Day One-Seventy-Six: Come back, sweet prince

Gods. What a tiring day. Nothing out of the normal, so far, but… so… tiring… I didn't do this much running when I was trying to get away from the blasted werewolves…

As you may remember, diary, The Baron asked me to help him out this week, with the secret intention of trying to unravel Driscol the Count's scheme. I always knew he was scheming, and now I get the chance to prove it. That'll teach him for getting mad at ME for spilling soup all over him.

Now I feel like the bad guy. In retrospect. Huh.

Anyway! That doesn't matter right now. What DOES matter is that there was no spying to be had today, 'cause when I showed up on his doorstep The Baron told me that we'd be carrying on with general duties. That meant watching over Prince Logan. And I was fine with that. The prince and I are buddies, y'know. We get each other.

Apparently that understanding doesn't extend to people who are trying to make him do something he doesn't like. It really doesn't extend.

The first order of the day was trying to find Prince Logan in the first place. He wasn't in his chambers when we checked, which is apparently rather common. When we discovered as much The Baron suddenly developed a little spasm in his back and asked, very, very politely, if I would go search for Logan in his stead, because he's getting too old for this running about muck.

After turning the corner of the corridor we were in, I checked back on The Baron. Sneaky like, you know. The bastard was propped up on a chair, about to sleep! What a bastard. No back problems there, lemme tell you.

Well, it was still my job to go searching for the kid, so I did. For hours. I checked EVERYWHERE, diary, bloody well everywhere, and several times whenever I hit intersections. Nobody had seen the prince at all that day, 'cept for the guard posted in the dungeon, and that was only 'cause Logan came to check up on his kangaroo. Antonia. Whatever.

(Speaking of Antonia, I checked in on her after my shift today. She looks pretty awful. Never seen a more ferocious werewolf, snapping and snarling and spitting everywhere. And she has to be chained at all times! That's pretty rough for a saviour of the castle.)

It wasn't until about an hour after lunch that I finally found Logan… and he was with The Baron, on the walls of the west bailey. He'd been wondering what was taking his tutor so long. Guess The Baron's used to this run-around crap. I was tempted to give the kid a tongue lashing, but they were in the middle of a lesson, so I kept quiet and had a nice rest while they read from a book.

… until the weather changed.

I haven't mentioned it much lately, I know, but we HAVE been mired in winter for the last… several months. There's been snow every day, and even though it wasn't coming DOWN today, it was still clumped all over the castle in massive mounds.

That, like the transition to winter, changed in an instant. One moment I was sitting on a snow-covered rampart, and the next everything under me had melted away, nearly pitching me into the moat. Then, seconds after that was done, a giant thundercloud formed over us, and rain came tumbling down in massive gales! We all had to retreat to the keep before the rain reduced The Baron's book got to a sopping mess!

… and that's when we fell into one of the prince's traps.

See, for all his buggering around, Prince Logan is actually quite a smart kid. As far as I know he does a lot of studying on his own, WITHOUT The Baron's tutoring. So when somebody FORCES him to read stuff, well… he responds with a prank. And on this particular day, since he knew the weather was going to change, he ordered some of the labourers to dig him a pit while we were all out.

In The Baron's office.

He also ordered a hole carved into the ceiling, and the ceiling above THAT ceiling.

Soooooo when we walked into his office to keep studying, The Baron fell straight into a pit filled to the brim with rainwater, and I, well… Logan pushed me from behind. So in I went.

After laughing at us for a few minutes, Logan bolted again, saying he'd spent enough time studying. He dared us to find him. And we, dragging ourselves out of the prince's pit, went looking - but only after The Baron ordered his room set to rights. (It may only take a couple seconds to fill a big pit with water, but it takes aaaaaages for workers with buckets to empty the thing again.)

So yes! We searched for Logan for another three hours. Did we find him? Noooooo sir. Dunno where the hell he went, but that was the end of tutoring for the day. A solid fifteen minutes of lecturing. And The Baron seemed relatively happy about that! Guess that was more study time than the prince usually gets under The Baron's care.

Sigh. My legs are sore. Do I have to do this EVERY day?

Sincerely,

Dragomir the TA