Marcon's brow furrows. If the town had been beset by plague, as Olgalla saw in his journeys, the gates would be shut. A sack would explain the state of the keep, but why keep the palisade untouched ("Wood burns quick, stone falls slow", as Bragnon Broadshield observed in 'Siegecraft')?

"I shall go with you," he declares to the healer. "I would know what happened here."