28: The Poisoned Feast

Hello mum, as you must know as well as anyone, I’m writing this on my nameday (I’m writing it really – Willow). I don’t remember the day itself, but you told me all about it. About how after I was born you looked out the window and saw a Bretonnian ride by the house, or rather you thought he was a Bretonnian because he had a funny hat on. And you said it was a sign from Esmerelda that I might end up in Bretonnia or something like that, and so you gave me a Bretonnian name, Haricot, also because you like beans (we all like beans – Willow).

Anyway, I ended up getting a nameday present, which you will find out about, if you read on. It’s good to know that you are reading these letters, because, as you will also find out, when you read it, one of us isn’t getting our letters read, and it is making her unhappy.

Even though it was my nameday, the day started in the usual way. Back in the Moot it might have been possible to have a feast and maybe a present, but out here in the Reikland I was busy doing serious stuff so it was probably not worth bothering anyone with my name day, as we had things to be getting on with and I was a captain of a boat with big responsibilities.

Blume overslept, and we had already set sail when she woke. The first thing she noticed was that her blunderbuss was missing, and she shouted for Guido. He said he didn’t know anything about it, but she said that it was obvious he had taken it as it was only the day before that he had tried to buy it off her. Guido insisted that he hadn’t got it, but said that if he did, then he would have done it to protect everyone from her wayward shooting.

Blume asked him what Myrmidia’s thoughts were on stealing, and Guido admitted she wouldn’t be impressed. I think he did take the gun, but he didn’t think of it as stealing as he was just trying to protect us from being shot in the back. And I think he had a point, but it was a bit sad because I think Blume liked that blunderbuss more than she liked any of us.

Blume demanded to know where the gun was and Guido said he threw it in the Reik, and almost before he could finish his sentence, Blume had stripped her dress off and jumped in the river. Even if he had thrown the gun into the river there was no way Blume could have found it as we were already underway, and it would have been miles away.

Dreamy shouted, ‘man overboard’ (actually, he shouted, ‘idiot overboard’ – Willow) and I quickly turned Das Moot around. And we threw in a rope for Blume. Willow was a bit hesitant to throw the rope in as it was her favourite seat on deck and she didn’t want it getting wet, which is an indication of how much we valued Blume as a shipmate (and I thought that Blume would get another runny tummy after drinking so much Reik water – Willow).

As Blume was drying, Willow told her that she should let Guido share her blunderbuss sometimes, as that was only fair. But Blume said that therefore we should all share her herbs. Willow said that wouldn’t work as she was the only one who knew how to use them. But Blume said Guido didn’t know how to use a blunderbuss. So then I had to shout at everyone and I threatened to turn the boat around and return to Altdorf if they didn’t stop arguing.

So we sailed on and managed to get some peace and quiet for a while until Blume said she could hear strange music. Willow said it was probably river sirens, and we told Blume the story of the sirens who sing their strange melodies to lure unwitting sailors to their watery doom. And just when we thought it might really be sirens we all heard the music. It was actually a string quartet playing boring human music and the quartet was aboard a big pleasure yacht.

At first I was quite excited to see a big expensive luxury boat like that, but then I realised it was being sailed rather erratically. I thought the helm might be drunk or ill, or something, but then realised that it was being sailed deliberately badly to intimidate and even capsize smaller river vessels.

We saw a noble looking person at the ship’s wheel who was steering so badly while some of the proper crew looked on grimacing. And some other nobles threw one of the crew into the water, for no reason. They were certainly not obeying the riverway code and they reminded me of the nobles we had met back in Altdorf at the Boatman inn with Josef. I got Dreamy to man the boom so we could manoeuvre quickly away from the yacht if we needed to. Willow went on lookout and Blume went to check on the repairs she had made to the bow.

As the yacht closed, it was plainly heading straight towards us and Willow shouted at them not to, but they didn’t take any notice. And then we quickly tacked to get out of their way, but they followed us and the boats came together. Luckily, thanks to our evasion, it wasn’t a serious crash and Blume’s repairs held up, but we were now locked together with the bigger boat.

Three of the nobs looked over the gunwale and talked, in their posh voices, about boarding Das Moot to see if we had any alcohol they could have and they jumped down onto our deck (we were being boarded by posh pirates – Willow). As the captain, they should have asked me for permission to come aboard, and I told them to leave the boat immediately, but I don’t think I was very assertive. And one of them said that his family owned this stretch of the river and so he could do anything he liked.

