![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Flying South Chapter 11
Here's part 11 of my novel Flying South. Luckily this is all written already because I doubt I'd be able to produce much at the moment.
Work is as annoying and tense as always, though we're on the final stretch to Xmas break. I've just had the usual irritating phone call from my mother where she tells me how she thinks I'm "fraught" about "work and everything" and for a while I genuinely don't know what she's talking about as the way I feel is quite normal. I just usually know better than to let any personal details out to her because she will make a big deal out of a pimple or a throwaway line. My brother recently avoided mentioning a could-have-been fatal car accident he had for the same reason. Big deal, small deal, the reaction tends to be about the same. Then she wonders why we don't tell her anything? You don't get much sympathy, empathy or whatever, just more nagging.
Does anyone else have one like this? I think it would be a comfort to know I'm not alone :-) I'm reminded of a quote from something I read once, along the lines of:
It's amazing what people will put up with if they do
think it's normal.
After my mother rings me, even if I wasn't fraught before, I sure am then!
Salutations
Ratfan
FLYING SOUTH
Chapter 11
We walked some distance from the road to rest, perhaps twenty yards into the shade of the trees. I sat down on the first handy log I saw, so weary and cold I wanted the cramped inn room back. Something bumped into my shoulder and I let out a tiny scream, then realised it was Nicholas. "Are you all right?" he asked and put an arm around me.
"I don't think so, but it's nothing we can fix here."
He nodded, then said, "What happened to you? What's all that about the dragon and being a bird for so long? Can't you tell me what happened?”
Nobody had said I shouldn't and in any case, obeying orders was getting irksome. So I told Nick all of it; the dragon, Kulal and his people, the weird dreams about this Lord of Cairenor and his claim of having spelled Dampenrook. "So that's why Geofrey looked so white," Nick commented, shaking his head. “Though I’m not sure Mariel had time to mention your dreams.”
"But you were still willing to walk all the way back into the city and maybe get locked up in the royal dungeons?"
"Are there royal dungeons? In any case, this got me hours alone with you." He was smiling, but I didn't think it was that cute. In fact, I felt a little annoyed and impatient. Last year I’d have been thrilled if Nick had sat beside me and cuddled and done more, perhaps, but now as he stroked the back of my neck, I shook his hand free. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “After all that’s gone on, don’t we deserve a little time to ourselves?”
“Nick, Catri’s been arrested back there! They may have killed her.”
“Poor Amber.” Nick put his arm around me again and leaned close to kiss my cheek. “Cares of the world, huh? It’ll soon be over and we’ll get Catri free. Audryn too.” Then he kissed me on the lips. It was scarcely the first time he’d kissed me and I’d enjoyed it before.
Now, though, all I could think was that he hadn’t listened to anything I had said. His tone of voice was like patting me on the head, soothing me, so that he could get what he wanted. His free hand moved around to the front of my dress. I can’t use magic, I thought. He’s an Inquisitor, my magic won’t work. Then all of a sudden I was home in Dampenrook, inside the stable with Tom Arrowsmith, who had me pinned against the wall with one hand while his other hand went down my dress.
I stood up and my sudden movement made him slip, so that the hand in front waved in the air while the other grabbed at my shoulder. He looked rather silly trying to get his balance on the log. “Amber! What’s the matter with you?”
“I’ve had enough rest. Let’s get back to the road.”
He stared at me hard, then shrugged and stood up. “All right.”
We resumed our trudging, but now there was no more conversation. Within another two hours, we had entered the outskirts of Netone, the Throne City. The name was seldom used, it was a holdover from the days when the town had been only a fishing port. Now, it was the home of the Royal Court.
The noise and the smells of the Throne City hit me like a night soil bucket in the face. I baulked in the middle of the crowded street so that Nicholas had to grab me and haul me under the stone arch of Netone's Eastern Gate into the city proper. There was no refuge. Carriages and wagons forced right of way over the cobbled road so that walkers had to squeeze against shop fronts, splashing in filthy gutters, so as not to be crushed. Inside the open-fronted shops I could see fresh produce, fruit and vegetables and flowers, but the overpowering smell of garbage, urine and way too many humans masked their fresher scents completely.
