"It's the fourteenth of December," Murphy replied, just as perplexed. "-an' a Tuesday. Them back at the tavern seemed confused, too."

He looks back at the redcoats again. "For sure last week was real, I lived it...she's at the doctor's house by Parramatta yet, ma'am. The word is she'll likely live, so long as the wound doesn't take sour."

Murphy looks at both of them. "You're sure it's nothing you remember? Tell me about the sheep at the house - I hadn't heard that there was livestock killed before. Just killed and left on the ground, was that?"

"Their...uh... their heads..."

He's pale and looking like he doesn't want to complete this thought, "Their heads were gone. And th' back leg o' one."

"And Mary was the only survivor ?" Brigitte knew the answer and it was to horrible to contemplate. She racked her memory for something else while she looked at the dirt track in front of them.


-

"That's how I understand it, ma'am, though I don't think we have th' bodies. Missus Ryan says she heard sometin in th' hall with her husband in th' parlour, an' about then she was struck down wit' the skillet or sometin the like o' that. Th' fella set in wit' his knife but it must have been the husband came out an' drew him off. Says she remembers someone tried to move her before Gill, but she was fadin' in and out there," Murphy says, contemplative.


Brass rumbles unease at the tension in his rider, shifting his weight. Charlie squints at Jack. "Gone how? Some beast, dingoes? A man takin' them? Was there anytin else?"

Brigitte again shakes her head as if trying to comprehend something. She waves away a fly with her hand before answering "Let's go down to the bar and discusses it there, Jack ?"

She gives her horse a nudge to send it further down the track.


-

"Was a man did it, sure, a man with a knife. Clean cuts, not worried through by teeth an' jaw. I c'n unnerstan' takin' a hind leg f'r supper, but three heads? Don't seem natural, Murphy."

At Brigitte's words, he nods and turns his horse to follow her to the bar. "Aye, M'Lady."
This message was last edited by the player at 00:01, Mon 24 Feb 2020.

Murphy leans his weight back, letting his mount know to wait, eyes narrowed and undecided whether to follow or go out and see the house for himself. Light rounds and roils on the baking pasturelands as he sits there on his pale dun against the dark of the trees behind.

The horses pick up the pace a little without asking as they near home, keen to be in familiar surroundings without the trace of blood. Still keyed up from the incident with the lizard, the animals do listen and flare their nostrils, though it seems the yard they make for is the same they left, without eleven days' sudden passing to stain it dark and strange. Dust puffs and swirls away under the constant beat of their hooves.

The NSW Corps troops step forward as the riders draw level: a rather dough-faced private who lifts his hat to Brigitte and a hard-looking sergeant who should probably be doing anything else. The latter only deigns to nod to a Frenchwoman, regardless of Brigitte's family's service, and catches Brass' reins under the chin left-handed. His body is tense but without fear, simply ready for action at need - someone who's accepted more than one surrender.

"Awlright son, get down from there, yer under arrest."
This message was last updated by the GM at 00:18, Tue 25 Feb 2020.

In reply to The Keeper (msg # 65):

From her saddle Brigitte addresses the sergeant, "Please let Mr Duggan dismount Sergeant and we can all go inside out of the heat and sun to discuss it." She swings her leg over her horse and leads it to the fence to hitch the bridle or to hand it off to someone else if one of the employees has come to help their mistress.

She will then move to the door and holds it open for everyone to enter.


-
This message was last edited by the player at 06:59, Tue 25 Feb 2020.

Knowing that it doesn't take much to provoke these soldiers to violence, Jack offers no resistance. He relinquishes his reins to the sergeant and swings easily out of the saddle. He stands uncertainly in the dust of the innyard, hoping Brigitte or Murphy can talk reason to the man.

His cudgel dangles (he hopes unobtrusively) at his side from the thong about his wrist.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:24, Tue 25 Feb 2020.

"We'll be pleased to accept yer hospitality, Madame," the sergeant says, then jerks his head to indicate that his subordinate should attend to Jack. "Get 'is weapons, Cookson."

