Mister Howell nods along with Magnus, agreeing generally with his musings.  When Magnus asks about whether Margerie was secretive, the man shakes his head and poorly suppresses a laugh.

"No."  He says simply.  "She was the type that talked.  It's very unlike her.  Though..."  Howell thinks for a moment, his eyes narrowing in concentration.  "I guess she did have her subjects she weren't one to talk about.  She could keep a secret I guess, and she didn't like people digging into her past.  But she talked about just about everything else, the baby and all.  She probably told me a little too much if I'm honest.  I sent her off to Mother Alice with that sort of gab.  Just wouldn't stand for people asking who the da' was.  Sort of made her angry to tell the truth.  I found out pretty soon just to leave it alone."

Magnus nodded along, listening, and nursing the last of his drink. When there was a natural break in the conversation he leaned forward a little and dropped his volume a few octaves.

"I'm not one to speak ill of the dead, and you don't know me from Adam..." He began. "But when you say too much, what do you mean? You're not saying anything like...heresy right?" He asked in a low tone. He doubted that it was in fact heresy, but with such a large presence of Clergy in the city he intentionally started with something scandalous, something that could lean to excommunication, in hopes that it would encourage to him reveal less severe information in response.

Magnus leans in to Mister Howell, lowering his voice to keep it from carrying, for though the possibility seems out of character, the last thing that Howell had mentioned seemed to note the possibility.

Howell is taken aback, his eyes instantly narrowing at Magnus, though after a heartbeat of awkwardness, he seems to make a connection and begins to laugh loudly.

"No."  Howell leans back in to Magnus, lowering his tone in kind while shaking his head.  "Mother Alice is the midwife, not the priest.  That's Father Litle, at least for us lower folks."

"I'm not married"  Howell begins, keeping his voice low.  "So when I asked her reasons why she was late, or taking breaks of a quarter of an hour in the bathroom, she'd tell me all about it..."  Howell shudders.  "In detail...  So I told her to go to Mother Alice, you know, get something to feel better.  Or at least give her someone to talk to that wasn't me."

Understandably, Magnus himself had not spent a lot of time in the company of pregnant women. They did not frequent the road, or the kind of establishments that he had found himself in, but he had heard of a few example that gave him the jist of what the man was referring to.

"Ah" he nodded twice, and seemed relieved himself as he drew back from their conspiratorial huddle.

The Minotaur looked down at his notes, felt he was missing something, and jotted down the midwife's name and profession.

It didn't add up, he decided as he glanced over his blocky script. This girl was a self starter, took the initiative to leave home, held down multiple jobs dealing with all sorts of people and was well liked as she did it. Stressed, undoubtedly, but to kill herself? She had money, she had options, maybe not all the ones she desired...but to up and throw herself into a river of all things?

His gut said no.

On the other hand he knew of several reasons why a man, especially the father, would take issue. Inheritance was of course the big one, bastards, important bastards, could change the course of history, but there were other mundane reasons, inheritance, jealously, embarrassment, rage.

But he had been wrong before, and could easily be again. He needed a lot more. "Do you know where I can find her? Mother Alice?" Magnus asked with a demeanor that suggested they were almost done.

Howell seems to get the gist that the conversation is almost over and pushes back his seat back in preparation of standing.

"Yeah, she lives in the lowers.  Small place a few blocks off the markets.  Everyone knows her, you can't miss it.  Regular staple of the community."

Howell stands.

"Too bad we didn't have a room for you."  Howell smirks.  "Doesn't seem it now, but every room is full up.  It usually isn't this busy.  I've got one who just sits in his room all day, not seeming to do anything.  Odd."  Howell remarks, giving the idea a moment of thought before he starts moving back towards the desk.  "Anyway.  Feel free to come back.  I'll let you know if there are any rooms that come up."

OOC:  Without going through the detail of giving a street address, you get enough direction that you are confident you can find Mother Alice.

Magnus thanked the proprietor, and assured him that he would back for a beer or a meal some time. The idea of somebody staying in their room all day was not terribly odd to Magnus, but then again he had done the same many times, lying low, burning the hours in relative safety till he was ready to hit the road again.

The day was still young, and he had his destinations firmly in mind.

Her residence, the midwife, the farmer to had found the body, and if absolutely necessary...the Court itself.

With a delightfully full sensation, and feeling light and free without his armor and and weapons belt, he stepped outside with a content sort of expression on his broad, inhuman features.

Being unconsciously possessed of a remarkable ability to orient himself, he fixed the neighborhood of the deceased firmly in his mind and struck out at a lumbering walk.

