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(I/* 11/1/2014)
We both came awake at the same instant. We both looked each other in the eyes at the same instant.
And both sprang out of bed, on opposite sides, quicker than a wink. We glared at each other across the rumpled silk sheets.
"What? YOU'RE the one who forgot to build those silly mounds of sheets and pillows."
"I didn't think that was necessary."
"I'll say. You're mostly bone, you know. You ought to eat more."
"Shut up."
"You think I'm going to brag about this? You're not that hunky, Master. Where the masses get the idea that you're your skunk-goddess' gift to cervines, I've got no..."
"Shut up."
"Of course, if you want, we can give my fellow wolves downstairs a few ideas. Shall I get in voice?"
He reached for a pillow, and thought better of it. He was going to throw it. I think that's what he wanted to use it for, anyway.
There was a knock on the door, and he reflexively covered himself. "What is it?"
The piping voice of the pup responded. "Many pardons, Master, but there are many in the village square who are asking for you. Can you come?"
"You'd better believe it." My response was taken one way by the innocent pup, and at a completely different angle by the Master, who this time did throw the pillow at me.
Completely worth it.
There was some assorted grumbling, and the Master stomped over to a pitcher, jammed his hand in it, snarled some Gramerye, and heated up the water. Perhaps a little too much, as he yelped when he poured some on himself. Serves him right. Never use magicks when you're in a bad temper, that's what I say.
In any event, I got dressed (such as my wardrobe is), and I was ready to go downstairs a bit before he shrugged into a set of fatigues and a cloak. He had looked outside the window, and had grunted at the misting rain that was falling.
Breakfast was a hurried affair in the dining room. The Master bolted down a dish of oatmeal and some hot cider, and I had more smoked meat on toast. As I was finishing the last of it, I turned, and spotted the inn-keeper's wife, who was sniffing at me with great interest, and wagging her tail.
Oh, silly me. I'd forgotten to wash, and I smelled of roebuck. How careless.
We exchanged glances, I wiggled my eyebrows (when the Master wasn't looking), and got something of a humorous look of envy. One gathered that the innkeeper was not exactly a prize specimen, pup or no pup.
The front door was opened, and both of us peered out. Now, this wasn't a large village, but then again, it wasn't a large square, either. So it was, after its own fashion, teeming.
The crowd was silent, sad, but in very good order. There was even something resembling a line, and young furs were given some sense of priority.
The Master called out over his shoulder. "Innkeeper? Help me move around the furniture in the common room. You, too, wolfess..."
"Which wolfess? There are two, Master."
He wanted to say something sharp, but he realized I was, after all, telling the truth, and he merely gritted his teeth, pointed at me, and then vigorously pointed at the common room. For all that, the innkeeper's wife trotted along after me.
It was pretty short work to make the common room into something of an herbalist's waiting room, and the Master, after he had collected supplies (and made some wine and ice), beckoned the furs inside. Good thing, too. The last of them had just ducked their head in when the skies opened up and the rain began to come down in sheets.
The two of us recognized many of the furs: repeat customers, who were still sick with coughing and fevers. There were some new faces, and the Master interviewed those. Some from Finchley itself, some from outlying farms. Word had gotten out pretty quickly, somehow, and through the driving rain, I could see a few carts sheltered from the storm, with ants crouched underneath.
There were a few serious cases, furs that were quite ill, and they were sent upstairs to rooms. The innkeeper did think about arguing, but after surveying the faces of his fellow villagers, slumped his shoulders and acknowledged his duty. He was kept busy all day fetching assorted things like linens and hot water.
Not everyfur was, in fact, sick. There was in particular one old vixen, of faded colour and very sharp eyes, who had planted herself in a remote corner of the common room, and had been watching the proceedings with gimlet eyes. During a temporary break, while Winterbough was washing his paws and having some cider, I went over to her.
"Grandmother, do you need help?"
"It is not I who need assistance, young wolfess, but you and your keeper."
"You are not sick?"
"No, please Fuma, I am not. I have ways to preserve my health, and I shall preserve them for many years to come, yet."
