"Aye, a pint'd be welcome," whispers Maggie in return. Aloud, she says, "Were th' animals all just bones then, Sam? An' how old would ye judge 'em t'be? An' all decayed at same time? Or over many years?"

"Master Fox is alive, Goodie Westcott: though he came out well-bloodied, he said it wasn't his," the innkeep said, shunting Maggie's pint across to her hand and watching the slight weave in Sam's movements with thoughtfully narrowed eyes.

Eli gave a start at Sam drifting close enough to overhear, then a surly scowl at being greeted without his name. The ten years between eldest and joint-youngest Hartmans made the address more natural than an indication of a broken family, but generally Sam did it to annoy him, so Eli played along and was annoyed. "Well he's in a hoop about somethin," he muttered, and left it at that as Sam went off.

Robin clearly wanted to know about elephants, not really catching the drift of 'uninfected animals', but seemed a little intimidated by Eli's appearance and the potential of his teaming up with his equally loud and decisive sister. Goodie Westcott took all the information in with a considerable frown.

"Her in the Wood, whatever she is," she clarified, as much as such an answer might clarify anything. "It's a her, a priestess or some such. As for what Mistress Durbin had to do with the Binding Stone, bein' that she's gone and it's standing - there's but three now, scarce holdin' Her up there off - it's clear she went into the Wyzenwood, afoot or bundled as a gift, an' was accepted. Though what she or who gave her would want to ask for mazy animals for, I don't know. Unless he only half-knew what he was down'. Are these innocent questions, Thomas Bees? Or the like of showing who has knowledge and who is surely so ignorant he's almost given one of them alley-bys by his lack of lore?" Her tone came a little harder at the end, remembering the implied threat from their quarrelling that morning.

"As for trees, well, I heard there was a tree and the old Saxon witch was hanged to it. Some say it's an oak, some say it's a yew, some say it's some kind all to itself and the Druids worshipped it for a god, being heathen and prone to such nonsense. Givin it young women. Those hares that go about an' the dogs go after but come back yelping if they get close, the ones that watch? They're Her girls, seven virgins from before there ever was Jesus, and was never in Hell, either, so they never got saved."

Maggie takes a deep gulp of her ale and wipes her mouth with her sleeve.

"Is it only virgins that's in peril then, Goody Westcott?" she asks in a smaller voice than her usual.

The wise woman gave her a curious look, perhaps wondering if it had been the large lass's heart's ambition to be a hare. "No, Maggie, there's peril enough for all now. What She'd do with a sacrifice as had...proved capacity, in the making of folk, I can't say, only that from what I heard the old Druids wouldn't give it to 'er."

[[edit: thread bump so no-one who saw a subsequently-deleted post continues to wait on its resoloution.]]
This message was last edited by the player at 22:37, Mon 11 Apr 2022.

Maggie’s eyes grow wide at the implication of the wise woman’s words and she feels a coldness at her core, an unaccustomed feeling of fear., the Wyzenwood becoming a place not just of general dread but of personal threat. She gulps down the rest of her ale.

Sam took another swig of his beer. "I didn't hang around in the woods long enough to get a real good look at the bones. So while I had mentioned the skull, I don't think it was anything recent. Same is true with the animal bones - seems like something that happened over time, rather than one new pile."

In reply to Mercy Westcott (msg # 75):

"The old Druids wouldn't give what to her?" he asked curiously, listening in from nearby, though not following it. When it came to legend and pseudoscience, Martin did not usually do very well.

"Women who'd been pregnant, or might be," Goodie Westcott called over to the doctor, as though he were a little slow.

"So how do we stop it ?"


-

"It what? Stop Her? I don't think there is any stopping Her, else they'd have done it long since. The village is supposed to have guardians to keep Her up there and her business out of here, but if folk go feeding her and bringing 'er power down, who can even set blame on the Wood?" the midwife shrugged.

"Stop a murderer, well, a good hemp rope'll usually do that. Stop whatever it is Her power does to the tangle of pact and workins about the village, I'd say you'd need to set it right, but who knows how to do that, fair two thousand year later?"

