Folk are sharing writing updates today on the author thread…so here’s the next “intro to Irduin” section (following what I shared at the start of the month).
In the Chesnery
“I’m Tamran Innkeep. You’ve met my father Maurs.” Even beyond the general broad Souther accents, there’s a funny twist to their voices here: a nasal loudening on some vowels that continues to surprise you every time it happens. “What are you
*if not(alone)
and your @{(cerl_here and gam) companions|companion}
in need of? Besides a bit more in your @{alone cup|cups}?”
“Something of a guide to the folk in the room, perhaps, goodwoman Tamran…since no one else will talk to @{alone me|us}.” You grin ruefully back to her before asking:
*label tamranintro
*choice
*hide_reuse #“What aristo Houses live hereabouts? And are likely to be in want of @{sralibi a flecher|an apothecary|a tutor|a weapon-trainer|a player} for a season or two?”
*set tamtick +20
“A season or two? You think @{(irdstory = 3) you’ll have earned your fortune well enough|things will be different enough for the Commotion} by then that it’ll be time for you to go back to the Rim?” Tamran’s intense stare hovers over you again, as when you first met. You do your best not to squirm, and finally she relents. “All the aristoi here are from one family, or close to it: the de Irde. And they’re all dining with us tonight. Lady Alasais there is the head of the House. Her scion and heir is kuria Aguise.”
The two noblewomen are talking intensely at a table across the room; you recognize the younger as the one who @{(irdgreet = 3) spoke briefly with you at the door|rode up as you were arriving}. Her mother Alasais is a tall, imperious presence, with a grave-looking face that occasionally breaks into a brilliant smile. She’s wearing a soft cap on her silver-threaded hair, and silk-lined robes dyed in a jasmine-flower print, but something in her stance invites you to imagine her in Phalangite helm and armor. “So if they liked an outsider well enough…?”
“Their patronage might feed you
*if not(alone)
and your @{(gam and cerl_here) friends|friend}
for that season-or-two,” Tamran confirms. “Over there are milady’s young sons, kurioi Auche and Alac. And talking to the reeves in the corner, their as-yet-unwed noble cousins: kuria Bernete de Jerieges, and kurios Joet de Irde. Two scions of smaller branches of the family: almost no land, almost no helots, parents lost to the Halassur War. It’s the kindness of milady Alasais that she treats them as close kin.”
@{aristo “Mmm. I’ve known of other Houses like that.”|} You scan the nobles curiously. “And…they’re all eating at their inn, rather than in their manor? What’s the occasion?”
Tamran shrugs, grinning. “Our Salle is as fine a cook as Fulsen at the estate. And the de Irde try to share table with their commonsfolk every few days. A demesne this small and remote could be a lonely place, otherwise—and perhaps more fractious.”
Except for Aguise’s riding clothes, the rest of the aristos are wearing robes rather than coats over their kyrtles, and delicately embroidered caps rather than circlets. “Does everyone in this part of the world wear old Shayardene garb, rather than dressing like Karagonds?”
“Not everyone. Behind the reeve, over there, see?” Following her nod, you make out the glint of a circlet on the lanky man standing in the shadows of the alcove. “That’s kurios Olerot Taminatou. A Mesnielic aristo who lost his land to a more powerful neighbor. He’s been here for the past six months, wooing lady Bernete.”
“Ah. So some outsiders at least can get accepted here?”
Tamran shrugs, eyes gleaming. “Remains to be seen.”
*goto tamranintro
*hide_reuse #“Tell me about your amiable Alastor.”
*set tamtick +1
“Still surprised by what you saw on the bridge? Well, Captain Korren likes to say that since he’s been allotted a handful of enforcers to keep well over a hundred helots and drudges in line, he’d better stay on friendly terms with them.” The innkeeper’s daughter chuckles. “Not the usual approach to keeping the peace, outside Irduin?”
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” you reply with total honesty. Remembering Zebed, you ask, “What happens when your Ecclesiast goes haring after sedition or heresy @{aristo among the helotry|in the camps}, then? When someone needs punishing and the Alastor’s the one who has to do it?”
Tamran shakes her head at once, glancing at the balding man in the robe and surplice. “Ecclesiast Ulmey’s not that sort, either. He’s not Irduin-born, but he grew up just a little southeast of here, in the Couvis pasturelands. His ideas of order and peace weren’t set on the big riverland plantations. He and Korren are friends, and of much the same mind.”
