Felon or fallible?

Main Room(#7071RLnA)

An old and battered desk sits facing the door. There is a wooden chair behind it, and two in front - all as aged as the desk. Two windows face the street, letting in both light and air (when the shutters are open), and a long rough bench runs along the wall to the left. At some point in the distant past, the walls had been white-washed cleanly, but now they are dingy and faded. Scarred wooden planks make up the floor and the ceiling is tall, and high enough to be out of range of people\'s heads. Torches hang in metal brackets, no doubt made by the town\'s metalsmiths. At the back of the room, just to the side of the desk (guarded by it, one might think, by its proximity) is a heavy wooden door.

Obvious exits:

Street and Door to the Hallway

================================== Bree Time ==================================

Real time: Wed Jun 22 14:56:42 2011

Bree time: Afternoon on Hevensday of Spring - March 28,1453

Moon Phase: Last Quarter Moon

Breelands Weather

The spring air is cool but pleasant around you. A misty rain comes down from the day sky.

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[Nob(#16122)] A lazy afternoon. Clouds hover low over the town, and wreathe the top of Breehill, and a cool rain patters down as lazily as the rest of the inhabitants. Inside the guardhouse, Harry is leaning back in his chair with his feet on the desk, snoring faintly.

The tramp, tramp, tramp of booted feet is accompanied by the panting of heavy breathing as someone - rather a large someone from the sounds of it - comes up the street. Next moment there is a heavy thumping on the door to the Breeguard house, and an irritated shout of, \"Open up, will ye?\"

[Nob(#16122)] Harry opens one eye irritably, stares at the door, and then shuts his eye firmly again. Maybe if he ignores it, it will go away...

The thumping doesn\'t go away. \"Oi!\" a countryish sort of voice shouts. \"I know you\'re in there.\" There is a pause, then the speaker queries, more gently, \"There /is/ someone inside, ain\'t there? I dunno, mebbe I should just take the axe to it ...\"

[Nob(#16122)] This time, reluctantly, Harry shoves his chair upright, lets his feet fall to the floor and answers, \"Gimme a minute, wouldja!\" He stomps towards the door, unlocking it and yanking it open, and glowering at the person outside.

Harry\'s glower is met by one every bit as fierce. Who should be standing outside but Nate Nuthatch, the Archet lumberjack. His hair and beard are slicked black by the rain, and his sodden shirt smells unpleasantly and not just of wet wool - clearly he\'s not been observing the custom of bathing recently. \"About time, too,\" he grumbles. \"There\'s work for you to do! E\'s gone - taken! And the loo- uh, the goods too!\"

[Nob(#16122)] \"Eh?\" is Harry\'s brilliant and scintillating response. He sniffs and his frown deepens. Clearly, he does not approve of less than washed people... he himself, if not perfectly tidy, is clean - brushed and washed.

Nate is having none of this. He pushes in past Harry, brushing against him if the Breeguard does not move away, and then once inside plonks himself down on the bench, which creaks ominously. Me son,\" he urges his audience. \"You\'ve got to find \'im.\"

[Nob(#16122)] \"Your son,\" Harry repeats, and stares at Nate a few minutes. Then, jerking in to sudden action, he bustles over to the desk and starts taking out papers. Papers. Pens. Tidying them into nice square piles. Then he bites the end of one of the pens, dips it into ink and holds it poised over the paper. \"Right. Now then. Tell me all the par-partiklers.\"

Nate doesn\'t seem to know quite what to do with himself now he\'s got here. He kneads his big hands together and mumbles under his breath and fidgets on the bench, which is sagging beneath his weight. \"The whatsit?\" He stares blankly at Harry, then realizes he\'s supposed to give an announting. \"Well, it was like this. Me and my boy Ned, we were going t\'go back to that place in the woods where,\" he halts, scratching his head with one meaty hand, \"where we found them spoons. You know, the ones as is in the Pony now?\" He pauses, waiting expectantly for confirmation.

[Nob(#16122)] Harry nods, and scribbles down \'spoons, stolen, Pony thereof\' on a paper, before looking back up. \"Right?\" he says encouragingly.

