Neely frowned deeply. "No, I hadn't heard about that. Makes sense. I tried to tell him: those two together are a danger to themselves and others." He looked sidelong at Barbara. "Don't approve of magic and you're sleeping with a bard."

She scrunched her nose at him. "He doesn't go around flaunting it." She replied. "He's just a rather cranky middle aged man with tattoos to me. Sometimes he turns into a raven." Lang allowed. "I can handle that."

"I have never met a bard didn't act like she had a calling," Neely replied scornfully. "Speaking of, are we going to do anything about Moira or shall we politely alert the countess and let her clean up her own mess?"

Barbara sighed. "I don't know. Moira is unhinged. I don't want her spruting things about Matt, but she likely will anyway." She said, distastefully. "We may as well alert the Countness, if she doesn't know already. Moira was going to pretend to be me and seduce Marcello, and that will tip them off, if nothing else does." She lifted her skirts, and focused on wading through the snow. "Matt's calling is to be a good father, and be good to me." She replied. "That's good enough."

"Seducing isn't going to do much good in this circumstance," Neely pointed out. "The goal's to stop the wedding. If he goes out and sleeps with someone whilst he's out of his senses, the countess is hardly going to kick him out the door unless her demeanor has changed substantially in the past hour."

"She's madly in love with the Countess, Maitiu says. Obsessed. Another of the hob's works, I suppose." She replied. "She wants to hurt the Countess, not stop the wedding." Then she frowned. "Marcello's hobbed?"

"That's the news around the castle--unless that too has changed in an hour. I do not know exactly what the nature is, though; I kind of got thrown in jail as a precautionary measure as soon as anyone found out I was there." He shook his head. "My fault for coming indoors."

Barbara shook her head, giving him another look. "I suppose I'd do that to, if I were her. You could a distraction." She shook her head. "I suppose that means I tell the Countess." Lang said wearily. "At least I won't get thrown in prison."

"And if you could find out exactly what sort of deal she had going with the Ganconner, I would be very . . . well, I'm not going to say 'grateful' until I find out what the deal is," he said, grimacing. "The Countess has not had a very strong history of deals."

Barbara smirked. "Surprising, given who her parents are." She replied, and looked toward the castle, her shoulders sinking at the distance she still had to walk. "We'll see. I can sometimes get her to tell me things. Where do I find you, or do you find me?"