Sam explained everything he had seen and known about the stag, the swamp, and what happened with Master Fox, keeping his voice low for when he described the feelings of lust. He also made certain not to explain how he and Edwin had... dealt with that when the two had first seen the stag.

"I'm not quite sure what to make of everything, but that swamp... how do we even investigate it if it is poisonous."

Hugh had finished his apple and got out his pipe during all this, listening but clearly unsure what was some traumatic event and what was being a little drunk and excitable. He gave Sam a long look and reached across to flick at Sam's tattered stocking as he thought, that being real enough.

"Why d'ye think she's in it?" he asked, "-or what good would it do to bring her out?"

Hugh shook his head. "No, if the Wood's got her, she's not for us any more, poor lass. Y'say the folk at the inn thought this stag was possessed in some way, like the animals this morning, but the first time you met it it was calm, just carried power with it...hmm."

"I'd say maybe the Power of the Wyzenwood was with the stag when you saw it in the field, but not holding the reins, so to speak. Strange that it should come so close, but if you both were lying still and the wind away from ye, a normal deer might do the same. When you met it in the Wyzenwood, the Power...let you come by then chased you out again on purpose. It is odd, and I don't like it. Ye've not felt anything strange, more than this...rutting urge?"

Sam snacked on his apple as he listened to Hugh, finishing it just as the other man finished speaking. He raised a brow at his questions, but nodded solemnly as he said that she was likely dead.

"Aye, I think you're right that she's likely dead - though why she would have gone into the Wyzenwood I don't understand. I also don't like that the stag had the Power, but first was completely neutral towards Edwin and I, then  charged us later like we were a threat. I don't like it either, but I'm not sure what to make of it. Never felt anything more than that urge."

He offered the older man a certain look as Hugh brushed his hand across Sam's stocking.

"Are there any services I could help with?" he asked, the older man's gesture surprisingly intimate for such a tense moment.

ooc: Hugh's gesture came across as intimate to him, even if Hugh wasn't intending it.

Hugh gave Samuel a querying look, then laughed softly and engulfed the joint of Sam's knee with his broad palm, gripping lightly and then working back along the young man's thigh as he spoke. "You could help me get Mistress Ha'penny tacked up to carry a supper to the fields," he said, letting the side of his hand sit quietly along the line between thigh and groin. His thumb stroked over the former, appreciating the willing enough to stop teasing: "-but if ye'd like to meet me in the back shed between church and lunching tomorrow I could stand for a second service in the day."

He let his hand slide before anything got too far and returned his attention to smoking and the matter in hand. "Well, sounds like young Polly was a-lured close by some young man for that no parent or other lover might go so close to yon Wood, at night. Foolish, but not entirely out of the ordinary. I'd wonder if Long Tom knew more about it. You was with him, not with Edwin, when the Wyzenwood let you enter, and when the stag chased you out. Could be that's the difference."

He shook his head. "I'd not want to think of young Master Bees as a murderer...still, unless there's some tinker or gentleman of the roads come by, it's one of us, in the village. You mind your taste for sport, young Sam."

The last was offered with sincerity and a glance across that said a man's strength and advantages would count for little if caught unawares and from behind, much as Polly could do little about an embrace that had become a stranglehold. Hugh dropped his gaze to the barn flags, shaking his head again. "Ah, her poor parents."

In reply to Hugh Dobble (msg # 9):

Sam nodded at Hugh's description, sighing solemnly as he described what likely had happened. "Aye, I suppose you're right for what likely happened, and I will. I'm not sure how I could comfort her parents after losing her, but... I'd like to do something, at the minimum."

He held Hugh's hand close with a chuckle, before squeezing it softly and smiling at him, another certain look coming over the younger man's face.


"I'm glad to meet you there tomorrow, and I'm glad to help get her tacked up."

He moved his other hand, placing it on the other man's thigh, slowly moving it up his thigh.

"If there's anything else I can help with, I am glad to."

