How Did That Work Out for You?

I'm well into the post-oatmeal doldrums and so it's only right that I bash through the brain curtains and assault the raised panel doors in the sideboard that hold my thoughts. In the old days, the keepers of the of silver would lock the oaken doors of the sideboard which held the good silver. You'd bring the goods out for a meal and then clean, count and store the silver under lock and key to keep the thieving varlets, or if you lacked varlets, then oafs would do, from purloining, which means to stick down one's pants near your loin, the aforementioned silvery treasure. I made up the "purloin" part, I probably should have used "pilfering" instead.

If you were caught stealing milord's silver, the punishment was post hanging, which involved hanging from a post, by your neck, until you were, really really sorry that you tried to steal the silver. If you weren't caught, then you could sell it to someone who would turn you if for the reward and you'd be hung from a post. Life was hard.

The reward for turning in someone who'd stolen the silver was probably not the silver, that's what you were thinking. Wasn't it? Well, no, that would be too easy. No, it was probably something more like, having your eye poked out, just one. Yeah, I know, not much of a reward for turning someone in, huh?

Imagine the moral dilemma. You saw Juts the Muckraker steal the silver salver (a tray) from his lordship's safebox and you are a vassal of Lord Boosfern the Elder, you owe him allegiance and therefore you really should turn Juts in, but, Juts is your cousin, his mother is your father's sister. But, you haven't gotten along with Juts in a long time and his mother once beat you with a chicken, an actual chicken. You were young and had stolen some milk from their cow and traded it for some apples to Mary Laster, You liked Mary and her family had an apple tree and you like apples, still do. Juts mom, found out you had surreptitiously milked her cow and dragged you into the lane in front of her house and beaten you with your own chicken. Needless to say, it was embarrassing for you and very bad for your chicken which couldn't walk right after that.

You're still imagining, right? Good. So, you're thinking here. You want to do the right thing and so you'll go to Lord Boosfern and tell him about Juts and he'll send his men to catch Juts and they'll beat the holy shit out of him and then hang him from a post for a while and then let him go. Then his lordship will give you a brand new piece of goat poop and poke your eye out, just one. Now, would you like to rethink the whole thing about turning in Juts. Maybe, just maybe you can figure out a way to end the day with two working eyes. So, think! Gosh, that looks painful.

OK, what was that? How about you don't turn Juts in? Yeah, that's a good start. Why not exploit the situation by telling Juts that you're going to tell Lord Boosfern unless he (Juts) pays you 1/3 the value of the salver.? Now we're getting somewhere. Let's say Juts agrees and goes off to raise the money by selling the salver (the tray, remember?). But you know that Juts is a sneaky SOB, always has been. You suspect he stole your hammer last year but couldn't prove it. So while Juts is looking for someone to fence his hot salver to, you give the whole thing more thought.

You see Juts in the road two days later and he says he has the money, you tell him to meet you by the bend in the river later that evening. You go to the river an hour prior to the meeting time and hide in the tree with your bow and arrow. (uh huh!) Then a half an hour before you're supposed to meet, Juts slinks in and he's got a big knife. He's close by and so you wait  a few minutes and then throw some acorns back toward town. He thinks it's you approaching and gets in position, you take aim and shoot him with an arrow which sticks into him downward by his neck. He looks around and you shoot another arrow into him. Now he starts yelling and making a lot of noise, but he's also coughing out blood as he yells. So you're sure you got his lung at least.

He finally sees you in the tree and throws his knife at you. It hits you but doesn't stick because knives almost never stick into anything when they're thrown at in real life. He's cursing you and carrying on something fierce at the bottom of the tree, but starting to stumble. You hope he hasn't attracted anyone else around the area. Even though it getting dark down there, you can see it becoming quite a messy scene. Finally he stumbles and falls, and you climb down. He's still alive but not able to do anything but babble and spit lots of blood and red foam from his mouth. He's a real mess.

You check him and find he doesn't have any money on him. He doesn't have the salver either. He was just planning to kill you as an expediency. Now you're really pissed, because now you've killed him for nothing. But, of couse, he's not dead yet. You tell him that you don't like him and he's an idiot. He disagrees and calls you some names, weakly. You pick up his knife and stab him a few times with it, causing him to shuffle off his mortal coil, if he has one, which apparently he does.

Now look at the mess you've gotten yourself into. You throw his knife into the river. Then you drag him to the river and push him in hoping he'll sink or float away downstream or magically disappear.

The general area looks like a slaughterhouse, even in the dusky light. You hope that it rains, a lot, but the sky doesn't look rainy. You curse a few things and walk around in a circle for a minute, which crushes down more grass and leaves and makes it even more obvious that something happened here.

Finally, you go to the river and wash off your bow, arrows, and hands and arms. You wash as much blood as you can off of your pantlegs and shirt.

You hang out a little longer hoping that a deer or a rabbit, or a raccoon, or something like that, will walk by so you can shoot it with an arrow and use it to explain all the blood. You could get in big trouble for shooting a deer, because technically, since all the large game belong to Lord Benthook (or whatever his name is), but who cares. It couldn't be any worse than killing Juts.  But of course, no buck, no such luck,

(A little extra practice here)

"What am I to do?" Feder sat at the base of a tree, rocking back and forth, in the darkness, feeling more alone than he'd ever felt before.

"Juts will be missed. If not tomorrow, then the next day. Maybe he told someone he was going to meet me. He lives alone, but he has friends. He might have told Thomas, or Samwiser. If they knew he was to meet me, they would come to me and demand what happened." He was near panic. What seemed like such a good idea before now left him feeling lost and alone.

"I should disappear. If we both disappear, and they see the bloody field, they may read it the other way and think Juts a murderer." Maybe that was the answer. But where would he go and how would he live. He could go nowhere that he might be recognized. He'd never been anywhere before. He was not a traveler. Correction, he hadn't been a traveler before now.

He looked about. He could still see the silhouettes of the trees and bushes which surrounded him. How many times had he been in this place? He'd played here many times as a child, night and day. Of course not this late. His mother had told him to be back in the house soon after sundown or he'd be beaten and his father had often enough carried that threat through so that there was no ignoring the warning.

As children, he and Juts had played here together, and fished. It was natural, they were cousins. But now, cousins no more. He'd slaughtered his kin. There would be no place safe for him from now on. He wouldn't even dare to visit the graves of his parents. Maybe once more before he left.

He wrapped his arms about himself to feel some kind of comfort. He would wait until the village was asleep and then go back to his house and take a few things. Not too much or people would be able to tell that he had taken things for an escape. He must make the house look like he was returning. He had a few coins he could take.

Wait! He could take anything he wanted, as long as he made it looked like his house had been robbed, by Juts. Yes, he must turn things over and toss things about as if his house had been searched and robbed. But he must do so quietly. If someone should hear and look outside to seen him leaving, the truth would be known.

He wished he had some wrap to put over his head to hide his face in case someone looked. Maybe he could find something before he entered the village. Otherwise, he would have to trust to fate that he was not found out.

He felt a little better now that he had a plan. As he sat there, cool air washed over him and with it, the smell of his cousin's blood on the grasses a few steps away.

This is the way it would be. He needed to wait a little longer to start into his plan and his new life.

* * *

OK, you're done imagining now. That didn't turn out well. Maybe you ought to just keep mum about Juts stealing the salver until you come up with a better idea.

You should go visit your parents grave tomorrow, too.

More later,