I smiled, and wagged my tail encouragingly. "Can you share your secret, Grandmother?"
She snorted, but smiled. "One way for a long life is to..." She leaned over, and took a long sniff at me. "Well. You have that covered. Another is to have knowledge of herbs."
I tilted my head, curious. "Is it not so, Grandmother, that many in these country villages have such knowledge?"
She snorted again, without a smile. "And it is so, wolfess, that the knowledge fades from generation to generation. There are fewer of the furs of old that take care to learn about the bounty that Fuma herself had strewn across Faerie, and more to the ill for them." She waved a gnarled paw across the room. "In the times when I was a young maiden, you would not have seen so many furs driven to illness."
"Then there is an illness going around, Grandmother?"
She tapped the side of her head with a bent finger. "It is all here, wolfess, all here. Sure, it is so that there are fevers, and upset stomachs, and many other small illnesses that together, grind down a fur, but I say this to you: it is not by agency of nature this is happening."
This was a little worrying, and I lowered my voice. "Poison, grandmother?"
She bent forward, and whispered. "Not as such. I suspect, rather, that this is a case where the poison is intangible."
This sounded worrying. "Foul magicks?"
She looked around the room through narrowed eyes, leaned in further, and spoke in a barely audible voice.
"Not that I have been able to detect, wolfess. I am sure that if there were such in use, they would leave their trace. A fur of my age can go many places and not be seen. Take now, for instance. We have been speaking head-to-head these few minutes, and no one, not even the fur who has such a hold on you, has noticed. So I have made my own investigations."
"Have they borne fruit, Grandmother?"
"No. Not, in any event, in the sense that I detect magicks, foul or otherwise. What I have seen, and this requires no Gramerye, is that these villagers are frightened. Have you not seen it in their eyes?"
"I see, Grandmother, defeat."
She paused, tapped a finger on her chin a few times, and nodded.
"A very fair statement, wolfess. This has been going on for some weeks, now, and it is past the point of fear, perhaps. Well that His Majesty has sent the Master of Elfhame. If nothing else, this will at least stabilize the situation."
"I am sorry, Grandmother. This seems, from what little I've seen, like a pretty village."
"Aye, it is so. The fields yield plenty of flax for the spinners, and please Fuma, we've done well all these years. It would deeply grieve me to see this village die or collapse. I also would like to see those responsible for this hang."
"There are furs in back of this?"
"I have no proof of that, wolfess, but I suspect. Oh, yes, I suspect. Ask the innkeeper for his guest-book, and have a look."
"I shall take your advice, Grandmother." I looked around. "Grandmother, do you have any...Knowledge...that would be helpful?"
In an instant, a very crafty looking flitted across her muzzle.
"Certainly, young wolfess." She reached into her heavy cloak, and pulled out a half-dozen stoppered bottles, plus a rather grubby book with tattered hinges.
"Copy the book and return it. I know that roebuck of yours has very sticky paws when it comes to books."
I grinned. "How did you know?"
"Inherent in magick-users of his type. The green bottles here contain herbs described in the front of the book. Mix them according to directions, and apply them as poultices."
"You have not done this, Grandmother?"
She sighed. "They thought I was trying to make them sick. That's the problem when old crones such as myself are seen. It's different when a strapping young wench like yourself does it. Strapping young canines...or feline wenches...can do much."
We exchanged a look, and a nod. I looked at the bottles in my paws. "Wait a minute, Grandmother. What's this blue bottle?"
"That's for if your Master gets tired, and can't do his duty."
"Well, it might help, at that, if we have to keep going at this rate..."
"No, no, no, you misunderstand...not THAT duty. His OTHER duty."
"What other...oh!"
"Chapter Six."
I looked, and I could feel my ears turn red.
"Many thanks, Grandmother, but he doesn't need the herbs for that."
"Give blessings to Fuma that that is so. Nevertheless, knowledge gained is knowledge saved." She looked around from side to side again. "Still...if any fur would drive him to the point of needing stimulants..."