Cookson does so as Brigitte hands her horse off to a hand and Peggy comes out to see what's up, her usual smile struck down by alarm. Cookson relieves Duggan of his club and knife, slowly frowning at the condition of the latter. That doesn't escape the sergeant's notice. A glance out to the land shows Murphy heading back this way after all, albeit at a leisurely trot that gives him time to work out quite how to get his countryman out of this fix, though he's ready to kick on fast at any sign of trouble.

---

Murphy hasn't quite caught up by the time Jack's been taken inside and sat at a table, the sergeant opposite, Peggy sent to get drinks. A couple of flies circle the ceiling in the hot air, though the tavern is clean as usual. This early they have it to themselves. Jack's weaponry sits on the table to the officer's right where he's leant forward, resting his arms against the wood. His sandy hair is plastered to his head without the hat, every inch of him an irritable itch of sweat and boredom.

To the sergeant's left lies the iron collar for restraining suspects, its short tail of links echoing the lines of a more permanent necklace. The knife on the table is dirty, as is the sergeant's sash and the creases of his fingers and the dull blue of his eyes. "Well now my lad," he says, nodding to Peggy's approach with a jug and earthenware cups for liquour, "-where are the bodies?"

At the sergeant's question, Jack can't keep the alarm out of his eyes as he shakes his head.

"This is naught t'do with me, sir. Th' only bodies I ever seen at th' Ryan spread were sheep. I take me oath on't."

He's certainly not foolish enough to give the soldier any edge of admission to any crime.

Brigitte took the cups and jug and arranged them out across the table. "Peggy make sure the men outside have water as well." Taking a seat she does not know where to begin.
"As we told Mr. Murphy we only left this morning to trade some cloth though it seems for some reason we have been waylaid, how I don't know.... As for bodies we did not venture into the house and only came across some hastily butchered sheep in the field." She raises a cup to her lips and drinks.


-
This message was last edited by the player at 00:10, Thu 27 Feb 2020.

The sergeant listens, but gives Brigitte a 'hold on' gesture, not yet touching the rum. The flies circle and circle the ceiling. He fixes a stare on Jack.

"Can you tell me why we're out 'ere, then, if we aren't to understand that on the second of December you did so find the Ryan family slaughtered and, as you said to one James Gill from the next farm in passing, took to the hills on the trail of..." the pause there speaks volumes, "...'some other feller who done it and run away.' "

He turns his attention to Brigitte, though without the full-on gaze, a marginally more honest patience to his tone. "What do you mean by 'waylaid' there, Madame? None of that, private-" he snaps the last at his own man, who had been reaching for Peggy's behind with intentions he probably thought jocular though the barmaid had been moved to swerve to avoid. Cookson straightens, chastened, and steps back to guarding the area between the table and the outside door.

The sergeant settles. Murphy slips in, listening and gauging the room before making any interventions. "-all right, and who were you trading this cloth with? Natives? Some friends up in the hills, perhaps?" The slight soft hint of menace in his voice is back, too calm.

""Mary Ryan, we were to trade the sacks of wool and the cheese that are still on my horse for the cloth. We seem to have been away for days though I swear we only left this morning in our own minds."


-

"Had I anythin' t'do with any murders an' got away inta th' bush, then why would I come back and walk right inta yer arms, Sergeant? I'm not soft in th' head." He breaks off and stares at the table for a minute. He has a powerful desire for a drink, but figures he'd best keep his wits about him.

"Still, I can't explain how I've lost a week an' more of time any more than Lady D'Anjou can. 'Tis a mystery to us all, like disappearin' inta a fairy mound, y'know?" he says quietly without looking up.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:55, Thu 27 Feb 2020.

"I've found guilt makes a man unpredictable in 'is actions...it's not many of yer 'ardened criminal types nor even in the depths of war finds it easy to kill a child while in their right minds. Some kind of instinct sayin 'no, don't kill the little ones'. A man gone mad on the drink who's already 'ad at the parents over some piddling little argument, now, maybe he starts cutting and he doesn't understand to stop until there 'e is alone, starts to realise what 'e's done." The sergeant leans back, watching Jack watch the table.

