Who: Matilda, Alexander, Bruno, Liberty What: Matilda wants to see the person in charge! Where: Alexander's office When: Saturday morning
This day was improving, thought Matilda. It wouldn't take much for it to be better than the night that proceeded it, where she had slept on the ground, trying to keep her little daughter close and warm, alone and adrift in a strange land. With dawn breaking, she had resolved to do something about her situation, and that was why she had persevered until she made some sense of the strange metal scribing tool that she had found hanging from her belt. Then she had found Bruno, the Hiberian, and he had spoken Pretannic, and wasn't that a bit of good luck?
Now she would see this Lord Hamilton, and what was meant by all this, and they would find a way home one way or another. Matilda was aware that it might not be immediate, but if he was going to keep her here, for whatever peculiar reasons he had, then at the very least he should tell them what was truly happening. And feed Loretta. The girl was only four, and Matilda had nothing left to give her.
It didn't escape her notice how different everything was. She accepted that she was in a foreign place, and not one she might readily travel out from, like Gaul or Hiberia. She knew that there was more to what had happened to her than a simple transportation across countries – and yet Matilda reasoned that there had to be some logic to it, that people here were the same as people there, and actions had reasons behind them.
When Bruno led her into the office, then, Matilda had already decided upon her course of action. She dipped down in a small curtsey – respectful, without being obsequious, because she was lady of Cheverel herself and did not know how this man compared, but flattery in this particular situation didn't seem like it would go amiss. Loretta, at her side, gave a wobbly imitation. Matilda's dress was very clearly out-of-time – a square-necked kirtle with a sleeveless surcoat on top, and a thin white veil pinned to her hair, but leaving braiding visible at the front. The clothes were of good quality wool, and well-made, but also fairly well-worn, and creased from being slept in. The child's dress was almost identical, save that she went bare-headed, and there was a long string of fabric dangling from one shoulder.
'Lord Hamilton?' she began to question, but then stopped, taking a proper look at the man before her. Why, he had to be the kinsman of this Bruno who had brought her here? And what did that mean? There was some trickery going on here, yet another layer of it, and Matilda was struggling to think through all the possible implications.