January was blizzard-bound with few breaks. It was during one of these that little Anna Brecht, daughter of a poor but honest field worker, was gathering firewood in the fields when out of the unguarded sky, from the low, grey overcast a winged demon struck. Anna's mistake was to stray too far from the walls to be protected by guardsmen's fire, while due to the thick snow few of the heavy guns had been deployed to the field towers.
The chance of earthly aid denied, being a well raised and Godly child she prayed and the Lord, who loves little children, in His mercy extended his will causing the abominated of God to miss its strike, burying itself in the snow. Whilst it was thus blinded she in turn burrowed into the snow under a thorn hedge, where she safely remained until guardsmen and a preacher arrived to drive the vile thing forth.
Sedition On the 28th of February Karl Leuter, a minor landholder with fields to the west of the town was tried for Heresy. He had spoken against the Council of the Faith, claiming that these good men were less concerned with the true faith than with gathering power to themselves under the excuse of protecting the Christian Virtue of the town from unfaith, which theme he also elaborated upon in his defence at the trial. In judgement, Leuter's guilt being displayed beyond doubt by his `defence', the Council wisely observed that Leuter's sins were not directly against God, but His servants and it was thus inappropriate to bring the full wrath of the Lord to bear upon him. Rather than the stake he was therefore sentenced to banishment from the blessed haven of New Jerusalem to seek his fortune or not as the Lord willed, outwith the protection of those he claimed conspired to oppress him. The driving out took place the following morning and Leuter being stoned forth into the wilderness by angered crowd of believers, thus acknowledging their gratitude for the protection and good works of the Council.
Charity Later that day a serious fire broke out at the workplace of the blacksmith Ullman of the Riverside. It defied the efforts of the bucket chains who drew two wells dry in holding it to a single row of buildings, and eventually had to bring up casks of water from the river to extinguish it in the late evening, assisted by a heavy storm, the falling rain - by the Lord's grace - proving more effective than the fanning effects of the winds.
Many were rendered homeless and despoiled by the hungry flames of their livelihoods, not least the Ullmans. However unusual beneficence from an unlikely source came to the aid of many facing the comforts of a proper and Christian life in the workhouse for the rest of their days. Lotte Luuk, a woman whose wedding portion (should Christian Fisher ever make an honest woman of her) must be small for her scandalous lifestyle heretofore in leaving town in the company of many of the rough men of the wandering inclination, was induced by the Lord to give much of her wealth to a fund for the relief of the needy of he disaster. While this was without doubt a t naked attempt to buy her way into heaven with good works (the heresy of Arminius), thus doomed in its long term intention, all proper persons praise the Lord that he arranges for even the basest motivated act to help the needy.
An ordinance was passed at a council meeting some days later requiring the removal of all fiery trades to the Outside district beyond the town walls, `at their earliest convenience.' this last injunction being added by the insistence of the Trade and Guild factions on the Council.
On Easter Sunday all services were held at the Temple to mark its completion and the unveiling of the clock, which finally arrived on the first wagon train from the inner lands, early in the month.
April is quiet, all hands tending to their fields and business and making good the ravages of winter, save for the departure of one or two small bands of explorers fleeing such honest toil for the uncertainties of the waste. There is an unseasonal cold snap at the end May when a howling icy wind played across the town in the late evening of Sunday 29th leaving frozen puddles in the streets and several frostbitten guardsmen in their watch posts about the walls and rooftops.
A mighty blow is struck for the Lord's cause on Wednesday the 22nd of June, by Praise-the-Lord Grimmelshausen when a marauding pit-fiend strikes out of a clear sky against a party consisting of himself, Beren Gerhardt, Henryk Wolff and Lotte Luuk. Cunningly seeking for a target as far away from the guard towers as possible it swept down upon them to meet a volley of musketry and the keen steel of Grimmelshausen's halberd which severed its arm in a blow that surely was Guided - Grimmelshausen, for all his irresponsible ways, attained a Certificate of Orthodoxy earlier in the year. Following these setbacks the fiend then faced its intended victim - Beren Gerhardt and his six barreled volley-gun. He immediately discharged whereupon the denizen of the infernal regions limped off, its stump smouldering, towards the northern forest while under belated fire from the pivot guns and light cannon of the Guard. The arm it left behind burned to ashes a sure sign of its place of origin. Their departure was then abandoned for services of thanksgiving, and congratulations by Councillor Neumann amongst others.
