred in town.
"The husband killed the neighbor!" The guard informed the other guards.
End of Chapter 31
Dun, dun, dun! A murder has happened. Tsk, tsk, if only they listened to Everin's warnings. Maybe you can guess already what is going to happen in the next few chapters?
Something to do with death penalty and manorial court...
If you guessed the appearance of Lord Bullock, then you are correct! Things are starting to get heated around here. A quick recap of the beef going on between several parties:
Sir Williams v. Lord Bullock - Although the truth was that Lord Bullock gave his manservant to Sir Williams as a reward for catching the biggest game in the hunt, rumors has spread around town about how Sir Williams humiliated Lord Bullock. The town saw the knight as a hero who rescued the earl held captive by Lord Bullock for over a decade.
Everin v. Lord Bullock - The lad is a squire of Lord Bullock's current enemy(Sir Williams). A person who has harmed Kevin will always be Everin's enemy. Kevin might have put the past behind him, but Everin will never forgive Lord Bullock for hurting Kevin.
Sir Lee v. Lord Bullock - Will be disclosed in the future chapters.
Taylor v. the thief - Taylor wants his money back, pronto, but poor him the thief has nothing. How the thief plans to pay the squire back will also be disclosed in the next chapters.
Have a great week and see you in the next chapter!