Chapter 10: Dice on the Green

I put my shoulder to the door and lifted the bar out of its brackets.

Osgar turned, the hammer still in his hand.

Behind me the lane was waking, and shutters opened.

"Lodger," Osgar said. "Out early."

"You've barred a woman in her own house."

"I've served notice on a debtor. The bar is for her safety. There's been a fire, you recall."

"You set the fire."

The words fell into the lane.

Osgar did not blink.

"That's a serious thing to say with no proof."

"I'll say it with proof when I have it."

"Then you'll say it in a cell."

He tapped the vellum on the door.

"Eighteen marks by Martinmas, or the croft is mine. The Duke's order, with the Duke's seal."

Edith came out behind me, with Hild at her shoulder.

She stood on her own step and read the notice twice.

I watched her lips move over the numbers.

"I haven't got it," she said to the lane. "I haven't got a tenth of it."

"Well? Does anyone here want to say it to me?"

No one did.

"I'll play for it," I said.

"Play?"

"Dice. With your son. The whole eighteen against what I own."

"You own a brown cloak."

"I own a grey horse in Mistress Tyas's stable that's worth twenty."

I had not planned that, and I felt Merewyn's eyes find me from across the lane.

The grey was the captain's, but he would forgive me.

"Ranulf," Osgar said slowly.

Ranulf was standing at the back with his arm in the sling and his face the color of tallow.

"On the green," I said. "Noon. All the village to watch."

"Why would my son bother?"

"Because if he doesn't, they'll say he's afraid of a laborer."

Ranulf's head came up.

"Noon," he said.

The green was full by midday.

They had set a barrel on its end under the oak with a cloth over it.

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