Penny

Silver & Gold: A Warhammer Roleplay

Evading her master during his hangovers was a skill Emmaline had long mastered. Albrect could drink more than any man Emmaline had ever encountered and functioned perfectly well even under a prodigious load of drink but he was no more immune from liquor's revenge than any other. After she had bought him his breakfast she regaled him with tales of her evening. These tales were completely invented, a fact of which Albrect was well aware, and the master wizard questioned and picked at her tales trying to expose some falsehood or inconsistancy. It was training of a sort, for Albrect was as much a grifter as a wizard and in that respect he had selected a good apprentice. Emmaline wondered how that had come to pass Gold Wizards frequently bid on promising apprentices when they were presented, offering their own wealth against dues, or even paying the College for the privilege of a particularly promising apprentice, an investment they were happy to wring out of their students for the most part. What Albrect had paid for her she did not know, but her part in his various scams and schemes must have made him a neat pile of gelt over the past year or two.

"You are using too many generalties girl," Albrect grumped as he finished his eggs, sopping up the soft yolk with a crust of bread.

"I had been drinking," Emmaline replied defensively.

"And yet you were so articulate when we spoke last night? Tsk tsk," Albrect chided. Emmaline blushed at the thought of what she had been doing during that conversation.

"Fine, you may go, I shall expect you to bring dinner before you lose yourself to wine," Albrect gave in, issuing an impressive belch before shoving his plate away.

"Tomorrow I may have time to teach you something... I suppose I should do something," he grumped. Emmaline nooded eagerly.

"I have scrolls for you to deliver, be gone," he waved his hand. Emmaline fled enthusiastically, eager to get out of the tower. SHe went downstairs and retrieved the ring of luck. She had hidden it behind a lose rock, wound about with a few simple wards. She shivered with pleasure to hold it and resisted the urge to put it on only with an effort of will. Instead she strung it on a leather cord and slipped it around her neck, nestling it between her breasts so she could still feel it against her skin.

The Colleges were bustling with activity as Emmaline hurried across the campus. Part of her was tempted just to toss them into a bush and be done. Sigmar knew most of Albrect’s mail was the polite minutiae of college life and Emmaline very much doubted anyone would miss it. Unfortunately, there was no way of telling which of them might be part of some complicated scheme which he would have her hide for disrupting. Her fingers toyed with the ring on its cord as she rounded a corner and all but ran into a trio of mage apprentices.

“Hey! Watch where you are going!” one of them snapped, reaching out to shove at Emmaline. She skipped back and flicked him in the nose, sending him staggering back clutching at his face.

“Hey!” one of his companions yelled, looking more outraged then worried. Then his face clouded with confusion.

“Aren’t you the one who was harassing Mal?” he asked. Emmaline recognized the man, Gunther was it?

“Pfffft, he wishes,” Emmaline replied, rolling her eyes. She tried to push past but the three men were spreading out to block the path.

Do Seasoned RPers like low requirement games?

I personally am put off by huge character sheets with skill lists and all that other nonsense. Im much more interested in finding a characters voice than figuring out how many points I need to put into accounting.

Grim Galaxy: Shots and Chances

The scream of the jet bike was a thing to give an insurance agent nightmares. Neil responded to Junebug’s constant demand for more speed by bypassing limiters and regulators with a dozen tricks he had picked up over a short but active life of vehicular crime. They blew past the gates of the Cykali home at a turn of speed that they sucked up a reverse rooster tail of dust and leaves. Neil furiously decelerated as they approached the house, throwing the bike into a long slide that shoved it down against it’s howling antigrav unit. Sayeeda didn’t wait but rather leaped from the bike in a full body spring. Her hands hit the lawn and folded her into a roll that would have graced any assault course in the galaxy. She came up at a run, dashing through the open door of the house.

The interior was as they had left it, save where a few dishes had been knocked onto the floor and a pile of paperwork swept off a desk. Junebug weaved left and snatched up a kitchen knife in a reverse handed grip as she swept the room. It was empty save a holo feed blaring out the advantages of this or that company’s biotech. Junebug moved with deadly self assurance, clearing each room without making a sound. The house seemed completely deserted.