I was worried that they might just ransack the boat and take whatever they wanted and if we tried to intervene they would set their heavies on us again like they did at the Boatman inn, and this time we didn’t have ‘trickshot’ Brandy to stop them. This was an unusual nameday when instead of friends giving you presents, a load of strangers turn up and start taking stuff from you.

But Blume stepped in and offered them a tour of Das Moot. The nob seemed very amused that a river peasant would be offering them a tour of this squalid little dinghy and so he accepted the invitation and called more of his mates over so now there were six of them. And they were so drunk that some of them puked over the deck and then just carried on drinking.

Blume showed them round, pointing out Willow’s rope and fishing rod, and Guido’s shrine. One of the nobs pretended to be impressed with Guido’s martial manner and tapped his armour and asked him if he could feel it. When Guido said, ‘Feel what?’ they were all a bit sarcastic, and he kept tapping it to try to get a rise out of Guido. But he did not respond. I suppose that was  his military discipline.

Then Blume showed them around the cargo deck but they weren’t very impressed that we were only carrying wood. And I think they got a bit bored. Blume said it had been her plan all along to give them a boring tour and get them bored, but I think maybe she had been angling for a husband and they got bored of her. So the nobles went through all our equipment in the galley and started throwing things overboard, like out cups and bowls, and my favourite baking tray.

Willow got talking to Johan their servant and she asked if they were always like this, and he looked very weary and said they had been like this for three days straight. Willow asked him if he would mind if they had a long sleep, and he agreed that would be perfect.

So, Willow offered them some tea, and they accepted. And she brewed the tea with schlafenkraut which she had got to put monsters to sleep, and these nobs were certainly monsters. After they drank the tea, I expected them to fall over, sound asleep, straight away, but Willow said it would take about half an hour to work. So we had to put up with them messing up the boat for another half an hour.

To distract them, Willow asked them if they knew how to play cask-at-hand. She explained that they had to have a cask of wine strapped to their hand, and they weren’t allowed to take it off until they had drunk it all (I made it up to stop them stealing all our stuff – Willow). They liked the idea and sent back to their boat for some casks and were soon playing the silly game. And with the effects of all the alcohol, and the schlafenkraut, they soon started to flag.

Then I spotted a river patrol boat heading towards us. I was worried we might get in trouble for drifting dangerously attached to another boat, so I introduced myself as a river warden and gave the captain a formal salute and flashed my epaulettes. The captain said they had had reports of antisocial behaviour, and I directed him below deck. And as he went he gave me a wink that made me think we wouldn’t be in as much trouble as I thought.

The captain introduced  himself to the lead nob and told him that he thought our boat had attached itself to theirs, and he offered to remove it and escort them to safety. The nob complained that we had hit them and then taken them prisoner, but he was already yawning and ready for some sleep. And the river wardens helped the sleepy nobles back to their boat.

At the Boatman inn, the nobles had tried to bully us, and so I had exacted a fine from them. I cut one of their purses and got three gold crowns. It would have been nothing to them, but was a lot of money to us, at the time. And these nobles had broken our things and cost us money, so I decided to fine them in a similar way. I pretended to help a noble back to his vessel with the other river wardens but as I did I grabbed something from his belt.

I had been planning on getting a purse, but then I felt the handle of a pistol and so  took that. I had been looking to get a pistol for a long time. I had watched Blume enviously as she had shot her way through the Reikland with her blunderbuss, only occasionally (actually quite often – Willow) shooting one of us, and I wanted to join the fun. So I grabbed the pistol and stuffed it into my pocket. But then I looked up to see the river warden captain staring directly at me. He had obviously seen what I had just done. But I looked him in the eye and gave him the same sort of wink that he had given me. And he smiled and got on with getting rid of the nobles.

And when the noble yacht was out of sight, I pulled the pistol out to have a look at it. It was amazing. It was very finely made and looked very durable. It looked like it had been specially made and was worth much more than the average sort of pistol you could find in the shops. This was the best nameday present ever.

Then I noticed it had a little silver plaque set into the handle which said, “To beloved Uwe, Happy nameday. Shoot for the stars - Mother”. I suppose it was quite sad that the noble had lost a nameday present from his mother, mum, but perhaps he deserved it. What do you think, mum? (I think he shouldn’t have been a nicer person – Willow). Anyway, I thought about changing my name to Uwe, but decided to get rid of the plaque, instead.

