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Part 7 - Escape from Hertford

Page history last edited by geoff.blair@... 14 years, 4 months ago

After Wulfwine’s bluff the party is taken to a tower and chained.  The next day they hear a commotion outside.  The jailer comes in and shackles them all in a row, “Alfeus wants you to see Fulinus’s show” he says.  Rufinus and some mercenaries are milling about with a wooden box.  Rufinus gets peoples attention and two knights crank some handles, the box thuds as a large spear is flung over the wall.  The mercenaries drag in a second machine which looks like an arm attached to a wooden frame.  The hoist a large stone on to the arm and it slings the stone over the wall.  Geat asks why the party has been brought out to watch and the guard just laughs.  The next machine is a box which fires a salvo of spears at a target and hits with two.  Alfeus is sceptical of the siege weapons usefulness against Saxons.  Geat speaks up suggesting the Scorpio, the last machine, would be best against Saxons.  Alfeus is surprised at Geats suggestion and turns to Merlin to ask his opinion of the weapons.  Merlin wakes up from his sleep and bursts out with a bleak prophecy.  Alfeus asks what he sees of the Saxons, Merlin says he sees red.  Of the Cimree he also sees red.  The weapon display is over.  Lioze has been watching the prisoners during the demonstration.

Alfeus asks the party “so are you cursed Britons or Saxons?”  He can’t let them go until he finds out who they really are.  They are returned to the jail and chained.  A serving girl brings food.  Oslaf recognises the girl as someone who he talked to at the feast, but she avoids eye contact.  In the bread is a statue of the Virgin Mary.  Later in the day they hear someone outside.  It seems to be Rufinus, he asks if they are Britons or Saxons.  He is keen to find someone to hire his services.  He says he is well known in London if anyone needs to get hold of him.

Wulfwine gives the party a lesson in how to pray in the Christian way, so they pretend to pray when the servants come with their meals.

Alfeus, his wife and courtiers visit.  Alfeus is leaving Silchester today so the prisoners’ fate will have to await his return.  Later, Lioze returns with a female entourage.  Her brother is a prisoner of the Count of Tribuit.  She wants to go there and the party offer to take her there themselves once their innocence is established.  Still later that day the servant girl slips a key in to Oslaf’s bread.

The jailer takes them the next day to the cathedral.  Lioze and her maids are waiting there with the priest.  After a pray the priest tells the prisoners that the curse is lifted and they can spit out their stones.  They are conflicted and no-one is willing to spit out their stones.  They are returned to the tower jail.  Oslaf converts to Christianity.

That night they attempt to pry their chains from the wall, but they are just a little too weak.  They all spit out their stones and transform in to Saxons thus regaining the strength with which to free the chains.  Oslaf’s key opens the jail door.  The jailer is asleep outside and is noiselessly strangled.  They sneak through the corridors of the castle and find a place to clamber over the wall.  They manage to boost each other over and jump down and escape in to the city outside.  Geat is separated from the rest of the party.  Wulfwine, Oslaf and Arnwig charge the main gate which is guarded by three armed guards.  Arnwiig gets wounded and runs away back in to the city.  He is pursued by a guard and slain in an alleyway, even as they others escape in to the wilderness.

Back at Norich, Wulfwine, Oslaf and Geat meet with Cwichelm and receive congratulations despite failing their mission.  Cwichelm is happy with the information about Lioze’s brother and the siege machines available for hire.

 

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