Suspicious persons
Bree Market - South(#24374Rto)
This section of Bree is known locally as Market South. There are shops lining both sides of the road, selling a variety of wares and services. Here, at the southern end of Bree's Market two roads meet, one from the east and one from the north. The market is rather noisy and filled with activity, as people buy, sell, trade or simply browse the goods available here. Along with the items for sale, different aromas from the foods being sold blend together to add another dimension to the market.
Contents:
Cordelia
Ada
Pipeweed Stall(#17332eM)
Food Cart(#28735eM)
Obvious exits:
Large Wooden Door leads to The Longhole.
Sewing Shoppe leads to Sewing Shoppe.
Alleyway leads to Large Field.
Bakery leads to The Bakery.
East leads to Bree Market - East.
North leads to North Market.
================================== Bree Time ==================================
Real time: Thu Sep 18 14:55:20 2008
Bree time: Mersday of Winter - December 23,1444
Moon Phase: Full Moon
Breelands Weather
The dawn winter air is cold and dry around you. A light drizzle trickles from the sky.
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[Cordelia(#24827)] It is noon on a late December day, and a cold rain is making the world miserable. There should be snow, but instead there are icy puddles of mud that look to be solid mud until one steps ankle-deep in them..... As such, the market is busy, but fullo f folk who are too miserable to do more than pull up their hoods, keep their heads down, and get their business done so they can hurry home to a warm fire.
Somehow, Cordelia has managed to convince the mayor to come with her to Ada's store so that the pawn shop owner can look at the two earrings they have found. She hurries through the market, her hood up, leading the mayor on as quickly as he can manage.
"And it's only seven days until you decide if I have to stay in my post at the healers' anymore," she says, as she pulls the door to the pawn shop open. "And I heard your brother Brandebras went and saw that ghost? And now others want to go chase it?"
[Ada(#23113)] An overhead bell on a tired spring rings in the silent shop. No other customers are here. Three or more people would fill the small wooden floored space. the only space clear in the whole shop. Shelves rise to the ceilings and they teeter with dusty boxes, books, old instruments, hilts, sheathes, daggers even clothes. At the desk which is heeped with jewellry boxes, knick knacks, the old figurine, Ada stands, her sharp little face set in an expectant expression.
Cordelia's answer is a tremendous sneeze. "Ah-- ahh- exguse me," Torebras mumbles, fumbling for his white silk handkerchief, which already looks to have seen plenty of use. Today the Mayor is dressed quite plainly, in a nondescript dark green cloak and without his cocked hat. The garish red-and-yellow muffler wound round his neck, no doubt a gift from Brandebras, is tucked away as though he were rather embarrassed by it.
"That wretched brother of mine," Torebras mutters when he's cleared his nose. "Hanging around in the wet and cold, catching a chill and bringing it home to decent folk! And I don't believe for a minute he saw a ghost. /Or/ someone living up Bree hill either," he adds with a little huff of breath. "Much too cold!" He trots through into the pawn shop, and is hit by another sneeze. He does at least turn his head so that Ada doesn't get the full force of it.
[Cordelia(#24827)] Noticeably, Cordelia takes one step away from the mayor when he sneezes. "It's too bad that he..and you...are sick," she says in a soothing voice. "But if you are going to be laid up in your bed for long, can you tell me now if I have to work at the healers anymore or if I've corrected ...things....?" She smiles sweetly at Torebras, then turns attention to the shopkeep.
"Hello, Miss. Ada, right? We've come as you suggested to see if we can sell a pair of earrings."
Torebras looks up with streaming, perhaps even panicked eyes (what? in bed for long?) and manages to mumble in Cordelia's direction. "No need, my dear. The reports were quite satisfactory. Though I'm sure if you wanted to stay on the healers would be most glad ..." Seems that sweet smile has done its work. He pulls out his handkerchief again.
[Cordelia(#24827)] "So I'm done? Free?!" Cordelia smiles brightly again. "But...I suppose if they could pay me a bit...I need to help out my uncle, you see. It was kind of him to take in me and Liuni, and I don't want him to think I'm just taknig advantage of him. And I have learned quite a bit," she continues, rubbing at a small scar on her right forearm. "Though I do miss working at the Pony. But I don't think Nob will have me back. He doesn't like me anymore."
[Ada(#23113)]
"It is Ada, Ada Fiddlehead, at your service, Cordelia. And our mayor," she says unctiously. "What," she gestures to the toppling boxes that can be seen through the dusty light, "what can I do for you today?" she asks leaning away from the last sneeze though she is protected by the width of the counter.
