Chapter 7: Six Hundred Marks

The town hall was a long room with a low beamed roof and benches that didn't match.

By noon there were more people in it than benches, and they stood three deep along the walls.

Kranz sat at the table at the front with his purse in front of him, open, so the coins showed.

The widow sat on the front bench with her raw hands in her lap.

The orchard girl sat beside her, chewing her thumbnail instead of an apple.

They had come in by the front door and sat down in front of everyone, and I didn't know two braver women in the world.

Anke wasn't there.

By law she couldn't leave my house, and Kranz had two finders watching its gate.

I sat on the end of a bench near the back, with Gerd standing behind me.

The welt across my palm had gone purple overnight.

I kept closing my hand on it.

The big woman with the ladle in her belt walked to the front and banged the ladle on the table.

"Velde is met," she said. "I'm the alewife, for anyone from off the mountain. I keep order, and I keep it with this."

She waved the ladle.

"The Captain has an offer. Let him make it, and then we'll talk like people."

Kranz stood and put both hands on the table.

"Three hundred marks from my own purse for each witch Velde names. The crown's bounty on top. Six hundred and more for the two."

He let the town look at the coins.

"Salt for the winter. Wool. Boots. Lamp oil. All it costs is a word from one of you."

The gate warden stood up from the side bench before anyone else could.

"I'll say it, if nobody else has the stomach!"

There was a mutter in the room, and it wasn't all against him.

"Six hundred marks!" he said. "When did this town last see six marks? We've buried children for want of a doctor!"

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