“Madge?” Junebug called, ducking into her own room as Neil came through the door, a hedge trimmer held before him like a polearm. There was a slight vibration of her bed and Sayeeda snatched up the hanging sheet to look beneath it. There was no one there. Had the girl been taken afterall? Junebug sagged down onto her bed in defeat but as soon as her weight landed there was a squawk and a thump. She sprang to her feet and looked under the bed a second time, eyes wide, not with fear but with guilt that she might have missed a threat. To her shock, Madge was laying on the floor, looking like a bobble head in Sayeeda’s old combat helmet. The girl had lifted herself up into the bed frame, must have held herself there spread eagled for who knew how long. Sayeeda wondered what sports the girl played.

“Aunt Sayeeda?” Madge asked, then tried to sit up, evidently she had forgotten she was under a bed because the helmet thwaked against the timber frame making the girl say a word that Sayeeda was pretty sure her parents would be shocked to learn she knew. Junebug let out something between a sob and a laugh and grabbed the girl by the arms and dragged her out from under the bed and into a tight embrace. Madge struggled awkwardly, as unused to hugs as Sayeeda, or perhaps just with a youthful distaste for the practice. Junebug didn’t care and squeezed the struggling child harder just to be contrary. Madge reached up and touched a toggle on the side of the helmet. A dull orange marking rotated to a dull cream as it switched from infrared to unamplified. The girl had been watching her through the bed.

“You're a clever little shit,” Junebug marveled and reached down to lift the helmet from the girls head.

“Did you know you can switch modes with your tongue?” she asked, instinctively delaying the serious questions. Neil came through the door, still carrying his improvised spear.

“House is clear,” he reported as Junebug let Madge squirm from her arms.

“Men came through the door, they took Momma and the others they were shouting and I ran away. I didn’t have a gun,” Madge admitted. Junebug cocked her head to the side trying to imagine what a six year old thought she might have done even if she had a weapon.

“It was smart to hide Madge, very smart,” Junebug told her. The girl nodded, her lip trembling slightly. Junebug was bad at reading people and worse with children but she belatedly realized that Madge was close to crying. She felt she should do something but she didn't know what. Frustration coiled in her guts. If this was a literal minefield rather than a metaphorical one, she would know what to do. Frustration and anger roiled in her.

“Junebug?” Neil asked, reaching out but not quite touching her.

“Right,” she said, “did you know any of the men?” Madge shook her head violently, her eyes glistening with unshed tears.

“I found this,” Neil interjected, lifting a simple disposable holoprojecter marked with a red X. It was a simple thing, the kind a couple on vacation might use to capture a few images or a couple of minutes of video for later reproduction.

“Ransom note?” Sayeeda guessed. Neil shrugged, clearly he hadn’t had time to watch it. She nodded at him to play it but his eyes flicked towards Madge in question. His meaning was clear: If it is a ransom note, maybe not in front of the kid.

“Do it,” Junebug replied. Neil shrugged and triggered the unit. A curtain of coherent light sprang into the air, then coalesced from a rainbow blur into the figure of an oily looking man in a pinstripe suit. He was clearly losing the battle with good living and wore golden rings on every finger. His skin was ebon dark and his hair was a series of dreadlocks woven through with silver thread.

“Good evening capton Cy-kay-lee,” he began in a thick accent that Sayeeda didn’t recognise.

“I am Jean-Luc Devris, an honest business man,” he said with a chuckle he no doubt thought was intimidating. Junebug’s lip curled upwards in contempt.

“What we have here is a simpol buss-i-ness situat-on,” Jean-Luc said, grinning wide enough to show a mouthful of bright white teeth.

“Your sister she owes me a lot of money. Sadly she canit pay. Normally I take the life insurance after an accident but suddenly… well you show up with a ship that would settle the debt very nicely.”

“Deliver your freighter to me on Carad Island and we will say no more of it,” the hologram told her.

“You have three days, and if the police get involved… well there is always the insurance. The rest of the family too, do not test me cap-i-ton,” The hologram shimmered into a 2D display of coordinates and passcodes, then went out with a click.

