The man, after an appraising look, gave him a half salute and a mumbled, "B'yer'Lady."

"Do you live hereabouts?"

"Aye," the man said. He was middle-aged, well fed, his hooded coat, like Cazaril's shabbier one, plain but serviceable. He walked as though he owned the land he stood on, though probably not much more.

"I, ah," Cazaril pointed back up the track. "I'd stepped off the road a moment, to take shelter in that mill up there"—no need to go into details of what he'd been sheltering from—"and I found a dead man."

"Aye," the man said.

Cazaril hesitated, wishing he hadn't dropped his cobble. "You know about him?"

"Saw his horse tied up there, this morning."

"Oh." He might have gone on down the road after all, with no harm done. "Have you any idea who the poor fellow was?"

The farmer shrugged, and spat. "He's not from around here, is all I can say. I had our divine of the Temple up, soon as I realized what sort of bad doings had been going on there last night. She took away all the fellow's goods that would come loose, to hold till called for. His horse is in my barn. A fair trade, aye, for the wood and oil to speed him out. The divine said he daren't be left till nightfall." He gestured to the high-piled load of burnables hitched to the donkey's back, gave the halter rope a tug, and started up the track again. Cazaril fell into step beside him.

"Do you have any idea what the fellow was doing?" asked Cazaril.

"Plain enough what he was doing." The farmer snorted. "And got what he deserved for it."

"Um... or who he was doing it to?"

"No idea. I'll leave it to the Temple. I do wish he hadn't done it on my land. Dropping his bad luck all over... like to haunt the place hereafter. I'll purge him with fire and burn down that cursed wreck of a mill at the same time, aye. No good to leave it standing, it's too close to the road. Attracts"—he eyed Cazaril—"trouble."