Torebras coughs into his handkerchief at that last remark. "I ... ah, if you like I'll have a word with Mrs Applecheeks on your behalf," he offers Cordelia at last. "How is the little girl? I do hope-" He falls silent as Ada speaks. "I see you two ladies know each other," he comments, surveying the woman behind the counter with watering eyes. "Miss Wood, perhaps if you ..." He gestures to Cordelia to go on.
[Cordelia(#24827)] "Oh, would you?! I'd so appreciate it," Cordelia nods eagerly to the mayor, her words bubbling over. "You really should be home in bed, you know," she then coos to him before turning to Ada.
"You see, we have these earrings that were found." And froma pouch at her waist, she draws out a gold filigreed earring, finely worked and unlike anything usually found in Bree. "The mayor has the other."
[Ada(#23113)]
Ada has watched the two during there exchange, a pleasant expression on her face, calculation in her eyes. She holds out a hand so she can examine them closer. "Now, why would a matched set of earrings be owned by two people?" she asks casually.
Cordelia's first remark draws a shake of the head from Torebras. "Alas, a mayor's work is never done," is his answer to that. He listens in silence to the rest of her words, then rummages in his pocket - yes, the one that had contained the much-used handerchief now being held in his other hand. At last he finds what he is looking for - a small square of cloth. He shakes it out onto the desk, revealing a small golden earring that sparkles in the sunlight, the design and craftmanship quite unlike anything normally seen in Bree. "Oh, it's a long story," he airily tells Ada.
[Cordelia(#24827)] "Well....I found mine in the meadow outside the north gate a ways." Why would anyone go up to _that_ deserted area of the lands...? But Cordelia continues on, smiling. "And the mayor found his...erm...well, wherever. We think they're very old." She drops her voice to a whisper, glancing at the mayor. "Personally," she whispers to Ada, "I think they are the treasure that the ghosts seeks."
[Ada(#23113)]
leaning over the earrings, she looks up with a quick smile for the mayor. "Oh, I /like/ long stories." She frowns at what she sees and turns away to rummage in a cubby hole in the tall shelves behind her. She turns back with a thick glass, transparent and handled like a mirror and examines the earring, all the while nodding to Cordelia and murmuring, "So you say? So you say!.
Straightening she asks, Ghost?"
Torebras watches with faint suspicion on his homely features as Ada produces the glass. At her last remark, however, he barks out sharply, "What's that about ghosts? No such things, do you hear me? There's quite enough nonsense in the world without people filling their heads with that fiddlefaddle!" Distracted as he is, he quite forgets to tell his side of the earring story.
[Cordelia(#24827)] "All right, maybe not ghosts," Cordelia concedes with a sigh. "But someone or something frightened Arabella and then Brandebras saw something, too. I bet it's those bandits that attacked Amelia. They probably heard there's treasure here in Bree. Like these earrings. And now they've come for it!"
[Ada(#23113)]
Ada watches the two of them, two finger squeezing her chin as she listens. She lays the glass object down beside the earrings to hear them out, a faint smile at Torebras's blustering and an interested raise to an eyebrow at the word 'treasure'. She lays one word before them, "Barrows," then adds with a sweet smile to the Mayor, "and long stories."
Cordelia's words seem to fill the Mayor with alarm. "Bandits?" he exclaims. "You don't think ... oh dear ... I really don't feel so well." He lifts a hand to his forehead, for all that the sneezes seem to have stopped for now.
Ada's response does nothing to allay his fears. At her 'one word' Torebras' flushed face blanches. "But this earring didn't come from a barrow," he protests. "It was passed on to me by one of the Dwarves, fellow found it on the road just outside Staddle - he said." Just the merest hint of doubt creeps in there.
[Cordelia(#24827)] "Barrows? Really?" Cordelia says, fingering one of the earrings (notably not the virus-infested one). "How can you tell? And if it's from the barrows...well, would a barrow wight be after it?" she frowns. "Might that be our ...ghost? Can they live outside their barrows?"
[Ada(#23113)]
"I'm no expert on ghosts," the pawnbroker says with a skeptical shrug. "I know jewellry. And you say this came from a dwarf?"she looks sharply at Mayor and narrows her eyes.
"It is old, very old and something..." she picks up a ring as though weighing it, "that a dwarf might have were he to dabble in...treasures."
Torebras coughs into his handkerchief, the sound rather forced. "A couple of the Dwarves had a look at the earring, and confirmed it is not their handiwork," he tells Ada. "But really, Miss Fiddlehead, this is all supposition." He waves his handkerchief feebly as though in protest. "Are you interested in the earrings? And what sort of price do you think they might fetch?" A hopeful gleam comes into his brown eyes.