“Are they… are they going to hurt my Mom?” Madge asked in a quavering voice. Junebug stood up, she could hear sirens in the distance. They were coming closer no doubt answering the earlier call for help. Junebug couldn’t be here when the arrived, not because of Devris words, but because she was pretty sure she she had an outstanding warrant in the local jurisdiction.

“No sweetie,” Junebug told her, suddenly finding she knew what to say afterall, “that is not going to happen.”

Swords and Silver: The Southern Contracts

“This is the most hare brained scheme I’ve ever been a part of,” Bianca complained, brushing irritably at the cloud of mosquitos that seemed to manifest wherever she went. Torm cast her a sidelong look. He seemed untroubled by the mosquitos, while this immunity was annoying, Bianca found that the image of mosquitos trying to beat their beaks straight on tiny anvils after trying to bite through his plate mate was strangely cheery.

“You wen’t through the tunnel at Palona,” he pointed out.

“Yes but…”

“And set that tannery on fire to stink the garrison out of Soledai.”

“I suppose…”

“And didn’t you deliberately wreck that merchant ship so you could…”
“Well I..”
“And weren’t you one of those that took that hot air balloon over that cathedral when..”

“Yes yes, fine,” Bianca conceded, crossing her arms defensively and trying not to sulk. A moment passed but she was unable to control herself.

“It is still a pretty hare brained scheme,” she added petulantly. Torm unslung a dwarven watchglass from his saddle and extended it with a series of clicks.

“Well, I didn’t say you were wrong,” he agreed. The night was black as pitch, there was no moon and scudding cloud obscured most of the stars. Even so, they could make out the silver line of the Wadi Ira river a mile and a half away. At this time of year it was nearly a mile wide, and that was still only a third what it would be after the monsoon rains began. That could be any moment of course and if the Company of the Silver Swords was still on this side of the river when that happened, they were all going to die.

“Nice of them to carry torches,” Torm observed, nodding towards the river. The soldiers of the Priestess-Queen were patrolling the banks, their positions clearly visible as clusters of bobbing flames. Fucking amatuers, Bianca thought her lip curling up in a sneer. She would have whipped any of her scouts that was damn fool enough to suggest patrolling at night while carrying a torch. Not only would the flame trumpet your position for miles around, but the bright light would burn your night vision away till you were half blind. She would have whipped them, then found them some other line of work, preferably far away from her.

“Small mercies and all,” Bianca observed, leaning forward on her saddlebow. There were hundreds of torches, ranged along the dark bank of the river for miles in both directions. There must have been a thousand of them out there, every one of them filled with a fanatical desire to stop the Silver Sword from crossing the river. A larger cluster of flames was centered around a large palisaded fort, its ramparts dark against campfires. It looked like a flaming jewel on a string of beads, a rather more romantic description than the reality of slit latrines and horse pickets, unwashed flesh and the reek of sacrificial fires.

It had been a long retreat from Palona. Nearly three months of endless retreats, desperate delaying actions, and occasional half routs when the crafty enemy got the better of them. Of the thousand men who had broken out of the siege, there were now just over four hundred survivors. There were another hundred or so survivors of other mercenary groups who had been more or less informally joined to the company, folded in as their own numbers fell to death and desertion. They were exhausted, tired, hungry, and only pushing on because the Priestess-Queen offered no quarter beyond a knife over the sacrificial altar. Bianca took a wine skin from her saddle and unstoppered it. She lifted it to her lips and swallowed half the remaining volume. The wine was sour and tasted of leather and vinegar.

