Ernst shakes his head but knows better than to argue with the lords. "Very well." He arranges for one of the houndsmen to go get someone that know Jehanne and sure enough, he brings back the young lad from earlier. The boy looks like he might soil himself but does his best to keep upright.

The cocksure knight is confident he can guide his mount well enough through the tress as long as the terrain isn't much worse than it is in the vicinity of the castle. If the forest is any hillier further in there might be trouble though as no amount of skill will make the warhorse a mountain goat or grant it the goats ability to manage steep ravines.

"How do you want to do this then, Chevaliers?" The hunter asks Johann and Quintillian as everything seems set.

Confident that it's unlikely Etienne will get mired in the undergrowth or fall off any precipice they wouldn't have to work around anyway - none of the men being chamois themselves - Ernst's skepticism largely bounces off Quin, who gestures vaguely at the forest. "See if you can pick up any sort of track in there that might be our girl, and if so, houndsmen, you have leave to give your animals their head along the scent and manage them as you see fit: we shall follow after. If it seems we might be coming to a hiding-place or the girl flushes out...keep them hard by and we shall call out for her, fanning out the better to prevent escape and any agitation of the dogs. I aim to bring the child back in one piece, God willing."

He throws a grin to Johann. "I have provisioned us with a pie and the sinful fruit-" he indicates Etienne in explanation of his refusal to say 'apples', especially at the time of year for being careful with what cellar-stored fruit remained, "-by means of a kitchen aquaintance, should we be out late. I think I shall ride, for this is much like my father's country - will you go horsed also?"

"As for thee," - this last to their borrowed peasant with a sharp fixing of attention from above like a pupil drawn to a point in an amber eye - "Tell us as we go about this Jehanne of the Laundry - her stature, her clothes, whether she is like to sit quiet and hide or run if she feels pursued...anything that might deliver her to us with but little fear and trouble. If she had reasons for her deed, the Seigneuresse will hear them."

"I vill, for as long as possible, at least."

Ernst nods and leads the chivaliers and their charge a short distance into the underbrush. "I looked around while you talked. Already found some tracks that should be the girls," he grunts and points to the ground at something that might be called footprints but who knows? He leans down and lets a fat finger trace the outline of something invisible on the leaf-covered dirt. "See here? Clogs. Size matches a small girl or child"

The boy, called Guillame as it turns out, does not have a lot to tell you about Jehanne but he obeys dutifully as told and calls out for her as you go. What you do gather is that she is a young girl, short for her age, brownish hair and the simple woolen cotte and linen wimpel a peasant of her stature would wear.

Quin motions the houndsmen on along the miscreant child's track. He listens to their little informant as they go, trying to tease such information as the colour of their quarry's clothing and anything of the girl's temperment or anything recently bothering her out in conversation. The borrowed peasant is at least spared most of Quin's enthusiastic and somewhat terrifying focus, since he's mostly paying heed to the trails and not riding into the midst of any thicket that would have to be forced out of.

The terrain is easy enough to traverse the first lieue but is becoming increasingly difficult to navigate, especially for the large horses. The trees are not too bad but underbrush and thick layers of fir needles are covering the uneven ground making it necessary to tread carefully or risk a stumble.

The hunter and the houndsmen seem to be doing well and keeps a steady gait, focusing on the task at hand, dogs nosing the ground as they go. Whatever traces the trackers are following turns south, leading further into the forest and towards the more mountainous areas to the southeast.

Guillame manages to croak something about undyed wool but honestly seem to not have noticed much in the way of details.

Eventually Ernst grunt that they are nearing the trail towards Montgreruier.

"Keep on as you are," Quin reassures the trackers on their task, watching that Guillaume doesn't vanish under a thorn bush or the like. Whilst the pine roots run thick and twisted here, he trusts Etienne to watch his hooves at least as much as the horse trusts him to watch on high.

"It would be as well for us all if she'd used the trail, but there's no telling that she even knows of it," he remarks to his fellow knight, briefly looking into the trees to be sure the distant flitting of a jay was only casual motion. Such a noisy bird would likely have yelled about other humans long before, but the dim suspicion of some fell influence abroad puts faint shadows behind every certainty.

Johann just nods and gestures vaguely. This search is even more frustrating than he expected it to be, and he did expect it to be so. Were it not for the hounds, he would have already abandoned all hope of finding the girl this way...

The huntsmans prediction proves right as the small hunting party come upon a small road -barely more than a couple of wagon tracks- after an hour or so of slow riding. It is narrow but much easier on the horses than the uneven underbrush of the woods. Ernst grunts and motions for the knights to follow as he starts southward on the path, hounds leading the way. After another hour the path forks, the larger leading south towards Montgreruier and a smaller leading east towards Roquefixade. The hounds insist on turning straight east.

