Day Two-Thirty-Eight: Away with ye now

I'm noticing a pattern, here. It's very distinct, easy to follow, and… inexplicable. To me, anyway. Maybe somebody else gets it.

I spent the first part of today in a hunting party. Captain Cedric outright DEMANDED that every soldier and guard, royal or otherwise, search for the werewolf that escaped the castle last night. Cedric has several years of strong, loyal service under his belt, so king and queen alike capitulated to his demand. I guess he knows better than anybody how destructive a werewolf can be.

He should ALSO have known that we wouldn't find anything. One of the castle's hunters discovered heavy tracks bearing due west, but that was all. Antonia is verifiably gone. Sooo the hunting parties disbanded after about three hours, and I went back to business as usual: hunting down the prince.

There was no mention of Prince Logan having set his kangaroo free. There wasn't even mention of a scapegoat for the crime. It's like everyone knows he's done it, but nobody's willing to discuss the fact. He's the prince, so maybe he's not allowed to get in trouble? The same damned thing happened when Logan went gag-crazy on the castle, so… there might be merit to this idea.

I guess Prince Logan wasn't feeling too sheepish about his contribution to the castle's welfare, 'cause when I found him about a half hour later, he was fearlessly addressing a horde of merchants in the west bailey. Specifically, he was telling them to LEAVE.

"Get out!" he yelled, standing atop a boulder that still hadn't been removed since Driscol's siege of the castle. "All of you! Out! I hereby decree that all gathered merchants are banned from the castle!"

The merchants didn't react politely to this, prince or otherwise. Most of 'em swore at him for being a nuisance, and one even called him a 'nutter'. That's one of the harshest swear words there is, back home.

Logan remained undeterred. "I am prince! I am law! I've given you a command, and you'd better fucking obey it! Out! Now! Or my guards will see to it that you're gutted!"

Then he pointed at me. And jumped away.

Every merchant in the place turned to glare at me, as I'd been wading through them to get to Logan. I froze, grinned innocently, and did my best to melt away into the crowd. That didn't work so well, 'cause one of 'em tripped me. Bastard. None of 'em are martial dudes, though, and they let me go in peace when I made it clear that I wasn't sending 'em away.

Logan didn't go so easy on the lot. Turns out he visited his daddy, King Jeffrey, and demanded that every merchant be forced out of Castle ConstantlyRebuilding. I don't know what kind of conversation went on between 'em, and I doubt Jeffrey was happy, but in the end aaaaaaaall of the merchants were forced out of the castle.

Yes, even the ones who live here. Yikes. A lot of people have to be out of the castle by the end of the week.

Cripes. This place is goin' to shit, now that The Baron's gone. Was Logan just crazy and his tutor kept his madness at bay? Or is there something else going on, behind the scenes, that I can't see…?

Bugger. I'm gonna have to eat at the Beefiary full-time from now on. That place is gonna be hellishly busy. Couldn't Logan have at least let the papaya cart stick around? What am I gonna do if I get a midnight craving for a papaya?! Life sucks!

Sincerely,

Dragomir the Tracker