63: Rallane Lafarel

Hello, Mum. I’m back. Willow said she wrote to you to fill you in on what happened earlier today (I did – Willow). She didn’t know where I was, so I told her I had been to a load of eating competitions. That seemed like a reasonable excuse (well, I believed it – Willow).

Anyway, as Willow has already told you, they had been talking to Rallane Lafarel who was the court bard. And people had been saying that he had too much influence over the graf and he had convinced the graf to impose the dwarf tax.

Willow wanted to ask him more about it, but said she wasn’t used to talking to people like that so she asked Guido to do it. He wasn’t sure how to start a conversation with an elf so he ordered a glass of red wine to make himself look sophisticated before complimenting him on his rendition of ‘There’s a One-Eyed Fellow Hiding to the North of Kammendun.’ Rallane was polite enough back, which was good to know because everyone knows that musicians are a bit up themselves, and everyone knows elves are too. But then, so is Guido, to be fair.

Rallane said that he had already heard of Guido because Allavandrel (the archer elf) had mentioned him and mentioned he was travelling with halflings. And Guido said that it wasn’t his choice to be travelling with us, but we did grow on him, but that’s not really true because I think it was his choice, and I don’t think we’re growing on him.

Guido asked Rallane if it was true that the graf was suffering from ill health and the elf said that he had retired from the public eye following the death of his wife, but in the hands of his physician, Luigi Pavarotti (remember, mum), he was making a steady recovery, and he wasn’t as ill as the stories about him would have us believe.

Guido agreed that rumours could get out of hand, and told Rallane that he had heard that the dwarf tax was down to the influence of the graf’s minstrel, but now that he had met Rallane, he doubted that was true (which I think, mum, was a clever way of broaching the subject).

Rallane said that he didn’t really disagree with the tax but he had nothing to do with it. He said that he was unhappy with the rumours and the effect on his reputation and he guessed he was only rumoured to be the cause because he was an elf with influence. And he said he would like to clear his name. He said the taxes were divisive and there was some unrest among the people, and he thought that there would be worse to come.

Guido asked if Rallane was the same type of elf as Allavandrel. I’m not quite sure what he meant by that, mum. It seems to me that an elf is an elf. But anyway, it was apparent that Allavandrel and Rallane dressed differently and looked a bit different, but as far as I’m concerned, they’re both elves.

Then they talked about Dieter Schmiedehammer and his support for the taxes, and Rallane said it was a bit strange that Dieter was well known to be an admirer and supporter of the dwarfs, but whenever the taxes were mentioned, he was careful to make it clear he supported them. Then they talked about the Midden Martials and Rallane said he didn’t know them personally, but they seemed like capable and loyal men.

Rallane had the idea that if Guido was going to look into the whole tax thing, then if he did manage to clear his name then he would be very grateful. And when Guido asked how he might contact him, Rallane said he could be found at the palace.

So when Guido came back to talk to us, he was full of this new mission to clear Rallane’s name, and we thought it might be a good idea to talk to some dwarfs about it all, and decided that going to a dwarf area that evening and having some drinks and feeling the mood would be a good plan.

But we also had that other plan, that we told Guido about, for breaking into Annette Schwarz’s premises and seeing if we could find any incriminating documents. And that as Guido had already convinced her he was a Magister Magistri from Estalia then he would be able to distract her while we broke in. And he agreed to do it.

So the plan was for Guido to go to Schwarz’s house and make up some mission for the purple hand, and while they were away we would break in. Blume said that she wanted to lead the break-in and then Guido lectured her about being a narcissist, whatever that is, but he can talk because he probably is one, too, even though I don’t know what it is.

And in the end Dreamy had a quiet word with Blume and told her she was very good at keeping watch and warning people so she could do that instead, and Blume agreed. And Guido said that Dreamy had a knack for persuading Blume in a nice way that he couldn’t manage. I think perhaps not calling her a narcissist would help.

Willow spotted the urchins she had paid to keep an eye on the coopers, and told them that they didn’t have to work tonight, but they would still get paid, and she told them to go and find somewhere warm to spend the night, which they were happy to do.