"I'm sure John Collins'll be taking names to do work there, since they don't have permanent hands," Hugh assured Sam, a little distant with the thought of lost children and the navigation of grief. "The women will cook for them."

The older man's breathing changed as Sam's hand wandered, getting deeper and more tensely controlled, but he looked away out into the yard. He closed his eyes a moment, finding a level of self-control, then stood and hauled Sam up with an arm around the shoulders as though the youth were a far drunker man, kissing him on the side of the face in a manner no more than friendly. "Ah, I admit, I deserved that. Come on with ye, then, and y'can give her an extra brushing to settle her."

Effortlessly taking up and setting his bucket aside, Hugh drew Sam away towards the stables. Ha'penny turned her ears and raised her head at their approach and rumbled a greeting to them, being the only horse indoors at present.

Sam nodded solemnly as Hugh assured him the family would have it under control. His hand continued to explore the other man's body before Hugh helped haul him up and stole a kiss from his cheek. "Aye, I'm glad to help how I can." With that he followed the other man to the stable, patting the mare on her head.
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:28, Sun 22 May 2022.

Ha'penny dropped her head to be scritched between the ears and blew a warm huff of greeting against Sam's arm. It was gratifying to be so easily trusted by the beast, since Sam had made the effort to befriend her over the months before. When Hugh passed him the curry brushes Sam lost himself for a while in the work and paying attention to the animal, combing her coat shiny and causing the big muscles to relax under his efforts.

So focused and still just a bit tipsy, he scarcely noticed Hugh going back and forth: back to the house to check in, down to the pegs of tack to pluck out the pack saddle that would fit the mare, going back for a blanket. There was a point when Hugh was gone minutes at a time and Sam realised with his guts awoken by the apple that he was fairly famished, but then the older man reappeared with a report of the household's doings, setting down a wind of rope and the cider crates:

"Mrs. Criddle is back, and Janet," Hugh said in passing, then paused briefly whilst measuring out the rope between his hands. "Wonder if Mrs. feels the worse or better for having taken against the Durbin lass now."

Sam chuckled and softly scratched the mare's head, paying attention to the beast as he helped Hugh with the various tasks. He couldn't help but raise a brow at hearing Hugh mention that Mrs. Criddle had taken against Polly.

"Did Mrs. Criddle ever say what she had against Polly? Or did she just dislike her generally?"

"Not directly - the maids have an idea she's of the opinion that Mistress Durbin was in the habit of looking at Master Fox a little too warmly, but well, you've seen him and our Janet here: he'd do anything for her." He watched Sam heft the blanket and pack saddle into place.

"Indeed, she ought to have been Mrs. Fox by now...not that I won't miss 'er, when she's up at the squire's house, but I bet she feels like a bird in a cage, down here still." Hugh came in close to start in with knots that would secure the crates whilst Sam tightened straps, maddeningly not meaning anything by the proximity of his broad shoulders and strong hands, just working.

"No, I can't think that poor Polly Durbin was ever a threat to Mistress Criddle securing the prize, not really. Ah well. Women will have their notions, I suppose. Get the jugs up whilst I fetch out the food, would you?"

Sam nodded solemnly as he listened to Hugh's explanation, helping the other man tie the knots and lift the crates of jugs onto the pack saddle. "While I agree she should have been married... I agree that I don't think Polly was much of a threat to Mistress Criddle 'securing the prize', as you put it."

He let his eyes wander over the other man briefly as he helped tie crates onto the saddle.

"Anything else I can help with before we head out?"

GM edit throughout in response to query: loads are loaded on the pack saddle mentioned earlier.
This message was last edited by the GM at 21:30, Thu 26 May 2022.

Hugh slid across a look rife with scarce-buried amusement as he hefted a sack to the middle of the pack saddle, fetching out a smaller bag from it as he let his hands drop. He handed it to Sam, nodding at the bag whilst he secured the rest of the food.

