Iron, Rags and Bones

Iron, Rags and Bones

Postby Cherny » Thu Nov 14, 2013 12:17 pm

Not long ago - a half-year, perhaps - Myrkentown's north gate had been surrounded by a rude sprawl of of primitive dwellings. Tents and shanties, ramshackle shelters without order or forethought, clustered like flotsam against the town wall; home to those too impoverished even for the town's poor districts - refugees from Derry, for the most part, their numbers swelled after the eventual fall of Wrexham. An eyesore, a blight, shabby and stinking and pestilent and thus - in every particular - anathema to the Lady Rhaena.

This being the case, the Foundation had turned its considerable resources to addressing the problem, working a change upon the refugee settlement even as the Lady herself wrought more insidious changes upon Myrken society. The Foundation's coffers funded the purchase of timber and craftsmen, and over the long, hot summer the tents and lean-tos were cleared away, replaced with something altogether more lovely.

Now neat little rows of timber-frame cottages line the road between the town gates and the fork where Trapper's Folly joins the North Passage down. Simple dwellings that might be called charming with their whitewashed walls and shingle roofs. Each has its own little patch of ground - nothing so grand as to be considered a garden, but perhaps enough for a few vegetables or a splash of flowers - with a tidy picket fence dividing it from its neighbours. There are signs of pride here and there - a scrap of bright fabric at a window, a touch of paint to distinguish one house from those to either side. Mere months ago people here had next to nothing; now, thanks to the Lady, they at least have a place.

Squire to the Lady's knight, Cherny knows these houses well. He spent a good part of the summer here, helping carpenters and joiners in their work, fetching buckets of nails or stacks of shingles, working alongside hired labourers and the refugees themselves, learning bits and pieces of a half-dozen trades. He knows the people, has picked up the scraps of their stories they've deigned to share, has listened to countless variations on a common theme of loss, hunger, displacement, their homes lost, abandoned or stolen from them.

Jenifry Toll is one such example: a lady for all that she now lives in greatly reduced circumstances; a widow, her husband a captain of cavalry - a decent man of respectable breeding, among the first to ride against the Thessil invaders, and to die in fire and horror; a mother, fiercely protective of her three children, still haunted by the loss of her youngest in the years of occupation.

Cherny has come to know her, in the weeks that he has been visiting her home; he has learned to respect her quiet dignity, her insistence upon seeing things done correctly, her determination to see her children raised well, no matter what. He has come to appreciate her character, and in particular the principles which led to her taking in Sir Elliot Gahald in the aftermath of the Lady's fall, and doing her best to tend to his wounds. To the squire she has explained that she is indebted to the knight and his Lady for everything her family now has - a house, a home, a place - and it is thus only proper that she do what she can to help the knight, now that he needs it.

Cherny, in turn, has done the best he can to see that she and her family are not made to pay for that kindness, even as his visits became more frequent, bringing medicines for the ailing knight and food for his hosts; he has taken care to vary his routes, the time of day in which he arrives and departs; he has done his best to see that he goes unnoticed and unremarked to and from the little house. But he is still just a boy, and even with the advice of Rememdium healers and town apothecaries there are limits to what he can do for Sir Gahald in his sickness.

Now, at last, he has sought help; he has gambled not only with the life of the knight, but the lives of the small and broken family who have harboured him in the weeks of unrest in which the Lady's servants have been strung from trees in the name of reckoning. A calculated risk, but a risk nonetheless.

Three hours he's been given to make the knight ready to move, and has worried over every minute since. He's done what little he can to prepare: the knight's vibrant armour, now battered and broken, gathered into a sack with his other effects; Sera Toll and her children have gone to visit a neighbour for the afternoon, leaving knight and squire alone to wait. The younger boy fidgets restlessly, dark gaze turning to the door at every rattle of wheels or clatter of hooves on the road outside.

"N-not long now, ser." A whispered assurance offered for the fifth or six time since the Tolls departed, as much to break the tense silence as to reassure Sir Gahald. "Things'll b-be alright. You'll s-see."
User avatar
Cherny
Founder
 
Posts: 383
Joined: Sat Nov 17, 2012 8:34 am

Re: Iron, Rags and Bones

Postby Carnath-Emory » Thu Nov 14, 2013 2:24 pm

"If tha's not the prettiest thing you've never seen..."

