lanternsdance (lanternsdance) wrote in writing_101, @ 2008-11-08 15:13:00 |
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Hey all,
Sorry for just stumbling in blindly without lurking for a bit as I normally do but I was wondering if I could get a bit of help. I’m working on a longer, more complexed, story then I normally am and would very much like to get on going with it. However, I’m having some difficulty connecting what, exactly, a reader would know from the first ‘chapter’. As most of you know, the building and lead up of a story is very important (second to characterization in my opinion) and if I can’t see what other’s are seeing I just don’t feel like I can continue.
I’ve also had a tendency to ramble at people so finding a couple of people I know won’t temper crit for me and haven’t read the story already has been…difficult.
So, I’d love concrit—but I do have a more specific question of “what do you know” from this chapter?
I’m going to swing through some of the previous posts this evening and try to respond to some people’s things (I would feel awkward just swinging in if I didn’t) and sorry for such an abrupt introduction!
Note: I’m all for strong concrit—rip the thing apart if you please (a little sugar helps the medicine go down, but I’d rather get the meds now then later ^^ thanks)
Title: A Quiet Manor: Part One
Rating: Over all: R—PG-PG-13 for this part
Word Count: 2,800
Warning: slavery (indentured servitude), bastardization of Scandinavian mythology, dark fantasy
Summary: Set loosely in the time just after the conversion of a pagan society to Christianity, a young man in the middle of priest training finds himself gambled away and indentured to a battle weary general.
----
The daylight has nearly passed. Two parts of the southwest sky have been taken up by the sun in its descent and the parishioners are still moving the bones in the grave yard. It is dirty work here and I know I shouldn't have come. Still, I find myself drawn to the ground that has not yet frozen, and to the patches of soil I dream will cover no bones.
I do not remember this church yard, though I visited it often. This church is no longer my own and these people do not see me as they sing. There is a different priest that anoints these remains as the cadavers travel by string and strong hands to new resting places.
I did not know why I was sold to a man in Kestania that winter. Why should I, though but a servant, be taken to such a place as to be called the Madhouse of Fugel? What do the mad have use for servants? I had no right to question, but looking back now as I had then--he was but a man who persevered but through the grace of god.
I questioned.
I do not question it now. The memory of rough hands against my own soft calluses is too near.
----
At the time, I was under the impression that I was only going to stay through winter. A priestling by chance, I had been raised with the vague notion that good behavior earned a steady increase in reward. In opposition to this, I had learned that fool hearty action nearly always resulted in less than pleasant experiences. Lady luck often found her fingers deep within my pockets through no volition of my own. She reached in at least once a month and returned with her hands full of my meager possessions, none the lesser than my life.
I learned this early. The priest that was to train me by the book and Latin bet my life on a roll of the dice.
"Gods breath, Sepp." the priest murmured, "That is what makes the world work."
His crooked teeth nearly clipped my ear as he bade me to blow on the stones so they would keep me safe. There was no holier breath then a starving priestling on a feast day.
He lied. It was the first of many.
I arrived on horseback with one hand tethered to the saddle with a thin thatch of twine. I believed it was because they did not want me running, but it could have been left to aid my balance on a horse that had no reins. My horse was noosed to Wilfred—my escort to Fugel, my new home and which I knew by reputation. Wilfred kept me close at hand to keep me from straying, though his body shuddered like the wind. If I avoided eye contact, I found I did not fear him for he seemed to have no strength in his body.
"It is a quiet manor." He had assured me once, shuffling with thin paper strips and plant matter. It was two miles to the nearest homestead at the time, and he swore that breathing fire helped keep the chill from his too thin frame. He was nothing but wide shoulders and thin bony wrists. "Tucked away—forty miles from the nearest town, two miles from neighbors."
"Is that for their sake?" Wilfred did not seem to appreciate the question. He set his lips in a thin line and puffed away on the lumpy roll of paper until we reached the house and hearth we would stay by for the night.
When the manor began to grow in the distance, Wilfred hung closer to my gelding—reaching out a hand to grip it's mane as though I would urge him away into the woods in a sudden fit of nerves. Perhaps other's had, no one ever mentioned other servants being purchased, or coming and going with the seasons.
The road dwindled into overgrown paths set with roots and wild grasses as my apprehension grew. Though the cold and rough travel made the building itself a welcomed site, it seemed shunted down with age. There were no lights in the windows, and the shutters hung about at jagged, obtuse, angles. Inactive, the house looked obscene and exposed in those early winter nights.
