The men neither reacted to her hail nor gave any sign they might respond, continuing to stand in a rough line as they were. Though it seemed impolite to stare, Maggie was uncertain if their eyes were even open, their expressions hard to parse.

Cautiously, Maggie approaches the figures. At five paces distance, she repeats her hail. When that draws no response, she picks up a small rock and throws it at the nearest. When that gets no reaction, she goes up to just out of arm's reach and studies them carefully.

Are they breathing? Do they seem alive or mere effigies?

Margaret Yendale rolled 30 for Spot Hidden 25.

The strangers were definitely alive, or at least they breathed slowly in and out like men long asleep and made all the miniscule adjustments of poise due for a living body standing on its feet. Eyelids flickered over the all-white quarter of eyes to be seen, not regular enough to be considered blinking yet surely fulfilling that function. They did not react to Maggie in arm's reach any more than they had when she had been further away.

All looked to be normal Somerset folk: a toss of Angle, Welsh and Danish blood with whatever might trickle in from ports and maybe Roman legions, all swirled around and long settled into the hollows holding a handful of villages that might mingle at fairs. All had neglected to shave for at least a couple of days, though the effects were variable. The tallest neared Maggie's height and had some of that horsey Cornish look to him and bad scarring near the jaw from what had likely been a childhood bout of smallpox. The youngest one stood in the middle, somewhere around Maggie's age and possibly a sailor, half his dark hair pulled loose from its queue. The stranger Maggie had pinged with a rock looked to be in his sixties and have lost his wig, though his hands and face spoke of a working life. His greyed and receeding hair was cropped close with a texture Maggie had rarely seen before, like thick velvet, and traces of a beard showed darkest in his cheeks.

Close to, the strangers' clothing was tattered as though they'd walked heedless through bush and briar. The Tall Man had a coat, but the other two had lost theirs and the Young Man's waistcoat hung open on one remaining button. The Old Man had a considerably better cravat that the others' neckerchiefs, but no ruffles and no watch. Their lower limbs were in a similar state to their clothing, thick scabbed scratches like the cabled fungus that loved to live under the bark of old logs stretching down forearms and calves.

Maggie noticed a stark blot on the front of the Tall Man, near-black and not at all the right colour for blood, but bending to look from various angles it didn't seem that there was any wound beneath, even though a worse blot marked his back. The man breathed clear untroubled breaths like anyone peacefully at home in bed, the dappled sunlight just touching his hair. Neither of the others seemed to have suffered any serious injury.

They smelled like men who had stumbled alive through a bog, and continued to ignore her, or sleep, or wait, whatever it was they were doing here out in the middle of nowhere.

Maggie takes a deep breath, considering. After a few moments, she gives herself a little nod and finds two stout sticks. Binding them together at their crossed midpoints, she slips them between the tall man's ankles, to trip him up if he starts forward.

She begins opening the tall man's clothing to expose his torso and see what that black blot is about.

Bending to place her makeshift hobble, Maggie noted that the leaf litter under the men's feet seemed damper, more decayed than the surroundings, as though their weight had rested there far longer than any other signs might credit. The drumming of a woodpecker sounded out among the trees.

The Tall Man's skin was warm as anyone's, his chest hairs sturdy though not crowded. Once Maggie had his shirt unlaced as far as it would go, a little tugging confirmed childhood smallpox through the stretched scars of blisters and at length a new-healed treelike knot of scar tissue under the blot that marked the cloth. The unnatural circularity of the injury suggested a pistol shot, though the heart below still palpably beat.

His pulse stayed steady under her fingers. Contact with the stranger's skin gradually brought a gentle tingling of false warmth through Maggie's hands, as at the touch of a long-anticipated lover. It was hard not to fall into the rhythm of his breathing - their breathing, almost, since all three strangers seemed very nearly aligned at every inhalation. The Tall Man reacted to the liberties taken with his person not at all, lips very slightly parted, breathing.