“So you’ve ended up with an uncommonly gentle priest and Alastor…and the @{(tamtick > 19) de Irde|aristos} are happy with that? Not afraid that it’ll lead to the lower orders getting out of control?” Despite your nerves, something in Tamran’s candor evokes a measure of your own.
“Does it look like they should be afraid?” She gestures around the inn, lips quirked in a half-smile, before lowering her voice. “I don’t think it’s just good fortune that Irduin has the Hegemonic authorities it does. Lady Alasais knows what she wants, and spends her influence in Mesniel to get it.”
*goto tamranintro
*hide_reuse #“Any other village notables? Besides you and your father?”
*set tamtick +1
“A moment, ${kuria} ${ird_name}.” Tamran walks over to the biggest group of peasants, refills their cups, then swaps jokes with the young helots for a few minutes before returning to you. “Our village is a small place, but has a good-sized mine. Irduin Stannary yields enough tin to keep lady Alasais in drachems, comforts, and retainers…including myself, my father, and this inn. And thanks to the tin trade, there are a couple of merchant families who live here. See Farrec Strabaud there, with his son Eyon?”
You look at the cluster of folk chatting animatedly over wine in the portico; they include a heavyset man with a thick neck, and a younger version of himself who’s growing a beard to cover a weak chin. “Is that his wife they’re talking to?”
Tamran cranes her neck to see the short, white-haired woman. “No, that’s Aenor Reeve. She’s one of the elder yeomen of Irduin who manage the farms for the aristoi—assigning land to croppers, agreeing rents and taxes, resolving fights among tenants. They’re probably talking about the merchants’ loans to one farmer or another. There’s another yeoman reeve, Cômes Murager, who does the same for the woods and pastures. Chatting with kuria Aguise and her mother over there, see?”
Yes, the hook-nosed man @{(irdgreet = 3) who warily dismissed you earlier|who earlier rode in with the young noblewoman}. “Do Irduin’s reeves spend most of their time drinking with merchants and nobles, rather than their fellow yeomen?”
The young woman’s eyebrows twitch upward with slightly chiding amusement at your implication. “Spend more than one evening here, ${kuria} ${alias}, and you’ll see the reeves mingling happily enough with their own. I won’t say I’ve never heard a farmer curse at Aenor and Cômes on his fourth ale of the night…but by and large they keep their own folk satisfied, not just the aristos and moneylenders.”
“Then Irduin is blessed with peace, indeed.” Traitors and bloodsucking bastards, you remember hearing the yeomen of Rim Square growling about the Keriatou reeves. There was about as much fondness between them as between merchants and aristos and the Telone tax collectors. But those reeves had been townsfolk hired in by Lord Stilos, not drawn from the local yeomanry like this Aenor and Cômes.
*goto tamranintro
*hide_reuse #“@{(tamtick = 0) The|And the} helotry drink here too, without anyone chasing them out? How do they pay you?”
*set tamtick +1
“The de Irde don’t bring in Theurges for extra harvests, so the helots aren’t worked as relentlessly here as in the lowlands. There’s time to earn a bit by crafting, or carding and spinning for the House.”
“The nobles pay them?” @{(bre or kal) ${gamgee} sounds flabbergasted.|You can feel your eyebrows almost leaping off your head.}
“Not in actual coin, no. But they—or rather, their estate reeves—tell my father and me how much ale they think each helot family has earned. Or we just take the word of elder Brasque.” Tamran waves a hand across the caskroom; it’s hard for you to make out any individual in the dense, noisy knot of people there. “He’s the helot elder who comes up here most often. Friendly with everyone from the nobles on down. He likes to encourage the bolder youth in his camp to join him, to enjoy themselves here with the rest of the village, not just lie low among themselves.”
“Extraordinary.” You can’t help thinking of @{intronat Iarla Wester’s|the Rim Square} wineroom, and how rarely you’d ever see any @{helot other|} helot inside.
“Sometimes it can upset strangers passing through, seeing young helots ordering their own ale as and when they please, not just receiving a cask of barleywine on the big holidays.” The innkeeper’s daughter eyes you keenly. “I don’t take you for that kind, though, ${kuria}.”
