Gritt's Tale, Part 3

Gritt gestured with his hand, and the waitress swiftly attended at their table.

“Two breakfasts.  Thanks.”  He growled.  The waitress smiled and nodded, as if used to his taciturn behaviour, then headed back towards the counter.

“Well, before we left the fishery, we had a decision to make – what to do with that trouble-makin’ gnome.  Hookshanks, his name was.  He didn’t have much to say.  Best we could come up with was take him to the city guard.  We trussed him up, and I stowed him in my pack.  We headed out.

Turned out it wasn’t going to be as easy as we figured.  While we was walking towards the guardhouse, we heard some yelling and shouting.  Saw some smoke.  Then we heard – the king was dead.  People seemed kinda upset about it.  Lot of them was blaming the queen.

I don’t hold with that – best not to judge someone till you know ‘em.  Too many people open their mouths when they should be keeping them shut.

We figured we might as well see what we could do to help out, and headed towards the trouble.  We didn’t get far before we came across a little posse of townsfolk lookin’ to lynch a noble.  He hadn’t done anything – just a noble in the wrong place at the wrong time.  People can start behaving real ugly when they think they can get away with it.  I could see that Zellara’s prediction about trouble coming was right.  If all it took to stir up murder was rumours, the city would be heading to hell soon enough.

Next thing we came across was some looters.  That ain’t right either – just encourages everyone start getting greedy.  Anyhow, they’d already been spotted by the law.  Bunch of Order of the Nail.  First time I saw ‘em in action.  I’d seen ‘em from a distance before.  They told the looters to stop.  Most of them did.  One didn’t.  Then those bastards just cut ‘em down.”

Gritt shook his head, with a look halfway between sorrow and disgust on his face.

“Weren’t no call to go doing that.  Sure, you need to keep the peace.  But that’s only so folks are safe.  No point killing them to make them safe.  Just doesn’t make sense.  If I thought we could have made a difference, I’d a done something about it too.

I was kinda surprised by Justin.  He piped up, said he didn’t see anything wrong with it. 

Short time later, some crazy man ran up to Sol.  Grabbed a hold of him, shook him, and stared him down.  The man had some real bad skin – like he had the pox.

We kept going, deciding to stick to the backalleys.  Got ambushed by some flying little demons.  Had stingers on their tails.  Watson said they was imps.  I didn’t know what they were called, but they were tougher than they looked.  Then some little flying dragons appeared, and got rid of the imps.  Weirdest thing.  There you are, dealing with everyday folk, then stray into a backstreet and it’s like a dream. 

Took the gnome back to the guard, and left him there.  He didn’t look too happy.  Put a civil smile back on his face quick enough when Sparrowhawk offered to feed him his cojones though.

Reckoned we should finish what we started.  We headed back to Zallara’s.  Something was wrong when we got there.  Place was abandoned.  Deserted.  Been like that a while.  Furniture smashed.  Don’t know about the others, but I got chills up my spine.  We put the harrow deck on the table, and she appeared – all pale, like she was only half there.  She was a ghost, sure enough.  She told us again that trouble was coming.  Offered to help us.  Said she was going to stay with the deck.  Sol offered to carry it.  Seeing as he’s a priest – made sense to me.  That deck was pretty handy too.  Hold it up to something that’s magical that you don’t know what it does, and it might tell you what it is. 

We stayed the night there – nowhere better to go.

In the morning, Sol weren’t looking so good.  His skin was pale, sweaty, and he couldn’t stop shaking.  Could barely talk.  Figured he needed treatment, so we went to the Bank of Abadar.  He had to pay, but they fixed him up pretty quick.  Watson was asking them a whole lot of questions about leaving his money there.  Way I saw it – he’d have been better off buying a decent suit of armour.  Justin tried to get a loan.  They said they don’t give loans to Shoanti.  Like I said – ain’t right to judge a man till you know him.   I didn’t hold with the way they treated him.  I offered him a loan myself, but he said he didn’t know me well enough yet. 

Next we figured we might as well return the brooch.  Figured if we saw the queen, we might know if there was any truth to the rumours.  On the way to Heights, we stopped the Sanctuary of Shelyn.  Had some personal business to attend to.  You ever been there?”

Surprised by the sudden question, the scribe was momentarily lost for words.  Gritt soon continued though.

“You should go.  It’s nice.  Real nice.  All sorts of art.  Pictures.  Music.  It’s, kinda, beautiful.”

Gritt paused, and cleared his throat.  The scribe was slightly puzzled.  Perhaps it was the dim light, but it almost looked like Gritt was blushing.

“Anyway, we got an audience with the queen herself.  She looked pretty upset about what had happened, and was grateful to us for bringing the brooch.  Asked us to help out – to go and see Field Marshall Kroft.  Way I saw it, it was the least we could do.  Probably more useful than wandering around looking for trouble to fix.  Queen had a handmaiden with her – girl by the name of Sabina.  Real pretty.  But, serious too.  Still, the kind of woman a man would like to get to know.

We went and saw Kroft, like the Queen asked.  She gave us a job to do – go and bring back some deserters.  Fella named Varick.  Hanging out in a butchers.  Seemed like a decent enough person.  Funny thing was, Justin seemed like he kinda was a bit lost for words.  Might’ve been a bit smitten with her, I thought.

No point in waiting around, so we went straight to the butchers.  There were city folk lining up at the front, so we went in the back.  Couple of guards saw us coming, and a fight broke out.  We was trying not to kill them – but they didn’t care about us.  It was a pretty tough fight.  I got hit with a couple of well placed sword blows, and last thought I had before it all went black was that I was done for.  Woke up to see Justin with his hand glowing and my wounds closing.  Turned out he was some kind of priest too. 

Varick, the deserter, seemed like he wasn’t real happy with what was going on.  Told us to say sorry to Kroft while he was fighting.  Figured maybe someone’s got some kind of hold on him.  He said he was just trying to help people eat – that’s why he was handing out meat at the butchers.  I think we all felt kinda bad for a moment.

Then Justin cast some other kind of spell.  He found some feet and hands under the butcherin’ grate.  Turned out the guards had been killin’ folk, carving them up and handing out the meat to the cityfolk.”

The scribe saw Gritt’s expression darken.  His eyes narrowed, the deep frown furrowed his face, and a deadly look came into his eyes.

“Way I saw it – they didn’t deserve to live no more.  I was going to kill them right there – I don’t like killin, but it would have been justice.  Then Justin asked me to stop.  Said that the folks who’d been butchered – their families might be worried about them – want to know what happened.  I was surprised – didn’t think he’d care after what he said when those looters got massacred.  Still, he had a point.  Hadn’t occurred to me – I guess that’s what happens when you grow up with no family – you just kinda assume that you’re on your own.

Anyway, figured we’d do it his way.  Guess’d we’d find out one way or another whether the law in the city was interested in justice, once they got the full confessions out of those animals. 

I can still barely believe what those guard did.  Going out, murdering people, then chopping up their bodies – carving off hunks of people-steak and then handing them out for other folks to eat.  Man's liver - woman's kidneys - children's tender shanks - Just ain’t right.”

The waitress returned to the table, with two large platters of grilled meat, mushrooms, and some eggs.  She smiled again, before getting back to work.

“Well, dig in, Scribe, afore it gets cold…. What – aren’t you hungry?”

(to be continued)