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official schedule. NurseCathy is effectively on call 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. Officially, Peter is the Premises Manager, but he does anything and everything whenever he’s asked, and AuntSylvie lives and breathes caregiver. It’s been her vocation ever since her younger brother died.
—o—
Friday, mid afternoon, before school is over, Peter knocks on AuntSylvie’s office door while NurseCathy is in their apartment checking her medic’s bag. All three of them meet up in the Grand Corridor
“What’s happening now?” asks AuntSylvie.
“The Garrison’s busy! Something’s up. I don’t know exactly what! The chief medical officer sent a messenger over, and I need to get round there right now.”
“I hope it’s not serious?”
“I won’t know until I get there. Probably contingency planning again. But you never know! If I can’t get back tonight I’ll send another messenger to update you.”
Word has gone round that there’s been an incursion down south. Which means that a well established routine interferes with the usual course of events on an otherwise ordinary Friday.
Periodically, Mr Potato Head instructs his lackies to send raiding parties across the border. Partly to keep his own militias on their toes, and partly to remind Wolfland that Worringfolk is not as weak as they might like to think. There’s always a risk that the latest incursion might be the big one. There has always been a constant and recurrent threat to annex more farmland, seize crops and commandeer livestock.
It’s unlikely that this is a full scale invasion though, just another expedition to steal food. The Wor are not in the habit of risking fatalities on their side, they don’t want to lose any of the few military grade horses that they have, and they need to conserve ammunition.
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