[color=red]"Yes, I'm coming," Cygna says. [color=red]"I just had to deal with Adorjan trying to block my way."
Cygna follows Gregoire into the great hall, takes two or three steps, then sees a raven-haired Hiems at the head table, being fed grapes by some...incredibly beautiful, voluptuous hussy!
She comes to a stop, but the world starts to spin furiously around her. She stares at the scene, her jaw dropping in shock. She starts to cry, and she spins on her heels and flees the hall, bawling uncontrollably. She will keep running until she finds some out-of-the-way place to cry her heart out in peace.
Guillaume is seated near the head of the table. The Earl and his wife are both pleasant hosts. Hiems will recognize the Redcap from around the covenant, though they have never been introduced.
Cygna leaves without Hiems ever spotting her, and though he does hear Guillaume ask Ranulf for a private audience "on behalf of my associate from Gallus Florensis" --her name is never mentioned, so it would be totalle reasonable for Hiems to think Sir Guillaume is arranging an audience with the Earl for him.
Adorjan manifests, and does his best to comfort Cygna. "There there, Katerina," he croons softly, "He is a fool, and not worth your tears. Say the word and I will kill him for you. Or the wench. Or both of them. In fact, if you wish it, I will remove her from the equation without even harming her at all. Tell me what I can do to make this pain go away, my girl, my dear Katerina."
Cygna sniffles and dabs at her eyes with her sleeve, then looks up at Adorjan. [color=red]"There will be no more killing, Adorjan. If he's not worth my tears, than he's not worth damning your soul any further."
She stands up and straightens her robe. [color=red]"Besides, I've just taken a vow of chastity. I swore to forgo all pleasures of the flesh, and to abstain from romantic behavior for five years," she says as she starts to head back to the manor. [color=red]"If he's already found someone else, that just makes it that much easier for me to fulfill my obligation to the Lord."
Once she reaches the manor, she will re-enter the dining room, and look up at the head table, at Hiems and his new lady. [color=red]"I don't know what he sees in her," she scoffs quietly. [color=red]"Hair of spun gold, skin like fresh cream, a body that defies description...if he's fallen for that, he truly is a shallow git." She will continue looking around for Guillaume, but her attention keeps wandering to the head table. If she notices Hiems looking at her, she will make it a point to turn and ignore him with a toss of her snowy hair and a "humph!" Once she finds Guillaume, she will go sit at his side with a whispered, vague apology for her tardiness.
"I need not kill her. I can destroy what they have without harming a single hair on her head. Certainly you can prove your mettle by keeping your vow of chastity, but there's no reason he should find happiness without you. Let me drive a wedge between them," he begs.
He vanishes when Cygna returns to the dining hall. All the revelers have dispersed (you had initially come in just before dessert) but Guillaume is there, waiting. "Ah! Miss Cygna! I was wondering where you'd gone. The Earl will receive you for a private audience-- I could not find you earlier, but hoped you'd return here. Shall we?"
Cygna will try to dissuade him from acting against Hiems and...whoever that woman is. To deprive him of happiness because of her jealousy would violate her vow of humility, she thinks. It's not an easy decision, though – when she first saw them together on the dais, she was so furious that she was with who she had, for years, considered "her man" that her first impulse was to run up on them and do a Rambo. (Something to confess next time she goes to Reconciliation). But now she may have to learn to live her life without him.
[color=red]"Yes, let's," She accompanies Guillaume, trying not to be nervous. She's not looking forward to telling him about Flintshire, or the Baron de Montalt. She can only pray that she has the strength and insight to handle things correctly.
The earl is in his private parlour with his wife, speaking with Hiems and Lisette. Clemence grasps Hiems' hands and gushes, "Again-- I can't thank you enough for returning our niece to us safely. We were so worried when Robert turned up half-dead, and no word from her for days! I am ever in your debt, monsieur," she says to him in accented langue d'oc.
"Just tell him we'll give him some reward, a horse or something, and get him out of here. I don't like the look of him," the earl says to her in Anglo-Norman (which enjoys some mutual intelligibility with langue d'oil, but not Hiems' native Occitan), the magnanimous smile never leaving his face.
The countess smiles graciously, and addresses Hiems again in his native tongue. "My husband has graciously offered you a boon as a reward. You may ask--"
They are interrupted as Guillaume and Cygna enter the room, arm in arm. The earl stands and clasps Guillaume's arm, and then turns to his previous guests. "I must take these visitors now, my love. Get them out," he instructs her in Anglo-Norman.
Thus the star-crossed lovers are reunited in the most unlikely of places and the most unlikely manner...
((And, of course, without the necklace, Cygna would have no idea what they were saying even if she had heard it.))
Cyna looks at Hiems, then at the harlot next to him, then back at Hiems with a pained, insincere smile. [color=red]"I am glad to see that you are well," Cygna says in Latin, her voice dripping icicles.
((Yeah, this is sooo not what I had planned Cygna's reaction to be when she next saw him ))
Cygna feels her conscience weigh down on her at this ungracious act, realizing that acting possessively of another human being for romantic reasons, violates all three of her oaths simultaneously.
She also realizes, in a moment of clarity, that seeing Hiems with his lady at dinner... it was the first time she'd ever seen him genuinely happy. Ever.