Before he got too far, he found a quiet spot and dropped the majority of his wealth into the mouth of his gurgling  water skin, a little trick he had learned long ago to help protect himself from robbery.

It was a determined sort that would assault a Minotaur in broad daylight, but he was unarmored and not looking to get into a fight or cause a scene unless it wad unavoidable. And besides, he was in a strange city and who knew what the local brigands were like? Every destination had them after all.

Magnus takes stock of the unknowns and decides his best chances for useful information are in Margerie's old premises, the boarding house on Pleasant Street.  Taking some reasonable precautions in case of thieves, Magnus makes his way into the lowers, his eye taking in the shifting scenery as he descends into the old city.

The size and shape of buildings seem to shrink, as does the space between them as the foundations sink and shift into the earth that supports them.  Massive cracks crawl up the small structures and branch like the first strands of a spider's web being cast.  Alleyways and side streets diminish, some being so narrow that Magnus feels he would have to walk sideways through the narrows to keep from scraping his shoulders.  Some of the alleyways disappear all together, the buildings sitting next to each other, their stone walls touching, leaning on each other for support.

The people too, seem to crawl down the ladder into despair.  The crowds of the main street shops diminish, leaving but few adults.  Those who do seem to laze about are dirtied and lethargic, laying against a wall, or else conversing in undertones with small groups.  Those few who do seem to be of working class move quickly and with a purpose.

The most telling sign of the change, however, is the smell.  The pungent miasma of decay and vinegar starts slowly, though before long it is enough to make him pick up his own pace.  He glances down a side alley and sees a bucket of filth emptied out of a window, where the wet mess slaps against the opposite wall and earth with a messy splatter.

Magnus catches a few looks of vile distaste, though he is lucky to avoid any real scene.

Before long, he finds himself at the boarding house where Margerie lived on Pleasant Street, a striking name indeed given the conditions.  The house is slightly larger than the buildings around, two stories instead of one, and is made of wood.  Magnus surmises it is likely a newer addition than many of the other buildings around.  Still, the exterior is beginning to dry rot in places where the boards decay and flake off, exposing various holes up to the size of a fist.  The doorway is undecorated, and the few, small windows that climb the sides are all shuttered closed.

Knocking briefly on the door before letting himself in, Magnus manages to find someone who directs him up to the room where Margerie had most recently lived.

"What is it?"  A woman's voice calls when Magnus raps on the door.

OOC:  Magnus manages to find out that Margerie lived with a room mate, who still resides in the boarding house.  I've already rolled vs. Reaction for you, but you are welcome to roll against diplomacy to try and modify the overall outcome.

Having grown up on the road, in the company of travelers from varied places and walks of life, Magnus had never had much experience with slums. The poor, the truly poor, simply could not travel. They could not afford the time off work, the food, the lodging, clothes fit for the task or any of the myriad pieces of equipment that made long trips feasible.

They were stuck, wherever their luck happened to have run out.

But he had known violent sorts, unscrupulous men and women who had cause to be on the run. Deserters, yes, poachers, exiles, drunks, gypsy whores, elven musicians and itinerant goblin tinkers. Drifters, men with an itch for the road and a parcel of bastards in their wake.

This, he thought glumly, was where those sorts of folks had come from. Before they were run out into the company of the road they had nearly all come from somewhere, and this was just that sort of place. He recognized the sour vomit and piss smell, the clouded eyes, the discolored teeth.

He looked the building over with an appraising eye before he knocked on the door, and having taken a few steps back he called out to the voice beyond.

"Mornin'. Lookin' for Margerie's room mate. She happen to be around?" he asked in the low rural English of the country dweller. His most natural and easy tone, un-officious , weary and a little haggard.

"Yeah, come in."  is the easy, though tired response to Magnus's query.

Magnus opens the door, slowly, careful not to make any fast movements.  He was all too aware how his mere looks could set people against him, making them untrusting, and making quick movements or keeping his hands out of sight seemed to make things worse.  It seemed if there were anyone who Magnus needed to a little bit of trust from, it was the roommate, who likely knew as much as anyone about Margerie.

As Magnus takes in the small boarding room, he wonders if it is any better than living rough like he has much of his life.

The room is small, but not constrictive, perhaps about twenty feet square, though perhaps the almost complete lack of furniture makes the area seem larger.  Two straw mats are pressed into each of the two far corners, a pile of thin blankets on each of them.  The only real furniture is a small, wooden chair, on which a young woman, perhaps in her late teens or early twenties sits, with a jumbled lump of fabric along with a needle and thread set in her lap.