It might be the most roundabout path that a cart's taken through Myrkentown since that night all those years ago when the Gaol collapsed in flames. No-one had wanted to go near it; no-one had wanted to think about it, but while it's a challenge to collectively forget the presence of a smoking, black gout stuck right into the middle of everything, the necessity of diverting of traffic around the thing had made a difficult task downright impossible. Still, it's been a good hour of trundling this cart down Myrkentown cobblestones, by the time they cross the fork at Trapper's.

All things being equal, there are probably worse ways to pass an evening.

"Downright scenic. Y'don't think?" Rulf and Terryn: the one manages a farm just outside of Myrkentown proper, and his is the cart that they're riding today; the other has a cousin in what used to be the slums. His wife's cousin, he'd explained in his careful way, at one point during their unlikely journey, his wife's, and they'd have taken the whole family in, if not for having but two rooms between them already, and being that his cousin has more children than his farm has chickens -

This was, he'd allowed a little later, perhaps something of an exaggeration.

All the same, he is not entirely unfamiliar with the improvements that the Foundation had wrought upon what used to be the slums - and isn't, anymore, by any reasonable sort of reckoning. Oh, let the toffs in the town say what they will, but there's no denying the fact that there are more reliable roofs to be found past Trapper's than a man might expect to see in the Hollows; it's not difficult at all to imagine that a woman might walk these streets an hour past dusk and do it unmolested even by the sort of pickpockets that are rife along Weaver's, and in the very town Square. Being halfway familiar with the Foundation's work here, his answer's little more than a distracted grunt - a bit of whittling between his hands, and he's been at it during most of their ride - but he's turned an appreciative eye now and then towards Rulf's frank approval, and raised not a word in argument.

It's simpler going, once they've crossed into the district proper: less need for round-about measures, every opportunity to be lost amongst the late-afternoon traffic of bodies and livestock and carts just as weathered as their own. They do not draw back their fraying hoods - not even when they've reached the street which was named for them, not even when they sight the door which is their destination - but theirs is a direct enough approach, now that it can be, and upon rattling to a halt near the Toll woman's door, tall Rulf does not hesitate to slide down from his seat. There's a basket slung over his arm - courtesy of Terryn's young wife and every inch looking it - and at that door he knocks thrice; pauses a beat and knocks a fourth. They'd told him that. Three and then one, and then there'll be a word -

Back at the cart waits Terryn himself, hooded yet and quietly vigilant.
What waits beneath his seat is not the sort of weapon that a farmer might be expected to carry.
User avatar
Carnath-Emory
Member
 
Posts: 2531
Joined: Tue Dec 10, 2002 5:00 am
Location: Under your bed.

Re: Iron, Rags and Bones

Postby Cherny » Thu Nov 14, 2013 3:08 pm

It wasn't the clatter of the cart - head tilting slightly as he listens - that alerted him, but that it had stopped, and outside the cottage. That was enough to have the squire creeping towards the door, even as a shadow fell across it, darkening the blade-thin slivers of light around its edges. He presses a finger needlessly to his lips for Sir Elliot's benefit; silent, hardly daring breathe, instead straining to hear anything that might give away the nature of this visitor, that might confirm--

He flinches visibly at the rap of knuckles from without, a convulsive jump and some small, choked gasp of startlement as the silence is broken, and it takes him a moment to gather his wits again, to find his words. Three and then one.

"Who's th--"

No, that's not it; he takes the opportunity of correcting himself to draw a deeper breath, to steady himself, to maybe sound a bit less like a frightened child.

