The Journal of Brother Solomon

Part 6

In which our investigators battle their way out the basement of a burning building…

Windsday, Mobilityweek, Fireseason, 613 – afternoon

Close up, the piled wood has clearly been here a while. It was cut and piled neatly but the logs are covered in moss and mould. On the other hand, the spade’s presence is more recent – the blade is not at all verdigrised and has been here less than a season, from the earth on the blade.

Rufus does not think the door trapped and close up we can see it is barely hanging on its hinges. I gently push it open but, despite the state of the hinges, they doesn’t creak at all, which is surprising – has someone oiled them?

Inside reveals a single largish room. We enter and pull the hides from the windows and in the afternoon light we see a wooden bed in the far left corner with a straw mattress and blankets, now doubtless very damp. In the middle of the room are a chair and a table bearing burned candles, some knives and a pestle & mortar. All the furniture is crude but robust. There are four wooden kegs, two water buckets, a wooden chest and, in the fireplace, a bronze cauldron.

Over by the far wall are a jug stand and a book stand, both empty. The damp thatch is supported by a single massive beam across the middle of the hovel. As well as the windows, light comes through several holes in the walls – an habitual problem with wattle & daub, requiring continual maintenance by the occupier, which clearly hasn’t happened here in a while.

Obviously the chest is of interest. Rufus finds it has a lock and also a built-in needle trap, but neither have been engaged – the needle is clean and the lid opens readily to reveal women’s clothes folded neatly. Fatima removes a couple of items and estimates the owner as being of medium-large build for a woman. In a pocket of a coat, Ariella finds a smattering of dried leaves, smelling faintly of herbs.

We find no special hiding places – the cauldron is a cauldron and any books are long gone from the book stand. It does seem a little odd a peasant woman, witch or not, would have any books. It’s possible she used it for something else but then there’s an inkwell, still with dried ink, so apparently she could write. The kegs all hold water and someone finds a sewing kit.

Well that’s about it and I’m ready to head back to the village but, just as we’re about to leave, someone kicks aside a straw mat to reveal a trap door next to the fireplace. Now that’s even odder than the book case and inkwell.

The fire hasn’t been lit in over a year and we can find absolutely no tracks aside from our own. We check outside and draw a blank there too – until Ariella finds faint signs suggesting someone has been here within the last season (someone must have left that spade for a start) but then taken great pains to leave no sign.

What she finds is that round the back a patch of earth has been disturbed, about four feet by two, so a very small grave, if that’s what it is, and there is a small crude death rune, almost lost in the weeds with very small runes carved into the wood. The only one we recognise is Fertility but George thinks one of the other two is Chaos!

We go back inside and open the trap door, which is in much better condition than the main door. There’s a ladder descending into darkness. We light candles taken from the table and George leads the way down.

About ten feet down we find ourselves in a room about half the length and width of the room above. To the far left is a bedroll, a straw mattress laid directly on the floor. In the middle is a broad circle of candles in what to me screams ‘ritual’ and to the right is a low altar covered in an altar cloth with two more candles – but these are proper votary candles, such as might be found in any Azrael church.

Lastly, hanging crossways on the wall behind the altar is a bronze greatsword! What is a peasant woman doing with a greatsword? Everything down here suggests Ginniver probably was some sort of witch but it’s even more incongruous for a witch to have a blade like that. Honestly, I’d have been happier to find voodoo dolls!

George casts Detect Magic again – it’s the circle, of course, emanating from the centre of the circle but with an ‘echo’ reflecting all over the room. It makes me shiver as I gaze about. This basement was dug years ago – it may be as old as the hovel above.

Rufus lifts down the greatsword – hung lengthwise so it’s not a Death rune. I take a closer look at the altar. There are runes stitched into the altar cloth – they’re a little crude but Spirit, Disorder and Chaos are clear enough, with a fourth like a star or sun-burst – Fate? – these are Adrasteia’s runes!

Lifting the altar cloth reveals the altar is a flat-topped chest. Bitey checks it for traps and opens the lid – we all hear a distinct double ‘click’ of some mechanism – with lightning reflexes, the Beaver jerks his hand away from a needle dripping something best described as ‘glutinous’.

Inside is what looks like a deflated bladder of hide which Fatima thinks it’s some internal organ from an animal (at least, I hope it’s an animal). There are also a pile of clothes which George recognises as a man’s breeches and shirt. They’ve been let out and patched many times. The breeches also have a large hole at the back. That doesn’t look like wear and tear; it looks like it’s meant to accommodate a tail!

There’s also a book – it’s in Lunatic, with illustrations. I think we’ve all heard the story of the Very Hungry Caterpillar – a ravenous worm eats and eats and eats before finally metamorphosing into a butterfly. There are different versions depending on the culture but this one has a particularly disturbing page where the caterpillar devours a corpse! Not exactly what I’d call a children’s book.

So, did Ginniver have a child with a Chaos feature?

Then Rufus finds the back of the chest folds up to reveal a secret compartment. To one side are a dozen small holes, intended to hold vials of glass or crystal and there are two such in place, each holding liquid. There is also a small velvet bag holding 64 shillings, 5 Moons and 3 iron coins with bats – Transylvanian currency!

