The horseman in question wasn’t recognised by the sentry, who while he couldn’t claim to know everyone in the company, never mind everyone who worked for their current employer, at least knew the faces of those who had previously been used as messengers.
He also took into account the fact the stranger wasn’t wearing the company's uniform or the colours of their employer and the fact that he wasn’t approaching from any of the directions one would expect someone official to be coming from.
This all added up to one of several possibilities, firstly he was someone new, who was out of uniform and either got lost en route or had been part of one of the search parties looking for the bandits. Secondly, he was a bandit from either the distraction or the main force sent ahead to make sure the bandit camp hadn’t been discovered and or was still viable. Thirdly he had nothing to do with the bandits or Lone Shadow Manor and just happened to be in the area for some totally unrelated reason.
The third option seemed unlikely but couldn’t be dismissed entirely and as for the other two options well time would tell.
Upon receiving news of the newcomer I was left with only two real options, either I kept everyone hidden or revealed to them that at least one individual was in the area. If he was one of the bandits then the second option wasn’t really viable since any attempt on my part to capture them left open the possibility that it would fail and he would reveal our presence to his comrades. And even if we did manage to capture him the bandits would at the very least become more cautious when approaching the camp or more likely avoid it entirely. If however he wasn’t a bandit and we left him in the dark about our presence he might hang about and when the bandits did turn up their presence would potentially lead to the same result as the previous option.
In the end, the rider, whoever he was veered away from our position long before he could have spotted the camp. This didn’t at all reassure me as it was possible though unlikely that we had somehow without realising given away our presence in the area. I could have sent someone to follow them but we didn’t really have anyone myself included that I felt could do so without being easily discovered by them.
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As I wasn’t entirely sure whether or not he had been a bandit his presence, however temporarily it might have been,spooked me and everyone else for that matter. When nothing else untoward happened that day I wasn’t unfortunately at all reassured. If nothing else came of it I was thankful that the incident had revealed a flaw in my planning. I hadn’t been expecting anyone to approach the camp from the direction the visitor had and thus hadn’t prepared for that eventuality. I was determined to rectify that situation and thus had the men prepare another few holes to plug the gap they had revealed to me.
The messenger that arrived that night brought no new substantial sightings of the bandits and I was beginning to come around to the view that they had gotten away clean and the next and perhaps only time we would hear from them would be via a ransom demand. One that Sir Malcolm Haute would readily pay and all that would mean for the company. In that case, the likelihood was that we wouldn’t get paid, well other than a nominal fee that is. Never mind what our failure would do to our reputation and future employment opportunities.
Thankfully the next day unexpectedly brought with it news of the bandits, well the main force anyway. Sergeant Young finally showed up, he had caught up with the bandits two days ago but they had spotted him immediately and given chase. They had pursued him ruthlessly and he had responded in kind, after finally managing to deal with the last of them he made his way back to the manor.
With this news also came new orders, I was to slight the camp, making it impossible to defend and then catch up with the rest of the company which was on its way to hopefully deal with the bandit's main force.
As I was about to order the slighting to begin the sentries reported a small party of men approaching our position, thought to be bandits. Whether this was an advance party for the rest of the distraction force or just a small part of it that had been cut off from the rest was hard to say but either way I had the men get in position to deal with them.