In walks a woman. Excess of age has put a stoop to her back, and plumpness to her midcenter, although from hauling firewood and cauldrons of soup she has maintained a degree of strength and sturdiness, too, in her body. Hers is a soft appearance; her silvery hair, clumped underneath a headscarf, but also hanging in fine, thin tufts from her upper lift, chin, and even her ears, resembles the soft glow of moonlight more than the glimmer or steel or silver. Her clothes are coarse, homespun. Only one characteristic of her otherwise round, plump features seems to disturb people; even from behind the blindfolds stained with weep and pus, one seems to feel them staring...
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Age: ??? | Race: Human | Eyes: ???
🜚 Maternal
🝛 Territorial
🜺 Petty
🝯 Secretive
🜁 Shrewd
March 31 He writes his name in a queer script and a queerer phonetic, but I have taken his signature on the ledger to say, "Torgard." A large man is he, tall and lean underneath all his armor, the blackened mail and plating of a Legion centurion. Through the skill of a great smith, all his bronze body has been segmented and embossed in the uniform shapes of the dragon's scales; his helmet is its snout and horns. From between the fangs of its gaping maw, his bearded visage stares.
I thought at first that I should fear him terribly. How he looked at me, like the meat and gristle on my bones amount to nothing more than the substances themselves! Another brigand, I thought, driven to steal from the honest and humble with the end of the war, for his seems a spirit which finds comfort only in battle, tempered in blood and fire. Perhaps it is true, but be the man a thief, he chose different victims this day, for he paid for room and board in full, and in fact, overpaid by significant margin.
I had reached for the coachgun stashed underneath the counter, a motion of which he took no notice or care. Setting down his money with one hand, with the other he pointed to the booth he most fancied. "I'll be sitting there. Bring me a pitcher of beer," he said, or something to that effect, "and thenceforth, do not disturb me except to refill it." When he took this seat, and doffed his helmet, I saw that his hair had grown out and greyed, sporting the hues of tarnished iron.
I want to ask what has so destroyed him, what things so crush his soul out there in the fog. But just as I have not stirred him while the dregs settle to the bottom of his glass, his head laid into a drunken sleep there at the bench and table, he has offered me nothing more than his silver. If he wishes to speak, he has not yet found his audience.
April 1 He slept not in the parlor last night, but the room he bought. He has embarked again as he came, leaving me with no interesting customers to contemplate. He thanked me for my hospitality, but said nothing of the topics which I truly wished to discuss. Do you run from the phantoms of the old war, Torgard, or do you move forward in seeking a war anew? When next you ride through, I'll fill your pitcher again, and then, perhaps, you will let me hear your tale.
April 25 Lienart Osbald, a smith. He claims lineage from the Bolingbroke province, his father owning the mill and forge before him, and that man's father before him; on it went till it fell into Lienart's hands.
In the shoulders he's as wide as a prize ox, but in the voice, weak and airy like a wounded dormouse. The man feeds on pity and weakness; or, rather, I should say that like a prisoner, he has no choice for nourishment but bread and water, whereas pity is his loaf and weakness fills his tin cup. The other customers have afforded him only these in abundance.
By his account, he arrived at my domicile not for hospitality, but for business; still, he took residence by the bar, and drank eagerly of bock and porter, spending considerable time in this state of ruddy-cheeked cheer. He spoke easily, first describing his forge as lovingly as would a father introducing his son, and then lamenting his loss, for he sold it two years ago for a silver pittance. When the war ended, he says, the demand for weapons and armors dried up, and since he made the mistake of renovating and expanding his shop during this time, horseshoes and sickles could no longer pay his profession. When he explained next that he wandered the land, selling his old metal goods from that pack he carried on his oxen back, I asked to see his wares, which he gladly splayed across the counter. I complemented his skill and his maker's-mark, and decided that I fancied a gauntlet well enough as to part with some money for it. Yes, I bought only the one, and because I will never wear it, I must wonder where I shall store it, or what I shall do with its pieces.
