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 Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2012 9:44 am
She leads him out into the corridor, past the flinty-eyed young deer who does not stray from her post or react to Maeve's touch when the woman strokes her head on her way past.
They travel down the hall to a tiny, even more cramped room: a bed, a washstand, and one tiny window filmed with age. She beckons for him to look out it, onto the lot behind the Swan, and she opens the book to a page that bears a sketch of that same lot: the same lot, but with some buildings removed, some with wings added, and an open courtyard in the center.
"I have plans," she says, holding the book aloft for him to compare the two views. "I have been acquiring money from those of us who have it, and I have already begun buying up deeds. I am not a rich woman, but I have managed my success here well." Those of us. Us.
Suddenly, without segue, she asks him: "You say you expected Siscalus to work like a farmhorse, and you're dark as a sailor. Do you enjoy your work in the fields, Mr. Danforth?"
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Posted: Fri Sep 28, 2012 7:50 am
Ayle is normally good with animals. The stubborn, swaybacked mule that the farm uses to plow reacts to no one else as favorably as it does Ayle. Dogs adore him. Maeve's Guardian staring at him with flinty green eyes does not exactly unnerve him, as very little does, but he does move along before anything else can happen. The bedroom they enter smells like old perfume and tobacco smoke and something else with which the farmhand is intimately (so to speak) familiar. He inhales through his nose, collecting his thoughts, before glancing out the window -- then to Maeve's sketch -- then to the window again.
She says 'us;' she cannot possibly mean to include him. She might be less apt to do so when she realizes just who she's talking to, when her visions of grandeur cease to cloud her brain and she realizes she speaks to a nigh-illiterate farmhand who is not even good at simply being that. He glances sidelong to her, and then shrugs.
"I prefer to be outside," he begins, and on the heels of that evasive answer, "I sleep outside most of the time. And since Siscalus chose me, it's -- gotten worse -- and he wouldn't pull a plow, anyway." He has never tried, because despite the enormity of the idea, it just didn't seem right to use a Guardian for such a thing.
As they pass one of Maeve's girls, his look changes -- goes from thoughtful to rogueish. His is a face built for it.
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Posted: Sat Sep 29, 2012 4:46 pm
"You say you are handy with your swords. I'd daresay you're handy with your fists as well. While I have always thus far managed to keep my girls out of trouble, it has become an increasing problem of late." And it has. The fliers have attracted gawkers, and the Swan's own reputation has been gaining ground, and the increased traffic, while a nice perk, has brought with it increased trouble.
"I cannot offer you fields and skies, but perhaps you might be willing to exercise your skills on the behalf of myself and my fine girls, in exchange for a bed to sleep in, and meals, and--well. I'm sure we could see to other benefits. It would not be a strenuous job. You'd be fetched to dispatch any visitors who had a mistaken idea about their rights as clients, in any way you saw fit."
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Posted: Tue Oct 02, 2012 2:25 pm
He considers for a brief moment. It is not fields and skies -- but there is a lot in the back where he can look up and see the sun, and where (more importantly), Siscalus can roam. He might miss the crunch of hay underneath his feet, and the smell of fresh-turned earth, but he won't miss fields like Son of a b***h. Maeve will get to see the indecision he wars with as it makes his lips compress into a line --
And then, in his typical way of plunging on ahead without regards to consequences (as far as Ayle can see, there are none to be had here), he nods. It will occur to him later that Maeve has not just offered room and board, but -- other benefits, as well. "I'll do it."
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Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2012 5:53 pm
"Excellent. I imagine you'll want time to notify your current employer. I'll expect you here in a week. You'll have your own room in the servants' wing and I'll make sure it's one with a window." She dusts off her hands as she slips the little book into one of her many pockets.
"And then," she says, with a tone that suggests she means something far grander than guarding doors, and with a manic gleam in her eye that confirms the same, "we will put you to work."
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