Abduction in Edoras RPG

[Alcarillo]

The idea of donning a disguise and worming his way into the lives at Lord Eodwine's hall appealed greatly to Osfrid. To Osfrid, there was nothing better than to create a new identity and play the part, whether it was to scam poor saps out of their coins or, as in this case, to pry into people's private matters. It just like a play to Osfrid, and he was the star of the show.

"Do you agree to this, Osfrid?" asked Sorn, "I can always send someone else if you object, though I am sure you'd be the best at playing the act, to put it simply..."

"Oh, I'll certainly do this, Sorn," Osfrid told him, standing from his seat, "Snooping and spying are my specialties."

"Excellent! How soon are you able to leave?"

"First thing tomorrow, if Muriel can repack everything quickly enough! And I assume we may take the cart with us…?" Sorn nodded yes, and Osfrid clapped his hands together in satisfaction. "Well, then! If you'll excuse me, I have to tell my Muriel about our little plot."

He wheeled out of Sorn's opulent study, with a wide smile across his face. Sorn's plan had not been as extravagantly maniacal as he had expected. In fact, Osfrid was pleased both to escape Sorn for a while and to get to know Lady Linduial's friends and family. And Muriel would like to see the city again. Osfrid and Muriel, along with Sorn and his gang, had only stopped in Edoras for a day. Once Lady Linduial had been kidnapped, they headed out of town as quickly as possible. Muriel had been disappointed not to shop as much as she had hoped to at the horse fair. Another visit to Edoras would make it up to her.

Osfrid came to his and Muriel's small room at the hall's end. He entered and found Muriel laying clothes out on the bed. Her back was turned, but she heard the door creak and his footsteps cross the threshold.

"Osfrid, is that you again?" she said, not looking up from her work. She finished folding a black skirt into nice, square package and then turned around, hands on her waist. "Oh, Osfrid, it is you. I was just folding our clothes. Tell Sorn we'll need another chest to hold all of it." She picked a tunic from a pile of clothes on the floor and folded it in the air.

"No need to worry about unpacking, Muriel dear!" he announced, walking briskly towards her, "We're headed back to Edoras! Just us two!"

Muriel's face immediately brightened. She skipped over to him, throwing the tunic onto the bed behind her. "Oh, Osfrid! Like on a holiday!" She threw her arms around Osfrid's broad shoulders and sighed. "Maybe the horse fair will still be there."

"I'm afraid it might be over, honey," Osfrid said, "But we still can buy plenty of nice things at the market." He wrapped an arm around her waist and guided her over to the bed. They sat down, not minding the clothes arranged across it. Osfrid's voice took on a less cheerful tone. "The real reason we're going, dear, is because Sorn wants us to learn about the rich lady's family and friends."

"You mean like…spying?"

"Honey, it'll be fun! We can invent new names for ourselves, and pretend we're different people!"

Muriel still looked skeptical, "But- but can we still shop in the market?"

"Of course, my dearie," said Osfrid. He leaned across the bed to kiss her on the forehead. "Now, let's start repacking all these clothes! We need to look like travelers. We can leave tomorrow, if you'd like."

[Celuien]

Garstan was left alone in the courtyard, half bowing, his face flushed.

If only one of us must return to the mead hall, that one shall be you and not me. I will keep you safe with my life. So had spoken Lord Eodwine. The words echoed through his head, an incessant rattle to trouble his thoughts. He wandered into the Mead Hall, only half aware of what he was doing, and shut the door of his room behind him.

So I have spoken. Do not say me nay. He could not refuse the oath. Though in a way, it seemed too much to ask. For was Garstan not the servant, Eodwine the lord of the Mead Hall? It should be the place of the servant to defend his lord. Or so thought Garstan. Yet, how could he have refused, even had Eodwine not commanded it? It was a generous deed, and to check the kindness so freely offered to him would have been a grave affront. Garstan bent his head downward, deep in thought.