I thought I only pitied the man, but because my piteous action brought such a smile to his face, and such gratitude to his lips as he and I parted ways, I am not sure now that I want to part with this memento.
May 27 A customer has complained of lice in the bedsheets, so I'm losing profits, both from the rooms I've closed down and from the customers who have caught wind of the infestation. They will demand refunds if they catch it, and some already refuse to return to their rooms.
While the bedsheets boil, I've investigated the rooms, and more or less, discovered the one whence they spread: belonging to Sir Vyric, evidently an errant knight. I'm sure now that he's responsible; he requested a room change (citing a desire to have a room without a window overlooking the road), and the lady who received his old room issued the original complaint. I scarcely noticed Vyric at first, but with the investigations into the lice infestation emerged some queer and intriguing insights.
Foremost, he has chosen other customers to detest, recoiling from their presence as if, in his perceptions, they bear semblance to coiled vipers. Most times he fears these subjects, but finds the courage at times to hate them, swearing silent vengeance for their sins. He glares even at the blind old lady who comes here for her morning beer, a fragile, creaking thing who would not know the will to harm him even if she could muster the strength and vigor for the task. What otherwise totally innocent customers do to deserve his scorn I have not seen.
By no means has my curiosity transgressed good taste—I have not opened his pack, nor attempted to unlock his single coffer—but while cleaning his room of the lice, I found no evidence, no reason to believe his convictions are anything but a whimsy.
I should explain now that I have learned of the man's grievous injuries, a series of fingers missing from his left hand, an affliction which eluded me for many days. For Vyric writes with his other hand, drinks and eats with it, stowing the other ever at his side. Further, his gauntlet has not been altered to accommodate this physiology; it sports empty "fingers" which flap with the movements of his hand, and a careless eye would see only a complete hand in these movements. This was the case for me, until, catching a glimpse of it, I took notice of its strange motions, and the tenderness with which he guarded it from any who raised his suspicions.
I will take care not to instigate his fears any further than I must. In return, I hope he will consent to a shave and an oil rinse. He's cost me enough money with the infestation he's dragged into my haven; I should not let him scare away the customers, too, and certainly not on the basis of mere superstition!
June 9 So he's wounded. That's why he has stayed so long, despite seeming to despise every one and thing in my inn. He must have run out of cloth to boil because he wears no dressings, instead staying as still as he can, hoping the gash won't reopen. He must be wearing his armor either to hide the wound, or to protect it, but either way I caught a glimpse in the early morning. Poor fellow. If it festers he's a dead man, as it's nestled just there in his bosom. No manner of amputation will save it.
June 14 In better days, he must have done something wise and good indeed to deserve such luck on this day, a week before Solstice; for a physician has arrived at the inn who can treat Vyric's afflictions.
Were it not for this twist of serendipity, I should not have noticed him. Êtuo is his name, common enough among men from Bassanio, and although, kneeling over his patients, he dwarfs them like toy dolls (Vyric being of extraordinarily average height himself, even with his helmet perched on his scalp), he hasn't a menacing fiber in all his body. Stores of fat soften his body, spectacles bestowing upon his warm, grey eyes a roundness. He orders tea instead of beer, or if the leaves are old and flavorless, barley-water.
One of sound reason and strong mental faculties should suspect that fortune and good luck follow this man, for he is, after all, a healer in the realm of the diseased. This, however, is not the case, as I learned while discussing the matter of his debts: low as they are, scarcely comprising more than his cups of refreshment, still he cannot afford to pay them, offering instead to heal my and others' ails as recompense. As I'd already ridden the inn (and Vyric himself) of the lice infestation, and miss Nini insists that the affliction which stole her eyes cannot be cured, I expressed my disinterest. My resolve bowed only when the doctor Êtuo offered to heal the prostitutes of any sores, warts, lumps, and other afflictions they may have been experiencing of late. Now he has agreed to stay a few nights, resting and drinking when he does not work. Woe is me. At least he told Vyric to stay and rest, which will add to the knight's fees. That might compensate.