"Conscience is a terrible thing. Makes a feller work against himself, say the convicts," he adds, tone soft but no mercy in it at all. "Come to me to sell us a bluff, you think, like a clever lad, but there's that conscience worming away in your brain, that Papist inclination to confession pushing in your chest with pressure - pressure of lying, pressure of sin. You want to tell someone. Stuck up there in those burning hills without a human voice or ear you might as well be an animal. Losing your mind from what you did and no soul to tell it to."

He leaves that theory where it is and picks up the knife, looking keenly at the blade. "Been digging, 'ave you? Spade would be easier, but I 'spect you were in an 'urry - what were you diggin for, out by the Ryan place? Looks like some flecks of old blood up by the hilt...was there blood about it, that thing you were digging up? Seems like some very fishy potatoes, my son."

"Al-ter-nate-ly, I could believe your claims of 'aving conveniently lost the week, and say you'd come unto the bosom of the law because you bleeding forgot you were a murderer. Don't know what Madame's stake in this is, save that the Governor's Office might grant that squatter land to her, it being cleared and all." Brigitte gets a look of dull suspicion before the officer puts the knife back down.

"We ought to go over and talk to Cleary's men," Murphy broke in, as though there was already a decision. "I've asked those working about the place, they all think it's no later than the third day of December. Some tinker who'd been sleepin off the drink had the right date, makes me think it might be somethin in th' water if not a witchcraft."

The sergeant gives Murphy an annoyed and perhaps slightly disgusted look at the last, but the convict hunter only stands and fans himself with his hat, waiting for a decision.

"Problem with that argument is that I have been with Jack the entire time and do you really think that we both took part in whatever happened up at that homestead ? As for the land why would I want it ? To far from here and I don't have the men to work it even if I had the inclination."

"As for the knife I saw Jack use it to inspect the sheep carcases and then place it in the dirt blade first while we had a better look."

"Ask my staff and those staying, it would seem we have all lost the same amount of time.............."

She takes another sip.


-

The sergeant takes his cup and knocks back the entire contents without a flinch, turning his attention briefly to Brigitte. "Can't 'ave it both ways, Madame: either you don't remember what you done the past few days, or far as you know you've only been with the boy for the morning. An' the Ryans had sunk water, don't play me like I don't know what a well's worth to sheep or a brewer in times like this."

"She promise you something for the 'elp, hm?" the sergeant asks Jack, refilling his tot and pushing rum a bit commandingly at his suspect. Murphy looks like he's going to step in and insist in a moment, but watches for his spot, not wanting to spark violence.

Jack feels a (perhaps unreasonable) surge of confidence. He's got nothing to hold against me, save I'm an Irishman like a lot of boyos hereabouts. They can hang me like anyone else, but they can't prove anything against me. He looks up and into his questioner's eyes.

"I'm naught but an Irish workin'man, Sergeant. I tend M'Lady's sheep an' go about me other duties. I ain't hurt nobody nor killed man, woman or child. Not my whole life long. An' you'll not get me t'say otherwise. I'll take me oath on't."

His eyes and voice are both steady, his palms flat on the table on either side of the untouched drink before him.

Jack's confident stare hits the redcoat sergeant's. He has enough time to consider the exact similarity in colour between that dirty blue and the shade of smoke against the stark summer sky; to consider burnings and cannonfire in daylight; to think of a raised sabre over frantic limbs and to know this man has killed, perhaps not only men.

Then, too late though instinct is giving him enough sharpness to see it all, he notes the dangerous flush in the little vessels of the man's face, the slight flare of nostrils and shift of balance that bodes action...then the sergeant has struck him open-handed across the face.

Jack's skin jolts with shock rather than pain, though somewhere beyond the charged interpersonal confines of what might become a fight he hears Murphy's voice, harsh with urgency: "Duggan, don't."

"You'll tell me what's true, you blackguard," the sergeant says, low and too level to be a snarl but only just.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:42, Wed 04 Mar 2020.

Jack's head rocks with the force of the soldier's slap. He tastes blood and knows his teeth have cut the inside of his cheek. He slowly turns his face back to look at Sergeant Wilkins. He swallows the blood in his mouth rather than spit on Brigitte's clean floor.