A week later they set forth again, untroubled this time. However during their absence Manfred Ullman, apparently an ordinary field worker, was carried off by another such demon to a fate that people shudder to contemplate, as they shudder to contemplate the sins for which a demon might come to carry off a living man . . .
The rest of the summer is fine and the harvest promises to be bountiful, and landholders of all standings are seen in the Lord's House giving thanks for their good fortune and respectfully t requesting that it should continue through the harvest time. Unfortunately September is wet and much of the expected bounty is lost, only an average harvest ensuing.
Various benighted souls left the town over the summer, to wander the northern forest for months at a time, for, thanks to the fortunes they have squandered upon horses and other beasts of burden they carry far greater masses of supplies than in times past. That the sums of money they have invested in this way could have been far more safely used to purchase fields and thus a regular income and honest work, does not seem to occur to them even when they regularly lose these expensive beasts to the perils of the wilderness.
In the middle of September a large party of Beren Gerhardt in his heathen Turk's armour, Henrik Wolff and his mastiff Jacob, Axel Grossenmist, and Gustav Volger, Sophia Brecht, Luther Brock, with the newly ensnared Hugo Hefner set out as normal, and good citizens (if they bothered thinking about them at all) expected to see their return a month or so later. Thus many were surprised when less than a week later Axel Grossenmist and Henryk Wolff ride back into town to drop off Hugo Hefner (mildly indisposed, due to excessive exposure to night time miasmas of the forest no doubt), buy a number of farm labourers' implements and digging tools, and ride out again before the gates shut at dusk.
Rumours of some buried treasure circulate as do alternative rumours of the death of the rest of the party, the two survivors intending to interr their comrades for as usual nothing was said of the purpose of the digging. These are cut short however by the arrival of Felix van der Lubbe, bearing letters of authentification, to take up the post of Master Gunner decided upon last year after the spate of accidents.
Appearing to be a good christian man, unlike many of the soldierly trades, his proper black apparel is however marred by the most garish right sleeve which is puffed and slashed and brightly coloured. His explanation for this apparent offense against decency and sobriety was that this is the mark of his Gunners' Guild which requires him to display it at all public occasions in the course of his duty. Upon his assurances that beyond his pride in his guild and obligations thereto he would sooner appear as any normal upright citizen (confirmed by the rest of his appearance) his appointment was confirmed by majority vote of the council, to take effect from the 1st of October. He also told them that no major changes in the then current practices until the next year, preferring to familiarise himself with the needs of the town rather than impose an inappropriate theoretical ideal as others in his position might do. The council commended him for this responsible approach.
The bad weather of September continued into October. On the 21st the diggers returned with no great treasure, but the tale of the excavation of a mound in the forest under which laired a tribe of minor imps that the party had put to fire and sword in battle. With commendable thoroughness they then decided to root out the pit in which the abominations dwelled and ensure its cleansing.
Upon the following day dark revenge was taken by the forces of evil for this worthy deed. Ulrid Volger, father of Gustav, was found stabbed to death in an alley in the Westgate. The motive for the killing was ostensively robbery, as his purse was missing, but while violent robberies do occasionally occur (often in the Wallside) they seldom amount to more than beatings. The stabbing by all accounts was a frenzied attack several wounds being found on the body, and gore splattered all about.
Despite the enquiries of the Guard, encouraged by rumours of a reward offered by Gustav Volger for the apprehension of his father's killer little progress was made, until the sudden arrest in November of Andreas Fischer, journeyman at the Neumann printers in the Mercantile district. At his trial on the 28th though Fischer admitted only to having found the body in the course of deliveries about the town, panicking, and fleeing lest he was thought the murderer. The Town Guard testify that he kept to his story despite thorough interrogation, of which he bears the marks during the trial, and other evidence, such as smears of ink on the dead man's cloak do not serve to prove the case. This being so the Council is reluctant to condemn a soul to early visitation to the infernal regions, and therefore sentence him to eight years labour for his failure to report the murder as he was required.
Gustav Volger pronounces himself satisfied with this result, though he would have preferred proof and a hanging of a known murderer. His testing was not over however, for on the 21st of December his step mother Alice Volger died after a long illness since a miscarriage in the spring, without doubt hastened on her way by the death of her beloved husband.