June 22 Quiet. Calm. The good doctor is departed, and the others holed up in their rooms. They've taken to bringing their food and drink there, eating in solitude. It's not a holiday for the lonely, I suppose.
I spent all yesterday hauling last winter's seasoned wood inside, and chopping new wood to replace it out under the drying sheds. Is it not my duty to keep the parlor and the halls bright, even if the people's spirits don't match? I must say: the firelight looks stunning as it bounces off the silvery hues of the gauntlet on the mantle. I've received some compliments on it, even from seasoned warriors. I must suppose the smith is quite skilled. Pity about his smithy.
July 8 With the holiday behind us, customers are returning to the routines which filled their days before. No more lice, no more piles and piles of firewood consumed to light the parlor while my patrons all spend their time upstairs, or worse, outside—everyone is in hale and happy spirits, even Vyric, who I have watched as his mobility and strength slowly return to him, his wounds surely scarring over. I thought everything more or less had returned to normalcy, until "Baba Nini" (undoubtedly a nickname) approached me for private correspondence.
I embarrass myself. I should have noticed her sooner, what with how many mornings she has spent in the parlor, drinking well-hopped beer and aged spirit with equal aplomb, but I must suppose that I did not want to notice. Even through the bandages and blindfolds, I see that her eyes are among the ugliest ever witnessed, leaking strange fluids into the fabrics. Like bone glue these fluids dry and plaster the fabrics to her face. The rest of her looks kind enough, I suppose—tufts of silver hair jutting from her headscarves, a short, rotund body, a toothless smile—but I'm hard-pressed to notice anything but my own imaginings for the weeping, bulbous organs which surely suffer underneath all those shrouds. A plague victim. I've seen sparrows and badgers which suffer these watery yellow eyes—the disease seems to alter their minds, too, because they approach humans quite closely without fear—some of them have even taken to my windowsills as their favorite perching spots—but she is the first human victim to whom I have beared witness.
Looking at her, gradually I have begun to understand Vyric and his breed of fear. Can he smell the plague, sense it? That perhaps is why he cowers from other customers, ones with no visible symptoms: Baba Nini has infected them! Writing this, my hand begins to quiver. I shall pray tonight, but I digress, for I had begun to mention how she approached me personally while I worked the counter just a day or two ago.
"I don't mean to alarm you," she said, which of course, had an immediately contrary effect, as I have never known anyone to say this when there was truly no reason to worry. I listened stiffly. "But I think one of your customers is a thief."
She has a creative way of describing people without visual cues, too: from the softness of his footfalls, she gleaned that he's of small stature, short and thin. From the smell on him, she guessed as to how long he had gone without bathing, and from what fabrics his garments are crafted. Finally, she knew well his low, hushed voice, and volunteered that if I protect her, she should guide me to the perpetrator, who had not yet made off with his spoils. While I grabbed my coachgun we laughed about how a true thief, a professional, would have awayed by now, giving his neighbors no time to report him, and the authorities no time to give chase in kind. In any case, she led me, with startling speed, to Khvresh, a small, swarthy man hailing from some vague southwestern place, all emeralds in his eyes and olives in his skin. Having unlocked his room using my master-key, I stood in the doorway to trap him; he feigned ignorance at first, although when I raised the barrel of my weapon, aiming it for his heart, he must have realized we had trapped him. Speedily he went to the mattress, raising it to reveal where he had stashed both a whore's pearls and another customer's die molds. I kept him there, ignoring his pleas for clemency and his promises to return the items and disappear from my property, while Nini sent a fellow patron for the town guard. When she returned with him, she told me to let my thanks pay for her next round or two of drinks, and hobbled on her way.
Curiously I could swear I saw a songbird roosted outside Khvresh's window. When I turned to see whether it wept from the eyes, another carrier of the strange plague, it had already flown away. I intend to ask her about this, so I might better understand her affliction.
