23: The Signal Tower

Hello, mum. This is more about our journey up the Reik. I will warn you now, it ends very suddenly, but we will write again to reveal what happens next as soon as we can. After a good night’s sleep, we all woke refreshed ready for the day’s travel ahead. Blume seemed in a particularly good mood. I think not having Renate on board helped.

We had to enter the Reiker Marsh. But we didn’t have to, really. It turns out that this is a particularly treacherous stretch of water, and only experienced captains brave it unaided. Most others hire huffers, who know the marsh like the backs of their hands, to steer the boat through the dangerous waters. And those that don’t, take a detour along the canal to Gruenberg. We didn’t know any of this, though, and I’m surprised Renate didn’t mention it. I think it would have been better to have spent the evening at the Angler’s Arms and chatted to the locals, and they could have explained this. But we didn’t.

And without Renate crewing, it was even harder for us to sail. Dreamy made an effort to learn the ropes, but I don’t think anyone else was that interested. And tacking was still causing problems, so I got willow to draw a star on one side of the boat for starboard and a bottle of wine on the other side for port. But it’s still complex, because when you want to go to port you have to bring the boom to starboard and vice versa. I explained it several times, but I don’t think Blume was listening.

Sailing across the marsh seemed easy, really, because it was a lot wider than the river and slower moving, but I didn’t realise that there were any number of sandbanks under the water which were hard to spot. And we passed lots of detritus and the signs of old wreckage.

I set two lookouts especially because of this, and while Dreamy kept an eye out on one side for sand banks, Willow kept her eye out on the other side for wild birds. She saw a reed warbler and a red crested grebe, or whatever. When I told her off for not paying attention to the treacherous banks, she did point out that the birds were sat on the banks, so that was fair enough, I suppose.

We made surprisingly good progress considering my crew, and Blume said that the boat seemed to function better without Renate on board. I’m not sure about that because she was the only one apart from me who knew how to sail, but I think without Blume whining about Renate all the time, crew morale was a lot higher.

After about five miles of careful sailing, we reached the other side of the Reiker Marsh and Willow broke out the scones to celebrate. And we could see Castle Reikguard looming ahead of us high above the river. It was a very strongly fortified castle with a spectacular location, and Willow waved to the soldiers manning the walls as we sailed below them, but I don’t think they could see us, and we couldn’t really see them except Blume said she could imagine what they looked like, and how handsome they were.

Guido was interested in the Reiksguard Knights and Dreamy told him what he knew about them. I think Guido concluded that they weren’t real knights, because I think Estalian knights have to own their own land, whereas the Imperial knightly orders didn’t work like that.

So they got into a bit of a discussion over which knights were best and then Willow suggested that the best fighters of all were the Fighting Cocks, and a good Cock, like Dreamy, could defeat any knight one-to-one. But Dreamy was quick to deny this.

Then Dreamy and Guido discussed knights’ tactics and how they charged with their horses, and Guido told dreamy about the pikemen of Tilea who were able to stand against any cavalry charge as the horses weren’t able to get past the long pikes, and were killed in the charge, and this upset Willow (The poor horses didn’t do nothing – Willow).

Then Willow told us about Dick Turnip the famous Mootland highwayman who was the best robber ever, but then Dreamy reminded her that he had been hanged, so probably wasn’t as good as she said he was.

Fortunately, the conversation was interrupted by the sight of a ruined tower on the riverbank and two dwarfs who were shouting at us to land. I ordered Blume to move the boom so I could tack but she got confused about port and starboard, despite WiIlow’s pictures, and Das Moot ended up missing the jetty and crashing into the bank. The prow was quite badly damaged, and it embedded itself in the mud.

The dwarfs introduced themselves as Thingrim and Belegol and said they were engineers, and that they had finished their work on the tower and wanted to head back to Nuln where their company was based. We remembered what Renate had told us a few days before about the network of signal towers that the emperor was building across the Empire, and we realised that this must be one of them. Although it didn’t look that finished as there was still lots of scaffolding around it and the top bit looked quite precarious.

The dwarfs offered to pay us to take them with us to Nuln, and we said we would if we could shift the boat. Guido was a bit suspicious of them and asked them lots of questions about their business. I don’t think he knew much about building signal towers, but he was just looking after us, and making sure the dwarfs were honest folk. And Dreamy wanted to know why they were fleeing and said that dwarfs were generally very conscientious workers. But in the end, I think they convinced us they were harmless and Guido offered to find them somewhere to sleep on the boat.

I think Willow just wanted to do a good deed and take them for free. But I think Das Moot is now a business and needs to be run in a business-like manner, and just as we had to pay to take the coach to Altdorf, it seems fair that people should pay us to take them places, even if we’re going that way anyway.

But then we heard a third dwarf and she was running towards Das Moot and shouting at the other two to come back. She said they’d be blacklisted if they didn’t return to the tower immediately (I liked her red trousers – Willow).