I had thought Skarrel a big city, with its four thousand souls, and been scared of its crowds. All of Skarrel's people could be fitted into this one street. It was narrow and twisted like Skarrel's Poor Quarter, but far dirtier. Despite our near-quarrel, Nick was still the only familiar thing left in my world and I hung on to him as though to a tree, but when I glanced at him, his face showed a tense, scared expression. It must have been a long time since he'd been here. "Come on, we have to keep moving," he shouted over the crowd noise, where so many voices were intermingled that it was impossible to pick out what any one said unless he were right by.
"How many people are here?"
"In all the City? My father said there were about forty thousand, but that was ten years ago." He made a path for us by dint of shoving the least resistant and moving quickly when a gap presented itself. A confusing blur of bodies and colours passed my eyes; bright reds and yellows and blues adorned the people of the Throne City, and there were bright banners hung from upper-storey homes and shops and taverns. I saw no one who could have been an Aradian or any other kind of sorceress; indeed, the folk seemed deliberately to avoid any suggestion of green robes and arched hoods. Nicholas seemed to know where we were going, and I struggled after him.
Amongst the city crowds, I flashed to an image of Boorlo; the green peace of the land and the brilliant blues of water and sky, the dark-skinned children teaching me to swim. Dragons, why do you ever leave it? Don't come here, please, I don't want you to see this place. On and on we went, weaving around the rumbling wagons and the hurrying, loaded-down, harassed people. I didn't want to ask Nicholas where we were bound for fear he had nowhere precise in mind, but as the last gleams of sunlight left the sky, he suddenly turned, scanning the row of houses to our left, made a relieved noise and went straight for the gate of one, a stone house where most were timber, and with a high gate protecting its privacy.
Out of nowhere, I saw a helmeted face behind that gate and the gleam of metal beside his shoulder; a spear or a pike. "Of your goodness, please tell Sir Hugh that his brother Nicholas is here to see him," Nicholas said, cool and calm. The face turned and spoke to someone behind him, then resumed watching us. A commotion of feet and voices at the gate announced our rescue, I hoped. The gate swung open and a man not much older than Nicholas leaned out and seized him by the arm, tugging him off the street. I hurried in after before they forgot about me. Nick's brother was already walking him away across cold stone flags to the house. The two pikemen I could now see were back on guard, so I set my chilled feet after Nick.
They gave me mulled wine and let me sit by the fire, but otherwise ignored me after a brief shared stare when Nicholas introduced me as, "Amber who brought me to the city". Fine, if he wanted to pretend I was some dirty, mindless village girl. It was interesting, realising how I would be treated if I had never learned my powers. Even the servant girl who brought the wine into hall looked at me as though she wondered why I wasn't doing the serving. Normally I'd never be in the same room as people of Nick and Hugh's social class.
The young knight was evidently glad to see his brother, but edgy. He wanted Nicholas to stay the night, have a good meal and then be on his way out of Netone, that was plain, before anyone got wind of his presence. "I'm sorry, Hugh," Nicholas said. "I don't want to bring you trouble, but you're the only person who can give the help I need. I must see a member of the royal court and without the Queen's knowledge, for now. You're a friend of Matthew the Royal Consort, aren't you? Can you bring him to see me?"
Hugh laughed and tugged nervously at his short blond beard, so much like Nicholas' but tidier. "It's usually the other way around, you know. I don't call Matthew to come and go at my whim."
"It's not a whim," Nicholas said, keeping his agitation down as much as he could. I clenched my hands until my nails dug in, hoping the pain would distract me. The last thing we needed was for Hugh to realise he had one of the forbidden sorceresses under his roof. I stared into the fire, letting its warmth surround me and trying to forget the cold dark streets outside. "It is a matter which goes to the heart of the realm. It touches on the whereabouts of the Royal Children."
Hugh made a sudden silencing gesture across his throat, glancing at me. I played deaf and dumb. "If you know anything of that, Nick, I suggest you go straight to the royal castle right away. To waste any time with games like this won't be well regarded. "
"Amber," Nicholas said. My back stiffened at that note of command in his voice. Later, Nick, later. Nevertheless, I got to my feet and faced him, waiting. "We will take my good brother's advice. Let's go."
