Quintessentially Quilly

Welcome to Three Word Thursday #37. If you enjoy reading my story, leave a comment then click on the names of the other players and go see how they used these bygone words. You’ll be entertained (and possibly educated) all at once.

The Words:

aretaloger: braggart, boaster

kexy: hollow; dry; sapless

gardeviance: trunk; a chest for valuables

Our Story to Date

Evaard has just been made a knight. He is the 12th & lowliest knight of Strawberry Fife. For his fist assignment he was sent to guard Strawberries and quite disappointed with his first uneventful day on the job. First thing in the morning on his second day on the job he was brought the news that Chevall, the 11th Knight of Strawberry Fife had possibly been murdered and is missing.

The last person known to have seen Chevall alive was Madam Patasserie, who was trying to get Chevall to marry either of her daughters. Evaard went to the bakery to question Olaf Patasserie about his wife, but the bakery was closed & Evaard spoke to the candy maker instead. From there Evaard went to the Patasserie residence. Evaard found the back garden covered in offal and Olaf Patasserie dead. His brains had been bashed out.

Inside the Patasserie house Evaard found signs of an abrupt departure and gained the impression Madam Patasserie hadn’t left of her own free will since her cloak and reticule remained behind. Outside the house Evaard found fragments of dragon shells. He dreads the coming confrontation with the dragons and knows he must warn the King.

previous episodes here

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Kexy Clues

Evaard left the Patasserie’s cottage by the front door and went straight to the tragematopolist’s shop. It was locked and no one answered his pounding upon the door. Evaard tried to see through the shutters covering the windows, but it was too dark within the store.

He squished his way through the garbage in the valley to the shop’s back door. A boy sat on the stoop. “Do you work here?” Evaard greeted him.

“Aye, sir!” The boy stood up and bowed smartly. “I am Yohan, at your service.”

“Well, Yohan,” Evaard said. “Where is your master?”

“If it is candy you want,” the boy said. “You do not need my master. Though only an apprentice, I am already a renouned candymaker!”

“Yes, well, it is not candy I seek, but a word with your master. Where can I find him?”

“I know not,” Yohan answered. “I came this morning to work and found my master talking to you, so I stirred up a batch of exquisite fudge, would you like…”

“No thank you,” Evaard said. “Are you the boy that visited the Patasserie’s this morning?”

“No sir!” Yohan answered sharply. “My master and the baker, Patasserie, do not get along and I have been instructed not to speak to him. Why just last week they had a fierce quarrel over a gardeviance my master had here in the shop. The baker was angry and had the huge thing carted away. My master was furious.”

“Do you know what was in the gardeviance and where it was taken?” Evaard asked.

Yohan shook his head. “I care about nothing but my candy making.”

Evaard reached up and touched the dragon’s egg shard through his cloak. He suspected he already knew what was in the trunk anyway. “Were there other such trunks?” He asked.

The boy nodded. “I did not see them, but the baker and my master argued about others.”

“Do you know when your master will be back?”

Yohan shrugged. “I have been paid for this week,” he said. “I will wait only that long. With my skills I’ll not have trouble finding another possition.”

Evaard nodded, thanked the boy, and retraced his steps through the alley. He figured he might as well collect Fencil and the war horse, then seek an audience with the king. He wished he had at least once answer to go with all his questions, but the most he knew for certain was the candy maker’s apprentice was an aretaloger and Strawberry Fife was in serious trouble.

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The 3WT #38 words will be:  posted on Thanksgiving Day!
Got it? Good! In that case: Your story is due on: December 3rd, 2009