Bibliographic Searcher

That time of year

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 05:31:45 GMT

Today the card came from Operation Eyesight. I'm a bit disappointed that they didn't provide the name & info for a specific person, but still, here you are, same as last year, because I am just that predictable:

The spirit of the season is giving,
especially to those in need.

VPX Room 50,

In your name, a person in the developing
world will be able to see again thanks to
cataract surgery.

As you gather with family and friends,
celebrate a life-changing gift that offers
people hope for a brighter tomorrow.

Remembering the best workshop ever!

dilemma of sorts

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:51:22 GMT

Letter from agent: good news is ending made her cry, bad news is REVIZE MOAR.

My nano is dragging, I've barely cracked 20k. Should I push through to at least hit 25k by Nov 30 which is after all almost here, or should I dump it with little cries of glee and leap back into the Dread Revision right away?

Also have no idea what to post Dec 2 when my turn comes up on the workshop. If my brain goes away as it did during the previous revision, I may be even less useful for critiquing. Would it be better all around to drop out now?

don't read The Lost Symbol

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 19:24:56 GMT

Read Maureen Johnson's chapter-by-chapter takedown instead!
The unexpected joys of doing Nanowrimo: each week an encouraging letter from a published writer. Hers was so funny I clicked on the link to her blog, and now I guess I'll be looking for her books.

revising, yes, really, yes, almost done, really

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 19:20:22 GMT

So far, Scrivener is really, really cool. I wish I'd had it 3 months ago. The only thing that would make it better would be if it magically filled in the missing scenes for me.
I guess I'll have to swap to a Mac for my desktop. Sigh.

words of wisdom (not mine)

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 18:29:54 GMT

Matt Hughes put this on the SF Canada list today, and I thought it might be encouraging. Or as he says, possibly terrifying. It's his keynote speech to the Surrey Writers Conference a few years back.
http://www.archonate.com/no-surrender

VPX++ this weekend

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 05:56:07 GMT

For those who'll be able to make it this weekend, drop me an email (via LJ or to barbara at bmlgordon.com) so I can sort out crash space and ferry/airport pickup, thanks!
For those who can't make it, what with economic or RL obstacles, I offer tearful hugs and the hope that the weekend is wonderful for you wherever you have to be.

August 22 weekend reminder and exhortation

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:58:47 GMT

Because I like the word 'exhortation'. Come to the western edge!

Right, the Semi-official West Coast (Northwest Coast?) VPXplus get-together is scheduled for the weekend of August 22-23. It's on!
Later and earlier is fine, if that makes it easier for people to fly or otherwise arrange travel. Lots of bed&breakfast places and lots of crashspace in the house if you don't mind foamies and slightly-saggy hideabeds. Lots of books in the house and bookshops in town. Mark is a good cook, plus there are heaps of restaurants in walking distance.
We can do pickup from the Victoria International Airport, the BC Ferry Terminal in Sidney (the airport is really in Sidney too), the Clipper terminal and the Coho terminal (both downtown).
Reasonable chance of homemade apple and/or blackberry pie.

Open to VPXers and family, other VP students, staff, faculty, family and writey-type people generally.

Also, for those who haven't heard already (apologies to those who have), Chimps on a Blimp has been retitled "On the Transmontane Run with the Aerial Mail Express" and sold to Beneath Ceaseless Skies. Woohoo!

I can has agent

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 15:27:35 GMT

Just off the phone with Caitlin Blasdell. Contract coming by email. Heavy revising to come on Willow Knot.

Why can I not insert firework graphics? LJ fails me yet again.

clearly my sainthood certificate is in the mail

Tue, 26 May 2009 21:51:24 GMT

The writing group meeting was on Sunday. Attending were Brian of the 20,500 word opening chapter, his wife Shawna, Kat who had a book published in 2000, her friend Liz who worked as an editor for Wylie and for Kluwer-Nijhoff, and me. Not attending were the three grad students, because the one who was bringing the other two cancelled because her boyfriend was in town. She did, however, send Brian her critique by email. He came close to withdrawing his chapter, because he wanted to rewrite it based on her comments, but his wife pointed out that he always did that when he got comments, and he should at least consolidate Leina's comments with any Kat and I had.
I'm not sure what I might have done, faced with the prospect of tossing 3 weeks of evenings' work and having it all to do over again. But fortunately we went ahead, so I didn't have to kill anyone.

What the story chapter is about: Three grad students are forced to work together on a history assignment, which they take as a challenge to investigate whether their mysterious and eccentric professor is a time traveller, while 200 years earlier, an agent provocateur on Malta prepares for the French invasion.

The strength of the chapter, in my opinion, is in the historical sections, which are faster moving and more eventful. Reynard, despite his over-obvious name, is an intriguing creation, with a clear idea of what he wants, and no qualms in setting out to achieve it. His unhesitating villainy makes him memorable.
There is a potentially interesting and eventful storyline, provided the narrative can be pruned back to reveal it.

The weakness of the chapter is wordiness. The narrative needs severe pruning. Points of plot and setting are repeated. For instance, the Greek sailor's inability to understand Maltese is explained with every exchange of dialogue. On the sentence level, characters regularly glare at each other or turn to each other in order to speak. This gives the impression of a lack of confidence in either the narrative or the reader's ability to retain information.
Info-dumps appear frequently. Every character is introduced with a description of his appearance and habits, which stops the story action in its tracks. This overloads the reader, and leads to inconsistent characterisation. For instance, Ken is described as a charming ladies-man, but his pursuit of Annette is clumsy and occasionally slapstick.
The purpose of several scenes is unclear, and they seem to peter out. For instance, Annette's byplay with oily Frank, which seems to be leading to conflict and complication, only serves to get her unsupervised into a room she visits regularly. All the subsequent manoeuvring and angst over getting the assignments in goes for nothing when Duncan bleeds over them. This is frustrating for a reader who expects something to result from so many pages. You don't want your readers to feel cheated or let down.
Without scenes that advance plot or conflict, it's unclear what most of the characters want, or what is at stake for them if they don't accomplish their goals. Annette wants to change history and avenge her mother. Reynard wants to make trouble and advance his career. But Ken and Sarah only want to pass history, which isn't much to carry the story.

Suggestions: I'd recommend starting the present-day section with Duncan's arrival from the past, then the students being assigned to work on a joint project, and cut the preamble. The conflicts between them can be just as easily established as they begin the project as when they wander around Clearihue.
I'd also suggest concentrating on those characters who have something serious at stake, or else increasing the jeopardy and stakes for all the characters. It's been said that the story starts when the one-way door closes and the character no longer has the choice to turn back and order a pizza. I think you need to find that door, and close it firmly.
Consider using index cards to describe the action of each scene and what changes in that scene. If the scene only exists to establish a plot point or build up background, see if you can combine it with a scene in which something changes - ideally for the worse, to increase the jeopardy for the characters. For instance, the rock-climbing scene changes nothing: why not have an important conversation or revelation occur during it? If 'Uncle Andre' is a real threat, he'd be more memorable if he endangered the rock-climbers and instigated a real crisis, than if he could be dismissed as a trick of the light..

I went into more detail in the attached sheets.

Format and style comments

The majority of agents and publishers require submitted mss to be in Standard Manuscript Format (see attached printouts). That is double-spaced, Courier 12 or other monospace font, 1" margins.

This pdf is line-and-a-half, TNR non-monospace. Double-spacing allows room for interlinear comments and provides 25 lines per page. This mss has 39 lines per page. Courier 12 allows 10 words per line (60 characters). This mss has something like 90 characters per line.

The chapter has approximate 20,500 words, well into novella-length. Longer chapters give a reader the impression of a slower-moving story, though you might escape this because of the jumps from past to distant past and the many scene-changes in the chapter.

At the word level, there are many missing hyphens. Compound adjectives should be hyphenated. A compound adjective is a two-or-more-word adjective (like that) where the removal of a word leaves the other word meaningless or confusing. For instance, one can remove either 'big' or 'red' from 'the big, red truck' without loss of sense. But one cannot remove 'two' or 'word' from 'two-word adjective' without confusion. Or 'sweat-soaked slave' cannot become 'sweat slave' or 'soaked slave' without loss of sense.

At the sentence level, there's confusion between speech tags and action tags. A speech tag takes a comma in the quote and a lower-case letter in the tag. This is because the quote is the object of the speech-verb, and part of the same sentence. For instance: "Belay that," he snarled. The phrase 'belay that' is the object of 'snarled'.

An action tag takes a period in the quote and an upper-case letter in the tag, because the action tag is a separate sentence. "Belay that." He raised a fist in emphasis. The action tag is often preferable, because it allows a vivid action to paint the character, instead of a hackneyed said-bookism like 'snarled' as used above. The reader will understand that the gesture indicates the speaker, and a speech-verb is unnecessary.

Many commas are missing. If this is a stylistic choice, the intention of it is unclear.

Run-on sentences, especially in the action sequences. A sentence should have one main idea, not several ideas linked together with ands. Read these sections out loud, allowing yourself to pause only for commas, and you'll see the problem. The reader shouldn't have to take a mental deep breath before beginning a sentence.

Watch out for tense changes. Stick to simple past, with past perfect only when absolutely necessary for clarity.

Avoid weak padding phrases like 'There was--', 'It was--' and superfluous qualifiers like 'a little', 'very', 'some', 'rather' in narrative. 'Then--' can usually be cut. If actions are shown in sequence, the order can be assumed without padding words like then or and.

Avoid repetition - it comes across as patronising the reader, as if he cannot remember from one paragraph to the next that the slaves are being whipped, that the galley is in pursuit. Repetition of set phrases like 'she glared at him' or 'at that moment' create an effect of monotony, even if the events are exciting.

Avoid vagueness like 'smelling fear' unless you can say what fear smells like. The oars groaning and the spray coming over the bow are good examples of vivid detail - more of these, please. Better to include one to three specific vivid details that paint the scene, especially details that invoke the senses of smell or taste.

At the narrative level, remember: Show, don't tell. I saw many instances where a character is described as attractive, described as intelligent, described as athletic. Description of characters should be used sparingly, because it stops the story. Imagine the camera following a rapid pursuit--suddenly, the camera stops, pans around the scene, lingering on the skyline, then returning to the pursuit. Tension has been lost. If you want the reader to know that a character is athletic, show them doing athletic things (ideally in action that relates directly to the plot). If you want the reader to know that a character is short-tempered, show them losing their temper easily (ideally in scenes related to the plot). Any time the omniscient narrator steps into the story to give us background and footnotes on a character, the action stops.

Watch out for habits and verbal tics. For instance, the characters continually turn to each other in order to speak. If there are only two speaking characters in a scene, the reader will assume that they are speaking to each other, and won't need this sort of hand-holding.

This appears to be written in omniscient point-of-view. Omni is a difficult pov to maintain, and can easily slide into head-hopping and confuse the reader. I'm not saying you can't do it, but I suggest you keep close track of whose head the narrative has jumped into, and move from one to another for good reason and as infrequently as possible. Another point to remember if you are using omniscient is that the omniscient pov does know everything. You cannot use 'seemed to' or 'might have been' or any other fudging phrases. If the narrative were close-third, an imperfect human could be unsure. But the all-knowing omniscient voice is always certain.

Dialogue & character comments

I'd recommend that you read your dialogue aloud--ideally, have others read it out loud--and consider whether it sounds natural. While a certain formality is to be expected in the 1700s segments, the contemporary characters often sound over-formal and stilted, because of the underuse of contractions. At other points, the younger characters sound less like grad students and more like elementary or junior-high students, with jeers like 'smartypants' and 'miss priss'.

The French dialogue has several errors. I'd suggest either glossing all the French dialogue into English, or having a native speaker go over the mss.

I'd suggest reviewing the character names--believable names are important for plausibility. Reynard's name might as well be a sign saying "Hey, I am foxy and cunning!" but might be equally effective as a real French name like Renaud, which echoes 'renard' without hitting the reader over the head. Etienne is a male name--if it is given to a female character in the 1700s, when the church kept a tight control on baptismal names, I'd expect some surprising backstory connected with it. Neither Ken nor DiPalo sound like likely Acadian names.

I'd also suggest keeping index cards for character data, so that the characters' ages, complexions, build, etc. don't jump around. Sarah is described as four, then as six, when 9-yr old Annette is adopted. Readers notice these things.

I had difficulty connecting with any of the young characters. Largely this is because I'm not shown that they want something, nor am I shown serious obstacles to what they want, and no visible jeopardy. Nor are any of them shown to be admirable as yet, demonstrating altruism, self-sacrifice, or dedication to anything much. It's possible for a reader to identify and find sympathetic even a villainous character if he/she is shown to be suffering, mistreated, or in need of something (see Frey, in the reading list). But aside from Reynard, the characters aren't shown to have specific aims.

Both Annette and Sarah seem to have remarkably low self-esteem. Sarah pursues Ken despite his jeering comments about her lack of boyfriends and his own open pursuit of Annette. He even makes it clear that he is only talking to Sarah in hopes of connecting with Annette, and yet Sarah mopes that she cannot get a date with him! Even if she were forbidden to date outside her faculty, there must be other male students. Sarah reads rather as if her character was originally intended to be male, with her upper body strength greater than her lower body, her 'muscular' build, and her attempt to impress Ken by being better than him at climbing--this sort of display is much more male than female.

Annette seems to be intended as the tough sexpot (bad brunette to Sarah's good-girl blonde) but when we first see her, she is white-faced, as if from some terrible shock (such as Sarah reportedly had) but the shock is that a door is closed (not locked, only closed). After we are told that she has no interest in Frank, and after Frank has behaved unprofessionally (and sleazily), Annette suddenly becomes concerned with whether she might hurt his feelings. These about-faces make it difficult to get a handle on her character.

Frank's actions are similarly unclear. At first he seems to want some hold over Annette, but only to leave on a hot date with someone else. If he had a hot date, would he be dozing in a chair rather than pacing impatiently & cursing Duncan's lateness?

Ken is described as a smooth seducer with a 'bachelor lair' but his attempts to make time with Annette show him as more of a hapless Woody Allen character, stumbling over his words and setting things on fire. His 'class clown' antics don't fit with the man-about-town description.

The older characters were more believable. Duncan is set up as being eccentric and mysterious, which provides some leeway. Charlie is a stock eccentric, with no need for depth.

Scene and plot comments

Every scene should do something to advance plot, develop character, or enhance theme. Ideally, two or more of these should be achieved in each scene. Too many scenes in this chapter do no more than introduce a character or establish setting. Some introduce complications or mysteries only to let them fizzle.

I quote J.H. Macdonald "Yes. Every scene (not just the major ones, every one) needs to serve a purpose in your book. You wouldn't glue a flowerpot to the hood of your car and tie a bedframe to the back bumper, just because you happened to have a flowerpot and a bedframe, would you? Anything that fails to contribute to the story detracts from it."

The plot so far has several plausibility issues for me, though I think most of them would be easy to fix.

One is the unlikelihood of the students so meekly accepting Duncan's destruction of their assignments, since they must (even in 1998) have had backups on disk, ready to be printed out. That could be fixed by simply cutting the scenes where they fuss about late-or-not-late assignments, and beginning with Duncan assigning them to work together. If Duncan had intent and knowledge about the role they would play in the past and purposely brought them together, that would also eliminate any brain-squashing coincidences if Annette is indeed Etienne or Etienne's daughter.

Another is the carbon-14 test, which would no way be able to measure as tiny a span as 200 years (also requires a large enough sample that Duncan could not miss the damage to the case). I'd suggest dendrochronology, but why not skip the clock and go directly to the naval uniforms? Clothing makes for much better forensics, given the changes in weave, hand-stitching, tailoring etc. over the years, as well as things like pollen and dust adhering to the fibres. Real 18th c. naval uniforms would never be displayed openly on hangers, as described, so Annette should have assumed they were replicas (especially after she pushes them around as if she were at a 20% off sale), until her curiosity is aroused - then she can borrow a uniform and take it to the theatre dept. for an expert opinion on whether it is replica or real.