"You can count the onions, make sure there's one for all and could be extras," he said, just about not smirking. He unfastened Ha'penny's halter and led off, leaving Sam to navigate the task and follow along as best he could manage.

---

The climb up the lane and into the open fields was leisurely, the hedgerows bustling with small birds and scattered with flowers. Sam had been with the party of common works trimming them a month before, and was struck at the froth of white lace from the hawthorns and cow parsley in the late light, and the insects attending them. Back during the trimming they'd been a mass of blank thorn and hostility, and past five would be a dimming of the day.

At length the carts hove in view, loaded up with ditch débris, and the men sat about on the slope of that field-edge, talking and smoking as they awaited supply. Hugh hushed Ha'penny with a hand laid on her nose before she could call out to the other horses. The big animals must have heard her hooves anyway, for both raised their heads in the traces, ears up though their blinkered vision would not yet let them see her. A welcoming whicker sounded over the rustle of the breeze in the hedges and a distant blackbird that kept on <a href=https://www.youtube.com/watch?...>singing</a>;.

Bad Johnny - as poor blushful John Vile was known for no more reason than his surname - had his wife Tildy snuggled to him, seemingly asleep since everyone else raised their hands to wave on following the horses' reaction but none called over. Carl Hooper unfolded his long body with a mind to help if needed. Dan and Peter Arton dropped their arms in curious synchrony with each other and just watched Sam get the gate like one man sat beside a mirror, neither dark-haired brother stirring, and hefty Harry Whiddon returned his attention to corralling his hair back into a presentable queue. Sam's clear state of disrepair got some highly curious glances directed his way by the men.

Sam nodded, smiling to himself as he saw the amusement on Hugh's face. He was glad the other man had taken a liking to him, and not merely in the physical sense.

"Sounds like a plan," he chuckled, helping with the task at hand.

---

Sam noticed the looks of curiosity by the men, and though he didn't show it, he felt himself growing embarrassed at their looks. He would have to try and clean up some after dinner.

"Well then," asked Peter when Sam was close enough, "-what happened to you?"

"Feisty rabbit, was it?" Harry put in.

"Feisty girl?" Dan suggested with a smirk, but piped down at a look from Johnny as Tildy started to stir.

"Our lad Sam's been in the Wyzenwood," Hugh informed them, confounding everyone.

"What? He never."

"Are you mad, Sam? Johnny asked.

"Is he Sam, is the question," Dan put in, not quite lightly enough to be fully a joke.

"Oh, he's Sam all right," Hugh confirmed, "-but what's odd is that Herself up there let him out alive."

"Well, you can't leave the story there," Harry said to a general chorus of agreement from the hands. "Why'd you go in, and how'd you get out?"

"Ay, and what of the witch there?"

Amidst the other field workers' voluble curiousity Sam became aware of being silently looked over for injury by Carl, who added nothing aloud. There was no judgement in his quiet, only concern, as there might be for a favoured horse.

Sam chuckled at the other men's jests, taking a seat between Hugh and Carl. He looked back at Carl with concern, before relaxing and glancing back at the other men. "Aye, Hugh is right - I was in the Wyzenwood. And I'd certainly hope that I'm the same Sam that went in," he teased with a chuckle. With that, Sam explained what all he knew of the Wood and the stag and Polly's fate, asking what, if anything, any of the men knew in terms of stories, and seeing if any had heard anything about a grudge.

[[GM edit: tense fix/grafting in PM info for reference.]]
This message was last edited by the GM at 21:48, Tue 14 June 2022.

Sam's look spooked Carl's gaze away from him to scan the hedgeline, superstitious of bringing down some calamity should he be caught caring about something more than the least amount. Jugs and bread were passed about, and Hugh cut fair slices of cheese whilst the onions were distributed, to save squabbling and be sure of a knife not used in any ditching work. Criddle cider had always been good, and the drinking was easy, though Hugh kept passing Sam bits of bread whenever his hand was empty. The alcohol warmed Sam's blood and sloshed his thoughts around, but instinct bid him eat between telling, and by partway through his tale the food was beginning to make him freel steadier and generally better, as though what he was describing was only a bad dream.

