Session Fifty-Nine - September 13, 2008

[Matt]

Halane 16, 731

Imarë glances up from the oaken table where she pens Sir Ewen’s letter to Thilisa accepting the invitation to her sister’s wedding in Nuzyael. The front door of Gray House has crashed inward with a tumult of loud voices as Dickon Parketh bids farewell from the thick fog to his newfound fellow officers and drinking companions. The two men lurch inside and stagger out of view as the door is slammed shut on Parketh and the fog-bound morning street. Completing her missive with a flourish, she glides upstairs and selects a slender book of poetry from the shelves of Sir Ewen’s library, careful not to disturb the trancing knight in the next room. Tip-toeing past the door to Kaelyn’s room, where the scholar was busily peering into her scrying bowl for a glimpse of the tampered Taum, she descends and emerges into the pea-soup of Tashal’s streets. She walks the short distance north to Haldan Square where she takes up her station, posing amidst the bustling market with studied nonchalance whilst peering at her book, occasionally glancing in the direction of the Earl of Neph’s estate and inwardly cursing the fog. As the hours roll past, tedium reigns at the Neph compound. Deliveries arrive from tradesmen, a liveried man visits once and later departs, and the normal activities of daily life in a noble household play out before her watchful eyes. Eventually sighing as the afternoon wears on, Imarë reflects on the ephemeral quality of the fleeting passage of a day, observes once again how little she enjoys the environs of a malodorous city, and snaps her book shut. Curious about Kaelyn’s luck with her scrying, the elf returns to Gray House as the afternoon shadows lengthen.

She finds Sir Ewen seated at the table in the hall, hearing with equanimity Kaelyn’s report that, while her magic was well-contrived, the bowl had remained devoid of any trace of her quarry. Kaelyn opines that Taum may well be dead, her water remaining water, which causes Sir Ewen to settle backward in his seat, steepling his fingers beneath his chin as Sir Baris and Quinn noisily clamber in from the street, returned from an attempt to apply the squire to some book learning. Picking up on the tail end of the conversation as the two collapse at the table, massaging their temples, Sir Baris agrees to deliver Sir Ewen’s letter to the Earl of Vemion in Minarsis to the College of Heralds if Sir Ewen accedes to a drinking tour of Tashal.

Sir Ewen gives Imarë 120d in honor of their earlier agreement at Bejist, and she and Kaelyn go off to the Iron Bell. Noticing no untoward attention paid to their sojourn across town, they arrive at the Iron Bell, where many tables are available in the common room due to the off season. One table is occupied by three people, with one female person seeming vaguely familiar. Rosak of Kass recalls Imarë and recommends the boar as being especially succulent, accompanied by a Melderyni shenap. Imarë, head congested from taking the un-sylvan city airs today, can’t overhear the conversation at the other table, which briefly irritates her; why visit a fine dining venue if unable to eavesdrop? The evening passes pleasantly nonetheless as a consequence of the boar rib roast with various sides, followed by another wine and various cheeses, one a soft Gardiren goat cheese. Pear brandy, sugary treats, and a lavish tip round the 96d tab out to a clean ten shillings.

