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Old 04-22-2011, 03:56 PM   #228
Anguirel
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Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: The 1590s
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"Vëandur, son of Falastur, of the Fleets," Cirdacil repeated now, in simple wonderment. "My old cheeks blush to admit it, but I had forgotten even the sound of my little nephew's name, till I saw those eyes of yours...and now I see I have a grand-nephew, and grown a brave pilot for his country! Well..."

He shook his head in simple disbelief. Even now, he did not look like a kindly old man, more like a difficult curmudgeon who had been hit on the head with a mattock and was just coming round.

"Well," he said again, "I intend to make it as glad a discovery as I can arrange, though my time is always short, and I'm sure in your active path of life, yours is, well, as much so. But I shall tell you now that you have four fine young cousins, and that we are a family of no small importance, by the grace of the late lamented Steward, and the favours, too, of the King now ruling. Yonder," he pointed further down the fine, broad street, to a long mansion of yellowish limestone, "stands the house of my elder son, Ecsichil, to where I was on my way...and I am sure he would be delighted..."

But Cirdacil cut himself off half way through his sentence, still gazing penetratingly at his new nephew; his eyes might be smaller and browner, but they had, after all, a similar force of will.

"Actually, a better plan has occurred to me. I must tell you, then, though as my near blood you need observe no more courtesies than you think fit, that I am more widely known as Cirdacil, Lord of Burlach, Lord Warden of the Exchequer, and...unfortunately...Master of the Revels, too, at the moment. My younger daughter is married to a lord from Dol Amroth, but I know she is visiting her brother at this house, this evening, for a party of which they think I know nothing. More fool them!

"All my children, your cousins, two boys and two girls," the old man's pride here seemed at the point of overweening, "will be gathered at once. Now, I shall be free from the toils of the Exchequer at midnight; if you too are at liberty then, shall we meet here shortly after that, and surprise the rest of the family together? Then I can introduce you properly."

Cirdacil waited for Vëandur's answer, simultaneously looking him up and down with such exactitude that the mariner might wonder if his distinguished uncle had genuinely proposed his scheme out of affection, if he wished to see this country cousin brought before his noble children only when he was in finer array, or if another reason altogether worked somehow upon the old man...
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