Guy smiled at William. "Chaos comes with you, but I doubt you are the cause! Yes, you are most welcome to join us on our little expedition, and I assure you i am keen to hear your travels on the ride. Yes, I have a spare mount, and it would be good to have her shod and let her rest here, indeed that may be preferable as we don't want our mounts fighting over her.

"If you would excuse me, good gentles, I have much to arrange for tomorrow."

"If your cousin has no place made ready for him with you, Madam Knifesmith, I am willing to share the meat, bread and bedding allotted to me," Quin offers, shifting to let Guy make his way past her if he can. William can see there's no slight or innuendo to the offer: despite the sword, mail and some heavy stallion apparently nearby, this fair-headed knight is as willing to share a meal and wedge in beside a stranger to sleep as any shepherd's son.

"I'm honored to join you, lord, and thank you for recieving me here," William says to Guy, then turning to leave him to his business alongside Quintillian. Glad they're such hearty, generous folk. I had quite expected them to be as solemn and dour as the few Frankish nobles I've encountered, he thinks. "Glad to make your acquaintance, and a generous offer. Thank you, as soon as I'm able I'll return the hospitality tenfold. Anyway, what has brought you to this place?" he finishes, asking Quin.

"I am of the Lady Trencavel's household, but tonight followed hounds here on the trail of a fugitive," Quin replies, aiming to lead or be led on to somewhere he can lay Guilliame down for the night as he talks. "It seems when she got here the young maiden knew nothing of what she had done, only that she must run to save her life, and was otherwise acting as though she had been set under influence or amazed."

"My lord of Roquefixade seeks to know if there are drugs that can be given to such effect, or if the influence must be directly infernal...I do not disbelieve the former but fear the latter, and asked that her door be watched lest some innocent-seeming thing come to it and renew the influence to harm those here or herself." William may get the impression there's a lot Quintillian is itching to ask, but his new companion contents himself with "-do the peasants have some charm they hold effective against such, in your country?"

"Well, usually just the sword or a rope from a high limb," William answers, only partly in jest. "I have heard toad venom from the marshlands of Contentin is effective at curing such mania, but also of bringing it about... but such are probably just the ramblings of mad priests and superstitious dullards," he says as he follows Quin in his search for a place to lay the sleeping lad.

"I don't know that it would feel honourable to fight a toad, but you make a good point," Quin agrees, seeming cheered by the thought even if it's slightly muddled. "Cutting enemies into smaller chunks of enemies does generally make the problems of their machinations easier to deal with."

He makes for the hall, where hopefully there is meat and bread laid out and a candle to supplement the lazy light of moon and braziers, a pallet for the lad and a place, at length, to sleep.

You wake up on saturday on the 7th of april in the year of our lord 1190.

---

Beds and pallets are arranged for the men and boy and Normina sees to the guarding of the young amnesiac from Saint Volusien. Sleep come easier to some than others but eventually the sun breaks through the darkness and lights up the castle and the valley below. The people of the castle have already, of course, been up for far longer than the lazy sun and started fires, cooked and seen to the other chores that never seem to end.

Guy, Quintillian and William is sitting down for breakfast as a blond, plump woman of about 30 years enters the door into the great hall. She hesitates by the door but eventually comes forward a little, curtsies and waits for the lord of the castle to acknowledge her.
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:09, Wed 04 Oct 2023.

Guy rose from his seat and walked briskly forward ro greet the newcomer. "Good morning!" He said with a friendly smile.

Quin interrupts the act of sitting to bow to the newcomer, unabashed though he's only in his cloak wrapped in a broad sweep over a shirt half-tucked into riding breeches and under-mail hose. He settles himself and takes the opportunity of the distraction to quietly reach out and wave a piece of buttered bread at Guilliaume in silent encouragement for the boy to take it before anyone notices.

William sits, thanking the servers, and eyes the just-entered woman as Guy approaches and greets her. He feels a bit off without his clothes, a simple tunic belonging to a servant or some commoner loaned to him by Normina taking their place for now while she sees to it someone would wash the dust from the road off of them. Nonetheless, he begins to enjoy his meal and tries to avoid eavesdropping so as to not seem rude.

"So, Quin," he starts, with a mouthful of food, "has word reached here yet that Richard of England raises an army to set out for the Holy Land?"

Quin takes a moment to recall that the Dutchess of Aquitaine's son owns England and might use that name, and reaches to feed himself whilst answering: "The news runs but little ahead of you, but such tidings carry with the Templars and with the shepherds coming up from Spain...I hope he will prove a great help to them, they say Outremer is now but a handful of land."

He pauses to tear off a hunk of sausage and bread with his teeth, giving a soft snort of amusement to himself and a moment later hastening to explain, realising the context: "Sorry - my brother Bastiou rides with the Knights of the Hospital, I was thinking 'they have few castles left', but where Bastiou is, it's fortified," he tries to explain the pun, passing with a quick frown to an observation: "Your Occitan is not at all so bad as your cousin claims, it's very good - you sound like a Catalan. Did you winter there, or come straight up from the lines?"

"Indeed, word I'd heard last was that even the lands of Antioch's great founder Bohemond have all but fallen to Saladin. Who could've imagined such a thing as that but the most wicked of minds?" William shakes his head and then looks back down to his breakfast broodingly. The thought of his fellow Normans, related somewhere along the line no doubt, being overrun by hordes of bloodthirsty savages is not exactly pleasant to William.

He looks back up, answering with a smirk, "Thank you. I spent much time near the coast toward the end of my service in the south. The women of Barcelona, especially of the alehouse variety, are gracious in more ways than one. It does one well to learn the basics of the tongue, I suppose."