I grinned back, bowed to her, and moved back to where the Master was resuming work on his patients. We'd been at the job for about a half hour, when the pup of the house squealed and pointed out the window.
"What's wrong with old Mrs. Reinard?"
The Master frowned, interrupted in the middle of producing some more ice, and walked over to the window. He squinted, trying to see through the driving rain. I walked over, and glanced where I'd been some time before.
The old crone was no longer there.
Alarmed, I went to the window and looked over the Master's rack.
There, in the rain, I could just make out the sight of a vixen, moving about in the rain.
Dancing a gavotte.
With a snarl erupting simultaneously from both of us, we bounded to the front door, and managed, barely, to avoid wedging ourselves simultaneously in the doorway. It did cause us some seconds of delay, and that might have made the difference.
As we ran through the muddy village square, the vixen began to dance, and move away from us. Remarkably spry for an old fur, but then again, she had told me she had taken care of herself.
The Master was in good shape, however, as was I. We began to catch up, and the Master was able to reach out and grab a hold of her shawl.
It became unfastened, and in doing so, threw the Master off balance. He went sprawling, muzzle first, in the mud. I tried to leap over him, skidded myself in the mud, and went rolling in it, covering myself from ears to tailtip in a thick, gooey soup of wetted ground. By the time both of us got up, Mrs. Reinard was long gone.
Winterbough rattled out something in his native tongue that went on for about a minute, and was likely not a direct comment on the weather. He flung down the shawl with a curse, thought better of it, and took it up again. We trudged, defeated, back to the inn.
At the doorway, the innkeeper's wife stopped us.
"You cannot track mud into my nice, clean inn, good furs. But go around the back and strip yourselves, and we will have a nice, hot bath for you."
They did, in fact. It was in one of the washing-tubs used for cleaning the hotel linen. The Master, grumpily, indicated that I was to go first. I lowered my head, went to my knees, and told the Master to take precedence. He was about to lose his temper, when he realized that more than a few furs were peering around the corner at us. One of them timidly set a small metal bucket inside the door, and closed it.
The bucket contained a bottle of sparkling wine, nestled in one of the Master's chunks of ice.
We filled the tub with water, and the Master made sure the water was, in fact, hot. He turned around and stripped himself. I did the same, though I didn't bother to turn around.
We'd sat naked, glaring at each other, for about five minutes, in the hot water, before he snapped at me.
"Well, what is it?"
"I have a question, Master."
He rolled his eyes. "What?"
"Are you going to open the bottle of wine? I'm thirsty."
He closed his eyes, and promptly ducked his head so that all that was visible above the surface of the water was his antler-tips. There was a series of bubbles that burst to the surface, indicating that he was experimenting with underwater swearing.
I shrugged, and reached over for the wine bucket, and stopped.
The muddy shawl that we'd captured was strewn on the floor next to the bucket. I leaned over, and picked it up, and examined it.
After a minute or so, a thought occurred to me, and I kicked at the Master. His head was raised, to the point where his nose and eyes were above the surface of the water. I showed him the shawl.
"Master, there is something odd about this."
He raised an eyebrow.
"I spoke to the old vixen for some minutes before. She's no longer in the common room."
The other eyebrow was raised as I brandished the article of clothing.
"This, Master, is not the shawl that she was wearing."
His eyebrows lowered to the point where they were furrowed, and he began to think. He lowered his head below the surface of the water again. This time, the bubbles were coming slowly and regularly.
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*****
(I/* 11/1/2014)
We both came awake at the same instant. We both looked each other in the eyes at the same instant.
And both sprang out of bed, on opposite sides, quicker than a wink. We glared at each other across the rumpled silk sheets.
"What? YOU'RE the one who forgot to build those silly mounds of sheets and pillows."
"I didn't think that was necessary."
"I'll say. You're mostly bone, you know. You ought to eat more."
"Shut up."
"You think I'm going to brag about this? You're not that hunky, Master. Where the masses get the idea that you're your skunk-goddess' gift to cervines, I've got no..."
"Shut up."
