For a backwater tavern, there were a lot of people here. It was a wonder that this many people even lived in the area, Rolo had spent a long, hot day descending from the valleys, and the landscape had been mostly empty, save for scatterings of shacks, farms, and hovels here and there.
The folk gathered here chatted excitedly, wearing broad, almost mischievous smiles, and all of them wore the same type of baggy smock that hung just below the knees and buttoned up to the neck at the front.
Rolo felt himself to be something of an expert on both taverns and people, and he could tell that there was something in the air.
"Say friend, is there a celebration on tonight?" Rolo asked.
"Locals only, friend, sorry." The young man replied.
He was around Rolo’s age and held what looked to be a primitive lute made out of carved wood. The contraption only had two strings, which the man plucked, giving the tuneless sound a satisfied nod.
Rolo had been watching the man studiously drain his ale for the last hour and judged that he had reached peak drunkenness with the air of a career professional.
"Don’t need to be a local to know you can’t celebrate with an empty cup," Rolo said cheerfully, calling the barkeep for two large tankards of ale.
"Thanks to you, friend, Scuddy’s the name." Scuddy pulled some of his long, tangled hair out of his eyes and fixed Rolo with a bleary smile.
"Names Renau," Rolo said, flashing a smile he thought worthy of the captain, who now sailed with Konrad on the ship Elena.
The level of excitement in the tavern seemed to go up a notch, and some of the patrons began to filter out into the night.
"You won’t be leaving me here to drink alone will you Scud?" Rolo asked as his new friend gulped down his ale.
Scuddy paused and lowered his tankard, looking around and lowering his voice. "That depends, friend Renau. Are you—"
Rolo leaned in closer.
"A prude?"
Rolo blinked at the question. "A prude?"
"Shhh." Scuddy put his finger to his lips.
The question surprised Rolo; in his experience, it was the southerners who were considered prudish. The Lost Coast was different, but the rest of the regions were considered to be the heartlands of the Mother and Father; he would have thought the people here would be very reserved.
"Not especially," Rolo replied.
"I thought so," Scuddy said, plucking a few tuneless notes on his instrument. "You look like a Northman, and I know all about those hot rooms you got up there."
Rolo laughed at hearing the description. "Yes, we have the Svah, and then when we are warmed enough, we roll around in the snow. It's good for circulation."
"Naked?" Scuddy asked, waggling his eyebrows.
Rolo hesitated, his tankard raised to his lips. "Yes, but it's more about the snow."
The tavern had mostly emptied now, and the innkeeper had untied his apron and hung it on a hook. Scuddy looked towards the door and seemed to make up his mind, turning back to Rolo.
"You seem like a good sort friend Renau, not prudish."
"In the north, we say Prudes are like icebergs; there is more under the water, but you’ll never see it."
Scuddy laughed, clasping Rolo by the shoulder. "We’ve been hearing about a group of Prudes in the area. Been going around bothering decent folk about a bunch of rules: do this, don’t do that.
"Seems people should be left to do what they like according to their customs," Rolo replied evenly.
"Well said, friend Renau, you come with me then."
"Where are we going?"
"We’re going to The Dip; you’re going to see something magical," Scuddy said with a wink.
Rolo recalled his conversation with Gerrard, the wagon driver, and everything clicked into place. This must be the place where the witches danced naked around their fire. Alice had also given him a solid lead, but if he could find witches right now, he wouldn’t have to travel to Wolledale and he could get to Konrad faster.
"I’ve heard about this," Rolo said, draining his tankard.
Scuddy held a hushed conversation with the innkeeper, who cast a suspicious look at Rolo. Rolo thought he heard the words "prude" and "pious" before Scuddy returned with a folded smock made of cloth.
"You’ll have to wear this; quickly get changed; we must get to The Dip!"
Rolo tried to ignore how exposed he felt wearing nothing but a thin-lined smock. If the Fist of the Father caught up with him now, he would shred through him in seconds.
