57: On the Road

Schnitzel dutifully picked up the note and slobbered all over it. It was barely legible, but we managed to work out it said Lotti Eichelg. Clara let Ursula out of her store cupboard. I understand why Kurtis doesn’t trust her, but it seems a bit pointless locking Ursula in overnight but letting Solvej roam around unchecked. In any case, I was glad to be sleeping in the safety of the temple.

Otto helped Clara make the croissants for breakfast and told her he was a croissant. He saved the biggest one for Erhardt because Ergardt was so poor and put one in his pocket for me. Meanwhile Solvej was hiding under the table stalking the various inhabitants of the house not having a handy forest to hunt in. Erhardt turned up at the house and told everyone they had to go to Middenheim to look for Sieglinde.

I think Kurtis and Solvej weren’t that keen on going but they wanted to keep Erhardt on side as he was a useful ally. Erhardt tried to explain that saving the Empire was a bit like saving Kurtis’ farm although they didn’t seem to think they would get as much out of it, and as it was a secret mission, we wouldn’t even get any recognition.

I was still at the temple when Otto turned up. I trained him to say that he was a poor man with a large family that were very hungry (which to be fair, was probably true) and then took him to the nun who looks after the food dole. He recited his lines quite well, although his sleeves being covered in croissant dough undermined his story a bit, and she gave us a sack full of scones to take on our journey. I’m not saying that Solvej isn’t a good enough hunter to keep six of us well fed on a long journey, but the last journey we went on we were hungry the whole time.

Meanwhile Ursula was wondering why she had been locked in. Solvej told her it was an accident and also told her that soon, when the house was hers, Ursula would be allowed to have whatever room she wanted, apart from the master bedroom. Solvej was getting increasingly antsy in the city and you could see she was on edge, and so it was suggested she help out around the house, but she said that was what servants were for. But, as Otto says, busy hands make angry hands busy, so this would have been a good idea. At least on the road she is kept busy trying to forage and hunt for us, even if she never semes to catch anything.

Erhardt went back to the college to talk to Adelhard Gerber, the wizard who had put him on the trail of Sieglinde. Gerber had a letter from her that had just arrived saying how she was off to Middenheim and how she planned to stop off at her parents’ house which was more or less on the way, in the small village of Adelsbrueck near Delberz.

On our way out of the house Kurtis wondered what the sign was that had been nailed to his door. It was Otto’s rat catching business sign, but I told him it was simply a note to redirect deliveries. Then Otto got mad because he’d thought it was a rat catching business sign. So I told him it was. And then Kurtis got mad because he thought it was a note to redirect deliveries.

Erhardt had convinced Gerber to get us horses for the journey and soon we were all passing through the wolf gate on our way towards Middenheim. We knew it was going to be a long journey. I spent my time looking out for some herbs I wanted for a new potion I was trying to make but didn’t find any. Otto said he’d help me, but I think he was looking for weirdroot instead. Erhardt seemed to think he was now our leader and was ordering us about. But Kurtis, who also thinks he’s our leader was constantly making small comments and trying to undermine him. It was almost as if he was hoping things would go wrong. And Solvej who also thinks she’s our leader was eyeing them both up. Ursula renamed her horse Magnus because, presumably, ‘lucky day’ wasn’t intimidating enough for her.

The journey was pretty uneventful, really. We were making good progress on our horses and only staying in inns every third night, but they were decent and Erhardt was paying for food and board, although I expect he got the money from his college. Otto kept trying to give him money, though, because he still seemed to think Erhardt was very poor. The inns were a bit more remote and better defended than the ones in the Reikland which gave us an idea that the forest must be more lawless round here. We passed a number of travellers, some road wardens told us that people were still going missing, but this was usually lone travellers off the beaten track.

Solvej seemed to be making an effort to engage more with Otto but I’m not sure whether she was trying to be friendly or just trying to scare him, but Otto was definitely upset after talking to her. He told me of all the times Solvej had done strange or frightening things, and I didn’t know what to say, so I just distracted him by telling him the names of trees.

We left the main road before we got to Delberz and turned west. Adelsbrueck was a tiny place, but they didn’t pay us too much attention. I guess having a wizard for a resident meant they were a bit more broadminded than the average country bumpkin, like Solvej. Kurtis was going to ask after Sieglinde’s father but Solvej told him to get lost as talking to northerner villagers was her thing, so we let her get on with it. She found the Fenne home and went to talk to, it turns out, Sieglinde’s parents and her daughter. But she didn’t really know what to tell them, so she came back out and asked Erhardt to explain things.

While they were in there, I overheard Kurtis telling Otto that he thought Erhardt wasn’t a very good leader, and that he was insecure about his position which is why he kept eavesdropping on other people’s conversations, but Otto said he thought Erhardt was a good leader. So, if it wasn’t bad enough having Kurtis undermining you all the time, Erhardt also had to cope with Otto sticking up for him.

Sieglinde’s parents told Solvej and Erhardt that she hadn’t been there for a while, and that if she had been travelling between Altdorf and Middenheim then they would normally expect her to stop by. And Roswita, Sieglinde’s daughter, told them that if they saw her they should tell her to come home as she missed her mother. Solvej promised that we would stop by again on our way back.

The rest of the journey to Middenheim was pretty uneventful. Erhardt goaded Ursula about the witch hunters only ever picking on old women and children, but Ursula said it was their duty to go after bad wizards. Otto asked how they tell the difference between a good wizard and a bad wizard, and Ursula explained that a good one is a dead one.

When we arrived in Middenheim we got a place at the White Wolf Inn and had time to shop for supplies. Otto bought enough rat poison for a rat of about Solvej’s size.