Hi everyone!
You really seem to be enjoying the story that I'm working on at the moment so I figured I ought to share the latest parts with you.
My numbering system has fallen apart somewhat. You remember how Part 2 consisted of two separate scenes? Well, the two scenes that I'm about to share here fall IN BETWEEN the TWO SCENES from PART 2.
I hope no one misses that because these scenes are not going to make much sense at all if you don't realise where they fit... Heh.
Also some information that will become useful here: Myrna's accent is essentially Scottish and her usual style of clothing is something similar to early 15th century clothing (but imagine it however it works for you, of course). Malvarl wears a similar style of clothing but his accent is indescribable because he's this weird creepy goblin-like-humanoid-fantasy-creature. A "southern accent" in this world is meant to sound something like a rhotic New York accent, if you can imagine that. Like... Fran Drescher, but more R-ful. And southern garb should remind you of 16th century Italian. Because... that combination makes sense, somehow? :P
Anyways, enjoy! And feel free to approach me with questions and comments - for example, what's in the box in the second scene here, where do the babies in Part 2 come from, what happens next, etc.? I might even tell you!
♥Nancy♬
Even before we went inside, it was clear that the Leaping Griffin was a very different place from the quiet Flaxen Apple Tavern back home. The size was the most obvious feature: the Leaping Griffin was two floors high and seemed to stretch backwards forever. There was something else about it, too, perhaps the odour or just a... sense... that it was a significantly more foreboding tavern than I was used to. The door was propped open but it was too dim inside to snoop before entering. A sad fiddle cried a tune inside the tavern that flowed out into the street. I sighed. Despite the dull tone of the tune, I was glad to hear the music. After these long weeks travelling with the Nybelingnau, the sound of the violin was medicinal, and quite literally music to my ears. I strode toward the open door of the tavern.
“Ah!” I squawked, as a set of three-jointed fingers pulled me back by the shoulder, “what are you doing?”
“It would not be wise for me to enter this establishment, Myrna.”
I hesitated. Malvarl had been nothing but honest and concerned for my safety so far. Would it be wise for me to enter the tavern if he could not?
“I’ve no choice, Malvarl.”
Malvarl hesitated too; I wondered if he was reconsidering coming into the tavern. But he said, “I will be at the smithy. Be safe.” And he turned and walked away down the street.
I put my hands on my belly and took a deep breath to steady myself, and entered the Leaping Griffin Tavern. It took my eyes a few moments to adjust to the gloom. In the back corner sat the man with the fiddle, playing his mournful tune. A woman sat at a table with a bottle of something strong and brown; her belly was gigantic and I wondered if she was trying to drink the babe away. The bar was much busier than the rest of the tavern, with a swarm of men calling for more ale and tipping their fellow drinkers off their stools. I reached into the opening of my top skirt and pulled up my leather purse on its long cord. Trying to be surreptitious, I slid a few metal coins from the purse and dropped it back down to bounce between my skirts.
Feigning nonchalant confidence, I approached the bar and slid my way in between burly men until I was pressed close against the sticky wooden counter. The smell of ale, both fresh and stale, filled my nose, as did the smell of meat.
“Barkeep,” I called out, straining to be heard over the noisy bustle of drinking men, “a meal, please?”
“What can you pay, girl?” he called back.
I rubbed my coins between my fingers, feeling the metal and size of them.
“An iron dram for some bread,” I replied, “and another for some of that meat I smell. More again for information.”
“I’ll take your drams for bread and meat,” the barkeep said, “but you’d best ask your question before we charge you for answers. Not all information comes cheap at the Griffin.”
He took my tiny iron coins and came back with some chunks of stringy meat and half a loaf of day-old bread. Back home it wouldn’t have been more than a snack, even in the middle of a hard winter. After spending some time with the Nybelingnau, I was glad of any bread available to me.
“Ask your question, lass,” the barkeep said, but I guessed from his tone that he didn’t much care if I asked or not.
In light of his disinterest, I took a moment to linger over my mediocre meal. It was barely worth the drams but at this point of my adventure I had learnt to take what I could get. I ate my stringy meat and half my bread before the barkeep made his way back towards me.
“Go on, girl,” he grumbled, “or get outta the way!”
“I was just wondering m’lord, if you know of a man who might have passed by this way recently?”
“Don’t waste my time, girl, you can see for yourself the men who pass by. Who are you looking for?”
“Darach,” I said, clear and loud. The violin in the corner screeched and every mouth in the bar fell silent. A burly arm grabbed me around the shoulders and pulled me backwards towards a muscled male body. I felt the cold kiss of a blade against my throat.
“Who’s asking... lass?” growled a hoarse voice in my ear.
I realised, absurdly, that I had dropped the remainder of my bread. I almost laughed.
“Hey,” growled the man with the knife at my throat, “speak quick lass, or never again.”
“My name is Myrna,” I mumbled, “I heard he’d been through here, that’s all. Don’t hurt me, please.”
“Myrna, eh? Who do you work for, tell us now, quick.”
The knife was serrated and I could feel it grating against my skin.
“I don’t work for anyone, I just want to find him.”
“Let her go,” said one of the other men, breaking the silence that the crowd had held thus far, “she’s not our concern.”
“Aye and she’s pregnant,” said another, older man, “like is, it’s Darach’s.”
“We got a duty to do,” growled the man who held the knife.
The barkeep chuckled. “A girl with a baby won’t change your duty. No woman would ever worry the Treacle King.”