The Dip, turned out to be a depression formed in the land between several grassy hills. The moonlight shone down into it, and in the center was a huge bonfire. People in their smocks laughed and swayed gently to the beat of a circle of drummers.
"Drum circles," Rolo muttered.
"You don’t like drums?" Scuddy said, tapping his foot.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
"I’ve nothing against drummers on their own, but when they get in a circle, they summon spirits that make them lazy and unproductive."
"You’ll like these ones, I promise."
The beat of the drum moved up to a faster and louder rhythm, and the crowd began to dance in a circle around the fire. Rolo hadn’t spotted any witches so far, but his keen eyes were checking for the telltale blue tattoos that they wore on their skin.
The rhythm of the drum intensified, and the dancers moved faster in the circle.
"It’s time to dance, friend Renau," Scuddy said, getting to his feet and hopping from foot to foot, his eyes locked on the mass of bodies below them.
Rolo eagerly followed Scuddy into the press of bodies, and he laughed and danced around the blazing fire, caught up in the excitement of the festivities.
"When are the witches arriving?" Rolo shouted at Scuddy.
"What witches?" Scuddy replied.
The drums rose to a crescendo, and all at once the dancers gave a great shout and pulled off their smocks at the same time. Rolo stood open-mouthed as hundreds of now-naked dancers jostled him as they surged around the bonfire.
"Ye gods," he breathed.
Whatever he had stumbled into, it was not the work of witches. He should have listened to Alice and gone straight to Wolledale.
With some difficulty, Rolo tried to force his way out of the press of bodies as hands snatched at the borrowed cotton smock he wore, trying to pull it from him. Several of the attendees cried out angrily as he pushed past, and their cries were taken up by others.
Bursting from the press, Rolo seized his pack and pulled out his thick fur coat, throwing it over his shoulders just as the beat of the drums faltered and stopped. Their pounding rhythm fell silent, replaced by the anger of the crowd, which buzzed like a hive of angry wasps.
Scuddy raised his arm and pointed straight at Rolo, a hurt look on his face. "He’s a Prude!" he shouted.
The naked dancers took up the cry and surged after Rolo. He reached for his axe but let his hand fall, the people here were unarmed, demonstrably unarmed, and so with a howl of frustration, he tried to run up the hill, but before he reached the crest, the first of them pulled him back down into The Dip.
Rolo had been in some fights in his time, but nothing could prepare him for this. Everything in his field of vision blurred into a fleshy mirage of body parts, and he tried not to hurt people as they beat on him. None of them were strong enough or sober enough to really hurt him, and he mostly focused on clawing at the grass to pull himself up the hill.
Finally, he pulled himself out of the madness and dragged himself to the top of The Dip to find a young woman staring down at him. She wore a brown robe tied in the middle with a length of rope, and her hair had been shaved completely on top, leaving only a short crown around the edge.
"Are you a part of this debauchery?" She asked.
Her expression was severe, and she held a wooden paddle in one hand that made a slapping sound as she tapped it into her open palm.
Rolo noted another dozen or so similarly dressed figures behind the woman. Unlike the dancers behind him, they appeared stone-cold sober, and all were armed with the same thick wooden paddles. Everything about them screamed priest, but he had never seen any follower of the Mother or Father dressed like this.
"Nothing to do with me; I just stumbled in here. I’m trying to leave."
"Do you live a pure life?" She asked.
Rolo knew when it was time to fight and when it was time to grovel, and this was a time to grovel, whoever these people were. "I'm so pure, soap bubbles envy my spotlessness," he murmured, his forehead touching the floor.
"The Prior sees you."
The sandals moved past him, and the shouting was punctuated by the sounds of heavy wooden paddles slapping onto naked skin.
As he ran, Rolo swore that he heard a chuckle in the wind.
-
The number of sheep began to increase rapidly as Rolo approached Wolledale. They blocked the track he walked on, and when he tried to walk in the adjacent field, they stampeded past him by the hundred, battering him to the floor. He received several bites as he slipped and slid on their nervous deposits.