"Who kn-knocks?" Deeper, perhaps comically so; hoarse, his throat incapable of creating anything else, even when he's not wracked with nerves. With luck it might be considered gruff, if the visitor is somewhat hard of hearing or not paying much attention. In the meantime he sets a thin shoulder against the door, as if that might in any way slow a determined intruder, and tries unsuccessfully to squint through the narrow gap between boards and frame.
User avatar
Cherny
Founder
 
Posts: 383
Joined: Sat Nov 17, 2012 8:34 am

Re: Iron, Rags and Bones

Postby Carnath-Emory » Thu Nov 14, 2013 3:30 pm

It's a farmer's long patience, that waits outside that door. Easy with cattle - he'd learned that at his father's knee; inclined to leave the chasing of stray chickens to his bevy of energetic nephews. The boy inside - and this is not childrens' business, by his understanding, but they've been somehow saddled with it all the same - may take as much time as he pleases, although as one minute wears into the next, the fellow who'd stayed with the cart begins to display a trace of restless caution. A glance back across his shoulder, towards the narrow street and its few pedestrians; another to the door, slightly frowning -

"It's the - uh." Suddenly gruff, that voice on the other side of the door. Gruff, or mostly trying to be, at least, and either that had thrown him or his memory was something other than superb to begin with. "It's us, you silly - " An furtive beckons from the cart; a silently-mouthed phrase, shaped with the sort of exaggeration ordinarily practiced by the mummers down near marketplace. A thin snort emits from within Rulf's tattered hood, but when he speaks again it's to carefully pronounce: "It's the rag-and-bone men."

A pause.

"With a bit of somethin' for the missus and, understand, it's gettin' a touch cold out here, lad." A glance back towards the street and the impatient Rulf. "If y'catch my drift."
User avatar
Carnath-Emory
Member
 
Posts: 2531
Joined: Tue Dec 10, 2002 5:00 am
Location: Under your bed.

Re: Iron, Rags and Bones

Postby Cherny » Thu Nov 14, 2013 4:30 pm

A stupid passphrase, he's had time to realise, in the hours between suggestion and use. It had seemed a cunning ruse when he'd proposed it to the Marshall, given that they'd be bringing a cart, see, and the rag-pickers - well, the more successful of them - often go trundling up and down Myrkentown's streets on carts. But why would such a successful rag-and-bone man ply his trade here, where the people hardly have anything to throw away, let alone anything amongst that refuse worth scavenging?

Still, it's correct, or correct enough to have the door opening a couple of inches - no rattle of a drawn bolt, not even the click of a latch, and Terryn might have to drop his gaze before he spies the dark eye that regards him with a wary caution from that slice of dimly-lit room. Just for a moment, and the gap widens barely enough to allow the farmer entrance before relenting and swinging properly open. A glance out onto the street for the cart and its restless attendant, and then the boy - for it is a boy, and not a particularly imposing one, mailshirt and Militia coat notwithstanding - steps back, features pale and anxious.

"I h-had to be sure, s-ser." Apologetic, and manifestly unsure how to proceed now that the man has provided his identification, and it's that basket that catches his eye next. Somethin' for the missus.

"She's n-not here, I, I said they m-might be better g-going out. In case s-something happened." Whirling thoughts already coming up with reasons this was a bad decision on his part, and which has doomed their efforts to disaster. He struggles to drag in a deep breath before he recalls the actual focus of the entire operation, and hastens to the side of the pallet where Sir Elliot lies, drifting in and out of a drugged and fevered sleep.

"H-here, ser. He, he's n-not well - he g-got a wound, it's not h-healed and, and he's got s-sick off it, it w-won't close up right." Nervous chatter, explaining, over-explaining, more information is really needed. "I've b-been giving him t-tea and, and medicine l-like at the R-rememdium, but he's n-not been getting better." Frustration at that last, and a helpless shrug with it; something like quiet desperation in the gaze he turns to the man, as if this stoic farmer has the power to fix it all.

"He, he h-has to get better, s-ser." Quieter, as he looks away, to the basket, to the Toll family's meager possessions here and there about the room. "I need h-him to get b-better."
User avatar
Cherny
Founder
 
Posts: 383
Joined: Sat Nov 17, 2012 8:34 am

Re: Iron, Rags and Bones

Postby Carnath-Emory » Thu Nov 14, 2013 5:04 pm

The Marshall hadn't known better; the farmer had simply felt a little silly, on pronouncing it. This cloak-and-dagger business, he'd always felt - not unlike Terryn, as it happens, who's growing increasingly uncomfortable in his very exposed perch - is best left to the Inquisitors, who know the game and rather relish practicing it. But here they are, and here this boy is - boy, he'd found, on looking all the way down there - and what's to be done but muck through it as best they can?

