61: Luigi Pavarotti

Hi mum. I didn’t get much sleep, as it happened. I kept thinking about the magus and her snake hair and the fire with the eyes and snakes in it. And then the minotaur turned up. And then in the morning everyone kept moving around in the common room so I couldn’t sleep then, so I moved back out to Der Kutsche to try to sleep there. And I did get some sleep and slept quite late, but then Blume spoiled it.

Willow woke up at the right time and went to talk to Tiasmara as she was making breakfast, and asked her about what there was to do at the carnival. Tiasmara said that she liked the music and dancing and that Willow should check out the Elven Lightsingers, whatever that is, and the Barbarian of Vessille opera.

Then Willow asked her if she had heard of Piemacher, and she said she knew him and agreed his pies were rubbish, and they both wondered why there were halflings who had no connection to the Mootland, and they thought that family had probably been banished for making bad pies.

Blume spent another night in her own private room, but I think she’s a bit concerned that she will run out of money before the carnival ends and then she will have to sleep with all the common people.

When I was in the wagon, I still couldn’t sleep but then I felt like it was rocking gently like we were still on Das Moot, and I even felt like I could hear the waves lapping against the side of the boat, and I did manage to fall asleep (it was me and Dreamy with a bucket of water, rocking the wagon – Willow), but then Blume woke me up and told me to come with her. And she didn’t care that I had only just got to sleep after spending all night not getting to sleep. And I admit, mum, I did get a bit mad at her, but that was only because I was so tired.

Dreamy went off for a wander round town as he was really interested in how all these new taxes were being received among the general populace. He felt there was no real dislike of non-humans on the street, and wondered whether that was because it was carnival week and everyone was in a better mood. And he saw magic being performed, for entertainment, on the streets, which is not the sort of thing you would see in Altdorf. But all the wizards were members of the Guild of Wizards, which he was told, was many hundreds of years older than the colleges of magic in Altdorf.

Willow stayed in the Templar’s because she had to wait for the urchins to turn up. She got talking to someone else at breakfast. He was an accountant or something, and Willow told him about her time as a table in Boegenhafen, but I don’t think he believed her and then they got into a conversation about berries, and Willow told him about all the different berries but I’m not sure he was that interested.

Blume said she was in search of gossip that she could put in her pamphlets. And when we got to a busy square with lots of traders and entertainers in, she decided to address the crowd and tell them about her Pistols, Petticoats, and Power. And, to my surprise, when she told someone she liked their crimson ruff, they threw her a few pennies. So she spent some time critiquing everyone’s fashion choices and getting money for it.

But then the vendor next to her got a bit tired of her shouting so he started shouting about his wares. Blume told me to keep him quiet, so I pretended to be interested in buying something from him. He was selling lots of little painted models of the Fauschlag so I engaged him in conversation about how he made them and painted them, and that kept him quiet enough for Blume to make more money. Unfortunately I ended up spending all Blume’s earnings on the figurines, because that just seemed the easiest way to keep him quiet, and he did give me a nice bulk discontinue in the end. (So, mum, I am enclosing a model of the Fauschlag with this letter so you can sort of see where we are. You can put it on the mantelpiece if you like.)

Then Blume spotted a large, bearded man roaming through the square, eating a sausage roll, and noticed that even though he was eclectically dressed, all his stuff was of the very finest quality. Blume told him he was fantastically dressed but recommended satin for its sausage roll wipe-clean qualities. And he said buongiorno which I think is Tilean for hello. And Blume spent a lot of time gushing over his clothes which he seemed to like.

He said his name was Luigi Pavarotti from Miragliano and was the baronial physician looking after the Graf’s son. Blume said she already knew all about Barry Heimlich. But he explained that he was actually the physician to Stefan who was the Graf’s legitimate son, and that Baron Heinrich was natural born, which I think means he was a bastard.

Then, impressed by her appreciation of fashion, Pavarotti invited Blume to peruse the square with him for a while. He said her imp could come too (he meant me, mum) but I made my excuses and left so they could be together, and I think I did it very subtly, too.

Meanwhile, one of the urchins arrived at the Templar’s. It was Karina and she said that they had watched the coopers and as well as the usual buying and selling of barrels, Schwarz had gone back to Otto’s print shop to pick up some more pamphlets and then she had handed some pamphlets out.

Then Willow saw to Karina’s twisted ankle, and told her to avoid putting weight on it. And then she had to pay the gang another day’s wages, which was four pennies for each of them. She also told her to listen out for any murmurings about the new taxes, but it’s my opinion that street urchins aren’t really big tax payers.

Karina had managed to get hold of one of the new pamphlets and she gave it to Willow. It was mostly about the same sort of stuff, wizards and dwarfs being able to afford the taxes and sending money to Altdorf. It also said that the tax would be enforced every month, so that even if you didn’t leave or enter the city you would get taxed every month.

Dreamy came back and he told us that there wasn’t a lot of talk about the taxes on the streets and that most people didn’t seem to care much. He said they were annoyed by the queues on the viaducts and the lifts, tough. He said some people thought that it was all part of a plot to force non-Ulrican religion out of the city. And some said it was a ploy by Altdorf to weaken Middenheim. He said the Dwarfs were annoyed by the tax because they had a long history of contributing to Middenheim especially in its construction. And similarly the wizards were a respected institution in the city and a vital contributor to its defence.

In order to see what Schwarz was really up to, I suggested we break into the coopers to see if there was any nefarious writings or things like that inside. And we thought of a few plans for how to do that but decided we really needed Guido there, who would be able to distract Schwarz, as he had already been posing as a magister, but none of us knew where Guido had got to. We guessed he was out drinking with Dieter and his new mates and he didn’t really care much about his old friends any more.

