47: Gulgad’s Wake

All the gods have parables, ways of saying things without saying them, ways of making you think without telling you what. One of my favourites is the parable of the stone soup.

A hungry traveller came to a village, and all he had was a cooking pot. He asked the villagers for some food, but they were not willing to share any with him. And so he went to the river and found a large stone and placed it in his pot, and he put some of the river water in the pot, over the stone. Then he made a fire and began to heat the water.

Soon enough one of the villagers came up to him and asked what he was cooking. The traveller explained that it was stone soup, a delicious delicacy where he came from. It was nearly ready, and he would be willing to share it, but it lacked some garnish that would make it even more tasty. The villager, looking forward to sharing the soup, put some herbs into the pot.

And so, as the herbs were cooking, another villager noticed him and asked what he was cooking. The traveller explained and offered to share it, and this time the villager put in some potatoes. And soon enough, a third villager came by, and accepted the offer to share the soup and decided to help by adding some carrots.

And as the day went on, more villagers came by and added all sorts of other ingredients to the soup, beef and pork, chicken and eggs, swede and turnips, and by the end of the day the soup was ready. The traveller removed the stone, and ate his share of the soup, then shared the rest out among all the villagers, and everyone enjoyed the delicious meal. I’ve told this story any number of times, now, and Otto still thinks I eat stones.

Anyway, I had been keeping my head down, working hard at the temple, and was content, I think. Travelling with the old group was a distant memory. I was sorry Gulgad had died but was not that sorry that I had not seen much of the rest of them.

Erhardt did come to visit me, but as I soon found out it was not a social visit, it was to get some treatment from the wound he had suffered at the opera. It was badly infected, so it was lucky for him he came to me when he did. I’m not even sure he made a donation to the temple.

Then Otto came to explain how sorry he was for all the trouble he had caused Erhardt and how it might have been his fault that Gulgad had died. I would like to think I eased his suffering somewhat with some well-chosen words. He even came a few more times, and I taught him the fundamentals of healing. Although he did seem to pick it up rather well, I do pity anyone who needs medical attention when only Otto is around. I offered to initiate him into the temple to do Shallya’s work, but he insisted that his heart is really in the rat catching, which is sort of Shallya’s work, I suppose.

A few weeks after I had bumped into Kurtis on Reik Bridge, I got an invitation to a party that he was throwing at his house in Wolftor in memory of Gulgad. There would be magicians and musicians and lots to eat and drink. And so, against my better judgement, I went. I half expected to see the house burnt down or it not be a real house, or something, but it seems that Kurtis was indeed living in a posh house in a nice street. I’m not really sure how he managed to get away with that, but it’s probably better I don’t know.

As I got to the house, I saw a strange fellow emerge, who nodded to me, eyed me up and down, and then hurried off. He had a long coat on and a hat, looking a bit like an academic or something. I wondered what he had been doing at Kurtis’. In any case, I knocked on the door and an old lady admitted me. She asked me if I was there to see the master, but I insisted on calling him Kurtis and she showed me into the reception.

I have to admit it was quite a decent house. It looked strangely bare, though, like there wasn’t that much ornamentation and a few pictures had been removed from the walls. I wondered whether Kurtis had been selling all the stuff off, to make a quick crown. Kurtis sat me down and ordered the old maid, whose name was Clara, to get me a brandy and boasted for a bit about how well he was doing.

He had a little bell and told me to ring it. I refused because I knew what was going to happen, but Kurtis rang it anyway and a few moments later Clara emerged and asked what the master wanted. You should have seen the glee on Kurtis’ face at this. And of course, he spent the rest of the evening looking for any excuse to ring the bell and summon the maid, again and again.

Then Solvej and Otto arrived. I don’t think they had come together, as Otto still looked a bit scared of Solvej and Solvej wasn’t looking too pleased about Otto. Otto, simple man that he is, also enjoyed ringing the bell to summon Clara, even if he did think she must be Kurtis’ wife. But I don’t think his enjoyment was the same sort of meanness as Kurtis’. Solvej looked very impressed with Kurtis and his house.

