The Wanderer

CapTnCas

Member
The Greatest Of-self
Horse and Rider.png

Blome Swete Lilie Flour
1526, early Spring..

She was there, at her pale horse's side waiting in the road’s ditch as the throat cutters finished their wicked work. The beast labored for breath, washing over her with hot air and she leaned in to the animal, feeling the chest of the horse rise and fall at her back. The men stumbled across the field and reaped as a horn resounded. The dawn greeted those few who had been called to arms-had drawn their blade in battle that evening. Carrion birds would pick the field clean in hours long after the frost had melted, but she rose from the throes of her fatigue knowing the call. Steam wafting from her shoulders as the rider's hooves grew closer. She donned her kettle helm to return to the fray, they only had one more day’s ride North and she greeted Christoph...

Her lips cracked as she smiled from beneath the cut plate, a sour taste in her mouth but their eyes met and he nodded. There are the corner of his mouth, his lip betrayed him and he too grinned back; covered from head to boot in shit and blood. She laughed, throat dry and her amusement turned in to a sour cough. Come evening this mess would be put behind them and they would return home, and she already longed for the hearth's side. These wayward sons and brigands had faced the torch and the last of them would be hunted down though, they were so close to assured herself. There was the creak of leather as her gloves closed around the reigns and she pulled herself back in to the saddle, the shout of orders fell on deaf ears as she rode after her Lord, mud flying in the wake of hooves.




Lynnette had beguiled herself, the victim, the adulter, the villain-what else was there to do but torment herself as she had been cast out for it; sent south. When the crier had announced the coming festivities in this great city, she had not weighed the worth of opportunity at first. Had let the excitement pass sorely, she had seen many village boys gather and try over the years. Yet Adelsberg strewn flags and merchants arose around the field as the eager flocked to try their hand.

She wondered if she was betraying herself for partaking in such jovial times.

She should have left all preconceived notions of greatness to the girl she had been; young and half savage. It was not her place, her’s was to have served and served faithfully but she was without Lord to lay her head before and to receive favor. What would be more incriminating then, to ask for aid and justice-no she had fullied believed this was the only way. Lynnette had slipped from the years of her prime rapidly-the greater wounds that had taken both half her sight and motion had only been the final straw. How could she take to the field now? The polished bronze plate nailed into the stone of the wall served to remind her of the ugly marks when she peered into it.

They marked her service, and the sacrifices made on the northern plains.

In some great surge of bravado she urged the man to place her name on the lists in the final hour, the scholarly sort scribing her given when her hand trembled too much to make a clean signature. What would be worst was to say she never tried. If she could only become greater-but her’s were the hands of a tradesman, splintered and calloused but she remembered what her father had taught her. Then she had donned the heavily stitched gambeson alone, trying to imagine the trials her Lord had faced to rise to his station. The woad had faded but it still would lessen any terrible blow but she was a rider once again.

Lynnette would take the title of Squire, or any title, any scrap of influence that might lift her from the life of vagrancy. That might have given her power to return to that miserable little village and claim rights to her son; bastard or not. The Lady Faustia was not kind in her grudges, but what southern woman was? Perhaps her father may deign to look upon her, riding in under the color’s of another more respected-renown. Reality was far more jarring, as she had learned time again. The sourests of blows came when she found herself kissing the trodden mud of the field under the gaze of the Kaiser still. She had picked herself up alone, rain dripping from her brow as she sprung back into the saddle. It would not matter what she did now, she knew the weight of an infant would never bless her chest, that life may be well behind her as she led her horse down the list.

She had never bore a lance in battle and her nerves had been set aflame. Christoph had, he had ridden proudly into the arena, into battle, across the Empire-farther then she.

The flurry of blows suffered in each round mounted, but it could not rival the ache in her chest or the taste of sage on her tongue to strip herself of the signs of motherhood when it had all come to an end. The woman had mourned. The woman had wailed until her throat grew raw behind the cobble walls of her own dwelling, in solitude. When all festivities had come to their end. Thomain was still beyond her grasp, his father buried in a cairn, and family far from here. Lynnette was wholly undignified and unable to find the will to scrub even the blood from her rend nose and hands. The remains of a bassinet were easy to break over her knee when she did rise again, stoking the fire of her stove. Perhaps she had wanted to be a Knight too.
 
Last edited:
And Histories Will Debate
Together.png

I Should Tell You My Story Myself

1512 late Fall…

She did not remember Christoph as a boy who was swayed easily by his grief-quiet perhaps and prideful but he had loved his brother. The courier had wasted no time stirring up dust off the road with the terrible news in hand to the younger Amador-somewhere in his journey through this tumulus war. The village had been ordered to migrate further from the marching forces coming from the South. She trailed long the wagons lined up, sparse was their goods and fewer did they number. They did not know yet if they were Rebels or Kingsmen but they had come looting and foraging. Lynnette had been privy to the contents of the letter only by proxy of his father, the solemn order that he must know of Richmond’s death. Lynnette halted only to help heave another chest in to the wagon's back, they packed up the Lord's household. She had caught a glimpse of Richmonds corpse slung over a horse too some where amongst the throng of riders.