Just then we all hear something creak above us – Rufus gets the wrong idea and starts screaming about something coming out of the walls but the rest of us realise someone is in the room upstairs! We all prepare weapons and spells – I ready my shield and bring Disruption to mind.

Fatima is closest to the ladder but before she can move it slams shut and we hear something heavy being dragged. George charges up and tries to open the door before the weight is in place. Quick as he is, he can’t get it open – he shouts someone is standing on the door while dragging the cauldron from the fireplace.

Rufus, having recovered from his panic attack and from having stepped into the circle of candles, replaces George and uses his axe but by now the cauldron must be in place. Bitey tries to hack through the ceiling but all that might do is bring it down on us.

George says he hears someone striking a flint – so we’re dealing with an arsonist! Rufus has another hack and then Bitey replaces him. His second blow smashes the trap door and pieces of wood rain down as he ducks down and away. Luckily the cauldron is too large and sits in the aperture.

Ariella leaps past and shins up the ladder, only to miss her footing – she slips and falls, hurting her arm. By now we can all smell smoke.

So I go up the ladder to find the bronze cauldron blocking my way. It takes every ounce of my strength to shove it up and aside, freeing our escape.

I emerge into dense smoke – suddenly I’m back in that burning derelict farm in Ochre Grove – but this time I keep my head and hold my breath as I stumble out the door into the clean air, drawing my sword.

I look round for our attacker. I think I spy a man running off but my eyes are watering. By the time I wipe them clear he’s gone but I make a note of the direction before turning back to the hovel.

There’s dense smoke pouring through the thatch and out the windows but it’s not properly burning – no doubt all that damp is making for more smoke and less flame. I hear a heavy thud and a beaver swearing. I stop to catch my breath while I gather myself to go back in but suddenly Bitey comes out the smoke, screaming, “Where is he? Where did he go?” He wants to hare off after the arsonist but I’m not leaving my friends.

Ariella is next and she takes the time to put out the fire before joining us outside. The room is still very smoky but Fatima comes out next, then George and final Rufus, nursing a bruised shin.

Rufus thinks he saw a dark patch in the middle of the circle of candles – sacrifice! I shiver again, glad to be out of that basement.

Now we’re all out, I point out the direction the arsonist went and our trackers lead us in pursuit. Fatima and George quickly find the trail of a bipedal creature with a tail! So it looks like Ginniver’s son is still about and causing mayhem. It feels to me like he may be the one seeking Adrasteia’s vengeance.

Suddenly the tracks vanish. We examine the adjacent trees but none of them show any sign of having been climbed. I’m wondering if he doesn’t have another trap door hidden under the leaf mould but then the trackers think his last prints look heavier, like he gathered himself for a leap.

We search around and pick up his trail again, ten yards away… Of course! Chaos features… greatsword… and he can leap ten yards… he and Ginniver must have been worshippers of Zadok! That explains why she was so good at healing animals.

Two minutes later he does the same thing again and this time we can’t find the trail. George and Ariella are pretty sure we won’t find him – he’s gone – so we return to the hovel.

George wants to look at the grave so Rufus digs it up with the spade by the door. It doesn’t take long, about a foot down Rufus finds a bag of what feel like bones. I’m almost certain these must be the burnt remains of Ginniver.

Fatima remonstrates with the Beaver, saying we should respect the dead and let them rest and I think she’s right but Rufus has already slit the bag. He reveals a collection of bones, not enough for a human and none of them seem burned – the skull looks like a cat or maybe a dog? So not Ginniver, after all.

We take a closer look at the cross – we think the runes might be Beast and Chaos. George wonders if might have been the witch’s familiar but I’ve a feeling we’re looking at a sacrifice made in that circle.

It’s time to head back to the village. By the time we reach the inn it’s close to dusk and the locals are again coming in from the fields for an evening pint. After dinner, we regale them with our adventures in the woods, which I think induces some tongues to wag – we ‘furriners’ are beginning to gain familiarity, perhaps?

I take the opportunity to have a private word with Mary. I mention my conversation with Gaillard this morning and that he mentioned her name. I ask why she doesn’t visit him any more? Mary admits that she did like him. He was a bit simple but he was a kind lad and was looking to enter an apprenticeship with Jake the Hunter, so he had prospects and she could do a lot worse – “You’ve got to make do with what’s around”, as she puts it.

But after what happened to Gaillard she couldn’t afford to be seen with him in case people got the wrong impression. I gently suggest she might pay a visit to the boy. She’s not unwilling but she would need a chaperone – I take the hint and volunteer my services after breakfast tomorrow.

Meanwhile Ariella hears that the Selenite minister, Father Percy, is well respected in the village and most of the locals attend his chapel on Moonnight.

George learns that Hillsgreen Crossing’s principal business is sheep, which is why lamb features so largely on the menu in the inn. He’s also told that Jake the Huntsman (who is not drinking here tonight) is a worshipper of Hodr. As a trapper, used to the woods and a skilled tracker, George thinks Jake might be well aware of Ginniver’s son.

George begins to think Jake may have told Avner about Ginniver’s son, which is how Avner tipped off Ezra’s Vikings. George thinks Jake might be the next victim of the curse that got Gaillard.

We have less than two days to thwart that curse…