11: The Steinhaegers

Hello, mum (Hello Mrs. Chard – Willow). How is everyone? How are all the girls? Today is the last day of Schaffenfest, and it might be our last day in Boegenhafen. I think Josef is heading back down to Altdorf tomorrow, and I might be going with him. I’m not sure about everyone else. I think Willow needs to go back to Altdorf to see her relatives, and so Dreamy will come with us. I think Brandy might need to stay in Boegenhafen to work for the Lowhavens, to pay off his debt. I’ve no idea what Blume is planning, but I don’t really care, anyway.

As it’s the last day of Schaffenfest, this is the day when they sell all the animals. Willow was hoping to go back there and see some (Yes, I think the little lambs are very cute – Willow). She did say something about buying one, but I don’t think she will, now. I don’t think we are able to look after a little lamb, at the moment. Unfortunately, Willow woke up feeling very itchy. She said that it was the Itching Pox.

We wondered what we were going to do with the day. Blume had the idea that we could go down to the sewers and capture the sewer monster and sell it to Doctor Malthusius for a hundred crowns. But apart from no one wanting to go down the sewers again, and none of us being able to capture the monster, or having any way of getting it to the Schaffenfest, it could have been a good plan. Then Blume suggested we could go down and get some of the shimmering purple air from around the sewer monster and put it in a jar. Anyway, we spent so long talking I forgot that I had to start work at the watch station so had to rush off. Blume told me not to forget my gun, which was a good idea, although I’m not sure what the watch policy on pretend firearms is.

Dreamy and Willow went to the Schaffenfest but stopped in at the temple of Shallya on their way to get some white paste, whatever that is, for her itching pox. I’ve heard that the nuns of Shallya all have big horns on their heads, and that is why they wear such big pointy headdresses. That’s just what I’ve heard. Anyway, they covered her face with white stuff to help stop the itching and suggested she donate a shilling, which she did. Dreamy told her she looked like a clown, which she didn’t mind (I thought I looked more like a potato – Willow).

Blume put some more of that Marienburg makeup on and went with Brandy to Albrecht’s house. The pair of them looked out of place on the Adel Ring which was a very posh street and they soon attracted the attention of a watchman. They explained that they were going to see Albrecht Steinhaeger, but he didn’t really believe them and insisted he accompany them to the Steinhaeger house. Brandy told the watchman that Albrecht was his friend which he didn’t believe, so Blume said he was really an acquaintance, which he still didn’t believe. Then Brandy and Blume argued over the difference between ‘friend’ and ‘acquaintance’ (I know what the difference is, Brandy is our friend, and Blume is our acquaintance – Willow).

The Steinhaeger house was very big but had been extended several times in different styles and looked a bit tacky. The watchman gave Brandy and Blume a last chance to chicken out but they insisted they did have an appointment and knocked on the door.

They explained to the porter that they had been drinking with Albrecht the previous night and that he had left one of his chips behind, which they were here to return. The porter offered to take the chip, but Blume declined. The porter explained that Albrecht was at work, at the offices, and so Brandy and Blume left, and the watchman was happy that he had done his job, which was keeping the riff-raff away from the posh people. As they were going the watchman cuffed Brandy round the head, which needless to say was not very nice. Blume suggested putting that in his list, but Brandy said he’d already mentioned bigs were rude.

Brandy told the watchman to be careful as they had a friend in the watch and Blume told him her father was a very powerful man. Brandy wondered what happened to the jewel of the Empire, which was how Blume had described the watch, but Blume said that only applied to the Altdorf watch.

The pair of them decided that they should go to the offices and I think they both felt a bit foolish that they had not gone to the offices straight away as that might be where they should expect Albrecht to be during the day. Their plan was to pretend they were merchants, which was a good plan because in a sense, both of them were merchants.

So they approached the clerk at the Steinhaeger offices and Blume did the talking because she said no one would be able to understand Brandy’s accent, which isn’t true because he’s had a lot of conversations in Boegenhafen and mostly has been perfectly understood, although a lot of people do seem to assume he’s a farmer. Blume said she was from the Hoffnung Enterprises and Company Limited, and Brandy added Shortbottom, and told him they had an appointment with Albrecht. She managed to charm the clerk, amazingly, and he said he’d be able to fit her in to see Franz Steinhaeger in twenty minutes. They were taken through by a porter and given a seat outside his office.

While they were waiting Brandy decided he needed to use the loo. I’m not sure whether he still had Galloping Trots or he was using this as a ruse to look around the offices. The latrines were in a triangular courtyard which was surrounded by the offices. He looked around for a way to the cellar but couldn’t find one and so he went back to Blume.