Maggie pulls the man’s shirt back into place though she doesn’t bother with the laces. She takes several steps backward, looking from serene face to serene face to serene face. She shudders.

She looks up at the sun to get her bearings and gauge the time of day. She turns and runs for Scorch Norton as fast as she can, hiking her skirts to her hips, her long legs flashing.

She wants the doctor and the preacher to see this. And Mercy Westcott. The doctor’s man Polzeath, too.

As she reaches the houses, she drops her skirts back modestly in place and tries to still her panting breath.

Doctor first.

It was a long run and sprint and scramble, leaving Maggie feeling woozy and on the verge of nausea by the time she let go of her skirts and stumbled to a heaving halt on the green. Some thick gulps of air later, she managed to make it across to the Doctor's house to thump on the door.

There was a distant scrambling within and Polzeath quickly opened it, alarmed at the urgency and then still more at the state of Maggie, shoeless and bareheaded and brightly flushed. He blinked at her and offered a hand at once, standing aside to lead her in as though her vision might be blurry. His accent came in thick with concern, as it tended to with excitement in general:

"Come in by ere and set, Miztress Yendale, please. Doctor's not back yet but I'm zure he'll not be long. Can I fetch aught out fur what ails ye?"

Maggie stumbles over to the bench Polzeath indicated and sat heavily, fairly gasping for breath. "... ... Thank'ee...Polzeath..." she gets out, "Doctor.. Where's Doctor?"

Polzeath fairly leapt to fetch Maggie a dampened teatowel for her brow. "I'm not zure - Widow Sawyer said 'e was consulting on zom matter at church, an' he only came by zince t'pick up his bag and say as we needn't put up lunch for him. Belike he's called out zomewhere, but it's been that long he can't be much longer, not goen on foot."

The deeply ill-favoured valet continued to fret. "Is somethen badly wrong with ye? Or is there someone fallen off a height, or..." he slowed, surely thinking of the bag-headed lurker from yesterday, "...had somethen come to 'em?"

"'Tis not medical knowledge I'm seekin'. Well, not strictly so. It's t'do with this strangeness of late." Maggie tells Polzeath about the three uncanny strangers standing dazed in the woods and the mark on the one.

"So, I'm needin' t'find Doctor an' Preacher an' Mercy Westcott an' lead 'em to th' spot afore nightfall. I reckon."

Polzeath had sat on the stairs to bear Maggie company on the shoeing bench, listening with barely reduced concern. Normal sounds of a springtide Sunday drift in from outside: the wind in new leaves, the competition of pigeons, sharp jeck! of jackdaws and the conversations of geese.

"Don't like that," Polzeath concludes. "I think such as that would be a matter more for the Vicar, whether it's your Wood-lady that's amazed 'em or the...well, the Dark Man. Don't like that you've touched one, either...stay ye by there an' I'll boil up water with herb vinegar, and don't sniff your hands in the meanwhile, Miztress Yendale, please."

He pauses at the doorway. "Would y'like tea, whilst I'm boilen and you're waiting?"

"Could do with tea, aye Polzeath. and thank for the washing up, too."

While the man busies himself in the kitchen, Maggie looks out the door at the fine weather. She tries to remember but doesn’t think she touched her race since finding the three strangers, nor sniffed nor licked her fingers.

Nothing much seems to be going on outside, the geese wandering the green and the road quiet, not even a hare to be seen. Nonetheless, something feels faintly 'off', indistinguishable in the background like something half-heard or amiss but unrealised in plain sight.

"Would y'have milk or sugar, Miztress Yendale?" Polzeath asks from the kitchen, Maggie's response resulting in a quiet clatter of vessels and strainer.

He brings the tea as she likes it through in a sturdy but charmingly leaf-etched earthenware mug that likely saw more use for beer to cool beside her, then goes back for the basin. The smell of herbed vinegar pervades the air as soon as he's within three paces.