.

So, yeah, schedule of events ran so:
introductory go-round, tea and snacks (yes, I brought baked goods)
discussion of possible formats. preference expressed for supportive rather than critique-focussed format.
A free-writing exercise, followed by reading out of free-writing to general approving noises.
Brian havers about withdrawing his chapter, agrees to hear crits. I read mine. Kat comments. Discussion.
decided that my sample piece can wait until next meeting, to be scheduled.
I guess I should go to that one, if it happens, because it would be rude not to show up if my work was being critted.

Aug 22 weekend, then?

Sat, 25 Apr 2009 21:10:17 GMT

Copy provided by the Avocado:
"Batgirlcon is the irregularly recurring convention to celebrate the writing and interests of writer Barbara Mary Louise
Gordon. Held in scenic Victoria, British Columbia, it folds interesting guests into knots of conversation. Notes on this year's events: the traditional blimp tour of nearby Vancouver will not be possible this year due to the theft of the blimp by rogue primates, and the traditional office power yoga workshop has been cancelled due to excessive laughter."

Dates: The core would be August 22-23, but attendees are welcome to arrive earlier and leave later for the sake of cheaper flights, more time to sightsee or relax, or simple inertia.
Location: Victoria BC, Canada. Just outside Oak Bay, walking distance from Willows Beach, on the bus route for downtown Victoria.
Facilities: fold-out beds, foamies, airmattresses and floorspace. Victoria also has more bed&breakfast places than human mind can comprehend.
Local attractions: Butchart Gardens, Munro's Books, Gyro Park, Bolen's Books, Beacon Hill Park, and ever so many tourist traps.
Travel: Victoria International Airport is a half-hour drive away, as are the ferry terminals for BC Ferries. The Coho ferry from Port Angeles and the Clipper passenger ferry from Seattle dock in downtown Victoria. Pickup can easily be arranged.

Open to VPXers and families, VP-associates & friends, writey-type friends who'd like to come and hang out... did I miss anyone?

on still not knowing what I'm writing

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 05:49:02 GMT

While biking home, I had a small epiphany. "Gods-Meat" is about the breakdown & breakup with M--e.
I mean, it's about what do you do after your story ends?, but it's just as much about letting go of a long-term guilt-bound relationship. And not turning to stone just because all the cool kids are doing it. And stuff.
I'm a bit weirded out by this.

VP / writerish get-together: dates?

Sat, 21 Mar 2009 23:40:55 GMT

To refresh: I live on Vancouver Island, a scenic tourist trap. If you inflated Martha's Vineyard somewhat and flipped it to the other side of the continent, you'd have the idea. Oh, and our money is prettier.

We have a turn-of-the-previous-century house, with 2 fold-out beds, plus a single loft-bed and floor space. Victoria is also thick with bed&breakfast places. We are walking distance from several restaurants, some quite good.
There's a fluffy cat - allergy alert.

Skimming quickly through my pocket calendar, the possibles seem to be:
Early June : May 30-31; Jun 6-7; Jun 13-14
Late August: Aug 22-23; Aug 29-30; Sep 5-6

Which isn't to say that other dates are out, just to provide a starting point. Thoughts? I'll post this on Room 50 as well

Not my usual thing, whatever that is

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 04:20:21 GMT

This is why I love doing the 3-day Novel Contest: because I can write weird stuff. I re-read last year's entry, Trading in Ghosts, and since sufficient time has passed, I thought it was pretty decent. Not that there are any markets for 18,500 word stories, even one that includes a scene with a mad scientist playing a cobbled-together organ while a child's soul is sucked out in a nearby glass-wire cage.
But here's chapter two,

The naked man jerked his hips slowly, almost thoughtfully, between Mira's spraddled legs. She dug her fingers into his meaty buttocks, and pictured him hanging in parts among the halved pigs and quartered lambs in the butcher's shop. The pale sunlight, snipped by the corners of buildings and sliced by power-lines, lay half-way along the pocked plaster of the wall. This man was the third since the sun had touched her window.

He subsided, pressing her into the mattress, his breath hot on her short-cropped hair. The slats below the mattress ridged her thin arse, and she wriggled subtly to encourage his cock to slip free of her. He lifted up on his elbows to see her face. She let her mouth go slack, and panted lightly.

"Where do you come from, girl?"

"East," she said. He kept on looking at her, so she added, "You're from the flats, aren't you? I can tell because you're so big and strong." It had been the way he'd said his o's and u's that had told her, but he wouldn't want to hear that.

He nodded, and she let herself relax a little, inside. "Grew up on the flats. But that's not my home."

He wanted her to ask where his home was. Fuck it, he'd only paid to fuck her. "We're all a long way from home."

"Some will never see home again. That's sad."

"Yeah," she said, and touched her thumb and small finger together, behind his back. "It's sad when that happens. Now get off me and get out."

His square, clean hand fell across her throat. "You haven't given me a reason to do that." His hand pressed heavy and square as a concrete block, and her sight greyed to the grey of his eyes as he watched her, his face unchanging.

Mira held down panic and thrashing, did not claw his back, but touched her thumb and finger together again. Her arms weakened and fell to her sides, hands limp and open on the stained mattress.

The grey eyes that were all she could see in the grey mist grew dark with widened pupils, and his hand stilled so that a little air leaked down her throat. She sucked it in greedily, as greedily as the knowledge that he felt a cold metal edge against his balls.

"I give you a reason." Aram's voice deepened and Yar's thick accent harshened it. "Get off and get out if you want to take your cock and balls with you."

"I can still kill her," said the naked man.

"Then I still cut your cock off but I make you eat it."

The man's weight lifted from her so suddenly and completely that she thought she'd been flung out of the bed, and she caught at the edge of the mattress to save herself. Rolling to hands and knees, and reaching under the bed, she saw the man was between Aram--no, Yar now--and the door. He stood with his knees bent and his feet apart, his hands before him. One hand was wrapped around the neck of the wine bottle he'd brought and left by the wall. The door was unlocked behind him, but he didn't run.

He wasn't frightened, Mira thought, seeing his balls loose and full behind his damp cock. And it wasn't because he'd seen Aram, his gangly half-grown legs and arms, as no threat. It was because he was crazy. Mira knew crazy, in many of its hydra heads, and this was one, not slavering, but grinning like a skull.

She pulled the chain and padlock up from their hiding place, and slid to her feet. The links rattled, then whirred as she swung the chain before her, looping back and forth, crossing and opening. "Get your clothes and get out. You can only take one of us. The other one will take you." She took a sideways step to give Yar room, and felt the rubber slide out from between her legs to splat on the floor.

"I'll shred you both," the man said conversationally. "I won't leave an inch of whole skin. But I won't kill you. Not now."

Mira slid her foot another half-step, and felt the rubber touch her instep, wet and sticky as a snail. Her grandmother had come from the flats too, and had taught her a thing or two about power. She lifted her heel over the rubber, plump with the man's spendings.

"I grind your seed beneath my heel," she said. "Your line ends here."

His head swivelled toward her, and his shoulders drew up so sharp it seemed his head sank between them. His hands seemed to float toward her with his spring. Aram's leg swung out with Yar's strength and swiftness, and swept the man's back leg off the floor as he lunged at her.

He should have fallen hard, with Aram atop him, to jerk his head back by the hair and slice the knife across his throat. But he rolled across the floorboards and bounced to his feet. Mira swung the padlock in a tight circle, and he jumped back to avoid it.

Aram was all Yar now. His gawky adolescent frame seemed bulkier, heavier. His eyes were steady on his opponent, and the knife moved easily in a flickering pattern as he advanced.

"Where did you learn that?" the man asked.

Yar laughed, a deep bark. "Where you've never been."

"Savalor." The man bent and set the bottle down tenderly, then drew his hands into a pattern that mirrored and doubled the weaving of Yar's knife. His hands advanced and retreated, as if the two of them passed a string figure back and forth between them. "But you are too young."

Mira wavered. This was the time for her to strike. But could she trust Yar to follow up? His loyalties were not Aram's, and he might take this man as ally and turn on her.

Yar said something in a hard spitting language that Mira did not know. The man stared at him, then replied in the same manner. Feeling something inside her unstitch and pull away, Mira backed until she felt the bed against her calves, then rolled neatly across it, away from the men. She plucked up her dress and the man's money from the chair beside the bed as she passed, and jumped onto the radiator under the half-open window. It scorched her feet as she shoved the sash down, and she had one leg out before a voice stopped her.

"Mira!" Not Aram's voice, even yet, but Momo's, the little one who was left behind. The one she'd promised not to leave behind. She hung half-in and half-out, and looked back.

"Go back," she said. "Go back and fetch Yar. It isn't safe for you."

The naked man stood where he'd been, his hands hanging loose and empty. Was he so confident of his power? His attention fell from her--she felt it in her body, as if a hot beam of light had touched her and passed on--and returned to Aram. "Tell her to come in," he said. "I won't harm either of you." His eyelids fell, but he did not seem drowsy. "Or should I say, any of you?"

"Lie down," Mira said. "Lie face down on the bed or I won't come in."

He did, propping his chin in his hands as easily as a boy sprawled on a beach. "Tell me your story."

.

If anyone has clever ideas for possible markets, I'm listening. Also if anyone would like to beta-read this and suggest how it could be either lengthened or shortened - or just read it for fun.

Oh good, more unfinished work.

Sun, 25 Jan 2009 07:43:52 GMT

Because, you know, I don't have enough barely-started Works in Progress, what I really need to do is to get all excited about a new story idea that started mostly as a joke after reading one of limyaael's rants, this one about prophecy.
I remembered how many examples I'd seen on Evil Editor's blog, of 'perfectly ordinary girl from our world learns that she is really the destined ruler of generic fantasy world 315A' and I thought, huh, has anyone reversed that? And how would you reverse it and still get a story?
And now, heaven help me, I have a blurb -

For twelve of her sixteen years, Princess Tasria's life has been governed by the Prophecy that she would destroy the Dark Queen, ruthless enemy of Evermorna. Now the Dark Queen is dead--at the hands of a common foot-soldier--and Tasria's royal parents break the news that the Prophecy was a lie. She is no Chosen One, not their daughter, and they are returning her to her real home: the quiet North American suburb they stole her from.
Reunited with her birth mother, who calls her Heather and is worried by her 'wild stories', Tasria tries to learn the ways of her strange home, where machinery takes the place of magic and of servants, and high school hierarchy calls on all the skills she acquired from court intrigues. With painful mis-steps, she learns to live for herself and not for a kingdom's destiny. Her mother contacts Heather's estranged father, hoping to rebuild their broken family. Then, on the eve of their reunion, her father disappears, just as little Heather did thirteen years ago. Her mother believes he has deserted them, but Tasria knows the truth. Evermorna is not finished with her. And this time she doesn't need a Prophecy to tell her what needs to be done.

Does anyone know why it's so much easier to write a blurb for someone else's story or for a story not yet written, than it is for a completed story of one's own? Trying to write a blurb for Willow Knot is making my brains leak out my ears.
As does deciding whether to go ahead with Tom's story, or jump into this one.

Merry Christmas Room 50

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 06:13:16 GMT

Because I'm too lazy to buy presents, I donate to Oxfam, Operation Eyesight, etc. So, today the OE card (Lantern in the Snow design) arrived, with the following message:

The spirit of the season is giving,
Especially to those in need.

Room 50

In your name, a person in the developing
world will be restored to sight through
cataract surgery.

As you gather with family and friends,
celebrate the gift of sight and
hope for a bright tomorrow.

Season's Greetings

The insert card says:
We are happy to let you know
Mr. Gowranga Sahu
of Padmapur(v), Rayagaa H.O., Orissa
17 years old
was discharged with sight restored

Merry Christmas to the best workshop crew ever, students, teachers and staff!
Hey, I gotcha somebody's eyes for Christmas - kind of Addams Family, don't you think?
-Barbara

photo-memetic

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 14:58:48 GMT

Take a picture of yourself right now. Don’t change your clothes. Don’t fix your hair. Just take a picture. Post that picture with no editing. (Except maybe to get the image size down to something reasonable. Don’t go posting an eight megapixel image.) Include these instructions.

If this works, I will be surprised. I was going to brush by this meme "Oh, like I'm going to wake up Mark or Chris and get them to find a camera and take a photo of me and upload it and all that foofarah" when I remembered that the EEE has a webcam. So I muddled about for half an hour--LJ was the slower part--and maybe there is a result above.

Nope. Okay, I'll just link to blogger, where it posted Just Fine. Sodding LJ.

bibsearch.blogspot.com/2008/09/because-lj-wont-let-me.html

never end a story this way, actually don't begin this way either

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 17:47:43 GMT

A couple of months ago I dreamed I was wandering around downtown and met M--. She came bouncing cheerfully up to me and chattered about what she'd been doing and what was going on in her life. I stood there thinking 'this is rather awkward, has she forgotten she's not talking to me? oh well, nod and smile'. Then she finished, bounced cheerfully away, and I woke up.
A few weeks later, I dreamed I was browsing in one of the big bookshops (Munro's, probably) and M-- came up to me and chattered about this and that in her life. I stood there thinking 'wow, this is just like my dream! I'll have to tell Mark I had a prophetic dream, is that ever cool!'
Then I woke up.

In deference to Jim Macdonald, the original tag 'and then I woke up' has been revised to 'then I woke up'.

VPX reunion on the Western edge?

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 04:48:44 GMT

Would it be feasible, do you think, to have a party/reunion/get-together in Victoria? It's very far away from almost everyone (except Mac) but Vancouver Island is also a major tourist destination, with all sorts of attractions and so on, and thick with bed & breakfast places.
We have a biggish house, with sofabed and fold-out futon, foamies and floorspace. And can provide pickup from ferries (Coho, Clipper and BC Ferries) and airport.
I have no idea about possible dates yet, I'm just tossing this idea out, inspired as I am by previous masters and mistresses of the revels.
-Barbara

200 years later

Mon, 21 May 2007 22:54:57 GMT

Because apparently I am in love with the sound of my own keyboard, herewith the first appearance of Griffin in writing. This episode takes place in 1810 (hush! all will be explained if Siege of the Revenants ever gets published). Apologies for any roughness in the style, as this was written in 2003 and I'm probably a somewhat better writer now.
This probably needs some background. Hm. Griffin is the cunning-man of Worham village, and was once Mary's teacher. Mary is a young woman with some puzzling magical talents. Frank is her younger brother. Reault is a vampire who wants more knowledge of his state, in order to discover why he has been unable to enter vampire society. The unnamed female encountered here latched on to Reault and has lately fallen out with him and hopes to be taken up by two more powerful vampires recently arrived.

The skins of the little beasts on his wall lifted their flat boneless heads and shrilled at him. No more than he'd expected, that his solitary cottage should tempt those intruders.

"How many?" he asked the tacked-down pelts of moles, squirrels, rats. But one, they told him, in voices only he could hear, and from the east.

"Man or woman?" But they could not answer, the dead being all the same to them.

Griffin rose from the scarred table where he chopped herbs and bones, took his hawthorn staff in one hand and wrapped the silver-hung cord around the other. The coins jangled sweetly at his fist.

The east, aye. The hedge grew thick with ash and hawthorn that hampered evil. To the east was a gap where one might creep through. Harm weren't to be barred out, he knew that well enough. Better to have its coming and going under his hand and eye than waiting without the walls. He stepped to the front door, keeping behind the threshold stone, and looked out.