July 10 Arrogant as it may be, I consider myself a man of generally good taste, despite knowing nothing of good breeding or noble upbringing. As such, I have found it difficult to discuss certain matters with Baba Nini, matters which transgress upon good taste, ones which seem impudent to address without first having befriended her long ago, perhaps in times when fewer wrinkles had settled her face, when silver had not conquered her hair. I doubt I fear the consequences in the same manner as the knight-errant, but would rather not offend her by speaking too intimately, too quickly, of her eyes, her lineage, the events and choices which brought her fatefully to my doorstep, and so on.
Nevertheless, I have made slow and steady progress, developing some insights into her character through our dialogues.
I had just poured her beverage, that day a weak pint of bitters. Like a spring babe at her mother's teat she set her lips immediately to suckle from the lip of the mug, at which time I asked, innocently enough, for it had been pertinent throughout her visits, why she calls herself everyone's grandmother, or rather, everyone her grandchildren. She answered in the way a Skyclad might, saying that all living things are the children of the same great mother, that we share blood with creatures as great as the oak and as small as the termite, and all other platitudes of this sort. Thankfully, if she is a witch, she hides it well, for I have never seen their sigils sliced into her flesh. She doesn't dabble in their morbid charms of stuffed rat-furs, couped hare-feet, bleached finger bones, or anything else of the kind, which, as I hear it, they like to wear on thongs around their necks, or poked as jewelry into their ears and noses. Nay, her eccentricities never transcend the ordinary (as eccentricities go), so I would surmise that she accrued these habits from others, who perhaps are witches themselves. If they abscond anywhere in abundance, it's the Tempesta, no doubt!
Still, she visits every day, yet has no need for a room, so I know that she must live nearby, and commented as such. She neglected to delve into specifics, in fact chastising me for trying, but conceded that she inhabits the Scroop, in a hut of her own creation—the Scroop, the haunted forest, if I can believe it!—where men enter with cheeks flushed red with wine, and emerge again pale as lye. They always swear they see things staring at them from the dark, and though the accounts vary, from badgers and wolverines to draugs and shades, although whatever it is that lives in those woods, it's got eyes to stare with all the same. Surely, I thought, if she truly lives there, then she must know to what race or species it belongs, and I asked as such. I also inquired as to whether these other woodsy denizens, staring at her from their nests, caves, and other domiciles, put her on edge.
"Since I cannot see them, their stares mean nothing to me," she said.
"Preposterous! What if they get it in their brains to eat you? Maul you? Steal your donkey from under you?"
She only shook her head. "The worst they've done yet is eat my garden, the rascals!" Yes, because the harvests soon shall encroach upon us, she has planted hardier vegetables of late, cabbage and beets and the likes, the plants which will survive the first frosts, in the meantime subsiding largely on edible flowers, berries, cucumbers and the likes. When she doesn't eat them fresh she pickles them for the winter, she says, and eats meat only when an animal is silly enough to wander into one of her snares, or when she can trade for it with her embroideries and other goods.
Her sewing skills—now that I mention it, my mind, diseased with curiosity, can only imagine that when she lost her sight, she sewed her own eyelids shut, if with the aid of strong drink or some herbal remedy to numb the pain. She would hunt if she only had the means, but alas, she is in want for more than just a rifle and roundshot.
In retrospect, I believe that in that moment she had tried to earn my pity, insofar as my hypothetical ability to feed her from my stores of saltpork and chicken, and accept no pay in kind—a gesture of understanding, no doubt, for her suffering as a lonely, struggling soul. When I didn't put forth this gesture she bristled visibly, but said nothing more on the matter. Anyway, I had found my segue.
To soften her sensibilities some, I refilled her cup without her asking, timing my question to coincide with this motion. If she noticed my ploy then she chose to indulge it nonetheless, as she explained that, indeed, she has lived alone, cultivating the skills for self-sufficiency over the course of decades. This includes her medical needs; she sews shut her own wounds, and keeps her spirit and body in good health through local herbs, occasionally trading for more exotic ones, like the ginger and basil which grow in the far east. Yet through all this dabbling she still has found no substances or remedies which abate the symptoms of her disease, not for herself nor her animal companions, both the ass which pulls her wagon and the vermin that follows her begging for scraps. I began to worry at this point, and although she could not fathom how it spreads between bodies, she assured me that I am safe from the plague.