The story of the Wyzenwood brought up that of the stag, and considerable bemused smirks and chuckling from the workers at its uncanny powers. Carl gave Sam the briefest of looks that said he did not in the least believe that Edwin and Sam had been laid out sunbathing, but did not join in the round of questions that followed from the rest.

"O arr, so you're a fertility god now, then?"

"Might want to lay off whoever it is you sneak off with awhile, 'less you're finally going to marry 'er," Dan suggested, an emptied cider jug dangling from his fingers.

"I don't think 'e does sneak off with anyone, he just sneaks," Harry said, gesturing at Sam with an onion. "Eh Sam?"

"Ooo, an' if Herself let you live because she thought you'd fight a deer for Her? Ah, Sam, you might have missed out there."

"What of Master Fox, though? He was off out of their sight longest," Tildy put in, trying to process the strangeness as much as stringing out a joke.

Peter gave the others a knowing look. "Ah, well, then we'd have to see if whatever horrors spawned out of the Wood had Fox red - my grandmother always did say, back in the bad old days what with lord's dibs an' so on, you could tell who was descended from a Fox bastard by the hair. Red don't ought to come out strong, dark runs to dark, but doesn't the Old Squire have that rusty colour, too?"

"Who can tell, under the wig," Harry shrugged.

Johnny tucked a strayed strand of hair back under his wife's bonnet. "Give it a rest, lads, the Young Squire's almost married, and ought to have been besides - Tildy, don't you go'n get this blown into a rumour by the womenfolk, eh love? Don't need to hurt the master's daughter's feelings none."

"Oh, not I. As for gossip and grudges, Mrs. Durbin's going to hang someone for this, I bet, with her tongue if not with any evidence...Lord, she'd begrudge Polly a new cap one day and begrudge her wearing a patched one the next, be it ever so prettily mended; I'd hoped the girl had got a good fellow to flee off with, not...this."

Quiet fell a moment amongst the farmhands. The grass and weed tangles at the field edges waved, backlit like bright glass by the lowering sun wherever hedge-shadows did not touch.

"Warn't a bad girl," Carl said at length, to break the painful hush. There was a general nodding and agreement. Hugh looked distant, tamping down old grief.

"No. No - I asked if she'd consider me, once, before she got so interested in that Bees lad. Turned me down gracefully, she did. Like a real lady."

"Mebbe it was young Jim Stone - what's going on in his 'ead, I can't tell, but he holds grudges. I stole a simnel-cake off him once when we was kids an' told him the Good Folk took it, and he's never trusted me since finding out the lie, half his life ago. Could be he thought she was his best girl, an' then she goes off with Bees of a May Night - or so Sally Ragge says."

"They was friends, though," Harry pointed out.

"Someone lured her close enough to kill her with his hands," Hugh said, "-a friend, a lover, or someone she'd go up to..." he trailed off, shaking his head.

"Are we sure it wasn't a slightly taller woman, disguised?" Tildy said with caution.

Sam felt himself growing flushed as the men's discussion grew more passionate and somber, and Sam simply waited for the chance to speak before explaining.

"First of all, I'm certainly not a god, and if I was one, I certainly doubt he'd choose this for a body," he teased. He took a swig of some more cider before continuing, explaining what had happened to Master Fox, Master Bees, as well as himself with the stag.

"Aye, I agree that someone likely had dragged her in... but who would, and I think more importantly... why?"
This message was last edited by the player at 02:17, Wed 29 June 2022.

The self-depreciation focused the men's attention to a point. Grins appeared, not the least held back by alcohol.

"Aw, Sam, there's nothing wrong with it...what do you want, marble skin and eyes of gold?"

"'Sides, sat 'twixt those two, you're practically Apollo," Dan said, unable to resist taking a shot given the opportunity.

