Luis, a teamster hired in San Cristobal, drove the black carriage along the road to Tarago, as the Heroes recovered from wounds suffered rescuing Henri from the agents of the Inquisition. As Asgard toyed with the pull-cord to the window-blinds, she felt a sharp bump beneath her seat, and upon moving, discovered a secret compartment. A small wooden box carried operating funds for the agents, with scores of doubloons remaining inside. Henri sniffed that it amounted to barely a month's income, and invited the rest of the Heroes to divide it amongst themselves. Quinn, Cecil, and Asgard found themselves quite flush for the first time in months, and this lightened their mood considerably.
Henri mulled over the odd dream he'd had the night before, in which Maria, the lovely dancer from La Sarabande, had pounded on the Chapterhouse door, demanding and pleading that he take her with him out of town. The pounding had been his head, it seemed, for there had been no reply to his letter of farewell.
"All for the best," he thought. "I wouldn't wish this life on her."
Late afternoon brought the party to a small country hostel at a wide spot in the road. Someone had thought to turn a pretty maravedi on the distance between Tarago and San Cristobal, and a safe, quiet rest was welcome indeed. (At this point, we were glad that Theah has no vampires-- we had sudden flashes of a whiskered Cheech Marin strutting on the front steps shouting, 'Come on in, Jenny Lovers!') Several groups of guests relaxed in the large salon-- a young bride, surrounded by a cloud of aunts, abuelitas, and dueñas; a young family, and a small party of Vaticine clergy by the fire. The Heroes enjoyed a hearty dinner of mutton and wine, and settled in for the evening. Henri read one of his scandalous books by the fireplace, and heard the disdainful harumph of a maiden aunt, disapproving his choice of literature. Quinn traded songs with the guitarista in the corner, and Asgard scoped out the clergy for likely romances.
Henri woke around midnight, cursing the greasy mutton and longing for decent civilized sauces built upon a firm foundation of butter, cream, or oil. As he stepped down to the kitchen to seek something to settle his stomach, he noted a man crouched at one of the doors-- the one to Room Four. Not in the mood for combat or confrontation, he settled upon signaling his presence with a pained belch, bent over, and looking at the footing ahead of him. The fellow started, straightened up, and quickly left the hall. Muttering, "I can never find the latrina in these stupid coponas," Henri turned the corner but had lost sight of the man. His stomach settled, he went back to sleep.
In the morning, the Heroes, informed of the incident, were on the lookout for a dark-haired man, with a curious mole on his right jowl. Inquiries about the occupants of Room Four revealed that Father Ephran was its occupant. Quinn eventually spotted the man leaving the dining room, and signaled Henri, who stepped out after him. Mr. Mole went to the stables, commenced pacing back and forth, and looked quite distressed. Henri checked over the carriage, looked in on the horses, and tipped the stableboys for a job well done. He then greeted the man, and asked if he'd found his way the previous evening.
"Do you insinuate something, sir?" the fellow asked angrily.
"Oh, no," Henri replied, then pondering, "I should hate to give offense for so silly a reason. One might enter into an affair of honor for something great... for the King, for Castille, ...for everyone... but for my own silly mistake? No, sir. I ask your pardon, sir."
The fellow had not responded to the phrase that he had learned from La Profesora in San Cristobal, despite his apparent quarrel with the church, and so Henri returned to his breakfast. Quinn took up the inspection, and found the man, to his surprise, crouched behind the clergy's carriage, where he was carefully sawing at the spokes of a rear wheel. Wheeling suddenly, the man stiffened, caught a second time in as many days at mischief. The fellow gaped for a moment, then set his jaw firmly. Quinn stared him down with the steely eye of a veteran of the Wall. Time seemed to stand still for a moment, and finally the man reached into his coat, producing the pin of the Rose and Cross. (Mr. Mole went for an Intimidation check. Quinn played three of his Rep Dice to be recognized, so that he could then apply his full veteran's Reputation to the Intimidation resistance. Numbers were tallied, as Quinn added up points, Poney spent Drama Dice to boost the Intimidation, then Quinn re-added his dice, and found that he had 54-- exactly the total that Poney had come up with after spending half a dozen Drama Dice!)
The story came out: Elias Basquez was after the priest who had denounced his daughter to the Inquisition, charging her with Sorte sorcery after she had spurned his advances. He wanted a carriage wreck and death to the man, and he wanted it done quietly without the order knowing. Quinn suggested a cooler head and thinking up a new plan.
