While the king is there, he dispenses justice, he oversees the choosing of officers for the standing army (a process that The Boss is unhappy with), and he allows those who are ill to attempt to heal themselves by touching him. After this business is taken care of, The Boss and the king set out to travel into the countryside in disguise. The Boss wants to find out, firsthand, what the conditions of the country are, and the king thinks that it might be a lark to go along. Thus, the two set out.
The Boss and the king have a number of problems on their journey because the king simply will not, or cannot, act like a peasant; indeed, The Boss manages to save them from being killed several times, once by using a dynamite bomb to blow up a group of charging knights.
During one incident, they help a woman who is dying of smallpox, leaving just before her sons, who had been imprisoned by the local lord, escape and arrive home. As The Boss and the king move through the night, they see the glow of a fire in the distance, and they discover the corpses of a number of men who have been hanged. Near morning, they come to a hut, and they finally convince the woman who greets them to give them some hospitality. After they have slept, she feeds them, and they learn that the lord of that area has been killed and that all the freemen in the neighborhood have been out all night looking for whoever is responsible for the murder. The Boss notices that his host and hostess are terribly nervous, and he guesses that they are probably related to the boys who are responsible for the lord's death. Therefore, he goes out with his host, Marco, and they agree that they will say nothing about key suspects who escaped. Instead, they walk through the village talking to people. The Boss invites a number of them to dinner that Sunday, and he insists on paying for everything; thus a sumptuous spread is prepared at the store.
The Boss's purpose in gathering these people for a meal is to find out what they think about wages and about the relationship between wages and purchasing power; he wants to convince them that his way of thinking is better than theirs, but all he manages to do is make them suspicious of him. Then, before he can cover up his error and ease their suspicions, the king begins talking about agricultural matters in such a way that makes these people think that he is mad. As a result, the men set upon the king and The Boss. Although the king and The Boss are winning the fight, they notice that their hosts have left. Suspecting that they have gone for help to aid their neighbors, the king and The Boss flee.