It had made her stomach rile, once upon a time her sister may have wed the young man; but they were both now dead. The war was still raging, far from them maybe a month past but now..they laden cart with the last of the baskets and the mason had already begun to cutt stone for the young man’s grave. No one amongst them knew if the whole of the North would be put to the torch. They could not tell friend from foe, and she was deemed too young to ride out to meet the parly-but she knew the truth even at ten and seven seasons old. Her father was frightened and so it would be her duty to watch over their kin and neighbor here whilst they went. In the shadow of the horses, looking over their arms she felt small..




Lynnette could not comprehend many written words, for the strain of her sole eye and lack of refined education played their part. Yet she knew the name of her Lord inscribed upon the walls of the college, marked amongst history-the very honor left in her disbelief and awe. There had been many of hour when the Lady Amador had worked diligently to teach her theses letters, Maker bless that woman's patience. Her hand traced the plaque of a sort whilst other students, monks, and the like had passed her in the corridor. She had studied the shapes of the name long indeed, and muttered the name thus under breath-Amador. She knew the word better than any other save her name. She knew Cyton’s legacy.

She had pondered the worth of it long, how she had been the witness and flames to it. If she could not be anything else, be a part of it, she would be..Lynnette herself did not know yet. For every stone she had laid, it had been at the foundations of her once home, of Barrowe, and her time at his' sons side. The only logical step forward, for herself, not something greater than herself-was to learn to read and she would bide her time. One day she imagined, Thomain would ride down the northern road, might find her. The woman desired that and had desired the south once too, she was no grand architect alas., guildsman, or chancellor. Maybe had she come to these halls in her youth she would have been. Maybe such things were not beyond her yet, if not for her son's sake. The bane of what if, and could have been. She wore them like laurels upon her brow.

History however important spurned the woman, a call from the halls down the way-a growing familiar voice. She had never imagined herself sitting amongst scholars, learning here-not histories nor science. To know of the whole of humanity’s history, bloody as it was-there was no peace. Not in ages past, not now, or even in her own memories. Many walks of life had piled into the confines of the small room over lecterns. Sir Cedric Reinhardt had become a prominent figure in the daily life of so many common peoples, and she spied him while she had taken her seat. He was a curiosity to the woman. She wasn’t sure entirely what to make of him until facts had become debated-she had never spoken freely so but now she had to retrace thoughts back to the war that had impacted both their lives.

He was too keen of it and worse yet, the sins he admitted to freely that were born of that age.

The woman remained unbothered, if only to a degree. What was one suppose to do when an apology for another was dumped upon your lap-what were stranger’s lives to her? The greed of outliers, she remembered the boom of Cyton’s voice where his brother had been concerned. Lyon had been so easily swayed by gold, and thus died in the siege of Hadrian. No neighbor could claim that swords had not been crossed at one point so the apology of their deaths..had not embittered her. She was damned all the more for saying anything about the war to the Knight, he seemed godly and whole-who was she to trust him then. He may of been someone stronger then herself to seek such forgiveness. The choices of her Lord’s brother had been his alone, to ride for another, to die for another but Reinhardt earnest attempts of apologies..

Lynnette admonished herself for saying anything but she had left that hall only to ponder, she may as well been a child then in the throes of the civil war. Armed with the duties no more befitting of a page, someone to fetch pitchers and scrolls whilst the others toiled away. Lynnette was gladden she had not seen battle alas, she could not of trusted her younger self to it then.

Reinhardt and her though had in-advertly crossed path in another time and a sinking feeling took to her gut. Lynnette had made a few choice words, had he slewn..Sir Cedric had been adamant it seemed and she prayed it was no so. She hailed a monk aside to help her enscribe a letter, if only to sate her own curiosity and to assure her kinsmen-namely her mother, that she lived yet. It was a paltry thing that might assure her elder, but a worry gnawed and ate at the back of her mind.

Who else would need to hear from her, the thought left a bitter taste in her mouth..But she asked, then, who had killed Cyton’s eldest son? She did not know, for she hadn’t seen the field let alone what banners had flown that day-strictly men’s talk but she wondered if the aging woman could recall. It had been half a lifetime ago, and she did not want Sir Cedric’s guilt. Lynnette did not want to face this unintentional truth. She had far to much grief stored in the well of her heart to bare another's, mayhaps she could lend him some peace for it. So that they both might be free of the burden-but even that seemed fantastical. But perhaps it would serve him, like a friend might do. Such seemed in scant supply, but the pang of adrenaline-the one she knew before any fight tightened it's grip around her throat.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top