While he was gone, however, he did see a number of table-lings, which were, if you can believe this mum, poor halflings who walk around with small desks on their heads, with some ink and quills, and paper. They follow merchants and important people around so that they will always have some writing equipment to hand, and somewhere to write it on. As you can imagine, Brandy was upset at this, and resolved to write it in his big book. But when he went back to Blume to tell her, she just said that her father had three table-lings.

Then they were asked in to see Franz Steinhaeger, who is Albrecht Steinhaeger’s father, so a very wealthy and important person in Boegenhafen. Blume made it clear that Brandy was just her assistant. Franz asked her why she had come. Blume explained that she had an opportunity that required investment and that her father was bringing in Shaffron (There’s no such thing as Shaffron – Willow) from the Spice Islands. She said that it was picked in dangerous locations full of pirates and witches, and not only was it delicious and nutritious, it had healing properties and was good for headaches.

This was all gibberish of course, and I think Franz Steinhaeger recognised it as such very quickly but was trying to be polite. Then while Blume was talking, Brandy noticed a piece of paper on his desk that had a similar mark to the one on the floor in the cellar with the sewer monster. It was the same circle and eight-pointed star with the horned head inside. Then Franz got a bit angry and told us he had had a long day and that he’d never heard of the Spice Islands and he’d never heard of Shaffron and the investment plan didn’t make any sense.

So Brandy decided that he was feeling very ill and asked Franz to open a window, and when Franz suggested Brandy go out into the courtyard, he faked having a turn, copying Blume’s dizzy turn at the Half-measure the night before. He collapsed onto the desk in a faint and managed to grab the piece of paper.

Blume pretended to be outraged that her professional reputation was being impinged and told Franz that he would be hearing from the Hoffnung Enterprises Company Limited and slammed the door as they left. When they got away from the offices Brandy proudly showed Blume the paper he had stolen, and she read it to him.

All goes well: the temple is ready for use. When the Schaffenfest ends, our plan comes to fruition at the twelfth bell. Soon we will all be rich.

Johannes Teugen

OS

Meanwhile I had gone to the watch house. I had to run because I didn’t want to be late for my first day. The duty sergeant was impressed with my service record, two years in the Mootland River Wardens, and was probably impressed with my fake gun, even though he didn’t say so. He let me start immediately and he gave me a nice armband to put on.

As luck would have it, he was the same sergeant who had been on duty when the  three-legged goblin had been reported. And he told me that it was found in one of the Haagen warehouses. The Haagens are another of the big Boegenhafen merchant houses. It was warehouse number 4. I knew that the warehouses weren’t anywhere near the Steinhaeger offices, and as we already suspected the watch’s story of the three-legged goblin of being a lie, I think this confirmed it. So I told the sergeant that I had just remembered I had something else to be doing, and I ripped off the armband and ran out of the watch station. I know you say I’m not very good at holding down jobs, mum, apart from my two years in the river wardens, but I think that was probably the shortest one I have ever had.

On the way back to the Berebeli I decided to look into  warehouse number 4, just in case. But it seemed locked up and there was not much happening. I had a look through one of the dirty windows and there wasn’t much to see.

Meanwhile, back at the Schaffenfest, Willow and Dreamy were looking around the busy livestock auctions. Willow was feeding the lambs. She asked Dreamy whether he thought all the animals would go to good homes, and Dreamy said yes (I really think they will all go to good homes and be nice and happy – Willow).  And then she sang a song about fluffy sheep.

Doctor Malthusius noticed them and beckoned them over. He said something about having spoken to Blume before, and that she was a bit rude, but he said he had been thinking about the way the authorities had behaved about his goblin and said he couldn’t really understand it. He said that he thought they were conspiring to do him out of his goblin, for some reason. He couldn’t say anything about it because he needed to come back to Schaffenfest next year, but he said we should look into it.

He talked about the town council and said it was dominated by the merchant houses, the Steinhaegers, the Haagens, the Ruggbroders, and the Tuegens. Malthusius said he thought, because of the way they acted, that the watch must be in on it too. He said that the watch captain’s name was Reiner Goertrin, but I’m not sure what he expected us to do with that information. Perhaps if one of us was in the watch we might be able to talk to him. He said if everyone was in on it, it would be very concerning, and Willow got a bit worried about that, but Malthusius said maybe she could go to the temple of Verena and see what she could find out about them there.

Then they must have got distracted by the Immeasurable Maw of the Middle Mountains who was in a cage nearby, and Willow asked if she could pet it. Malthusius said it was very dangerous and he needed Dreamy to stand before it to distract it, like distracting Big Jim away from the hens. Then Willow went behind it and poked her hand through the cage and stroked it. She said it felt kind of hard and rough but also soft and wet, and that it was the second scariest monster she had ever seen. I’m not sure whether she meant after Big Jim or the sewer monster. Malthusius said she could name it and so she called it Squigglywiggly. Willow said it was the best day of her life, but to be fair, she said that yesterday as well (but they both can be – Willow).