There she was, as Mary had described her, a gold-headed doxy tricked out in fine clothes, seeming scarce to rest upon the ground but to float like a marsh-lamp above it, like a sickly vapour as she was. He kept his gaze on her red, red lips, away from her eyes.

"Give you good even, granfer," said the musical voice. "Will you not come out to me?"

"God be wi' ye, pretty wench, be ye lost? I'm an old man to be wanderin' in the night air, would ye rather come in to me and be warmed?"

She laughed sweetly, but without the silver ring of the coins hidden in his pocket, and a twist of breeze carried the stink of stale blood to him. "I find myself benighted, yes." The voice turned coy. "Shall I be safe to come in to you, grandfather, or are you a naughty man that means ill to poor lost lasses?"

"No more ill than ye mean to me, maidie."

She laughed again and glided closer. Muttering the words under his breath, Griffin drew his hand from his pocket and slung the cord into the air, spinning over her head. She looked up, distracted, as it fell to the ground, compassing her skirts round about.

"What fool's game is this, old man?"

"Tis silver, pretty doxy, and silver coins blood money every one. Every piece remembers well why Our Lord gave silver power over evil things. Stand quiet and it'll not hurt ye."

She laughed again and picked up her skirts to step over the linked scatter of coins, each a tiny glinting moon in the grass. The shriek she gave as her dainty foot crossed the cord was nothing like so pretty as her laugh, but it pleased Griffin a deal more. The vampire fell into a crouch within the compassed space, making a soft keening noise of hurt.

"Now, my minikin, us'll speak civil. I'll ask and ye answer."

Her white demon face glared at him from the crumple of silks and petticoats. "I'll drink thee, old man, I'll break thy poxy bones."

"Wilt thou then? Happen I'd be wiser to smash thy brainpan wi' my staff now. Tis stout hawthorn."

"Let me out from this, I'll kiss thee and dandle thee sweet." The voice turned coaxing and he felt the pull for she'd looked in his eyes now.

He bit his tongue and swilled the blood around with the spittle in his mouth, spat the pinkish gobbet on to her face. "Thou called my blood and here it answers thee. No more shall be thine."

She hissed at him and gathered herself as to spring. One hand brushed the air above the coins and she dropped back, whimpering. "What are you, old man, what is this? Let me go, I'll not harm you."

"That's one truth ye speak, ye shan't harm me." He stepped back, as he might leave her. "Fret ye not, minikin, tis not so strong a charm that binds ye there. 'Twill not hold past cockcrow."

Her shriek tore inside his head as he turned back into the cottage. He asked the skins whether any came to her call. They hung silent and still. He gave her some moments to try herself against the coins again, marking her attempts by the curses and whimpers of pain, then went back to the doorway.

"'Tis true as they say, pretty wench, that where one of your like burns no grass will grow?"

She cursed him again, but he didn't listen, only studied her. This the dainty adder that had stung Mary, near been her death. In this same garden had his little maidie played, waiting his time to teach her, chattering and singing to herself, making wreaths and tiny dolls of flowers. There had he seen her throw handfuls of fallen rose petals into the air, laughing as they fell on her hair and clothes . . . and circled and swung about her dark ringlets like bees about a flower. Don't fright her, he'd warned himself, and he hadn't . . . then. More than ten years he'd waited for her to come back to him, ten years when she might have wed, lost her heart and maidenhead to some young puppy, but hadn't. Proof that was, his bindings still lay on her. Mary, Mary, fear me not, I'll not hurt thee.

"What do you want from me, mortal?" She was standing now, wavering between menace and piteousness. "Why do you try to hold me here?"

"I'd name it not tryin' but holdin' in sooth, wench. It may be what I'll have from ye is your dead life." He pointed the staff at her, then dropped the tip to the ground and pushed the cord in towards her, shrinking the circle. She hissed and flinched back. "Ye drank some two nights back."

"What if I did? What should I do else?"

"I've no quarrel with what ye be, my minikin. I quarrel with ye bein' it here, in my lands."

She laughed. "Are you the gamekeeper then? Or cowherd? What right have you over these cattle?"

He smiled at her and pushed the cord in at another point. "A gamekeeper'd but have ye whipped and transported, doxy. I be chief poacher, and know ye what a poacher does? He kills. From the dark. Don't be tellin me that your kind'll come after me an I kill ye. They'll but say fewer mouths to share wi'."

Her lips worked and her fingers curled in claws, but the scorching of the silver had taught her to keep her place. "What if I fed? I didn't kill." Her face lit with devil's glee. "Oh! Thou'd have the witch as bedmate? Take her now, she'll not fight hard, being most bled. 'Ware the bees, lest they sting thy fundament as thou mount her!"

He took a step to one side, smiled again and pushed the cord in. A trefoil it was now, and no circle. She tried to turn to face him still, and hissed in pain as she brushed the cord. "Let me go! I'll not take her, I'll make do with the boy, he's half mine already."

Griffin leaned on the staff and shook his head sadly. "Naught here is thine, nor any of thy kind's. 'Tis mine. I guard it, and keep it, and make my use of it. Who of thy kind trespass on my land and rights? Tell me now."

"Wilt let me go?"

"Mayhap. An thou art a dutiful maid."

"I followed the fool who came before. Reault. He's the one called thy doxy out from her bed. I only drank to bind her to me, to find how to take the power of that house from her, not to kill her."

"Thou wouldst ha' made her one of thy kind, or killed her so."

"I only wanted that power. She wouldn't give it me." She paused, and glanced coyly through her lashes, up at him. "She wouldn't give thee what thou wanted, would she? I would have killed Reault, but two others came. They must have followed him as well. They told him to fetch the girl out, but he betrayed us, and she let him in the house, where we can't follow. He's in the house now, with the boy and girl. Soon he'll be hungry. Who will he take first?"

"Why wouldst kill this Reault? How did he offend thee?"

She pouted winsomely. "He's weak and useless. Stronger than a girl or a cripple, of course, but weak to us. And his master offended Daughton, so they'd have him dead as well. He tried to send me away, have the girl to himself. She likes him. He's in there now, with thy wench. Dost thou not wonder what he'll do?"

"I'll tell thee, wench, the house is not so easy took as a life. Canst carry fire in thy hands or a lake in thy bosom, take a rooted tree away with thee? Mary serves the house and it serves her. An thou seek to master it, 'twill master thee. 'Tis older an stronger than the oldest of thy kind there be. What is it that keeps thy like here? The power of the house or wantin' this Reault, or wantin' Mary Challoner's blood?"

She hesitated.

Belike the answer was all three, and the three vampires would squabble over who drained Mary and who Frank, share in pulling Reault to shreds, and unloose the bound fire all unknowing. As if it were something that had happened when he was a child, or long ago in a dream, he saw Mary stretched across the hearthstone, butchered and dead, the house in flames about her, fire spreading over the lands.

He turned back into his cottage, leaving the vampire wavering in the ring of silver like a velvety flowerhead drooping on its stem. The tacked-down skins were still and quiet. He dragged his stool to the doorway and set it safely behind the threshold, where he could see, and seated himself comfortably. The night mists did ache his old bones, that was true enough.

The dead doxy whimpered to him, threatened, enticed and begged, then fell to cursing. He paid her little heed, but kept the staff close at hand. It might be that her brethren would hear her and come to see what the noise was, or it might be that they'd not bother themselves. This Reault, what was he to his Mary? A bosom serpent most like, and yet the maidie was no fool, though he told her other. He'd maybe bound her in some way, Reault, and Griffin wanted a sight of him, and a smell too. Frank, have ye a care for your sister and her soft heart.

To this door had the old mistress brought Mary for her first lessons. Mary still in short skirts with her hair tied in ribbons, her face flushed, and not a speck of fear in her. Up she'd come to him and taken his hand, thanked him pretty for bein' so kind as to teach her. He'd heard her in the village one day, talkin' with the parson's daughter as thought a deal too much of herself, saying "Mr. Griffin does not smell bad! He smells of the fen, and like the corners of the barn, and the midden heap where it's old!" The other little madam had laughed scornful, and Mary'd said puzzled and a bit tearful "But those are nice smells! Haven't you ever closed your eyes and just sniffed them?" Oh he'd laughed, though quiet, that the childer shouldn't see him there.

And yet he had frighted her, at the time when he should've been most careful, when her courses came on her first and she was of age to be prenticed. Frighted her and she'd never come back, more'n ten years now, only spoke him cordial if they met on the road.

Now his chance might be come again, Mary come to see that she was unarmed and blindfold against these foes, without the craft he only could teach her.

He turned it over as a man might turn a smooth pebble in his pocket, not looking but knowing it by touch. Did these dead ones want Reault more, or his Mary? Stand by and let them destroy the bosom serpent then come in to guard her? Yet if the girl had taken this Reault under her hand she'd stand in front, and Frank before her if he had his will. Skulk behind my girl's skirts, would ye, dead'un?

Would this one'd do as she bargained, he'd leave her go and give her Reault, an she left his lands. He looked at her again, twisting in the cramped space like a scorpion trapped in a ring of fire, stinging itself to death, though it was him she'd sting could she but reach. Nay, there was no faith in her, save to her own gullet.

"Tell me," he said, pointing his staff at her again, as she hissed and spat at him. "Who be thy master. Be it Daughton?"

"Leave me go! I'll run, I'll not harm thee, morning's coming, I can feel it, let me not burn!"

"Who be thy master? Mayhap I'll let ye go."

She panted, it must be from old habit of fear, for she'd no need of breathing save to speak, he knew that. "James Monkaster made me, but he's dead some years. Builders found his den by chance, he burned in the sun, o let me not burn like him. I'll give thee Reault, I'll call him here, I can do that . . ." She whimpered, trying to think what to offer him. "Reault was made by Havlock, in Norwich, some hundred years gone, and none knew. Havlock was Francis Daughton's get, as watches at the house now, and Daughton killed Havlock and all his get could be found, for he'd made them withouten leave, but he didn't know of this one Havlock kept him secret and taught him naught, he's half a mortal yet. Daughton brought another of his own, a woman, they're strong, stronger than me, o don't let me burn and I'll call them for you that you might kill them and not me o don't let me burn!" She crumpled again into a heap of gaudy silks and furbelows, with no more than a small breathless cry as she brushed the silver barrier.

He watched as she rocked and crooned to herself for some while, feeling in his own bones the slow fading of the night. If she could have brought any of her kind to him, she would have done so secretly, to save herself, so he didn't answer her, only watched. At length he saw her in fear of the burning so strong that he raised up and braced his legs. She gathered herself up and sprang through the searing compass of the cord, shrieking as nothing still ensouled ever could, rolled on the grass a second in pain, then sprang at him.

The staff was cocked at his shoulder and with all the strength of his body he thrust the silver-shod tip at her white bosom.

Her own lunge drove it home. He dragged her body outside the hedge, seeing as it might be true about naught growing after, and watched as the sweet golden morning scorched the flesh off her bones, her bones charred and fell away into ash, stirred by the little breeze that comes up at dawn. What was left of her bones he smashed into powder with the thornwood staff.

Sun, 13 May 2007 16:32:20 GMT

This is for bookherder, and for anyone else who might have been reading. I will get back to this, really, once the first draft of Willow Knot is done.

Chapter Four: Her kirtle blue, whereon was many a stain, made with the blood of wretched lovers slain. (Marlowe, Hero and Leander)

She flinched back. Nay, lad, first put off that rubbish about thy neck. I'll not lie with some withered Jack o'the Green, but with a bare brave youth. Come, let me see thy strong limbs and throat. Her hands stretched out imploring, her red lips drew closer, then swayed enticingly away, shadow slicing between herself and him. Her face was so near he might have heard her breathe.

He'd forgot the scanty wreath of sloe and haw about his neck. Now it worried at him, a tiresome thing barring him from pleasures unguessed. He dragged it over his head, squinting his eyes closed against the thorns.

With the falling of his eyelids and the scratch of the wiry strands, something snapped between himself and the woman, sharp and stinging as an overtried fishing-line breaking at a salmon's lunge.

Eyes still closed, he pulled the wreath full off. Thorns drove into his fingers as he forced it down over her pretty head, so near his own throat. He opened his eyes at her breathless scream. She rolled on the earthen floor, scrabbling at her head and throat, hissing. Griffin caught up the silver-tipped staff as he sprang to his feet, swinging it between him and her.

She'd near had him. Their eyes held glamour, power like a snake's. He'd known it and yet let himself look into her eyes. Damned fool! An thou canst do no better than that, as well go to Gybbin and say will't please you to kill me now, master?

The thorn wreath would not hold long, only distract and anger her. Already she'd pulled it from her neck, snarling it into her tangled black hair. Keeping his eyes fast on her body and away from her face, Griffin swung the staff down onto one outstretched bare leg. The thick wet slap of broken meat. Another shriek.

She left the sloe-vines dangling in her hair, and lunged crookedly at him. Her clawed fingers snagged his shirt. He threw himself hard back, but she clung on. The threadbare linen ripped with a long sigh and he fell to the side, freed. He sent a prayer of thanks to Goody Moray's worn-out smock even as he rolled away.

Keeping the staff before him, he rose to his knees. She lurched a step closer, hunched like a beggar. What portion of that crippling was true, and what a ruse to bring him within reach? Even one-legged, she was devilish quick and strong. He stumbled to his feet, panting, feigning more fear and shock than was true for his own part.

"What are you? Some demon?" he gasped.

On this turn she spoke aloud, and he noted she drew in a little breath before each burst of words, like a bellows drawing in air. "Why hast--hurt me so? I did but--play. 'Tis thou--art the demon." A pitiful moan. "Please--an th'art--a Christian--come bind my leg."

He let the staff-point drop, though he kept his hands tight on it. "Ah mistress, what have I done? I've been lifelong prey to night terrors and to walking while I sleep. 'Tis why I sleep alone, lest some unwary soul wake me and I do harm. Did the farm-wife not warn you?"

She let herself fall to her knee, then to her belly, and stretched out a hand in supplication. He stepped towards her, still gabbling apology, scarcely knowing what he said. When he judged himself close enough, he dropped the staff like a poleaxe onto her unbroken leg.

But she'd seen his movement at the first, and thrust herself forward on her arms only, quick and deft as a beggar on a cart. He twisted in mid-arc, and the silver staff-tip caught her heel. She sucked in a long breath, but did not use it for a scream, only broken hissing. Face white in a cloud of black hair and shadows, she curled against the wall like a flicked spider.

He shifted his grip on the staff, turned the end towards her and swung the point in small circles. The silver penny gleamed white in the moonbeam, dulled to grey outside it, white, grey, white. His hands shook, and he tightened his hold until they stilled.

How to kill a creature already dead? Never mind that, fool. Break her limbs. When she can't run at thee, or reach thee, then might thou catch thy breath, and not before.

The staff was a blessed thing, keeping him from arm's-reach of death, yet able to attack.

"Thorn-wood," she gasped. "Silver--who taught thee so?"

"Old tales." Gybbins had read his passing thought that night, but only what was foremost therein. What might this one read?

"Who--told them?"

"Books." He cast at her the picture of books strewn across a table, himself bent over them. Mistress Moray's remembrance he hid deep within.

"Damn thy--books. Damn thy--ugly face."

"Did I let you go," he said at a venture. "Would your leg heal, and how soon?"

Her head lifted, and though her eyes were naught but dark hollows and unable to snare, her posture was that of a cat spying a bird. "Wouldst let--me go? Thou'dst--not regret--it sweet boy."

Nay, for I'd not live to regret, he thought, and kept that certainty behind the walls of his mind. "I seek but one of your kind, that wronged me sore. I've no quarrel with any that don't quarrel with me. Would your leg heal?"

"Aye--after a week."

She'd have him think he'd be long gone afore she might come after. "Know you of a revenant once named Gerard Gybbins? An astrologer in life?"