Ernst looks up at the darkening spring sky, sun casting long shadows on the mat of stone and thyme by the road. "The sun will set soon. If we turn back the road goes back to Saint Volusien, we should be able to get back before sunset. If we keep going the sun will have already set when we get to Roquefixade."

"Finding this fugitive child before she tries to go to ground in the wild at night was the idea," Quin muses, looking down the road ahead "-I'd sooner press on, though if yourself or the good von Fulda wish to turn back and carry the news to the Lady Trencavel and the borrowed boy to...wherever it is he goes, you have more than my leave to do so."

He nods at the dappled roadway. "If she's following the road and has got as far as Roquefixade, someone will have seen her enter, and if she's turned off to some other place it's unlikely we'll ever know after tomorrow's dew...or after whatever wild beast finds her trying to shelter off the track. I can vouch for anyone that comes in with me to Roquefixade should we have to pass the night as far off as that."
This message was last edited by the player at 23:41, Sun 27 Aug 2023.

The allemanian knight offers to take word to the lady that the girl seems to be heading for Roguefixade. "You go ahead and find her," he says and turns his steed around, starting back for Saint Volusien.

"Fare well and God go with you," Quin says simply, motioning that perhaps Ernst should accompany the knight in unfamiliar territory before shifting his weight to move on. It's a few long horse strides before he notes that the peasant they'd borrowed seems to have hesitated too long to join the foreign knight and is following at his heel. He frowns briefly, then gets out an apple with minimal rummaging.

"Wouldst have one of these?"

[[Asked the great arbitrary plot decider if I had the peasant:
17:31, Today: Quintillian de Serignac got the result "You may rely on it" on the magic 8-ball.]]

The boy, having looked longingly after Johann and Ernst shifts his nervous gaze to Quin. His hands tremble slightly and he glances around nervously as if expecting some hidden consequence for accepting such an offer. With a hesitant nod Guillame eventually accepts the apple, fingers trembling as he takes it from Quin's hand. He avoids making direct eye contact, posture still tense with unease. He mumbles a quiet "Thank ye, seigneur" and clutches the apple to his chest.

A little bit ahead the houndsmen await command, hounds clearly indicating the small, overgrown path towards Roquefixade.

Quin studies the boy with a hawkish headtilt, not understanding why a fair gift enough should give cause for cringing. Things were so different here around the strongholds of great houses and the bones of saints.

He looks ahead as memory throws up the rememberance of the last time his brother came home before leaving for the Holy Land: an arrival heralded by Old Marie running up flailing her stick to fetch everyone in the village, forgetting she could ride on the donkey that trotted behind her. (The way the people closed about the Hospitallier riding in front to question and poke and even beg like a whole-village embrace. Being let through only as he was noticed with no pause from the crowd. Hugging his brother.)

Quin shakes out of it, shifting his weight and giving a light kick to Etienne to break his horse out of any seedling thoughts of apple theft and speed the big gray's pace. "No need to wait, we're able to keep pace," he tells the men ahead, quietly plotting to haul their lingering peasant aboard his horse if the boy should show signs of faltering or weariness. "The sooner the child is found, the sooner we rest."

The horse's hooves clatter intermittently on the uneven, stone-strewn road beneath. The path stretches before you, narrow and overgrown, with thickets and brambles encroaching from the edges. As the day fades into twilight, the shadows lengthen, casting eerie shapes upon the trees that line the path. The scent of earth and wildflowers mingles in the air as you draw close to castle Roquefixade.

Guillaume tries to keep up and does a well enough job of it. After a while he even takes a bite of the apple. "I... I have never been this far from home, ser," he pipes up behind the rump of Quins horse. "Me mam vill miss me soon, I think."

There's a deceptively relaxed air to Quin's stance in the saddle, though in truth he's been keenly watching the hounds for any sign they're about to veer off. Etienne breasts the shrubbery with absoloute ease and does not shy at shadows, even if the great Percheron keeps his nostrils flared for beasts abroad and passing close.

The knight raises his head a little at the commentary from somewhere behind and below, not turning from his vigil ahead to pin the boy under his attention this time. "Hopefully someone at the chantier will have informed her that thou wert brought away on the Lady's buisness."

Quin considers, and gives their comandeered peasant boy a greater share of his thoughts: "Fear not, thou'rt safe enough at my heel, and if it should chance that we must spend the night within the lord of Roquefixade's domain, as it looks like well we might, I'll make sure not to lose thee." He looks at the brothers ahead: huntsmen, servants happy enough with a stable bed and curious rough company, but perhaps not men well content to have a nervy child added to their list of things to see after, given a possible prisoner and dogs.

