Coming out of the palace, Edgar tried to talk to someone, but anyone who came near them hid back in the house, and at last the king found only a snotty child, who seemed to be thinking about how to make his clothes dirtier. The boy suddenly spotted the king, and his attention shifted, and a rare curiosity appeared on the little face.

"Where's your family?" Edgar asked.

The child seemed to be frightened at first, and then seemed to think of something: "You can't talk to outsiders." ”

"This is for you, now, can you talk to me?" Edgar handed him a gold coin, which he had intended to bribe any villager who answered.

Luckily, the mint's craftsmanship wasn't very good, at least no one could recognize Edgar from the coin's avatar, and the boy couldn't figure out whether to speak for the glittering gold thing, so Edgar gave him another one.

"Now, you're going to tell me something."

Edwin watched the king ask questions, and then his face gradually became gloomy, the Mercian knight felt a little strange, he couldn't think of anything to care about in such a small village.

"Looks like we're going to have to meet the magistrate of Buckingham." Edgar came to the side of the Knight of Mercia and took the reins from him.

"What happened?"

"It's not clear, but we know at least one thing." Edgar calmed down and continued, "It's not a good place to build a road right now. ”

Most of the land east of Buckingham belonged to the Earl of Northumbria, and the area was the property of Edgar himself, and the magistrate here was the king's bodyguard, or more precisely, the bodyguard of King Edward and Harold, named Sittrick.

The magistrate's hall is a bit Danish-style, and there are several neatly carved wooden sticks of rune on the table, showing the northern origin of the magistrate himself. The Lord Chancellor of Sittrick was genuinely frightened of the King's sudden arrival, he was not qualified to attend the King's Council of the Magister, as a newly built county and the former border of Danfa, Buckingham was weaker than neighbouring Northampton, let alone the old counties of Devon and York, and the King of England was a guest outside of Sittrick's imagination.

"Your Majesty wants to know what is really going on in Burton Village." It was Edwin, the eldest son of the Earl of Mercia and the king's chief of the guard, who was also a figure to be provoked by the Buckingham County Governor.

Lord Sittrickshire sighed, "It's a disaster, but I can't help them." ”

A solemn aria sounded from the direction of the monastery, and the magistrate paused for a moment, as if praying to the earthenware statue of the Virgin in the alcove, making a gesture of blessing.

Then he began to tell the story of a series of events that took place in such a calm countryside.

The harvest was not good this year, the long winter affected the planting, and the able-bodied sheep that were left behind for the winter also lost some of them, and at Easter, the county magistrate felt that this year's tax revenue would be difficult to fulfill.

Afterwards, Elder Alden of Burton brought him a man, a bandit whom the Earl of Mercia had been trying to capture, and who had been thrown to the ground by a peasant.

"He's no ordinary robber, in Mercia they're bound together like wolves, hunting down any lone traveler, some say they were once Sain of Mercia, others say ......" the sheriff swallowed, "they're from the Edric family of Shrewsbury. ”

"Why is there such a rumor?" The king asked, "There is much difference between the thief and the armed Sein."

"Because these fellows don't seem to make a living from robbing, unlike the Welsh who herd cattle, raiding is more of a hobby to them, and besides, they like to 'hunt' in their armour."

Edgar nodded, motioning for the sheriff to continue.

"As expected, the bastard son of the old Earl of Mercia paid us a bounty sufficient for the poor village to pay this year's taxes, and the only condition was that the man be handed over to them alive."

"Did you make a handover?"

"Of course not, this is a criminal arrested in Buckinghamshire, and he should be punished by the king's law, how can I allow those villagers to sell him like this?"

Without waiting for the king to make an assessment, Governor Sittrick sighed again: "Now I only regret that I did not hand over this bane sooner. ”

"How?"

"At that time, we didn't know what kind of wolf we were messing with. In the summer, the Mercia had gone, and I was going to hold a court meeting to try the daring criminal. "One night last week, the villagers of Burton suddenly appeared outside my hall and demanded that I return the prisoner to them, and it is said that a group of black-clad and black-armored warriors appeared in their village and took twenty villagers—mostly women and children—and the men were stabbed and stabbed by these beasts and fled in all directions, and at last, they left a message for the village chief to tell me. ”

"Oh, what did they say?" The king glanced at Edwin, the knight who didn't seem to care about the magistrate's words,

"They asked me to release their chief."

"You refused?" Edgar understood somewhat of the hostility and caution of the village, where the king's men were clearly not welcome at the moment.

"Your Majesty, you know, I must obey your laws." The county magistrate showed a sad look, "I absolutely can't agree to such a thing, because this is setting a precedent!" ”

Edgar immediately understood what the county governor meant, and if he made a deal with a group of lawless people and released a prisoner with the most heinous crimes, the counties would probably never have peace.

"Can't you rescue those villagers? How many of those bandits are there? ”

"Maybe not much, but they were all sword-wielding hands, and most of my soldiers were in the militia, all in Wales, and the rest were plough-wielding hands."

"Have you considered paying the ransom?"

The magistrate's expression was a little strange, and he even showed a sarcastic smile: "They say that if I insist on executing their chief, they will only accept a ransom of two hundred shillings. ”

"Why, those villagers can't afford to pay this money?"

"No, it's not twenty people, they give a ransom for one person, twenty hostages, that's four thousand shillings!" The magistrate smiled bitterly, "That's a lot more than the money the Mercians were willing to pay in the first place." ”

"They want you to ransom them back for the head of the hostages? It's insane. ”

Two hundred shillings for a man is not a small number, and this figure is obviously a mockery of the law, according to the traditional law, killing a kerr costs the criminal two hundred shillings in blood, after all, if the price of human life is not high enough, who knows if anyone will spend money to "buy" life? In fact, according to the decree of King Canute, the killing of an earl costs 1,200 shillings; And the blood for killing a king was two thousand five hundred shillings, half to the royal family and half to the kingdom - the ransom for these twenty hostages was already more than Edgar himself paid!

"Let's pay for it." Edgar finally spoke, he could not let the criminal go, and since a county magistrate could not set a precedent for exchanging criminals, the king could not do so, otherwise the law would be a dead letter.

"Edwin, go to the mint at once and show them the ring." At this moment, the sigh of the north wind was heard among the leaves outside the hall, and the door was pushed open.

"Your Majesty, ladies and gentlemen." The magistrate's attendant shouted in a hoarse voice, "The dean is gone!" ”