"I might." Her arms tautened and her fingers dug into the dirt.

With a quick step in, he thrust the staff at her shoulder. She threw herself headlong, clawing at his back leg even as he lifted it to take another stride. Her nails raked stinging lines along his calf and dug into his ankle, swinging him off-balance. He toppled, landing hard on his hip, breath knocked from him.

Spots of ink hung before his clouded eyes. He couldn't stir a limb, only gape his mouth open like a clubbed fish, for air that would not come to him. Behind the spreading blotches of black, she rose like a jet of moonstruck water, white and cold, to engulf and drown him.

His death was on him. The cold sentence froze his heart, slowing the beat to the long knell of the dead-bell. Her white arms lifted and spread to gather him, slow, so slow. As her face floated down to his, gently as a leaf-fall and no faster, his right hand struggled up to ward her off, With the same deep-mired slowness he saw he still gripped the staff, though he could not feel it in his fingers. The white-glinting tip swung up, pushed by his numb hand. The butt-end struck the earth beside him, jarred pain through his shoulders. The penny blinked like the moon before the shadow of her body swallowed it.

Her face passed through the slanted moonbeam, flaring white like a sudden flag. The staff jerked in his hands. Fixed and pale as another moon, she hung over him. Her eyes sprang wide, unluring, shocked. As if she mocked his own breathless gasp, her mouth opened. A gout of stinking black blood spewed from her red lips, spraying his face.

Griffin's heart jumped in his breast, recalled to duty. The dead woman's weight overbore his weak grip, and her impaled body toppled to the floor beside him, dragging the staff with it. He flailed hands and feet to scramble crabwise away from her, fetching up hard against the barn wall.

Moonlight painted her white in flesh and gown, left her hair dark as fenwater. She lay still. A narrow stain of black circled the staff where it had torn her, at the parting of the ribs. After the splash of blood from her mouth, nothing more.

Was this true death? Did he draw out the thornwood staff, could she rise yet? The silver penny stuck deep in her flesh, did that fix her to death?

His breath returned in gasping sobs that shook him shoulder to knee. He tried to wipe his spattered face against his sleeve. His arm trembled; he needed his other hand to steady it on the little journey to his face. The linen came away smeared black.

He clung to the questions like ladder-rungs over an abyss. Was she true dead? Dare he take back the staff that had saved him? His eyes burnt, and he must force himself to blink, to let her from his watchfulness for that sliver of time.

The bar of moonlight swung inch by slow inch across the floor. Kinder darkness hid her staring face, bathed it from stark white to grey shadow, hid the white breasts, the black wound and murdering blackthorn, the swell of hip and swirl of skirts, the bare muddy feet.

Had she stirred, there in the dark? Fear jolted him from the stupor and dragged him to his feet, where he swayed, flesh and sinew protesting. He must see her, be assured she made no stealthy motion to attack anew. He backed to the doorway, following the moonlight that washed around his black legs. One hand fumbled out to his side, found the smooth-worn edge of the door and pushed it wider, swelling the freshet of light to a stream. The moon hung low in the sky, a lanthorn in a weary hand.

Thought woke. Were she without the walls, under the moon, he might watch her easier, not lose her to the dark. Then he must take her there. He must venture nearer, grasp those clawed hands--no, better the wrists--and drag. He must touch her. Slide one foot forward. Then the next. Again.

His worn shoes shuffled, came at last next her outflung hands. The shadow of his body fell over hers. He flinched at the trick of light that counterfeited movement. He crouched and took hold of her soft arms, then straightened. Her shoulders lifted, and her head lolled onto her breast. A trickle of black spilled from her open mouth before her hair fell over her face, hiding it in dark streamers like pond-weed.

Griffin pulled and stumbled back. He'd misjudged the burden. She weighed no more than a child, though her strength had been as great as his or greater. He steadied himself, and drew more gently. The staff swayed with his steps, back and forth. Her head rolled to and fro. Her skirts swept straw and rubbish from the floor, leaving a path of cleared earth behind her dragging feet.

A cautious breeze brushed his face, and the spread of light told him he was outside the barn. Two more slow paces. He let her down with a care that might have been tenderness. Her head fell back then, strands of hair still lying black across her empty face. The staff canted over, and he wanted to turn his eyes from the sight, but dared not.

A long pace back, and he let himself sag to his knees. If she rose now, she might have him and welcome. He had no strength to fight again or flee.

She looked so like a mortal woman. What would the farm-wife say, to find him at dawn bloody-handed by a murdered corse? Were he wise, he'd flee now, afore they raised the hue and cry after him. But he had no strength, could only fall to his side and lie still, so it might have been two star-crossed lovers from a play, lying dead together under the fading moon.

His eyes had not closed and he had not ceased to watch, but some part of him had slept, or cowered away from thought like a child afeared in a dark closet. The moon was gone, and voices grumbled in the farmhouse, calling back his wandering wits. A cow lowed. Grey fen-mist hung over the yard, flushing pale pink as night receded. Griffin sat painfully up and pulled his woolen jack tighter against the chill.

What best? Flee or stay?

He stretched out a leg, and aching joints fought numbed muscle. Stiff as a rheumatic greybeard, he laboured to his feet. Now do I need my staff to prop me up. A door creaked open and snecked closed. Brisk footsteps pattered, heralded by the chuck-chuck of fowl knowing food was to hand. A cock crowed

Rose and gold, light drove away the mist. A finger of the infant sun stretched out from behind Griffin's shoulder and fell on the dead woman. He stumbled aside, blinking to see her at last by day and not by cheating moonlight. Had she been truly ripe and beautiful, or had that been some glamourie thrown over his eyes?

The warm light painted her with livelier colours, though her cheeks and throat had lost their roundness, slackening like the mortal dead. Griffin blinked again. Had the mist crept back? Something clouded his sight.

"Dear Lord save us! Lad, what hast done?"

The farmwife stood five paces from him, the feeding pan tilting in her hands and hens bobbing behind her skirts. Griffin stared back, words shrivelling in his throat. Her mouth sagged open, but no more sound came from it than from his. Her shocked gaze fell from his face to the burdened earth. The dead woman lay between him and her, a mountain range that barred him from decent daylight folk.

Under that daylight, mist trailed up from the body. Griffin snuffed harshness in the air and knew: not mist but smoke. Pale petals of flame blossomed over the limbs and face, hardly to be seen under the brightening sun. The wife whispered a scrap of prayer or charm.

His staff! He lurched forward on unwilling legs, caught the shaft and dragged at it. The dead woman raised up with it, and he bit down on a scream before seeing that her head and arms fell back limply. The point came free with a sound like sucking mud. The farmwife whimpered and flinched from him, though she did not flee. He drew back, pushing himself with the blackened staff like a beggar's crutch.

They two mortals watched as smoke and flame gathered, cloaking the woman in a mantle of flickering grey. The hens fluttered off, buc-bucking distractedly.

"Joan the Wad," whispered the farmwife. "See where her marsh-light consumes her."

Hope stirred in him like pain. "What will you do, goodwife?"

She held the feeding-pan before her like a shield. "Bury these ashes and say naught. 'Twas no Christian soul, no more than a murdering polecat."

His numbed thought moved, step by slow step. "You knew of her?"

"We feared." Her face set. "Do thou stay here. I'll fetch my man to bury her."

She backed a few paces, then turned and scurried off, quick as the scattering fowl. Griffin leaned on the staff that had saved him, and watched the dead woman burn. The firm white flesh fell to white ash, and flames ran along black bones in glowing vinery, catching into sudden flowers at knobbed joints. A fold of skirts lay outside the flames, charred at the edge but unconsumed. The black tangle of hair across the dirt remained, though her skull shrank to a lump of charcoal. A torn strand of hawthorn was still caught in the hair.

This was a revenant. As Gybbins was or is. Her flesh and bone burn in the sun. Would it burn her so did she live? Or must they be true dead to be so consumed? The silver worked against her, as did thornwood. Mistress Moray spoke sooth, and her coin purchased my life.

Fear snatched at him, that the penny had been lost in the revenant's corse, torn from the staff-tip. Staggering, he swung the blackthorn in his hands, and brought the tip to his eyes. Under clotted black blood and pale dust, a glint of silver. Thankfulness unstrung him so that he must lean again on the staff. He rested his brow against the saving silver, feeling his heart thump against his breastbone, his breath sigh in to fill his breast, the earth firm and steady under him, the air shifting about him. I live. I might have died this night, and did not.

The dead woman dwindled to ash and lumps of whitened bone. He wiped the staff clean on the unburnt scrap of skirt. Voices from the farmhouse, one low and rumbling, the other light and sharp. Griffin stretched his limbs, and swung the blackthorn slowly round about. Had he power yet to flee, did the goodman doubt his wife and take him for a murderer?

Through the trembling air above the bone-fire, the man looked a hulking phantom. His wife followed, image wavering like a reflection in troubled water. Griffin stared at his own hands gripping the staff, that at least clear and unshaken. He risked a quick glance behind him, gauging his path to escape. The farmyard stretched flat, only a few dusty fowl pecking the ground. He'd need to circle round to gain the road.

The goodman set down his spade. "Be easy, boy. Th'as done us a service."

He took a slow step back, natheless. "How so?" The words were a raven's caw, hardly to be known as speech.

"Our son." The wife it was that spoke, close to her man's elbow. "He's been witched by her this month or more. She's called him night by night."

We two shall kiss a thousand times. Her round breasts ready to his hands. Tom's master calling him by night. Come boy, I call you by the mark I made. "How--how kept you---"

The iron-shod spade drove into the earth. "Bound him to his bed twixt dusk and dawn. Come day, he's sober."

The wife wiped at her eyes. "We've hung witch-stones about his bed, and bishop's wort and lupine in a leathern bag about his throat. For naught. He dreamt of her still, and wastes before our eyes."

His wits stirred at last. "Goodwife, have you a stoppered jar, an apothecary's jar?"

"Aye." Without asking more, she turned and trotted back to the house. The man it was who paused in his work and cocked an eyebrow in question.

Griffin coughed and spat to clear his throat. "'Tis a thought come to me, master. Grave-mould's a remedy for many ills, and water drunk from a skull will aid the falling sickness." He nodded at the long heap of ash and bone. "Might not these ashes have some virtue also, like a dog's hair taken after its bite?"

The man's face darkened with angry blood. "Dost think her glamouries may linger past her destruction?"

"'Tis but my thought. What harm to set aside some small part of these ashes?"

"No harm." He measured Griffin with his eyes, like a bullock to be bought or passed over. "What art thou, boy?"

"Prentice to a herb-wife, master. Through mischance I fell foul of these foul folk before, and through kind chance was preserved."

"I could wish thou'd come our way aforetime." He bent his back to the task again, and spoke no more.

The farmwife bustled up, bearing a clay jar before her like a chalice to be blessed. Griffin knelt to scoop a handful of warm ash and bone into it. "Do the dreams not leave him with her death, give him a little of this in water, holy water from the font gi'en you may beg some."

"Aye." She took the jar and stopped it. "Come thou and wash thyself. I'll mend thy shirt afore thou goest on thy way."

Nan hooked the stick under the shutter's edge and pushed up. The shutter groaned and lifted. Morning light surged under it, flooding into the shop to show the clean-raked floor, the table-legs and rushed stool. Griffin's pallet was rolled in a corner where he'd left it. Where had he lain up last night? Nan muttered a prayer as she fixed the stick in place.

"Goody Nan, where's thy boy this morn? Abed still and leaving thee to struggle?"

Nan put a hand to the door-jamb and looked at her neighbour. "Good morrow to thee, Doll. He's returned to my sister, to see is he needed at home."

Doll cocked her head, black eyes fixing Nan like a bird's. "He's not thy servant then? And here I thinking 'twas a good turn she'd done, sending thee another pair of hands. Th'art no pauper, to do all thyself and go servantless. 'Tis not fitting." She followed as Nan went inside to lift the curfew and stir up the fire. "No servant and no prentice, Nan. What shall us folk do for healing should thou be taken ill? Pay a 'pothecary? What shalt thou do, with none to nurse thee save me?"

It was an old brangle between them, worn into ruts that their discourse could follow with scarcely a thought. Nan welcomed the turning from her fear for the boy. "Find me a willing lad or lass, Doll, with enough wit to tell betony from dittany, who'll take the little wages I can give, and I'll be content."

"The lad would not?"

"Well, and he might have done. Does my sister not need him, I'll take him back and gladly." She'd thought on the matter after he left yestermorn, on what she might say to her neighbours of the boy's absence. An he came back--God grant him safe return!--she'd put it out that her sister could not bear the seeing of him with her own son lost. "Wilt take a posset with me, Doll?"

"Aye, and thanks." Doll tucked her distaff firmly at her waist and set her spindle twirling. "Spoke thou with the pedlar-man? 'Twas ill news he bore, and made me fearful for thee."

"How so?" Nan stirred the ashes and blew gently on the glowing coal beneath. It livened into brightness and she fed it a long wood-shaving, gift from the joiner's shop next hers.

"There's some murderer or wild beast about in Norfolk, didst not hear?"

"I heard of a man died in a fire. An astrologer."

"A blood magician, for all he called himself astrologer. And the fire maybe set by his murderer, to cover the traces of his crime."

A twist of straw, more shavings, then the twigs. Small flames sprang up, and Nan rested, having given the fire too much of her breath.

Doll spoke on; she'd breath for two women. "That might have been happenstance, but two others are dead within a day's walk of that same village. A cunning-man drowned, but with a great tear in his throat, such as a wild dog might make. And a midwife, Goody Milden, found dead in her own house, all torn and cut about."

"Did they not raise the hue and cry in the village?" Had Griffin heard this news? She'd known only of the astrologer, not of these other deaths. Whose doing? What peril did the boy walk amidst?

"They did, and searched the countryside all about, but none's been taken up for it. Whoso did these things still walks abroad, and Nan, I myself'd sleep easier by night did I know thou not alone. The boy was ugly enough to drive away custom, I said so my own self, but all the better for a watchdog. A lass for prentice, aye, but a lad for servant."

"And hast found me a lass?" Nan asked, hoping to turn Doll's thought into its former path. She puffed to her feet and filled the clay pipkin.

Doll wound thread and swung the spindle down again. "There's young Kate, the alewife's fourth daughter, a clever girl but light-minded and flighty."

"A fourth daughter, aye, her mother might well be looking to prentice her, after finding husbands for three. Wouldst call her comely? I'd sooner a plain lass than a pretty one, too easy tempted from her studies and labour."

The pipkin steamed at the fire's edge, and they fell into the familiar tracks of their argument, of whether it was fear of the witchfinders' vigilance or only of the long study and labour that kept young girls from seeking to prentice to herbwife or midwife.

The milestone told him he'd scarce five miles between him and Kenninghall. The goodman and wife had sent him off with a fresh loaf and leather bottle of small beer, and a bellyful of pottage. He'd not seen their son, only heard the wife whisper that he slept sound and easy now.

Glad to see the back of me, he thought. For fear I might ask how many poor men they'd let sleep without doors, to buy a night's peace for their child with a stranger's life. The tinker before, and myself but for fortune's favour. How many others passed through in a month's time, who'd not be missed?

Well, and how else should it be? Had Mistress Moray's babes lived, would she not have chased me from her door for fear of the death on my heels and for love of them? A man guards his own.

Did the revenants so? When they made a mortal man over into their likeness, loved they that new-made one as a man loves his son? Or was it enslavement? Gybbins's master had driven him on when he'd have turned aside, had laughed to know Gybbins's fear and flight. But a man might be harsh to his son and still bear him love, or might credit that he did and all his harshness was for love and care.

Who had made the woman of last night? Did some revenant master mourn her destruction?