Carl snorted softly, quite aware his scars made him a village example for 'ugly', though the body bearing them was sound enough. If the banter bothered him at all he refused to show it.

"Watch it, you," Hugh mock-threatened.

"Well, it's not the bits on show that matter, is it?" said Tildy, who'd always been lightweight when it came to drink and was quite rosy and bright-eyed on half a jug, her bonnet working its way askew from where she'd been leant against her husband.

"Like that Roman god!" Harry put in amongst snickers, confusing everyone.

"What?"

              "What're ye on about?"

"There was this garden fertility god, right? An' his thing was...well, his thing, an' he'd plonk it out amongst the marrows, so if a thief came and laid 'ands on it-" Harry paused to wait for a gap in Tildy's wheezing laughter, "-well he'd get even bigger an' thwack them out the garden with it. It's a real story, I heard it from a gentleman," he finished a little defensively.

"You never," Dan challenged, rising to it.

"I did. For sure the Doctor could tell you the name of him, too-"

---

At that point Sam thought it best to go over the last interactions in the Wood again and everyone calmed down, save at the question.

---

"Well that's what we were talking about, weren't you listening?"

"He's too holy to drink and listen at once now, we've established that," Peter nudged his brother, smirking.

"She went to meet him, or had some buisness there and was caught - Sam was explaining to me earlier that there was a track that passed up from around our farm," Hugh cut in, making everyone feel that bit more sober. "I think we ought to determine who it was was last up that night, an' if he saw nothing - supposing it's not one of us -" that suggestion brought protestations from most, but Hugh spoke firmly over them, "-then we have somethin' of a time-scale, to work out whenabouts he was passin' and when the girl was killed."

"Providing anyone remembers," Johnny said doubtfully, but put an arm around his wife to start off, "-I know I left all of yez when yez left the inn, for I was off with Tildy."

"All night!" his witness said with great pleasure, causing her husband to become quite pink.

"Noted. I left once you lads were seen safe home. Who next?"


[[Sam, please give me an INT (Know) roll to see how clearly Sam can get the sequence of events down that night. Will he mention his dream?]]

Sam laughed softly as Harry described the "fertility god" and the group continued their banter, taking a drink before beginning to go over everyone's interactions in the wood again. Although he didn't really want to hear about Johnny's escapades with his wife, it at least proved that the two of them were nowhere near the Wood when Polly was killed. He also explained the dream he had had, unsure of why he would have this dream - and who would want Polly dead, and why.

22:34, Today: Samuel Hartman rolled 87 using 1d100.  Int (Know) 75.

Sam's description of his dream brought a sudden hush to the group. The men looked at each other, Tildy looking confused and Hugh just beginning to catch on.

"That's...all of us?" Peter said at length.

"All of us," Harry echoed, holding back an oath. "Don't like that."

No-one really knew what to say about a dream that had seemingly touched all who had fallen asleep after that last drinking session. Hugh cleared his throat.

"All right, so who remembers Sam asleep?"

"I do," Carl said. "An' you brothers an' Master Fox."

"That'd make you last awake, since I remember you an' Dan up, then nothin' else," Harry confirmed, pointing at Carl. The weathered man shrugged.

"I've no witness to say different. Didn't see anyone sneaking about the place and wasn't fit for it myself." He looked at his hands, as did most of the others: long but even in proportions, strong and deft, layers of scars marking the knuckles. "I 'ad no quarrel with her," he said at length, testy with the silence and the fire of strong cider in him.

"No-one did, that's the trouble," Tildy pointed out. "Unless she was took off for witch reasons. We know who's a witch."

"Ah, shush, you don't know she's not flitting about being a bat to hear you," Bad Johnny hushed her, not really serious but anxious all the same.

"That 'witch' is a midwife," Harry pointed out.