I showed Blume the pistol and even though she didn’t have any suitable shot she gave me some powder and she was nice enough to show me how to load it and fire it. And she took the silver plaque off for me, and I said she could keep that for the silver.

Guido said we shouldn’t steal guns, and Willow pointed out that he had stolen Blume’s. And he said he hadn’t stolen it, but if he had then he was just looking after it to protect us, which was different. He said that if the nobles came back looking for their pistol we should immediately throw it in the Reik, or we could get in trouble. I nodded but had no intention of doing that. There are loads of places aboard ship where we could hide a gun, as he would know.

The rest of the day was pretty quiet, and we made good progress up river towards Kemperbad. We made it nearly to Diesdorf, which we remembered was the town where we had met Blume, at the Coach and Horses, all those weeks ago. It seemed a long time ago, now. And to be honest, I can’t believe she is still hanging around.

We docked near a boating inn called the Poisoned Feast. And it was about as welcoming as the name suggests. I didn’t like the look of it and stayed aboard Das Moot to make dinner and swab the noble puke from the decks, but the rest of them went in to get a beer and talk to the locals.

The Feast was cramped and squalid and the beer was really bad, and really cheap. I think Blume who usually tries to get beer bought for her, decided to take advantage of the cheap price and bought several beers for herself, but she could barely bring herself to finish them. But she drank them up as best she could, because, as she put it, ‘this is now what my life tastes like.’ Dreamy spoke to the barman, and sipped his beer very slowly, and then pretended to accidentally spill it so he didn’t have to drink it.

The barman told Dreamy that the local river wardens were recruiting heavily because of increased attacks from bandits, and mutants. And he said mutants like he knew he wasn’t allowed to say that, but he was going to say it anyway. He also told Dreamy that there was some sort of issue with dwarfs creating trouble down by Grissenwald. Dreamy said he thought that was a bit unusual for dwarfs and told the barman of our good experience with the dwarfs of the signal tower.

But news of Grissenwald was interesting to us, because the address of Etelka Herzen in the letter we had was Grissenwald and we had already decided to stop by there to see how nefarious she was.

Meanwhile I was making lamb and mint pasties and discovered that the nobles had thrown my favourite big baking tray overboard, so I had to make my pasties really tall and thin, but I think in the end that just made them better.

I thought about how lucky I was to come by a pistol that I had so wanted, but also about how unlucky Blume was to have had her blunderbuss taken away, and how it was my nameday and I had got a nice present and how Blume didn’t seem to get any presents or anything at all from her parents. So I left the pistol on Renate’s hammock where she had left her blunderbuss, so she could have it.

When everyone left the Feast, Willow said it was awful and it reminded her of when a family of fifteen cats moved into the Under family house, when they move away. The cats had left it in such a state that the whole village had to get together and do a community clean-up to stop it from smelling. I’m sure it wasn’t that bad though (It was that bad – Willow).

On the way back from the inn Blume asked Guido about how he wrote his letters to his father, and how she might make her father respond. Guido told her that he began them with, ‘Dear father,’ and ended them with, ‘Yours truly,’ and in the middle he put the bit he wanted to say. Blume thought about doing the same but told him that her father never replied to her anyway. Guido asked her what address she was sending the letters to, and she said, ‘the Spice Islands.’

Guido asked her about the Spice Islands and she said they might be an archipelago with spices one them, but she wasn’t sure. I’m not sure whether it was the bad beer, but then Blume got a bit emotional and went on about how she didn’t need any family because she had her nanny, but she didn’t have her nanny anymore because now she was twenty-five and her parents decided she didn’t need one anymore.

Guido told Blume that she needed to make her life her own and not rely on her parents so much, especially as they didn’t seem to be there for her. And he told her to stop writing to the Spice Islands, partly because she never got a reply and partly because they didn’t exist. But Blume told Guido he was wrong and that she wanted to go to bed.

Guido reminded her of the last time they had had a chat and he had told her that she should become an engineer and work for herself, and for a while after that she had been a better person and more self-reliant and less self-pitying, and perhaps she should try that again. But I don’t think Blume wanted to hear it. She said she would continue to write to her father and start each letter with ‘Dear father’ and end them with ‘Yours truly,’ and then she flounced off. And Guido was left in the dark, but said a prayer to Myrmidia, for Blume.

And when I eventually got to bed, Willow had made a cuddle fort in the middle of the bed (that’s what everyone likes on their nameday – Willow), and lit some candles in the cabin, and so all in all it was a very good nameday, even though you weren’t here with me, mum.