View Single Post
Old 05-03-2011, 05:16 AM   #245
Anguirel
Byronic Brand
 
Anguirel's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: The 1590s
Posts: 2,825
Anguirel is a guest of Tom Bombadil.
Sador's conversation with the young Player, though it had begun in quite an amiable fashion, had not quite recovered that agreeable note since Harrenon's blunt, half-conscious answer to the nobleman's romantic conceits. Yet despite little obvious common ground - excepting, perhaps, that of their young age - the pair had remained together as the morning continued, talking with ever less enthusiasm and consequence. It was an odd state, Sador thought, this extended, purposeless courtesy; and he realised it was felt much the same on Harrenon's side, too, and yet, little as the fellow seemed in truth to like him, he never quite left his side.

Once or twice Sador tried to stray on decisively, to where Asta at the other side of the room was talking with peculiar enthusiasm to a mere child...a golden-headed girl, nobly accoutred, familiar in appearance; the daughter of some courtier, Sador felt sure, though which, he could not recall. Before he had made any precise connection, anyway, both had slipped out of the common room, leaving Sador closeted with the inevitable, awkward, looming presence of Harrenon...did the youth just not have anything better to do?

Piqued into wanting to say anything to alleviate the frustration and tedium in the stuffy tavern air, Sador began to grow a little spikily indiscreet with Harrenon, just as he had done with Aldarion the night before.

"I'm still thinking about what you said, sir Harrenon, about the joys of friendship, and so on. Certainly, if you feel so strongly about that, then you are the right fellow to play Legolas, that fearless comrade of the noble Lord of Aglarond. And that is all very splendid and reassuring. But I am still surprised that a...fine young lad like you, sirrah, has never felt the strains of the sweeter passion...?"

It was unlikely to be a promising line of enquiry on either side. But it was, at that point, interrupted, by the figure of the publican, old Ingold himself, puffing his way into their spiritless conference.

"M'lud," he muttered to Sador with a new and grudging tone of deference, "a fine carriage has called by, and some great ladies within have sent a steward in grand livery to ask for you."

"A carriage?" Sador replied in some alarm. And ladies? They - she - had sought him out, it seemed certain, though goodness knows how they had tracked him to here. It was necessary to make certain, though.

"What sort of carriage, Master Ingold?"

"Festooned with blazons and such, m'lud. Swans, in the main, as far as I can see."

Well, that removed all doubt. Sador turned to Harrenon with an extroardinary look of agitation, and some anticipation too, on his face.

"You must excuse me now, I'm afraid, friend Harrenon. This is the barouche of my sister and sister-in-..."

The law was never spoken, as a gale of wild laughter broke it off, and a tall, most beautiful lady cannoned into Sador's hesitant back, throwing her arms about him. Their resemblance was entire, but wherever the brother was merely elegant, the sister (that much was clearer than anything else in the room's murk) was brightly radiant. It had been her laugh that shattered the cautious courtesies, and her voice, strident in sweetness, was of a piece with it.

"Well, brother, we find you playing with the Players, eh! And you will introduce us, I hope, among your artistic acquaintance?"

Framed in the very entrance to the Inn was the pompous, heavily frog-laced steward whose appearance had impressed Ingold, and at his side was another damsel. Less dazzling, more fine than the first, she surveyed the room with a thin, quiet smile and an equable stare. It would be clear to Harrenon that while Sador returned his sister's embrace with reasonable fondness, the young lord's eyes were already hovering inexorably over to this second arrival...

Last edited by Anguirel; 05-03-2011 at 05:20 AM.
Anguirel is offline