Polzeath stops and looks for a cue as how to proceed, another teatowel over one arm and a small round tin under the other, holding the basin. He has an anxious aspect, though not for himself: rather as though the huge damsel were a doe - red, not fallow - that had stumbled in and might thrash herself to pieces indoors if set up. "Shall I, ah...put this on the floor by 'ere, or hand it to you, or...?"

Maggie sets her tea aside to take the basin in her lap. She dips the cloth into the scented water and wipes around her mouth and nose, then immerses her hands for a moment before rubbing them briskly and drying them with the end of the towel

She feels a bit self-conscious washing in front of the man, but does it with as much aplomb as she can manage. She lifts the basin for him to take away and thanks him. She takes up her tea and finishes it as he disposes of the water. When he returns, she is standing by the door. She eyes the lack of tin box, but doesn't pry into what it might contain.

"Now, let us make some haste about locating the Doctor and Mercy, and the Parson, an he be handy. Then let us be off."

[[GM edit: tense fix.]]
This message was last edited by the GM at 11:21, Wed 02 Nov 2022.

Polzeath had quietly reminded her of the need to wash her feet, those being in contact with the same ground, but set to giving the floor she'd paced over a quick scrub whilst she did so. If he did glance over once or twice, it was only to see how she might've progressed, and if there was a little lustless admiration there, perhaps it might be forgiven.

"I...zuppose ye'd be most like to find Goodwife Westcott, or leastwise her house is nearest and might be we'd find the Doctor coming back..." Polzeath allows, resigning himself to this devil-haunted expedition. He gets his hat and gestures that Maggie might step out, with himself at heel directly.

Refreshed by tea and a wash up, Maggie sets out for Mercy’s cottage at a brisk pace.

Maggie hastens to Goodie Westcott's, Polzeath keeping up with likely a little more effort than he showed, if not much. The pair enter the front garden to find Mary Whitlock halfway to hysterics, the midwife holding her hands as though to keep her tethered to the spot.

"Maggie!" she calls on seeing the tall woman, "You'n Polzeath come help her breathe enough to focus, I need to fetch my water switch an' we may have to make a run up near the Wood!"

Polzeath starts forward at once, causing Mary to look up, eyes bright with the threat of tears. Guilt and terror well in her expression, at least until the valet's peculiar touch causes her to flinch in distraction and look at him as he takes custody of her left hand. "I-I can't think...no words, worry...wasn't..wasn't fast enough...it took the baby..!"

[[edit: tense, good grief.]]
This message was last edited by the GM at 16:39, Fri 04 Nov 2022.

Maggie steps up and envelopes the young woman in a gentle hug, leaving her hand in Polzeath's orasp.

"There now, Mary, there there. Calm yer mind an' breathe with me. Innn...ouut...innn...ouut..." The big lass matches her own breaths to her count and rocks slightly, as she used to calm Robin when he was a wee lad, as she soothes her own babe. A tear comes to her eye and trickles down her cheek.

Mary gives a quiet whimper and can't seem to help but hold her breath awhile. After some long-seeming seconds of being held to the bigger woman she eventually relaxes enough to consciously hold Maggie back and let her breathing follow the prompting rise and fall of Maggie's ribs.

"...hnnggh...I could...I could picture losing one of them to a fever, or the small pox, after doin' my best to save them...it's not supposed to happen like this..._{not like this.."}

Goodie Westcott returns with a seeming tangle of herbs and sticks. Wordlessly she crouches near the women, shoves a large nail into the packed ground of the path and scrabbles the bundled rosemary, sage and rue into a rough circle around it before getting out her penknife. "Mary, some blood from your ringfinger. Ye others, come kneel about if you're helpen."

Polzeath baulks somewhat. "It seems..."

"Then sit out or away with ye, but don't droot about the work!"

The valet hesitates, looking to the others present. Rooks caw their own messages to each other somewhere afar.


[[edit: Polzeath disrupting the space-time continuum again.]]
This message was last edited by the player at 00:03, Mon 07 Nov 2022.