Next to the woman are two piles of clothes in various states of disrepair, some obviously ripped, while others seem serviceable at least.  Aside from the clothes, the only hint of possessions are two small boxes set up like footlockers at the end of the bed, tucked against the wall.

As Magnus takes this all in, a young boy, standing, but no doubt at the early ages of toddler, likely younger than two, approaches with a confused look on his face.

"Go?"  The young man says, pointing at Magnus as he appraises him with curious eyes.

It is this word that grabs the woman's attention, and she looks up from her work, a mild shock replacing her concentration as her glance shifts rapidly between the young man and Magnus.

"She lived here, yeah."  The woman says nervously, her eyes now on the young boy again.  "What do you need?

Magnus smiled at the boy. He was still inhuman, hulking, covered in fur and with an almost animal scent despite the soaking rain. The sound his hooves made on the old floorboards, his horns, the smile did little to compensate for these things. Had the child ever seen anything remotely like him?

Children were at least honest. They ran, they screamed (both in dramatic play and in genuine fear), they pointed and they nearly always asked a lot of questions. What was he? Where did he come from? Was he the devil? Was he a bad guy?

Did he eat people?

The smile was brief, and he looked to the woman and held his ground, not advancing for the moment but giving her time to take it all in.

"Just a little information" he assured her. "Shouldn't take long. I was asked to look into her death, and I've got a good bit so far..." He reached into his satchel and took out the folded papers where the crinkled in his big hands.

"Think you could help? I could pay you a little...for your time." He suggested, and glanced to the pile of mending
This message was last edited by the player at 14:31, Sun 09 Aug 2020.

The woman is about to answer, though she is interrupted instead by the little boy.

"Go!"  The boy's look of confusion is suddenly replaced by a smile.  He points at Magnus's horns and his shaggy fur.  "Ma-a-a-a!"  He adds, and Magnus suddenly understands despite the toddler accent.

The boy has him confused with a barnyard animal.

The color drains from the young woman's face, and her eyes shift nervously between the young man and Magnus.  Before Magnus has a chance to respond, the young man walks haltingly over to the young woman, holding his arms up and she drops her stitching, picking the boy up and putting him in her lap.

"Go!"  The young man informs his mother, though she quickly shakes her head.  "No.  No child, he's not.  Hush now."

The boys smile droops back into a face of confusion, though Magnus can't make it out for long as the girl tightens her hold on the boy and his face disappears for a moment into her shoulder and chest.

"Yes."  The woman says, finally speaking to Magnus.  "Yes, that would be fine."

Magnus laughed warmly, a deep chuckle as he shook his head. A goat was close enough after all, given the horns, fur and hooves and he doubted that the child had every seen a bull.

"It's alright" he assured the boys mother. "He doesn't mean any harm." The Minotaur shifted the papers around a bit and glanced at his notes. He had a lot of information so far, but he needed to start asking the harder questions. Trouble was he was not quite sure what he needed to be asking just yet.

"Alright..." he rubbed at his chin in a pensive way. "Obviously I didn't know Margerie, but from everyone I've talked to she sounded real nice. Especially before she was with child..." he looked to the woman in a searching sort of way. "What do you think happened? Those last few months before she died?"

The woman seems relieved as Magnus brushes her son's animal comment aside, though she still holds tight to the child who sits on her lap, though the son's attention seems to be slipping quickly as he glances over his mother's arm at Magnus, his arms reaching out as if to grab the air and pull himself off his mother's lap.

Magnus goes straight in to the situation with his questions.

"What happened?"  The girl repeats back to Magnus with a look of slight disbelief on her face.  "She got pregnant... with somebody who weren't willing to keep up his end of the arrangement."

Her face softens slightly, her glance lingering on Magnus as if waiting for something else, though eventually she continues.

"Maybe you aren't too familiar what it's like, but I can tell you no one's going to hire a girl with a babe, and no one's going to marry one either."

The boy grunts with exertion as he pushes his face into his mother's arm, leaning forward hard enough that if she let go he would fall face first on the wooden floor.  Eventually, the girl gives up, glancing down as she plops him on the floor and he starts to waddle off with uneven steps.

"My sickness only lasted a few weeks... but hers had been going on for months, hurling up anything she ate near as soon as it hit her stomach."

The girl glances towards her son, who has made his way to the pile of clothes, leaning over too quickly, though he manages to catch himself with his hands before falling over backwards onto his bottom.

"I don't agree with what she did mind."  The girl offers, taking her eyes off her boy for a moment to look directly at Magnus.  "But I can understand the thoughts she was thinking, the hope drained out of her.  It's not easy living like this."