Then he looked up. There was only one way to repay Eodwine's kindness, though he knew he could not speak of it to the Eorl. Secretly, he vowed to see to Eodwine's safety. If the Eorl could vow to protect Garstan, so Garstan could vow to protect his Eorl. With the resolution made, his mind could rest at ease. Eodwine need not know. He smiled. Surely if they watched for each other's welfare, no harm would come to either of them. There was no need for either to fall in this task.

A battered canvas bag came out from a corner of the room, and Garstan busied himself with packing it with clothing and provisions for the journey. His eye fell on a small kit of tools. He thought for a moment. They wouldn't add much weight to his pack and might be useful. He added them to the bag's contents. Then Garstan opened a small wooden chest. From inside, he withdrew a long dagger, sheathed in a plain leather scabbard. Removed from the scabbard, the blade shone brightly in the room. His eyes glinted as he resheathed the dagger and slipped it into his bag. Let the kidnappers try what they wished, but no harm would come to Linduial, Eodwine, or himself. Not while his arm had strength left to strike a blow.

The door opened behind him. "Father? What are you doing? Are we leaving?" The voice was his son's.

"No. We aren't leaving. I am."

"Why?"

Garstan hesitated. How much should he reveal to the child? He decided to tell Garmund everything. He would, after all, have to take a father's place to his sister while the mission lasted. It was only fair that he understood why.

"The Lady Linduial is held for ransom by traitors. I go with Lord Eodwine and the company from Meduseld to recover her."

The boy's eyes grew wide.

"Do not fear! I will return. We all shall return. Justice shall be done. But say nothing to your sister. That burden should fall to me. Now I charge you, Garmund - take care of her! For you must play the part of father to her while I am away. Saeryn remains to look to the folk of the Hall. You must aid her too, for she will be guardian to the both of you until my return."

Garmund nodded solemnly. "I will do as you say." Then, with a sudden swelling of emotion, he cried out, "But hurry back! We will miss you while you are gone."

Garstan's hands rested on his son's shoulders. "It won't be long. I promise. Now, where is your sister?"

"Away with Kara."

"Then let us go to them."

Garstan allowed his son to lead him to Lèoðern. He dreaded to tell her the news, first of Linduial's disappearance, then of his imminent departure. But the task could not be avoided, and he thought of what to say, his heart sinking within him.

He told her, fumbling for words, struggling to speak past the little girl's tears and puzzled stare. With a final assurance to her - to both of the children - that everything would be solved, that everyone would come home safely, he took Lèoðern on his hip with one hand and held Garmund's hand in his other, and brought them back to their room for their last night together before the journey.

[Firefoot]

“And the men Sorn surrounds himself with are not the type that cannot be bought...”

“And by that you mean me, I suppose?” asked Scyld sardonically. “You might as well say it. Diplomacy, I suppose they call it where you come from, Miss Linduial? Or perhaps it is Lady Linduial? Perhaps you think to win me to your side diplomatically. But I am not a diplomat, and what is more, Lady Linduial, I know where I stand. You do not even completely know where you stand, and diplomacy is best used with knowledge, don’t you think?” He smiled in his smirking way. He had certainly learned a great deal listening in on Sorn’s conversations over the years; let Linduial wonder. “But as I was saying, you need not be diplomatic with me. Perhaps you think I would beat you for that? Then you are a worse judge of character than I thought. Sorn probably would not notice a few more bruises… despite how you like showing them off… but I am not a violent man. I only do what is necessary.”

Scyld could see that he had caught Linduial’s attention with his speech, many more words than he normally strung together at one time. But he had made it his personal duty to find out more about her – and not all of that information would go to Sorn; in fact, most of it would not – and if she found out a little bit more about him in the mean time, that was all right, and it may even help. But there was more to it. Scyld was genuinely enjoying this conversation, and not just sadistically. He had had scarce enough intelligent conversation during his time here with Sorn – after all, who all was there to talk to? Gurth, the great volatile imbecile? Sorn, his unstable employer behind whose back Scyld was almost constantly plotting? The other lesser employees that came and went, few of which were even a close match for his intelligence? But Linduial certainly did not need to know this, and Scyld could not resist another attempt to goad a reaction out of her.