It only takes one look at what's sweating back there on the pallet to know that the task's more serious than this business of passwords and ladies' baskets would seem to suggest.

"C'mon, son. Inside, eh?" With a big hand to usher the boy in just that direction, and a beckons for Terryn besides, but it's not until they're well into the relative privacy of this home that he takes careful stock of the lad. Small, inside all that 'mail. Huge eyes wearing all the urgency that you'd expect, considering. Rid him of all that Militia motley, stand him on a corner in the Hollows: he'd be a good match for any of little scraps that run the streets down there. Begs a question, really. More than one, and he's glad enough, all things considered, not to be the one wrestling with them. Some things just don't bear thinking long upon.

Here's the basket, anyhow, shoved at the boy with all the awkwardness of a man who's glad to be rid of the thing. "There, see? Few bits and odds for the lady o'the house; you'll see that she gets it, now, won't you? 'less you're intending to come with us, and I suppose - " A glance back towards Terryn, whose entrance had allowed a gust of evening cool into the place; Terryn, hooded and equipped with something not much shorter than he. "We've enough room in the back for an extra?" And on receiving a nod, offers an equable shrug of the shoulders to Cherny himself. "Well, then - "

And pauses, when the boy begins to explain.

There is a point, during this anxious narrative, at which the two men exchange a silent glance. It prompts the slighter of the pair into quiet industry: dark-eyed Terryn, attentive by that pallet and its sickly occupant, and there on the floor he arranges the makeshift stretcher he'd brought inside with him. There is a point, a very few moments later, in which Rulf sets his hand upon the boy's small shoulder as firmly as he would a nephew's. "Now, son." Quietly, now, and not without some gentleness. "No call t'be winding y'self up, is it. The Rememdium's where we're takin' him, and directly - you set there, Terryn?" A nod, one man to the other, all the way across the room. "You've done right by him, eh? You've done right and good. An' the Rememdium'll see him well repaired.

"Here, now," and they make quick work of it, the two of them, when Rulf joins his partner by Elliot's side. The wounded knight, lifted between them on a count of three - that superstition's never died - and transferred onto tight-strung fabric; lifted a second time then, and more gently than the first, for their parade towards

"Get that for us, lad, there's a good boy."

the door.
User avatar
Carnath-Emory
Member
 
Posts: 2531
Joined: Tue Dec 10, 2002 5:00 am
Location: Under your bed.

Re: Iron, Rags and Bones

Postby Cherny » Fri Nov 15, 2013 1:51 am

Two men and a boy and the room already seems crowded, not even counting the young man on his pallet; the air is a soup of smells, woodsmoke and cooking and too many people in too small a space - and beneath it all the sharp stink of stale fever-sweat mingles with the ghosts of boiled herbs. Sera Toll runs a clean house, but there are limits.

The basket is a welcome distraction, and the boy lugs it over to the simple trestle table over to one side - Sera Toll had bartered the joiner a week's laundering for that, and the man's shirts had never been cleaner before or since - with a brief peek under the cloth. Curiosity interrupted by the suggestion that he might not be accompanying them - a sharp and panicked look at that, breath drawn to protest even as they agree that he'll be able to go after all. He nods at Rulf's reassurances, doing his best to heed the man's warning against winding himself up, and a few slow and deliberate breaths go some way towards that.

"I, I'm g-going with him, ser." Firm on that point, and there's a willingness to put up a fight if anyone might suggest otherwise. For the moment, while the pair of them work at transferring the knight from pallet to stretcher, he scrabbles in his satchel for a scrap of paper - here, on the back of some scavenged pamphlet or flyer - and nub of charcoal, and with uneven letters scrawls hasty gratitude and explanation for the lady of the house when she returns. Time enough to tuck it into the edge of the basket where it'll be found, and then he's being called on to see to the door.