Distant ahead, the spire of St. Mary's church. Should any see Griffin's face, he'd be known and questioned. The charm of renaming had hidden Tom from magic and the revenant's lure, but had no power over plain mortal sight and memory.

Like the gyrding circle, came the thought. The signs and circles Tom had learned hid him from magic seeking, not from mortal eyes, nor could they hold the revenant lure from him, as he'd learned. He must study further on this. Why was a revenant subject to some magics and not to others? How came it that some magics deceived the five senses and others only deceived the witch-sense?

He put the questions aside. Did he live to write a book on revenants, as men wrote herbals and books of venery, then he might have years enough to ponder on the breeds and kinds of magic. Household magic, such as maids and housekeepers used, blood magic that employed the power of many for one, scholard's magic of chalked signs and Latin words, husbandman's magic of fields and stones, sailor's magic of winds and currents.... Griffin shook his head. How many lifetimes would a man need to study all those?

How many lifetimes have I?

The thought stopped him there on the hard-trod road. When Gybbins had died--gi'en he had truly died--the deaths he'd stolen had washed back through the blood-bond. Under the soaring sun, Griffin shuddered. How many deaths had he endured that night? How many lives might now be his?

Will I turn revenant when I die?

Quinzaine of Pixel-stained Technopeasant Wretch Day

Tue, 08 May 2007 04:27:57 GMT

Thus a third chapter. Probably the last, since I don't know if there's anything after quinzaine. Oh, wait, that would leave my hypothetical readers hanging rather, and I do have one more chapter fully written.
I'll think about it.

Chapter Three: Wish me good speed; for I am going into a wilderness where I shall find nor path nor friendly clue to be my guide. (Webster, Duchess of Malfi)

Kenninghall, Norfolk, summer 1627

The boy had dwelt by her some several weeks when she marked that he never wept or cried out in pain. She had begun to fear lest he have taken leprosy or some other fearsome malady that dulled the senses, until the day he upset the stewing herbs on himself and she saw plainly how the scalding mess hurt him. It was no stripling's notion of courage that kept him from wailing, but something else. Nan thought it might be that he had never learned to cry for aid or comfort, or it had been so early unanswered or punished that the impulse had withered in the springing.

He took hurt often enough for her to see the proof of it, having all the clumsiness of any boy growing into manhood, not knowing how to allow for the sudden length of his limbs. Yet when other lads mocked or tormented him for an awkward hobbledehoy, he struck out quick and shrewd, so they found that game not worth the candle; nor cared he for what blows they landed on him but kept always uncannily silent.

Thus it was that when the agonised noises woke her one night she did not know them for his utterance, but thought some dumb beast had crawled below the house to die. She rose up as quickly as she might and drew her bedgown over her shift against the chill. She felt her way down the stairs to the shop, wondering why he had not woken and told her what was to do, or put the poor creature out of its pain himself.

But by the rushlight she saw him on his pallet on the floor, the thin blanket flung off from his legs, his back arched and hands scraping at the floor. The bestial keening and grunting came from his throat.

Could he have poisoned himself, with purpose or by mistaking the materials? Yet she saw no cup or bowl nearby that he could have drunk from, and he could not have taken aught during the day without her notice.

Nan drew closer, lowered herself heavily by the pallet, not so near that a long swinging arm might knock her, and set her light safe by on the swept and hard-packed earth. His face was grey in the small light, eyes staring, and bloody spittle trailing from his mouth. No spew, nor smell of poison.

Her mouth dried and heart banged painfully at the next fear; that those pursuers had found him and her, sent this madness on him for their pleasure or to hold him in place, that they were at the door now. The boy rocked and convulsed, groaned like a bullock when it smells the blood of its fellows spilt.

He's bitten his tongue, she thought, seeing his jaws working. I must stop him. She took the blanket up, folded an end of it and pushed it between his teeth, wrapping the length about his arms and trunk that he not strike her now she was so near, then laid her own soft bulk upon him.

Still no revenant burst down the door to mock and murder them. The boy thrashed against her prisoning body like a broken snake, all knobbled bone and sinew, and she could not guess what charm would work to quiet him.

Distracted, she fell to singing a cradle-song of her own mother's use, begging the little one to sleep and promising fine gifts when its father returned. It might have been that, or the warmth of her body, or only weariness, but the convulsions waned to shudders, long wracking waves that ran through his frame, marked by the same animal groaning that had wakened her, only a little muffled by the cloth. Between each long shuddering he fell limp.

Like birth pangs, she thought, when the woman is too weak for such travail. What will issue from this labouring?

When at last morning came it was all she could do to raise herself, stiff and pained, from the floor, and brush herself clean. In her glass after she dressed she saw her face blue-tinged about the mouth, and her eyes sunken in their sockets. Her heart knocked unevenly deep within her breast.

I am too old and well-fleshed for such uproar. I must rest and be easy today. Would the boy be any aid at all, after such a night?

He rose soon after, looking no better than she did, for all his greater youth and strength. He could not speak all that day, for his bitten tongue and raw throat, though she gave him honey of mulberries in warm water to ease it. He went about his tasks in the silence that was his habit.

In the late morning he broke his fast on bread sopped in ale, then found her wax tablet and style and sat again at the table. Nan did not raise herself to see what he wrote, but waited on her bench in the thin daylight, until he brought it to her.

Think me my maister is dead

She glanced up sharply at his wan face, the long jaw shadowed by a boy's patchy beard, the light brown eyes always wary, now bruised with weariness. "Those were his death throes that thou shared by the blood bond?"

He shook his head, scratched at the wax.

Deaths of them he took

Murders what he ate of them

Purged in dying

He stood without moving for some breaths, then wrote once more.

In me now

Nan looked at those words, and could not guess what they meant for him or for her. This was beyond her skill or knowing. He had endured the deaths his master had caused and fed from, gained perhaps whatever good his master had stolen from those murders. What had come with that? Would he gain the unnatural length of years that revenants were said to have? Would he turn revenant himself on dying?

But there was a nearer question first. "Dost know how he came to die? Who killed him?" But she could see, even before he shook his head again, that he did not know that. Perhaps his master had not known either, being taken unawares. "It may be," she mused aloud, "that with the bond broken by true death, those others may have no means to seek for thee, having him no more, and thou renamed." Then briskly: "Hast more to write? No? Then take that to the fire, warm the wax well and smooth it out. We shall recall the words well enow."

The honey scent of warming beeswax came to her as she pondered. She had never made any study of blood magic, knowing how that craft was feared and hated, though she had discounted most of the tales. Where folk had no knowledge of a thing that made them uneasy, they were quick to invent what filled that lack and suited their minds.

But this had been a blood magician who had turned bloodsucking revenant of his own will and choice, seeking out a master revenant for that purpose. The boy had said little of it, but enough that she could guess at the prentice Tom lying abed but not asleep, hearing the sound of voices below, not daring to look out the crack in the shutters to see his master's caller come or go, knowing natheless: he's in the house, he thirsts for my blood. Knowing his blood might be some part of his master's haggling. Yet the man had taken him in, fed and clothed him, taught him, woken his power. Would he mourn?

It was two days later that news came to them, from a pedlar, as Nan bought buttons of him, how in Kenninghall a house had burned, just before dawn.

"The man found dead within, most burnt away. Gerard Gybbins, he was named, and called himself an astrologer." The pedlar had laid a finger alongside his nose, as one who knew what to make of that claim. "Some say 'twas lightning struck the house, and the Lord's judgement on him for wickedness, murdering his poor prentice and using his dead body for some devil's works. Others say no, the boy was driven away by cruelty and crept back by night to fire the house. I misdoubt the truth of it will ever be known."

The boy Griffin had said nothing, and Nan hoped that would be the end of it. He gave himself over to the books, her small store and his, for that day and the next. She did not press him, but waited for him to speak of what lay on his thoughts.

"Mistress, what remedies know'st thou 'gainst revenants?"

"Few enow, lad. We are fortunate that they trouble us little here. Where conies are few, foxes are fewer, and that kind find their best hunting in a town or a city, where folk are many and the dead scarce noted. Here we mark every stranger that passes, and every man knows his neighbour's business. 'Tis wearying to have no secrets, but 'tis eke a safeguard."

'There's silver," he persisted. "Dost know what property of silver makes it proof against them?"

"I know a tale," she said, setting down the bundle of herbs she tied and taking up another. "Whether 'tis a true one, I cannot say. That after the killing of Our Lord's Son, the metal silver cried out to God, bewailing that it had been used so ill, to have been the instrument of His betrayal."

"The thirty pieces of silver that Judas Iscariot took in payment."

"Aye. This Our Lord heard, and made return to the metal, that as it had been the instrument of ill, it should be made the instrument of good, and a protection against evil."

His mind had leapt already to another matter. "The thorn woods, then, 'tis said they have power against revenants. Those for the crown of thorns?"

"Belike 'tis so. For the other instruments of the Passion, I cannot say. The stick and the sop of vinegar, I'd not venture as protection."

He frowned, thinking on it. "Thou set herbs in the circle. Are there herbs that have power against them?"

"There are herbs with powers against evil and ill-wishing. Elecampane, St. John's wort, vervain, bishop's wort, ..." Nan struggled down the list of the Nine Herbs charm. "The plants I used that night were for the dead and to cleanse sickrooms. Come, help me with these bundles for drying, and I'll name for you those I have to hand, that you may learn their semblance and scent with their virtues."

When she came down the stairs the next morning she saw he had bundled a half-loaf in his second shirt and tied it to a blackthorn staff.

"I'm for Kenninghall, mistress. I'd be easier did I know he were true dead. And it may be that not all his books were burnt with the house."

"What if th'art known, lad? The pedlar said that suspicion fell already on thee. And what of thy master's master?" She could not force her tongue to the name. Revenant.

"I must take care, and walk warily."

She did not press him further, only fumbled a penny from her purse and gave it him. He shook his head, but she told him, "'Tis silver, lad. It may purchase more than bread."

"Aye," he said, and tucked the coin into his breeches. "I'll be back, so it be thou'lt have me."

An so it be thou'rt not killed, she thought, but did not say. "Come back by day, for I'll open my door to none who come by night."

He smiled and took up his staff. "I'll not travel by night, but lie up safe-hid. All my work shall be by day."

"My blessing go with thee. But walk warily natheless." She laid a hand on his bony shoulder and drew his head down to hers. Startled, he stared at her, until she leant forward and kissed his brow. "Godspeed, Griffin."

The return was kinder journeying. He'd fled unheeding when he came, marking only where he might hide through the night, that he not be caught roofless and unguarded. Nor had he known whither he fled, only what lay behind him and pursued.

Now I return, and seek out what I fled. Is that wisdom?

Gybbins is dead. I knew his dying, and knew him release all the lives and power that he'd gained. As Gybbins had known Tom die. Had he guessed the deception, and perhaps used the trick himself to gain freedom from his own master, or to lure Tom back?

Could a revenant set loose the lives he'd stolen? Griffin shrugged to ease the ill-fitting jack over his shoulders. They took lives by drinking blood, that much any man knew. With that drinking, they stole some part of the spirit, or soul, the life of the victim. He knew this to be so, for that booty had fallen to his part when Gybbins had died the true death--if he had, and it were not another deceit.

Revenants had skill to take life or power into themselves, by feeding on blood. Would they have skill to let that insubstantial substance go again, or was it as unwilled and unwilling a thing as a man vomiting up a surfeit? Would they let it go willingly? For the little he'd known of them--and it more than a man would choose--he knew them to be grasping and greedy beyond the most miserly of living men.

He made good distance that day. It was full summer, and the fens were drier than they'd been in his spring flight. Cracked mud spread out beyond the roadway, grass springing up where it could for a brief season. Gulls cried and wheeled over the reeds in the distance, stooping for an unwary frog or chick, then flapping hastily away before the meat could be stolen by their comrades.

The fensmen knew the secret ways of their own country, and fought bitterly against the Parliament's plans to drain it into farmland. Looking out over the expanse of grey marsh and green bogs, Griffin agreed with them. Had he such a stronghold, seeming so flat and easy to the eye, but full of traps to a stranger, he'd not give it up without a hard fight. But what ruler would suffer such a kingdom to stand within his own kingdom?

I'd learn the paths therein if I'd the chance. Griffin misdoubted any revenant would venture within that lonely place. He'd heard the fen-folk suffered mightily from ague and rheumatics. If Mistress Moray taught him the herbs that aided against those, he might earn knowledge in return.

The wind blew damp from the fens to his bones, for all that the high-cocked sun scattered its heat below. Griffin stepped up his pace, long legs swinging out that his own exertion might warm him. A party of reapers passed him, sickles tucked at their belts, they laughing at some jest, or at their fellow who faltered through a song, half the words forgotten.

They nodded and called out greetings, and he stopped a space while they asked what lay behind him, what work was to be found and what lodging. All the while he spoke with them came the low hum that none heard but him. It had plagued him the past month, whenever he was in company with more than one or two. He'd feared at first that he was falling deaf, but his hearing was keen enough, nor did he find their words obscured. It was as if the hum were not in his ears at all, but somewhere else, like a hive of bees behind a garden wall.

"I've more than a day's journey yet," he said at last. "And little coin to spare. Is there a place I might rest the night under a roof, where they'd want perhaps an hour or two's labour in exchange?"

After conferring, they agreed that the farm they'd come from would do as well as any, and gave him the direction. The faulty singer stood, turning his cap restlessly in his thick hands, his slab of a face furrowed with slow thought.

"Be within walls by night, lad," he blurted at last. "There's summat uncanny out by night, and it--it calls. Don't be out of doors alone by night."

Another reaper, this one a wiry sharp-faced fellow like a terrier dog, laughed. "Aye, was it a lass thou heard two nights gone, a-callin' for love of thee? Or was it Joan the Wad, come with her marsh-light to draw thee out to drown? 'Ware the flickering lights, moon-calf, it's Jackie Lantern and Joan the Wad, with naught to do but drown yokels!"

"I heard summat," said the first sullenly. "And it weren't a canny thing. And what became of that old tinker-fellow who slept a night in the barn and were gone in the morning?"

The other shrugged. "He left afore sunrise, was all."

"Without breakin' his fast with us? When the goodwife had pots to mend and silver to pay for mending?"

No answer to that, it seemed. The wiry one sauntered on, whistling a snatch of tune. After a moment, the others followed, and two of them struck up the song he whistled.

"Jack the Lantern, Joan the Wad,

Who tickled the maid and made her mad,

Light me home, the weather's bad."

So, Griffin thought, picking up his feet again. The danger's not past. Though the revenants don't call dead Tom by night, they may call any poor man to be their meat. How often need they feed, and must it be to death? He shook his head. A pity no learned man had put revenants into a book, as they did with herbs and beasts.

The revenants would not abide such a thing, he saw at once. Dumb beasts and plants could do naught, nor even know that their virtues and powers were netted in words and shared out to any who could read. But the undeadly ones had been men--and likely women--and would have the memories and learning of men. Would know what a living man might do with knowledge of their strength and weakness.

I might write such a book, he thought, and his lips stretched in a hard smile.

Griffin gathered hawthorn and blackthorn twigs from the hedges as he went, twining them into a wreath to set about his hat. The flowers were past and the hips not yet flush with seed, so they made a bare crooked flourish, little but thorns for ornament. The goodwife thought him a mere zany, he saw it in her pitying eyes, but she gave him a place in the barn and a boiled turnip to his supper after he'd chopped wood for her.

The farm folk were early to bed, for they'd be risen before full day, even as early as day came in summer. Not so long to withstand the darkness in this season. But long enough for mischief to be done if he were unwary.

The barn floor was packed earth, so he scraped the straw and rubbish away and scratched the warding circle in the dirt. He added the signs Mistress Moray had used, for he'd need to muster all the troops he might. The planets and the angels he doubted would bestir themselves for his sake, but at least he'd have their standards flying.