“You know, perhaps in different circumstances we might have been friends, you and I, or I might have ended up in your employ.” He caught her look of thinly veiled disgust before she again assumed a more bland look. “You do not think very highly of me, I see. But that is well, since I do not particularly highly of you pampered nobles, either.”

[Taralphiel]

Sorn smiled as Osfrid agreed, and left his Hall. Seating himself back in his chair, he grinned. Another plan unfurling well and another way to keep the feisty Lady in line. With one eye open and the other lazily closed, he surveyed his room. Fine wood carved chairs, detail tapestries, and even a stone bust of his mother adorned the room. Truly, there were few homes so fine in this land. And from the glimpses Sorn saw of the new Mead Hall in construction, there would be few to grow to match it either.

Sorn completely closed his eyes and yawned, stretching his legs out slowly. Sorn did not afford himself more than a few small snatches of sleep a night. He had come to trust his servants little. His spirit was most at ease around the hulking Gurth. This thought made him chuckle. 'Truly, he would not scheme against his Master' he thought to himself '...though, he would me more likely to crush me with his fist purely on a drunken whim. At least his intentions are laid bare for all to see...'

A creak of the floorboards, and Sorn's eyes snapped open. His dark, clouded gaze draped over the room again, searching for shadows or lurking servants. Nothing but the cold night's winds easing against the wide, solid building. Sorn let himself slip into remembrance of his childhood within these walls. If it were possible, the Hall looked even finer then. He was dressed in a new coloured tunic almost each day. Seamstresses, teachers, gardeners, cellar-servants, and all manner of workers used to bustle about the warm halls. Watched over by his warm and caring mother. He would race about the corridors and rooms, leaving his tutors flustered. He would listen to his father's official 'business', and watch his mothers’ kind instructions to the gaggle of cooks in their kitchen. These things all seemed so harmless to him then.

His mind then skipped forward in strange sequences. He remembered his mother's pale hand being tucked under a thin white sheet, his father's weeping and his newborn sister's cries. He remembered his sister, much older, weeping in front of a man delivering news of their father's fate at Pelennor. He then remembered his sister’s face growing haggard, steely, and empty of feeling. She would wander the corridors, looking over the memories of her father, and feel her soul yearn to know her mother…

Sorn shook his head violently, waking himself from the threads of sleep weaving about him, along with the threads of the bitter past that seemed to find home in his dreams. He stood, and muttered to himself "Something to chase away the boredom..."

Sorn left his Hall, and followed the grumbling and rumbling through his house. Eventually it lead him to Gurth, the hulking servant Sorn had found one night in a drunken stupor. Sorn smiled as the great man turned his way.

"Sorn!" He gurgled loudly.

"Aye, it is I, good Gurth! A grand evening to you, and to you Grendel!" The dog let an indifferent bark Sorn’s way at the mentioning of his name. Sorn sat on a large full keg at the back door of his house. He watched Gurth try to consume the contents of a small barrel of mead, spilling a good half of its contents over his chin and filthy tunic. Sorn cast a glance about where Gurth sat, and noticed three other containers of mead emptied, and another to go! Sorn snarled inwardly. His men had been overindulging with the great Gurth yet again. He would deal with them later. Now was not the time to keep Gurth from his drink.

Picking up the last barrel, he passed it to the drunk slumped man, and he gratefully took it with another wide grin, and a chorus of "Sorn! Mead!". Sorn could not help but smile at the simple joy this man took in his drink. And the bitter realisation that he, of all his hired help, was the most loyal. Nevertheless, he would not be kept from his plans. His men would help him, or suffer the consequences.

Pushing that thought from his mind, he tilted his head at Gurth, and with a playful smile posed him a question.

"Tell me Gurth, did you enjoy guarding the Lady Linduial?"

