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Faucon interrupted. More than anything, he didn't want the lad spewing just now whatever it was he withheld, not here where the wrong person might overhear. But preventing that meant revealing some of what Faucon had learned thus far, doing so much earlier than he liked.
    "Bailiff, Jessimond did not enter your well of her own volition nor did she drown. She was already with our Lord when someone placed her corpse into this shaft," he said, carefully parsing his words as he watched those around him.
    There was no reading Amelyn's face, not when it was concealed beneath her oversized hood. Ivo and his older sons appeared surprised by their Crowner's revelation. Gawne and the wild-looking oldster glanced at each other, their shared look suggesting much. Odger and Meg both stared flatly back at their better.
    Then something flared in the woman's dark gaze. Dropping her hands from her hips, she pointed a finger at Gawne. "If that is so, Sir Crowner, then I say it was Gawne who killed her," the old woman charged, her voice raised and harsh. "Jessimond was missing for two full days before Gawne came crying that she was in the well. Who else would have known she was in there save the one who put her there? And who else would have put her there save for the one who killed her?"
    There they were, the simple questions Faucon had expected to ask, the ones that should have easily led him to the girl's murderer. But the answers were no longer obvious, and the trail the woman's accusation indicated would prove naught but a dead end. Gawne's hands were too small to have throttled the girl, and his form too slight for him to have lifted the corpse high enough to have put her into the well by himself. And despite what strength the lad claimed for himself, he couldn't have brought the girl from where she had died to Wike by himself, not without someone witnessing.
    But Gawne knew naught of what his Crowner did. His eyes flew wide at the old woman's accusation. With a choked cry, he pivoted and raced away from the well.
    "Nay!" Ivo howled after his youngest son, the word filled with heartbreak.
    "Neighbors, come to me!" Odger's voice drowned out the smith's cry. "Stop Gawne, son of Ivo! He has done murder!" the bailiff bellowed, raising the hue and cry.
    So certain was Odger that those he ruled would follow that he turned instantly to chase the boy. He should have waited. Not a single cottage door opened. Neither did the ragged oldster nor Ivo do as the law required. Instead, both stayed where they stood.
    The smith's elder boys weren't so sanguine. Shooting sidelong glances at their new Crowner, they started after their brother and their bailiff, albeit moving at a half-hearted shuffle. Near the kitchen the odd-looking youth also joined the race, but his awkward gait was as strange as his appearance. Lifting his heels and raising his chin high, he tiptoed precariously after the others. As he went, he flapped his hands and matched each step he took with a clicking sound made with his tongue. All in all, it was a pathetic chase and Faucon couldn't have been more pleased.
    He watched Gawne race toward the pale, aiming toward the hatch—the narrow low-hung gate that allowed men entrance into the king's forest, albeit bent in twain and one at a time. The lad threw open the gate. He was short enough that he didn't need to duck as he passed through it. Even from this distance, Faucon could hear Gawne's footfalls echo on the plank bridge that crossed the deep ditch lining the pale, meant to prevent the deer from leaping over the fence.
    Odger reached the hatch, started through it, only to turn back with a shout of frustration. It seemed the lad had kicked the planking into the ditch after he was across. Still the bailiff persisted, now bearing right to a stretch that was fenced with a thick holly hedge. There was a gap where the holly had died. That the bailiff didn't return once he pushed through the sharp-edged foliage suggested that another plank