Magnus listened, sympathetic, but knowing full well he was out of his element.

Unwed mothers, practically a class unto themselves, and a story as old as time. But for all that Magnus could never fathom how a man could simply walk away from their own flesh and blood, and to leave someone they likely had cared for alone with such a tremendous burden.

The Minotaur has never been so fortunate as to meet any member of his own kind outside his family, much less a female, much less a single female that may in any way be interested in marriage. The thought brought him low and so he banished it as he tried to focus on the task at hand.

"Yeah, I imagine it is." he replied with a note of apology. As if he was some how defending himself against the crimes of another. "Even if everything goes well, and it's normal and the babies healthy. Rough, I'm sure." he took a deep breath.

"But you kind of brought up my main question. The father. Do you know who he is? I mean she must have tried to get him to...commit. Go before a priest but, it seems that never happened." he glanced to his notes. "I've got a good bit on her but almost nothing on who she was seeing."

When Magnus asks if the girl knows who the father is, she shakes her head sadly.

"At first, when she found out she was pregnant, she was really happy.  Maybe you can see why I tried to tamp down her bliss."

The girl glances over to her son, who has grabbed two handfuls of the pile of rags, pulling the whole of it to his open mouth.

"NO!"  The girl warns the boy.  The little man turns his head and smiles broadly at his mother, like they were seeing each other after a separation of years.  He drops the rags and pushes himself back up to his feet, waddling over to the girl with his arms outstretched.

"Of course, then she went way over to the other side."  The girl absentmindedly picks up her son, and sets him in her lap.  The boy takes the moment to nuzzle into her breast.

"She was despondent.  I tried to push her back to somewhere in the middle.  I asked her who the father was.  She refused to say anything, it made her mad..."  The girl shakes her head.  "I asked her why she was protecting him, not like it made a difference whether I knew anyway.  But she wouldn't budge.  I think she started avoiding conversation much after that... didn't want it to come up."

As Magnus listened, one of his preconceptions seemed to fall b the wayside. He had sort of assumed that Margerie had been upset about the pregnancy from the beginning, most unmarried mothers would be he would think. But words like "happy" and "blissful" did not fit that at all.

What then had caused her to go from excited to suicidal somewhere along the way? Had the father refused to acknowledge the child? Was the pregnancy itself unusually difficult? And why did she not trust even her own room mate with such basic information?

"Hmmm" Magnus nodded. "What do you think of the chance of it being somebody important? The father I mean. Somebody she might have been afraid of upsetting?"

At Magnus's question, the girl thinks in a silent moment, though in the end she shrugs.  "Never thought of that, but it fits.  Sometimes she'd have so much work at the court that she would stay over a night.  Suppose that would be as good a place as any to get in heavy with a fancy lawyer or the magistrate even.  But I couldn't say for sure.  I couldn't imagine why she would want to protect the father, but if he was powerful enough to make her life miserable for blabbing, that seems like as good a reason as their could be."

The girl pauses for a moment, her attention distracted by her child who has begun to start grabbing her hair with his chubby little fists.

"Still not good enough, mind."

Magnus believed that he had the very beginnings of an explanation. Margerie could have found a lover, somebody of some means at Court, and believed that she would be taken care of should she become pregnant. When she did, the prospect of a better life, a husband, and a family of her own would have been cause for celebration...before the father refused to acknowledge the child. Then quite the opposite...a life as a single mother, caring for a bastard.

By God some of these women had it rough. So much to risk, on the whim of a man that may or may not live up to his responsibilities.

Magnus nodded, made some notes. "I think we're almost done...Did she ever mention anyone at the Court that she was close with? Any name that came up frequently when she was workin' there?" he asked and shot another smile to the mischievous child.

The girl pauses for a moment to think, but eventually shakes her head.

"I mean, she mentioned plenty of people, but no one in particular that I can think of.  Margerie was the sort that made friends with just about anybody, broke down walls with a smile that the rest of us just can't seem to make our way over."

The girl shakes her head again.

"Margerie would have been a good mom."

"The more I learn about 'er, the more I kind of wish I had gotten to meet her at some point." he said. Who knew? Maybe she was one of those rare souls, like Judoc, Finn or Ronald or Gustav that were able to see past his whole parentage issue.

Magnus made a few more notes before he sighed. "Alright...I owe you some coin." he said, and fished five silver pennies out of his pouch before he handed them over to her. He felt just fine about it, given her situation.