“And so all of you end up living happily together.” Feeling as bemused as ever, you wave a hand at the cheery and now thoroughly intermingled crowd. “If a bit standoffish to strangers.”
Tamran shrugs. “When they’ve got a better sense of what kind of stranger you are, their doors might open a bit wider for you.”
*goto tamranintro
*hide_reuse #“Speak no lie…so if I ask how much you’ve watered the wine, you’ll always tell the truth?”
*set maursvoice true
She throws you a defiant grin. “Absolutely. No one speaks a lie in my father’s house—that’s been his rule for longer than I’ve been alive. And it helps that we don’t water the wine.”
“If someone broke the rule?”
“Dama’s got an ear for it.” You’ve heard the term a few other times since leaving Mesniel; in this bit of Shayard, people refer to either father or mother as ‘dama’, informally and affectionately. Tamran raises an eyebrow at you, still grinning. “As do I, for that matter. Lie at your peril. You may be pulled to the fore and plied with canewine until the truth outs.”
You try not to betray any nerves through your laugh, while nodding toward the highborns in the main room. “So if I ask the lady of Irduin how much her jewels are worth…?”
“She’ll tell you nothing, or tell you off. But she wouldn’t tell an untruth. Not under Maurs’s roof.”
“And lady Alasais follows her innkeeper’s rules because…?”
“Because the Angels talk to him.” The twinkle in her eye doesn’t look sarcastic.
*goto tamranintro
*if maursvoice and ((religion >= 13) and (religion <= 15))
#“Your father can hear the Angelic Voice?”
Tamran nods, then inclines her head to one side. “And that seems to surprise you a lot less than most travelers who find out about it, ${kuria}.”
You try to swallow some of your enthusiasm; who knows what news might have spread about ${addressu} ${lname} and ${his} claim that we could all hear the Angels? “I could never truly believe They spoke only to priests and the Eclect.”
*label theychoose
“Well, They do choose whom They speak to. It’s just that Their chosen include a legless former stonemason.”
Fascinated, you lean in closer. “And what do They tell him?”
“No new laws, thankfully. No sedition, no emendations to the Codex. Nothing to get him in trouble.” There’s a wryly elusive smile on her face. “Just the occasional guidance on how to be part of a compassionate order among his neighbors.”
“That’s…”
*choice
#“…convenient.” I wonder if They genuinely only speak what’s safe, or if that’s all he’s wiling to hear.
Or all he’s willing to mention to others, you suppose. Perhaps even his own daughter.
Tamran seems to guess your mind.
*goto talktomaurs
#“…smaller than I’d have expected.” I can’t help but be disappointed.
“The holy guardians of Order in the cosmos…take the time to tell your father how to run his inn?”
She nods toward your cup, still smiling. “They must appreciate a good @{irddrink clean draught of well-water|jerkum-and-cider|red wine|stoup of ale|canewine} as much as the next ${woman}.”
*goto tamnext
#“…amazing!” And might explain some of what I’m seeing here in Irduin.
She inclines her head, still smiling.
*label talktomaurs
“Talk to him about it if you like, ${kuria} ${alias}. He’s always happy to share. Sometimes more than is probably wise.”
*goto tamnext
*if maursvoice and (skepreal <= 50)
#I try to hide my shock and excitement. “I thought they only spoke to priests and the Eclect.”
Tamran shrugs.
*goto theychoose
*if maursvoice and (skepreal > 50)
#I cough, trying not to be too overtly scornful. “What’s the Ecclesiast think about that?”
Tamran shrugs, eyes still twinkling. “He reckons my father hears Them more clearly than he does. Comes here for advice, more often than drink.”
So their priest Ulmey is @{introrel more like Olynna than|nothing like} Zebed. You could have guessed that already. “And what does your father say he hears?”
“Guidance on how to live a life of compassionate order.” If she’s detected your skepticism, it hasn’t put any defensiveness into her tone. “And how to bring his neighbors along with him.”
*choice
#If enough folk here think their innkeeper is some kind of prophet…perhaps that explains some of Irduin’s oddities.
