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Saul strides forward, to stand before Gisbert, who is tussling with Christopher. He very calmly, and very sternly stands there; staring at the man, silently demanding his attention. Leaning on his walking stick, he simply waits.

Christopher's slap suffices to send the old man off balance, and he lands hard, first on his bottom and then his head knocks on the gound, making his eyes unfocus and his limbs go limp. The two unharmed young men look at him for a moment, then they slowly lower their hands, watching Christopher. "May we get up? Gernot asks timidly. Gerald groans and sits up, cradling the hand the Saul crushed with his staff.

Meanwhile, the girls examine the forge. It has been transformed into a place to make malt from germinated barley, with a large pan over the forge fire. The fire has burned to embers, and the malt is done. It would be good to move it around some more in the pan to keep it from burning in places while cooling. There is a ladder leading to the upper floor, close to the wall they had first seem of the building..In the far corner, a few filled sacks are stacked.

Dale calls out to Eloise as she moves to leave. "Hang on, one of us can go with you two." He grumbles as he looks towards the others in the group to see what they are doing.

Moving towards where both Eloise and Thelma are standing, he calls out. "Try to stay together if possible, please?"

"Well I'm going up there." she points to the ladder. "Coming?" she asks with a wink.

Breila wrote:Christopher's slap suffices to send the old man off balance, and he lands hard, first on his bottom and then his head knocks on the gound, making his eyes unfocus and his limbs go limp. The two unharmed young men look at him for a moment, then they slowly lower their hands, watching Christopher. "May we get up? Gernot asks timidly. Gerald groans and sits up, cradling the hand the Saul crushed with his staff.

"You louts can get up when I say you can get up. You came at me with weapons. You are alive now only because I chose to spare you. Understand? Good." he lets his anger at Gisbert show while he's talking to the younger men. It is important to keep them afraid right now, so that they remain off-balance.
"Now you are going to answer a few questions. If you cooperate no harm will come to you. If not, you can join George, there." He pauses to let that sink in while he circles behind them, out of their line of sight, then continues.

"Where is Erika, the taverner's daughter?"

"Erika? We don't know anyone named Erika" Gernot says. "We're not from the village" he hastily adds, seeing Christopher frown. "The Old Man brought us here only on days when there was hard work to be done" Gerald adds, between gasps of pain as he tries to adjust his legs, one of which is twisted awkwardly, but he tries topull himslef together. He is the only one at present who can look at Christsopher. "Yes, like the malting, and drawing the water to moisten the seeds, or to fill the brewing vat, and later fill the barrels" Gernot explains. "Then he sent us away, didn't he, Gerhard, Gerald?" hes asks his comrades to confirm. "Yes, he took only Georg with him when he entered the palas" Gerhard confirms.

"So you are just day-laborers?." long pause....."Day laborers who were ready to take up arms and commit multiple murders because the old man told you to, yes? And the old man and Georg can vouch for that, but they're unconscious right now.
"Saul, Dale, Matthias, does that sound like shite to you?"

Eloise scoffs at the way she and Thelma are ignored, the Old man wouldn't even be alive without them..

Shrugging she darts up the ladder.

Matthias steps away from the wounded young man to join Christopher, though he stays a good distance from the man. "They must have known that they were in the wrong to so readily take up arms against us. These are not innocent boys who sit before us." His face is dark with emotion and disapproval, his tone graver still. "I should wonder if they do not face the gallows, were the Abbey to be involved."

Thelma shrugs at being ignored and follows Eloise. "Let's check it out, we're secure which is what counts.", She tells Eloise in a reassuring voice.

Saul breaks his silence and finally speaks. Ever so softly, he says, "Perhaps a burning brand from the forge would do more to loosen their lying tongues." When one of the men quails at the thought, Saul turns his wrathful gaze upon him. "Oh, yes, a holy man threatens torture. You see, I've been to the Holy Land. I've knelt upon the stones of Calvary, slept in the walls of Jerusalem, and seen the halls of the Knights of the Temple Mount. Do you know what I learned? I learned that men are violent, ugly, liars. All of us are sinners and the only difference is the extent of their sins."

Walking closer to captured men, he looks each of them over with a stern gaze before continuing. "So I ask you, before I am forced to use more persuasive methods, are you liars?"

Making a short huffing sound, Dale says in a loud voice and some dark humor. "It's possibly true, but I would ask about the night shift before we start trade talks with them."

Moving with the women, Dale calls out to the group. "I will keep up with the girls for now. We are not going far." Though, the last line is more to the women than the men in the group.

"Thanks Sis. I'm glad you are here." She smiles squeezing her arm, "Lets go." Vaulting up the ladder she moves quickly.

Eloise and Thelma can go up the stairs without difficulty, They arrive in a large attic, with a little illumination from the window in the wall and the hatch they came through. The attic has an unusually well-kept floor, but seems to be completely empty. There is a faint smell of grain. Indeed, a few scattered grains can be found in the few spaces where the floorboards are not perfectly joined.

"We are not day-laborers" Gernot hastens to say after being threatened with torture. "Gisbert is our uncle, and Georg is our cousin. They did not trust us as much as they trusted each other, so they didn't tell us everything. And we needed the work and the money they gave us. The piece of land our father left to us is too small to support us all."

Saul searches the man's eyes for hint of falsehood a moment, below furrowed brow. Without another word he walks over to the forge and grabs the closest metal rod that he can find and thrusts it into the coals. As he stokes the fire, he looks back at the men over his shoulder. "Christopher, I think it all sounds like shite, to me..."