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dropped his sword, screaming, trying desperately to unbuckle his armor, but before he could unfasten even one strap, the acid was through to his flesh and he collapsed to theground, writhing helplessly, his final screams echoing along the stone hallway.
    The two remaining guardsmen looked at their fallen friends in horror. And then Aethelred stepped out from the cell.
    He smiled.
    “Drop your swords, and you have my word that you will not die here today.”
    They did as he commanded. Aethelred raised his hands and, looking into the eyes of the two men before him, began to recite the words he had spent months perfecting.
    And within moments, they were his as well.

THREE
    Two horsemen arrived atop a gentle hill and looked down at the open country before them, a sprawling valley of fields and farmland, dotted by a few modest cottages that could barely be called a village.
    “This can’t be it,” said the first rider.
    “The bloke back at the inn said this was it,” said the other. “Five miles along the only road east, you’ll see it when you get to the hilltop.”
    “I know what a knight’s estate looks like. If there were one here, we’d be seeing it, believe me.”
    They saw a lone man below, pushing a plow through one of the small farm plots the land was divided into.
    “Let’s ask him.”
    They rode down the craggy hillside, careful to avoid the rocks and divots. Many parts of England’s rolling countryside were picturesque and pleasant to ride; this was not one of them. One wrong footing on this terrain could mean a broken ankle for a horse and perhaps a broken neck for its rider.
    Arriving at the valley floor, they cantered over to the man working the field, a powerful sweat on him as he drove a deep furrow through the earth with the plow. Cast in heavy iron, it looked better suited to be drawn by a horse, but the man pushed it along unaided, as though he knew no better. The two men on horsebackexchanged a look of amusement. Farmhands were not renowned for their intellect, but one that did not even know how to work such a basic tool? Wonders never ceased.
    The peasant was turned away from the hillside and, consumed by his laborious task, seemed oblivious to the riders who had just arrived behind him, even as one of their horses gave a loud snort.
    “Oi! You!”
    The plow stopped. The peasant turned and raised his hand, both to shield his eyes from the sun and to wipe away the sweat that soaked his temple. He appeared a particularly uncivilized specimen, his face smeared with dirt, his long hair a stringy, tousled mess.
    “What?” he said.
    The two riders shared another look, this time not amused but annoyed. Did this peasant not recognize their uniforms? The royal insignia on their tunics?
    “‘What?’”
the first rider said. “Is that any way for a commoner to address two of the King’s men?”
    The peasant took a step forward, out of the glare of the sun. He could see them better now.
    “Oh. Right you are.”
    The riders waited for some gesture of respect or humility to accompany the peasant’s realization of who they were, but none came. He simply stood there, squinting up at them, as though his original question still stood.
Well, what?
    Now the second rider spoke. “You do know that plow is meant to be pulled by a horse?”
    “Of course. I’m not an idiot,” said the peasant. “The horse is sick. He has a bellyache.”
    The first rider was growing impatient. “We are in search of—”
    “I should have known those carrots were suspect.”
    “
Stop talking
. Where is Sir Wulfric’s estate?”
    The peasant chortled to himself. “I’d hardly call it an estate.”
    “So you do know of it?”
    The man turned and pointed to the far side of the field he was working. Smoke drifted from the chimney of a modest farmhouse at the edge of the village beyond. Both horsemen looked puzzled, and the first one spurred his horse closer, glowering down from the saddle impatiently.
    “We are in no