Quin returns a gentle smile. "There is some Moor whose captain you have defeated asking another much the same over his morning bread, I think," he says, looking at theirs. His voice drops pensively as William muses, though he does speak the thought: "...perhaps God chastises them for their infidelity even as He spurs us to fiercer deeds of glory and more noble deeds of mercy with this loss."

Quintillian doesn't seem to know how to respond to the smirk or the commentary on Barcelona's tavern company, though aware a response is looked for. He takes in a breath to speak, fails completely to find something to say, and flushes a gentle rose colour along the ears and cheekbones at his own ineptitude, or else a half-awareness of topics he's too shy to touch.

The woman nods and walks up to the table, frowning slightly at the sight of all the different meats. "Bonjour, Seigneur. I am Saissa. A boy woke me up and told me you have need of me." She seems none too pleased with this, although if it is the waking part or the questioning to come is not clear.

"Ah, of course, enchanted! Have you eaten yet? Please sit with us" he said, leading her to the table.

"Let me present to you two noble knights, Sir Quintillion de Serignac and Sir William FitzAlan, a traveling knight, who has but recently been studying tongues in Spain" he said with a mischievous twinkle in his eye

"Good sirs, this is Saissa, a healer and a herbalist and of some reputation for ministering to women's concerns."

Guy held the chair back for her to sit before resuming his own seat.

There's a high colour in Quin's cheeks: he stands, as though unable to keep still, swallows and dips his head, tension throughout his voice though it does not rise or shake: "My lord, even accepting that the Devil or some other ill spirit may have been induced to enter the child, I cannot be party to making search for it..." he struggles, lacking vocabulary for this thing, and in this company.

"...there. Not until every other possibility is exhausted and the maiden understands and allows it herself." He stops there, but the other knights can feel the edge of a challenge if no clarification is made regarding the safety of the maiden's honour, demoniac or not.

Guy was shocked at Quintillions sudden outburst and a series of emotions  - shock, horror,  amused disbelief and cold anger- warred in his face as he sought to find words.

"Mon seigneur," he said slowly and coldly, "If you recall what I said during our conversation last night, you should be well aware as to why I asked Sarissa here, and what questions I intend to ask, and to what end.

"And as for the maiden, I assure you, I am not looking for mushrooms there."

Quin dips his head, dropping eye contact with his host. "You said that I should not interfere in that part of the conversation, my lord, and brought...Madame Saissa before us for...for a  'reputation for ministering to women's concerns'. Forgive me, I...that is the concern of women that I know of."

He hesitates, but is not without the courage to resume his seat, albeit entirely flushed with shame and embarrassment. He makes some attempt at resuming his breakfast.

Saissa, amused, raises an eyebrow. "You'll have me looking for mushrooms where, mon seigneurs?"

"Touche. The earth is as full of brutality as the sea is full of motion. It depends on one's viewpoint, what is sad and what is glorious, I suppose," William answers Quin. Seeing his ill mannered joking about Barcelona unsettles the man a bit, he says, "Sorry, my friend, I have been in the company of sellswords and rabble for so long I forget my table manners at times."

"Lady," he says with a courteous nod, and he then watches on and listens to the conversation, growing a bit confused as to what exactly they're aiming to do.

Guy regarded Quintillion flatly. "I did" he said, pinning him with his gaze a few seconds longer.

Then he gave Saissa a rueful grin. "I wish it were so, that we were simply suffering the embarrassment of having mushrooms in unspeakable places. I would that it were. Unfortunately, I assure you, we do not need a pox doctor"

He glanced at FitzAlan. "My Lord. My Lady. Yesterday two good men were murdered, and I fear more to follow. Both were good men, of good temperment and reputation and few enemies, and both were pushed from a height by people who ... had no cause to hate them or attack them, who could not explain their actions, or simply could not remember anything of the day. And there was a work crew who were delaying construction on account of illness."

He paused to let them accommodate that news.

"Yesterday Seigneur de Serignac and I were discussing mushrooms, I understand people can enjoy, er, be afflicted by, visions after eating them. My question to you, Sarissa la Sage, is what manner of plants could cause madness, dreams, forgetfullness?"
This message was last edited by the player at 01:39, Sat 07 Oct 2023.

William gets an awkward little half-smile from Quin that says he both forgave the banter on the instant and rues just making a more unseemly scene himself, obediently keeping his head down and staying out of the conversation with the healer. Perhaps Quintillian is not the most worldly sort of creature, but that he'd risk this present humiliation - or physical harm, had the "women's concerns" been as he'd thought - for an unknown girl below his class speaks to some forthright form of valour, at least.

Saissas eyes widen at the mentioning of murder but she quickly gather herself to answer Guys questions. She mentions several mushrooms and herbs that could produce those kinds of effects. "But none so specific and reliable as that, I think. Two separate occations, different people?" Her voice lowers to a whisper and she has fear in her eyes. "Non, Seigneur, this is le diable."

Guy shook his head. "D'accord, it is not one or two people eating mushrooms. This is bigger than that. This is something that can affect a whole town perhaps. The Devil?" He shrugged expressively. "Perhaps. We will talk of that soon. But for now, is there anything that could affect the whole town? Rotten meat? Poisoned water? Please. Think. Le Sage, you know more of this than anyone here."

Quin had shifted as though intending to look for permission to ask about something in the previous summary, but settles and waits to hear the answer about wide-ranging effects. It's fairly clear that he's paying keen attention despite polishing off the rest of a fried sausage in bread betimes.