Interlude DCXXXVI: Rhymes and Riddles
Rhymes and Riddles
Fifth Day of the Eleventh Month 293 AC
All fey wished to be heard, all fey wished to be known for what, after all, was a tale with none to listen to it, a play without an audience, a masterpiece with none to witness it? So then, Danar wondered, who had the sharpest eyes, the keenest ears quivering for any whisper of a tale. Who would believe what most would scoff at, who would most fear the barrow and its guardians while most walked blithely by about their lives and errands? So sang the children of Barrowtown, castlefolk or smallfolk, brash or shy, but not a one older than five namedays, all summer's children, of winter knowing naught:
Three blind mice, three blind mice,
See how they run, see how they run,
They all ran after the miller's wife,
Who chops their tails with a carving knife,
Did you ever see such a thing in your life,
As three blind mice?
If one were to ask them why they sang or how they knew the words, they's scatter right quick, like mice in a barn themselves, and if you were to corner one as the Hound had done looking for a quick answer, they'd stutter something about 'hearing it 'round town' or at the most they might stutter the name of some other child they heard sing it and on it went, a garland of petty lies and worthless truths strung on a thread they couldn't grasp.
'Twas Wisdom Xor who managed with kindness and patience what gruff orders could not do. The kindly storyteller who would sit by the fire and spin stories of strange and far off lands. Squire or pot scrubber, spit turner or knight's daughter, all were welcome to listen in so long as they were quiet and mindful of the others. Finally it had been a little girl with a long pale face and messy dark hair that faintly recalled the look of the Dustins, from what Danar had heard, who answered in a whisper: "We're not supposed to say, grownups aren't supposed to know, She'll be mad and... take our eyes with the carving knife."
Danar held his breath, lest the smallest sound reveal him listening in the shadows of the 'maester's alcove', as the folk of Barrowtown called the little carved nook, close enough to the fire and thus the lord or lady to advise, but dark enough to be overlooked. There was no maester here, no more did the Lady of Barrow Hall care to spend her evenings in the great hall.
"That sounds very mean of her," Wisdom Xor said gravely, he sounded sad, but not the least as though he lorded the wisdom of age over her. Then again, who could say how old he truly was or if age meant aught to one who was a stranger in all the worlds of men and gods. "Someone should stop her before she can hurt more folk."
He said not a word more, but turned instead back to the fire and no doubt ready to carry on his own tale if the girl were not minded to say more on the matter, but the child wavered, caught between fear and a desire to pay back kindness with kindness in turn. "Oh, you shouldn't go looking for her, you'll lose... you'll lose... like the mice in the rhyme"
"My tail?" Xor asked turning around to look behind himself. "I don't seem to have one so I shan't miss it."
"Not your tail... your tale," the girl replied, hands tightening around Xor's, knuckles going white. "Chop chop, chop, a tale cut right up."
"Alys? Alys, come on Old Magda's going to put us in the stew if we don't get back to the kitchen to clean up soon," one of the pot boys tugged at the girl's hand.
With one last worried look she went leaving, more questions than she answered scattered in her wake.
OOC: That is an actual nursery rhyme by the way, because those are just fundamentally creepy in the way things that date back unchanged to the bad old days of royal purges and bubonic plague can be.
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