64: Hildegarde Zimperlich

Hello, mum. I might be getting a new job. You’ll see why in this letter, but first, if you remember, we had just broken into Annette Schwarz’s coopers and hadn’t found very much at all. And then we decided to go and talk to some dwarfs and see their side of the tax argument.

Meanwhile, Blume had given the draft for her next pamphlet to Guido as he had agreed to read it and give her some pointers. I think Blume was just giving it to him so he could tell her how good it was. But that didn’t happen.

I enclose a copy of that draft of the pamphlet above, mum, and as you can see it was very provocative and seemed to be going out of its way to gain Blume as many enemies as possible. I think this is a tried and trusted method of getting followers, but when Guido read it, I think he just imagined Blume getting assassinated on the orders of a noble, or the purple hand people, or a random cooper, or just someone who can spell ‘graf.’

Anyway, Guido said he would read it and put in any corrections and get it to the printers first thing in the morning. Then Blume said she would be going to the opera for some proper culture, and the rest of us would be visiting the dirty dwarfs (Blume seemed to say dirty like it had a negative connotation – Willow). And she wore her purple bow to the opera, despite what she had said about purple in her pamphlet.

Willow put on her red dwarf trousers, that Aynjulls Isembeard had given her back at the signal tower. Esmeralda! That seems like a very long time ago, now, mum.

We thought about going to the offices of the Komission for Elven, Dwarven, and Halfling Interests, but in the end decided to just go down the pub. We wandered about a bit and didn’t find any dwarfs (dwarfs are like nettles, they’re everywhere until you start searching for them – Willow).

Then Dreamy said he knew of a pub that would probably be suitable and we ended up at the Sword and Flail in Nordtor. It looked like a rough sort of place, and I didn’t really know what to do, so I started complaining about stuff which is what dwarfs tend to do. And Willow lit her pipe to ingratiate herself with the clientele.

The tavern didn’t even have any tables and the bar was just a couple of planks of wood. And the barman, who was called Gerthard looked very scary and was covered in scars, which he probably got from the locals. We ordered four mugs of ale, even though Willow didn’t want one, because they didn’t have anything else.

There were a few dwarfs stood around grumbling about things and Dreamy and Guido went to stand near them even though there was plenty of room. While I tried to make myself look hard by pushing Willow a bit.

Meanwhile, Blume was watching the Barbarian of Vessille, the classic Tilean comic opera. She was a bit disappointed that it was more opera than musical but at least it was free. Even though there were common people in, Blume could see that the boxes housed some very wealthy looking people, and she noticed in one box a young woman who was remarkably well-dressed alongside an elderly chaperone, and they were ringed by a guard of knights. She asked an usher who it was, and it turned out that it was Princess Katarina Todbringer, the daughter of the graf.

Blume insisted to the usher that she had been put in the wrong place and said that she belonged in the box but the usher didn’t believe her, even though she was wearing her best dress. And she gave the usher a shilling to get her moved, but the usher just gave it back explaining that all the boxes were reserved for the graf. But he did agree to find Blume a stool so that she wouldn’t have to stand for the whole three hours of the opera.

In the end Blume went up towards the boxes and confronted with the row of gleaming knights in blue uniforms and spotted fur cloaks (Dreamy says they’re Knights Panther – Willow). Blume dropped her glove and tried to look in distress, and one of the knights handed her the glove back.

Back at the Sword and Flail, Willow and I were grumbling about everything we could think of and once we started complaining about elves, a couple of the dwarfs agreed with us. So we had a big grumble with them about the dwarf tax, and we told them about the coopers handing out pro-tax pamphlets. And I tried to convince them to burn it down, and I’m glad now that they didn’t take any notice of that. But they said they had made a petition and they would be handing it into the Komission for Elven, Dwarven, and Halfling Interests and they said we might give them a visit.

Then Willow asked them about the orange haired dwarf who was fighting the minotaur the next day, and they said they had heard of him, but didn’t know him personally, but they said he had to do him. They said his name was Glugnur and that whatever his deal was, it would be settled the next day when he fought the minotaur.

Then they started swapping tobacco, which I decided was a good time to step back a bit. Willow gave them some fuggleweed, and they gave her some of the oily acrid stuff they had been smoking. And I think it was so harsh on Willow’s throat that she had to drink some ale to put the fire out. And the dwarfs decided that the fuggleweed was too mild for them, but then we could see the change in them as it hit them, and they started getting light-headed (that stopped them burning down the coopers – Willow).

Meanwhile, Guido was reading out Blume’s pamphlet and he couldn’t believe what she had written, so he had to read it out to Dreamy. Guido said he couldn’t approve it because he didn’t want to be responsible for someone shooting her. And Dreamy said that that might not be a bad outcome, but I don’t think he meant it.

Then Dreamy told the dwarfs that if they were into things like petitions then we knew a pamphleteer who could publish what they wanted for a fee.

The dwarfs mentioned they were sewer jacks, and so mum, I have been thinking about becoming a sewer jack ever since we met the big rat in the Barren Hills. I think that being a sewer jack is the best way to keep the rat population down. And being near the sewer would be a bit like being near the river, if a bit smellier. So I told the dwarfs I would be interested in joining and they said I could sign up at the Field of Martials (which is where Guido will be having his fight tomorrow).