"I'll get my carriage ready for you," Hugh said, but Nicholas walked past him to the door. "Nick, hold. I don't mean for my brother to struggle through the streets like a peasant. Let me get you some suitable clothes, perhaps for your wench as well . . . "
Witch-mother Audryn would have been so proud of me. I not only refrained from turning Hugh into something slimy, I didn’t even glare at him. Nick was worried, though, he grabbed my shoulder painfully hard and pushed me ahead of him towards the high gate, so determined that the pikemen got out of our way. It wasn't their job to delay the departing guest. We were perhaps three yards away from it when the drumbeat sounds of horses made us pause. Perhaps it was the speed of their going, dangerously swift on a city road by night, perhaps their number. Nick and I looked at one another. I closed my eyes and searched. Into my mind came the image of fire, flames leaping up around the armoured shoulders of horses, of men in black robes.
"Nick, it's the Queen's Guard. They have inquisitors with them."
Nicholas turned on Hugh, who had braked to a halt behind us, looking only confused, not yet afraid. "To avoid trouble on this house," he said, "is there another way out of here?"
The side alley to which Hugh showed us, quickly muttering a blessing in the name of the Star-Brother as he closed the gate, was even darker than the rest of the city. The fine houses showed their backs and their high walls to it, while dumping their garbage and their wastes into its midst. Sickness rose in the air with the foul smells and I vainly tried not to inhale. No time for any spells or any other thought except movement. We hastened forward, not even sure where forward was going to lead us, except away from the Queen's troop.
From the alley we emerged into a broader street, empty of trouble and also of anyone else. City folk have a fine instinct that way, like the rats. We turned about, trying to orient ourselves, and too late heard the approach of another rider out of the darkness. Useless to run but we did anyway, Nicholas seizing my hand to drag me on even faster. It didn't work. That was the hand I'd been using to hold my skirt out of my way. I managed to tangle my feet in it and tumble over right in front of the man climbing down from his horse, which squealed in surprise and tried to dance, making its rider clutch the saddle as he lurched against its side, one foot in a stirrup, one not. Behind me I heard the Queen's Guard arrive in a thunder of hooves and jingling of metal. Nick was no doubt that thud behind me.
"What on earth," said the rider. I looked up at him. He had a pleasant, no-nonsense sort of face, tough and determined like a Guardsman himself maybe, or a bouncer in one of the less-reputable taverns about the city, but one thing for sure; the Queen's Guards wouldn't be shuffling and bowing their heads for a fellow guardsman. Yet what lord would be riding alone at night in such a place? You could hear that thought in their minds as well.
"My lord Matthew," one of our pursuers said, "we regret this inconvenience. We'll take our prisoners . . . "
"Captain . . . ?"
"Hawken, my lord."
"Captain Hawken, what is so dangerous about a young girl and her beau that it requires you and five of your men to chase them through the streets? They aren't even armed." The words were polite, but the undertone was more like: what sort of wimps are you, and also a touch of: nobody takes prisoners away without my say-so.
"My lord, they're black magicians."
Lord Matthew looked down at me. I'd managed to get myself to my feet and vainly tried to brush some sort of muck, probably horse dung, from my skirt. "Well, girl?"
"My lord, we've come to see the Queen," I said doggedly. "It's true I'm from the Aradian Order, but Nicholas here is an Inquisitor. We've got important news for her."
The guards laughed, but Lord Matthew didn't. His brows rose to their full bushy extent against a rather receding hairline. I put him at about thirty. "Then tell me what it is. I've a certain interest in matters which touch the Queen."
I baulked, not wanting to yell it out in a dark street with dozens of ears pressed to nearby upper-storey windows, but to my shock, Nicholas spoke up. "My lord Matthew, we know who the Wizard Lord is that attacked Dampenrook. His name is Warwick Asherley and you may know it from the past. We know what happened to the royal children, who are under threat from this lord. The Aradian Order protect Erlina and Kieran, but they can't go against this lord alone. We require the sanction of the Queen and we will need the help of the Star-Brother's Inquisition."
