I'll go along with it on one condition."

"What's that?"

"No mention of our quest. Not to anybody."

Felix agreed. Gotrek raised one bushy eye-brow and looked at him cunningly.

"Don't think I don't know why you're so keen to travel with this Duke, manling."

"What do you mean?"

"You're enamoured of that chit of a girl you left here with earlier, aren't you?"

"No," Felix sputtered. "Whatever gave you that idea?"

Gotrek laughed uproariously, waking several slumbering drunks.

"Then why has you're face gone all red, manling?" he shouted triumphantly.

Felix knocked on the door of the caravan within which he had been told he would find the Baron's master-of-arms.

"Come in," said a voice. Felix opened the door and his nostrils were assailed with the smell of bear fat. Felix reached for the hilt of his sword.

Inside the caravan five men were crowded. Three Felix recognized as the trappers he had met the previous evening. One was young, richly dressed and fine featured, hair cut short in the fashion of the warrior nobility. The other was a tall powerfully built man clad in buckskins. He was tanned and appeared to be in his late twenties although his hair was silver grey. He had a quiver of black-fletched arrows over his back and a powerful longbow lay near his hand. There seemed to be a family resemblance between the two men.

"Thatsh the bashtard," said Lars through his missing teeth. The two strangers exchanged looks.

Felix stared at them warily. The grey-haired man inspected him, casually assessing him.

"So you're the young man who broke the teeth of one of my guides," he said.

"One of your guides?"

"Yes, Manfred and I hired them last season to steer us across the lowlands, along Thunder River."

"They're mountain men," said Felix, stalling for time, wondering how much trouble he was in.

"They're trappers," said the well-dressed youth, in a cultured aristocratic accent. "They cross the lowlands in search of game too."

Felix spread his hands. "I didn't know."

"What do you want here?" asked Greyhair.

"I'm looking for work, as a hired blade. I was looking for the Baron's master-of-arms."

"That's me," said Greyhair. "Dieter. Also the Baron's Chief Forester, Master Of Hounds and Falconer,"

"My uncle's estate has fallen on rather hard times," said the young man.

"This is Manfred, nephew and heir to Gottfried von Diehl, Baron of The Vennland Marches."

"Former Baron," corrected Manfred. "Since Countess Emmanuelle saw fit to banish my uncle and confiscate our lands rather than punish the real malefactors."

He noted Felix's quizzical look. "Religious differences, you know? My family come from the North and follow Ulric. All our Southron neighbours are devout Sigmarians. In these intolerant times it was all the excuse they needed to seize the lands they coveted. Since they were Countess Emmanuelle's cousins we get exiled for starting a war."

He shook his head disgustedly. "Imperial politics, eh?"

Dieter shrugged. He turned to the mountain men. "Wait outside," he said. "We have business to conduct with Herr...?"

"Jaegar. Felix Jaegar."

The trappers filed past. Lars gave Felix a hate-filled look as he came abreast.