“You still have wine?” Torm asked in obvious shock. He had thought no one had wine, had thought no one had water for that matter, given the dry country and lack of chance to forage. Bianca handed the flask to Torm without a word and the knight tipped it upward and drained it. His face twisted at the taste but he chose not to comment. There were many things more unsatisfactory than the wine. Bianca twisted in the saddle and looked back over the party. Twenty one knights sat on their exhausted and saddle sore mounts, the great destriers looking haggard and half starved. The men didn’t look much better, their eyes hooded in the dark, their faces gaunt with weeks of eating whatever could be scavenged, meals and sleep taken, as often as not, in the saddle. Most of the Silver Sword were infantry, and those footsore bastards complained constantly that the cavalry got to ride around while they tramped over half creation. Their sore feet might make them complain, but the cavalry were called to the charge at all hours, harrying and harassing the enemy so the infantry could break away to reach the next ridge or get across the next stream. Bianca couldn’t see the infantry but she knew they were out there, crouching in the dry water courses and waiting for the signal to move out. Speaking of which… she drew the dwarven chronometer from her shirt by it’s leather cord and opened it. Nearly time. As if summoned by the thought, a figure on a boney nag emerged from the darkness at the base of the bald. Black Ryann, one of the company’s two wizards, trotted up. He was a handsome man in an irritatingly suave way, normally his expression was one of amused arrogance but tonight it was set with a strain that made him seem half a skull.

“Ready?” the wizard asked without preamble. Torm nodded, and Black Ryann lifted his hands and said something in a word that sounded like the way salt water burned your throat when you were drowning. The air seemed to tremble then go still. Ryann seemed to shrivel, almost falling from the saddle. Bianca drew her sword silently.

“Go.”

Marduk lifted his tunic and pissed on the grass, sighing with relief as the pressure of an evening’s wine on his bladder eased. He idly scratched himself as he did so, staring out into the darkness. He hated it here, he had hated it almost everywhere the Blessed Queen had sent him. Dusty garrisons overseeing sullen peasants, boring sieges where the lice seemed to swarm like locusts, the occasional battle where he did his best to keep his head down and avoid shitting himself. Hunger, privation, and dust, these were the sacrifices he bore for the Blessed Queen, the cost for his admittance into one of the Twenty Three Lesser Heavens. He shook the last few drops free and dropped his tunic, reaching into his satchel for the pouch of betelnut that soothed his nerves even as it destroyed his teeth. His hand froze half way to his lips as he saw something that his mind couldn’t quite comprehend. There were horsemen coming out of the long grass, rushing silently towards him. Not quietly. Literally silently. His eyes told him that a score of horsemen were charging towards him, but without the pound of hooves and the shouts of the riders, his mind refused to admit that this was real. It wasn’t until they were less then twenty feet away that he finally managed to recover from his bemusement. He dropped his betlenut and opened his mouth to scream, before he could utter a sound he was being borne forward, spitted on the end of a lance that had punched silently into his chest.

The cavalry were through the open gate before the alarm was raised. They swept silently in, splitting left and right by detachment. Six of Torm’s men leaped from their saddles securing the gate. The rest drove on into camp, silently crashing into the knots of men spilling from tents of painted canvas. Bianca reigned in her horse and leaped from her own saddle. She pulled a lantern from her saddlebag and sprinted up a set of stairs to the fighting platform on the inside of the palisade, taking the steps three at a time. A bleary eyed soldier stumbled upright and Bianca’s sword licked out, running him through. She twisted and kicked the dying man, allowing gravity to drag him off her blade and tumble into the gateway below with a thud. Reaching the top she waved the lantern vigorously. For a long moment nothing happened, then she saw an answering flash of light as the infantry companies began to advance at the trot. Sound crashed into existence behind her as the bubble of magical silence Black Ryann had summoned failed. Screams and alarms rang out, seeming impossible loud after the prolonged arcane silence. She could see the infantry now, coming at a jog, shields slung and swords drawn in three columns, the central one was of shorter stockier figures, dwarves with heavy mail and two handed axes. Bianca sucked in breath as the infantry reached the wall, the first column went through to support Torm and his men in subduing the fort, the second column formed a defensive box around the gate, while the dwarves set to work with their axes. They began to chop at the base of the wall with the enthusiasm of expert lumberjacks They began to rip down the wall, breaking it into six foot sections and spreading out in both directions.

“Bianca!” She whirled to see Lieutenant Gantz standing within the gate, his helmet under his arm. Judging by the sounds, resistance in the fort was well and truly collapsing, the wave of infantry turning the tide that Torm’s men had held back.

