The village had no real name.
The locals called it Crow's Rest because crows gathered thick in the skeletal trees on the ridge above, and because it sat at the end of a hard climb from the lowlands.
A dozen mud-and-timber houses. Sheep pens built against the hillside. A longhouse with a sagging roof and smoke staining the thatch black.
Castor had sent riders here twice already.
Both times, the headman had given numbers too low to be credible and promises too vague to be useful. The second rider had come back with a bruised face and a story about "an accident with a horse."
No one at the Dreadfort believed in accidents.
So Castor went himself.
He rode out on a cold morning with twenty men-at-arms in Bolton colors, their horses stepping carefully on the frozen mud of the track. The sky was low and grey, promising snow that wouldn't fall for hours yet. His breath steamed. His hands, gloved in black leather, rested easy on the reins.
Jeren rode beside him, nervous in the way men got when they knew violence was a possibility but didn't know what shape it would take. "My lord, if they resist—"
"They won't," Castor said. "Not once they see I'm serious."
"And if they do?"
Castor's violet-grey eyes slid toward him, calm and cold. "Then we make an example that travels farther than this hill."
They didn't announce themselves. The village saw the column of riders coming up the ridge and went still the way prey animals did when a predator moved through tall grass.
By the time Castor's horse stopped in the open space between the longhouse and the largest pen, faces had appeared in doorways—wary, sullen, afraid.
The headman came out last. He was a thick man in his fifties, grey-bearded, with hands scarred from work and a face that had learned to hide fear behind bluster. He bowed, but not quickly, and his eyes tracked the armed men spreading out around the village square.
"My lord," he said. His voice was rough, the kind that came from shouting orders at sheep and men for thirty years. "We weren't expecting—"
"I know," Castor said. He didn't dismount. He stayed on horseback, looking down, letting the height difference say what words didn't need to. "I sent two riders. You gave them lies both times. So here I am."
The headman's jaw tightened. "We gave what we could count, my lord. It's hard to know—"
"Don't." Castor's voice didn't rise, but it cut clean through the older man's explanation. "I have the numbers from five years ago. I have the tallies from your neighbors. Your village hasn't shrunk by half unless plague took you, and no one's mentioned bodies."
Silence
A few of the villagers edged back into their doorways.
The headman shifted his weight. "We've had men leave, my lord. Go south, or—"
"Then I'll want their names and where they went," Castor interrupted. "If they're dead, I'll want to know how. If they're alive and you're hiding them to dodge levies, I'll want them found." He tilted his head slightly, pale hair catching what little light there was. "Which is it?"
The headman said nothing.
Castor dismounted. His boots hit the frozen ground with a dull thud. He handed his reins to one of his men and walked forward slowly, deliberately, until he was standing close enough that the headman had to look up slightly to meet his eyes.
"I didn't ride up this godforsaken hill to argue," Castor said quietly. "I came to find out if you're too stupid to understand what I want, or if you think I'm too young to make you regret lying to me."
The headman's face flushed, but fear was winning over pride. "My lord, we meant no—"
"Then prove it." Castor gestured toward the longhouse. "Everyone who can stand, out here. Now. I'll count them myself."
It took ten minutes for the village to gather. Old men and young boys. Women with babies on hips and toddlers clinging to skirts. A handful of men in their prime—fewer than there should have been, but more than the headman had claimed.
Castor walked among them slowly, Jeren at his side with a ledger and quill. He pointed. Jeren wrote. Name, age, whether they could hold a spear or pull a plow or nothing at all.
The villagers answered in mutters. Some wouldn't meet his eyes. Others stared with the dull resentment of people who'd been squeezed before and knew they'd be squeezed again.
Then Castor saw her.
She stood near the back, half-hidden behind an older woman, but the movement of her turning her head caught his attention. Dark hair, long and tangled, framing a face that would have been plain if not for the eyes—large, brown, and burning with something sharper than fear.
Young. Maybe twenty.
A rough wool dress that hung loose over a body that promised curves beneath.
And beside her, a man. Thirty, perhaps. Broad-shouldered, with the kind of frame that came from years of hard work. His hand rested possessively on her arm, and when Castor's gaze lingered on her, the man's jaw tightened.
