1867-02-27: The Lone Hospitaller
The Lone Hospitaller
Summary: Sir Havelock Synn, accused of a crime he didn't commit and forced to flee Rikton and declared a heretic by Cardinal Telekos alongside his brethren of the Order of the Reliant, settles in Four Corners and vanishes into the slums to found a hospital and atone for a good many sins.
Date: 1867-02-27
Related: Any pertaining to the sealing of Rikton and the excommunicating of the Order of the Reliant.
NPCs: {$npc}
Players:
Havelock  

The ride from Rikton was fraught, Grendel's thundering hooves pounding the frozen ground as distance was sought between his rider and Rikton. What little rest was found was all too often off the beaten track and down in some frozen ditch. The chill weather lashing at the dead leaves and stining at Havelock's cold and dirt and blood stained features.It had not gone well. And the journey wasn't all that pleasant either and yet is continued. Cold. Miserable. Colder still.

Havelock's arrival in Four Corners was quiet and in the middle of the night, clad in little more than his rime-frosted armour with his Reliant finery bundled away out of sight. It didn't pay for a wanted murderer to show up anywhere clad in the very vestements that would seal his death if caught by the wrong person. And So Sir Havelock Synn the Penitent was reduced to a bedraggled and frozen sight, a man-at-arms down on his luck and then some, a failed merc or sellsword in dire need of employment. Whatever he resembled, he thankfully didn't resemble a heretical Reliant charged with murder.

With Grendel stabled, Havelock found the first rays of light that poked through the murk of the canals somewhat unimpressive, the stench of the slums pricking at his nostrils as he sought out those who would see him settled. There wasn't enough time for drinking, regardless of how much havelock considered just sinking into a corner and drowning his spirits, there'd be time enough for that later.

A few hours later and several crowns lighter, Havelock stood on the threshold of a decrepit building that had perhaps been home to fine merchant at some point in the history of Four Corners. Yet now the walls peeled, plaster had collapsed and the place reeked of a mingled scent of doom, despair and damp. Yet for the first time since Havelock had arrived in Four Corners, deciding against reuniting with his bretheren, the knight smiled. Albeit briefly and wearily.

Hours passed and it was a sweat soaked and reeking Havelock who cleared the detritus from his new home. Shattered windows long since left without a slither of glass were boarded, walls were reinforced and floors were patched, scrubbed, sanded and scrubbed again. Coin exchanged hands, supplies to turn what had been a ruin into something less than a ruin came easily enough as the coins tumbled into palms and throughout Havelock toiled without rest till finally even he couldn't fight against what his body demanded and so he slept curled against a door on the upper floor, a lightsilver warhammer clutched within his trembling grasp as he slept deeply yet fitfully to anyone who could have watched him.

Day after day Havelock turned a ruin into something vaguely habitable, something cleaner than the world beyond, though it was tainted by stains and damage from neglect, but with the windows shuttered against the chill and a ramshackle fireplace soon casting its warmth into a building that ate the heat all too readily, it slowly became home and something more besides. Havelock's toil something of a penance in itself.

With a small area given over to his own personal commanderie, enough room for a cot, a footlocker and a writing desk and enough of a rickety floor to store his goods safely beneath a thick and moth-eaten rug, underneath another rotten floorboard or two, Havelock's home took shape. The rest of the building was given over to old and creaking cots, stitched and oft-repaired sheets and quilts and throughout the steady crackle of damp wood heated the building. The fireplace roared and a few old iron braziers dragged out to add to the heat when needed could often be relied on to ensure that the building couldn't leech all of the heat.

With another room given over to matters more bloody by nature, given that sawdust could be seen layering the floor, the slums for better or for worse soon found that they were blessed with a slowly forming hospital. Equally so that they were they blessed with a surgeon who asked few questions and was all too ready to offer aid whatever the time of the day or night, or whatever the location. A surgeon without title, a surgeon whose surname was never given.

At least for now.

Can't be too careful after all.

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