54: Middenheim

Hello, mum. Well, we finally reached Middenheim safe and sound. There was a bit of a to do on the gate, but I will tell you all about that when I come to it. Remember we had just left the Imperial Crown in Malstedt, which may now be called the White Wolf.

Guido went off to scout first. Blume was telling us abut how she had had a really nice sleep because she was in a room all on her own, which sounds like the opposite of a good night’s sleep to us. She said she dreamt about bows being back in fashion instead of lace, and Dreamy said bows were always in fashion in the army. And then Willow said she wanted pestles to be in fashion instead of pistols, and then I said I wanted mortars instead of mortars, and we had a good laugh, but then Guido came back and spoiled it and said that it wasn’t funny. But it was.

Because we were less than two days away from reaching Middenheim, Guido was really keen to make plans about what we would do when we got there. He asked Blume about any good inns she knew from when she visited. She mentioned the Mid Inn Heim, which sounded like something she might make up. So Guido said we should all split up to confuse anyone who had our description, and meet up at that inn. But he was a bit worried because Blume kept going on about how posh and ‘seen’ the inn was and we didn’t want to attract anyone’s attention. Anyway, Guido kept changing his mind about his plan over the course of the next two days but that didn’t stop him from going on about it all the time.

He also asked Blume to describe the city so we would be able to plan a decent strategy but she said she couldn’t remember much about it. She did say that there were two gates, one in the north and one in the south, which it turns out wasn’t really true, mum. Which is another reason why we doubted Blume had ever been there.

Anyway, Guido kept making plans about how to get into the city undetected, because we don’t even know if anyone’s looking out for us. And I came up with a plan where we could disguise ourselves as ducks. Guido didn’t like my suggestion, and was very dismissive of it. So for the next two days every time he tried to form a new plan I mentioned the duck, until he got very angry at me, and called me thick. But I don’t think I’m thick mum, and I know you always said I was very clever. But the way Guido makes plans and orders everyone about just makes me want to annoy him. Although, to be fair, I still think the duck plan was a good one.

Then we had the plan for me to hide in the crate with Blume’s blunderbuss and when the nefarious opened the box I could surprise them. But I’m not sure I could even fit in the box and the blunderbuss wouldn’t, anyway.

Then Guido had a plan to rig the box with gunpowder and let it blow the nefarious up, but Blume said she didn’t know how to do that (and blowing people up before we have had a chance to talk to them isn’t very kind – Willow).

Then Guido went through what he imagined might happen when we got to Middenheim. He said we would deliver the package and then Captain Scharlach would open it and read the note, and because we would probably be a bit of a surprise for him, he would need time to think. So he would probably arrange to meet up with us again, so he had time to arrange for our capture, or something. This sounded reasonable, and so it meant that we would have time to react to his plans. So Guido reckoned we wouldn’t have to worry about being ambushed the moment we delivered the crate.

That evening we arrived in Grubentreich, and Grubentreich is one of my favourite cheeses and I know it’s one of yours, mum. They had a bit of a market in the town and we bought some blue legend for the journey, although Blume said it was too smelly so we had to leave it outside Der Kutsche. And they were selling bread crusts stuffed with cheese and tomatoes so Willow bought five of those for us. And they also had cured goat sausages and Willow bought those for us, too (Dreamy gave me the money – Willow). So now I feel bad for criticising Middenland food because we had a picnic and it was delicious, and not a rasher of bacon in sight.

But Guido and Dreamy went off to have a chat about tactics again, when they should have been enjoying the picnic. In any case, I’m pretty sure most of the chat was pretty useless, because as you will hear in a bit, mum, we just turned up in Middenheim and went to an inn and didn’t do any manoeuvring or anything like that.

When we went back to Der Kutsche, Blume wasn’t paying attention and she was about to step on the blue legend, but Willow spotted it and tried to grab her, but she was too slow and they both ended up in a pile on the floor, on top of the cheese. And Blume ended up with cheese over her dress. And she wasn’t very happy because that was her party dress, and that was all she had to wear because all her other clothes had burned on Das Moot.

That night we got to Schoninghagen and stayed at the Skull and Cross. Guido stayed in the common room again, and he had a chat with the landlord about the inn. They had lots of stuff commemorating an important treaty that was signed in the past, between Nordland and Middenland. I’m not really sure of the details, if you’re interested mum, you should ask Guido, or the landlord at the Skull and Cross.

Blume had a private room (surely she will run out of money, soon). And she got a bath in her room and the landlord had to make a dozen trips up the stairs to fill it with hot water. And Blume said she had a nice bath and she took the fish skins off her arms, which she was pleased about, and her burns were getting better, and afterwards she washed he dress in the bathwater, which was better than nothing. She may have had the room all to herself but she could hear us in Der Kutsche below her window chatting and singing before bedtime so I expect that made her feel better, too, even though she slammed her window. And we had a good sleep, too, despite all the cheese we had eaten.

Anyway, mum, to cut a long story slightly shorter, it was in the afternoon of the next day that we caught our first glimpse of the Ulricsberg poking up beyond the trees, and it was very spectacular. It was a huge spiky rock thing, with a flattish top. And the city of Middenheim is built on the flat bit. It looked like it would be almost impossible to attack. They had built some viaducts leading up to the top bit, though, so we could get the wagon up there. And there were chairlifts as well but we wouldn’t be getting the wagon in one of those.

There were four viaducts, and four gates, but Blume had said there were only two so that made us think even more that she hadn’t been telling the truth when she said she had been to Middenheim.

