Mythical Creatures/Folk (Spoilers ALL Books, including Words Like Coins)

[Farseer]

I have just remembered that Fool's sceptre was Ratsy, the rat. Fool also carved a marionette in the Mountain Kingdom that bore "an uncanny resemblance to Ratsy". This intrigues me as a possible link to pecksies (as well as cats) as they enjoy hunting rats?

In Fool's Errand, Chapter Four - The Hedge-Witch, it states: "Above the gate of the walled Eklse, she hung a charm against pestilence, and for many years the grain bins were free of rats and the stables clean of fleas and other vermin. The town prospered under this protection, until the town elders foolishly built a second gate in their walls, to admit more trade. This opened a way for pestilence to enter the town, and all there perished from the second wave of the Blood Plague."

This tells us that the Blood Plague reached, at the very least, the Six Duchies (from where this tale of Eklse was taken), Chalced, the Rain Wilds and Bingtown. Were other areas affected?

It also suggests a possible reason for the adage, "Where rats go, pecksies follow". Could it be that pecksies, through their hunting of rats, actually try to prevent future Blood Plague outbreaks? On that note, possibly it's time for another outbreak to occur?!

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Just reading Chapter Nine in FE - Dead Man's Regrets (like I have nothing else to do!), and came across the section which covered Nettle and Burrich's sickness, and where Burrich likened their symptoms to the beginning of the Blood Plague. This is the incident which prompted Fitz to finally seek out Nettle etc and, on the way, Fitz noted the fresh graves and how wide-spread and destructive the sickness had been.

What did you assume when you read this? That it was indeed the Blood Plague, or some other epidemic?