"Of course, if you want, we can give my fellow wolves downstairs a few ideas. Shall I get in voice?"
He reached for a pillow, and thought better of it. He was going to throw it. I think that's what he wanted to use it for, anyway.
There was a knock on the door, and he reflexively covered himself. "What is it?"
The piping voice of the pup responded. "Many pardons, Master, but there are many in the village square who are asking for you. Can you come?"
"You'd better believe it." My response was taken one way by the innocent pup, and at a completely different angle by the Master, who this time did throw the pillow at me.
Completely worth it.
There was some assorted grumbling, and the Master stomped over to a pitcher, jammed his hand in it, snarled some Gramerye, and heated up the water. Perhaps a little too much, as he yelped when he poured some on himself. Serves him right. Never use magicks when you're in a bad temper, that's what I say.
In any event, I got dressed (such as my wardrobe is), and I was ready to go downstairs a bit before he shrugged into a set of fatigues and a cloak. He had looked outside the window, and had grunted at the misting rain that was falling.
Breakfast was a hurried affair in the dining room. The Master bolted down a dish of oatmeal and some hot cider, and I had more smoked meat on toast. As I was finishing the last of it, I turned, and spotted the inn-keeper's wife, who was sniffing at me with great interest, and wagging her tail.
Oh, silly me. I'd forgotten to wash, and I smelled of roebuck. How careless.
We exchanged glances, I wiggled my eyebrows (when the Master wasn't looking), and got something of a humorous look of envy. One gathered that the innkeeper was not exactly a prize specimen, pup or no pup.
The front door was opened, and both of us peered out. Now, this wasn't a large village, but then again, it wasn't a large square, either. So it was, after its own fashion, teeming.
The crowd was silent, sad, but in very good order. There was even something resembling a line, and young furs were given some sense of priority.
The Master called out over his shoulder. "Innkeeper? Help me move around the furniture in the common room. You, too, wolfess..."
"Which wolfess? There are two, Master."
He wanted to say something sharp, but he realized I was, after all, telling the truth, and he merely gritted his teeth, pointed at me, and then vigorously pointed at the common room. For all that, the innkeeper's wife trotted along after me.
It was pretty short work to make the common room into something of an herbalist's waiting room, and the Master, after he had collected supplies (and made some wine and ice), beckoned the furs inside. Good thing, too. The last of them had just ducked their head in when the skies opened up and the rain began to come down in sheets.
The two of us recognized many of the furs: repeat customers, who were still sick with coughing and fevers. There were some new faces, and the Master interviewed those. Some from Finchley itself, some from outlying farms. Word had gotten out pretty quickly, somehow, and through the driving rain, I could see a few carts sheltered from the storm, with ants crouched underneath.
There were a few serious cases, furs that were quite ill, and they were sent upstairs to rooms. The innkeeper did think about arguing, but after surveying the faces of his fellow villagers, slumped his shoulders and acknowledged his duty. He was kept busy all day fetching assorted things like linens and hot water.
Not everyfur was, in fact, sick. There was in particular one old vixen, of faded colour and very sharp eyes, who had planted herself in a remote corner of the common room, and had been watching the proceedings with gimlet eyes. During a temporary break, while Winterbough was washing his paws and having some cider, I went over to her.
"Grandmother, do you need help?"
"It is not I who need assistance, young wolfess, but you and your keeper."
"You are not sick?"
"No, please Fuma, I am not. I have ways to preserve my health, and I shall preserve them for many years to come, yet."
I smiled, and wagged my tail encouragingly. "Can you share your secret, Grandmother?"
She snorted, but smiled. "One way for a long life is to..." She leaned over, and took a long sniff at me. "Well. You have that covered. Another is to have knowledge of herbs."
I tilted my head, curious. "Is it not so, Grandmother, that many in these country villages have such knowledge?"
She snorted again, without a smile. "And it is so, wolfess, that the knowledge fades from generation to generation. There are fewer of the furs of old that take care to learn about the bounty that Fuma herself had strewn across Faerie, and more to the ill for them." She waved a gnarled paw across the room. "In the times when I was a young maiden, you would not have seen so many furs driven to illness."