Of course, it’s still nonsense. Any Angels worth believing in would surely have stronger things to say about the injustices of the Hegemony, not just tips on getting along with the rest of the village. But there’s power in nonsense if enough people believe it; perhaps Maurs has used it to build more goodwill than you’ve ever seen between folk of different estates before.
When you don’t ask anything further, Tamran inclines her head toward her father.
*goto talktomaurs
#“Wouldn’t the Angels do better to speak to the de Irde or the Alastors? To folk with power?”
Her large, intense eyes rest discomfitingly on you again for a few moments. “Maybe they think there’s more power in this inn than in the manor house. More of the good kind, anyhow.”
*goto tamnext
#There’s nothing I could say about this nonsense that wouldn’t risk a fight. I change the subject.
“Well, I don’t think we have look beyond his @{irddrink drinks|cider|wine|ale|canewine} to see how your father brings the neighbors along.” You lift your cup. “To his health, and yours, goodwoman Tamran.”
*goto tamnext
*if (tamtick > 0)
#That’s all I’m interested in for now.
*goto tamnext
*label tamnext
@{(tamtick < 20) After you’ve had a brief explanation from her of the nobles and other village notables, there’s|There’s} a shout from the cooking area outside, and Tamran vanishes. Moments later, she and the young inn-help Gyrn return with a caldron of stew. You’re expecting them to set it down in the middle of the biggest table for the freeborn guests to gather round and share. Instead, they ladle it out into pewter bowls which they start handing out individually—as if everyone in the Chesnery were noble.
When she returns to serve you, Tamran notes your surprise with a grin. “My father suggested it to lady Alasais—a simple way for her to share some honor with the rest of the village. And it makes sure none of her highborn family or guests ever gets served anyone’s chewed bone tossed back into the pot.”
Across the room, the helots are being served with individual bowls. Helots!
*fake_choice
*if helot
#In the Rim Square camps, we’d almost always eat from a shared pot or platter.
Certainly at any event that brought nobles and helots together, there’d be a marked difference in how you ate. You do notice here that the nobles are eating with little ladles, rather than slurping stew from the bowl, but that’s a small difference.
#It feels odd and over-dainty. I prefer eating communally.
In the Whendward, most of the band would eat from a common pot, though you carried a motley collection of bowls to bring food to those who couldn’t join: people on watch, the sick, and leaders at work.
#The idea of “sharing some honor” with the helotry @{helot takes my breath away. I’ve never heard a noble say anything like that|moves me deeply}.
#It’s surely all too good to be true. What’s all this public bonhomie covering up?
*if maursvoice
#“So this is the kind of thing your father hears from the Angels?”
“It seems not to be beneath Their attention,” Tamran says, a twinkle in her eye. “I don’t think They suggested which pewterer we buy the bowls from, though. We could ask him.”
The stew is a fine meal, fresh and well-spiced, and it temporarily silences the room. As you’re wiping the bowl with your last handful of bread, however, you hear a voice raised in anger for the first time since you arrived in Irduin. It would have caught your attention even if the speaker hadn’t been talking about you.
“Cousin…@{(wonfight > 5) after all their victories under|just because} that Xaos-lover ${fname} @{(wonfight > 5) ${lname}|${lname} was chased across the Ward}, you’d truly talk as if the Rim rebels are no risk to us?
*if (wonfight <= 5)
@{f_4 With new monsters like this Bloodhand rising up in ${his} place?|Just because some of the new ones pretend to gentility?}”
*goto mytruename
*elseif (wonfight > 8)
The ones who crushed the Phalangite tagma sent after them?"
*goto mytruename
*else
The ones that even a Phalangite tagma couldn’t uproot?"
*goto mytruename
*label mytruename
Hearing your true name spoken aloud in the Chesnery fills you with:
*fake_choice
#Instinctive alarm. The more they’ve heard about me, the more likely they’ll see through my story.
#Self-consciousness. Will anything in my face or posture betray that I’m who they’re talking about?
*if wonfight <= 5
#Despair. Word of my defeat will go ahead of me everywhere.
#Quiet pride. My work is known, even hundreds of miles from where it began.
*if wonfight > 5
#Giddy exhilaration. We’ve truly shaken the realm, not just the Rim.