Meanwhile, Sir Baris has prevailed upon his fellow knight to emulate Dickon Parketh’s drinking tour of the city with one of their own, so Sir Ewen grabs his lute and they hie their way in muted garb to the Coin & Broom, a large building boasting a two story façade and an extra story in back. Behind the structure is a small alley three feet wide, which the second story overlaps as it connects with an adjacent building, forming a dimly lit tunnel below. Along the dirt road running along the south of the Coin & Broom are two doors, one a large set of double doors twenty feet in from the building’s apex, and another large set almost to rear of building. Sound from the bustling common room spills out into the sweltering evening through the wide open shutters and double doors as the two knights climb the wooden stoops and burrow into the teeming crowd. They find a common room centering around a large opening, eight large tables with benches and chairs, smaller chairs and tables scattered about, curtained off rooms on the narrow western side of the building, an expansive bar with three huge casks on it, fire in the hearth to provide light, and an open doorway with steps up suggesting a kitchen beyond. The tables are full, populated by urban poor and apprentices, none dressed as well as the two newcomers. Perla’s angels work the place around them as they work their way to the bar, where a barkeep named Loral asks Ewen if he is a minstrel, picking up on the lute slung over the shoulder. Introduces himself as Turpin and accedes to playing the Khuzan and the Elf, an extemporaneous modification of an earlier tune, and the crowd enjoys the instrumentation while cheerfully tolerating the bawdy but out-of-practice vocals. After another drink Ewen performs the Fair Maid of Ternua, adopted especially for the Coin & Broom, which goes well enough albeit with further poor singing. Cekiya enters at some point, rattling the nerves of the servers who putter in a private room near the apex of the inn’s large triangular corner, where she pushes a chair against the wall and watches. The crowd likes the bawdy song, the serving girl Nakella brings a pre-made pigeon pie, which contains little bird and is largely congealed. A local asks where Ewen learned to sing like that, and he indicates Ternua, claiming to be Turpin of Turpin, a small but fictional outlying village. One local asks if this makes Ewen the lord of Turpin, while another calls out to the throng, enquiring what another word for turpin is, with manure and feces offered as lead contenders. All is in good humor until talk turns to gossip of a hanging this morning in Kald Square, reportedly of a Navehan. The new captain of the guard, the crowd allows, is a big anti-Navehan reformer, and some opine that a whole nest of them in the tunnels under the city are financed by money from Coranan, a big evil city in the west which exports funds to the Navehans along the Salt Route. The consensus of the crowd is that Navehans twisting at the end of a rope is a good thing, as they are generally occupied with stealing babies and cutting the throats of honest men when not so constrained. Karl frets aloud anxiously whether someone he knows might turn out to be a secret Navehan, but the crowd seeks relief in another song from Ewen, who attempts the Maid and Laranian but puts in a poor performance, leading some wit in the crowd to suggest that if you ask for Turpin, you get turpin. Ewen glances to the rear as he wends his way through the crowd toward Karl, gesturing the big man toward the door, and notes that Cekiya has already departed.

Scaling the wall inside the yard of the Tower Inn, Cekiya finds the sheer stones difficult to climb, offering few holds, and at one point she slips back a few feet about halfway to the top. Onto the battlement, though, with no guards in sight. She misjudges the twenty foot drop, lands badly and skids face-down along the sloping downhill turf, arising muttering eccentric oaths and tenderly touching herself, ascertaining her injury to be but a bruised breast, and not nearly so contused as her pride. She makes her way to the Orgael Wood under a full moon dispersed by fog, the sounds of her boots on the ground preternaturally loud in the still night. She surveys the gibbets on the southern edge of the woods, finding four of the ten with new contents, but only the second fresh. She peers closer, finding the corpse blue-faced and stiff, beginning to bloat. Cekiya does not recognize him. Aware that the other gibbets are less fresh, with an odor of putrescence, the contents unrecognizable, she departs. Climbing back up the wall adjacent to the Tower Inn, a guard has appeared at the top of the large tower of Heru Gate, but appears to have not seen her ascent. Stealthily crouching into the shadows, she times the guard until he looks away, and then jumps onto one of the branches of a tree in the inn yard, from which she climbs down to the ground. A man relieving himself against other tree startles, but Cekiya glances up and winks: “More privacy up there.” Weaving in place, neck craning upward, filthy drunk, he cries “Hey, I should have thought of that.”

The discalced knights move on to Oak & Stone, which is a pretty clean place, with few tables, populated by the urban poor, with no prostitutes, and a large woman in a larger skirt who rules over the place with a broom. Finding the patroness opposed in principle to music of any sort, they move on to the Tower Inn around eleven at night. After we enter, a man stumbles into inn, leaves in his hair, rubbing his elbow, hose disheveled. The knights look him up and down, shake their heads, and consume an ale before heading to the Seven Stars. Sir Baris notices a footpad following them, and so “Karl” pretends to stumble and grab his hand axe. He actually stumbles, though, which makes the following footpad laugh aloud, calling “Turpin” before he runs off. Ewen helps Baris to his feet, and Karl waits by a nearby well as Ewen goes into the bar. Dafydd, noting the lute, asks if Ewen is some kind of skald, which Ewen fails to deny, going so far as to admit that he might be from Ivinia. Dafydd ejects Ewen, who steps outside the door and begins to strum the Khuzan and the Elf until the barkeep emerges, swinging his axe, ordering them to get completely out. They retreat. The Garb & Flail, with Jaril of Barsin the proprietor, is closing up, so they partake of a couple of ales and bread and cheese for a ha-penny. They leave, planning to walk home extremely drunk.

