Rumors, Lies, and Misinformation

“Round up and slaughter every poxy sable in the royal wood and beyond,” reads the order given by no king of this land. “Beware the healer, for their medicine is the plague itself. Only blood may cure this land,” screams a gathered mob outside the castle walls. Our noble Goren weeps at this condemnation of royal doctors, medicine women, and innocent creatures. No more can a sable be responsible for the spreading plague than any merchant on the road or mother to her babe. No more can a chirurgeon kill than can an angry drunkard... Though his hands shake with fading strength, our king’s furious pen speaks what his hoarse voice cannot. From within the garret that a prison of convalescence, our noble King Goren does his will unto the land. For his armorial crest he takes a sable rampant, and for his badge, places an oak branch into the claws of the same. Not content merely with matters of heraldry, long Goren issues a decree to all the loyal foresters of the king’s woods, that any who should slay the saintly jet-black stoat in the name of plague-rumor shall henceforth hanged be. To all an oath-keeping healer, a royal protection shall extend that all who threaten a royal doctor or village medicine women shall be charged with the most heinous murder and spared not the axe if guilty.