“There are no boats!” he called. Bianca cursed and ran down the stairs. The Priestess-Queen had given orders that all boats on the Wadi Ira were to be seized to prevent the mercenaries who had defied her rule from escaping her domain. For the most part they had been burned, the Queen’s soldiers liked to burn things, but the Captain had assumed there would be at least a few boats in the fort. She sprang to Gantz' side and they moved through the chaos of the fort. The dead were everywhere, bodies sprawled where lances or sword had laid them low. Here and there piles of supplies had been gathered, sometimes into improvised barricades, many of which were smashed and scattered. Untended fires smouldered and wounded men whimpered until their hurts took them or someone gave them a quick soldiers mercy.

“Fuck,” Bianca remarked as they reached the river bank. Two dwarves were already there guiding three mules that were piled high with rope of every kind, yard after yard of it hung in huge coils. The sound of fighting in the fort had died away, but the alarm had been raised and the men who had been patrolling the bank were beginning to draw in, slowly crystalizing around them.

“Get me some light line, the lighter the better,” Bianca called. Without asking for clarification one of the dwarves produced a coil of thin rope, the sort of thing that might be used to weave a net. Bianca made a loop and tied it around her waist as she kicked off her boots and tossed her weapons into a pile.

“Keep it coming,” she instructed, then dived into the Wadi Ira and began to swim.

Bianca’s arms and legs burned. Stoke, stroke. Her lungs burned and her limbs trembled.

Stroke, stroke, stroke.

There was no way to tell how far she had come, the world was nothing but water as far as she could see.

Stroke, stroke.

The weight around her waist was intolerable, she had no idea how much rope she was towing, but it grew heavier and heavier.

Stoke, stroke, stroke.

If she failed, and fail she must, she knew she must drown, doomed to dangle dead from the end of a rope like fishbait.

Stroke, stroke, stroke.

What arrogance had possessed her to try this, of all the hare brained schemes she had been a part of, she was going to drown herself in the middle of a river while the whole company died defending a half destroyed fort. Stroke, stroke. Maybe she should… her chin struck a rock and stars exploded across her vision. Bianca went under and sucked in a lungful of water as she tried to scream. Her feet went down and to her shock found mud beneath them. She thrust herself upright half screamed half vomited, muddy water pouring off her. Legs, exhausted from a swim of over a mile, refused to hold her and she fell face first into the shallows again. The terrible idea occurred that she might drown in the shallows within feet of the shore. Groaning she dragged herself forward, pulling herself hand over hand up over the mud until she lay gasping on the beach.

“Keep moving… that is the key…” she told herself, then rolled onto all fours and crawled up the beach until she reached the thick wall of twisted trees which marked the high water point. Untying the knot around her waist was impossible, so she drew a knife from her belt and cut it free. Then, with an enormous effort she tied the rope around the tree. Soaked and shivering, she drew her scouts lucifer from a leather pouch around her neck. Exactly how the lucifer worked she didn’t know, it was some kind of alchemical device, but she dutifully crunched it’s glass bulb into a pile of leaf litter. There was a stink of chemicals and then a flash of light as the trash caught fire. For a long moment nothing happened and Bianca began to fear that the the Company had been driven from the fort and annihilated. Then the rope went taut, the line lifting out of the water as it took up the strain. In her mind’s eye Bianca could see the company lifting lengths of palisade into the water, the enemies very walls providing improvised rafts, see men pouring on board and beginning to pull themselves along the line, hand over hand. Would they be able to get everyone across before the surprised enemy managed to rally and counter attack? Well, Bianca figured she could just lay here until she found out.

A Hard Rain - Urban Fantasy RP

@Fetzen

The half finished prompt flickerd then warped as the pixels rearranged themselves into a new search. Magical devices, spheres, able to communicate, picked up by Balthazar after the bombing of the Tem Gala.

Brazen Head - A brazen head (also called a brass head) is a legendary talking mechanical or magical head made of brass that was said to be able to answer any question—especially about the future. Some traditions regarding brazen heads name them as demons which have been bound into mechanical from. In these cases the demons involved are bound against their will to serve as arbiters for mundane and magical contracts. In some cases the heads are encased in shrouds so that they appear spherical until opened by smearing ones blood onto the metal.