They'll have to bear with the boy for just a moment as he fusses over the knight's blankets - tucking them more closely about his neck, tugging at them so there's not so much of the youth's face visible - before he pulls the door wide, with a wary and furtive glance up and down the street, then to a rooftop across the way.

"Th-there's no one l-looking." Striving to be steadfast, to emulate the stoicism of the two men, with mixed success. One more glance for the house, the room, keen to see that it's not left in disarray, and it's only at the last minute, once they're on their way to the cart. When he finally emerges into the daylight, pulling the door firmly closed behind him, it's with a bulky sack over one shoulder.
User avatar
Cherny
Founder
 
Posts: 383
Joined: Sat Nov 17, 2012 8:34 am

Re: Iron, Rags and Bones

Postby Carnath-Emory » Fri Nov 15, 2013 2:54 am

It gets a little awkward, there by the door. Some issue of a narrow doorway and a broad-shouldered farmer's son, and that's before the boy complicates matters with his approach. A bit of jostling, a bit of re-positioning; the odd "Bloody hell, Rulf," grunted beneath the younger man's breath, and "Easy now, y'daft - " from the other. But they manage well enough, all things considered, and if there's a truly strange note amongst any of this, it's simply the fact that two men twice his age had waited for that keen-eyed boy's go-ahead before starting out onto the street.

Behind them, they leave the note that Cherny had penned and a basket filled with goods - round loaves of bread and little sacks of meal; an assortment of small vegetables and some salt-cured meats; the tiny luxury of a dozen rashers of bacon, wax-paper wrapped and sequestered carefully away from a small selection of fruits; beneath the lot of it, a flattened drawstring pouch. This, and a door carefully-closed in their wake, and not before: "Bring his things, if he's got any," tall Terryn advises quietly. "He'll not be returning here, not 'fore this has quieted down some." But the boy's emerged with a sack slung over his shoulder, and perhaps that's that after all.

Quick as they safely can be, there at the back of the cart. When two pale hands emerge from amongst the curtaining fabric, Terryn passes his share of the load into their grip. The challenge is to see this done quickly, before idle eyes can begin to take an interest in a cart-load of unusual dimensions; the trick is to do it with a minimum of upset for the ailing knight. But having slid him into the waiting shadows, stretcher and all, both men take their places again upon the cart's splintered bench: Terryn has the reins this time, and Cherny will be left to clamber into the back as best he can, scattered straw for his seat and all of it dimly lit by what light filters through the curtaining canvas.

"Rag-and-bone men," grins the man who'd surrendered the reins. "Yeah?" With a glance for Terryn, and an elbow for his ribs besides. "Yeah?" And the younger man gives out a short, sharp laugh -

A tug at the reins lurches the cart into rattling motion
User avatar
Carnath-Emory
Member
 
Posts: 2531
Joined: Tue Dec 10, 2002 5:00 am
Location: Under your bed.

Re: Iron, Rags and Bones

Postby Cherny » Fri Nov 15, 2013 10:16 am

The two men have things well in hand, but that's hardly enough to discourage the boy from wanting to assist, hovering anxiously beside the stretcher as it's carried to the cart; that his attention's divided between the little procession and the mostly-empty street doesn't improve matters, and he manages to make of himself as much a nuisance as a help. He doesn't quite presume enough to insist that the men take care or look out or go gently, not when his every glance and gesture speaks such warnings for him.

The knight is loaded onto the back of the covered cart - a moment of startlement there at the extra pair of hands, but Rulf and Terryn don't seem bothered by it so he can only assume this presence of a third body is part of the plan - and barely has the older man relinquished his hold on the stretcher but Cherny's climbing up after it, shoving a sack that rattles like pots and pans ahead of him.

He's time enough for his eyes to adjust to the gloom once the cart's under way, even before the cart's under way he crawls to find a place at his knight's side, the better to keep watch over him as they begin to roll slowly down the road; every rattle and jerk of the vehicle has him wincing and leaning to check on Sir Elliot's condition, his hands fluttering here and there to brace the stretcher against the cartbed, to adjust the knight's blankets or dab a cloth to his brow.