Work is as annoying and tense as always, though we're on the final stretch to Xmas break. I've just had the usual irritating phone call from my mother where she tells me how she thinks I'm "fraught" about "work and everything" and for a while I genuinely don't know what she's talking about as the way I feel is quite normal. I just usually know better than to let any personal details out to her because she will make a big deal out of a pimple or a throwaway line. My brother recently avoided mentioning a could-have-been fatal car accident he had for the same reason. Big deal, small deal, the reaction tends to be about the same. Then she wonders why we don't tell her anything? You don't get much sympathy, empathy or whatever, just more nagging.
Does anyone else have one like this? I think it would be a comfort to know I'm not alone :-) I'm reminded of a quote from something I read once, along the lines of:
It's amazing what people will put up with if they do
think it's normal.
After my mother rings me, even if I wasn't fraught before, I sure am then!
Salutations
Ratfan
FLYING SOUTH
Chapter 11
We walked some distance from the road to rest, perhaps twenty yards into the shade of the trees. I sat down on the first handy log I saw, so weary and cold I wanted the cramped inn room back. Something bumped into my shoulder and I let out a tiny scream, then realised it was Nicholas. "Are you all right?" he asked and put an arm around me.
"I don't think so, but it's nothing we can fix here."
He nodded, then said, "What happened to you? What's all that about the dragon and being a bird for so long? Can't you tell me what happened?”
Nobody had said I shouldn't and in any case, obeying orders was getting irksome. So I told Nick all of it; the dragon, Kulal and his people, the weird dreams about this Lord of Cairenor and his claim of having spelled Dampenrook. "So that's why Geofrey looked so white," Nick commented, shaking his head. “Though I’m not sure Mariel had time to mention your dreams.”
"But you were still willing to walk all the way back into the city and maybe get locked up in the royal dungeons?"
"Are there royal dungeons? In any case, this got me hours alone with you." He was smiling, but I didn't think it was that cute. In fact, I felt a little annoyed and impatient. Last year I’d have been thrilled if Nick had sat beside me and cuddled and done more, perhaps, but now as he stroked the back of my neck, I shook his hand free. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “After all that’s gone on, don’t we deserve a little time to ourselves?”
“Nick, Catri’s been arrested back there! They may have killed her.”
“Poor Amber.” Nick put his arm around me again and leaned close to kiss my cheek. “Cares of the world, huh? It’ll soon be over and we’ll get Catri free. Audryn too.” Then he kissed me on the lips. It was scarcely the first time he’d kissed me and I’d enjoyed it before.
Now, though, all I could think was that he hadn’t listened to anything I had said. His tone of voice was like patting me on the head, soothing me, so that he could get what he wanted. His free hand moved around to the front of my dress. I can’t use magic, I thought. He’s an Inquisitor, my magic won’t work. Then all of a sudden I was home in Dampenrook, inside the stable with Tom Arrowsmith, who had me pinned against the wall with one hand while his other hand went down my dress.
I stood up and my sudden movement made him slip, so that the hand in front waved in the air while the other grabbed at my shoulder. He looked rather silly trying to get his balance on the log. “Amber! What’s the matter with you?”
“I’ve had enough rest. Let’s get back to the road.”
He stared at me hard, then shrugged and stood up. “All right.”
We resumed our trudging, but now there was no more conversation. Within another two hours, we had entered the outskirts of Netone, the Throne City. The name was seldom used, it was a holdover from the days when the town had been only a fishing port. Now, it was the home of the Royal Court.
The noise and the smells of the Throne City hit me like a night soil bucket in the face. I baulked in the middle of the crowded street so that Nicholas had to grab me and haul me under the stone arch of Netone's Eastern Gate into the city proper. There was no refuge. Carriages and wagons forced right of way over the cobbled road so that walkers had to squeeze against shop fronts, splashing in filthy gutters, so as not to be crushed. Inside the open-fronted shops I could see fresh produce, fruit and vegetables and flowers, but the overpowering smell of garbage, urine and way too many humans masked their fresher scents completely.
I had thought Skarrel a big city, with its four thousand souls, and been scared of its crowds. All of Skarrel's people could be fitted into this one street. It was narrow and twisted like Skarrel's Poor Quarter, but far dirtier. Despite our near-quarrel, Nick was still the only familiar thing left in my world and I hung on to him as though to a tree, but when I glanced at him, his face showed a tense, scared expression. It must have been a long time since he'd been here. "Come on, we have to keep moving," he shouted over the crowd noise, where so many voices were intermingled that it was impossible to pick out what any one said unless he were right by.