The computer screen flickered as various pixels died and burned, leaving the screen grainy and unusable and putting a faint shimmer of static electricity in the air which prickled across the computuer. The lights in the library dimmed for a moment, then returned to their previous level, though the hue seemed slightly off and a faint scent of sulfur seemed to linger.

Synopsis

Balthazar gets an answer to his question.

The Shattered Vow - A Chanson de geste

Theophanna laid a hand comfortingly on Torm’s. It was indeed a tragedy that he had been so hard used by his Lord but it was true that the codes of chivalry which held sway in these lands meant that a noble would always take the word of a loyal knight over a squire regardless of character. After all, if a Lord questioned the honor of his knights was he not dishonoring them, and if dishonored then a Knight might feel he need not obey his oath of homage to his Lord. In theory the Lord could always confiscate a rebellious Knight’s fief but in practice it was not so easy. Unless the Lord was mighty indeed, the vassal might find another to pledge himself to, giving his new Lord a justification to despoil the lands of his old. No one would risk that for a mere squire.

“I am sorry you suffered such an injustice,” she told him truthfully.

“Though I suppose it is fortunate for me, perhaps this is the will of Il-Whose-Blood-Filled-The-Seas?” she speculated. The Convent spent a great deal of time and effort reading horoscopes and consulting the stars to try to determine the future. Even those learned women could only discern the vaguest outlines of what was to come. They warned their students of interpreting Fate themselves, for few were disciplined enough to do so dispassionately. Of course this didn’t stop them from trying.

“Perhaps, my lady,” Torm said, looking a little uneasy. Theophanna lifted her hand from his as she realised the contact might be deemed improper.

“Orbai has enemies enough, I suspect it will not take long for you to win your spurs,” she told him. That much was true. The five sisters made up a rich wedge of southern Terriché that butted up against the semi-independent duchy of Arvin and the Imperial lands to the east. Great rivers drained them to the Middle Sea whose trade made their coastal towns wealthy and fractious. The counts of the Five Sisters warred constantly with each other, their king, the Empire, The Arch Prelate, and their own cities with equal enthusiasm, only coming together when threatened by King or Emperor. The networks of vassalage were confused and arcane and were mostly observed only when it suited. Theophanna found this chaos distasteful compared to the order of Baselia where the Emperor collected taxes and raised armies by the Grace of Il and that was that, though the environment seemed to breed Knights and Troubaders with great enthusiasm.

“It shall be my honor My Lady, I…” Torms' words were interrupted by a fanfare of trumpets out in the street. They both stood and moved to the flap of the tent, looking out into the dusty street. A party of horsemen were moving down the street, dressed in mail and bearing shields of white and blue bearing a double headed eagle.

“Is that…” Torm began

“Mommerae,” Theophanna supplied, her study of her adopted homeland’s heraldry once again proving valuable.

“The Constable of Terriché?” Torm asked, an eyebrow cocked. Theophanna nodded as the first four horsemen went passed, they were followed by an ordinary looking man with a battered face and an oft broken nose. His clothing was fine, with a gold embossed surcoat and a cloak trimmed with ermine. Jean du Cleson, the Count of Mommerae, was famous across the continent. Of relatively low birth he had risen high in the service of King Quent, fighting the continual wars that were the only way the king could command his fractious vassals. Most recently he had brought the Breton lords, an ancient and Celtified branch of the Terriché, to heal in a decade long campaign of raid, ambush, and pillage. As befitted his rank, the Constable was followed by retainers, and servants in a long column, flanked by armsmen hefting pikes or crossbows. Several women rode on palfreys, members of his household or handmaidens for his wife perhaps. A wagon brought up the rear, seeming out of place. It wasn’t ornate or decorated, but rather a simple peasants wagon dragged by two knackered looking horses. Theophanna peered at it curiously and spotted a figure laying among hastily piled hay. The figure, a man, was gravely injured, with two arms and one leg tied to splints. His face was disfigured by impressive bruises and a pressure cut across his tonsured head oozed a trail of red blood. Theophanna stiffened and covered her mouth to prevent a gasp from escaping.