Only once he has assured himself a good half-dozen times that the youth is comfortable - or at the very least oblivious to discomfort - does he sit back; swaying and nodding with the cart's motion, he at last turns his attention to the figure of the third rag-and-bone man, dark eyes wide and watchful in the poor light.
User avatar
Cherny
Founder
 
Posts: 383
Joined: Sat Nov 17, 2012 8:34 am

Re: Iron, Rags and Bones

Postby Carnath-Emory » Fri Nov 15, 2013 12:32 pm

They were tolerant of the boy's efforts. Until the point at which he threatened to become less less useful than underfoot, and then it was a bushy-browed frown from the one, and an occasional nudge of the elbow from the other, until they'd all sorted themselves out and the ailing knight was safely situated -

It's so quiet, in here. When the curtains fall closed, and even when the rickety cart lurches into motion; it's so dark. Before the eyes begin to adjust to the gloom, and everywhere the sweet-musty scent of scattered straw and old, old wood, and after a while he'll be able to track the passing of buildings by the light they obscure all the way outside. There's not much of it, even so: precious little, filtering in through the hessian's slack weave, through the tiny nicks and tears of old, long use, and that frayed patch by his shoulder where something's worn the fabric thin. A fanciful boy might begin to think, after a while, that it looks like some gloomy night sky, peppered with twinkling stars - except that this boy's equipped with an acutely-caring heart, and what lays upon the stretcher by his feet is a friend, a knight, a teacher, that's quietly suffering even now.

Something else, as well. Beneath notice, in those first moments before they began to move, but lately unfolding from the hay-bales stacked near the back of this space. A slightly awkward sprawl of limbs - Cherny's small, but so is the space they occupy, and there's some maneuvering to accommodate the sack that the boy brought with him and a knight who requires all the room they can allow, but:

"Well done."

The head bends, to make a squinting examination of Elliot's features. A lean of the arm touches the inner of one wrist to his brow, perhaps to test the degree to which his skin burns. The cart lurches to an unsteady halt - a hand thrust out to catch a hold of something steady - and dimly, he'll hear the driver's complaint: "Oh, c'mon - "

A distant whistle. A lowing of cattle in answer, dim silhouettes flanking the evening cobblestones.
User avatar
Carnath-Emory
Member
 
Posts: 2531
Joined: Tue Dec 10, 2002 5:00 am
Location: Under your bed.

Re: Iron, Rags and Bones

Postby Cherny » Fri Nov 15, 2013 1:36 pm

Not long ago he shared Rulf's frustration with delay, had paced the scrubbed floorboards of Sera Toll's house, wishing for the promised three hours to pass and at the same time dreading the moment when they had. Here, in the cart's muffled shadows, there's something like forebearance, or perhaps surrender - Sir Elliot is on his way to the Rememdium, and his squire with him; as long as that holds true, and as long as the knight keeps breathing, all else is a triviality.

Outside, the people of Myrkentown go about their business; within, shielded by weathered cloth and age-smoothed planks, there is perhaps time to pause, to breathe, to rest - if only because there's not much else to do, once it's been confirmed that the knight's condition isn't worsened by the journey. So he waits, as still as can be managed in the back of that clattering wagon, listening to the street-noises that seep through the awning.

Those words - any words - are unexpected, and his head turns sharply towards their source, discernable as little more than a darker shape in the dimness, a shifting of limbs to draw nearer to the knight's side. Tension grips the boy's spine - watchful and suspicious, even here, even now - following the indistinct movement of pale hands in case foul play should ensue. Eventually, though, he nods, slumping back against side of the cart, huddling deeper into his outsized coat.

"He's n-not there yet." A note of caution, of pessimism that is pure Myrken, an absolute refusal to count chickens until they are hatched, grown, plucked and in the pot - a mistrust that may yet be borne out as the cart is brought to an abrupt stop. He listens intently as the men up front grumble idly to one another; not to them, nor even to the beasts that plod and huff their way past, but to the more distant chatter of hoarse voices from the rooftops and chimneys above.

