77: Bruno

In the morning the urchins came in to report to Willow but they didn’t have any useful information. There had been no sign of Frau Kenner, or Charlotte. Willow told them to concentrate on Wallenstein and maybe check out the cooper’s shop again.

And when she asked if Wallenstein had been meeting purple people they said that actually he had been meeting with people who were wearing green. But that could have just been a coincidence. I remembered that one of the women he had met at the Harvest Goose had been wearing green, and Janna Eberhauer had said she liked to wear green even though she was a blue wizard, but that didn’t seem like evidence of anything.

Guido asked Dreamy to do some joint training. They hadn’t worked out together for a few days, but I think now that he had Schutzmann on his side Guido was a bit more motivated.

They were talking about the best way to deal with Frau Kenner and they were talking about ways of getting into the palace, and they asked me whether it was possible to get into it through the sewers, and I said I would find out.

I had the idea to tell Guido about the smuggling in the sewers but I changed my mind at the last minute, because I doubted he would be very sympathetic. He did ask me if I had taken any bribes at work, and I said no and he believed me, because I think he thought I was too stupid to be able to lie about something like that.

They made the plan that on Festag, after following Frau Kenner from the Pit we should follow her back out of the palace again to see where she goes, but I thought it would just be better to capture he while she was in the palace. It seemed to me to be asking for trouble trying to let her free in a city that she probably knew very well, and we didn’t know very well at all. But Guido said he wanted to find out where she was going. I said that maybe he could summon his magic eagle to follow here but no one else liked that idea.

Then they talked about how it might be necessary to knock her off their list of suspects, which sounded more sinister than it could have, and I got the impression that Dreamy would be prepared to assassinate her. And then Guido and Dreamy shook on the deal, so I think that was a murderous pact they made. I suppose you have to do what you have to do to defeat the nefarious, but I think they both enjoy the idea of something like that a lot more than the rest of us.

Willow, Dreamy, and Guido went off to the Pit to see if they could talk to Bruno. And in the end Guido decided to stay outside and watch the place from the other side of the street and left Willow and Dreamy handle things. Willow also spotted the barmaid there who had come to her clinic and got hypnotised. And she assured Willow that she had managed to stay off the Ranny D so far.

Bruno told Willow that he knew someone of Frau Kenner’s description, and that she was one of his best customers, and she came every Festag and spent loads of money. He said she was worth too much money to him to sell her information, but then said he would spill the beans for thirty crowns, which was interesting. And in the end Willow managed to haggle him down to twenty crowns and some fuggleweed.

And of course Willow didn’t have any money and so Dreamy had to spend practically all the party kitty. I wasn’t there, and I was hoping we would keep some money to buy some cargo for when we got back on Das Moot, but I suppose fighting the nefarious should be our priority, so that was fair enough.

I did wonder why Bruno was able to shop one of his best customers like that, but I think he was probably thinking that she wouldn’t be a customer for much longer, so he may as well cash in while he could.

He told Willow and Dreamy that Frau Kenner came at about eight every Festag evening and then she would be at the palace between about eight thirty and eleven thirty (he had had her followed). And after she left the palace she would hit some of the inns and taverns in town.

And Willow asked him not to tell Kenner that we had been asking questions and he agreed if we kept his name out of things. Then Willow made him promise to recommend her clinic to the people he sold drugs to, and he said he would but I’m not sure that would be great for his business.

Meanwhile, I went up to the sewer jacks to see if I could have a look at how the palace was defended from the sewers. The day shift were getting ready to go out, and so I introduced myself and they were happy enough to let me go along with them. Their captain was called Raina and their group seemed a little more by-the-book than the night shift

I got an official badge, which was a wolf’s head on a white circle, so I sewed that on my jacket to show I was a proper sewer jack. I noticed that the day shift badge had a yellower background, maybe it was yellow for the sun for the day shift and white for the moon for the night shift.

The very first thing that Raina said to me was ‘when the world turns upside down, who’s going to be on top?’ which was a bit of a strange thing to say, but I like riddles and I think it means that the lowly people like sewer jacks will become more valued.

Anyway I was paired with a guy called Alfric half-nose who looked like he had had his nose bitten off. He said it was by a big rat. I thought he might have meant one of those man-size rats we have already fought, but he was careful to say it was definitely a normal rat, only bigger.

We went by the palace area and he explained that all the sewers under the palace were protected by locked gates, and only the shift captain had a key. And there were loads of guards and knights beyond that, anyway, so no one would be breaking into the palace that way.

The day shift definitely felt a bit more professional than the night shift, and I expect they were more honest, too. I asked Alfric about going down the Regent’s and he said that his shift didn’t really go there much. He also said that the Regent's was owned by a top gangster who rented it to the sewer jacks guild and so I should go careful there.

I tried to get Alfric to talk about the giant rat-men and showed him my scar that I’d got at Castle Wittgenstein, but then I remembered he only had half a nose, so that wasn’t the conversation starter I thought it was going to be.

Meanwhile, Willow, Dreamy, and Guido went to the Black Pool Illuminations. I think it is all about wizards and fireworks, mum, but I can’t say I’m particularly upset I missed it.

Janna Eberhauer was there, doing magic, but I don’t think Allavandrel was. Ar-Ulric was there and so was Emmanuelle Schlagen. I’m not sure we should look into them, mum, because there’s something going on, but if it’s that obvious to us outsiders then it doesn’t seem like it is the sort of secret that can attract the nefarious. But perhaps it could have something to do with his support of the temple tax.

Anyway, mum, that’s all for now. It’s getting close to the end of the carnival, and we will need to get our act together before tomorrow evening so we can try to trap the mysterious Frau Kenner. I might have something to say about that in my next letter.