"Are you done in there? Can we tend to the body?" Hattie asked as Marcus and Alexander exited the house. "It's bad luck to leave a body that died in grief unattended for too long."

"Go ahead." Marcus answered as he marched past the women gathered outside of Gladys' home.

"Do you think Hattie could be the killer?" Alexander whispered after he and Marcus walked around a house a short distance from Gladys' home.

"Of Gladys? Certainly." Marcus replied, coming to a stop. "She admits to being in the house last night, Gladys would have likely trusted her to unbar the door for her to enter. What I don't understand is how Hattie could have kept the woman quiet enough to cut and bleed her to death without anyone hearing a struggle of any sort."

"Hattie is a pretty big woman, much larger than Gladys. Maybe she was able to cover her mouth, hold her down?"

"It would be nearly impossible to keep her mouth covered and hold her down still enough to cut as nearly as she did."

"Could she have gotten her drunk? Or given her some sort of sleeping potion?"

"It's certainly possible." Marcus said with a sigh. "There's too many possibilities, too many questions, not enough answers. Maybe Gladys was killed by Hattie, maybe she truly did decide to flee her grief and her husband and son who, by sheer coincidence, were both killed by a wandering criminal. There's too much we don't know, too much we can't know."

"Part of why people fear us Inquisitors is they have a belief that we know some secret way, some trick to learning the truth." Marcus continued as he stepped closer to Alexander so he could hear without the need to raise his voice. "They think we can look at a man and see his hidden vices, or ask the right questions and learn all of a man's secrets by the way he answers.

"But we can't, can we?" Marcus said after taking a deep breath. "All we can do is ask questions any man could ask if he weren't too embarrassed at the prospect of offending others and hope people tell us what we need to know. The only difference between us and anyone else is we actually ask those questions and carry enough weapons to compel an answer."

"Maybe that's all we need to do." Alexander replied. "Be the people willing to ask the questions and say the things no one else will. You said it yourself, lots of injustice goes on because people are too embarrassed to ask the questions that would expose it."

"Perhaps." Marcus said before shaking his head. "Listen to me, rambling on. We need to speak to Gilbert and find out what, if anything, he's not telling us about the night he and the elder Bernard found the younger."

The Inquisitors made their way along the dirt roads to the home of Gilbert the hunter on the edge of town near the east gate. The sun was rising higher into the sky, its warmth and light helping to dispel some of the sleep from Alexander's eyes. He couldn't help but think that he would like to be back at the villa where he could sleep in his own bed the entire night through, not alternating between waking and sleeping every few hours. Alexander scolded himself in his mind for the thought, it was selfish of him to be thinking of his own disturbed sleep when three people, an entire family, had met violent ends mere days apart.

"Gilbert? Are you home?" Marcus cried out as he banged his fist against the door. It opened under the force of the first blow. "Gilbert?" Marcus called again as he pushed the door open wide and stepped through, left hand resting on his dagger.

"Alexander, look." Marcus said as he walked into the center of the home, pointing at the floor. Lying motionless on the rough boards was a black, white, and tan dog with large ears. Alexander knelt down and examined the dog. Its mouth was open, tongue limp on the floor beneath, chest still.

"I think it's dead." Alexander said as he stood and turned to Marcus.

"Check it for wounds." Marcus said as he turned and searched the small house. Alexander knelt back and turned the dog over. There was no blood visible on the ground or in its fur.

"Nothing that I can see," Alexander said.

"What do you think is the probability that Gladys died by her own hand and this dog simply died of old age on the same night?"

"Pretty low, I'd say."

"I agree."

"Do you think Gilbert could have done it? Killed Gladys, made it look as though she killed herself, and then fled?"

"Possibly. We need to find out where he is. Carefully, common arrowheads can't pierce our armor but a skilled hunter can find the gaps well enough if he's armed and we should assume he is."

Marcus and Alexander exited the house together and made their way to the stable at the south end of the village where most of the town's horses were kept.

"Excuse me, does Gilbert the hunter own a horse?" Marcus asked a man about Alexander's age wearing a leather collar.

"Not right now, Inquisitor." The young man replied. "He took it out this morning."

"Did he say where he was going?"

"No, Inquisitor. He didn't say anything."

"Did he have anything with him?"

"He had his cloak and his bow and the stuff he takes when he's going to be far away for a while."

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

"Did you see which way he went after he took his horse?"

"No, Inquisitor. I have too much work to do to be watching what folks do with their horses once they're outside."

"Ok, thank you."

"It seems more and more like Gilbert has blood on his hands." Alexander said when the two men were outside of the building, alone.

"Agreed." Marcus replied. "Though whose blood and how much is on his hands alone, it's hard to say."

"Inquisitors!" a man's voice called out.