“Brother Albrect,” she breathed. The man had survived the wreck of the carriage and the attention of her would-be-kidnappers, though clearly he had paid a heavy price for it. His flesh was grey and slack and sweat beaded on his battered body. Cleson’s party must have found the ruin of the carriage when they had come over the pass and rescued the stricken man. What had he told them? Did he even remember Theophanna Speaking to make her escape? She shuddered to think what a charge of sorcery might mean for her and for Orbai.

“You know him?” Torm asked in surprise.

“He was my chaperone, I thought… I thought he had died during my escape,” she confessed.

The Shattered Vow - A Chanson de geste

Tournaments were not the done thing in Basalia, at least not in the Imperial city. Amusement there tended to run to chariot or horse racing, and the annual athletic festivals which traced their origins back into the distant past. Theophanna had to admit she found it strangely thrilling. Perhaps Torm had something to do with that, though she was hesitant to admit that to herself. Each blow that was exchanged made her heart leap into her throat. She was terrified that he would lose, that he would be embarrassed after she had given him her favor but she need not have worried. The qualities of a fighting man were not something she was trained to recognise but it was obvious that Torm was a cut above the others. Perhaps they underestimated him because of his new found status but she doubted that would happen again. The bestowal of her favor marked him out as someone to beat, which might be no kindness. Well it was done now so to the Dark with it. She lifted her hands and clapped them softly and the crowd in the stands, which had been growing steadily, erupted in applause. She wasn’t quite sure but she thought she could see Torm’s cheeks color in embarrassment.

“Bravely done squire, if the rest of our men fight so valiantly Orbai will win much honor this day,” Theophanna pronounced. This raised a hearty cheer from those who owed fealty to the count, perhaps slightly stifled by the fact that the man Torm had bested was also among that company.

“To that end,” the Troubader began, picking up the queue seamlessly, “the next match will be between Civeric Cousan and Geldorf the Red!”

“Perhaps you would care to join me for breakfast to celebrate your victory?” Theophanna asked Torm. A few minutes later they were ensconced in the dining tent which at his hour was empty. Few of the servants or squires would eat before midday, breakfast beyond a crust of bread being something of a luxury. Mildred provided them with thick soft bread and a preserve of jellied apricots along with cold sausage and hot bitter tea. Theophanna longed for cofere from Arabica but such things were rare in the west, and though her husband would buy it for her it was better not to emphasize her foreign birth more than was necessary. Perhaps Aristophanna had some in store, the trading cities of Tarlia being much more cosmopolitan than Vence.

Theophanna spread some of the jam onto her bread and nibbled politely, signalling to Torm that he could begin to eat. She could tell that he was hungry by the dryness of his lips and the way his nostrils flared ever so slightly at the scent of food. The Convent prided itself on learning to read such subtle clues, though she suspected anyone who fought an armored duel at this early hour was unlikely to be overfed.

“Two feats of arms in as many days…” she began but was interrupted as the canvas flap was ripped back. Squire Gilroy all but bust into the room, glaring about him. Theophanna paused with her bread part way to her mouth and arched an expressive eyebrow at the squire.

“My lady! You cannot wander around the tournament unattended it isn’t safe who knows what might have…” the squire blurted. Theophanna held up her hand to stop him.

“You forget yourself,” she told him in a steely tone that made his eyes flash hot.

“My lady…”

“Who was it that told you I was unattended?” she demanded. Gilroy mastered himself after a moment.

“The armsmen my lady…”

“The armsmen who were… attending me?” she suggested. Gilroy scowled and tossed his mane of hair. Doubtless he thought this made him look dashing but to Theophanna he looked more like a horse attempting to dissuade a fly.

“Simple men at arms are not adequate escorts for a Countess of Orbai!” Gilroy blustered.

“Fortunately I seem to be adequately escorted now,” Theophanna said, gesturing to Torm with her bread. Gilroy’s eyes seemed to spot the other squire for the first time, widening with surprise and then narrowing with dislike.

“Him but he is…”

“A squire just like yourself?” Theophanna suggested, “no doubt he will be sufficient to ward off any attempt my breakfast makes on my life?”

“But he is unproven and…”

“Gilroy, I would counsel you against calling a man who just yesterday saved my life and this morning prevailed in single combat ‘unproven’,” Theophanna advised. The squire stammered but could apparently find no reply to the gentle rebuke.