[JennyHallu]

JennyHallu's post

Lin's face twisted briefly with her scorn when Scyld suggested she might have hired him, and when she replied she didn't even try to keep the emotion out of her voice. "That Sorn would hire you is but another sign of his foolishness. Never hire a man you cannot trust." She paused, thinking. But if he betrays his master, it might run to your good. Then again, it might not. All the same, Lin, do not overly antagonize him. You might need him yet.

Stiffly, Lin walked to a solid wall of her cell and slid down it to sit on the dirt floor beside the bars. She put her weight for a moment on her left hand, lowering herself down, and cried out in pain. She'd thought it only bruised. Apparently it was broken. She cradled it to her chest, wondering anew if she could ask for a healer, or if she could trust any "healer" Sorn might keep in his hall. Hopefully Scyld hadn't noticed her injury, and she could think through what to do about it.

"A pampered noble? That is how you see me, and it justifies this?" She gestured with her right arm to indicate the bars, and the cellar, and her jailor, leaning indolently against a cask of wine.

He grinned at her, a mirthless smile on a cruel face. "Prove me wrong."

Lin shrugged, in the process finding a new bruise on her shoulder. She repeated the gesture carefully. Just a bruise. Good. "I cannot. I am a 'pampered noble'. I cannot help my birth, though, and brothers are just as like to pamper a farmer's daughter as a lord's." She smiled to herself. "It is a poor tactic, to charge a girl of seventeen summers and youngest child of being pampered. It is the natural order of things, to a degree."

Scyld sneered. "The natural order? Have you ever done real labor? Have you ever killed a man in fair battle? Have you ever stood at risk of losing your life and livelihood to a fool and been helpless to defend yourself?"

Lin supposed Scyld referred to the experience of a poor tenant farmer on an unscrupulous man's land, but could not help but laugh a little morbidly. "As for the latter, yes!" Then she turned swiftly serious and her eyes flashed. "And to your first question I answer with my own. Have you ever stood responsible for the lives in your domain through famine and war? Found them food and shelter? Gone without so that others, lesser than you, perhaps, but no less valued, might live?"

Scyld was silent, and Lin ranted on, using her hands to emphasize her words. "As for killing a man, no! I am innocent and a maid, and I hope I never have to. But I have never harmed a living soul, and I have certainly not stood guard over a child. Be proud of your servitude if you wish, and I shall be proud of my nobility, as long as it is true."

She leaned back against the wall, fighting an urge to cry. Her wrist was shooting jabs of sharp pain up her arm, and she finally gave in to it. When she next spoke her voice was soft and almost petulant with pain. She cursed herself mentally for showing her weakness to this man, but had no choice.

"I think my wrist is broken."

~<*>~

Marenil walked stiffly towards Eodwine's rooms, where the plans for Lin's rescue were in full swing. He knocked softly on the door, heard a muffled sound that might have been a "come in" and entered quietly, bowing at those gathered within. "My lords Eodwine and Haleth," he began, tears sparkling in the corners of his eyes. "I find I must trust you implicitly to find Linduial. I seem to have grown old while I wasn't paying attention. But I wish to do summat to help."

Eodwine smiled at the older man. "Will you accompany young Degas back to Dol Amroth, then? He'd probably appreciate having you along for 'protection'."

Marenil sighed heavily and took the chair Haleth proffered respectfully for him. "No, lad, I won't. I've been meaning to speak with you about it, but the opportunity hasn't come up. I've gotten two letters since arriving here. The first was to tell me my wife, Eru love her, has passed away, and the second released me from my service to Lord Farlen. And with Lin here, and the lads all grown up, and me own lad working as steward, there's no place for me there. No work for me. I've been meaning to ask you if you might have a spot by the hearth for an old plowhorse like me. I'm not as spry as I used to be, but you've got plenty of spry lads and lasses about. I'm experienced."