Richard did not come out to greet me.
"You will meet him in the morning." Wilfred decided, taking my horse and leaving it for the stable hands. "He takes his tack four hours before noon, it would be best to meet him then."
"Surely it is not late?" The sun had set only an hour ago, a feat which was almost surprising this far north. At the worst of winter there would be only three hours of daylight per day. In the darkness, all would stay home but the Shepard's who even had God's forgiveness for working the Sabbath.
Knowing this did not make me feel any more kindly to the house or hearth I was to stay at. The lack of acknowledgment, though my station did not require anything more, did not endear my master to me. My head was heavy and filled with roadside stories of valor and depravity—all of which The Book had banned as it conquered our heathen ancestors a generation ago.
"It is sundown." Wilfred pointed out, as though that were all explanation that was necessary. He thumbed his crooked nose, and roughly dusted the road dirt turned mud from my shoulders as we stood on the doorstep. "A bath will be drawn, then you will retire."
People say the first impression of a person or place is the most important, because those impressions are the least distorted by time and emotion. If that is the case, the place I found myself was in shambles. The large, hallow, mansion stretched out in an endless array of dusty corridors and empty rooms, broken only periodically by grandiose hearths and a splattering of servants. The house was a vision of the past under a layer of filth—though I did not recognize it as such at first. I thought it only drafty and revolting. The stink of old dirt tinged with copper clogged my throat, and I wondered how I would ever get clean in any bath found in this place.
I shouldn't have worried. My room was simple but clean—with a bed, a dresser, and two doors that lead to the suit of rooms that Richard inhabited. The bath was warm and fresh with no one having soiled the water before me, and no one coming in after. I was surprised at how wasteful they were, and how Wilfred saw to me during those first quiet hours.
The night passed too quickly. I woke to the sound of shattering glass and of voices just beyond my door. It was impossible to discern who was talking, but the voices weren't raised despite the sound of breaking. I found that the sun was still down with only a vague hint of dawn turning the horizon the gray of old snow but this meant little. It could have been nearly noon for all I knew—there even then sun hid behind closed doors during winter.
It took me only a moment to decided that Wilfred would come drag me from my bed if I didn't make myself presentable soon. It did not sound as though the morning were dawning unhindered by the lord of the house.
I found good leather in the dresser. My own pack of thin, gray, linens had disappeared, and well spun pants and good shoes had replaced them. There was no mirror, but I liked to imagine that in these fine clothes, my straight brown hair tied behind my ears, I could pass for more than a priestling, or servant. Somehow this image would show my true colors and place in the world. I did not know how right I could be and how wrong I was as well.
I waited, listened to the voices peter out and stop. I waited for Wilfred. I waited for another servant. I expected someone to see me in, hold my hand, and introduce me to the man who would be both my charge and liege.
No one ever came.
It was nearly noon when someone on the other side of the doors spoke up, "Are you waiting for an invitation?"
“No!” The words were out before I had even thought of them, and I scrambled, startled, off of the bed so that I could hastily brushed the wrinkles off my jerkin. I wanted to look my best, though there was no one to impress here.
"Then come in already." He, whoever the man was beyond his door, sounded almost plaintive. Gruff baritone or not, he could have been a child. I figured this was Richard—the voice was less nasal then Wilfred with all his wheezing and huffing and who else would be behind the door to his chambers?
I hastened to comply with the order, feeling foolish for dawdling at my own bedside, waiting for instructions that would never come. The doors stuck when I pushed them and a thin seal of water-paint cracked as I forced them forward and out into the master bedrooms beyond. There were pieces of white china on the floor in front of the doorway but I didn't notice until I cracked them under my boots.
"I beg your pardon."
He must have moved while I fought the door for he was sitting idly at an ornate table—fingers already grubby from pinching a loaf of hard bread and mixing it with a plate of gravy and mash.
"You beg my pardon?" He didn't move, just glanced up for a moment and let crumbs decorate his lap and stain his fine gray pants. "For what? I had no need of your services."
I am sure I blushed as I stepped forward, feeling ever the more foolish as I took in the rest of the room beyond the man I was brought to serve. The carpet was expensive, imported most likely, but looked ill cared for. There were large brown stains covering part of the tapestry. The space under the chairs was illegible—it ruined the picture story. Crosses, small metal or lead in form, dominated the walls, crisscrossed the ceiling, and then were found to be inlaid into the fine marble over the hearth.
