94: Baumhafen Weg

Hello, mum. I would like to say I had a good night’s sleep after going through all the regime that Pavarotti had decribed, but I didn’t really. I only had a few hours sleep and then I just laid there for the rest of the night because I didn’t want to say I hadn’t tried. And in the morning I was just as tired, but I was under instructions not to take any fey-eyes, as tempting as it was, and so I just spent the morning feeling really fatigued.

Guido and Fred were doing manly things in the courtyard, like sparring and practising their drilled fighting. And Vinny joined in, and Fred gave him some fighting tips, but even I could see he wasn’t very good. I think, watching Guido and Fred, Guido has a very traditional style influenced heavily by theory, whereas Fred is a lot more rough and ready, but I wouldn’t like to say who was the best fighter, especially if it came down to a dirty fight in a tavern coach park. I think Vinny was just pleased to be hanging out with them, and as he said, ‘this is the first posh house I’ve ever been in that I haven’t broken into.’

Then we had porridge and Blume insisted that nanny blew hers until it was just the right temperature. And then she made Guido get his blown, too. She told him it was an Altdorf tradition, and he seemed to believe her even though it was just Blume being an arse. And I spilt some porridge down the front of Blume’s silk pyjamas, and she wasn’t very pleased about that.

Vinny said getting your porridge blown was for babies, and Blume pointed out she wasn’t a baby and Vinny said that it was one of her foibles. So Blume said visiting prostitutes was one of Vinny’s foibles, and, don’t read this bit out to the girls, mum, but he said he was a top shagger and it was just a different way of getting his oats. (I guess you had to be there, mum.)

We had a talk about going to see Alfric half-nose at the Bretonnia House and I could see Vinny was a bit worried about it, because he had the ear of some of the low-kings, but I had worked with him, and he seemed alright to me. Vinny said it was sort of on the border between Edam Gouda's territory and Bleyden’s and he told us not to piss anyone off.

Guido decided to appoint Fred as Captain of the Street. He said I could be captain of the river but the nearest river is miles away. Blume was still wearing lots of jewellery and as we got closer to the Bretonnia House the area got dodgier, and we wondered whether she might be the target of a mugging, or something.

The inn was squalid and smelled of boiled cabbage, and some of the windows were broken. Vinny went in first and spoke to the landlord, Jaques Henri, but he didn’t say it like he was from Bretonnia. He said it like he was from the Reikland. Then Fred went in and bought a beer and sat in a corner just making sure Vinny was alright.

Then I went in and saw Alfric and went to talk to him. He said he wasn’t doing the sewer jacking any more, so I couldn’t think of what to say to him, also I was a bit confused about our plan to offer Kastelle Lieberung as a hostage, so I just made a quit exit.

I’d left Guido looking after Blume and I think he was telling her all about his plans to convert her chapel to a school, or something, but Blume wasn’t very interested in the details, and so by the time I got back, she was just insulting the local passers-by for being poor. I don’t think they realised quite how dangerous a place they were hanging out in.

I think Vinny wondered why I had left the Bretonnia House so quickly, but he went to talk to Alfric. He told Alfric that he was at the bottom but intended to work his way up, and asked him if he could put in a good word for him with the important people he knew.

And when Alfric wasn’t very interested, Vinny said he had his own information and said he’d heard Alfric had the guy from the Purple Hand. This got Alfric’s attention and he quickly denied it. And he demanded to know who Vinny was with, and when Vinny said he was on his own, Alfric stood up and asked everyone whose boy this was. I don’t think he could believe that a young lad like Vinny could find out that sort of the stuff on his own.

Then Alfric said he had some information but it would cost him two shillings, and Vinny agreed to pay. And for his two shillings he asked whether it was Bleyden. Alfric said, ‘don’t make me laugh, Bleyden couldn't pull off the kidnapping of an important person like that.’

The next question cost Vinny four shillings, and he asked whether it was Gouda. And Alfric said it wasn’t and that he was more likely to leave someone dead for butting into his business than kidnap them.

In the end Alfric charged Vinny eighteen shillings for the useful information, and both Vinny and Fred noticed he was looking a bit worried about this, so decided it might be juicy. He said that there was something strange going on at one of The Man’s safehouses, number 33 Baumhafen Weg, in Westor.