Would the circle aid him at all? It had hidden him from Gybbins's magic, not from the revenants snuffing after his blood. Or had it more power than he knew? He shrugged. This night might discover the truth.

He notched the tip of his blackthorn staff and forced the silver penny into it for a spearhead. The wreath he hung about his neck. His preparations made, he settled himself to sleep.

O pretty lad, strong lad, how I've longed for thee. Come to me and I'll cosset thee and dandle thee as thy mother did. Come to me.

Even dream-hobbled, Griffin knew it for a lie. Knee-deep in misty sleep, he answered it. There's none has ever longed for me, neither did mother nor nurse lay hand on me in kindness. Fiend take thee and thy cozening tongue.

Then I shall be first to cherish thee. Come, sweet boy, dost not hunger for me, as I for thee?

Aye, there was truth, he thought, coming to full wakefulness. I hunger for thy death, as thou dost for mine. Who'll spill blood this night?

He waited, sprawled unmoving in the circle. Had she heard that thought? Did she know him awake, or think him still dreaming?

The barn door creaked open, and a gauze curtain of moonlight swung through the crack, to hang in the dusty air. Rustling and faint squeaks in the straw as rats fled from a greater plague than themselves.

The moon-curtain was cut away in a dark swath as she came through the gap. Griffin kept his eyes slitted, though he guessed she'd know, by his breathing or some other fashion, that he did not sleep.

O my dearest, wilt not look into my eyes, that beam with love for thee?

Distant and cold, the knowledge came. 'Tis like snakes. Do I look in her eyes, she'll have me. They have some power of glamourie, to hold the prey fast or bring it to them. He watched her hands, that waved like water-weed as she drifted to him. Her gown of rustling taffeta was stained dark to her knee, and ragged at the hem. Under it, her bare feet flashed pale as she stepped, noiseless on the littered floor. Griffin's hand lay over the thornwood staff. He straightened his leg, lifting his knee from the shaft, and rolled a very little to bring the knee under him.

She paused, one heel lifted for the next step. The caressing murmur died away.

He forced his fear down, let words flow over, hiding it. None's ever loved me, thou shalt scorn me too. Th'art too fair for such an ugly one as I be.

A ripple of teasing laughter. Nay, lad, who said thou wert uncomely? Surely they were eaten up by envy, for art thou not strong and tall, well able to clap a maid to thy bosom and spread her legs to admit thee? Wilt lie with me? See, here I am, ready.

His gaze slid from her bare feet to her hands, weaving through the moonlight as though she twisted it into strands, a net of moonbeams. Her hands lifted and parted, and he found himself staring at her round breasts, the tight-laced bodice pushing them up like peaches in a brimful basket. Her white fingers found the bodice-strings, and tugged to loosen them.

Griffin's mouth dried, and his eyes came full open.

Put aside that wooden staff, sweet boy, and raise that other staff, that maidens delight in. Come kiss me. Though other maids were too shy or prudish to seek thy kisses, we two shall kiss a thousand times tonight, and suck sweet nectar from each other's lips. Come take my hands, let me press thy hands to my breasts, let me touch thee in turn--

God save him, but he wanted her. His gaze drifted from her bosom to the marble column of her throat, her round chin and red lips, black in the moonlight. How came her lips so red?

Come to me. See here is straw, that we might lie upon.

He pushed himself to his knees, his hand resting a moment on the staff, then lifting from it, leaving it in the dirt.

She too knelt, and lifted her flower-face to him. Her eyes met his, and all his fear and care was dragged away by that fish-hook pull. She smiled, her lips barely parted, and her kitten-tongue darted out to moisten them.

His thought filled with the promise of those other, secret lips, the warm wet mouth under her skirts. He reached out to draw her close.

The octave of Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day

Mon, 30 Apr 2007 05:21:38 GMT

Seeming an appropriate time to post a second chapter.

Chapter Two: You must watch in the nights, then's the most danger. (Webster, White Devil)

Framlingham, Suffolk, spring 1627

This night would be the most perilous. Nan put as bold a face on it as she could muster, but doubts hammered on the door of her mind, demanding entry.

"I'll tell thee straight, never have I essayed such a task as this."

The boy's thin lips twisted into a wry smile. "I doubt there's another in England who has, mistress."

"'Tis my thought that thou must be made anew, to come again as a new-born babe. All thine old self shall be destroyed or given away."

"Save the books," he countered. "They were not mine, and there's knowing in them that's my only store."

Nan nodded. "Books are for any man's hand and use. They yield their treasure to any who take them up, and turn to the next as eagerly."

"So books are harlots?" he said dryly. "Why then, what's a wife?"

That she thought on for a space. "Why, child, skill of hand and eye, for that once gained is thine own, and stands by thee truly." Until hand and eye fail with years, she thought, but that too grim a rejoinder for this play of words. The night's task was grave enow. "Thine outward self we shall mark as new. Thy skill and knowing have no outward sign and shall be safe. Come now."

The shutters were closed, at which none would wonder, knowing the house in mourning. In the dimness within Nan and the boy filled the great copper with water and set it to boil.

He stripped to his small-clothes and knelt by the fire while she took the shears again to his hair, taking off what remained from the stuffing of the mommet. The blades rasped and sighed over his head, and wisps of lank straw fell to the earthen floor. He was less comely still when shorn, Nan thought. The long jaw and nose looked the larger and his head smaller, without the furze of hair. His ears stood out like winnowing fans. Well, the hair would grow again, did they both live through the night.

"Thy neighbours. What will they think to see me like a shaveling priest?" He spoke without raising his head, mindful of the sharp blades.

"That I've found lice in thy hair. Come the morrow, I'll bathe thy head with rue and wormwood. There's those among them as know the smell well enow."

She put the shears away. Still kneeling, he gathered up the handfuls of hair, then rose and cast them into the fire. The harsh stink of scorched hair filled the chamber, but there was no help for that, with door and shutters closed.

"Now, lad, must strip thyself mother-naked, and wash thee white and clean as a willow-wand, so clean as thou'st never been."

"What of my clothes?"

Nan pursed her lips. "'Twould be safest could we burn them, but that burning is a greater task than this small fire can compass. When th'art clean, I'll put them to boil in the copper. Gi'en I can sell them to the fripperer and bring thee others, I shall." She saw that he frowned, and answered that thought. "I've a shift too threadbare for use. I shall cut it down to a shirt for thee, aye two shirts and drawers, for what covereth me can cover thee twice over, for all thy height."

"But breeches and hose? How shall I go abroad?"

"Thou shan't, for one day at least, but keep to house. Come, lad, fret not. We may die both this night, and the morrow never come to trouble us."

That drew the twisted smile from him. He brushed his hand over the mole-velvet of his scalp, and nodded. "Thou speak'st good sense as ever, goodwife."

He pulled off his shirt in one easy stretch over shoulders and head, and gave the crumpled linen into her hands, then unlaced his drawers and stepped from them.

"Let thy clothes not touch the ground," Nan warned, impelled more by caution than reason. "Earth holds a scent longer than does air. I'll hang these from the rafter."

Naked, he was little more than bone and sinew. White crescents on calf and haunch told where dogs had been set on him, and stripes lingered from some long-past beating. No shackle-galls at wrist or ankle, only the thick welt of scar on the palm of one hand, that she had noted before.

She nodded at it now. "Was that his mark on thee?" She dared not say a name, nor even the words thy master.

He understood, natheless, and rolled his hand to see the palm. The line lay on the pad of the hand, from base of thumb to wrist. "Aye. 'Twas not so deep a cut, only to draw blood, and soon tended. Yet it remains, when many another worse has healed and gone."

From the cypher journal of Gerard Gybbins

12. of Aprill

Tis bitter to confess but my magic is gone w't my mortal nature & I must conclude that magic is a thing of life & not of death. I have made trial of D--n's assertion that magic in the blood is intoxicating to our kind & found it true for I came upon the Cunning-man Osbaldston yestereen & never was such a liquor in my mortal days tho' Osbaldston was a beggarly fraud w't no more power than a louse & so I oft have told him. It wondereth me whether tis the small magic that lieth in everie mortal man that taken w't the blood feedeth those revenaunt powers of glamourie over the thoughts and eyes of men. Thus were I to feed on those strongest in mortal magic should I not become among the most powerful of revenaunts? But I must keep such thoughts & queries privy in this boke & most carefullie guarded within my mind for D--n is a jealous lord and there is no appeal gainst his severitie.

Nota bene: I have made experiment of th'action of the sun having cut a sliver fro' my flanke's flesh which bled but a few drops & those slow & blacke & which healed w't miraculous speed after the taking of Osbaldston's life from which I conclude that the blood of those w't power hath greater vertue than that of a common man. This sliver I left under glasse on the sill of the window in Tom's chamber and behold when I arose this night the sliver of flesh was not corrupted nor dried but was flakes of black ashe & the woode of the sille something scorched. This by th'action of the sun only. The action of the thorn woodes is not so easilie put to test nor of silver but I have some proof of it by the unnaturalle heat which I feel fro' them when I touch w't gloved hand.

The boy crouched on the wooden floor of the upper chamber. The wavering rush-light shaped his face into a death's-head and his long bare limbs to a pile of white bones. Nan pushed down the false seeing. False, she assured herself, it must be false. She had never the gift of descrying what was to come, and small likelihood it should come upon her now. This was but fear, and who should wonder at it?

Breathing heavily as she bent and straightened, she marked the circle round him with a lump of chalk. "I draw this gyrd round thee, and commend thee to God's grace. Gainst the sore stitch, 'gainst the sore bite, 'gainst the grim grief." It was an old charm to protect a traveller, and surely this was a perilous journey, though neither stirred a step from house. "May the nightmare not trouble thee, may the mighty not oppress thee...."

Around that she laid the windings of a Troy-town dance, to lead hunters astray and wilder them back upon their track. It had been at the Troy-town maze cut in the turf that she had met her man, better than a score of years since. She and the other giggling lasses raced along the grassy path to crowd into the last ring, the lads following in their measures.

Life, she thought. Courting, tears and joys, the twisting paths, change and sickness and folly. Life and its perils, its losses and hard-won gains. All these I set against you, revenant. You are not death, even, for that too brings change, to be food for worms, to decay to dust and spring up like grass again. Death's no end, no more than the last ring of the maze is an end. What you are, revenant, is an end to change. You neither live nor die, grow nor decay. You do not give yourself back to the earth as a babe goes to the mother. You keep all for yourself and give naught back save death for others.

"The prentice Tom is dead," she whispered round the ring. "Dead, poor boy, and lieth in churchyard. The bells were rung for him and prayers sung. There's naught of him now save food for worms, as we come to all."

She repeated it at the five points of the circle, marking the five symbols that guarded. She knew not what meaning they had beyond that, whether signs of the planets or metals, or naught but idle scribblings. The boy might know more or have it in his master's books. This was scholard's magic and not of her province. Only that when she'd been a maid, her new-sprung hunger for learning had given her courage to beg teaching of the schoolmaster. Finding her quick at her letters and at household magic, he'd agreed, lacking a better pupil.

Poor man, he'd died in an outbreak of the Pest, still grieving that she'd turned from him and none other to carry his learning on. She'd nursed him with the others stricken, and he'd never reproached her save in delirium. It had been household magic and healing that had given him comfort at the last, she reminded herself. Both had their place and use.

Naked and nameless, he crouched on the splintered wooden floor. Goodwife Moray sighed and puffed as she walked about the chalked ring. He'd tried despite himself to follow the twistings of the lines she drew, until his mazed eyes had burned with weariness. Pray the lurings be lost as surely.

She marked the signs of five planets after that. Mars at the head, Venus to the right hand and Jupiter to the left, Mercury lying at the right foot and Saturn at the left. He knew them from the woodcut in Agrippa of man the microcosmos. Where had a village white-witch learnt those signs?

"Tom is dead," he echoed, like a schoolboy repeating lessons. "Dead, and none to mourn. Food for worms, as all shall be." Save those who turn revenant, he thought. I had rather be food for worms than food for thee! He cast the thought into the dimming light like a stone.

Outside the barred shutters of the upper chamber, the village hushed. Men were bound for their beds and beasts for their stalls. None lay roofless but wild beasts, the watching dogs, and poor masterless men. Some would be meat this night, and others fed.

He shifted in the circle, taking care not to brush against the chalk marks. His movement crushed a sprig of dried herb and a sharp fresh smell rose to him. He knew the scent but could not name the plant, only that it was strewn in sickrooms. Do I live past this night, he thought, I'll beg this teaching of her, for all that I stand neck-deep in debt already.

It was full dark. He knew it though the shutters barred it out, knew it as he had known the sun depart each night since his master--nay, dead Tom's dead master--had died and lived again. The scar below his thumb itched and burned. He passed the back of his hand across his mouth, and looked at it, thinking to see a bright smear of blood.

Would I had wiped my mouth clean then, and never sealed the bond. He cursed the fearful starveling brat he'd been, five years past.

Goody Moray chalked the last ring, this one weighted with the signs of the archangels. Raphael, Samael and Gabriel he knew, but dared not turn to read the others.

She sat herself down at last, and the basketwork chair creaked under her. She had drawn no circle about herself, only strewn herbs about the chamber. There was no brazier here, but in the hearth below she'd set southernwood into the fire before setting the curfew over it. "The odour will drive away serpents that lurk in corners," she'd said, though he'd not asked the purpose. "It may serve for these venomous toads of thine."

A makeshift plan this, to trust his life to. It creaked and groaned under him as the chair did under the old woman. But he no better than a shipwrecked mariner, clinging to the shattered spars and spliced ropes, the staved barrel bound into a jumbled raft for security from the hungry deep.

Two nights past he'd no help 'gainst his hunters save a scratched circle in the dirt, and now had at least another's eyes to watch through the hours. A drowning man clutches at a straw, men said. He could guess her answer: many straws twisted together make a rope, and that may draw thee to safety.

It began. He heard the distant howl, that might have been the wind, had he not known the night as still as summer noontide. Such a wind would have rattled shutters and doors, were it of nature. Goody Moray lifted her head. She heard it likely clearer than he did, for she was without whatever muffling the circles provided.

Come, Tom. Thy master bids thee come, and thy master's master too. There was a laugh in that voice, the voice he'd heard belowstairs by night in his master's house. Mortal men laughed so when they set dogs on a beggar. Look ye, he's not lame! they cried. See how he trots now! Am I not a fine doctor, to cure a cripple by the bite of a dog?

Damn thee, Tom, come! Didst thou not promise me to serve me well, my commands gladly obey? The second voice, less assured, almost querulous now.

"Tom's dead," the nameless boy whispered. "Dead, and lieth in churchyard. The worms eat him, as they should thee." Dead Tom had promised his master only to obey his lawful commands, like any other prentice. But it was not that contract that the revenant called on now, but another, unlawful of itself.

I have thy blood, and I call it. Thou hast my blood, and I call it. As I have tasted of my master Daughton, so did thou taste of me. Remember thy vows.

"No." Death ends all bonds. "Tom rots. His bones part one from another, all the lacing of his body is undone. His blood is mud and his flesh clay. He hath no springing blood to call or answer." He rubbed his hand across his mouth again.

What art thou, Tom, but common clay? What use made thou of thy power before I woke it? 'Tis mine by right, by nurturing, by virtue of my greater power, and by the binding of blood. I fed thee when thou starved, took thee in lest thou die on the street. Thy life is in my gift and keeping. Naught comes without its price, boy. I'll have my payment now.

Naught came without its price, that was a true saying. The broken timbers of the raft shifted under the mariner, and the shadow of some great fish circled in the depths. Dead Tom had books and lessons, and if he had stripes from his master, did not every schoolboy? Who else thought him worth a penny, save his master?

