Author's Note:
Just playing in the sandbox. I don't own Ranger's Apprentice. If I did, I wouldn't be writing fanfiction for it.

Suspicious Circumstances

Friends

Two boys - ten, perhaps eleven years old - were going at each other with wooden swords at the edge of the woods.

One of them was black-haired, strong-jawed and dark-eyed with a blindingly white grin that never wavered, even when his companion broke through his guard and smacked him with his wooden sword. The other had red blonde hair and blue eyes, with a face that would be handsome in a few more years. It was a face that was not unused to smiling, but it was set and serious now, steady and unflinching, jaw tightening into a grimace whenever the other boy landed a blow.

Both boys were dressed in simple clothes - peasant clothes, work clothes. Their hair was dirty from the falls they'd taken, the dark-haired boy had mud across his face, and the fair-haired one had a bruise forming on his cheekbone.

In the shadows of the trees, unfriendly eyes watched them sparring. Eyes belonging in heads that were attached to chests and shoulders and arms and hands that held spiked clubs and rusty daggers.

One week earlier:

Arald was wandering Castle Redmont again. He had no particular direction, no set destination. He was just...wandering. Getting to know the castle one might say, if Arald didn't know every inch of it by heart already. Some of the staff smiled and greeted him, others didn't. Normally, he'd have been making a nuisance of himself, but he was still shaking off the latest wave of melancholy that had hit him a few days earlier. They'd been coming at irregular intervals ever since his mother had died.

It had been a month ago. A fever, they said. Sickness. Perfectly natural, but nothing could be done, and a few days later the Lady Cynthia was dead. Arald was only eleven, but he knew enough about politics - and his older brother - that he had his doubts. Norton was a sly boy, handsome and charming enough that nobody suspected him of anything, but a cold snake underneath.

Arald hated him. Strongly.

But he was only eleven, and Norton was fifteen. Father - Baron Peyton - was utterly taken in by Norton's act, and would dismiss young Arald's accusations as the words of a grief-stricken young boy who didn't know what he was saying. Besides, then Norton might decide that Arald was a problem and he needed to be removed, just like mother.

Arald considered going to Ranger Pritchard, but the man was...intimidating. There was no other way to put it. He was ancient (to an eleven-year-old boy at least), almost forty, and infinitely more skilled than Arald at...well, at everything.

Father could be next, a little voice whispered in his head. He didn't like that voice sometimes, especially when it was right and he didn't want it to be. Mother had called it a conscience. Arald supposed that fit.

It was his conscience that brought him back to his room. On impulse, he changed into simple clothes that his parents didn't know about, ones that wouldn't draw attention to him down in the village. Wearing these clothes, he discovered he was beneath notice in the castle. In the village, he was just another young boy, not the Baron's son who should by rights have an escort that would certainly get him noticed by Norton.

Well, most of the time.

As Arald neared the outskirts of the village, a gang of boys about his own age - but skinny and wiry instead of more traditionally bulky like Arald himself - formed a semicircle in front of him. Arald stopped, eyes flickering as he scanned through them all. Hungry, but not starving, he decided. More mean than desperate. That was good - or maybe not. Desperation could do strange things to people, but at least it gave them an obvious motive.

"'aven't seen you 'round here b'fore." The boy in the middle spoke, harsh curiosity gleaming in his eyes. He was a little older than Arald - twelve, at a guess. "You new?"

Arald, not in the mood but very aware of how badly this could end for him - Norton had detailed it out often enough, when he was trying to terrify Arald into keeping quiet - responded evenly. "Don't come 'round these parts of'n." He offered, trying to get the pattern of the other boys' speech down. He wasn't technically lying, just being selectively truthful.

"Yeah?" The group was closing in now, slowly and subtly (they thought) but surely. Arald tensed, eyes darting to keep them all in sight. "What's y' father do?" He asked, trying to get an idea of where the new boy stood in the pecking order of village boys.

He's the Baron of the fief and he'll throw you all in the dungeons if you so much as touch me, Arald thought, but he did not say it.

"Here, Tom, let 'im be. He ain't done anything to you." The leader (Tom) - and the rest of the gang - turned to face the speaker, a tall boy with more classic-swordsman muscles and a wooden staff in one hand. Oak, Arald thought. He was holding the staff like a sword and tapping the point of it against his leg.

"Stay out of this, Ratty." Tom said, a sneer in his voice as he said the boy's name.

The boy, Ratty, rolled his eyes and muttered something under his breath. Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap went the wooden rod.

"Got something to say, Ratty?"

Ratty raised an eyebrow. "Just that your mother's so ugly I saw the pigs running away in disgust." He retorted. Tom turned beet red and started forward, the majority of the gang backing off but two of them flanking Tom.

And presenting their jaws so very nicely to Arald, who punched one of them hard enough to knock him into Tom, sending him off balance. Tom cursed and stumbled, and Ratty's wooden rod whistled through the air to connect with Tom's side with a resounding crack that sent Tom to his knees with a shriek. Then Tom's second crony was throwing a punch at Arald's head and he ducked, shoving his foe backwards. He tripped over his friend and hit the dirt, arms flailing.

Ratty's hand closed around Arald's wrist and pulled him along until the two boys were on the edge of the woods, where they stood panting until Arald recovered enough breath to speak.

"Thanks." He said with a nod. "I'm - "

"Yeah, you're Arald, I know. The Baron's son - you come down 'ere sometimes, in disguise." The boy introduced himself back. "I'm Rodney. Kind of the lowest of the low. No parents. So I learned how to stick up for myself without 'em."