Maggie releases Mary with a pat and a smile. She kneels where Marcy points. Giving Polzeath a sympathetic look, she says, "Go on, man. Find Doctor, Parson if ye can, and  bring them here. Can ye do that?"

"Well I don't know where they've gone to, Miztress Yendale, but I s'poze I can try..." Polzeath says, backing off. He starts to run at the last few steps to the gate, crashing though the motions of opening and closing it with more than usual awkwardness and hastening off on his new mission, one way or another.

Mary has smeared blood across the nailhead by the time Maggie's folded down in place; Goodie Westcott balances a dowsing stick atop it and takes Mary's new-cut hand, reaching out to take Maggie's with the other. The midwife nods to Mary to complete the triangle.

"All right, Mary, y'be the source here: think on the child an' your link of blood, the shape of 'er an' weight on the world. Maggie, just think of Isabel Whitlock an' if there's thoughts come to you, let them pass through and on and round again. Hum if y'need the focus but don't let go 'til I says, all right?"


[[POW roll if following instructions, please.]]

Maggie does as she's bidden, or tries to, humming the song of Trugerd's dance.

But her mind keeps picking at her reason for coming to Mercy. She hums louder.

Margaret Yendale rolled 58 for POW 50.

Goodie Westcott twitches a frown at some strange feel within their circuit. Maggie feels Trugred hook its skull face over her shoulder to nuzzle her cheek in an intimate horse greeting of polished bone, willing to help, so summoned, if Maggie might lean back onto and into it. It quivers, ready for her, and the forked rod on the nail quivers also, perhaps beginning a slow compass swing.

Maggie holds tight to the hands on either side of her, resisting the impulse to reach up and stroke that smooth bone-face. She leans into the horse-that-was, giving herself up to her totem, her spirit-animal, though she knows neither of those terms.

The spirit creature surges forward to meet her from whatever place it generally exists. The mounting happens smooth as falling, yet with a visceral shock that thumps through her somewhere and nowhere: Maggie has some dim impression of a change in power around the ring of women and her hands pulled hard and then she is not there any more.

She is descending from the top loft of the inn's stables, and she is - with/in, commanding/covered by, entirely and not - Trugred, and her loins are girded but at the same time just the rough-furred tops of legs that clop - clop - down the ladder on cloven hooves, steady as human feet, and they raise their skull head to shake away all uncertainty. Their body sings with power, using their energy and flesh in new ways to be this more-than-whole, knowing more and thinking less than the human ever did, more focused than the bridled chaos of the horse-thing. The costume's bells were left in the box, a dim memory of fingered fumbling with fabric and mortal things, and yet with every step they go glingling.

Kit Meaker hurries up as they leap down amongst the horses, drawn by the hubbub and squealing exclamations from the beasts. His eyes go completely wide in startled horror and confusion as they turn and stand a moment, horse-high and untethered, and then in three steps they are right at him, in two more, leaping over him. The six-foot jump is as easy as dream flying. They run on, run out, the horses' cries fading behind.

They whip up the road like a whisper bourne down the wind, faster than witches, faster than the hares that try to match their pace and fall behind. Their heart thumps hard but with a steady rapidity, the heat and constant drumming providing a border to themself and this state of near-holy ecstacy that is at once simply profane animal joy. They are, and they are with and in the world, immortal and more healthy and alive than anything surely has a right to be, and Trugred has to leap and jink sideways in whatever field they're in, just for the glee of it.

They had - have - a purpose, however. Maggie/Trugred turn their cloth ears and snort, and then they're off again, uphill with the pushing power of the beast that draws the plough, up beside the Wyzenwood and along the crest of the hill. They leap a wall, scattering cattle, and charge through to a point where a gate can be jumped and the slope followed, mud skidding, to a moment's standstill. Something that pretends to be a man and smells - even at this distance - of the Wood has just burst through the hedge at the bottom of the disputed strip of soggy field, clutching a pale bundle that wails, and one tall and one very tall human sprint after.


[[Trugred/Maggie, if you could take yourself over to 8e, please.]]