"How many people are here?"
"In all the City? My father said there were about forty thousand, but that was ten years ago." He made a path for us by dint of shoving the least resistant and moving quickly when a gap presented itself. A confusing blur of bodies and colours passed my eyes; bright reds and yellows and blues adorned the people of the Throne City, and there were bright banners hung from upper-storey homes and shops and taverns. I saw no one who could have been an Aradian or any other kind of sorceress; indeed, the folk seemed deliberately to avoid any suggestion of green robes and arched hoods. Nicholas seemed to know where we were going, and I struggled after him.
Amongst the city crowds, I flashed to an image of Boorlo; the green peace of the land and the brilliant blues of water and sky, the dark-skinned children teaching me to swim. Dragons, why do you ever leave it? Don't come here, please, I don't want you to see this place. On and on we went, weaving around the rumbling wagons and the hurrying, loaded-down, harassed people. I didn't want to ask Nicholas where we were bound for fear he had nowhere precise in mind, but as the last gleams of sunlight left the sky, he suddenly turned, scanning the row of houses to our left, made a relieved noise and went straight for the gate of one, a stone house where most were timber, and with a high gate protecting its privacy.
Out of nowhere, I saw a helmeted face behind that gate and the gleam of metal beside his shoulder; a spear or a pike. "Of your goodness, please tell Sir Hugh that his brother Nicholas is here to see him," Nicholas said, cool and calm. The face turned and spoke to someone behind him, then resumed watching us. A commotion of feet and voices at the gate announced our rescue, I hoped. The gate swung open and a man not much older than Nicholas leaned out and seized him by the arm, tugging him off the street. I hurried in after before they forgot about me. Nick's brother was already walking him away across cold stone flags to the house. The two pikemen I could now see were back on guard, so I set my chilled feet after Nick.
They gave me mulled wine and let me sit by the fire, but otherwise ignored me after a brief shared stare when Nicholas introduced me as, "Amber who brought me to the city". Fine, if he wanted to pretend I was some dirty, mindless village girl. It was interesting, realising how I would be treated if I had never learned my powers. Even the servant girl who brought the wine into hall looked at me as though she wondered why I wasn't doing the serving. Normally I'd never be in the same room as people of Nick and Hugh's social class.
The young knight was evidently glad to see his brother, but edgy. He wanted Nicholas to stay the night, have a good meal and then be on his way out of Netone, that was plain, before anyone got wind of his presence. "I'm sorry, Hugh," Nicholas said. "I don't want to bring you trouble, but you're the only person who can give the help I need. I must see a member of the royal court and without the Queen's knowledge, for now. You're a friend of Matthew the Royal Consort, aren't you? Can you bring him to see me?"
Hugh laughed and tugged nervously at his short blond beard, so much like Nicholas' but tidier. "It's usually the other way around, you know. I don't call Matthew to come and go at my whim."
"It's not a whim," Nicholas said, keeping his agitation down as much as he could. I clenched my hands until my nails dug in, hoping the pain would distract me. The last thing we needed was for Hugh to realise he had one of the forbidden sorceresses under his roof. I stared into the fire, letting its warmth surround me and trying to forget the cold dark streets outside. "It is a matter which goes to the heart of the realm. It touches on the whereabouts of the Royal Children."
Hugh made a sudden silencing gesture across his throat, glancing at me. I played deaf and dumb. "If you know anything of that, Nick, I suggest you go straight to the royal castle right away. To waste any time with games like this won't be well regarded. "
"Amber," Nicholas said. My back stiffened at that note of command in his voice. Later, Nick, later. Nevertheless, I got to my feet and faced him, waiting. "We will take my good brother's advice. Let's go."