"You're pretty good at that." Arald noted.

Rodney grinned. "Thanks. You're not so bad yourself. How'd a cushy-lifed nobleman like you learn to fight like that?"

Arald liked Rodney even more - he wasn't afraid to speak his mind, but he wasn't mean. Arald grinned back. "I have an older brother. It goes with the territory."

Rodney actually laughed at that, then stuck out his hand abruptly. "Friends?" He asked.

Arald blinked. The word was...unfamiliar. He knew what it meant, but the concept hadn't occurred to him in a while. "Friends?" He asked.

Rodney's face fell a little, thinking he'd made a mistake. "Well...I mean...I saved your bacon, you saved mine. That's what friends do, right?"

Arald's face broke out into a slow smile. "I guess it is." Rodney's new friend almost looked shy for a moment as he added, "I've never really had a friend before."

"Me neither." Rodney admitted. "I guess it's a first for both of us."

Arald laughed at that and shook Rodney's offered hand. "Friends, then."

Rodney grinned. "Friends." He confirmed. "Where were you headed?" He asked.

Arald made a vague motion in the direction of the Ranger's cabin. "I was on my way to see Ranger Pritchard." He explained.

The grin slid off Rodney's face like water off a duck's feathers.

"The Ranger? Why'd you want to see him?" Rodney asked suspiciously. "Their sort's black warlocks. Not honest, how they creep about with their magics, always knowing everyone's business."

"Rangers aren't warlocks." Arald scoffed. "They're the King's men. They're brave and honest and good folks...even if they are a bit intimidating." An idea occurred to him suddenly, and his brown eyes lit up.

"Why not come with me to see him? You can meet him and see for yourself." He offered.

Rodney's eyes narrowed, as if looking for some trap Arald was laying. Arald repressed the urge to scowl. He wasn't his brother, he didn't trick people for his own amusement. He didn't trick people at all, as a rule.

"I promise not to let him turn you into a toad." Arald added, a trace of sarcasm creeping into his voice.

Rodney couldn't help but snort. "No, just a rat. All right, I'll come. But if he starts making potions or muttering spells, I'm gone." He warned.

"He won't start making potions." Arald promised."Or muttering spells. Now, muttering about paperwork, I can't promise." The joke about paperwork made a slight whistling noise as it flew over Rodney's head, but Arald failed to notice, as friends often did. "C'mon, the cabin's this way."

Ranger Pritchard Springer was, true to form, complaining quietly to himself about having to go through all these reports to figure out what was going on where in what fief and who was doing what about it. He didn't like it. But it could be useful. So he did it.

Chester's soft nicker grabbed his attention as quick as the clash of swords and battle-axes, and he almost gave himself whiplash glancing at the door before his mind caught up with his reflexes.

Chester nickered, no alarm. Not an immediate or obvious threat.

Almost as soon as he had that thought, Pritchard heard snatches of conversation. One of the voices he recognized - Arald, Baron Peyton's second son.

Should have been his first, Pritchard thought sourly, recalling Arald's unpleasant older brother Norton.

"...will be fine." Arald sounded equal parts exasperated and amused with his companion.

"We're gonna get turned into toads." His companion, judging by the voice, was a commoner boy of age with Arald.

"We are not. You'll see. He's...strange...but he's got the best interests of the kingdom at heart." The corners of Pritchard's mouth twitched upwards. High praise from the boy who spent ninety-five percent of the time he spent in Pritchard's company staring at him wide-eyed.

Arald's companion made a skeptical noise in his throat, but one of them knocked a few moments later. Pritchard crossed the four steps of floor to the door and pulled it open, grinning at the two.

Arald looked a good deal more nervous than he usually did - and he was dressed in peasant clothes - and his companion looked generally wary. If it hadn't been for the obviously worn and torn clothes and hair that bore evidence of sleeping in stables, Pritchard would have said he was a knight's son.

"Arald," he greeted, "what brings you here? And who's this?" He asked curiously, indicating the other boy.

Arald beamed. "This is Rodney. My friend," he added proudly, a little like a kid showing off a prize.

"A friend?" Pritchard's eyebrows shot up in mock surprise as he ushered the two into the cabin. "How'd you manage to come by a friend?"

"By running as far away from Norton as possible," Arald responded immediately. Pritchard snorted as he shuffled papers around to make room for the two at his desk.

"So you didn't answer my first question," Pritchard started. "What brings you here?"

Arald shifted uneasily. "You know about Mum?" He asked cautiously.

"I know she died, yes. A fever, wasn't it?" Pritchard asked, mostly for a confused Rodney's benefit.

Arald nodded, but didn't look to terribly convinced.

"You think something else is going on," Pritchard guessed.

The boy hesitated. "Well...it's just...it was awfully sudden...and she had an argument with Norton just before she got sick."

Rodney interrupted, eyebrows coming together. "Wait...Norton, your brother Norton?" He checked cautiously. "Heir t' the fief Norton?"

Pritchard raised an eyebrow. "Do you know another?" He asked dryly.

Rodney's shouldered hunched defensively. "Well...no," he admitted, before adding, "but there could be one!"

Arald proceeded to palm his face.

Pritchard shook his head and returned his attention to Arald. "So you think your brother Norton might have had something to do with your mother's death."

Arald took a deep breath, and nodded.

"I do."