Gerrik of Puddle

In the matter of THE VILLAGE OF BRUND v. GERRIK OF PUDDLE, regarding damages to agricultural produce, failure to complete a contracted monster removal, conduct unbecoming a licensed practitioner, and one count of aggravated turnip destruction. Testimony of the accused, transcribed by Clerk Nodds.

My name is Gerrik. I am from Puddle. The “of Puddle” is not a title. It is a place. It is exactly as prestigious as it sounds.

I kill things for money. On good days, the things I kill deserve it. I am told this is relevant to the matter at hand, your honour, and I will get to the turnips presently.

I had been on the road for six days before the incident. My last meal was cheese. Before that it was also cheese. I have begun to rank cheeses by sadness. The one I ate on Monday was, objectively, the saddest cheese I have ever encountered — a hard yellow disc that tasted of nothing and apologised for itself in the mouth. I mention this because you asked about my state of mind, and my state of mind was cheese.

My armour had rusted in places I did not know armour could rust. I was making sounds when I walked. Metallic, embarrassing sounds. My horse threw me on Tuesday. I am too proud to buy another one in the same county.

The road behind me at that point contained one dead griffin, one furious alderman — not the present alderman, a different alderman, although I accept that the distinction may not help my case — two outstanding invoices, and a village that has asked me not to come back. Standard week.

I entered the tavern. The tavern is not the subject of this hearing but it is where I met the sorceress and the sorceress is why I ended up in your jurisdiction, so I ask the court’s patience.

The sorceress is called Thessaly. She turned me into a frog once. This is also not the subject of this hearing, but I feel the court should know the kind of person who sends work my way. It was three weeks. I ate a fly. I remember enjoying it. I have had to live with that knowledge every day since, and I consider it a mitigating factor in everything I have done subsequently.

She had a contract. Something in the ruins east of here. “The kind of thing that should have stayed buried,” she said, which is what sorceresses always say. They could be talking about a sandwich. Everything has to be a whole production. I once saw a sorceress open a letter and somehow there were sparks.

I took the contract. This is what I do. I am a professional. I am, as the prosecution has noted, a licensed professional, and I would like the court to observe that my licence is current, that my dues are paid, and that the Monster-Hunters’ Professional Standards Board has never upheld a complaint against me, although several have been filed and one of them was from a horse.

Now. The turnips.

The creature was in Gerd’s root cellar. I want the court to sit with that for a moment. Not a moonlit clearing. Not an ancient ruin. Not a crumbling tower on a cliff where the wind howls and the ravens circle. A root cellar. Belonging to a man named Gerd. Containing turnips.

The ballads do not mention root cellars, your honour. The ballads promise ancient evil and swords that glow. My swords do not glow. They are very clean — if there were an award for sword maintenance I would win it and then sharpen the award — but they do not glow. Glowing is a feature I was not offered at the time of my mutation and I have never been able to arrange it since.

Gerd refused to leave. He explained, at length, that the turnips were nearly ready. He had been watching those turnips since March. I suggested that perhaps the creature with too many legs and not enough respect for agriculture might be a higher priority than the turnips. Gerd disagreed. Gerd and I have different priorities. The court has heard Gerd’s priorities.

I fought the creature. In a root cellar. While a man stood in the corner providing commentary on the state of his turnips. The creature knocked over a shelf. Gerd made a sound like a man watching his children fall. I killed the creature. I also knocked over the turnips.

I accept responsibility for the turnips. I do not accept that the turnips were worth forty-seven crowns. I have bought turnips, your honour. I have eaten turnips. These were not forty-seven crown turnips. These were, at best, nine crown turnips with delusions of grandeur. But Gerd produced an itemised receipt from somewhere — I did not know turnips could be itemised — and I was too tired to argue, which is how I ended up paying more for the turnips than I was paid for the monster, and which is, I am told, the basis of this entire proceeding.

I would like to point out that the creature is dead. The village is safe. The root cellar is intact, minus the turnips, for which I have already been charged once and am apparently being charged again, which I believe constitutes double jeopardy, although I accept that I am not a lawyer and my understanding of double jeopardy comes primarily from an argument I had with a dwarf in a pub.

While I am here, and since the court has asked about my professional conduct generally, I would like to address the matter of the Brund Forest creature, which I understand has also been raised.

A farmer came to me. His daughter was missing. He had been crying. He managed “my daughter” before the rest of it overwhelmed him. I waited. I have learned to wait. Grief has its own schedule and it does not care about mine. Grief has, in fact, never heard of mine.

I went into the forest. What I found there is the part the prosecution has characterised as “failure to complete a contracted monster removal,” and I would like to offer an alternative characterisation, which is that I used professional judgement.

The creature was a mother. She had three cubs. She had been raiding the farms because her young were starving, and the farms are where the food is, and she does not understand property law. Honestly, your honour, neither do I most of the time, and I have significantly more resources than a creature with three starving young and no access to legal representation.

I did not kill her. I relocated her. I spent three hours herding a terrified family through undergrowth. I was scratched, bitten, and urinated on. It was the best work I have done in months.

I told the village it was done. I did not specify what “done” meant. I have discovered I am very good at lying when the truth would get something small and shivering killed. I consider this a professional skill. The prosecution may consider it fraud. I invite the court to consider which of us sleeps better.

The farmer’s daughter, by the way, was fine. She was in the next village. She had gone to buy a hat.

I am aware that none of this directly addresses the charge of “conduct unbecoming a licensed practitioner.” I am told this charge relates to an incident at the tavern on the evening after the turnips, in which I was observed — and I am quoting from the complaint — “sitting alone in a corner projecting an aura of menace inconsistent with the social expectations of a public house.”

Your honour, I was drinking ale. I was not projecting an aura of menace. I was projecting an aura of tiredness. I accept that these may be difficult to distinguish when the person in question has yellow cat-eyes, two swords, and the general bearing of a man who has been fighting things in root cellars all day, but I assure the court that my intentions were exclusively ale-related.

The innkeeper put down my drink and said, quietly, “You have very sad eyes.”

My eyes are yellow and cat-like due to mutagenic compounds. They are not sad. They are chemically altered.

But I did not correct her, because she was already pouring me a second ale, and she was not charging me for it, and sometimes the wrong thing said kindly is worth more than the right thing said correctly.

I have been Gerrik of Puddle for a long time now. Longer than is wise. Longer than my body thinks is reasonable, and my body has filed several complaints, most of which are in my knees.

I am a mutant. I am a monster-hunter. I am, by most accounts, a professional grump. I collect bathtubs. I do not explain the bathtubs. The bathtubs are not relevant to this hearing and I will not be taking questions about them.

I did not set out to destroy the turnips. I did not set out to relocate a creature instead of killing it. I did not set out to sit in a tavern looking sad. These things happened because I am a man who does a job that nobody else wants to do, in places nobody else wants to go, for money that nobody else would accept, and occasionally the turnips are casualties.

I would like my swords back, please. I have been told they were confiscated as evidence. They do not need to be evidence. They need to be oiled. They are probably not being oiled. This concerns me more than the verdict.

That is my testimony. I am not taking questions. I am, however, accepting payment, if the village would like to settle the matter of the forty-seven crowns, which I maintain is an unreasonable price for turnips, and which I will continue to maintain until such time as turnips become a currency, at which point I will reassess.

[Clerk Nodds notes that the accused then stood, collected his coat, and left the chamber before the magistrate had delivered a verdict. The magistrate observed that this was technically contempt of court, but that pursuing the matter would require someone to find the accused, and nobody present volunteered.]