The ‘Man in the Moon’ was the oldest inn in the town of Rye; it had nestled mid-way up Mermaid Street since the first days of the town’s institution as a Cinque Port. Yet its roots were lodged deeper than that, in the shadow-wreathed myths and stories of forgotten times.
Em was the landlady. She’d seen at least fifty summers, both good and ill, though her buxom build and apple face gave ample support to the lie that she wasn’t a day over thirty-five! She ruled her province with a rod of iron, treating men of God as stridently as any smuggler or soldier who might have passed under her gaze. Even the legion of Roman soldiers, who trooped through her wine cellar with irritating regularity, were met with a roll of the eyes and a sweep of the broom to obliterate their footprints in the chalky dust. There would be no funny business in her inn… not if she could help it!
It was the eighteenth of July, in the year of sixteen hundred and twenty six, that it all began; a fairly ordinary summer’s morning, not too hot yet not too cold, dry and with enough breeze to dry the sheets. Em opened the shutters. The sun poured through on a sea of fresh air, disturbing the stale smoke from its slumber and swirling the tired rushes into a bed of agitation.
Through the open lattice, Em had a clear view up Mermaid Street, past the House with the Seat and Jeake’s Place towards the castle. But it was downhill that her gaze took her this morning, towards the anchorage below, where a new ship bobbed on the end of its anchor on the high tide. It was awash with men, busy as a swarm of bees, spilling over the deck and onto the quayside, unloading great chests. The harbour-master was drawn there as to sweet nectar, his chest puffed out with overblown self-importance, like the Robin red-breast that was his name sake. Robin was so busy keeping notes of the comings and goings on board, he never saw the small group who crept up the cobbled hill from the docks, heaving to pull a vast oak chest behind them.
Em paused and watched them for a half a minute before deciding that now was exactly the right time to scrub the front steps.
[OOC: Technically speaking, this is set in 17th Century Rye, on the south-east coast of England. A map and other tidbits are to be found here. The inn looks like this However, no-one’s going to look askance at you if you bring an elf into the bar or introduce an archangel to the attic. Historical-fantasy is the game. Please post, whatever your RP background - let’s see where the muses take us and have fun! :mrgreen:]