The nameless boy felt his lip pull back in a snarl, and the cropped hair lift like a dog's bristles with the rush of anger and hatred. At the last inch of the leash, he held the passion fast, recalling that it was dead Tom's anger and none of his.

"Tom's debt was paid, afore he died," he whispered against that whispering. "He gave lawful service to lawful commands. And now he's dead. Death pays all debts."

The astrologer's voice rose in a howl, like a dog's when lashed on to a task it feared. The boy's snarl broadened to a grin as he guessed who did the lashing. Tom's master was well served by his own choice of master.

Tom had not chosen his master. He'd only begged of him, seeing no more than cleanly hosen and silver buckles to the shoes, not daring to lift his head to look higher. The cuff to his head he'd expected, even the jolt to his shoulder to send him sprawling. That the hand should have snatched then at his shirt, and dragged him upright, that was unforeseen, as bewildering as the rill of greeting that had run through him at the ungentle touch. The greeting of power to power.

Thou madest thy promise, Tom! Thou livest yet, I know it by the bond, by the mark I made on thee!

The scar burned, as it had not even fresh-made. The nameless boy moaned. How could he rid himself of a scar? Did he cut it from his flesh, 'twould but mark it the deeper. He scrubbed his mouth again. How many times had he done so? His lips were cracked and raw, but he still felt the stickiness of blood on them, blood not his own. That same blood had marked his brow and hands. The skin tightened there as if the smears dried, as if he had been marked within the hour and not five years gone by.

Wilt thou be my spring and well, take unto thyself what I give thee to bear, give me of thy power as I need? What didst thou answer, Tom? The voice rang now with assurance, rang like the knell of the dead-bell.

The dead-bell. It had tolled. He clung to that remembrance as to the bell-rope itself, smooth and heavy in his hands, woven of many strands. Many strands, frail in themselves, together bearing him up, holding him steady against the sucking tides. Tom was dead, and all debts paid.

"Tom's dead, poor lad, God speed him." A fat old woman muttered in the corner. That was one thread of the rope he clutched. Who else thought Tom worth a penny? She had, and given it for prayers to be said for a poor dead stranger lad. Her charity another strand, and a strong one.

Thou livest, boy. I know it by the bond. Didst thou die, I would know it.

As Tom had known his master die that night. He'd been from house, poaching a rabbit to ease his belly, for his master had become forgetful of meals and of hours, wakeful in the night and drowsy by day, deep in his books and fretful at distractions, quick to strike out. It had seemed wisest to be out of reach.

When the throes had seized him, he had almost fallen into the little fire, instead toppling next it, onto the skinned rabbit. He'd woken with its blood on his face and the coals scattered by his thrashing limbs.

Goodwife Moray read over the prayer for the dead. The nameless boy panted, feeling the sharp scents of crushed herbs scour his throat and mouth.

Tom was dead. He'd died. That was another strand, could he but weave it into the spell. Within his thought, he laid Tom's dead corse out before him, hands crossed on his breast under the shroud, pennies laid on his closed eyes.

There thy prey, revenant. Dead.

Not dead. I felt it not.

The knowing of his death waited on thy approach. Now it springs forth, as the blood of the murdered springs forth at the murderer's hand, when trial is made. Touch, and see.

Not a hand, for this trial was not of the body, but some tendril of thought or lust reached out to his spirit. Like ivy it felt for a cranny to root in and suck its food. Like an adder it sought a hole to creep in, and tender prey within. He held firm, dead Tom's pain leashed at his wrist.

The revenant's lure touched him. He caught at it, clutched it tight behind the head, knowing it like an adder writhing in his hand, and forced its jaws apart.

Back down that throat he poured Tom's memory, the agony of failing breath, the slow draining of blood, the stammering of his heart to a stop, the voiding of his bowels, all his body's workings stumbling and falling still. All that Tom's master should have borne, but had thrust on his prentice.

The nameless boy knew those pangs, bore them afresh as he passed them through himself and forced them back to their spring. Naught comes without its price. He ground his teeth to keep from crying out and betraying that he lived. He was naught but stored death, pain writ in a book, opening now to the one who read it, the letters fading as they were read. When the tale was full told, the leaves would be scraped clean and empty.

Wilt thou be my spring and well? The spring is dry, the well poisoned. Tom is dead. Know his dying, bear it as thou forced him to bear thine.

The dead man howled in his mind, howled so that Goody Moray stopped in her prayers, dry-mouthed, and stared about herself. The boy released his hold at last, and fell forward in a huddle among the brittle twigs.

The howling died in the distance. The master revenant's laughter pealed once, then all was silent.

Nan groaned as she stirred her stiff limbs from her chair, and the wicker's creaking drowned hers. Grey light seeped through chinks in the window, then flowed into the chamber as she unbarred the shutters and pushed them wide. It was a chill misty morning, but welcome to her as any dawn of rose and gold. The sun was not arrived, but sent his forerunners, and night's shadows fled before them.

From the small basket on her cricket-stool she took an egg. The boy raised his head and looked at her dazedly.

"Dost know me, lad? 'Tis time to name thee fresh. Rise, and come from the circle. Step warily that thou not mar the signs."

He rose as stiffly as a clockwork mannikin, then was flesh again as he swayed with weariness. He stepped from the first ring, careful as a cat, then paused, staring at the Troy-town ring. Nan held her breath. One bare foot he laid upon the path, and then the other.

Unbidden, he walked the measures of the mazing dance, as she had, and her man had, as maids and lads did every spring on the new grass. This path was narrower, scarcely the breadth of his foot, but as he walked, circling and turning, his pace grew faster and surer, till he sped like any shepherd boy, and leapt from the mouth of it over the warding signs.

He stood before her, eyes wide and shoulders heaving with his quick breath. She took his arm and drew him to the window.

"Kneel, lad, facing the sun." She pushed his shoulder to help him take her meaning, and he knelt. His head came to her breastbone, even so.

"The night is dead," Nan began. "And all it brought now gone to rest. The day is born and all made afresh. Here is a child new-born with the day." The grey mist blushed pink as the sun drew closer, and the brown egg warmed in her hand.

She cracked the shell and let the thick streams, clear and saffron-yellow, run between her fingers onto the stubbled field of the boy's shorn head.

"I bless thee with God and the rood, with His sweet flesh and precious blood; with His cross and His creed, with his length and his breed, from thy foot to thy crown, and all thy body up and down, from thy back to thy breast, thy five wits and all be blest. God keep thee from all ill, save it be of His own will."

The boy lifted both his hands to his head, and smeared yellow onto his palms, dabbed his brow and mouth with it. After a moment he licked his mouth clean, and his lips moved as if he prayed, though she heard naught.

Catching her breath, Nan spoke the charm to staunch blood, that might serve to staunch the calling of blood. "Christ was born in Bethlehem, baptised in the river of Jordan. The river stood, so shall thy blood--" His name must go here. She paused.

"Griffin, mistress. My name is Griffin."

"Griffin." She picked up the threads of the charm. "In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." All tied off with the White Paternoster. She murmured the words, hearing as always the echo of her mother's voice in them. "Open heaven gates and steck hell gates, and let every chrisom child creep to its mother mild. White Paternoster, amen."

From the cypher journal of Gerard Gybbins

14. of Aprill

Damn the boy. Hath died or somewise broke the bond. His power is lost to me and his blood likewise. Yet the taste for that sweetnesse of magic in the blood compelleth me. I will find it elsewhere. I mind me there was a midwife hard by Kenninghall who was known to use some woman's craft of charming to aid or hinder conception. Can I scape D--n's notice I will seek her out.

Pixel-stained technopeasantry

Mon, 23 Apr 2007 06:24:40 GMT

Author's Notes: This is my contribution to International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Wretch Day. If I had the Photoshop skills I'd replace the lettering on my icons little sign. I can't prove that the chapter below is professional quality, but it's pretty decent, and all my short fiction is on submission somewhere or other. My only completed-and-revised novel is the co-written one, which isn't quite mine to do with what I will.
My of-professional-quality because I was paid for it story, The King of Elfland's Stepdaughter, is already readable for free online (donations gratefully accepted!) at Coyote Wild

Now to see if I can make the lj-cut work...not much success so far....

The Astrologer's Death

by Barbara Gordon

Chapter One: Poor Tom's a-cold. (Shakespeare, Lear)

Kenninghall, Norfolk, spring 1627

The boy Tom huddled against the wall, hands tucked into his shirt for warmth, water dripping coldly off the high thatched eaves onto his outthrust elbows and splashing on his bare feet. He kept a wary eye on the near houses, but they were shuttered and quiet, with no man putting his head out into the wet evening.

'Twould be night soon, when the hunters'd be calling him again, trying to draw him from the chalked circle that kept him from walking into their jaws. Did they find the place he hid after dark, that circle'd do naught to keep them out. They'd pluck him from it and suck him like a marrowbone. He'd seen what was left from that.

Damn you to hell, damn you, you said you'd teach me, seven year safe you promised me and bare five of it gone. Devil take thee. The devil had, too, but his master walked abroad by night still, and he'd have Tom if Tom stepped wrong.

Damn you, you might have let me go free from the bond. Death cancels all debts, men said, but he felt the blood-bond yet, and his master would have all his blood this time.

He must finish this before dark, and make himself safe elsewhere. The door was barred, he knew, so he looked quickly at the window above him, the shutters open for what poor light was left in the day, and went straight up the wall to it, his calloused fingers and toes digging into the scabby plaster, clinging to the lath where it showed, hooking over the timbers, with a charm muttered under his breath to keep him from falling. He tumbled through the window onto the floor within before seeing that he'd reached it.

O let this not be where he waits for me.

He scarce knew whom he prayed to; Our Lord never having taken much interest in Tom that he could prove, and the Devil taking more interest than he'd ever sought.

Quickly, quickly, night was coming on, he could feel it, more than he felt the scraped shins and elbows from the climb and the bruises from the wooden floor, or even the hunger that griped his belly. It was another's hunger that drove him, not his own.

He rolled to his feet and looked about the room, that had once been his own and a refuge. His clothes he'd abandoned, and his cup and platter. He'd taken only his spoon, for the silver of it.

He stepped as light as he could into the next room, where the ladder led up to the attic, fighting a fearful seeing that his master waited there for him, smiling and gaping his mouth wide and wider that Tom might step inside, no more running and hiding, no more.

There was no one, for it was day yet. The grey light seeped through the glass mullions above the shutters, these closed and barred.

Up the ladder he went now, his belly quaking, and if he'd had aught within it he'd have spewed it up as he lifted the trapdoor and looked into the close dark below the thatch.

O let him not be here or let his sleep be so deep he never knows I've come here.

Could his kind walk by day? Could they rise by day were it dark enough where they lay? Would his master even lie here, where he might be sought by those who knew or guessed his new nature?

All was silent and still, but that proved naught. He waited hanging on the rungs, ready to let himself fall if clawed hands caught at him, knowing even that unhindered fall would be too slow. His eyes found light spreading from the opening he stood in, and no great casket or tun was here, no shrouded shape that kept the small light out.

He breathed once more and scuttled up into the low room, able without thought to snatch up the books and bound packets that his master had sent him for so many times. By times he felt the pricking in his fingers that warned of wards and tracings, and those books he let lie, that his master not send to find them and find him thereby. The others he stowed in his slop breeches.

Here take I my rights, for my two years thou cozened of me. Here take I arms against thee, for my life. Quickly quickly, an thou'd stay quick thyself, Tom.

He would to take more, for his anger and hurt, but his life and breath weighed greater, so he dropped through the trapdoor and slid down the ladder, his feet striking the wooden floor with a hard slap. Staring round the room below, he marked that the light was weaker. He paused a moment before the door to his former chamber, listening, as if his hunters could after all be heard by their breath did they wait for him there, then gathered himself and flung into it. It was empty yet, and he cursed himself for a coward.

Dare he take his jack? 'Twas murdering cold and wet without, but if his master had spelled the clothes--. He ran his fingers over it and felt no tracing, then reckless threw the jack on and seized his shoes and hosen as well, stuffing them in his shirt, and was out the window again, careless now of his grip on the rotting plaster and lath.

Out from that treacherous shelter and splashing through the foul puddles on the street, muttering a see-naught charm as he ran, though that held only for mortal eyes. Better not to forget those, natheless. A "'Ware Thief" shouted by one who'd seen a ragged dirty boy come out a window with his shirt stuffed heavy of what was never his own, that would have him held after dark here, or hidden up where he wouldn't choose, trapped where they'd smell his blood and find him.

Tears ran down his face with the rain, both unheeded. Now was he in worse case than five years gone, when he'd no master and no roof, but neither had he been blood-bound to one who'd have him for meat. How far need he go to be safe? How long would they seek him? What recourse could he find?

From the cypher journal of Gerard Gybbins, Astrologer.

18. of March

D--n to come this night. He bargaineth hard but he shall not have the boy Tom. Him I need keep as larder for my strength. It feares me that tho' I shall gain the revenaunt pow'rs, I stand in peril of losing those powers of magic both inborn & acquir'd by painfulle care, for D--n confest he knoweth of no rev't having them. He assureth me that I shall require no conjurations nor charms but shall be content, yea count myself blest w't the wonders of the undeadly state. Gi'n this be true he may have the boy after but I am no man to give my purse away on another's word; least on the word of one past judgement & w't no soul to lose. D--n hath his get bound to him by the taking & giving of blood so why should not the blood that bindeth my prentice to me serve as well or better? Thus thro' my prentice I shall have mortal magic at command & eke revenaunt pow'rs. This I must keep fro' D--n for fear he sh'd think I mean to unseat him.

Nota bene: A rev't maister is a jealous lord. Each great maister like some Oriental potentate holdeth a city as his own seat and peopleth it w'th his own get. No undeadly stranger or get of another maister shall enter w'outen leave & the maister there maketh his will the onlie law 'gainst which there is no appeal.

At first the lane was sunk between tall hedges. In the green shade Tom might have believed himself wandering in some far strange land. He wished it were so. Through the day the track rose higher and the hedges fell, so that he could see the flat fens stretching out, their dull green scratched by the dark tangle of waterways.

A bittern's booming cry rang out to its mate, and Tom's dry mouth filled with spittle at the thought of bird's eggs, roasted in ashes or cracked and drunk raw. But he'd no knowledge of the paths through these marshes, only of how easily the sucking bogs pulled a man down. Better to go empty-bellied than fill another's belly.

Tom walked on. His head spun, and he prayed it was hunger and not sickness. Hunger was easier mended.

Each day he hoped he'd shed the hunters, and each night that hope proved false. Wherever he found shelter by night, he scratched the circle on the earth or chalked it on a floor, and crouched within. Always with the departing of the light the voices raised themselves, commanding or wooing. He'd learnt to hobble his legs, that he might not rise to their bidding when sleep overcame him.

Whether his master and his master's master footed it after him themselves, or sent the revenant's get to nose him out he couldn't tell. It might even be that they lay yet in Kenninghall and sent only their damned lure, trusting that once the call snared him he'd walk the long road back himself and save them the labour.

The giddiness took him again and his thoughts scattered like frighted birds. He felt himself follow them into the vacant sky.

He heard a chuckle from the blackness above him. "Steady on, lad. Don't rise, but keep thy head down. 'Twill pass. Spent thy pence on ale and spared the bread? Next time shalt be wiser, I'll wager."

A leathern flask was at his lips, and he tasted small beer. It was welcome.

"My thanks, goodman," Tom mumbled as he handed the flask up. His sight cleared, and he saw a blunt-featured sunburnt face peering down at him.

"Nay, I did the same meself when I were a younker. I'll tell thee, do it take thee so hard, best seek out Goody Moray in Framlingham yonder. She hath a sovereign remedy."