"Why?"
"It doesn't afflict the rich."
Now, by no means am I so affluent, but she insisted then that she had only seen it on animals and beggars, and certainly, nary a man as well-dressed as I.
"'Seen'?" I asked. She must have slipped her hands across my sleeves without my notice, "seeing" me with her touch, but she was right enough; my clothing is humble, but it's far from a lump of loose rags, too.
"Don't get pedantic, young man. You know what I mean."
She's charming, even if she puts me on edge. She certainly knows more than she lets on, but then, so does any elder whose mind has not succumbed to senility. If ever a time arrives where she cannot afford to pay her tab, I might like to have her work it off in the kitchen and scullery. Her company is pleasant enough.
August 15 His armor is too clean and pristine, his mannerisms too well-preserved. With but a single glance I knew that Torgard the centurion had seen war; it tempers all men it touches, and while some men break under its stresses, others are hardened, dulled to the ways of civilian life. They simply carry in their hearts a different flame, which refracts differently in their eyes. This man is a pretender; his scars are not carved but painted, dyed into his body. Farcalion is his name.
This, of course, is if the mere sight of him is inadequate, but when I hear other customers speaking of him, they mention the cleanliness of his armor, the immaculateness of it. The feathers in his plumage have experienced nothing more injurious than a light rainfall. His boots bear no scuffing, as fresh as the day they left the cobbler's shop. And on it goes, attiring him like the fur on the antlers of an adolescent buck. Of course, they only manage this when he inhales, brief respite from his otherwise incessant bragging. Among other things, he claims lineage from the Alzarde family, the extinct line of Milosian emperors.
Three years ago, I started collecting this diary in the spirit of remembrance. There are smiles, frowns, tears, laughter, stories, which I wish not to forget, and which I imagine their recipients would be grateful to know have been remembered; for in these pages I give their journeys a tangible form, evidence that they lived, I like to think. But I must say: while many customers, here in the Tempesta, have slipped beneath my notice, this is perhaps the first time that I met one who I wished only to forget! What an ass this Farcalion is. If putting his name to paper will not bring me catharsis and allow me better rest tonight, then in the future, perhaps in another three years, I will be able to laugh about it. Until that day, if I never hear his bragging again, silence will still have come to me too late.
August 19 Fortune works in strange ways. I prayed, I hoped, and the fates shared a thundering cackle in granting my wish.
The northern tribes, as I'm told, are largely illiterate, relying primarily on the oral form throughout their storytelling modes. Rare exceptions exist only to keep their runes for holidays, births, deaths, and other crucial events. So when such a woman entered my establishment I had some difficulty recording her in the ledger, as she is not one of their priests or lawspeakers. In those languages she might go by a name like Vaskáðr, but phonetically, I know that I call her Vaskath.
At first I took no notice of her simple dress and quiet mannerisms, but she has intertwined herself irreversibly in the destinies of at least two other men.
Farcalion is the first. When the wifman hauled several large crates up to her room, I trusted them to contain cooking equipment, or some sort of raw good to be traded throughout the city. Actually I learned them to be lanterns, and she a candlemaker. Not responding to the "knight's" attempts to court her, she instead hawked her wares, informing him that if he is true in his purpose—smiting the evil of the land, rescuing damsels, and all other activities in which a man of his caliber partakes—then he would be remiss not to buy one, for in fact, her candles boasted magical properties, and act, in effect, as portable Bonfires. This is a hefty claim, and had I been present I would have expressed my skepticism at once, but because I only arrived in time to clean the mess left in the aftermath of this exchange, I played no part in the transpiration of these events.