At this point, Quinn had been missing quite a while, and the remaining men went to check on him. Finding the two talking, introductions were exchanged. Henri nodded in recognition as the tale was told, now understanding te events of the last night. A little plan began to take root in his mind, blooming as he asked for details from Sr. Basquez. He suggested that the saw be applied to the Vaticine carriage's axle, obviously and brutally, then excused himself and returned to Asgard's side.
"I have an odd request to make, and forgive me if it's indelicate or rude... "
He then borrowed a small wooden hand drill from the stable-boys, who were willing to elicit more tips from the spendthrift foreigner, and visited Cecil's room, adjacent to Asgard's. At lunch, he noted Asgard's conversation with a handsome young priest, their chairs edging closer together as they spoke. Asgard played with her Vodacce heritage as they spoke, seeing a mark clearly above Father Ephran's head, in the shape of a Sorte card. It was the Empress, inverted-- the man was given to lust, and that often. She noted threads of passion whipping out from him to most of the women in the room, and one springing into being toward her, thickening and swelling like the clergyman's lust itself. A strong cord of authority hummed between him and the oldest priest (now fuming at the damage to his carriage, which would keep them at the inn for another day), and a thin one connected Father Ephran and Asgard. She smiled to herself that it did not run in quite the direction he thought it did...
In the afternoon, following prayers, Asgard excused herself from the salon with a wink, followed shortly by Father Ephran. Henri noted the old priest sitting with his Book of the Prophet, and studiously forgot everything he'd learned about a proper Castillian accent, thickening his tongue like a Montaigne peasant's.
"Monsieur? Meester the Priest? I wonder of you are helping me with matter most curious... I am travel with my friend and my niece since two month in your country, and I have question. My niece, she is the young girl, the beautiful, yes? So, you know, I must be the echaperone, the watcher, yes?"
The old priest, making a show of courtesy followed as best he could, and frowned at the question that followed.
"Is it normal that the young man priest, he give the confession in the chamber of my niece? I must watch, you know-- but you are the holy priest, and your answer I am trusting."
Informed that this was rather irregular, Henri declined having Father Roberto actually enter Asgrd's room to supervise.
"I can show you! The man who have my own room before-- the very naughty fellow-- there is the hole! It is luck that I have this room, for another man could look in and see the naked body! As uncle, I cover up, of course, but you-- the sacred priest-- you could look and see that all is well, yes? And you do not disturb the confession?"
Shaking his head at the odd circumstances, Monsignor Roberto accompanied Henri upstairs, taking a seat before the hole Henri had carefully drilled that morning, as Henri rested on the bed, reading. He watched, gaped, began to fume then shot to his feet in a rage and stormed into the hall, tearing open the door to the next room.
Asgard was in tears, and flew into "Uncle" Henri's arms as he followed the Monsignor in. Roberto laid into Father Ephran, seething at what he'd seen: the young man had made overtures under guise of confession, and being rebuffed had threatened her with a denunciation-- her Vodacce mother made her vulnerable to charges of Sorte, and he would indeed have the effrontery to do so, for he had, he declared, done so many times before.
Roberto turned to Henri, apologizing, and explaining that this was very wrong indeed, and that Ephran was being arrested for violating his oaths. At that word, Henri snatched out his sword, waving it above his head.
"Violate? He is violate? Before Theus, I will have him if he violate this innocent!"
With matters more carefully explained, Henri thanked Roberto quite effusively, while Ephran was placed under guard, to be questioned carefully in San Cristobal. Roberto further gave in to Henri's request that the other women Ephran had incriminated must be set free, now that their real crime-- modesty-- was known.
"You have save my niece, my holy man the priest. I thank you so greatly. You know, as I travel in this land, I hear people say to me, 'you dirty Montaigne, Theus hate you, because you are all les sales sorciers.' I thank you so much that I find the honest priest in beautiful Castille."
With good-byes exchanged, and accounts settled, Los Casablanqueños
enjoyed a dinner with Elias Basquez, and accepted his invitation to greet
him, and his daughter and the Chapterhouse, now under construction, in Tarago.
As the Inquisition's carriage-- now theirs-- rolled toward Tarago, Henri mused
that perhaps his lies were not a curse after all. Perhaps Theus really did
exist. And just perhaps his riddle was more complex than anyone gave the god
credit for...