Andrew quietly ordered a beer as he listened to Mercy Westcott speak of the Wyzenwood and the tales of the mysterious her who dwelled there.

Clearing his throat, he asked, ”Mistress Westcott, what happened with Mistress Durbin, do you know of other women that have been lost to the wood in years past? Have there ever been any that were able to be rescued from such a fate?”

“You said that the hares…that they were her girls, her servants? Have you ever heard tales of them appearing as anything different than hares that scare dogs? Could they take the form of stags perhaps? Like the one seen in the wood today, or that which came into the village?”


[[GM edit: animal confusion.]]
This message was last edited by the GM at 17:13, Wed 13 Apr 2022.

"No, no, if there was other murders been done here you'd know of it, Master Sexton. The Fox from the stories - some great-uncle of our Master Fox - the tale goes as he brought some of his victims back to the Hall, but not the Wood, even if it was said he'd taken up witchcraft at the last. What y'might do for the hares, I don't know. Kill them and burn them to ash, maybe, and put it in the river with the Cross signed over it, but I can't think that Herself up there would like that any."

"Might they go back to girls again if you kissed them?" Eli asked, young enough to be at least partly in earnest.

"They'd scratch your heart out with those back feet first," Robin dared put in, feeling hares or ladies needed defending from being grabbed and smooched. The remark drew a little laughter.

"He's likely right," Goodie Westcott said with some amusement, "They might not even want to be women again, seeing as how the long-ago folk did for them the first time. Hearts cut out, I heard. And no, a stag's not a girl, however you slice it. They did say the old Mr. Fox learned to be a fox, and that's why the dogs hated him, but that's probably a mixing of that story with folktales of the fox Reynardine, who could talk and court young ladies and such like. Sometimes a mettyfor, an' sometimes not."

Dread fills Margaret Yendale at the thought of such malignant power abroad and able to stalk the fields beyond the limits of the Wyzenwood, perhaps even lurk in the streets of Scorch Norton. Her heart feels heavy and cold in her breast.

"Then might th' stag be whoever murdered Polly an' took her corse into th' Wood? Mercy, Goody Westcott, would you have any way of tellin' who that might be?

"And how could we discover how to put the wards aright and keep Scorch Norton safe again from Her?"

And yet... Something else thrills within her at how a Woman, a female presence anyway, makes men look over their shoulders and hunch their necks like they fear a blow. She keeps a smile from curving her lips.

"All right, I give you that some things are strange around here of late, but remember, Mistress Durbin was strangled, not gored by antlers. We'll all try our best not to catch whatever affects the animals, but this worst thing, this vile murder, that was done by a man. No-one be distracted here, but think on where your husbands and friends would be, deep in May Night. It's a road man, or else it's someone we thought we knew well." The landlord looked sternly about the room.

[[edit: just splitting the post since it was mostly Goodie Westcott talking; sorry for the ping... ]]
This message was last edited by the player at 08:53, Fri 15 Apr 2022.

"I've not seen this stag to say - Master Sexton, Samuel, Tom, did the beast look or act like a disguised man to you? Well, there's two men with motive to kill her, if we believe...certain lads." Goodie Westcott gave Thomas that narrow look. "An' as John says, night wanderers besides. I've a little finding art, but it'd need something of his - some hair or thread caught on the body, and if we had the body we could just have the village lined up for a passing test."
"As for discovering, I should think if the Hall nor the Vicar don't have some clues between all their books from scholars, we ought maybe to look at the stones first, see if their pattern would say a thing to set us on the path. The one in the church has a long slab like a grave at its foot and any writing long worn off, if there was any. Someone who went in such close association with a stone might be a place to start, and the Church a safer place to disturb the earth than most."

[[re-organising post, see above.]]

"It looked as a normal stag to me apart from the muck covering it and the awful smell. The only thin that was different was the way it behaved in that it chased us instead of running in the other direction."


