Summary

In Chapter 1, a 15-year-old boy named Fletcher is hunting in the woods near his home village of Pelt. There is a large wall around Pelt, and Fletcher knows he has to be inside by the time the gates close for the night because it is not safe to be in the woods after dark. He kills a buck and returns to discover the gate is already closed, though it is not quite time. He gives the valuable horns of his deer to a rude boy named Didric Cavell. Didric is supposed to open the gate in return, but he does not. Fletcher has to bribe another soldier to open the gate.

Chapter 2 takes place on market day. Fletcher thinks about his past, including that Berdon found Fletcher when he was an infant at the village gates. Fletcher hates his mother, whoever she is...