" The traffic increased when I reached the village, and when I walked into the market square I saw a large crowd gathered at one end. For a few moments I stood uncertainly, wondering whether I ought to leave or find out what the crowd was gathered for.
Suddenly they parted, and without warning two soldiers in brown and green rode side by side straight at me. Dropping my gaze to my dusty feet, I pressed back with the rest of the people on the road near me, and listened with intense relief as their horses cantered by without pausing.
The decision as to whether I should try to find out what was going on was settled for me when the crowd around me surged forward, and a man somewhere behind me called, “Hi, there! Molk! What’s toward?”
“Search,” a tall, bearded man said, turning. Around me people muttered questions and comments as he added, “That Countess causing all the problems up-mountain. Milord Commander Debegri has taken over the search, and he thinks she might end up this far south.”
“Reward?” a woman’s shrill voice called from somewhere to the left.
“Promised sixty in pure gold.”
“Where from?” someone else yelled. “If it’s Debegri, I wouldn’t count no gold ‘less I had it in hand, and then I’d test it.”
This caused a brief, loud uproar of reaction, then the bearded man bellowed, “The King! Sixty for information that proves true. Double that for a body. Preferably alive, though they don’t say by how much.”
Some laughed, but there was an undertone of shock from others.
Then: “What’s she look like, and is she with anyone?”
“Might be on a brown mare. Filthy clothes, looks like a human rat, apparently. No hat. Dressed like a dockside beggar.”
“That’s some help.” Another woman laughed. “I take it we look for whiskers and a long tail?”
“Short, scrawny, brown hair, long--very long. Blue eyes. Bandaged left leg, got caught in a steel trap. Probably limping if not mounted.”
Limping. I looked down, wondering if any of the people pressed around me had been watching me walk.
Time to move on. Now, I thought, and I took a step sideways, then backward, easing my way out of the crowd. I didn’t hear all of the next shouted question, but the answer was clear enough: “Commander Debegri said that if anyone is caught harboring or aiding the fugitive, it means death.”
One step, two: I turned and walked away, forcing myself to keep an even pace, as my heart thumped like a drum right under my ears. "

― Sherwood Smith , Crown Duel (Crown & Court, #1)