Husband, then.
Castor walked closer. "Name?" he asked, looking at the woman.
She hesitated. The man beside her spoke instead, voice low and tight. "Greta. My wife. She's not strong, my lord. Can't work much."
Castor ignored him entirely. He kept his eyes on her. "Can you speak for yourself?"
Her chin lifted slightly, that spark in her eyes flaring. "I can."
"Good." He let his gaze drop, slow and deliberate, tracing the line of her throat, the way the rough fabric clung where it shouldn't be loose. She wasn't frail. She was hiding something—probably pregnancy, or the headman was using her to shave another body off the count. "What work do you do?"
"Weaving," she said. "Mending. Tending the—"
"She's my wife," the man interrupted, stepping forward now, voice rising. "She's not part of any levy, and I'll not have—"
Castor turned his head and looked at the man for the first time. Really looked. Let the silence stretch until the husband's words died in his throat.
"I didn't ask you," Castor said. His voice was still quiet. Still calm. And somehow, that made it worse. "I asked her."
The man's face went red. His fists clenched. "My lord, with respect—"
"You don't have my respect," Castor said. "And you're not going to get it by raising your voice in front of armed men." He glanced past the husband toward Jeren.
"Write her name down. Greta. Weaver. Married to—" He looked back at the man.
"What's your name?"
"Derran," the man bit out.
"Derran." Castor nodded once, as if filing it away. Then he stepped closer to Greta, ignoring the way her husband shifted like he wanted to block the path but didn't quite dare.
"You're a weaver," Castor said to her. "Do you have a loom?"
She nodded, throat working as she swallowed. "A small one. In the house."
"Good work?"
"Good enough." Her voice was steadier now, though her pulse beat visibly at her throat.
Castor smiled. It was a small, cold thing. "I'll want to see it before I leave," he said. "Make sure the quality is worth noting."
Her eyes widened slightly. She understood. So did her husband.
Derran stepped between them, shoulders squared, fists still clenched. "My lord, she's done nothing wrong. If there's a complaint about the count, that's on me and the headman, not—"
"You're right," Castor said. "It is on you."
He didn't raise his hand. Didn't give an order aloud. He just glanced toward two of his men-at-arms and tilted his head slightly toward Derran.
They moved.
Derran barely had time to shout before they were on him—one catching his arm, the other hooking a leg. He went down hard into the frozen mud, and before he could roll or swing, a mailed boot came down on the back of his knee.
The crack was sharp and wet.
Derran screamed.
Greta lunged forward, but Castor caught her wrist, fingers closing like iron. She struggled, mouth open, but he pulled her back against his chest and held her there, one arm across her waist, his other hand still gripping her wrist.
"Don't," he said quietly, lips near her ear. "It's already done."
On the ground, Derran writhed, clutching his leg. The men-at-arms stepped back, calm and professional, as if they'd done nothing more than move a piece of furniture.
The break was clean—leg bent wrong at the knee, bone visible through torn trousers.
The headman started forward, mouth open to protest or beg, but one of Castor's knights shifted his hand to his sword hilt and the old man froze.
"He'll live," Castor said, loud enough for the village to hear. "The leg will heal crooked, but he'll live. That's more than he'd get if I thought he'd actually tried to swing at me."
He looked down at Derran, who was sobbing now, face white with shock. "You wanted to protect your wife," Castor continued, voice still even.
"I understand that. But you forgot who you were speaking to. So now you'll remember. Every time you limp. Every winter when that knee aches."
He released Greta and stepped back. She dropped to her knees beside her husband, hands hovering uselessly over his ruined leg, tears streaming down her face.
Castor turned to Jeren. "Finish the count. When you're done, bring the ledger to me."
Then he looked at the headman. "I'll be inspecting the weaver's house. Make sure no one disturbs me."
The old man's face was grey. He nodded once, jerkily.
Castor walked toward the largest of the mud-and-timber houses—Greta and Derran's, judging by the way she'd glanced at it when he'd asked about the loom. One of his men moved to follow, but Castor waved him off.
"Stay here. Make sure the villagers stay calm."
He stepped inside.
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