[Cordelia(#24827)] "They're not elven work, either. I asked about that, though the elves said the earrings seemed very old," Cordelia pipes up. "Do you think they would bring a nice price? Maybe not here in Bree....might be better to sell them someplace...bigger. Though we get a lot of travelers coming through from all lands...."
[Ada(#23113)]
"You been showing this work to the elves have you?" Ada asks with surprised interest narrowing her eyes.
"And I might be interested in them, "she answers Torebras offhandedly. "But I don't deal in stolen goods and what would a dwarf be doing with one of the Old Kingdom's treasures?" she nods deeply to underline her words, Old Kingdom. "And what would he be doing selling it?" she asks with feigned innocence.
[Cordelia(#24827)] "Yes, there was a group of elves that came through this summer, and I showed it to one of them. Name of Giliiath, I think," Cordelia shrugs. "He spoke the common tongue, so I asked him about it, but he said it wasn't elven." She seems a little defensive in her answer. "And _my_ earring isn't stolen. I _found_ it. There's a meadow north of town, a quiet place where I like to go to think. It was just in the grass there."
Torebras swipes at his nose, the handkerchief hiding his features for a moment. He listens in silence to Cordelia's answer. "No, no, there is some misunderstanding here," Torebras the businessman protests when she's finished, looking rather flustered. "One earring - that one," he gestures to the left earring, "was gifted to me. As I have no need for such trinkets, I was happy to sell it on, together with Miss Wood here. Of course, if there is no market ..." He reaches out to pick said earring up again, without its cloth wrapper.
[Ada(#23113)]
Germs do not seem to bother Mistress Fiddlehead and she makes to lay a restraining hand on the Mayor's as he begins to put the earring away. "I said I may be interested, Mayor. And may I ask, with all respect, who gifted it to you?" She then gives Ceredir a penetrating glance but shrugs with a smile.
[Cordelia(#24827)] Cordelia returns Ada's glance with a cold hard stare, unblinking. Then she smiles to the woman and the mayor. "Well, I'm sure that you two can work out a fair price. May I leave it to you, Mayor, to negotiate this exchange? Then, as we said, I'll get half the money. But if you think the price isn't fair that Miss Fiddlehead gives us, by all means, hold off selling. I will find us another jewelry merchant. Perhaps the dwarves, even."
"I really do not consider /that/ any of your business," Torebras snaps to Ada - his fist having closed round the earring just before Ada's hand clasped round his wrist, he is now held in a loose grip.
At Cordelia's suggestion he shifts from foot to foot uncomfortably. "I - ah, of course Miss Wood, I'll see what I can do," he murmurs. "Perhaps the Dwarves might indeed be interested. I know that Fr- ah, my contact has an interest in silver. I'm sure he could suggest an associate ..." He lets the words trail off suggestively, the effect spoiled by a loud sniff.
[Ada(#23113)]
A real smile gleams in the pawnbroker's eyes when the Mayor ignores her question. She let's the two talk themselves out. "Yes," she says with real humor and a glance at Cordelia, "do talk with the dwarves. They may even recognize who owned it last."
[Cordelia(#24827)] Quick as a flash, Cordelia's hand snatches up the earring she had placed down. "Good," she smiles brightly to both mayor and shopkeeper. "You discuss the price of the earrings, and I'll see what kind of price I can get. And then we'll talk. Good day, Mayor, Miss Ada." She turns, leaving the shop quickly.
Torebras does not rise to the Dwarven bait. As the door opens, letting in a blast of frigid air, he tenses, and a moment later he is racked from head to foot by a loud sneeze. Even amidst his misery he tries to jerk his wrist free. "Well, Miss Fiddlehead - or was it Missus? - now that you've seen the earrings perhaps you can have a think about what price you'll offer. I'll return in a day or two to discuss things. Unfortunately I think Miss Wood was right, I do need a lie down."
[Ada(#23113)]
She releases the Mayor's arm with a smile. She even flourishes him a curtsey saying, "Widow Fiddlehead since last year," looking appropriately sad for an instant.
"I will do just that but I will also need to know its provinence, Mayor. The price will depend on it, if you take my meaning." She tilts her head to one side giving him a bright eyed look of innocence then laughs, "Take care of your cold, Mayor and return at your leisure."
Torebras does have the grace to look distressed. "I'm so sorry," he stammers. "I hadn't realized ..." He lets the apology carry him through the rest of Ada's speech, though he is frowning. "As to the items' origins, we have already told you how we came by them. Hmm, perhaps an independant valuation by some third party could be arranged?" His nose starts to twitch, and he hastily ends, "Good day, Mistress Fiddlehead." As he exits the shop, his passage is marked by a loud sneeze and then the even louder sound of nose-blowing.
