OUR POWERLESSNESS WAS SO OBVIOUS it was shameful to me. Norcross’s sword jangled as he made his way to the frightened miller. “On my word, miller.” Norcross smiled. “Only last week did you not have two sons?”

“My son Matt has gone to Vaucluse,” Georges said, and looked toward me. “To study the metal trade.”

“The metal trade …” Norcross nodded, bunching his lips. He smiled as if to say, I know that is a pile of shit. Georges was my friend. My heart went out to him. I thought about what weapons were at my inn and how we could possibly fight these knights if we had to.

“And with your stronger son gone,” Norcross pressed on, “how will you continue to pay your tax to the duke, your labor now depleted by a third?”

Georges’s eyes darted about. “It will be made easily, my lord. I will work that much harder.”

“That is good.” Norcross nodded, stepping over to the boy. “In that case, you won’t be missing this one too much, will you?” In a flash, he hoisted the nine-year-old lad up like a sack of hay.

He carried Alo, kicking and screaming, toward the mill.

As Norcross passed the miller’s cowering daughter, he winked at his men. “Feel free to help yourselves to some of the [18] miller’s lovely grain.” They grinned and dragged poor Aimée, screaming wildly, inside the mill.

Disaster loomed in front of my eyes. Norcross took a hemp rope and, with the help of a cohort, lashed Alo to the staves of the mill’s large wheel, which dipped deep beneath the surface of the river.

Georges threw himself at the chatelain’s feet. “Haven’t I always been true to our lord, Baldwin? Haven’t I done what was expected?”

“Feel free to take your appeal to His Holiness.” Norcross laughed, lashing the boy’s wrists and ankles tightly to the water wheel.