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“Well Amondo while I appreciate you presenting me with options, I think it best to do things out in the open. I wasn’t thinking of retiring for another few months anyway, I still have things I need to do. So I’ll go and do what needs doing tomorrow and return a few days before the fair if you don’t mind putting me and my squire up for the night that is.”

“Your welcome to stay as long as you like and if you need any help with anything don’t hesitate to ask.”

“Even in the worst-case scenario my squire is the only help I require for what I plan to do but thanks for the offer. You know this is my first visit to Membe Castle, but you know my father was part of the party that escorted your grandmother here when she married your grandfather. Sorry I do ramble on sometimes must be a sign of old age or something.”

“Well I have things to do so I’ll have someone arrange a room for the both of you tonight and we’ll talk again at dinner.”

“See you then.”

After leaving the old knight and his squire Amondo headed to pay a visit to Melton Cardea the Barony’s chief clerk. He hadn’t originally planned to do so but when Glenn had mentioned his grandmother his thoughts had turned to something that had once puzzled him. Now his grandmother Natalia had died a couple of years before his father and the Baderston family that she had been born into had all but died out long before her passing. They had fallen prey to the worship of gold above all things and lost their barony to some money-making scheme or other that had backfired rather spectacularly.

All their prized possessions had to be flogged off to make up the difference and in the end, the only thing that remained was that which had been part of Natalia’s dowry. Not that it had amounted to much in the end a small piece of bog in the middle of nowhere and some jewellery including a fine gold broach and not much else. He had at the time wondered what had happened to that broach when it hadn’t been included in her will. In the end, he had discovered that it had been given away to his father’s first wife years earlier and ended up in the hands of his sister Daphne after her death.

What you might wonder had this got to do with his visit to Melton well it got him thinking about what else might have gotten lost over the years or at least seemed to have gotten lost if you looked at the wills of the different barons of Membe. Anyway, he decided to look into it now that he had better access to the wills of his forefathers.

“What brings you to me this day.”

“Well until my sister in law gives birth I find myself with time to spare and depending on the outcome I might have to rewrite my will. So I decided to have a look at the wills left by my ancestors and I need you to dig them up for me if you can, the last five generations should be sufficient, can you do that?”

“Well you brothers, your fathers and your grandfathers should be easy enough but the others might take some digging out.”

“All I ask is for you to try your best get me the first three as soon as you can and have a good look for the others and if you can’t find them any other wills you might come across during the search will have to do.”

“I’ll have the latest one’s for you within the hour and the rest just as soon as they are found.”

“Thanks, I’ll be in the map room until it’s dinner time so send them to me there.”

With that visit over he headed to the map room to have a good look at some tomes, he had come across while searching for information about the rights of rites of Kuetai.

He was reading an interesting tome by the scholar Pilcharach on the history of the Urban Union when a page turned up with the first three wills he had requested. He had read both his fathers and brothers before but his grandfathers was new to him. It didn’t contain any surprises what so ever and after reading it he quickly went back to Pilcharach and by the time another page arrived he had moved on to a book on philosophy by an unnamed cleric of Kueliti.

“Sir I was told to tell you that both of the wills I have for you are your great grandfathers, one that was enacted after his death and an earlier version written years previously.”

These two different versions of his great grandfathers will both started and ended the same and it was only the part in the middle that differed. Not in any great detail, other than in one instance, rather the language used and the way it referred to those who were to receive his bequests. The one real difference between then was a bequest in the earlier version that didn’t feature in the final one. A small sum of money left to some woman he had never heard off, it was probably nothing merely the intended recipient dying in the interim but it intrigued him none the less.

He had just finished reviewing the two document when another page arrived but this time without any documents.

“Sir the constable asked me to inform you that Nazma had begun to show the first sign of entering labour. Everything seems as it should be, the midwife is being notified and is expected to arrive shortly.”

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