"Th' truth is what I tol' ya. I'm glad t'join any search f'r whoever did this foul deed. But it weren't me."

Brigitte stands and directs her comments to the sergeant. "Sergeant I would ask you and your men to leave my property immediately, if you return please do it with a senior officer of the magistrate as you seem to be incapable to conduct yourself in an orderly fashion."

"These discussions are at an end, for today at least."

She rises from her seat to show the sergeant out.


-

Murphy, who had started to breathe again when Jack didn't add assault on a King's officer to weigh against him in court, took in a lungful and held it a moment, stepping between Brigitte and both redcoats. Duggan had felt the jaws of Empire relent and drop the tiny morsel of his life at his show of obedience; the effect of the broken line of sight between landowner and soldiers had something of the same slackening, though the violence in this case was merely dispersed. The vast metaphorical beast of the system was sniffing around, seeking to crush bodies to pulp.

"He'll be away soon enough, ma'am, let's not bring up the judiciary-"

Murphy was interrupted by a short laugh as the sergeant got up, picking up and dragging the criminal collar across the wood of the table. "As you like it, Madame, I will take my suspect off your property, and Cookson 'ere can finish up questioning your staff proper-like to get it down in paperwork. Collar 'im, Private," the sergeant jerks his head at Duggan, pours himself another shot of rum and downs it like the first.

Cookson goes to do as he's bid. Murphy watches, his body still kept between Brigitte and the direct stare of the sergeant, his right hand resting very easy, very casually on that pistol. Brigitte remembers her maid Peggy is afraid of soldiers. Jack remembers Murphy has killed at least one man, too.

"Y'ought to let him go unchained, Wilkins, at least until we hear from th' neighbours here. Y'heard he's willing enough."

"Lady wants me to take my buisness elsewhere, Mister Murphy, I got to take it. In 'and, as it were. In an orderly fashion. An' I tell you what, my lad-" here he rounds on Jack again, not with the focus of an avatar of imperial domination this time, but just that of a man who is sweating, frustrated and angry: "You know where my little girls live? Up in Birkenhead with the wife's old lady. That's just a skip across the Irish sea to your peat bog of a country. I find you've lied to me and so help me when my two years' is up I will find yer mother and tell 'er what you looked like when they cut you from the gallows, an' fer what."

"No need for that," Murphy says, his voice soft and mostly tired. "Look, Mme. d'Anjou, will you not come across with us to show faith in your man here, an' to show the sergeant proof to his own eyes you're not conspirin wit' the others here? Gettin in a palaver about sending to Sydney is only more time we're giving killers to dig in or get away."

In reply to Charles Murphy (msg # 81):

Watching the sergeant Brigitte decides she does not like the man. Turning to Murphy she gives a simple answer; "I will."


-

"...you can leave 'is 'ands," Wilkins mutters to the private, gathering up the weapons and his hat and levelling an irritable stare at Murphy until the convict-catcher backs a step and nods to Brigitte that he'll follow her out.

The neck iron fits loose on Jack, its touch a little cooler than blood. There's time to catch up and drink his tot of rum should he wish it between the sergeant turning away and the other redcoat giving him a steady push to usher him out.

Despite the tavern walls being little more than wood, clay and plaster the heat outside hits like a blow. Those exiting become aware of their first indrawn breath out there, the taste of dust and sheep and dry trees pulled in with the sluggish air. The staff hang around, anxious. Murphy stays close to the prisoner, an apology with him but not spoken. Cookson ties the links of the collar to the rope on the officer's horse with a firm knot.

Jack's seen captured natives tied like this, both at the docks back home and last summer in Parramatta, though their hands were bound: this is more about the show and snub to Brigitte's assertion of her rights than containing him. As yet. Peggy looks fearful for him, or of the soldiers, likely both. Swarbrick watches frowning, fanning himself with his hat. Distantly the cicadas racket away unceasing in the bush.

"Took the goods off your 'orse, milady," Swarbrick tells Brigitte, coming close enough to do so. He does not dare go too near the sergeant.


[[pause for any thing/word you'd like to add or leave with the servants here, else I'll move along tomorrow night.]]