So after checking out the alleyway round the back of the coopers and finding a half-open window, Dreamy and Willow waited for Guido to knock, while I kept an eye on the front of the house and Blume kept an eye on the back. And we agreed that we would honk like a swan if we saw anything suspicious (remember farmer Joseph’s honking swan, mum?).

Schwarz came to the door and wasn’t very happy about being disturbed, and after Guido explained it was cult business, she told him off for not using the proper channels of communication. And Guido explained that as he was from out of town, he couldn’t use them, and this was an emergency as Kastelle Lieberung had gone missing. Schwarz said that they were under orders to ignore Lieberung for the duration of the carnival, but Guido said that they still had to know where she was for when the carnival ended, which made sense. To be honest, from what have have seen of them, I’m not sure that the purple hand thinks things through that carefully.

In the end Guido managed to convince Schwarz that she should help him look for Lieberung. After they had left, Dreamy and Willow began to climb the wall up to the broken window in the alleyway. I think Dreamy would have been able to do it better on his own, but he needed someone to do the reading, and he ended up more or less pulling Willow up to the window (all my strength is in my legs – Willow).

Dreamy and Willow resolved to remember where everything was so that they could leave it all exactly as they had found it so no one would know they had been there (like stealing Grandma’s cookies – Willow).

So they went through all the papers they could find, and most of it was the sort of thing you would expect to find. They did find a draft of a vehemently pro-tax pamphlet, like the ones that Schwarz had been publishing. But it was written by someone else. So that was interesting. Perhaps another member of the purple hand was telling her what to say.

They found some money under the mattress, which they left where it was (Grandma’s cookies – Willow) so it was lucky that Blume wasn’t with them because I reckon she would have had that. And they found a few items of purple clothing (she would have probably had that as well, if it was fashionable).

So they didn’t really find anything too nefarious, but were in and out in about half an hour, which was good going. Of course, we hadn’t agreed how long we were going to be, so Guido spent a good few hours pretending to look for Lieberung with Schwarz. Schwarz thought that Geldmund would be a good place to hide, because of the mid-range accommodation so they spent most of their time visiting inns there.

Schwarz did tell Guido that she got sent the drafts for her pamphlets from someone high up in the cult and because of the secret cult hierarchy she didn’t know who that was.

Then they had a chat about why they had decided to join the cult, and Guido told her all about being a fifth son and having to make his own way in the world and not liking how society was arranged. And he said that Schwarz seemed like a nice person. I think they had quite a nice time together. To be honest, for all the fuss Guido makes about cults and the nefarious and things like that he seemed to get on very well with Annette Schwarz.

If any witch hunters read this then I would like to say that Guido was probably just pretending to be in the cult and he didn’t mean much of this, and he might not want to bring an end to society as we know it.

Schwarz said that she had become interested in politics and went to a few meetings and was interested in changing the world, but things weren’t going that great and all she did was a few pamphlets. Guido asked her if the lord had marked her, by which I think he meant a sort of manifestation of the dark god like tentacles for eyes, or bad dreams. But she said he hadn’t.

And they eventually got back to the coopers after several hours, and then Guido made his way back to the Templars, and we were all waiting up for him, in Blume’s room, wondering where he had been.

And we had a chat about what we had discovered. And I think we agreed that the purple hand was a bit disorganised, and we thought that their only plan in Middenheim was to vaguely sow discontent. But they might have a proper plan that we don’t know about yet. And we decided they must have a cult member at the highest level of government with the ear of the graf, and we wanted to find out who that was, to help Rallane (because we didn’t think it was him), but also to deal with any nefarious.

And then we remembered that we had planned to go out drinking with dwarfs, so I’m not sure whether we will do that, mum. And Blume said she wanted to go to the opera, instead, which sounds boring. Drinking with dwarfs is obviously very dangerous, and if we do, I will tell you how that went in my next letter. And don’t forget, Dreamy has another round of shooting tomorrow and Guido has his semi-final, and I know you will want to know how that goes.