The first sign of trouble is a wandering horse, one of the riding horses trying to forage for grass on Haldan Square. Cekiya, coming down the walls of the Laranian temple, checks the horse, skulks to the wall, listens, hears nothing, and gets to Gray House, where she finds the doors to the stable gone, the charred remains of a few boards hanging on their hinges, smoldering. No lights, the kitchen door open. The body in the kitchen is Mara, the young serving girl, killed by a massive injury from an edged weapon. Out to the foyer, along the wall by the stairs, Cekiya listens and briefly prays for the eyes of Dekejis. She walks upstairs, where three bodies sprawl in the great hall, where charring mars the edge of the table and other items in a broad radius. Tarakh, two servants, Talara and Kessel dead. Two more killed with edged weapons, Garten and Holli, in the servants quarters, mattresses flipped over, wood by the fireplace disturbed. Cekiya’s room, first on the left, has been ransacked. The upstairs privy is empty, table and chairs knocked away, and Quinn lies on his back, stabbed to death, sword clutched in his hand. Sir Baris’s room has been tossed, silver strewn about. Sir Ewen’s study is also tossed, shelves pulled over, books scattered, Sir Ewen’s bedchamber a chaos of strewn items and furniture. Sir Ewen’s chest has been hacked apart. Methodically, Cekiya descends to the cellar, which has been rifled, supplies thrown about and wine casks opened up, their contents running on the floor like blood.

When Imarë and Kaelyn return, they see Cekiya bringing the stray horse back into its stall. The horse shies, and Cekiya finds Garten alive and whimpering, gibbering, nonsensical. After a brief conference, Cekiya leaves for Rahel’s while Imarë and Kaelyn wait in the stable. By the time Cekiya returns, Sir Ewen and Sir Baris have returned and take stock, sobered by the emergency. Cekiya briefs Rollach and Dickon at Dickon House. Dickon hears the tale and rousts five of the men to accompany him to Gray House, outraged.

Sir Ewen attempts to rapport with Garten, fails, and orders Dickon to detail two men in rotation at Gray House from now on. He tries to Object Read charred table and fails. They discuss whether the neighbors might have witnessed anything. A brief war council is called by Ewen after the bodies have been moved to cellar. Sir Ewen asks Rollach whether his men can withstand another such assault, and Rollach says yes save for his inability to estimate the danger of the fire source. Rollach, Potelc, and Imarë are taken by Cekiya to the Spurs, where they exit the city through the tunnels around 2am. They reach Varayne at 4am without running into anyone of note, and Varayne is found undisturbed. Lady Afaewyn is brought up to speed, and they head back to Tashal.

Halane 17, 731

The disconsolate awake at Gray House. No breakfast, stale loaves of bread in kitchen. Imarë has returned by daybreak. Cheese and bread break their fast. Ewen engages in tracing and then rapports with Garton: he had just finished checking the horse in the stall to the left of the one that was wandering, when the stable doors disintegrated in flames. Garton’s mind does not parse whether he heard a loud noise or one barely audible, he just heard it and turned and saw the doors vaporize. He instinctively dived into the stall of the horse that Cekiya found wandering. Two men, each with shortbows, led three more people – one man with a staff glowing at the top, a short woman in blue with brown hair, and a man next to her with a drawn sword similar to the type Imarë carries, but longer than the elf’s longknife. Ewen recognizes it as an estoc. Behind them are two men at arms, one carrying a handaxe and one with a broadsword. All of those go into the kitchen, and Garton hears a scream. A shadow falls across stall, and he burrows deeper into the hay, slipping the horse’s tether as he does so. The horse shies and then bolts in a clattering of hooves, the man growling an epithet as he staggers back, the horse escaping. A voice, “It’s a horse, can’t you do something?” Another voice says, “Not my kind,” calmly, detached. The fearful stableboy hears more muffled sounds as the men move off, a dull explosion on the second floor sounding a couple of minutes later. Time goes by, he’s terrified the two left in stable will notice him, he is breathing too loudly, aware of little until Kryste and the rest reappear in the stable ten or fifteen minutes later. Apparently they had split into two groups, and Kryste questions the man with estoc sharply, frustrated – are you sure it’s not in the rooms on the second floor? I think I could have found a sword if I was looking for it, curt but not disrespectful. Ewen gets the impression he is an equal, put out by her doubt of him. Kryste says, “We had better get out of here before someone calls the watch.” After that, Garton descends into a state of shock. Ewen estimates the assault took place around nine and lasted a half hour. The invaders were wearing cloaks, faces unrecognizable save for Kryste, who was seen clearly, her hood pushed back, and Ewen thinks he might be able to recognize the man with the estoc, who seemed a younger man in his twenties, reasonably handsome, but Ewen would have to see him in the right way to make the connection.