"Then there is an illness going around, Grandmother?"
She tapped the side of her head with a bent finger. "It is all here, wolfess, all here. Sure, it is so that there are fevers, and upset stomachs, and many other small illnesses that together, grind down a fur, but I say this to you: it is not by agency of nature this is happening."
This was a little worrying, and I lowered my voice. "Poison, grandmother?"
She bent forward, and whispered. "Not as such. I suspect, rather, that this is a case where the poison is intangible."
This sounded worrying. "Foul magicks?"
She looked around the room through narrowed eyes, leaned in further, and spoke in a barely audible voice.
"Not that I have been able to detect, wolfess. I am sure that if there were such in use, they would leave their trace. A fur of my age can go many places and not be seen. Take now, for instance. We have been speaking head-to-head these few minutes, and no one, not even the fur who has such a hold on you, has noticed. So I have made my own investigations."
"Have they borne fruit, Grandmother?"
"No. Not, in any event, in the sense that I detect magicks, foul or otherwise. What I have seen, and this requires no Gramerye, is that these villagers are frightened. Have you not seen it in their eyes?"
"I see, Grandmother, defeat."
She paused, tapped a finger on her chin a few times, and nodded.
"A very fair statement, wolfess. This has been going on for some weeks, now, and it is past the point of fear, perhaps. Well that His Majesty has sent the Master of Elfhame. If nothing else, this will at least stabilize the situation."
"I am sorry, Grandmother. This seems, from what little I've seen, like a pretty village."
"Aye, it is so. The fields yield plenty of flax for the spinners, and please Fuma, we've done well all these years. It would deeply grieve me to see this village die or collapse. I also would like to see those responsible for this hang."
"There are furs in back of this?"
"I have no proof of that, wolfess, but I suspect. Oh, yes, I suspect. Ask the innkeeper for his guest-book, and have a look."
"I shall take your advice, Grandmother." I looked around. "Grandmother, do you have any...Knowledge...that would be helpful?"
In an instant, a very crafty looking flitted across her muzzle.
"Certainly, young wolfess." She reached into her heavy cloak, and pulled out a half-dozen stoppered bottles, plus a rather grubby book with tattered hinges.
"Copy the book and return it. I know that roebuck of yours has very sticky paws when it comes to books."
I grinned. "How did you know?"
"Inherent in magick-users of his type. The green bottles here contain herbs described in the front of the book. Mix them according to directions, and apply them as poultices."
"You have not done this, Grandmother?"
She sighed. "They thought I was trying to make them sick. That's the problem when old crones such as myself are seen. It's different when a strapping young wench like yourself does it. Strapping young canines...or feline wenches...can do much."
We exchanged a look, and a nod. I looked at the bottles in my paws. "Wait a minute, Grandmother. What's this blue bottle?"
"That's for if your Master gets tired, and can't do his duty."
"Well, it might help, at that, if we have to keep going at this rate..."
"No, no, no, you misunderstand...not THAT duty. His OTHER duty."
"What other...oh!"
"Chapter Six."
I looked, and I could feel my ears turn red.
"Many thanks, Grandmother, but he doesn't need the herbs for that."
"Give blessings to Fuma that that is so. Nevertheless, knowledge gained is knowledge saved." She looked around from side to side again. "Still...if any fur would drive him to the point of needing stimulants..."
I grinned back, bowed to her, and moved back to where the Master was resuming work on his patients. We'd been at the job for about a half hour, when the pup of the house squealed and pointed out the window.
"What's wrong with old Mrs. Reinard?"
The Master frowned, interrupted in the middle of producing some more ice, and walked over to the window. He squinted, trying to see through the driving rain. I walked over, and glanced where I'd been some time before.
The old crone was no longer there.
Alarmed, I went to the window and looked over the Master's rack.
There, in the rain, I could just make out the sight of a vixen, moving about in the rain.
Dancing a gavotte.
