The Worlds of Katherine Kurtz

Elspeth Rowan opened the side door of her stepfather's tavern, The Broken Mast. She was hit by the usual tavern sounds: men talking loudly, the occasional laugh or curse, tankards slapped down on wooden tables, the scrape of a bench across the floor as someone left for home or for the privy outside. She spotted Amy, one of the few people she called a friend, serving bowls of thick stew to a group of men at a table. Amy smiled at their fervent thanks, but moved quickly away.

Elspeth made her way as unobtrusively as possible across the room to the swinging door of the kitchen. This was her mother's domain; The Broken Mast was well known for its better than average food. As usual, the kitchen was warm both from the cooking fires and the bustle of activity. Elspeth lowered the hood of her cloak. She was well-known here, and no one commented on her mismatched eyes. Certainly not if they wanted to remain employed.

Her mother approached her, her kirtle covered by a large once-white apron and her gray hair bound into a still-white kerchief. "Everything is well?" she asked.

"As well as can be expected," Elspeth replied. "The wet nurse I arranged for has been accepted by the baby, who is finally starting to thrive."

"Are you still set on traveling with Amy to the library at Grecotha?" Elen Rowan's question held a hint of disapproval.

Elslpeth sighed, remembering the difficult childbirth she had attended less than a week ago. The woman was approaching 40 years of age, too old to bear a child, but after four daughters and a few stillbirths, a son was finally born. The father was ecstatic, promising his wife a fine new kirtle as a birth present. His joy soon turned to despair as the exhausted woman succumbed to childbed fever three days later. Elspeth, assisted by Amy, had tried every remedy she knew of, but nothing had broken the fever. The fine new kirtle would now be a shroud.

"Yes Mam, I am still determined. The old infirmarian at the hospice adjacent to Saint Stefan's Priory told me of a medicine called talicil that would reduce a fever quickly. Its use was banned long ago by the Regents, but records of its existence may have been kept at Grecotha. If that information could save a life..."

"Geoffrey will not let you travel unescorted," Elen stated firmly. "Your stepfather would not risk your or Amy's safety on the roads. Especially these days."

"But who will he find? Every available man will be working to bring in the harvest, or at sea to secure a catch before the weather turns foul. He can't spare Carew, especially with Amy coming with me." Carew was Elspeth's younger brother, who was well suited to follow his stepfather into the tavern trade and very good at tossing unruly patrons out into the mud. Elspeth stepped to the door of the kitchen and waved a hand to generally encompass those in the tavern. "Would any of these men actually be capable of providing protection?"

As she surveyed the room, Elspeth noticed the man just entering the tavern. His face was damp and he wore a mismatched towel draped over a ghastly kit of lime and black.

"Certainly not that one!" she stated with a nod of her head in the man's direction.

Annnnndddd we're off to the races!   

I thank you all. Now, I leave the rest of the opening to the experts!

What a way to whet our appetite for more. You evoke your character's air of mystery wonderfully, Marc.

Woo hoo! We are on our way, whichever way the path may lead.

Way to get us started, Marc!

Congratulations, Marc du Temple. You have got us all off to a roaring start.  I love your opeing scene. This is going to be fun!

In coastal Carbury towne, Autumn had rushed in like the chills heralding a fever. The sailors and the fishers had planned accordingly, putting out to sea to net herring, cod, mackerel, and with a prayer to Saint Andrew: salmon, before the Gulf of Kheldour was too perilous to cross. Indeed, the only ones troubled by the question of where their next meal would come from were the travelers, the wanderers, the vagabonds and the like. All of them converged in certain hotspots. The abbey, monastery or other such sanctuary for the body and the soul, the tavern for more practical rest, and the faire: the domain of jesters, players and fools. Spotted John, known as such for the paint on his face and the marks on his often exposed abdomen, was familiar with them all, but tonight he had yet seen only the last of those and it was his home. Just one more to say goodbye to.

"If you see me sleeping in the tent in the morning, kick me in my side and kiss me, dear friends, for I could not stay away for anything. If my arrow of Orion is embedded in the dirt by the entrance, then know we will meet again, in whatever shape we find each other. If there is no sign of me at all tomorrow, then I am with The Lord, and it is best you act as though I were never here." Those were his last words to his performing entourage, drawn from all over the Eleven Kingdoms, and a few beyond their borders. His motley facepaint had been ruined by the tears he shed for them, but they did not fall alone. Only their leader, the acrobat calling himself Scimmio, spat on the ground inside of their tent instead.

"You walk away from us out of habit as much as I tuck and roll the same. I can't promise there won't be another bowman where you once slept when you return, boy."

The boy in question simply smiled, his eyes glistening like blue ponds struck by stones. "It's kind of you to say that I am needed, boss. I had missed the feeling when we met in Valoret. But we've had enough mischief for a thousand years in two, haven't we, boys and girls? God be with ye all." With that, he tucked his straw hair in his cap, rose, bowed with a jester's sardonicism, adjusted the gayly dyed thing that was once a tunic and now but a shredded mockery of such shirts, and then saddled his pony outside.

Spotted John had intended to go one way from there, but the wind had blown him in another direction. Regardless, it was away, and he was alive, so by the light of oil lamps he loosed an arrow with a unique marker on it: a necklace with a woven figure evoking Orion and his bow, finding their home not in the sky, but the ground.

None could see where that wind began, but hours later it had led to The Broken Mast. He crept in warily with a wet, unblemished face, sans the tunic, with a mismatched towel draped over his old kit of lime and black like an all-concealing sagum, as though he were Pontius Pilate on a wilderness journey. Best to go by your real name, now, he thought.

Oh, forget that last question.

Quote from: Bynw on May 27, 2024, 11:24:37 AMCoins in Gwynedd
*borrowed from DAG*

Gold Coins:
Soverign valued at 4 Marks
Half-Soverign valued at 2 Marks
Mark valued at 4 Royals

Silver Coins:
Royal valued at 8 Pennies
Vice-Royal valued at 4 Pennies
Penny valued at 4 Farthings

Copper Coins:
Farthing valued at 1/4 Penny

So...

1 Soverign =
2 Half-Soverign =
4 Marks =
16 Royals =
64 Vice-Royals =
128 Pennies =
512 Farthings =

What can I buy for a farthing?