So, according to the great plan, Dreamy was to go into the city alone. Then, I thought Willow and I would take the wagon in, but Guido said he couldn’t trust us together, and so he said Willow had to go with Blume, and pretend to be her lady in waiting, which pleased Blume. And Guido would go with me in the wagon and I would have to pretend to be his cook, even though I am his cook.

There were very long queues leading to the city gate and as he waited Dreamy heard a rumour that there were high tolls on the gate of a crown a leg, and as he had all our money he had to lose his place in the queue and come back to give us some money. And we had two horses and me and Guido so that was twelve crowns which is a lot of money, and it made me think we might not make any profit on our delivery. And then I remembered that our delivery was a scam anyway and we probably wouldn’t be getting paid.

When Dreamy did eventually get to the gate, an hour later, he had a chat with the guard and he told him that the tolls weren’t very popular, but locals and officials got in free so it didn’t bother him. And he said Dreamy was lucky he wasn’t a dwarf or a priest or a wizard because they had to pay even more. Dreamy told him he was looking for work and the guard said that the Graf (Boris Todbringer – Willow) was hiring hundreds of militia for the carnival and he should contact ‘Iron-Head’ Schutzmann, whoever he is. Or, he said, he could try joining the rat catchers.

You know, mum, I have been thinking about joining the rat catchers myself. Ever since we met that rat man in the hills I’ve been thinking about them, and after we saw the other rat things in Castle Wittgenstein it feels like something needs to be done. Perhaps I will see what the rat catchers are like. Someone said Middenheim has the biggest rats in the whole of the Empire, so it sounds like they could do with some help.

When Willow and Blume got to the gate, the guards asked Blume if she was a wizard, and they had a look through Willow’s bag. And when they saw that it was full of herbs and stuff they decided that she must be a wizard (I’m not – Willow). So they wrote down her name and her home town, and they charged her five percent of all the money she had, and that included the eight crowns they were using to get in with Priscilla. And Willow didn’t have any more money anyway (I’d spent it all on herbs – Willow) so she had to borrow it from Blume. And when they finally got into Middenheim Blume gave Willow a crown just so that she wouldn’t have to ask for any money, again. Which was very nice of her.

And as Guido and I approached the gate I think Guido panicked a bit. He suddenly decided he needed to hide Barrakul, so he opened the box, even after we’d spent money to get it resealed, and just managed to fit the sword inside it. And he took out the dog skull and looped his necklace through it so it looked like a wolf’s head which is the sort of thing an Ulrican would wear (so this is now the fourth cult symbol he’s gone through).

So when the guard asked who we were, Guido said he was Guido Wolfvader from Tilea, which sounded a bit Ulrican, and that he was on a pilgrimage to Middenheim and he had to give a gift of a powerful sword to Ar-Ulric. So the guard realised that Guido was a priest and so charged him the priest tax. Guido said some stuff about Ulric and hell, and threatened to get Ar-Ulric down to the gate to sort things out, but the guard was unmoved. So Guido ended up paying five per cent of all his money, and an extra five percent of the twelve crowns we had to pay to get in anyway.

It didn’t seem to make much sense that the Middenheim authorities were charging this much for people trying to get in to their city, and it made me think that for the carnival next year a lot fewer people would be turning up, and the city would get a lot less trade.

Once we got into the city we went to the second inn along the road, and it turned out that it was called the Mid Inn Heim, exactly what Blume had told us, so we had to admit that she had been here before and she did know what she was talking about. And it did look like a nice and expensive inn. Dreamy was stood opposite the inn and he wandered by and surreptitiously told us that the Mid Inn Heim was full and we should all meet at the Templars Arms instead, and then he wandered off again. I’m not sure what all the secrecy was for, to be honest. I don’t think anyone was actually watching us, and I think Guido and Dreamy just enjoy being secretive and stealthy.

When we got to the Templars, Guido told me that we shouldn’t stay in Der Kutsche while we were in town, and we should stay in the inn. He said I could stay in the common room while he bought a room for himself. He said it was so we would have somewhere all of us could meet. But then we found out that Blume had already bought a double room for her and Willow. And when I learned that we would be eating at the Templars, instead of in Der Kutsche I was a bit worried that Guido wouldn’t need a chef, and he might sack me. And this is when Guido called me an idiot. I think it was because I was only pretending to be his chef, even though I do all the cooking. And it turns out that they have a halfling chef at the Templars, so at least that’s some good news.

Then Guido had a chat with the landlord and complained about the taxes on the gate But the landlord didn’t seem too worried about it, because, as a local, he didn’t have to pay. And he said wizards were rich so they could afford it, and dwarfs were rich too, and the cults were rich so even if an individual priest wasn’t rich, their cult could afford it. To be honest, mum, I sort of agreed with the landlord.

We also asked about the Crossed Keys. And it turns out, it wasn’t a tavern at all, but a locksmith, and although it sounds like the name of a tavern, it’s certainly a good enough name for a locksmith.

When Dreamy came in he spotted a club and a shield behind the bar, and realised that the landlord used to be in a mercenary company up north (and I think they were called the Bears).

Then Guido sent me down to the bar to tell everyone to secretly make their way up to his room so we could have a meeting. And so we all ended up in Guido’s room ready for another lecture on strategy and tactics. And if I’m not too bored to listen to Guido going on about military stuff, I might tell you what he said in my next letter.

So, mum, we have safely reached Middenheim after a journey that seemed to drag on a lot longer than river journeys for some reason. It might be because we don’t have a boat, and so you can’t just sit back and let the travel happen by itself, even though Peony and Piano are good at following the road by themselves.

I think we will soon have to deal with Captain Scharlach and see what that crate scam is all about and whether the nefarious are really behind it, although, to be honest, mum, I’m just looking forward to the carnival (and the guinea pig town – Willow).