Then Erhardt arrived. I think he may have let himself in. And we had to do the thing with the bell all over again. The conversation drifted a bit to Gulgad’s death at the opera and I gave Otto a look, because Kurtis was giving Solvej a look, and I think Otto was giving me a look because Solvej was giving Kurtis a look. There was definitely something going on between Kurtis and Solvej, and it made me a bit nervous, and I think it made Otto nervous, too. I think Solvej was starting to look at Kurtis as some sort of ally against the world, and possible against the rest of us. And I think perhaps some stuff happened at the opera that they haven’t told me about.

Then it was time for the entertainment. It turned out that the musicians weren’t coming and so Kurtis was going to sing us a song about Gulgad, and the magicians weren’t coming either, so Kurtis asked Erhardt to do some magic. So, Erhardt did something to Kurtis’ ridiculous hat feather that meant no one could hear him speak. It was the best five minutes ever, until Kurtis realised he could just take his hat off.

And then we all talked about our favourite memories of Gulgad. Kurtis said he remembered Gulgad at the battle of Pfeildorf when they killed three trolls between them. He said that he would not have been able to do it without Gulgad’s help. Otto talked about Gulgad’s last moments at the opera when he sacrificed himself to fight the daemons, although Otto managed to slip in that he had been the one who actually caused the magical gateway to close. Solvej recalled the party in Ubersreik when Gulgad wasn’t able to get hold of Marbad and so she had had to capture her. And then she handed Marbad over to Gulgad, who couldn’t keep hold of her, so Solvej had had to capture her again. There was a bit of a theme to these eulogies.

I recalled our fight against the herd beasts in the forest when Gulgad had stood up to the huge Minotaur single-handedly and defeated the most powerful foe we had ever faced. And Erhardt reminded us of the fire on the docks back in our early days when Gulgad had rushed selflessly into the burning building. And then we toasted Gulgaddy and Kurtis played his song. It wasn’t very good. He should probably have kept his hat on for it. He pretended he was welling up with emotion, but I think he just didn’t play it very well.

After a bit of reflection, Solvej told us about people going missing in the farms around where she worked. And Otto said he had heard something about missing people in the countryside, and that some were putting it down to plague and blaming the rat catchers. I had also heard rumours of plague and disappearances from people at the temple. Erhardt revealed that his college had sent someone to look into it, a wizard, I think, called Sieglinde Fenne, who hadn’t been heard from since.

Kurtis told us that as part of his inheritance he owned a couple of nearby farms, and they had both stopped supplying him recently. He gave the impression that he was now a spy, or something, and one of his spy network had discovered the farms had stopped supplying him. He also went on about some complicated business about his great uncle Florian in Talabecland but I didn’t really follow it. And let’s face it, Kurtis isn’t a spy. I think he always wanted to be one, like he always wanted to be a noble. And now it looks like he is a noble he has decided he is also a spy. And, it turns out, Solvej had been working on one of his farms for the last few months. So, she had technically been his employee, which I could see Kurtis was quite pleased about.

So, we decided it would be good for everyone if we all went to one of Kurtis’ farms to find out what was going on. I think, actually, it would only really be good for Kurtis, no one else needed to go and no one else would really benefit. But because it was Kurtis, he managed to convince everyone to help him out. I feel like Kurtis is the stone in the soup. Everyone else contributes, and he doesn’t offer anything, but always seems to benefit most. I know the parable is about how if we all worked together to help everyone out, we’d all be better for it, but at the end of the day, Kurtis is still an annoying lump of rock.

I left them to it. Solvej was angling for the spare bedroom. Not for the night, but forever. I think she has decided that her next meal ticket is Kurtis. I’m not saying Kurtis should be careful, but Solvej’s last meal ticket ended up being gunned down in the street in Ubersreik. And the one before that morphed into a monstrous servant of the dark gods and died in agony. And the one before that got his throat cut by rat creatures in the sewers. No idea what happened to the ones before that because she doesn’t talk about it, but I bet it’s not very pleasant.