The speaker is one of the aristos, the one Tamran called Bernete de Jerieges. She looks about ten years older than you, well past the age where most nobles wed. Her face right now is a mask of nervous contempt; you think that’s in reaction to the Rim outlaws, not the suitor Olerot of Mesniel who’s nodding sycophantically at her elbow. All around the caskroom, other people fall silent at the mention of rebellion.
“The Rim Commotion will be shattered, Bernete, under any leader,” lady Alasais replies coolly. From her clear, carrying voice, she’s aware of how many new listeners their conversation has acquired. @{knowloss You half-expect her to mention your death in Mesniel, but she doesn’t; perhaps those stories haven’t yet made their way out here.|}
*if (((natl > 74) or (natl < 26)) or ((skep > 74) or (skep < 26)))
“But ${lname} ${slur} @{(wonfight > 5) has|} made them into @{(natl < 26) a rootless host|fanatics},” the merchant Farrec Strabaud rumbles with disgust from across the room.
*if natl > 74
"Raving endlessly about Shayard being greater than any other land.
*if skep > 74
"More disbelieving and blasphemous than any Nere!
*if natl < 26
@{(skep > 74) Pulling|"Pulling} in rebel Whends, and all sorts of rabble, by abandoning the folkways of any one land or people.
*if skep < 26
@{(natl > 74) Spouting|“Spouting} heresies about the @{((religion > 0) and (religion < 6)) Eclect of the Angels|Angels taking their side}!
That madness will last even if @{(wonfight < 6) ${he}'s dead|${he}'s caught by the Plektoi}.”
*set ird_unity +30
*set cred_m -30
*set cred_u -20
*set cred_i -40
This is what ${mesn_envoy} was talking about, you think—how as your rebellion moves from the dispossessed of the Outer and Norther Rim to the more prosperous townsfolk of the inner Rim districts and Southriding, your reputation for extremes is alienating at least as many people as it attracts.
*fake_choice
#I don’t care. It’s what I believe.
You take stances based on their truth, not their popularity—and certainly not based on what might upset some pampered town-dwellers.
#The allies my reputation wins me are worth the ones it costs me.
You wouldn’t have
*if natl > 74
@{(bethune < 1) had|} Bethune
*if skep > 74
@{(etthena < 1) had|} Etthena
*if natl < 26
*if skep > 74
or @{((etthena < 1) and (korszata >= 1)) have|}
@{((korszata < 1) and ((skep < 75) or (etthena > 0))) had|} Korszata and Bjel
*if skep < 26
*if natl > 74
or @{((bethune < 1) and (diakon > 0)) have|}
@{((diakon < 0) and ((natl < 75) or (bethune > 0))) had|} Diakon Edwer
in your rebellion if you’d not led with dedication and clarity. What kind of leader would trade allies like
*if natl > 74
@{(skep < 26) them|her}
*if skep > 74
@{(natl < 26) |her}
*if (natl < 26)
them
*if skep < 26
@{(natl > 74) |him}
for the approval of this blustering merchant?
#Perhaps I’ll need to get a message to @{gamsent ${gamgee} and|} ${bandlead}, to find opportunities to change how we’re perceived.
New challenges call for new measures. You wouldn’t want to lose allies like
*if natl > 74
@{(skep < 26) Bethune|Bethune…}
*if skep > 74
@{(natl < 26) Etthena|Etthena…}
*if natl < 26
@{(skep > 74) or|} Korszata and Bjel…
*if skep < 26
@{(natl > 74) or|} Diakon Edwer…
but perhaps you could ease back enough to bring in more of the town-dwellers as well. @{gamsent You wonder if ${gamgee}'s stories from the Xaos-lands will affect perceptions of you at all.|}
“The excesses of these outlaws is a weakness, not a strength,” lady Alasais replies firmly.
“In my father’s time, Cabel’s Revolt was far more dangerous—and it failed. We’re stronger and more unified now than we were then.”
You spot dubious expressions and tellingly hesitant nods from a few @{(ird_unity < 100) points around the room—not just from|of} the yeomen and helots, but @{(ird_unity < 100) some of the tradesfolk and Alastors as well|everyone else nods vehemently}.