Baris and Imarë go to the woodcrafter to get the stable door fixed, Kaelyn cleans up the books in the study, and Cekiya leaves to scout the window to Kryste’s room at the Seven Stars. Trancing to wall off his own humanity, Ewen tries to rapport with Iblis, but fails. The new door is to be built and hung by the end of the day, and the workers cart away the remains of the old door. Ewen fails an Object Read of the table, then leaves to brief Rahel.

Cekiya and Kaelyn head off to the Seven Stars, fog having burned off, leaving a warm, overcast day. No Dafydd, but the cook there remembers Cekiya. “Hello, daisy girl.” He thanks her for her line about freshness, which he has been using on the patrons about his stew, which is now seven days old and counting. Cekiya notes an addition to the graffiti – somehow the dwarf has grown a tail. Kaelyn and Cekiya sit down, and Kaelyn takes in the artwork.

“Where do you live?” the cook attempts.

“Does one really live anywhere,” Cekiya muses abstractly.

“I didn’t mean to ask a hard question… but I’m off two nights from now,” he offers gamely. He suggests taking Cekiya to a play, and they discuss the previous comedy sensation of the summer, ‘Melba the Singing Nun.’ “Where can I pick you up?”

“Oh no, I have rules.”

“Okay, well, meet me here the night after tomorrow? Six o’clock, so we have time, the second nineday of the month? I’ll bring finger food,” he says cheerily.

“Oh no, let me treat, you cook all the time.”

He agrees, and goes back into the kitchen. Cekiya glances at Kaelyn, chortling at the table. Cekiya goes up the stairs, listens at the second door on the left, her target, but hears nothing. She listens at the door to the room Taum stayed in, but there’s nothing. A turn of the doorknob – not locked, and a slight creak. The room is empty. It’s a tiny room, in fact, oddly shaped, with a bed and chest and that’s all. The chest is open and empty. Cekiya looks behind bed, but sees nothing. She then listens at the next room, and the next. In this last is snoring, loud. Finally, she goes back downstairs, finding that the cook has brought over seedcakes on the house. They actually look good, and the ladies decide he probably didn’t make them. Cekiya goes back upstairs and opens door to Kryste’s room. Inside is a large double bed, an open chest, and a table and chair. The room is uninhabited. She looks into the other rooms to find nothing.

Meanwhile, Sir Ewen arrives at Hag Hall, and doesn’t believe he was followed. Sir Harth meets him perfunctorily, and climbs upstairs to notify Rahel while Ewen waits in the small hall. The siblings rapport to save Ewen the need to tediously explain what he has learned from Garton. Later, Ewen mentions the Earl of Neph’s extended stay in Tashal, and Rahel indicates learning that it is quite unusual for him to come to the city at all. Rahel suggests that the Earl takes excessive risks due to overconfidence, and that his remaining in Tashal is one of these. She mischievously suggests kidnapping him, and indicates a cell next to the one occupied by Sedris Meleken would suit him well. She also suggests the relocation of Sir Ewen’s operation from Gray House, which prompts Sir Ewen to wonder whether Astarock’s old place might be available. Rahel agrees to look into it, suggesting this notion may prove promising in spite of the absence of integral stables. The rest of the afternoon is devoted to scenes of fulsome sibling affection, after which Sir Ewen returns to Gray House around eight, eager to hear the results of Kaelyn’s latest attempt to scry Hemison Curo, Earl of Neph.