Tom stared mutely. Was the man a pander?

At the same moment the man must have known how his words might be heard. He choked on laughter, then gathered himself to speak, still snorting. "Nay, nay, she's the white witch. She knows all manner of plants and their virtues." His face reddened with mirth and he continued. "I doubt not she'd welcome a strong staff as gladly as any other woman would, but 'tis her simples that bring men to her door, not her crack."

"I've no money."

"Nor has she a man to labour for her. Belike thou canst bargain for some hours' work in kind, thou look'st to be strong enow." Once again he seemed to hear the other reading that could to be put on his words and Tom saw his shoulders heave with laughter as he walked away, the flask swinging at his hip.

From the cypher journal of Gerard Gybbins

20. of March

Of my dieing I shall not at present speak, but of the terrors & wonders of my new state. D--n spake trulie of th'expansion of the five senses for seemeth me I have gone all my days in a waking dream w't a veil twixt myself and the world. Now do I perceive it clear. Tho' the sun is now inimical to me, as to all who have sworne their allegiance to his consort the moon, I need his light not for the darknesse is now to me as the light of daie and I write this day-boke w'out candle or lamp. Hearing alsoe is greatlie increased for I can hear what is spoken in the houses either side tho' they are barred & shutter'd. Not onlie speech but the beating of a man's heart as he passeth in the street & the rushing of his blood through his veines, & each pulse saith I am thy meat come and take thy fill. Were I not control'd by D--n I would run mad thro' the night killing and drinking as I could w'out fear or thought, so greate is the hunger I know now. The pow'rs of my mind & thought are multiplied an hundredfold, tho' I have yet no skill to use them. D--n promiseth he will teach me the trick of chusing & enticing one mortal's thoughts from the babel of confusion I now hear; tho' I should not call it hearing but rather a new sense beyond the five of mortals, or even that other sense I had as mortal magician to know the magic in a man or in a place. It maie be that I have lost that witch-sense with my mortalitie, but I cannot know as yet for the expansion of my other senses presses on me so that by times it can scarce be borne.

Nota bene: The hunger of a new-made revenaunt surpasseth anie hunger I knew as mortal man and all carnal lust. The travails of hunger I cannot lessen by diverting them to the boy thro' the blood-bond, tho' I was able to ease the pangs of dieing thusly. I must study why this is so.

The lad was ill-favoured at the first, Nan Moray thought, with long jaw and lank straw hair, and the sullen glower added no beauty. Strong enough, she'd wager, though his great hands and feet and knobbled joints made his long limbs seem thinner than they were. How many years he had she couldn't tell; more than a dozen and less than a score, but a hagged look to that uncomely face, as she'd seen in those who'd come from the wars, be they never so young.

"Take thee this penny, boy, across the street, and bring pasties for thyself and me. 'Tis ill dealing when the belly's empty." She gave it him, feigning not to see him gape like a stunned fish, that any should trust him with coin. A masterless dog is kicked by every man.

Nan, Nan, you'll be murdered in your bed one night, showing charity to such runagates.

He came back with the pies, in hope of more gain if naught else, and his was gone in the moment she broke hers and set a part down on her apron. She drew an apple from the budget tucked under her skirts and he ate that even to the core, so she sent him for small ale.

"Now, what wouldst thou of me?"

It took coaxing and soft speech, but he yielded some part. A runaway prentice, as she'd guessed, going in fear that the constable would take him up for a vagrant and he be sent back perforce to his own parish.

"Hast no kin or friend to take thee in an thou return?

"My master," he whispered near too low for her hearing. "He'd take me in to his belly."

"I've no skill for canting speech, lad, tell me in plain words what thou fearest."

"Goodwife, of thy charity take me indoors tonight. I have books, I'll pay thee with them." He cast a careful glance at her as he spoke. "Folk about say th'art a healer. There's healing words in certain of the books."

"Thou hast books, young limb? Whose are they?" So he could read; she would not have guessed that by his clothes, which showed the dust of days of travel with none to mend them for him. The mending was done with long uneven stitches, a boy's work.

He flinched, then looked back at her. "They were my master's, but he's died. He left none but me."

"Is thy master dead, or would he claim thee? An thou wouldst lie, choose but one!"

This time he looked full at her, and her witch-sight saw the darkness behind his eyes when he answered. "I'd choose neither an I had my will, but both are truth. My master's dead, and walks abroad. He's marked me and follows me, calls my name by nights. Mistress, I've not slept without wards about myself these many nights, to keep myself from coming to his call. Mistress…." His voice broke and he seemed years younger at that moment. "Mistress, help me and I'll give thee all the books."

Nan's hands and feet were cold, though no cloud had crossed the sun. Were she wiser, she'd send the boy away and sweep her doorstep of his dust. She was no power of the land, to trifle with revenants. Nay, she was but a fat old woman, with a heart as soft as her belly. She laid one hand on the boy's arm, and he flinched again, then held steady as he saw she meant to rise, leaning on him.

"Come within. There's things not to be spoken of in the street. Close the shutter. Do any seek me in need, they'll find the door at the back."

From the cypher journal of Gerard Gybbins

21. of March

Damn the beggar brat he hath paid me ill for my care & pains w'th him such that I am minded to give him to D--n when he shall be found. Fled w'out a word to one who taught & cherish'd him so long. His magic is rightfullie mine for did I not know it in him when I found him roofless & friendless & did I not take him as prentice that he learn to employ it rightlie? I nurtured it as a carefulle gardener cherisheth up sweet shoots in stoney soil and it is mine by right. Why can I not draw it fro' him? I pray it is onlie that he is gone too far a distance and so it must be for the blood bond is yet present tho' it can tell me onlie that he liveth. Were he again in my keeping I could discover whether his magic can be drawn upon thro' it as before. D--n shall aid me and if I cannot have the boy's magic then D-- shall have his blood for he telleth me that magic giveth the mortal blood a great virtue & sweetness surpassing all liquors of this world. I am of a mind to make the test of this but appeasing my maister D--n is the wiser course for my security in this undeadly life hangeth on his pleasure.

The boy Tom curled on a straw pallet on the floor, chalked round with the strongest wards and see-naughts that Nan knew. It would hold for the night. She heard a voice that called for him, two voices, one that laughed as it lured and one that commanded. The laughing one was strong, and its power turned her sick with its sound, or smell; how it felt to her witch's sense that had no name. The voice that commanded was weaker, though strong enough yet to fear.

Damn thee for a fool, boy, why prentice to a blood magician? And if thou must do that, why to one greedy and arrogant enough to turn revenant? With Nan thy only help? As well pay for the mass now and dig the grave aforetimes.

Aye, that might be the answer. The revenant sought Tom. Then Tom must die, and the boy reborn in another name. A name the hunters would not know. She'd ask him in the morning what his full name was, that he not choose a new name too close to any part of the old.

"Naught but Tom," he said that morning, a half-loaf of bread going down his gullet in two bites, as a dog would snap it down. "Tom the foundling brat, dropped at the church door when his dam saw how ugly he was."

"All babes are ugly, child. Belike thy mother had some other reason that seemed good to her." His look at her demanded such a reason. "It may be she was a whore, and could not keep a boy. A girl may be trained up in her mother's way, and sold for a good price being virgin, however uncomely. Or it may be she was a witch, and thought it better thou be foundling brat than witch's brat." He gave her that same look. "Twould explain the power in thee."

"May be she was a whore who lay with a man witch."

"It may have been. Though 'tis said they have the power to choose whether they are fruitful or no."

His look changed to curiosity. "Dost not know? Thou art a witch, canst thou not choose?"

Nan sighed gustily. "'Tis a matter of power and of knowing, boy. My power was never great, and I put my learning aside to wed and bear children. My magic was too poor to show me what was amiss with me that none of our babes lived past borning. So it may be that your sire or dam, whichever had power within, did not have knowing of how to keep the seed from springing, or did not wish to use it. Or may have wished thee to be born and found that things went ill and could not keep thee at the last."

"If thy power was put aside, how com'st thou to be white witch now?"

She smiled at that, poor smile that it was. "Why, no secret there, Tom. I put my learning aside, and when no child living came to us, my man put me aside. We were but handfast, so it was no great matter for him to do so. I turned back to my craft that I might live and feed this gross body."

"Didst curse him?"

"Nay. He took another and all their children lived and were strong." She put warning in her voice. "And well for me that it was so. The learned folk may have their way now, and most charged of witchcraft are acquitted. But this was years agone, when thou wert but a puling babe, and the King himself had writ a great book on witches and how they were to be known and judged. I must needs live among these folk, and walk warily. If her babes had died, they would have looked to me for blame." She paused. "Think not too harsh on him. He loved me in the first, and when the first child died he comforted me, saying th'art a strong lass, Nan, well able to bear another, be not downhearted. Then a second and a third, one dead in the womb, the other never breathed, and he began to look askance and wonder him if it were not an evil in me that took the life from my babes for myself. To wonder had he truly loved me ever, or I bewitched him to it. So it is for us, child, and no helping it."

"Love's no great thing to set aside, that I can see."

"Th'art young yet. Think on this. Had I never felt my babe stir within me, never lusted to feel it living in my arms, never wept as we laid it in the earth, think'st thou I would have took thee in?" She measured telling him that there were two loves to be put by. To give up hope of being loved, that was the easy portion. To never give your own love to another, that was the heavier task. But what would he know of either?

Now to the task. "Tom we shall bury, a mommet with thy hair and parings of thy nails, bearing thy name. That must be secret, for mommets are ill work, and the witchfinders send their spells to find them out. We'll have a mass said for him. Then thou shalt go nameless for a night, and they seek Tom. With the dawn I baptise thee again, though not as parson might. Thou'lt need a new name. Tell me it not! Until the time."

"What manner of name shall I choose?" His ugly face was unguarded for a moment, with eagerness to learn and the wonder of making himself anew.

She thought on that. "Names have power. Some have said that the name is the thing, but that's scholard's foolishness. Take no name that leads back to Tom, lest that path be hunted out. Mayhap some name that is itself a hunter, a thing of power. Yet a name that a man may have, that thou not be marked as one who conceals his true name. Look in thy books, and mine, it may be they'll guide thee."

From the cypher journal of Gerard Gybbins

6. of Aprill

Trulie the mass of mortality are fools for my neighbours are blind to my new state & swallow like farced geese my tale that I spend my daies seeking my runaway prentice & returning home onlie after dark. Hard it is to keep from feeding here but D-- warneth that tis an ill bird fouls its own nest and he hath a century of wisdom. Yea even these sheep might look askance did I kill and drink as I would for I would kill twice or thrice in a night an I could do so w'out hazard to myeself. D--n promiseth the craving shall grow less in time so that I need onlie kill once in a sennight though the delight will ne'er be lost which pleaseth me for tis a delight nearlie past bearing. A lesser trial than the hunger is the limitacion of my waking to the hours of darkness for with the day cometh a deathlie sleep upon me which I cannot withstand. I must study how it is that the sonne is become so greatlie my enemie for if the moon is my friend and mistresse as I know her to be how cometh it that silver which is her metal, should be as deadly a foe to me as is the light of the sonne which D--n assureth me would burn me to ashes as if I touched the sonne itself. Th'influence of the planets holdeth surelie in all the spheres. I must study on this for should I find a means to overcome the poison of silver twould be a great ease to me and would please D--n. He groweth importunate over the finding of Tom and will not leave me to hunt as I would but maketh me spend much of each sweet night in vain pursuit. Damn the boy for I would have peace to write of my discoveries and weigh my lessons and that I may not do in D--n's presence and must guard my thought well that he not discover it for he hath no patience for a scholar and did he know might force me to burn these writings which I shall not for I entered this state to learn of it & if I write not my great sacrifice is for naught.

Nota bene: The substances which are inimical to a revenaunt are firstlie the light of the sonne, secondlie the metal silver tho' it can be touched w't a gloved hand, thirdlie the plant garlicke, fourthlie the woode of the thorns being whitethorn, blackthorn and hawthorn, also the wild rose. I have not made triall of these all but silver feeleth now as if twere heated in a pan over the fire and this I know thro' the glove. D--n saith it groweth easier to withstand w't the weight of years also that an auncient rev't may withstand the daie-sleep for perhaps a paternoster's time & find shelter fro' the light before it fall on him but the new-made must be safe-hid aforetimes. Thus journeying is of greater hazard for our kind.

"'Twas my sister's son," Nan said humbly to the parson. "Her as married and went to Ipswich. Her youngest lad went to sea, and was swept to his death. She's fair distracted with grief. 'Tis my hope that knowing prayers said for him here will ease her mind." She drew out her purse--poor starveling thing--and looked up at him.

The man's face was as flinty as the church walls, but his eyes were kindly. "And the lad's name, goodwife?"

"Tom, master. 'Twas Tom."

She bore the news home to the boy. He looked shamefaced at the scatter of books before him. "I've no money to repay thee, mistress. I'll work for thee as long as thou wish it."

"Well enow," she answered. "Let us make thee as safe as may be, afore troubling ourselves with sums and debts. Hast chosen a name?"

"Aye," he said, closing the book that lay before him. "But I'll heed thy warning and say naught of it till the time."

On the fore-edge of the book she saw the title inked: Physiologus. So he had Latin, of which she could puzzle out but a few words. She knew the book to be a bestiary, but had never done more than leaf through it, wondering at the painted pictures. She saw of a sudden that he could aid her to read the old herbals that were in Latin, or belike even Greek, that she might add to her little store of knowledge. She would speak with him later of that.

He and she stood together in the church, heads bowed as the service for the dead rolled over them. There were few save themselves present. Nan knew that curious eyes rested on the boy. She'd said little, trusting to their neighbours' wit to guess that the lad was a servant sent by her sister. An ugly crow to bear ill news, they would say. Small wonder if he was not wanted back. They'd not ask his name at the first. A little hope sent forth its shoots in her heart, that her cobbled plan might work.

Would I had kept to my studies, she mourned. But she had been young and hot of blood then, and her man's strong arms and gentle hands had seemed worth any loss. She pushed away the memories that were not fit for church. She might have done the same again, given the chance, even knowing how it would end.

While she thanked the parson after, the boy wandered disconsolate to the churchyard, to read the grey headstones in their leaning ranks. When he paused between two and stood, head bowed, Nan went to him and laid a hand on his shoulder. To a watcher it might have seemed that words of comfort passed between them.

Her skin prickled. He stood by the stone that marked her children. In the score of years since, her heart had eased, but the grief would never wholly leave her. What better place for another dead child? This one she might preserve from harm, as she could not her own.

He had scuffed a hole with the toe of his shoe, and kneeling now as if he prayed, he peeled back the turf and scraped it deeper with his long hard fingers. From her budget Nan drew out the mommet, a linen figure stuffed to plumpness with lambs-wool and Tom's shorn hair and nail-parings. That morn she had sat at her table, cutting scraps of the boy's shirt to shape, saying his name with every stab of the needle. A child's plaything did one not look close to see the features limned with rusty blood. Prison and the rope were it known for what it was.

Her second child had been a girl, or would have been had she drawn breath. I never made thee a cloth baby of thine own to nurse, Bet, Nan whispered to the little blue face in her heart. Take thee this one, and keep it safe.

The boy pressed the earth and grass down over the mommet. He and Nan muttered the final prayers over it in a soft gabble of words, the sense almost lost in their haste. From the bell-tower, the passing bell tolled out Tom's death.

Not on LJ. Really.

Mon, 02 Apr 2007 21:32:49 GMT

Ceci n'est pas mon blogue.
My blog is really over there. Look! Over there!
This exists so that I can post comments and annoy other people on LJ. And maybe post flocked stories (which I still read as something that has that fluffy stuff glued all over it, like tatty wallpaper.)