-

”It smelled of bracken and rot, Mistress Westcott,” Andrew replied, ”Its coat was black as tar. I’d never seen such before. And its eyes were black as well. Like ink. And there was…some manner of dark liquid in the creature’s eye sockets.”

Suddenly self conscious, he paused and added, ”Strange, I know. But I assure you it is the truth. I got closer to it than was wise.”

"Well, he don't sound like a man to me," Goodie Westcott concluded. "Sounds more like a natural beast She's taken hold of for some reason...strange thing, that She should let ye come all to the centre and then chase ye off...no, I don't much like that."

"Master Sexton, I do believe that animal is ill. This description matches that of the ones that have come into the village not long ago. There is a certain illness that seems to be spreading in that forest - a plague of some sort. Whatever creatures of similar description come to this village, we should do our best to see a swift end to their lives and burn their remains. Were it but any other place than this foreboding grove, I would suggest looking into the source of the problem, but that seems inadvisable. There are certain places where similar phenomenon have presented themselves - gasses trapped for a time that cause men to hallucinate. It seems to be particularly prevalent in the Wyzenwood, and I'm not entirely unsure that something or the other hasn't made its way into the drinking water, but surely it would then be much diluted."

He turned reluctantly to Wescott for more information.

"Goodie Wescott, for all the time that I've resided here, I've not learned sufficiently about some of the local superstitions and traditions. Could you perhaps shed a bit of light on the subject of Trugred?"

"Well, maybe, Doctor, if you tells me what you want to know about the 'oss," Goodie Westcott returned, "-but can we perhaps pay attention to the point of some fools having turned things about in my house? It was at least two grown men, or close to. I'd suspect Smith Sam but for 'e has the squarest shoes about. I can't be doing with such cheek!"

"I'm sure we can get you help in setting things right," John Collins said, leaning both hands on the bar.

"They ought to clean up themselves - someone here knows of this, I bet. It'll be the worse for those lads if I have to root them out myself!" Goodie Westcott said, crossing her arms in emphasis.

"Was anything stolen from your house? Or were your things just turned about?"

"They took my device, more than that I haven't made certain yet," the goodwife grumbled. "Sure they've made off with some end of bread, too, and I don't want that back either but that's not the point."

Maggie takes hold of her brother's arm and draws him a little away from the others. "Robin," she says in an urgent undertone, "You had naught to do with Goody Mercy's cottage, had you?"

She respects the wise-woman and is fond of her but her heart quails at the thought of what form Mercy's anger and vengeance could take for she believes in the woman's power.

”Mistress Westcott,” Andrew asked hesitantly, his voice suddenly low, ”This property of yours which was taken. I know you said that you didn’t wish to know what those who had stolen it were using it for. Forgive me for asking, but is it something that’s used to help a woman give birth? Could someone have wanted it for that reason?”

"Hey, wh-" Robin reluctantly let himself be drawn from the Bees' immediate vicinity into one of the fireplace nooks. As ever when pressed to close proximity, his gaze slid away from hers and he tensed, though none of his blood family or his master had ever raised a hand to him in anger. "I was with Lucy and the Widow Sexton, you can ask. We didn't- Hey."

Robin flushed with the realisation he might be being accused of recieving stolen goods, in this case bread and gynocological teaching aids. "I'm not a pervert, Maggie," he told his sister, with all the awkward gravitas of a youth more familiar with the binding of a Bible than stays.

Eli paused partway between Sam and Tom's table and the bar, having partly trailed Maggie in her crossing. "I was up at the Hall stables lending horse pills most of the morning - the Excitement happened, with the beasts, so I stayed on for walking down their big horses and getting all settled again - when I came back the Hare's stable folk were all here. Bar Tim Arton, 'course - he fell into a horse trough this mornin', somehow."

"Tom Bees did come up and borrow a horse, but he's the only one I saw around that way - did you see anyone on the road from the Hall to where you were going to, Master Bees?"
This message was last edited by the player at 22:37, Wed 20 Apr 2022.