“If you believe Torm to be insufficient to see to my protection, then by all means join us for breakfast,” she suggested. Gilroy hesitated, then he shot Torm a poisonous look before bowing and ducking out of the tent. No doubt he would immediately run to her husband to complain of his injured ego but he couldn’t argue he was better protection than Torm without insulting his fellow squire. Theophanna took a bite of her bread and chewed for a moment before returning her attention to Torm.

“I was about to ask you where you learned to fight, I was twiting Gilroy but two victories in as many days is impressive,” she confessed.

Cogs in the Wheel: WoT RP

Zoya’s lips pursed in sour disapproval as the gleeman sang on, winding through the dire and ancient verses. The serving maid returned and set down two plates of mutton, long slender shanks served in a heavily herbed gravy. Rough brown bread baked into fist sized loaves accompanied it, along with stringy looking potatoes and vegetables. Zoya was absolutely certain that Maddy’s table would have been better provisioned and safer besides but that battle had already been lost.

“It is the Ley of Lanfear,” Zoya told him quietly as she tore her bread in half and began sopping up gravy and popping it into her mouth. Some Aes Sedai became picky eaters after they got out of their long novitiates but Zoya had never lost the urchin's instinct to eat while and what one could.

“The Forsaken?” Davian asked in some alarm. Zoya wished she could say something witty, like ‘no, the chambermaid,’ but her oaths prevented her from such petty rhetorical satisfaction. Instead she contented herself with nodding.
“Rumor has it the original verse was composed by Asmodean himself, though to be honest I dont find Shelli’s analysis of the timber to be altogether…” she trailed off, pushing aside the pleasant nostalgia of the Brown Ajah’s endless debates on ancient texts.

“You sometimes hear it though usually it is the purview of… more elevated individuals. Dissolute nobles or those who consider themselves philosophers,” she told him. There was an attraction to that way of thinking, who wouldn’t want to know what the ancients had said and what they had said of themselves. Little writing survived that was attributed to the Foresaken themselves. In her darker moments Zoya wondered about that. There was so little material pertaining to those Ancient Aes Sedai, and yet they must have been the most talked about figures of their age. Could they or their agents be deliberately purging knowledge of themselves? There was no way to know.

“I cannot imagine it is a very wise choice of song,” she said at last. “Not with Whitecloaks on the prowl.”

The Shattered Vow - A Chanson de geste

The procession made rather poor viewing. Most of the soldiery participating was either too old, too young, or simply indifferent at the profession of arms. Poor men, or those lacking place, were not to be despised, but to Theophanna’s eyes Torm stood out amidst the pack. She wondered what it was he had done to be cast aside by his previous master. She supposed she should have looked into that before suggesting Sigfried made him a squire but truthfully she couldn’t imagine it would matter. Each man turned and bowed to her, leather creaking and chainmail clinking. She didn’t really know she was going to do it until Torm took his bow. She stood up and the troubadour froze his incessant dogerel, Mildreth gasped and both her armsmen glared around as though there might be some threat.

“Step forward squire,” she called to Torm. There was a slight murmuring from the crowd but Torm did as he was bid, his face determinedly blank despite the surprise he must have been feeling. Because of the stand he was looking up at her despite the fact he was close to a head taller than she. Theophanna drew a silken handkerchief from her sleeve and shook it out in the clear morning air. It was a silvery white, stitched with the martlets of the county of Orbai. She extended her arm then let the cloth fall, it floated lazily down and Torm reached up and grabbed it, clearly wondering if she had dropped it by accident.

“You may carry my favor today,” she declared grandly. This earned more gasps. It was far from unheard of for a knight to carry a particular ladies favor into the lists, but usually at the joust or at the arena of champions. It was even done, occasionally, by archers, though the Tirreche tended to look down on archer as a coarser and commoner pursuit than the lance or the sword. It was very unusual for the sourdough field to see such a display however and it clearly took Torm a moment to realise what was happening. Perhaps he had not seen many tournaments in which the high nobility took part?

The Shattered Vow - A Chanson de geste