"...Stay by me in such a case: if any question it I will call thee my page." Etienne finds another good firm footing, and another, before Quin offers over a question in willingness to talk: "What is thy mother's trade?"

"She's doing laundry fer the lady," the boy answers distractedly, casting worried glances at any shadow that moves.

The hounds do not lead you astray and it is not long until you finally see the small castle of Roquefixade perched atop a cliff. As you ascend, the distant silhouette of the castle grows larger and more imposing. The cliff's edge offers a good view of the landscape surrounded with tall hills and dense forests with the village further down the vale. The road gradually winds its way upward and you can now make out the details of the castle more clearly: crenellated battlements, weathered stone walls, and a towering keep that stands as a sentinel against the sky.

A fallbridge across a short chasm leads into the castle. Two guards leans lazily on their spears as you approach.

Intent on the hunt as he is, Quin is not immune to the beauty of the cleared approach, Etienne's hair and mane gently glowing with the strange luminosity of pale things at twilight as they walk the narrow road between real stars above and the pinprick flames of open windows and shepherds' camps below. It's too early for biting flies to be abroad, and the air is fine and clear and sweet.

"Hold hounds," he tells his houndsmen, and lets Etienne amble up to the men on watch, great hooves sending echoes into the deep under the bridge. He lets the men see the glitter of his mail and the red hawk always falling on his tabard before shifting his weight to stop.

"Greetings, men of Roquefixade. A small girl has come this way, in undyed wool and possibly caught about with twigs and forest débris - could you inform us of where she is lodged, and send word to your lord that Quintillian de Sérignac stands before his hold?"


[[so...since Msgnr. de Roquefixade either doesn't know or just doesn't like PMs, has Quin met him personally? A fugitive has apparently killed a strategically-important person and run straight to his house, so...]]

The guards exhange glances and one of them, a large man with a thick moustache, speaks up. "Very well, seigneur." He nods to the other man who turns and hurries off through the gate into the courtyard. "A girl matching that description is indeed here. She seemed distressed, looking for her aunt. What's your business with her, if one might ask?" The man seems if not suspicious then at least apprehensive.

"She killed a man at the site of my lady's new fortifications," Quin states simply. "Fearing that she might fall prey to forest beasts before we gained some explanation of her conduct, I asked leave to track her with hounds." He nods at the beasts by way of indicating that the handlers might come up with him, not feeling the necessity to say and so came to your master's door, that being evident enough and edging close to the shadow of an accusation.

The guard listens intently to Quin's explanation and then nods thoughtfully as the severity of the situation dawns on him. After a brief pause he turns to the other guard. "Show Seigneur de Serignac to the great hall. Then tell Lord Roquefixade," he instructs. He opens the large oak gates to let Quin inside. "Your retinue can wait in the stables," he says before closing the gates behind them.

The smaller guard leads the way into the cobbled castle courtyard. The hounds follow their handlers obediently and Guillame trails silently behind.

Quin dismounts beside the stables and rummages for provisions whilst his host's grooms sort themselves out: the brother houndsmen get the half-pie to stave off hunger, and the knight quickly halves an apple for Etienne to more or less inhale before there's some indication the household is ready to receive him. Guilliame, still lagging, gets a questioning look, but Quin doesn't force the boy to stay at heel as suggested if he'd rather take his chances with the Roquefixade servants.

The young knight lets himself be led within the living quarters much like his steed into the stables, unafraid but curious. Although it was said many here were of the Cathar faith and this was an extremely high place, he's fairly sure those people are not given to separating body from immortal soul by means mostly of (insubstantial) air and partly - importantly, in the end - of ground.
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 21:19, Fri 22 Sept 2023.

Guillame doesn't seem to know what to do but chooses to stay at Quins side. The houndsmen nods gratefully and says their thanks before taking off towards the kennels to see to their dogs. The guard leads the duo into the small keep through double doors that lead straight into the great hall. It has whitewashed walls, unusually tall windows and and is decorated with tapestries around the entire hall. A couple of braziers are lit along the exterior wall and there's a large table in the middle of the room.

"Wait here," the guard says and leaves through a side door.

Quin wanders and inspects the tapestries whilst waiting, glad of their felted winter backing that keeps the braziers' heat from being sucked away into the stone. Indeed, after some time standing indoors after the cool of the spring evening he takes off, folds and hands his cloak over to Guilliame, saying softly: "Keep thyself near the wall and quiet when the Lord Roquefixade enters and fear not, all shall be well."