She introduced herself as Aynjulls Isembeard and told us what had been happening at the tower. She said that originally there had been twelve of them working on site but they had had a run of bad luck, strange things, and illness and they were now down to six. And some of the dwarfs were now talking about the site being cursed.

And to cap it all, the previous night, two dwarfs had simply disappeared in the middle of the night. Aynjulls said she thought the place might be built on an elven burial ground, or something. Blume introduced herself as a fellow engineer and suggested that we all might be able to help with the situation, and in return they could help us shift our boat away from the bank. I’m not sure that Aynjulls was convinced even though we had an apothecary to help with the illnesses, a scout to track whatever was haunting the tower, a cook, because, as you always say mum, ‘good food, good mood.’ And of course, Blume was an engineer, but with a tower full of dwarf engineers I don’t think Aynjulls really thought Blume would be much use. Blume told her that she had studied engineering for a whole year, which was an exaggeration, but Aynjulls said her apprenticeship had lasted sixty years. And, in any case, Aynjulls said all humans were blockheads, which I noticed Guido took exception to.

In the end Aynjulls said that she would employ us all on the site and give us a bonus if the tower got built. But Guido said he would give his service for free if Aynjulls apologised for calling him a blockhead. Aynjulls did concede that she may have been careless with her verbiage, which is about as close to an apology as you will ever get from a dwarf, so I think Guido’s honour was satisfied.

Anyway, Dreamy and Willow negotiated the payment with Aynjulls and I’m not sure of the details, but I am confident they got us a fair wage for a fair bit of work (I wrote it down and it was fair – Willow).

So Thingrim and Belegol went back up to the tower to work, and Aynjulls took Blume up there to show her what she needed to do. Willow went there, too, to help the sick, but Aynjulls explained that all the ill dwarfs had been shipped off so there was no one there to look after, which was a sit disappointing for her. And I tried to think of something dwarfs might like for dinner.

Dreamy went up to the tower and then circled around it a few times looking for tracks and anything suspicious, but he couldn’t find anything. But I think the fact that there was nothing suspicious to be seen made the situation even more suspicious, because dwarfs don’t just disappear for no reason in the middle of the night.

He did see, though, that the tower was a very old structure that had become a ruin, and then the dwarfs had built some more stone walls on top of that to even it out, and then built a series of wooden platforms on top of that, one of them I think had a fire in it to be used as a beacon at night, and right at the top there was a semaphore thing which can be used to send more complex signals during the day.

Guido had a word with Blume, telling her that this was a good opportunity for her to shine, and she agreed, now that Renate was out of the way. But I don’t think Guido was thinking anything about Renate and it was strange that even though Renate was out the way, Blume was still thinking about her. I think Blume needs to get over it, as they say in the Mootland, mum, you can’t milk a dead hen.

And then I think Guido told Blume to be more humble and that she should lead by example, but she pointed out that Aynjulls seemed to be leading by fear and that was working, as she had got Thingrim and Belegol back to work, so Guido conceded that we should all find our own style of leadership. And when Blume and Guido got to the tower they found Aynjulls telling off all the dwarfs for their poor productivity, and so I think Blume decided that that would be her style too.

But perhaps Blume was taking notice of Guido, after all, because when she reported for work, the dwarfs gave her lots of silly jobs to do, as part of their traditional initiation of new workers, and Blume took it all in good humour, which is unusual for her, and when they told her what work she had to do she spent the whole day cutting lengths of wood for the semaphore bit, and I think she did a really good job and didn’t complain about it at all.

At the end of the day, I served quiche Lorraine as I heard that dwarfs like bacon, and I wanted the chance to use that recipe, mum, that Aunt Lorraine sent. And after dinner Thingrim brought over a pint of ale just for Blume, which she was pleased about. But she forgot what they say about dwarven ale and downed it all and was soon feeling a bit light-headed, and she sloped off to bed early.

Clearly, she wouldn’t be helping with the watch tonight, but that was ok because she had worked hard, and anyway, I got to look after her blunderbuss. And it was soon time for bed. The dwarfs all slept on their own which we thought would be a bit cold and lonely for them, but I think dwarfs are a cold and lonely folk.

We decided things might be dangerous and nefarious so resolved to do double watches. So Willow and Dreamy went first. I think they were concerned about me having to sleep on my own, so Willow did most of her watch sat next to me. Willow was talking to Dreamy about her theories about what was going on and she said it might be a huge monster that is able to turn itself into a tiny mouse and creep into the castle and then make itself big again and become a monster, like in the fairy tales. And I know this, because she was sat right next to me and she barely shut up for the whole of her watch, and so when it was time to wake me up I’d barely had a wink of sleep, and I was thinking about huge monsters that can make themselves as tiny as mice.

So, Guido and I were on watch together and I think Guido took it quite seriously and patrolled around a lot, but I just sat in the bed with Dreamy and Willow, and I was still a bit tired. And then, sometime in the night, I noticed some of the floor boards move up, and there seemed to be a trapdoor under them, and something was opening it, and I saw a strange figure climb through the opening.

I’ll write again soon.