Maricius was having trouble with that part of the job description that says he has to actually know what is going on in his provinces. In particular there were several churches in his realm containing the bones of saints. These proved a big hit with the pious on the holy relics tourist trail, a bit like the Grand Tour except no fine architecture or art just crumbling churches and a few discoloured bones of alleged spiritual significance. Nonetheless ensuring the sanctity of the calcified remains was in the JD .Trouble was an organised ring of bone thieves was relieving the churches of said relics and selling them on the saintly bone black market. Things had come to a head when the shin bone and skull of Saint Cuthbert the Incoherent went missing from a church in Maricius realm.
The viscous gang of bone thieves was tracked down to the grimy frontier village of Plucks Gutter, It may have been in Devon but it was clotted blood rather than cream that was on the menu.
Maricius was out to get the relics back and cover up his incompetence whereas the Comte was after the bones to demonstrate that Maricius was incompetent to guard the sacred sites in his kingdom and put himself forward as a better candidate for the job.
There were Picts attracted by the presence of the the Romano British and the flow of gold into the mean. mud stained village,
The three sides sent forces off to the village to infiltrate quietly and locate the bone thief leader and his looted horde.
Unfortunately as soon as they detected the presence of the enemy forces they started fighting each other. The residents of Plucks Gutter didn't like strangers, in fact they didn't really like each other so various of the civilians, their dogs and cattle not to mention the bone thief gang members all joined in the fight.
In an encounter so bloody that it could have provided enough content for several episodes of The Purge the Picts emerged victorious, mainly due to some sort of necromantic shenanigans they managed to pull that kept resurrecting their fallen fighters. Definitely one to watch out for that Brude Mc Bile.
That just left Maricuis and the Comte to come up with some 'alternative' saints bones. Apparently Saint Cuthbert had three heads and several legs as each side claimed authenticity for the bones in their possession.