"I'll get my carriage ready for you," Hugh said, but Nicholas walked past him to the door. "Nick, hold. I don't mean for my brother to struggle through the streets like a peasant. Let me get you some suitable clothes, perhaps for your wench as well . . . "
Witch-mother Audryn would have been so proud of me. I not only refrained from turning Hugh into something slimy, I didn’t even glare at him. Nick was worried, though, he grabbed my shoulder painfully hard and pushed me ahead of him towards the high gate, so determined that the pikemen got out of our way. It wasn't their job to delay the departing guest. We were perhaps three yards away from it when the drumbeat sounds of horses made us pause. Perhaps it was the speed of their going, dangerously swift on a city road by night, perhaps their number. Nick and I looked at one another. I closed my eyes and searched. Into my mind came the image of fire, flames leaping up around the armoured shoulders of horses, of men in black robes.
"Nick, it's the Queen's Guard. They have inquisitors with them."
Nicholas turned on Hugh, who had braked to a halt behind us, looking only confused, not yet afraid. "To avoid trouble on this house," he said, "is there another way out of here?"
The side alley to which Hugh showed us, quickly muttering a blessing in the name of the Star-Brother as he closed the gate, was even darker than the rest of the city. The fine houses showed their backs and their high walls to it, while dumping their garbage and their wastes into its midst. Sickness rose in the air with the foul smells and I vainly tried not to inhale. No time for any spells or any other thought except movement. We hastened forward, not even sure where forward was going to lead us, except away from the Queen's troop.
From the alley we emerged into a broader street, empty of trouble and also of anyone else. City folk have a fine instinct that way, like the rats. We turned about, trying to orient ourselves, and too late heard the approach of another rider out of the darkness. Useless to run but we did anyway, Nicholas seizing my hand to drag me on even faster. It didn't work. That was the hand I'd been using to hold my skirt out of my way. I managed to tangle my feet in it and tumble over right in front of the man climbing down from his horse, which squealed in surprise and tried to dance, making its rider clutch the saddle as he lurched against its side, one foot in a stirrup, one not. Behind me I heard the Queen's Guard arrive in a thunder of hooves and jingling of metal. Nick was no doubt that thud behind me.
"What on earth," said the rider. I looked up at him. He had a pleasant, no-nonsense sort of face, tough and determined like a Guardsman himself maybe, or a bouncer in one of the less-reputable taverns about the city, but one thing for sure; the Queen's Guards wouldn't be shuffling and bowing their heads for a fellow guardsman. Yet what lord would be riding alone at night in such a place? You could hear that thought in their minds as well.
"My lord Matthew," one of our pursuers said, "we regret this inconvenience. We'll take our prisoners . . . "
"Captain . . . ?"
"Hawken, my lord."
"Captain Hawken, what is so dangerous about a young girl and her beau that it requires you and five of your men to chase them through the streets? They aren't even armed." The words were polite, but the undertone was more like: what sort of wimps are you, and also a touch of: nobody takes prisoners away without my say-so.
"My lord, they're black magicians."
Lord Matthew looked down at me. I'd managed to get myself to my feet and vainly tried to brush some sort of muck, probably horse dung, from my skirt. "Well, girl?"
"My lord, we've come to see the Queen," I said doggedly. "It's true I'm from the Aradian Order, but Nicholas here is an Inquisitor. We've got important news for her."
The guards laughed, but Lord Matthew didn't. His brows rose to their full bushy extent against a rather receding hairline. I put him at about thirty. "Then tell me what it is. I've a certain interest in matters which touch the Queen."
I baulked, not wanting to yell it out in a dark street with dozens of ears pressed to nearby upper-storey windows, but to my shock, Nicholas spoke up. "My lord Matthew, we know who the Wizard Lord is that attacked Dampenrook. His name is Warwick Asherley and you may know it from the past. We know what happened to the royal children, who are under threat from this lord. The Aradian Order protect Erlina and Kieran, but they can't go against this lord alone. We require the sanction of the Queen and we will need the help of the Star-Brother's Inquisition."
no subject
I hate to brag, but my mother is the most wonderful, supportive, helpful person ever. I guess it just goes to show, doesn't it? Having a wonderful mother didn't protect me from totally fucking my life up. :)
Mothers
(Anonymous) 2005-12-11 06:36 am (UTC)(link)Is Amber once more into the fire out the frying pan? :-) Well, she should be used to it by now! This is a good read.
-leece
See my new black tshirts at http://www.cafepress.com/aliciasmith
no subject
Oh, yeah, that's so true...