Nate looks uncomfortable. \"There was other stuff too,\" he says. \"Silverware, and fancy crockery and all sorts - you\'ve never seen the like! Too much for a feller t\'carry. So, like I says ...\" He pauses, shifting gingerly, and the bench sags further. \"Woke up later than I oughter this morning,\" he confesses that with a sheepish grin, \"and Ned was already gone. So\'s I headed after, and got to the old oak tree, only-\" he looks up, brown eyes anguished, \"there was noone there. No Ned, nothing in that big hole ... I tell you, it\'s brigands!\" He bounces up and down. \"You\'ve got to /do/ some-\"

The words break off as the rough bench that\'s served the Breeguard faithfully for so many years splits in two.

[Nob(#16122)] Harry\'s eyes widen eagerly, and he writes faster. \'Silverstuffs, Ned Prime Suspect!\' \"I see,\" he says, gaze fixed on his pen and paper. \"So he went and took off with the stuff... \" A loud crack echoes through the room and the guard gapes at Nate.

Nate is sitting on the hard floor looking rather dazed. \"Bit .. bit .. winded,\" he manages after a moment, though it\'s not his lungs that he\'s rubbing. \"He never did! You accusing /my/ boy Ned of being a thief? Eh? Eh?\" He grasps a piece of broken bench in one huge hand, glowering.

[Nob(#16122)] \"My bench!\" Harry shrieks, after the moment of shock that has paralyzed his lungs is over. \"You broke my bench!\" He glares up at the man. \"I hopes you\'re planning on putting it back together,\" he says grumpily.

\"I hope you\'re planning on catching them kidnappers,\" Nate retorts angrily, climbing to his feet. \"That\'s Breeguard duty, innit?\"

[Nob(#16122)] \"Kidnappers, right, right,\" Harry mutters, still scowling at the broken bench. He bends his head to write: \'Allijed Kidnapping.\' \"So you ain\'t seen him since last night?\"

Nate scuffs his toe along the floor, leaving wet bootmarks. \"Well, not last /night/, now you come to mention it. \"See, I was round at old Archie\'s, had a few beers ...\" He thumps the piece of bench against his free hand a few times. \"He was all fine and dandy at lunch?\" he offers. \"Mind, I haven\'t had a straight day\'s work out of him since he started gallivanting after that young flibbertigibbert of Colm\'s. But he\'ll come round - in time.\"

[Nob(#16122)] \"Mmhmmm.\"

\"MmmmHHMMM.\" Harry is scribbling furiously now. \"Right,\" he says again, looking up once more. \"And what\'s he look like?\"

Nate give Harry an insulted look. \"You know my Ned, don\'t you?\" Then he concedes, \"Mebbe you don\'t. All th\'/Archet/ folk know him. Thin gangly lad, bout my height but he ain\'t got the build yet. Needs to work those muscles! Hair\'s never straight, leaves it sticking out like he\'d bin dragged through a hedge. That do?\"

[Nob(#16122)] \"RIght, right,\" Harry mutters again, \"Like you.\" He sniffs. \'Skinny, tall. Archet.\' \"What color\'s his hair, an\' how old\'s he?\"

Nate has to think a while about this. \"Brown,\" he ventures. \"Only sometimes there\'s a bit of red in it, see? Like Poppy\'s. Quite the looker she was in the old days ...\" His hardworking, practical features grow dreamy.

With a doglike shake he snaps himself out of it. \"Seventeen,\" he says sharply. \"Tole him that\'s /far/ too young to be courting. Needs to earn himself a living first.\" Nodding vigorously, he props the piece of broken bench against a wall, no doubt hoping Harry will forget about it.

[Nob(#16122)] \'Seventeen,\' writes Harry. \'Sparking.\' He nods knowingly - despite what Dad insists, he has in his mind clear who the criminal is, and it isn\'t kidnappings! \"Strong lad, is he? Healthy? We\'ll keep an eye out, course.\" His eyes drop to the bench piece, and sharpen accusingly, \"And don\'t you be forgetting you owes us a bench!\"

\"I do?\" Nate looks round, bemused - has he really promised to replace that rickety bench? How come he doesn\'t remember it - then shrugs. \"Never you worry, Mister Harry. We\'ll have a tree or two down for you quick as a wink.\" Quite what the replacement bench will look like is anyone\'s guess. \"Well now, I\'d best be going. Wanted to swing past Barliman at the Pony to have him get the word out - an\' ask \'im if there\'s been any suspicious fellers hanging round. Any of those Rangers in town? Wouldn\'t put anything past them ...\" Glowering darkly, Nate trails off.

He lets himself out - the door sways ominously on his hinges and then shuts with a bang - and then there is peace. Perfect peace.