Dreamy said a lot of people thought that the Graf would soon come to his senses. But he also said that some students were using the issue to rabble-rouse a bit, and also people were saying the elves liked the taxes because they didn’t like dwarfs.

Meanwhile, Blume was hanging out with Pavarotti. She was asking him about the taxes and he said it fills the coffers. I think Blume thought that that meant he was in favour of them. She asked him about Baron Stefan and Pavarotti let slip that his health was improving, but then said he shouldn’t talk to her about it as they had only just met. So then Blume started talking about man-sized lizards and making purses out of their skin, and I’m not sure Pavarotti really followed her. I think she realised that she was losing him and so turned the conversation back to how wonderful his hat was.

Then Blume talked about meeting up again and Pavarotti told her where he would be during the day and that they might bump into each other. He said he would be going to see the Bards and Poets, and then the Lightsingers. And she told him that she was staying at the Templar’s Arms. He asked if she was alone, and then said, ‘a woman like you will never be alone for long.’ And she admitted she had a load of halflings with her and a miserable person.

She was about to leave but decided she had one more question which was where he stood on gloves (I will never understand bigs, mum), and he said he was emphatically for gloves, and got out a pair of silk gloves from Miragliano to show her. And they were bright violet.

This, of course, made Blume very wary, and she asked whether that was a cultural colour in Miragliano, and Pavarotti said it wasn’t. And so Blume quickly told him she had the flux and had to shit.

She ran back to the Templar’s and burst in and told us that she had messed up and given the purple hand our address, and that we should find a new inn. So we did think about moving, but that might be difficult in the middle of carnival week, and we thought about everyone sleeping in Blume’s room for mutual protection, but I think mostly we were thinking Blume had over-reacted. And in the end we decided we needed to wait for Guido to come back, before we could make a clear plan.

Then we all went up to the Square of Martials for the Challenges. We thought Guido might be there, but we didn’t see him. I’m surprised Guido wasn’t there, sussing out his opposition.

The first bout was between some bloke called Carmel, who chose to fight with halberds, and his opponent, Dougat. The bloke behind us said that Dougat was a pikeman so he wouldn’t have any trouble adapting to the halberd. Dougat did do some tricks with the halberd like spinning it behind his back, and stuff like that and he soon thwacked Carmel and knocked him to the ground and won his bout.

The second fight was between someone called Ishmael who chose morning stars and someone called Gobydich. To be honest, mum, I’m a bit surprised they allow morning stars in a non-deadly contest. I think even blunt ones are going to hurt quite a bit if they get you in the head.

Anyway, Ishmael did this thing where he spun his weapon around and ululated, which was a bit frightening, but also not becoming of a prospective graf’s champion, if you ask me. In the end, Ishmael hit Gobydich in the face with his morning star and gave him a nose bleed.

So that decided the four semi-finalists, and they made the draw for the next day. In the first bout Dieter has to fight Ishmael, and I would be happy if Dieter wins because I think there was too much ululation. And in the second bout Guido has to fight Dougat. They are both good with pole arms, and I think that one could go either way. It’s a game of two hafts.

Then we went to the archery. I wasn’t paying too much attention to all the scores, except when it was Dreamy’s turn. And with his first arrow he got sixty again, which was a bit disappointing, but then he got bulls with his next two. Again. So he scored 260. But this time it was enough for him to get a share of the win, with Allavandrel, and so they both won silver medals for the day. And Dreamy is still second in the race for the gold medal. And Allavandrel was friendly enough again after the competition and he had another drink with Dreamy. And then he got drinks for everyone.

Dreamy asked him about Middenheim and he said that it was much friendlier during carnival week and everyone was treating him well, but outside of the carnival everyone is a bit less friendly and more abrupt. He said his cousin was the court minstrel, Rallane Lafarel, and he had been getting some blame for the taxes with people saying he has too much influence with the graf, but he said the taxes were nothing to do with him.

Allavandrel said perhaps he should get more into politics, and he asked Blume if she was taking contributions to her pamphlet. And Blume replied that she would have to hear what he had to say first, before she could decide whether it deserved to be published.

Allavandrel said he could do an opinion piece, but then he said that perhaps it shouldn’t be a big opinion piece and it could just be an open question. He said he could ask whether it wouldn’t be so bad if the graf was not necessarily replaced, but they set Baron Heinrich up to take over from him in the near future.

It sounded to me like Allavandrel wanted that to happen straight away but wasn’t brave enough to say it. Willow asked why Stefan shouldn’t take over and Allavandrel said he was just a child. And then he went on about how great Heinrich was, and it was so gushing, I just lost interest and I said that Heinrich sounded too good to be true.

Then I think Allavandrel had a bit of a change of heart and said his contribution should be anonymous. And Willow said he shouldn’t be writing stuff like that at all, and that she had a bad feeling about Baron Heinrich, anyway. And she told Blume that she should look into it a bit more before publishing something like that. But I think this was exactly the sort of scandal Blume wanted in her organ and she said she wouldn’t publish it for now but she wouldn’t promise never to publish it.

So that’s that, mum. We’ve just had the archery and have a few things to visit later today, which I will tell you about. We had the idea for Dreamy to make secret purple signs at Pavarotti if we saw him. He said he would be at the Bards and Poets, so perhaps we should go there, but that sounds a bit boring, to be honest. And we still haven’t found a mouse village, or a guinea pig town, or a rat city, or anything like that.