The Rise of la Vallée part II

Dear Geriant,

I now appreciate why you asked me to make contact with Sir Owain and the Montaigne Porté sorcerer Dandelion. The things they are up to, and the impact that they could have on our beloved Avalon are terrifying! To do them justice, however, I really don't see that they have had much choice in what they do. I have taken the precaution of ensuring this letter is delivered by a high security courier, as the contents could be extremely embarrassing to Her Majesty.

I caught up with Sir Owain, Dandelion, the Vestennmannavnjar Rune sorcerer Bortstennskoldmund (Borstenn for short), Avon Arthur (of the Rose and Cross) and Mordred Stewart (a highlander with an apparent gift for languages) at the Le Homme Rouge in Charouse. It seems that they had just been involved with an attempted coup, with the upshot being that the La Courenne party has become totally discredited with the public. They made some effort to disguise themselves - with Dandelion, Borstenn and Mordred being all red (apart from Borstenn's hair), claiming to be natives of the Midnight Archipelago. They were only partially successful. A picture appeared in La Plúme (the local newspaper), in which Borstenn was clearly recognisable. Strangely, he didn't find this worrying at all. Instead, he had a copy of the picture sent to his brother, as if to boast on what he had done!

Sir Owain meanwhile was berating me because he has been trying to track me down for some time, but with my constant travels of the last year, he has always missed him. Why he didn't just leave a message with the nearest embassy, I can't work out. Anyway, following your instructions to be discrete, I only told him that I have been travelling between Vendel, Eisen and Castille on various missions - skipping Montaigne because it is one of the languages that I don't speak.

Also, in the La Plúme article, it described how the leader of the La Courenne, one Armand la Bierê, has been arrested, and was due to be tried and executed in 3 days time. Dandelion appeared worried about this, and indicated that he would prefer to rescue him if at all possible. Apparently Armand went to school with Dandelion, and whilst they were not close friends, he obviously has some feelings or concern towards his welfare.

Many plans were discussed on how to achieve Armand la Bierê's release. I won't describe all of them (they seem to have developed some intense desire to use sewers a lot), but it was quickly decided that there would be an heavy guard of the local fanatics from the ruling party—given the recent coup attempt. Other plans to use guile to manage his release from prison fell down when it was realised that only Dandelion and Mordred could speak Montaigne (and Mordred with an obvious accent). As Armand was being held in the sorcerer's prison, and the warden there is rumoured to be able to smell sorcerers, Dandelion vetoed his approaching the prison with anything less than a fully armed group—not exactly the best when guile is to be attempted!

A suggestion was made to try to convince the ruling party to re-instate Armand as a parliamentarian. The logic was that his proposal to bring back the regency is obviously the idea of a fool, and it was better to have a live fool than a dead martyr—no-one would follow him after this. I have spoken to the Embassy to try to get them to do this through normal diplomatic channels (they will have a lot better idea of who to speak to, and how to do it in a subtle way without implying that Avalon is interfering in their local politics), but we are not really hopeful that this would work (we are dealing with fanatics, after all).

The best plan that they could come up with was to have either Borstenn or Mordred impersonate the executioner (Dandelion used his social contacts to find out where we could find him—one Robert Gross, a regular drinker at the Black Crow). It would require Borstenn dyeing his beard black, so we have some Vestennmannavnjar sensibilities to overcome first.

In the meantime, we went to speak to one of the La Couronne parliamentarians who wasn't arrested. The security at his home was tight—we were only allowed in once Borstenn was recognised from the picture in La Plúme. Michel (the parliamentarian) was quite upset that we approached openly. He claimed that it put him at risk of being condemned by the mob with the rest of La Couronne. He indicated that he was staying only long enough to sell up his assets, and then he was leaving. He certainly gave us the impression that La Couronne was finished as a political force, and the Montaigne government was firmly and totally in the control of the revolutionary fanatics. When asked what other prisoners were being held with la Bierê, he mentioned the names Pierre and Therrier.

At this point, a mob appeared approaching the house. Dandelion and I took the back exit from the house, but Borstenn, Dandelion, Sir Owain and Avon when out the front gate - straight in front of the mob!. Borstenn told me afterwards that he did this because he wanted to yell "We'll get you next time Michel" at the house, to try to give the impression that Michel had nothing to do with the attempted coup. However, not speaking a word of Montaignion, this probably had no real effect, apart from showing the mob that Michel had been harbouring a wanted felon.

Avon, Mordred and Sir Owain immediately climbed up onto the nearby roofs to avoid the mob, whilst Borstenn ran down the street to lure some of the mob away. It worked to a degree—some of the mob stopped to throw stones at Avon, Sir Owain and Mordred (only grazing the first two, but catching Mordred with a painful blow). Others of the mob climbed up on the roofs after them, and a chase entailed. Sir Owain was caught and was being badly hurt until Mordred, and Borstenn came to his rescue (Avon tried, but slipped off the roof as he turned and fell to the ground—luckily not serious hurt, and even more importantly, the pursuers elected not to follow him down).

Borstenn had been caught by the mob a bit further down the street when he also attempted to climb to the roof tops, but kept falling off. He eventually reached the roof tops in time to see Sir Owain's plight and came to his rescue—sweeping several attackers off the roof in a single blow.

In the meantime, as Michel fled, escorted by Dandelion and I, he told us that if we did manage to rescue Armand la Bierê, then we should take him to the Inn of the Fallen Oak outside of Charouse.

After meeting up with everyone back at the inn, and all the injuries has been attended to by Dandelion, Borstenn, and Dandelion's man Ambrose, Dandelion, Sir Owain and Sir Robin went to contact some of the resistance fighters against the revolution—the Rye Grin. We led by one Boumon to see Jean. After discussing the situation, they agreed to stage a diversion at the time of the execution to try to draw off at least some of the guard. The signal for the diversion will be the sound of the drums for the execution.

In the meantime, the others went to the Black Crow to try to find the executioner (we still have two nights before the trial). We are now waiting to hear back from them on how it went. Given the importance of some of the above, I felt it my duty to pen this letter immediately, rather than wait, so that you will be informed as soon as possible on what is going on. At this point in time, I don't know whether to suggest withdrawing our embassy because of all the chaos, or to increase it in an effort to allow us to influence the fanatics into a more sensible path. Happily, that is not my decision to make (though it may be useful if you could arrange for some instruction in Montaigne for me as it looks like that we'll need to keep a close eye on this region for sometime to come).

As always,

Your servant, Sir Robin of Hood.