A few moments and he releases a breath he'd been hardly aware of holding, apparently reassured; nothing to worry about, nothing to fear for now. A glance for the knight, then for the shadowed figure.

"We, we'll g-get there."

As much for his own benefit as any of his companions.
User avatar
Cherny
Founder
 
Posts: 383
Joined: Sat Nov 17, 2012 8:34 am

Re: Iron, Rags and Bones

Postby Carnath-Emory » Sat Nov 16, 2013 4:53 am

Pleasantries, up front. Pleasant, that is, if a person's willing to overlook the thinly-veiled frustration that's begun to creep into Terryn's voice.

"Mm." Here - in this dim interior, a thoughtful sound from a thing half-lost within its hood and heavy jacket. But a lifted hand forestalls anything like proper conversation, and the hooded head tilts in explanation towards the front of the cart, where a cattleman's attempts at conversation are withering again and again beneath a driver's impatience and the demonstrated disinterest of a Rulf that's already returned to his whittling. Clever boy that he is, Cherny might even discern the exact moment in which the pedestrian finally realises that his cattle are better company than this, and abandons the whole thing as a bad idea -

The cart sways into rattling motion.

"Not to worry." The voice is not quite what it ought to be. Their quietness is to account for some of that: whispers in the gloom, half-heard over the creaking rattle of wooden wheels upon cobblestones. Perhaps it's that, for a narrow flask is produced from within that jacket, but this first silent sip from it does little to improve the throat. "Your part in this is done." One boot braced against one of the hay bales; back slumping against the other. "Ours, now. We'll see him safe."

And that will be all the conversation he finds, for of Cherny's company in here, the one is not forthcoming and the other is simply not capable. It's an opportunity, perhaps, for a very anxious boy to rest; for some of that strain to wash from his shoulders and his thoughts. The cart's rickety sway is almost lulling. There are worse things than hay to cushion one's head. And at the reins, two men had argued only very briefly before deciding to make their return direct.

Cobblestones give 'way to hard-packed dirt, the bustling traffic and sometimes-stench of town becomes the gentle quiet of wooded roads. Catch, were he here, might have recognised the Rememdium by its scent alone, and well before they arrived at its doors; Cherny will know, unmistakably, when the cart rattles to a halt, and its driver slaps a hand twice against its weathered side.
User avatar
Carnath-Emory
Member
 
Posts: 2531
Joined: Tue Dec 10, 2002 5:00 am
Location: Under your bed.

Re: Iron, Rags and Bones

Postby Cherny » Sat Nov 16, 2013 6:09 am

A hush, in which the cattleman gives up on gossip and gets on his way home; in which a boy listens, but not to the men's voices outside.

Subdued reassurances follow, though there is something in them that does little to comfort the squire, instead sparking some small defiance in his features, a keener stare as he works to penetrate that hood's shadows, something obstinate in the set of his mouth.

"I'm s-staying withhim." Very nearly a challenge. Stubborn refusal to abandon his post here, at his knight's side; he'll not hand the youth over entirely, not in his condition. He's put his faith in the Marshall's word so far, but there are limits to that trust. Not through any fault of hers, of course, but if nothing else the summer has been a lesson in precisely how far may rely on others.

So, a quiet ride through town and out again, a change in the wagon's tune, and finally - at last, they roll to a halt that marks their arrival. The boy is quick enough to push his way through the awning flaps and clamber from the cart, dragging that sack behind him with a muffled clatter; a glance for the Rememdium rooftop, for the trees, before he moves to stand close by the tailboard, wise enough to let the others lift down the stretcher itself.

