Day Three-Thirty-Three: Everything is falling apart

By the gods, a town meeting was productive for once! People got along! Kinda! Ain't nothing like a little urban catastrophe to bring the social classes together, I always say.

Well. Okay. I've never said that before. But I have now, and I'm sure I'll say it again while I'm mayor.

I called everyone to order 'round the golden tree after the morning chores… and repairs… had been completed. I started by asking what had gone wrong overnight, anticipating troubles, and I was not disappointed:

- The pub was filled with twigs - don't know how it was managed, considering many of us were SLEEPING INSIDE THE PUB

- The cows were scared into the woods, and Morris spent the morning trying to corral them back into a crude replacement enclosure

- Another wagon was rendered useless, its wheels having been cracked and strung up in a tree

- The seeds in one of the winterweed fields had all been removed from the ground and left in a big pile at the edge of the field - and all of their holes were filled in

- And, in a spectacularly bad move, a band of bold beavers had tried to gnaw away at the legs on my parents' bed while they slept - my dad woke up and caught 'em, and the town enjoyed cooked beaver for breakfast this morning

The yummy beaver aside, people were in a bad mood when I asked what we should offer Pagan to receive permission to stay on the land. A lot of people were PISSED to hear that we'd illegally settled on somebody else's property, but all agreed that we weren't moving now, and he'd best make the most of our presence.

"Give him some winterweed!" Lonnie the Noble yelled, offering what was to be the most sensible suggestion of the day. "We will have plenty! He can sell it on the market and make a fortune!"

My father glared at Lonnie, though he didn't attack. He's eased up on his bullying considerably. "Y'idiot, we can't sell that damned weed. We need it to survive the winter. Give 'im your useless ass, Dragomir! Sacrifice yourself or somethin'! For the good of the town!"

An annoyingly large portion of Pubton agreed with that. I poo-pooed the motion and called for more suggestions.

"A delicious soup!" cried Robert. "I can make it! Get me some swan meat and I'll turn that bugger into your best friend, Drago!"

"I'll fix his stupid house!" offered Libby. "You say he's got slaves? Bet they're shit at maintenance!"

"Bora! Offer him Bora!" one of the noblewomen yelled. "No… no particular reason!"

"No! No! Send him that useless skank! I serve the beer!" Bora hurled back, though she was laughing. The men hotly agreed with Bora.

"We could tend t'his fields!" said Morris. "Or feed his livestock! Or menial stuff like that!"

"Tell him we'll put on a play for him! Once a week!"

"War tournaments in his honour!"

"Jousting matches!"

"Candy!"

"A child's beaming face!"

"The promise of an eternal tomorrow!"

"Porn!"

"This thimble!"

I wrote down all of the suggestions, from the practical to the outlandish, laughing whenever somebody tossed out a new, even weirder suggestion. The crowd carried on for a good half hour with stupid ideas, and I let 'em. Work has been sluggish and hard of late, and tempers are high in Pubton. We needed a chance to be silly.

So, uh, yeah. I have a list of things I can offer Pagan when I visit his manor tomorrow. Barrel has agreed to fly me over in the morning. Was a long bargain, and Barrel seemed dangerously twitchy during the conversation (he's become rather territorial, taking over a patch of trees in the woods), but it will be done. Bah, dammit, forgot to ask the rats 'bout his weird mood swings… I'll make a note of it…

Anyway. Yeah. Tomorrow I make haste to Pagan's manor, perhaps to put an end to his animal shenanigans. If nothing else I hope I can find out how in the hell he's doing all this. Didn't seem like much of an animal person to me when we met…

Sincerely,

Dragomir the Mayor