It was clear what some of the sheep were used for. Each person in the area was wearing a brightly colored wool sweater. The designs were intricate and seemed to follow some kind of social pattern that Rolo couldn’t quite decipher.
The town seemed to have taken their love of wool to a whole new level. The guards wore woolen armor covers, patterned to reflect muscles sculpted in wool. The tips of their spears had woolen covers. The dogs who rounded up the sheep wore woolen coats, and he even saw several sheep dressed in knitted woolen jackets, and he couldn’t work out if that was a cruelty or not.
Finally, there was the gigantic woollen tapestry that hung over the main gate proudly declaring the town’s motto; "If it ain’t wool, it ain’t worth a darn."
Rolo shook his head. In the north, this type of obsession with puns bordered on criminality.
When he finally made it into the town, the woolen madness continued. Rugs and tapestries hung in windows. The tankards at the tavern had small woolen jackets.
Some questioning of the locals in the market led him to a smaller shop close to the main square. The window was filled with tiny woolen figures. Soft toys, dolls, and little soldiers. Many of them had strings attached to a piece of wood so that they could be controlled.
A bell tinkled somewhere in the back of the store as he entered, and a woman emerged wearing a garish woolen sweater depicting a pastoral scene with, you guessed it, a field of sheep.
"Hello there, you don’t look like you're from around here."
"What gave me away?" Rolo replied with a smile.
"Not many fur wearers in town," the woman replied, wrinkling her nose as she studied Rolo’s outfit. "I’m Ethel."
Ethel held out a hand that had faint blue tattoos entwining the fingers, and Rolo shook it. She was far from what he had expected from a witch. Before he met Serena, he had imagined all witches as hags, living in swaps with boils and cauldrons of children. But Ethel looked very much like the puppets hanging around the store; her features were plain and rounded, and she wore a wan smile. Her eyes seemed to gaze unblinkingly forward, and if she wanted to look to the side, she turned her whole body.
"What can I do for you, then, Poppet?" Ethel asked.
Rolo was struggling with the thick accent of the people in the town and decided that "poppet" must be some kind of informal title.
Rolo lowered his voice. "I was sent here by Alice, from Fallow Vale."
Ethels' puppet-like mouth hung open. "It’s you? Why did she send you here?"
"She told you about me?" Rolo asked. If Alice had sent a message by horse, it would have easily beaten him here. He would have done the same had he not given all of his money to Konrad’s parents.
"Of course, but, well, generally, the women don’t really send you here. I usually go to them. You don’t look a bit like the description." Ethel coughed, clearly flustered, and bustled into the back of the store. "I wasn’t really prepared, you see, but I suppose sometimes you have to sheer the pig and ignore the squeals."
"I need your help, I need to contact a friend; she’s a witch," Rolo called out.
"Just a moment, poppet, I don’t hear very well; I've got wool in my ears," she tittered.
Rolo waited patiently for the old woman to rustle about at the back of the shop, and when she reappeared, his eyes were glued to the item in the witches hands.
"Not bad for a moment's work; I can fix up the beard later."
Ethel held a woolen puppet with black hair and blue eyes. It wore a heavy coat and had thick, bushy eyebrows. A beard had been started, but it only resembled a goatee.
Rolo took a half step back and looked around horrified, spotting other male puppets dotted around the store; ordinary figures hidden among the more decorative creations.
"For what it’s worth, you don’t seem so bad," Ethel said, then narrowed her eyes. "Guess that means you’re a wolf in sheep’s clothing; we can’t be having that."
"I just came here to ask for your help," Rolo spluttered as the witch began to mumble under her breath. The tiny puppet Rolo turned its fabric head towards her, listening.
Rolo reached for his pack, clutching to get to his protective chainmail. His tongue felt strange against the roof of his mouth, and his thoughts came sluggishly. He reached up to claw at his mouth, but his hands were pads of wool. The world took on a strange aspect, and then all he felt was softness and warmth, and everything smelled faintly of sheep.