Anyway, once the knight had bought one, undoubtedly for far more money than some wax and wrought-iron demands, somehow his convictions swayed Vyric to buy one, too. Vyric must be fully healed now, or very near it, and eager to travel again. Certainly a light which protects him from further harm, or the idea of it, must have seduced him as easily as the woman seduced her little pretender at chivalry and honor. The gods only know how much time the true warrior, the wounded one, has lost while healing in my inn, and how desperately he wants to regain that time; otherwise he should have possessed the cunning to see through such a simple scam as this. Farcalion, on the other hand, doesn't surprise me a whit, trusting her not only for being a woman, but for simply being, and deserving his respect thereby.
Well, I've got a proper mess to clean now. Arriving in the parlor to begin my morning chores, I found that both Vaskáðr and Farcalion are bruised and bloody. Vyric is nowhere to be found. I have to imagine that when he demanded his money back, and when she refused to produce it, he began to beat her; then the other man swooped in to defend an unarmed lady, where he too was swiftly defeated. They played at indignation awhile, but realizing that I would not fall as easily for her fake tears as the knight did, quickly departed so I could not report them to the authorities, or so if I do, it is too late and therefore in vain.
Sitting here in the peace and quiet of it all, only now have I realized how much money I am owed.
August 19 Nini walked in for her daily breakfast beer, and quickly noticed my dismay; I must sigh loudly when distressed, or else she noticed a different smell clinging to my airs. When I explained what happened in the parlor while I slept, and how short of money I now was, especially with Vyric having absconded after weeks, months, of devouring my food and ale without recompense, filling my bed with his bloated body without so much as a thanks and regards...! But the old woman, in as eerily calm a voice as I ever have heard, suggested that I go back upstairs, and search in the flower pot beside my door. I blinked. She insisted once and then again. I finally obliged, and found the coinpurse there, filled with both Milosian coins and Vanitian: Vyric's and those of the people from whom he stole, likely Farcalion the knight-pretender. Later I counted and realized the amount is still short to what I'm due for the three missing customers, but even so, in the moment the old woman had astonished me with her wits. I know she was not here last night, but she knew somehow, she knew—
I was ready to demand answers from her: had she known Vyric all along? Why didn't she speak up, if she had seen what transpired that night, and how did she know if she hadn't? But when I returned to the parlor, I caught her having hobbled behind the counter, refilling her cup from the cask. I can swear I saw her blushing from the embarrassment. She cannot be so omniscient after all.
September 5 So many interesting customers today. Where do I begin?... |
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🜜 An armory's supply of steel needles: long and squat, thin and fat, dull and prickly
🝰 Yarn of every color, thickness, fineness, and tensile strength
🝠 The many comfortable things which she has sewn for herself: mittens, shawls and headscarves, socks, weskits, a surprising number of fine doilies and silken garments...
🝔 Wool and straw-stuffed bedding
🝖 Bits of frog and snake meat, for Martin (though she's not too good for a cheeky nibble herself, when she's waiting for her chowder to cool)
🝗 Spoons, ladles, bowls, and a single large, cast-iron cauldron
🝧 An enormous
camp-knife for food processing, latrine-digging, and if one finds her testimony trustworthy, self-defense; and for keeping it in good condition, a stone, steel, and file
🜉 Whiskey. Bottles, jugs, jars, and bags of it; some labeled, corked, and barrel-aged...others of dubious origins and questionable color.
🝕 Hygienic substances and devices; chamber-pot, ash-soap, ...
🝈 Herbal remedies, endemic to her part of the world and also to the season
🜃 Crates. No one has seen her open them and she lets no others near them either. Their contents reek, however, of various chemical and biological stenches, some more pleasant than others.
🜶 A wagon to carry it all, and an ass to tow it.
Her pet mink, Martin, rides upon her shoulder or occasionally inside her blouse, staring at people intensely, as if to compensate for his owner's deficiency. The little trickster seems almost unnervingly cunning, just from what he chooses to look at, when, and with what degree of intense curiosity.
Dark Cloud
Chronic
TokyoPewPew
Astro
Izurich
puddingpunter
Fish of Oblivion
CyclingTortoise
Zygfryt