“That may not be enough, milady.” Your ears prick up at a Rim-accented voice; looking over, you see an unfamiliar middle-aged woman with a deeply drawn face and haunted eyes. She rises from a shadowy bench near the merchants. “We thought the same in the Norther Rim—especially when we heard that @{(wonfight < 6) the rebels had been crushed and|}
*if (slur = “”) and (religion > 0)
the heretic
${fname}
*if slur != “”
${slur}
*if (slur = “”) and (religion = 0)
Xaos-lover
had fled @{((slur = “”) and (religion = 0)) across the Ward|into the Xaos-lands}. But ${his} poisonous example had corrupted too many of the lower orders already. Some of the ones who looted my craftshop and killed my wife? They were folk from my own village.”
“Listen to goodwoman Haldine,” kuria Bernete insists. “She and her daughter know these beasts better than any of us—Angels avenge them! Will we remain complacent until our own artisans and traders come under rebel threat?”
You eye the sunken-eyed Haldine warily. A refugee from the Rim is more likely to find gaps in your story than anyone else here.
*choice
#I’ll just do my best to avoid the displaced artisan while I’m here in Irduin.
*gosub haldguild
By avoiding them, you could avoid her.
*goto posthaldine
*label haldguild
She’s guildsfolk, and will no doubt be staying with the other merchants here.
*return
#I can’t help feeling sorry for her. Perhaps I can win her over with kindness.
*gosub haldguild
If you spend more time with them, you may have the chance to engage more with her.
*set haldine 3
*goto posthaldine
#If she gets too curious or suspicious…a refugee disappearing might not draw too much concern.
*set haldine 2
*goto posthaldine
*label posthaldine
“There are no rebels nor sign of rebellion in the Southriding, and especially here in Irduin,” lady Alasais persists, serenely chiding. “Kuria Haldine need not fear—nor cause others to fear. Our trust in each other remains our strength, and if the tools of Xaos do not divide us, they can never break us.” Lips curving slightly, she glances over to the innkeeper’s high perch among the casks. “Goodman Maurs, tell them: am I keeping to your rule?”
Maurs rocks forward and grins, unabashed at the query. “By all Angels, milady, I don’t hear a lie in anything you’ve said. She believes it all, neighbors.”
“Hear what I’ve to say, too, kurioi.” A craggy-faced, silver-haired helot addresses the room with more confidence than you’ve heard from even the boldest elder in @{helot your own camp|the Rim}. “I reckon some will be worrying about the rebel creed finding some purchase among my lot. Don’t worry, I say. We know helots are treated fairer and kinder here in Irduin than just about anywhere else in the Hegemony—certainly than up in the wild Rim. If a rebel promised us better, they’d be lying, and well we’d know it.”
“Thank you, elder Brasque. I’m reminded of a story my late father greatly loved to tell…” And Alasais walks out into the middle of the caskroom to spin a tale, as freely as any jongler. No one @{gam but you and ${gamgee}|else} seems astonished at the area’s foremost noble taking the stage to entertain her villagers. From the three de Irde children to the young helots you saw on the bridge, all the folk of Irduin settle in to listen together.
It’s a story about a noblewoman riding along the seashore, who comes upon a beautiful castle built entirely of sand. Finding that the sea is beginning to hollow out its walls, she dismounts and begins shoveling with all her might to fill the gaps. Just when she begins to despair of preventing a collapse, a handful of helots pass by. “Leave the task to us, milady!” they urge, hurrying to her side, but she refuses—“The castle will fall if any of us hold back!” All working as one, they’re joined soon by a passing trader, then by some yeomen…
*fake_choice
#I try to memorize it, to retell in revised form. Our rebellion will also need folk of all stations if we’re to succeed.
#It’s a tedious, obvious parable. I wait impatiently for it to be over.
#I swallow my anger. Shouldn’t the image be a castle of corpses, instead of sand?
Just before the sandcastle is saved, lady de Irde is interrupted by a curt voice from the doorway: “Stable my horse, boy. Innkeep! Food, now! And whatever you call wine in this wasteland.”
A gaunt-faced, sallow-skinned ${erretsin} stalks in out of the night. His accent is much stronger than Cerlota’s, and his hair untouched by gray. Shrugging off his dusty travel-coat onto a peg by the door, he makes one of the most cursory bows you’ve ever seen in the general direction of the nobles. “Kurioi.”
“Telone Baldassare.” Lady Alasais’s voice has gone colder than winter in ${whendery}. “You return late from the lowlands.”
TO BE CONTINUED