"What now?" Marcus grumbled.

"Inquisitors!" the voice called again, a man waving them over. Marcus and Alexander approached the man.

"There's a boy at the western gate, says he has a message for you two."

"Lead us there." Marcus replied.

A small crowd had gathered by the western gate where a boy around ten years old was standing with a woman, presumably his mother, holding his hand. The boy's eyes were red as if he had been crying.

"He said he had been snatched by Gilbert, the hunter, but let go a ways outside of town and told to come back and give a message to you two." the man who led them said.

"Hello boy, what's your name?" Marcus said as he crouched down beside the child.

"Archie." The boy replied quietly, his face showing the fear he felt at the two Inquisitors standing in front of him.

"Archie, I'm told you have a message for me?"

The boy nodded.

"Can you tell me?"

The boy shook his head. "I'm only supposed to tell you by yourselves."

"Ok, let's walk a little for some privacy, yes?"

Alexander and Marcus led Archie past the gate and walked down the road until they were out of earshot of the dozen or so people standing just inside the walls, watching.

"I think this is a good spot." Marcus said as he stopped and crouched next to Archie again, knees popping audibly as he did. "Why don't you tell me what happened? You said that Gilbert the hunter took you?"

Archie nodded. "I was walking out to work with my dad when Gilbert came and stuck a knife right up to my neck. He said he wouldn't hurt me if I was quiet and did what I was told. He lifted me onto his horse and then he got on, and we rode that way for a while," the boy said, waving at the road to the west. "He stopped and we got off the horse and he told me to walk back to town and find the Inquisitors and tell you something but not anyone else."

"What did he want you to tell us?"

Archie looked upset. He started to speak but stopped several times before he could get the words out. "He said that him and Alban and Hattie and Bernard and Gladys would get together and drink lots of wine and do bad things with each other."

"Did Gilbert say what kind of bad things?" Marcus asked. Archie shook his head.

"Did Gilbert say anything else?"

Archie nodded. "He said that Bernard and Gladys' son found them doing bad stuff and was real mad. He said he ran away to tell you about it, but Bernard didn't want to get in trouble so he and Gilbert found him and Bernard killed him."

Tears were welling up in Archie's eyes. Alexander could tell that repeating the story was upsetting him but the boy continued speaking.

"And then Gilbert said that Bernard was real sad and he was going to tell people, so they killed him too, and Gladys knew but didn't stop them because she didn't want to get in trouble either. He said that Hattie killed Gladys, because she might tell you about what they did, and that Hattie tried to kill him with poison but he found out by letting his dog eat her food and he escaped."

"You're doing good, Archie." Marcus said with a reassuring tone. "Did Gilbert say anything else?"

"He said that everyone who did the bad things has a mark on their legs, way up here," Archie said, gesturing to his inner thigh near his groin, "and that it was part of magic to make them keep their bad stuff a secret."

"Is that everything?"

"No, he just said he was going to go away and you wouldn't be able to find him, but you should punish Hattie and Alban for what they did and for trying to kill him."

"Thank you, Archie." Marcus said as he patted the boy on his head. "You've helped us a lot here. You can go back to your mother but don't tell anyone what Gilbert said. If they ask, say that I told you to keep quiet, ok?"

Archie nodded and took a step towards the crowd still gathered at the gate before he stopped and turned to Marcus.

"Inquisitor?" He began. "Do you think it's true? Did Hattie and Alban really kill people?"

"They might have, we don't know for sure."

"I hope not." Archie said sadly. "They were always nice."

"I hope not too, but we'll try to know for sure. You go and get back to your mother, ok?"

Archie nodded and ran off, his mother embracing him when he reached her.

"So, what are we thinking? Was Gilbert the murderer and is just trying to shift blame onto someone else?" Alexander said to Marcus in a low tone despite the crowd being well beyond earshot.

"Possibly, though by all accounts he and the elder Bernard were both present when they found the younger. It does seem possible that the two of them killed the boy, and if that's the case then the rest of the story relayed to use by Archie would fit with what we know. If Hattie knows poisons that could explain how she could have faked Gladys' suicide, poison to render her unable to fight back and then take the knife to her arm."

"Is that enough, though? Hattie and Alban could say they're innocent, that Gilbert was the killer and he's telling lies about them to distract us from him while he gets further away.

"Possibly. We'll have to check what he said about the mark on the thighs. There's very few innocent things that need to be kept secret to the point of cursing yourself. We'll check Gladys for the mark first and if it's there, we'll check Hattie and Alban."

Marcus put his helmet back on. Seeing him do it reminded Alexander that he forgot to take his own off to avoid intimidating Archie. "Keep one hand on your weapon at all times, there's no telling how cornered murderers will react when confronted."