4: Fame at Last

It was a new day on the waterfront. We were buoyed by our fight with the river monster and keen to get on with the job. We knew we would get more respect now that everyone knew we were monster-, if not killers, then at least fighters. Gulgad was still disappointed he hadn’t killed the thing, but I think he was lucky that it didn’t stick around and kill him instead. I could still feel the pain in my shoulder where the thing has struck me and all my prayers to Shallya and my healing expertise had not eased it much.

Solvej was at the lard on toast as usual asking our fellow watchmen about our wages. We decided we should be earning at least something for our work, even if we were here as a punishment, and the rest of the watchmen seemed to agree. So we decided to have a word with Captain Pfeffer. Pfeffer was sure that any money due to us would arrive presently and she had every confidence that Rudi had the matter in hand. She did seem to be a reasonable person who did things by the book, but we wondered whether Rudi had ever seen the book, or even a book.

In any case, Pfeffer called an assembly for all the watch and announced that a special medal would be awarded for the defeat of the river monster. Although he's full of himself, and I was the one who was actually wounded by the creature, I had to admit that Gulgad had probably deserved a medal. However, we were all dumbfounded when Pfeffer called Rudi up to receive the award. He strutted up there, without giving us even a glance, and took his gold medal from the captain, and Pfeffer made a speech about how brave he was and how we should all take a leaf from the sergeant's book.

Needless to say, our patrol that morning was full of talk about our dislike for Rudi and schemes of how we might get our own back. And we had to put up with locals telling us how brave Rudi had been. After our dispiriting morning beat, we decided we needed to ask around about this Holger Maurer character and see what we might be letting ourselves in for if we decided to take up Ilse Fassenwuetend on her offer.

We met her at the surprisingly pleasant Exploding Pig inn, and she was able to tell us more about the job and she gave us twenty-four hours to commit to it. We would need to escort Maurer through the town up to the Garden of Morr, outside the city walls, where he would be executed and put to rest immediately. Ilse was nervous, and it seemed like she had asked any number of her colleagues for help, but they had all been too scared to do the job as everyone else who had tried had ended up dead. So, if we were to take the job, that would make us either very brave or very stupid, and we’re not that brave.

We did, however, insist that Ilse put down on paper her promise to get us released from the watch, and she signed it before our eyes. The rest of the party wanted to entrust Erhardt with the letter, because obviously he’s a Wizard and only Wizards are able to look after pieces of paper.

Meanwhile Kurtis was oblivious to the dangers and instead was working on his grand plan to stage a gig at a half-decent inn and get paid for it and the Exploding Pig seemed like the perfect venue. He managed to come to an arrangement with the landlady there. As a man of the cloth, I’m not really familiar with these sorts of business practices, but Kurtis seemed to be leveraging his musical talent with a certain amount of hands-on experience with the older landlady. Perhaps this is normal in the music industry.

Solvej had made a friend in the Marktplatz before we’d met, shortly before she was caught up in the riots, so went to see if she knew anything about Maurer. This was Heske Glazer a glassworker with a glass eye, who seemed to have a thing for Solvej and had talked to her about joining some sort of midnight soiree with her and her friends. I didn’t want to pry but it did sound a little strange, but then Solvej was a Nordlander and they did strange things.

It turned out that another local trader was Holger Maurer’s fiancé, Kristyn Gebauer, who had a baked goods stall and also sold some of Maurer’s stonework knickknacks. We talked to her but couldn’t get much of an idea about Maurer. She insisted that he was innocent and that he had been involved with some mysterious group and then fallen out with them. We found out he had a workshop in the artisan quarter, though. I couldn’t tell if Kristyn was a great liar or she was genuinely innocent and didn’t know a thing, but she did give me a free breaded knot, which was welcome after days of lard on toast.

We managed to convince the guards at the gatehouse where Maurer was being held to let us interview him. They were hesitant but gave us a few minutes. This turned out to be a waste of time as the man was a blank canvas. He seemed to look straight through us and wouldn’t answer our questions in any but the vaguest way. Extremely enigmatic.

We hatched a plot to break into Maurer’s workshop and see if he had left anything incriminating behind. While waiting for nightfall we also asked around some of the watchmen for anything they knew about Ilse Fassenwuetend. Apparently, she was an old school stalwart of the roadwardens and had once been a captain. After some mysterious incident which no one seemed to know much about, she was demoted back to sergeant, but she continued to serve the roadwardens loyally.

And before our nightshift, Kurtis went to the Exploding Pig and did his gig. It was a great moment for him, and he gave it his all. Erhardt and I hung out outside the inn listening, and I have to say, even if it wasn’t proper music, it did not sound that bad, probably the best I have ever heard him, and unfortunately, I’ve had to listen to him a lot. After the gig he was in a great mood and was telling us all about it. Of course, I made sure to keep his feet on the ground, you know what these artistic types can get like, especially after a bit of success.