The Arrowshot Woman

I heard this story on good authority from a good and honest friend, whose friend was witness to the incident. I do truly believe it happened, as fantastical as it may seem.

My friend's friend, Terron, was visiting the Elsweyr citystate of Riverhold during a very hot summer and went to the marketplace there. If you have never been to Riverhold, the marketplace is very crowded, much more than in comparably sized city states. People from the countryside flock to the marketplace daily in their wagons and carriages.

Terron was passing one such carriage, and noticed that the sole occupant was a woman, seated with her eyes closed and her hands behind her head. An odd sight, to be sure, but he assumed she must be sleeping. Terron continued on.

A little while later, after Terron had finished shopping in the marketplace, he passed the same carriage. The same woman was sitting in it. Her eyes were open now, but her hands were still behind her head.

"Are you all right, my lady?" he asked.

"An arrow shot me in my head and I'm holding my brains in," came the woman's reply.

Terron did not know what to do. He ran into the marketplace and literally bumped into a healer and his knight companion. They were good people and agreed to help.

The carriage door had to be torn off its hinges, as the lady had locked it and feared to move to unlock it. What they found when they finally could get into the carriage was this: the woman was holding barley dough on the back of her head with her hands.

Apparently, in the heat of the day, a jar of barley dough had exploded with the thwang of an arrowshot and struck the woman in the back of her head. When she reached back to feel what had hit her, she felt the dough and reasoned that she was feeling her brains.