"Sit. Eat," Richard decided after a moment and motioned to the padded chair on the other side of the table. "I'm told you are to be watching me now."
"Yes." I sat down and felt the fine woven pattern under my fingertips. This too was stained and I could almost feel the ridges where the weave mingled with the remains of what whatever had been spilled.
"Well, I don't need watching."
Richard was mad, they said. He was a warier with a wolf skin on him—destined for hell, or for the great hall in Asgard. I picked up a small roll and spooned some gravy onto it. There was no silverware, I wondered why. "That so?"
He nodded, then dropped his food to fiddle with the edge of his shirt as he looked at me, then quickly to the right again. I didn't know where this sudden fit of nerves had come from but he was supposed to be my charge—a grown invalid. I tried not to notice that his eyes were so light that they made it look like his pupils were swimming in white. "What I need is someone to wash the damn windows."
"Well, I was not told to do so." Window washing was something of an impossible task in winter. The water froze to the glass, and then thawed at the soonest opportunity to create a sopping, cold, mess all over the flooring. Though I could not reasonably refuse the order, I had no desire to do so unaided.
Richard paused at this, considered, then leaned back in his chair looking the picture of self-assurance once again. "And you won't be." He hesitated again, tilted his head, and pursed the bow of his lips together before he decided to continue cordially, "Call me Richard."
I was already thinking of him as Richard, anyway, even before I was given leave to do so. I thought myself above him, though I had no cause to, and our first introduction did not give me any reason to disavow such a notion. I imagined him childish and there he was with his fingers covered in grease and his hair hanging, knotted, above his head in a frenzy of matted red curls. "Alright, Richard."
I reached for more bread to sop up bits of gravy and some potatoes with and then carefully tore off the thick crust. Out of the corner of my eye I watched him eat too. He ripped things haphazardly, spilling more on the table or himself then into his mouth.
His fingers scraped against the good china. Thick and coarse, they looked like they should belong to an ogre rather than a man; I found them repulsive more for my captivity then their belonging to him. "Is there a reason they think you were the best suited for the job?"
"Unless being sold from a toss of the die is, no." Perhaps he believed in luck. I knew I no longer did. God's breath had done nothing but land me in other's houses for months out of each year. It prolonged my training.
Richard nodded some and reached across the table for a small bowl of jam. He added this to a tea cup, and then poured the tea over it slowly—letting it steep over the jelled sugar for more than a minute before he stirred.
"Are the stories true?" I was never known for my tact, but I wondered later if I should have held my tongue. Richard's small tea spoon, apparently the only silverware in the room, clanked against the side of the cup and nearly forced a fracture. The tea spilled and spread a red stain against the tablecloth.
"Depends on the stories." He had his head facing downwards, and he peered up and to the side at me wearily. I almost expected him to bare his teeth.
"I will not stay here for you." I was unfazed, leaning forward almost aggressively at my supposed employer. He didn't want me there anymore then I wanted to be there, it seemed. I don't know whether I thought pushing things would allow me the chance to leave before the winter months were over or not, but I fully overstepped my boundaries and knew it.
I also knew, somehow, that Richard would not question it.
"I never asked you to," He snorted in response and pulled on the edges of his sleeves as though in a jittery compulsion. "You are a stranger."
"I won't be come spring." I stated again. I had no desire to find attachments here in this vanished house with a forgotten hero.
He put the spoon on the side of his plate and picked his tea. He took his time blowing against its lip, as though any extra warmth would have survived the air and our conversation. "I have no doubt that you will be, but you will leave in May."
"You are mad." It was not a question. I never intended it to be, though I was not expecting him to laugh.
"Do you believe that?" He smiled, square face brimming amusement. "Wilfred left your ears to the travel tales."
There were crumbs at the corner of his lips, crumbs on his vestments. His hair seemed to have not met a comb in weeks, and there were bags under his eyes. To say he looked unwell, would be to infer the ocean was generally large, or that birds could be found close to shore.
A servant and a lord, sitting side by side at meal time was a rare sight indeed. That I was there presuming superiority, if only for a moment, in my finely made clothes he helped gift to me was ridiculous.
Still we sat there, breaking bread and passing jam. He more than knave then I, and I, well, the more refined.