Not long, now, before the young knight is under the healers' care; not long before he might begin his recovery, such is the boy's faith in their tonics and treatments. And yet he remains watchful, fiercely vigilant, and they'll be hard pressed to keep him more than a yard or so from Sir Elliot's side.
User avatar
Cherny
Founder
 
Posts: 383
Joined: Sat Nov 17, 2012 8:34 am

Re: Iron, Rags and Bones

Postby Carnath-Emory » Sat Nov 16, 2013 7:25 am

Everything changes, when they reach the Rememdium

Before they've quite drawn to a swaying halt, one of the men has swung down from his seat, and it's his hand which flings back the loose curtains, admitting evening light into their gloomy confine - and prompting a sudden bark of laughter, when the boy comes quickly out. Fresh air floods, and a tumble of sight and motion: there's Rulf, finished seeing to the horses and abandoning any pretense towards guile when he puts two fingers between his lips and whistles for the attention of the staff. Here's a head peeked between half-parted doors, nodding but once before letting them both fall closed again; inside the cart proper, Cherny's hooded companion is unfolding from that awkward recline and easing past the supine knight, sliding to the ground and stumbling twice in the midst of doing it.

An impatient hand brushes Terryn's away.

"A'ight now, son." Rulf, who's grasped the middle of the stretcher and begun to drag it free. "S'ppose you'll be comin' with, yeah? See if y'can't - " A grunt as the thing comes free, maneuvered quickly between he and the other man. " - make y'self useful with the doors." For that's their clear destination, and the third of their number had already vanished into the building proper, those doors swinging closed again swiftly after. But leaving the town behind them had simplified everything: the two men are all quick, efficient movement now - the moreso with Cherny's assistance - and awaiting them inside is a scattering of staff and a room already prepared.

Voices: so many of them, in the wake of that quiet journey. So many, but they're generally as hushed as one might expect from the place; even Rulf's lowered his tone somewhat, and the small room remains crowded only until they have the knight gently into his bed. Over there, just past the doorway, their third lowers its hood: a tumble of dark hair, a glimpse of bloodshot eyes, and Terryn's answer to the folded note that she hands him is little more than an acknowledging grunt, a short nod of the head as he turns to leave.
User avatar
Carnath-Emory
Member
 
Posts: 2531
Joined: Tue Dec 10, 2002 5:00 am
Location: Under your bed.

Re: Iron, Rags and Bones

Postby Cherny » Sat Nov 16, 2013 8:52 am

The boy does as he's told, for the most part - managing to make himself less of a nuisance than he'd been during the loading of the cart, now that the transfer from cottage to house of healing is nearly done.

A nod to confirm Rulf's assumption, pale features solemn, resolute, entirely intent on seeing Sir Elliot safe. He's there with a hand to steady the stretcher, darting ahead to hold the door or urge people politely but resolutely aside if they look likely to slow the bearers' progress, or less politely with a bump of that bulky sack if they take longer than he deems necessary.

Inside, then; he knows these corridors, knows the sharp scents of herbs and ointments and other, more human odours beneath. He knows the murmur of subdued voices as the staff confer; some of them recognising the boy from the winter before and greeting him in passing, inquiring after his health - he's well, thank you, healed up fine, but his answers are brief, distracted.

"He's a w-wound in his s-side," he explains insistently across the last. "h-his armour got - it c-cut him, and it's n-not healed. He's h-had a, a fever for w-weeks." He falters as this news receives a susurruss of consternation from those listening. He recites a list of treatments, memorised - healing herbs, their doses and preparations; hyssop and arnica, yarrow and comfrey, a botanical litany to cool a fever or to ease pain; rinses of watered wine and poultices to draw out the infection, clean dressings at certain times, exposure to the air at others. One of the nurses remembers, now, how he'd made a pest of himself after the troubles in town - he'd been asking on the knight's behalf? A nod at that, but only a helpless shrug when another healer demands to know why the knight hadn't been brought in sooner - weeks!

The squire beats a miserable retreat from the hubbub around Sir Elliot's bed soon after, pushed out by a huddle of physicks and surgeons, berated too many times for placing himself underfoot. Back against the wall, then, hunched into his coat and watching for glimpses of the knight in between the bustling attendants, he finds himself not far away from the third passenger - a passing glance, then a second, with a mingling of curiosity and concern.

"Y-you look sick your, yourself, s-sera."
User avatar
Cherny
Founder
 
Posts: 383
Joined: Sat Nov 17, 2012 8:34 am

Next

Return to Myrkentown



Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 6 guests

cron