I think even Otto had been seduced by the house and wanted to stay the night. He had pretended to fall asleep on the luxurious couch, until Erhardt threatened to turn his dog into a wizard-thing. And so Kurtis let him stay. He and Solvej talked about having Otto stay for good if he became their servant. I think I would have rather slept in the sewers with Schnitzel than in that house, but as I was leaving, it did strike me that the place would make a decent orphanage. Perhaps there might be an opening for me. I resolved to be a bit more ruthless in my dealings with Kurtis. I’m not talking Solvej levels of ruthlessness, just a bit more clever than I normally am.

The next day Erhardt got to the temple before five expecting to find everyone else, but the rest of them turned up at about eight. I expect it was the comfortable beds and having a maid to make breakfast. At least Otto brought us some fresh croissants, which were very welcome, even though they tasted a bit funny.

We set out for Newstead Farm which was only a few hours from town. Solvej had been working there for months and had come and gone from the place a few times over the winter, but I was still a bit surprised that she knew the way.

Kurtis was a bit worried that Erhardt knew about what had gone on at the opera, and on the journey asked Solvej what she had told him, but she denied saying anything to him, and then realised that perhaps he had been eavesdropping on their private conversations with his wizardly tricks.

After a few hours travel we could see the farmstead, but Erhardt noticed that there was no smoke coming from any of the chimneys which Solvej agreed was odd. She had the idea that perhaps it had been her turn to light the fires that morning and now she would be sacked. Kurtis told her not to worry as he was the owner. Solvej wanted to rush into the farm to see if everything was alright, but Kurtis told her to take it easy and sent Otto in instead. Otto was a bit worried about going in on his own, and at least Erhardt backed him up, but that worried Otto, too.

Otto disturbed a load of the animals but couldn’t see anyone in the courtyard and shouted as loud as he could. Erhardt told him to keep it down, but Otto said it didn’t matter as there was no one around, but Erhardt pointed out that there were just no humans around. Otto went into the kitchen and found the place neat and tidy, and the same with the stores. He went into the dining room and found that there was still the remains of a meal set out on the table, but no sign of a disturbance. I fed some of the scraps to Schnitzel to see if they were edible, and he seemed to think they were.

Solvej set to work milking the cows as that needed doing, apparently. She had certainly got into the farmer thing over the last few months. It was probably good for her. I wasn’t sure getting back together with us would be as good for her, though. Maybe she was better off on a farm as trouble did seem to follow us around. but now it seemed to be following her to her farm.

It struck me that the farm might make an even better orphanage than Kurtis’ townhouse. I had the idea that the orphans could come here and help on the farm and learn things and have a healthier upbringing. I mentioned this to Kurtis and he thought about it, but I could tell what he was really thinking about was cheap labour and increased profits.

Otto looked around the rest of the farm and found some rats in the stable. He noticed that they were unusually large, and that their eyes appeared to glow green. He told Solvej about it, but she ignored him and got on with her farming, so then he told me, and I thanked him and told him he had done some good work even though I thought he was probably imagining it. I’m making an effort to be nicer to Otto. I suggested that Solvej should have a look at the tracks leading out of the courtyard to see if she could tell where all the people had gone, but she just told us to feed the pigs, so we did.

Kurtis and Erhardt went up to the watch tower to see what they could see there and Kurtis made a point of telling Erhardt not to put much stock in what Solvej had to say about him. From the watchtower they could see how there was a faint trail across the ploughed field, leading from the farmstead to the nearby woods, which could explain which way all the farmers had gone.

When they got back down, Otto told them about the green-eyed rats, and as it was getting dark, we decided to get ready for night-time. Otto went to get the fire ready, and I think he stole a tinderbox, or borrowed it. I went to get some food from the storeroom although Solvej told me not to use the big ham as they were saving that for Matthias’ birthday. I suspected that somehow, Matthias wouldn’t be getting another birthday.

Solvej went to close the gates. As she did so, however, in the fading light, she could see about seventeen sets of glowing green lights at about head height, coming across the field, towards the farmhouse.