With a snarl erupting simultaneously from both of us, we bounded to the front door, and managed, barely, to avoid wedging ourselves simultaneously in the doorway. It did cause us some seconds of delay, and that might have made the difference.
As we ran through the muddy village square, the vixen began to dance, and move away from us. Remarkably spry for an old fur, but then again, she had told me she had taken care of herself.
The Master was in good shape, however, as was I. We began to catch up, and the Master was able to reach out and grab a hold of her shawl.
It became unfastened, and in doing so, threw the Master off balance. He went sprawling, muzzle first, in the mud. I tried to leap over him, skidded myself in the mud, and went rolling in it, covering myself from ears to tailtip in a thick, gooey soup of wetted ground. By the time both of us got up, Mrs. Reinard was long gone.
Winterbough rattled out something in his native tongue that went on for about a minute, and was likely not a direct comment on the weather. He flung down the shawl with a curse, thought better of it, and took it up again. We trudged, defeated, back to the inn.
At the doorway, the innkeeper's wife stopped us.
"You cannot track mud into my nice, clean inn, good furs. But go around the back and strip yourselves, and we will have a nice, hot bath for you."
They did, in fact. It was in one of the washing-tubs used for cleaning the hotel linen. The Master, grumpily, indicated that I was to go first. I lowered my head, went to my knees, and told the Master to take precedence. He was about to lose his temper, when he realized that more than a few furs were peering around the corner at us. One of them timidly set a small metal bucket inside the door, and closed it.
The bucket contained a bottle of sparkling wine, nestled in one of the Master's chunks of ice.
We filled the tub with water, and the Master made sure the water was, in fact, hot. He turned around and stripped himself. I did the same, though I didn't bother to turn around.
We'd sat naked, glaring at each other, for about five minutes, in the hot water, before he snapped at me.
"Well, what is it?"
"I have a question, Master."
He rolled his eyes. "What?"
"Are you going to open the bottle of wine? I'm thirsty."
He closed his eyes, and promptly ducked his head so that all that was visible above the surface of the water was his antler-tips. There was a series of bubbles that burst to the surface, indicating that he was experimenting with underwater swearing.
I shrugged, and reached over for the wine bucket, and stopped.
The muddy shawl that we'd captured was strewn on the floor next to the bucket. I leaned over, and picked it up, and examined it.
After a minute or so, a thought occurred to me, and I kicked at the Master. His head was raised, to the point where his nose and eyes were above the surface of the water. I showed him the shawl.
"Master, there is something odd about this."
He raised an eyebrow.
"I spoke to the old vixen for some minutes before. She's no longer in the common room."
The other eyebrow was raised as I brandished the article of clothing.
"This, Master, is not the shawl that she was wearing."
His eyebrows lowered to the point where they were furrowed, and he began to think. He lowered his head below the surface of the water again. This time, the bubbles were coming slowly and regularly.
A friendly witness passes along crucial information to the Wolf Queen. Then...Things Happen.
Continuing the story set in the world of Faerie, created by tegerio, who has been posting to "Zandar's Saga" at a nice clip here on F.A.
Continuing the story set in the world of Faerie, created by tegerio, who has been posting to "Zandar's Saga" at a nice clip here on F.A.
Category Story / Fantasy
Species Canine (Other)
Gender Female
Size 112 x 120px
Listed in Folders
AHA! The old switcheroo! SOMEBODY wants these folks to THINK that the afflicted go mad and dance off!
Or not. Your plots tend to have more twists than a pretzel bakery.
Or not. Your plots tend to have more twists than a pretzel bakery.
Heh I have a suspicion that the old vixen wes an old friend of WW5. Wouldn't be the first time he's helped out while pretending to be otherwise
The best way to stay young is simply to not get old!
I share cadwaladr's suspicions, but since the crone did not introduce herself as "Auntie S" I can't be certain...
I share cadwaladr's suspicions, but since the crone did not introduce herself as "Auntie S" I can't be certain...
Well, WW5 and WQ did wind up in twin bathtubs after using the blue bottle...
I'm liking how this is going. I'm even liking how it is getting there.
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