Eodwine looked to be trying to say something, but Marenil held up an age-spotted hand and continued on, eyes fixed on the desktop. "And if ye accepted me into your household, I was going to offer to watch your business for ye while ye were agone. That way young Thornden could run along to help Lin, if he wants, or finish the rounds of all those farms you own now, and you wouldn't have to worry about a young colt under the halter of this cart you're trying to drive here."

Now he stopped and turned his dark grey eyes up to Eodwine, waiting for an answer.

[Firefoot]

“I think my wrist is broken.”

Scyld raised his eyebrows at the abrupt change in topic. He knew that she probably wanted a healer of some sort, but that certainly was not within his power to grant, even if he really wanted to. Which he didn’t, not necessarily. He considered a simple snide, You’ll live, but thought better of it. He didn’t want her to hate him, after all. A little bit of provocation might be enjoyable, but it was not his goal to make her as miserable as possible.

“I highly doubt that Sorn would care much if I told him,” he said instead, and knew it was true. Sorn might laugh, or maybe even punish him for bringing such a trifling detail to his attention.

“Nor do you, I suppose,” she half-whimpered, half-snarled.

Scyld laughed, but not at her predicament as she might suppose. “See now! Already you are learning to dispense with your diplomacy.” He could feel as much as see her glare. “As for caring… well, I guess I have not decided yet. And if I did, there really would not be very much I could do. Certainly I could not – or would not – send for a healer, not without Sorn’s permission, which I would be entirely reluctant to ask. And I doubt you would care for me as a healer. I have only slightly more experience with injuries than with ‘standing responsible over lives,’ as I believe you put it.” Still she did not respond, and Scyld realized that it was very real pain that prevented her from speaking, not just another act. Pain was a difficult thing to deal with, if you are not accustomed to it… Scyld started at this thought. Or perhaps it was not so much a thought as his twelve-year-old self talking to him. He had been a different person then.

“Listen,” he said. “I can’t get you a healer. Your skirt is certainly long enough; why don’t you rip of some strips of that and try to wrap up your wrist? I can’t help you; Sorn would notice of the knot was too neat, and right now…” He shrugged. “My life over yours.” He considered the vast supply of wine and beer kept in the cellar. “But maybe if I’m feeling charitable, or if you beg enough, I’ll slip you some wine – or something stronger, perhaps? – with your next meal. It might take the edge off the pain, anyway.” And to even his own surprise, the jeering edge had disappeared from his voice.

[JennyHallu]

Lin looked up, the change in tone enough to pull her attention away from her hurts. "I--I would be grateful." Her voice was soft, and she met Scyld's eyes for the first time without defiance. "I will try to wrap it...but I do not know how. Perhaps..."

She fell silent, trying to think of a way to get her a healer that would appeal to Sorn's selfishness. "If I am ransomed, and it has healed wrong, it could be a reason for my family to continue to search for Sorn, and my father's resources are great. Could that perhaps sway him?"

Scyld seemed to be thinking about something, and while his gaze was intense, his answer was non-commital. "Mayhap."

"And it wouldn't take any great skill." Lin winced, forcing herself to examine the break with her other hand, manipulating the ends of the bones--only one of the bones in her arm had broken, and it seemed to be a clean snap--Eru! that hurts! "Just a bone-setter. Someone with experience of battle-aid..." She realized suddenly that she was begging, and cut her words short, schooling her face back into its usual calm, with only a tightness about her mouth to reveal that she was, truly, in a great deal of pain.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Firefoot's post

“So you do beg. Very well; wine or some such you will have with your meal,” he allowed, “but I would not count on any kind of bone setter.” He said no more, and he thought he heard a soft sigh from Linduial.

After a while, Scyld heard the soft ripping of fabric and saw that she was indeed trying to wrap her arm, though it clearly caused her a great deal of hurt. She might be doing only what she would call necessary, Scyld mused, but there were some who would not have done nearly what she had. She called herself a child, and in many ways she was, naïveté not least, but she was resourceful, too. Altogether an interesting person.