The earl is small of stature but great in presence, thin, with a shock of thick steel-grey hair turning white at the temples. He turns to Cygna, having dismissed his niece and her lover from his attention, and questions the Bjornaer maga. "You, girl. Sir Guillaume's friend, yes? What is it you wish to speak to me about? Make it quick," he declares in Anglo-Norman. Despite not understanding the Earl's words, Cygna immediately recognizes the Alpha quality in the man's voice; this is someone who commands respect from everyone he meets, and people instinctively obey him.
Little William bows politely, and says something back to the earl in Anglo-Norman. He turns to Cygna and says in Latin, "Maga Cygna, may I present to you the Lord Ranulph de Blondeville, Earl of Chester and Lincoln, and his wife, Vicomtesse Clemence de Fougeres. The earl wishes to know what he may do for you," he translates.
As soon as the words left her mouth, she realized that it was unseemly and uncalled for, and she resolves to find them both, apologize, and seek their forgiveness on top of her next Reconciliation.
[color=red]"Thank you for meeting with me on such short notice, mylord. I represent the magi of Gallus Florensis, who reside on lands belonging to your vassal Baron de Montalt. The Baron has been taxing us, in our opinion, rather heavily the past few years. We paid some £350 last year, and have paid over £1,000 in the last four years. I was hoping to meet with him in order to seek some relief of our burden, but with what happened to Flintshire, that is obviously impossible now. We were hoping that you would see fit to ease our burden in your mercy."
Guillaume translates, and the earl laughs raucously. "Would she be a baron, then, and force me to sign a Magna Carta? Tell the wench that I'll not pay the boy's land tax out of my own coffers, and that if they want to live in Chester, they'll pay their bloody carucage. If she wants land and freedom without paying scutage or carucage, she can go blow the king of Scotland. If she doesn't choke on his member, maybe he'll give her an acre to farm some rocks in."
Guillaume laughs politely at the earl's joke, turns back to Cygna, and "translates" into Latin. "My lord says the land taxes come from Henry himself-- the king of England, that is-- and he can't make an exception for you without drawing the king's attention to how much autonomy we all enjoy under English law." With the stress on "all" Cygna realizes that William is referring not only to the covenant, but also the Mercer House.
[color=red]"I see," Cygna says thoughtfully. She then hums and sings quietly for a moment as she thinks, then looks the earl in the eye as she sings Posing the Silent Question with no gestures. ((That drops her Casting Total from +24 to +19, vs. a Spell Level of 20. The question is "Where are our taxes going?" If she gets a chance, she will continue singing, doing another Posing the Silent Question, likewise with no gestures, with this question being "How can we get a reduction in our taxes?".))
She will continue singing for a moment after the spells, looking down as she continues to think and process the answer(s) she got.
[color=red]"I see," she says again. [color=red]"Does the Earl know if his Majesty will continue to increase the taxes, or reduce them? Or even have a reasonable idea as to which way our tax burden will go?"
Guillaume translates, and the earl laughs again and replies to him in Norman again.
The Redcap looks massively uncomfortable as he translates: "My lord says that he does not read minds, much less that of a... person as young as Henry, but that the boy and his advisors are greedy. He says that if you truly want lower taxes, he would be more than happy to get you in to see the boy king's regent and force the issue, so long as you relieve Chester and Lincoln of its entire carucage and scutage."
Cygna's immediate thought is, He wants me to meet with the King of England to get surcease from his, and our, taxes? But...I'm just a peasant maga!
Then she realizes that he's saying that some boy named Henry is king? Last she knew, John Lackland was King of England. Granted, he was out of grace with the Roman church, but still. She may or may not know about Henry (who was five when she left for Iberia).
[color=red]"What happened to King John?" she asks Guillaume. [color=red]"I've been in Iberia for the last eight or nine years.
"And please tell the Earl that I am deeply touched by his offer, although I am not worthy to see the King or his advisers of my own accord. I will do my best, as God wills."
"Ahh-- I am not going to trouble the Earl with your questions on recent history; suffice to say the late King John was lacking in intestinal fortitude. The Earl also suggested that you bring an accompanist if you're going to insist on singing for him. You, erm, don't actually intend to follow Ranulph's suggestion, do you?!? I believe he meant it facetiously," Guillaume asks in astonishment.
[color=red]"I'm not used to dealing with nobility," Cygna snaps, then closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. [color=red]"I was rather surprised by his request, but thought there was a slight chance that he was serious. I would rather play it safe, rather than treat it as a joke and find out later that it was not."
She smiles. [color=red]"Is the Earl finished with us? May we leave, then?" she asks politely.
If so, she is going to try to seek out Hiems and his woman. If Guillaume leaves with her, she will ask him.
Regardless, right now she feels like an abject failure in everything that she's tried to do since arriving in England. Everything's making it a lot easier for me to be humble, she thinks.
Guillaume's face is pained. "Well, maga... The earl would certainly be pleased if he could escape de Burgh's levies, but I don't think Ranulf honestly expects to get a Hermetic maga involved. It's a fine distinction, truly. You see, I would prefer not to be in a position where I might ever have to answer to a Guernicus on such a matter." He sighs exasperatedly, then pauses to exchange something unintelligible with Ranulf before continuing. "So if I tell you he probably wasn't serious, and you have no reason to question my word, then I would have no reason to suspect that you would ever have any reason to cross any... lines. So if it ever comes up, that is what I could truthfully answer."
The poor Redcap is clearly accustomed to dealing with folk more savvy than Bjornaer
))