"So what? Oh...oh." Dan came to the mildly drink-fuddled realisation a second behind the rest: if Polly had been seeing the midwife as a midwife, rather than for nefarious purposes or the commonplaces of things too delicate or too trivial for the Doctor, then she might have been expecting a baby.

"An' if Long Tom didn't much like bein' a father..."

"That's a hard thing to say of a dead girl," Johnny cut in, almost angry that it could be thought.

"Somethin changed, though, didn't it? The Wood's gone out of its bounds an' we've awful trouble coming - you mind on what Sam said old Westcott was on about, that the Druids wouldn't give Her but virgins for fear of stirrin Her up," Peter went on, warming to the theory.

"Don't mean some man wasn't doing something wicked to her, either," Tildy said darkly.

"Surely she'd not keep it, if that." Harry winced with the thought. Carl had gone very silent and withdrawn, tracking the conversation like a statue that happened to be nearby with ears to fill.

"Could be bad luck," Hugh said, not much wanting to speculate, "-though she did go out there to him. The lover? Or blackmail."

Dan gave a rather nasty laugh. "Oh arr, a black male would make a bastard you wouldn't miss, never mind Fox red or tall as Bees."

"Nancy'd kill him before he got to betray her twice," Tildy pointed out of their darkest villager. Hugh handed Sam another onion so as not to think about that one.

"There's the son," Pete pointed out.

"What, Georgie?"

"No, idiot, Stephen. He's man enough, voice full-broken last summer and all."

"Gentle lad, though."

"Everyone's gentler than 'murder', 'til they ain't," Tildy said. Carl got up to wander over to the horses a moment, his body tense. Everyone glanced up but none stopped him. A lark flew overhead, skimming up into the field towards a remnant tree.

"All right, what about you, Sam? You keep asking on who we think did for her - what's your theory?" Dan said when that pause was past.

Sam frowned as he heard the men's explanations grow darker, whether the witch or an unwanted child, or worse. He took a swig of his drink as the men explained their thoughts on what had truly happened.

"Truth be told... I'm not sure," Sam said with a soft, solemn sigh. "If I had to guess... I'm not sure who or what took her into the Wood, but I think that it was that poison in the wood that did her in."

ooc: sam would have explained the poison as well.

"Ay, well then, an' what about the rope? If it was to hold her 'til the devil come for her, surely the witch needn't have hauled her up so high."

"It's odd, for sure," Hugh stated, but couldn't articulate further than that, lapsing to a troubled quiet.

Sam frowned as Dan brought up the discussion of the rope. Of course it hadn't seemed to fit in, and it just seemed so out-of-place for the rope to be there.

"I... I'm not sure why the rope would be there. Unless... Unless she died by hanging. But if she did die by hanging, why the Wood?"

"Sacrifice-"

                    "-make it look like a suicide," Peter and Tildy nearly spoke over each other and exchanged glances.

"...y'don't make a sacrifice and then not claim the reward," Harry pointed out.

"Maybe the witch did wish for animals, an' for people to go on in the Wood," Dan suggested, not really registering that that would catch Sam up in whatever the mistress of the Wyzenwood had planned.

"Well, ye don't go in that Wood to fake a suicide, not if y'know and believes the truth," Tildy countered, reeling back a bit where she sat.

"Him as strangled her might've not believed so hard, or else 'e thought folk'd hesitate to go in if they even searched so close. It'd give the noose time to cut into any marks he'd left, such as might otherwise match to his fingers," Hugh put in with slow deliberation. "Then She comes, or sends one of Her creatures, and thinks it a pretty prize, takes our girl to put on the pile with the rest of the things She's got. Carpets of bone, y'said."

"Somethin changed, though, when the lads went in the Wood," Dan pointed out.

"Mmm. 'Less it was Bees, or for some other reason entirely, I haven't a theory for that," Hugh admitted.

"We're in for some bad thing," Peter said, with a little too much relish in the doomsaying.

Hugh nodded slowly, the westering light golden on his face. "With Her awake, we could be, at that."