So Dreamy and Willow headed to the temple of Verena. On their way they spotted Crusher wrestling someone in the ring but there was no sign of his barmaid friend. Dreamy was happy that Willow would be safe at the temple on her own for a few hours. And in any case, Mother Greta, the head priest there, looked like she would look after her. Willow did tell him not to forget to come back and get her, though, not like that time he had forgotten about her back in the Mootland and left her in the pigpen all day, until she was knee deep in mud.

Meanwhile Blume had read the letter to Brandy and they decided it was very important information. They bought a pie for me, for my lunch, and then went to the watch station to get me, but I had already left. They’d wondered what the watch sergeant could have said to me to make me leave in such a hurry and he said it was, ‘Welcome to the watch.’ And then he told them to tell me that I was fired. But I refuse to be fired, mum, because I had already left.

When they found me on the Berebeli, the first thing Blume said was that she couldn’t believe that I had got fired on my first day at work, and I had to explain that I hadn’t been fired, and that I had chosen to leave. Then she read Brandy’s letter and told us that she thought something bad was going to happen at midnight, tonight. We agreed that it might, and that it probably had something to do with the Steinhaegers and sewer monsters, but we had no idea what it was. Brandy said that we needed to stop it, no matter what, because it was nefarious. And nefarious must be pretty serious, because Brandy wasn’t normally that brave.

Blume wondered whether this had anything to do with the purple hand that the crossbowman had been going on about. We asked her whether Franz Steinhaeger had been making any funny hand signals at her and she said that he had been rubbing his temples a lot, but it didn’t look like a signal. But we all agreed we needed to do something about it, because it was nefarious, or as Blume said, because we could get lots of money for it.

Dreamy fetched Willow from the library and she told us that she had looked stuff up about the merchant families of Boegenhafen. She managed to confirm the sort of things Malthusius had told her about the Ruggbroders, the Haagens, the Teugens, and the Steinhaegers. She discovered the town council was dominated by the Merchants’ Guild with various other minor guilds, and the local head priest of Sigmar. Willow said that the head of the merchants’ guild was Friedrich Magirius. She had also tried to get a map of the sewers, but couldn’t find one.

Then she said that she had looked up the Ordo Spetenarius and that it was a kind of secret philanthropic organisation connected to the Merchants’ Guild, that started about two years ago. They had donated money to the temple of Verena, and to the temple of Boegenauer, and they donated other money to other good causes, for example, the mouse town at Schaffenfest had been funded by the Ordo. So that made it sound like they were very nice. We all certainly enjoyed the mouse town.

Then we had to decide what to do. We all wanted to avoid traipsing round the sewers, but it was difficult to know what to do, apart from that. We thought about going round the Steinhaegers offices again and hoping to bump into Albrecht. We thought about waiting until dark to find the way down to the cellar, but that might be cutting things a bit fine. We thought about waiting outside the offices and just seeing who goes in and out around midnight, but that might be too late. We thought perhaps we needed to go into the cellar first before anyone else arrived and that might help us get the drop on them. But it was difficult to know what we might have to do to stop the nefarious.

So we went up to the offices again, and Dreamy checked out the nearby manholes to see if there was one that might be handy for the cellar and Blume put on her old dress in case she had to go back into the sewers. Dreamy thought about going to get the crowbar and a ladder that we knew we needed to get down.

While we were there I noticed a bunch of table-lings hanging around near the Merchants’ Guild house. I had a word with them about being a Table-ling, but they didn’t seem to mind it. They were Skelfsiders though, and you know what they’re like don’t you, mum? But anyway, one of them was knocking off for the day and I asked if I could borrow his head-desk and he let me.

So I wandered into the Merchants’ Guild house and had a look around. I can’t remember much of what it was like, as I was too frightened of being found out. And I didn’t see anything to do with the Ordo Septenarius. And to be honest, I lost my nerve a bit and quickly dumped the head-desk and ran away. Everyone said I got fired from two jobs in the same day, but that wasn’t even a job, that was just me pretending. But I think Brandy is going to mention Table-lings in his big list.

So we’ve been milling about outside the Steinhaeger office hoping we won’t need to go back down into the sewers, but I suspect we might. Maybe we should just break into the offices and have a look round, once everyone finishes work. I don’t know what we are going to do, mum, but whatever it is, it’s probably going to be nefarious (Yes, Mrs. Chard, I also think it’s going to be nefarious – Willow). Anyway, it’s still early afternoon, so we have a good few hours before midnight. I will write soon and tell you how nefarious it all gets.