"'Preciate your time. I know I probably spooked you comin' to the door like that. But, I'm glad we were able to talk." He stood, slowly and tucked his notes away. He turned to go and paused for a moment. "Hey, I know it's kind of an odd question but, do you know what happened to her things after she passed?"

Magnus presents the girl with five silver pennies, likely several days wages if her only means was of stitching the rags that were covering her floor.  She gives the reaction that perhaps he expected, or perhaps he had hoped she would not.

"Thank you."  She breathes the word, her eyes tearing up as she hastily puts the coin away in her dress.

Magnus gathers himself, and readies to go, thinking only at the last minute of one last question.

"What?"  The girl looks taken aback, though Magnus notices a rush of blood in her cheeks like she is embarrassed of the question.  Whether Magnus shows his recognition or not, the girl shakes her head quickly and begins talking, her eyes cast towards the floor.

"When I had Archie, I told Margerie that if anything happened to me in childbirth... she could have all my things... an I asked her to care for the baby if somehow he made it and I didn't."  The girl looks up at Magnus, her eyes glistening slightly, thought the color has made its way out of her face.  "She agreed to it...  though luckily nothing came of it..."  She pauses, sighing and arching her back, looking up as she sits.

"Night before she died, Margerie said the same to me.  Told me to take everything if she weren't going to make it.  I didn't understand at first, I was worried... maybe that was the right reaction after all, but she reminded me about what I had said, and I couldn't fault her for that.  Next day, her body was drug out of the Conn."

The girl pauses a moment, collecting herself, though it seems she is still somewhat embarrassed.

"I took her up on her offer.  She wasn't using her things anymore, so I sold all I could...  There weren't nothing else to do with it."

Magnus realized the implication at once,  and once she was through talking he raised one hand and shook it slightly in an effort to show his intent. "No...I mean, that makes sense. I would have done the same thing." he assured her. "What I meant was I'm just looking for more information. Some gift from her lover, anything odd or out of place. I'm not sure exactly what I would be looking for, but was there anything that stood out when you were going through it all?"

He stopped short of saying anything "magical" or "occult" specifically as he did not want to spook the poor girl.

The girl shakes her head.  "No.  Nothing out of the ordinary.  One or two sets of clothes, some personal effects, hair things, a knife she said she made, a necklace I've never seen her wear."

The girl notices Magnus's face and shakes her head again.  "It wasn't expensive or anything, just a wire weave with a few pretty bits of colored glass."

The girl pauses, thinking, though it doesn't seem that anything else comes to her.

"No, nothing out of the ordinary."

Magnus nodded. He wished he knew more about magic, but at the same time he had the merest hint of the complexity from having spent time around those who practiced it, and he knew that was a field of nearly unlimited depth.

Still, it would have been nice to ask a few of his more knowledgeable friends their opinions right about now.

The knife at least tied the two together, but who knew how many pieces she had worked on as an apprentice? Magnus figured it was normal for an aspiring smith to work on more simple things, like knives.

And it had probably been among the first things to be sold.

"Well, worth a shot." he shot a smile at the child and warmed to the thought of the two heading to the market to get some real food with the money he had given her. "Thanks again for your help and, sorry to bring everything back up." He turned to leave, his lumbering frame causing the floor boards to clack and squeal as he carefully made his way towards the door.

The Court was the next obvious place, and that was where he was headed while he still had daylight.

The farmer would be difficult to track down and would likely be at his property any given time of the day.
This message was last edited by the player at 14:48, Fri 11 Sept 2020.

"No problem."  The girl offers with the trace of a smile.  "Thank you."

Magnus closes the door and makes his way out of the tenant house, and out of the lower district.  His mind now is on the courts.  It was a small thing, perhaps just a hunch, that the father was wealthy, or powerful, or both, which seemed to point towards the courts, a job which Margerie did seem to enjoy by all accounts.  It seemed as likely a place as any for Magnus to find the father.

Absorbed in his thoughts, Magnus soon finds himself back near the merchant district where various stalls and carts are set up with produce and cloth and various other goods.  Asking one of the locals as to the direction of the court, he receives a hastily jabbed finger in return, which points towards a large, high roofed building towards the end of the row.

"You're late if ewer supposed ta be there."  The man the man offers even as he is walking away.  "And the magistrate ant too lenient on people the don't show."

OOC:  It is 1200 on the 7th of August.  The courts are only open on Saturday, (or whatever one day a week I told you earlier... I think it's Saturday.  Since I don't normally incorporate days of the week into the game, I rolled randomly to determine what day it is.  Of course I rolled Saturday.  That being said, It's likely late enough in the day by now that the cases may be complete depending on how many people went to court.