Guido said I wasn’t very good at holding down a job. But I said I had been a captain of a boat for ages. But Guido said that wasn’t a real job and they had just been letting me pretend to be a captain (you were the best captain who ever sailed the Reik – Willow). Then I got a bit mad and when Guido said that being a sewer jack would be like sailing on a river of shit, I said that it was better than sailing with a shit (sorry, mum).

Meanwhile Blume was pretending to faint in front of the Knights Panther and one of them rushed to catch her. And she told him he was very strong and that she had never known such kindness. And she gave him a crown as a small token of her appreciation (I know a crown is a lot of money, mum, Blume was just pretending it wasn’t much to make everyone believe she was rich). But he gave it back. And another knight brought her a stool to sit on.

Then she told the knights a story about having an urgent message from Pavaroti for the princess, that she couldn’t tell to the guards themselves. And for some reason they believed her. They took her up to the boxes, and she was met by the princess’ chaperone, who was called Hildegarde Zimperlich.

Blume told her that she believed the princess’ life was in danger at the hands of the purple signal cult, and explained that she was wearing her purple bow so as not to arouse their suspicion. You know, mum, I don’t really understand any of this but I think Zimperlich believed her because Blume used Pavaroti’s name, and Pavaroti was an enemy of the princess (I told you I didn’t understand it, mum) and Zimperlich said that she had hoped Blume was bringing news that Pavaroti had been dismissed.

Then Zimperlich said that in such trying times the only one that could save the princess was the Eternal Knight, Siegfried Prunkvoll. So Blume said she would try to find Prunkvoll for her. This is getting even more confusing, because although I didn’t meet Prunkvoll, Guido did, and he said that the man was an old dreamer. He said there was a famous character in Estalian stories who was a useless and deluded knight who tilted at windmills and was a bit of a donkey, and he said that Prunkvoll reminded him of that character.

Blume told Zimperlich that she could find her at the Templar’s Arms and asked her where she might find Prunkvoll, and Zimperlich said wherever it was the most orderly and safest, which was a bit cryptic, but I suppose if she really knew where to find him she wouldn’t be asking Blume to. Then Blume decided that she didn’t want to see the rest of the play after all (because it was a bit boring and in Tilean) and went back to the Templar’s.

Meanwhile Guido and Dreamy were discussing the dwarf tax and whether Rallane might be behind it, and they decided that if an elf was trying to sow dissent then they would not be so obvious as to pick on dwarfs, especially if they were one of the few elves with any political power in Middenheim.

And then they discussed whether they would edit Blume’s pamphlet behind her back and hand it to the printers first thing, or they would discuss their ideas for changes with her. I’m not sure which they decided in the end, mum. Dreamy did suggest that Willow should talk to Blume as she gets on best with her, but then Willow made a very long list of people she gets on better with.

Then Guido tried to give me some advice about joining the sewer jacks. He said that if I went to the interview then I would have to follow through with it, and I couldn’t just leave the job after five minutes like I always did, as that would disgrace myself, and the dwarfs were big on honour so they would not like that. He didn’t think I was paying enough attention to him, so he grabbed me by the scruff of the neck. Then he said I was being cheeky (and I probably was being a bit cheeky, mum, but that’s because Guido is so pompous he makes you want to) and so he slapped me and said he had to slap some sense into me. And he said he was being cruel to be kind.

But then Willow, who had been drinking a lot of that ale to keep her throat cool after that harsh dwarven pipeweed got a bit lairy and she rushed over to Guido and kicked him in the shin (that was cruel to be kind – Willow). And we had to pull Willow away as she was getting a bit too angry (all I want is for him to like us – Willow).

Dreamy told her that Guido means well but you had to take him with a pinch of salt, and that he isn’t as clever as he thinks he is. (But he’s a lot cleverer than I think I am, mum.)

Then it all calmed down a bit and we made our way back to the Templar’s. And we met back up with Blume and she told us all about the opera and how cultured it was, but to be honest, mum, I think she hadn’t paid any attention to it and was just making up a plot to look sophisticated.

Then she told us about everything she had found out and about the leopard knights (Knights Panther) and Hildegarde Zimperlich and her plan to search for the Eternal Knight. And Guido told her that he thought Prunkvoll was a lunatic who was away with the fairies but he might be at the minotaur fight, again. And we said it could still be worth finding him to curry favour with someone so close to Princess Katarina.

Blume said she thought that with this talk about Stefan and Heinrich that she supported Katarina as heir to the graf and that she might write about that in her pamphlet. But Dreamy warned her that with the graf and his son still alive that sort of talk was tantamount to a coup and she should be careful what she said.

Then we discussed Blume’s pamphlet. Dreamy said she could write pro-dwarf stuff and that they would pay her for it. But Blume said she would have to approve it and it had to be about pistols, petticoats, and power. And as the dwarf point of view seemed to be the opposite of what Blume thought, and not many dwarfs wore petticoats, I think that perhaps that wasn’t going to happen.

And then Willow complained that her love potion recipe was unethical, and said perhaps she should replace it with a nice little recipe for lavender and chamomile tea. And Guido said he still needed to review some of the pamphlet and would give it back to her in the morning.

And then it was bedtime. So, mum, we have a busy day ahead of us. I want to join the sewer jacks, and then watch Guido in his semi-final, and then watch the final round of the archery where Dreamy has a chance of becoming champion archer (though Allavandrel is still ahead). To be honest, mum, it feels like this carnival just goes on forever but I’ll write soon and let you know what happens.