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the foibles of
village life. His immediate thought was to dismiss the warning,
after all he was a stranger and she could have been trying to get
rid of him, but something warned him not to ignore it so
easily.
    Determined not to be put off from his desire to secure a room
for the night, Simon turned Billie toward the opposite side of the
village from the church and went in search of the
tavern.
    He found
it, but it wasn’t what he was expecting. As he turned into the
small courtyard, he suddenly had a new understanding of the old
woman’s cautionary words. There was definitely something going on
in the village of Much Hampton, and it was something dark and
sinister.
    People
were everywhere, scurrying this way and that as if in a mad hurry
to get back to their homes. With so many people out and about, the
tavern should have been at the heart of it all, filled to the
rafters with revellers enjoying the opportunity to meet with the
village folk before going on their way. Instead the Bull and
Thistle, as the paint-worn sign declared, was barely habitable and
stood cold and empty.
    “ Shit,” he snapped, twisting around in his saddle and staring
at the strangely empty road behind him with a frown. Where had
everyone gone? It was as though he had just imagined the busy
hustle and bustle of the main thoroughfare.
    “ Hugo, you bastard, you should be here doing this,” Simon
growled, puffing out his cheeks as he studied the now deserted road
behind him. Curiosity drove him to nudge Billie back down the only
road running through the village and redouble his efforts to find
some other sign of life. His quest didn’t take long. Within minutes
he spotted a young boy skipping in an alleyway at the back of a row
of workers cottages, and quickly turned Billie in that direction.
He fought the urge to shout out a greeting to the young lad, lest
he scare him and cause the young mite to run away.
    The
clip-clopping of Billie’s hooves on the cobbles drew the boy’s
attention and he stopped skipping and turned to stare. Simon wanted
to paste a bright smile on his face, but with the old woman’s words
of caution still ringing in his ears, couldn’t find it within him
to summon any sign of joviality. Instead he nodded amiably and
watched the boy carefully for any sign of fear.
    “ Hello,” Simon said, slowly dismounting. His gaze flickered
from the boy to the house behind him. “Can you help me?”
    The boy
stood and stared, making no move to answer.
    “ I am looking for somewhere I can take a room for the night.”
It didn’t come as any surprise when the boy simply stood staring at
him for several moments, suspicion clearly written on his face. “Do
you think they will have a room for me?” Simon pointed to the door
of the tavern further down the road and began to wonder if the
youngster could speak at all, when the door to one of the houses
suddenly opened. The large woman who appeared in the doorway
glanced at Simon worriedly. He had no doubt she had seen him from
the inside of the house. He watched as she ushered the boy inside
out of the way, slamming the door behind them with more force than
was necessary. “I guess not,” Simon sighed, wondering if events
could get any stranger.
    Not only
did he now have a growing list of questions that he needed to
answer, there were the original orders to take into consideration,
on top of where he could sleep for the night. With the size of the
village he was supposed to keep an eye on, he needed to be living
nearby and mingle with the locals enough to grasp some idea of who
the troublemakers were, and likely to be traitors to king and
country.
    As he
slowly made his way back onto the main thoroughfare, he paused
again to consider his options. He could try the tavern and see if
it was still in use, but it looked cold and empty and for some
strange reason he had no inclination to stay there. Instead he
headed toward the church and the west of the village. He found the
doors to the