So Vinny came out of the inn looking pleased with himself that he had got the information. And he said he was a big dog, now, and that Guido should make him the captain of taverns. But Guido told him that he wasn’t even in KITUM yet and couldn’t be a captain of anything. But I suggested he could be the captain of shagging.

Then Fred came out of the Bretonnia House and was pretty annoyed to see us all milling about outside chatting, and after he had walked nonchalantly past us and down a side street explained that it wasn’t much of an undercover mission if we did obvious stuff like that.

So we headed off to Westor and had to listen to Vinny telling us how well he had infiltrated the Middenheim underworld on our behalf. And then he told us what he knew of the Man.

He said he was also known as the King and the Boss and not even his most trusted of lieutenants know his real name. He was rumoured to be a master of disguise and had no permanent headquarters, but directed an organisation of footpads, thieves, and fences that could be contacted in Middenheim’s seedier inns. To be honest, mum, it sounded a bit like Vinny was reading it from a book.

We found the house and Fred did a casual walk-by. He couldn’t see anyone in the building, but noticed that the door was swinging open. So we scrapped our plans for a convoluted cover story or a stealthy break-in and decided to send Vinny in directly.

So Vinny knocked on the door and getting no reply, walked in. He was only gone a few minutes and came out looking as white as a sheet. He told us it was empty but that was plainly not the whole story and when we asked him what was inside, he just told us to look for ourselves.

So we went up and in one of the rooms there was a terrible scene. The room was strewn with body parts like there had been a bloody massacre and an octagon had been hastily drawn on the floor and there was blood in its centre.

Fred and Vinny had never seen anything like it and were plainly shocked. Fred went out to comfort Vinny, but I think he probably needed comforting, too, although he didn’t show it. Blume and I recognised that sort of thing from Boegenhafen and we were quick to demonstrate our familiarity with it, and disdain the roughly drawn octagon in comparison to the painstaking circle in the warehouse in Boegenhafen.

And weirdly the harder Fred and Vinny were taking it, the more it made me want to show that I wasn’t affected. But to be honest, mum, as much as we were trying to appear unruffled I think it did have an effect on me and I don’t think Pavarotti’s wellness regime will save me from the bad dreams tonight.

I noticed the daemon was summoned in Baumhafen, and the other daemon we saw had been summoned in Boegenhafen. I wondered whether all sinister daemonic things sound the same: Boegenhafen, Baumhafen, Blume Hofnung.

Meanwhile, Guido was being very professional and he systematically went about making sense of the scene. And after a while concluded that perhaps Jarmund had been a prisoner, here and he had found the opportunity to draw the summoning circle and summon a daemon to the world (probably by means of a sacrifice of his own blood). And while his captors were being devoured (I think we worked out there was probably three of them), had made his escape, or perhaps got eaten by the daemon himself.

He went out onto the street and found a woman hanging her washing who had noticed a man leaving the house a few hours before and heading for Ostwald. He had been in a rush and wore white and purple feathers in his hat. And so Guido concluded that Jarmund had managed to escape with the help of the daemon.

Guido told us we had to go to Ostwald, but we had to wait for Vinny to stop throwing up. In Ostwald Vinny and Fred went to the Bell and Bucket for a beer to settle their nerves. Fred said it was a popular hangout for Nordlanders, especially those Nordlanders who believed that Nordland should be separate from the Empire. They did ask if anyone had seen a hat that matched Jarmund’s description, but soon decided they were unwanted, and left.

We didn’t really have a lot to go on, and wandered the street a bit hoping to catch sight of him. Then we came to the Drowned Rat which was a proper dive. Vinny said it was in the Man’s territory, and full of cut-throats and footpads, and if we didn’t want to have out throats cut and our feet padded we shouldn’t go in there. And he said he knew one of the top fences in Ostwald who had a pawn shop nearby.

So that’s that, mum. We’re in Ostwald looking for Jarmund with not much idea where he might be. I’ll let you know if we find him, but I hope we go to visit Vinny’s colleague at the pawn shop rather than trying our luck at the Drowned Rat. Anyway, it seems the last place an erstwhile captive of the Man would want to go is to one of his taverns.