For the first time, I noticed that the barkeep had a southern accent, his voice full of Rs and stretched out vowels. I knew he was no danger. The real danger, the knife, slid away from my throat and the burly arm that grasped me disappeared. I felt myself drop a good foot to the ground, but I stayed upright. The man with the knife shoved past me to brandish it at the barkeep.
“Southern scum,” he growled, “you’re as bad as Darach himself you are!”
I touched my hand to my throat and felt the warm, wet touch of blood. I didn’t think that the cut was bad, but the sight of red on my fingers was enough to make my head swim.
“Thank you,” I mouthed to the barkeep, who caught my eye and grinned. I slid away out of the crowd of rowdy men, just as the violinist began to play again - a much jollier tune this time, that made me imagine griffins leaping...
“Can’t we loosen it just a little further?” I grumbled, “that’s why they make ‘em this way, with all this lacing! You could just let it out a little around my belly.”
“No,” said Malvarl, “you’re not so large with the child that you can’t play this part properly.”
His hands tickled their way up my arm and suddenly the ties to my sleeve were all fastened in neat bows. Three jointed fingers are defter and faster than our measly human fingers.
“And you’re sure they won’t balk at your presence?”
“No, I am sure that they will. The barbarians share your fear of my kind. It is a mutual fear. They will respect you for travelling with a dangerous creature. Remember, Myrna, only the richest merchants trade with the Nybelingnau.”
I stayed quiet. We’d been over this twice before and each time Malvarl had explained it in detail, in his perfect, if disturbingly accented, English. The plan had been my idea in the first place, but somehow Malvarl had become responsible for its execution. He looked ridiculous dressed in southern garb. The puffy trunks didn’t quite fit his abnormally slender frame and his tattered ears stuck out from under his cap. His whiteless eyes were not southern eyes.
“Myrna,” he said, catching my attention.
I looked up to see, not the Nybelingnau in southern garb, but myself, in a mirror. My mouth fell open. I had never worn anything this beautiful in my life. I had never looked this beautiful in my life. They say clothes make the man, but right now these clothes were turning a simple village lass into a southern princess. I was clad in a dress made from red silk, with freshwater pearls sewn over every inch of it. A string of pearls hung at my throat and my hair fell around me in hundreds of braids that Malvarl had fashioned with those quick fingers.
“Oh,” I said, in awe of myself. And then, on further thought, “won’t I freeze?”
With an uncharacteristic flourish, Malvarl produced a pile of furs. “These wolves hunt in the south,” he said, and draped a fur coat across my shoulders.
“Well, Mister Malvarl,” I said, emphasising my R sounds, “shall we meet with the Treacle King?”
Malvarl offered his arm silently and together we strode out of the room, out of the inn and into the waiting carriage.
“Are you well-prepared, ma’am,” asked Malvarl. His attempt at a southern accent was more disturbing than his normal accent. I held up the little glass-and-wood box that I was holding and shook it. It rattled satisfyingly, proving that its precious cargo was still inside. The carriage took off, pulled by two horses.
Halfway up the hill that led to Fort Gal-Ga-Rok, we heard the deep booming of a giant metal gong. One, two, three rings, we counted. A few moments later, as the sound of the gong died away, the strong odour of burnt sugar filled the carriage.
From outside the box in which we sat, our barbarian driver laughed. Malvarl handed me a fine lace handkerchief that had been drenched in lavender oil. Rumour had it that southerners wouldn’t risk smelling the sweet wind of the north, so I breathed into the handkerchief like the precious princess I was meant to be.
As the carriage came to a stop outside the giant iron gate of Fort Gal-Ga-Rok, the gong sounded once and the sweet wind faded away with the echoes of the sound. Malvarl took the handkerchief back; I was glad to breathe clean air again. We made a stately exit from the carriage, with Malvarl lifting me gently down to the ground.
“Nice gate,” he said, in his atrocious combination accent. I could see spittle glistening on his pointy teeth. The smell of the iron in the gate must have been making him hungry; I only hoped that we could use that fact to our advantage.
The rusty creak as the gate swung open chilled my bones, but not as much as the sight of half an army of barbarians streaming out to greet me. They each held a weapon - axes, swords, maces - and were dressed in still-bloody furs. The biggest barbarian of them all towered over his brethren at nearly seven feet high and held a great axe. He was wearing a black bear skin that dripped blood with every step he took.
As he stepped out of his place in the rigid formation, I watched the blood drip and drip onto the stone floor. “Me captain,” he said, “you call Gal-Ga-Wak. I escort.”
He reached out a grabbed my arm with a huge, ugly hand.
Malvarl made a hideous sound, deep in his throat. My weeks with his people had taught me that this was the word for, “no,” in its sternest and most urgent sense. I didn’t flinch at the sound.
Gal-Ga-Wak, with a great axe in one hand and his bear skin cloak leaking red down his legs, made a high-pitched noise and took a step back. He looked at Malvarl, straight into his all-blue eyes. Malvarl stood his ground, and a moment later Gal-Ga-Wak withdrew his hand from my arm.
It was time to play my part. “Next time, you won’t have the chance to try that again,” I said, looking up into the eyes of the now-terrified barbarian captain. “Malvarl here,” I emphasised my Rs, playing up the accent, “will escort me. You may lead.”
The pause that followed was more pregnant than I was.
Eventually, Gal-Ga-Wak turned around and made his way past the army, through the gates. I smiled prettily and took Malvarl’s offered arm, and together we walked through the iron gates of Fort Gal-Ga-Rok to meet with the Treacle King.
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