Too many days without sunlight and my brain starts daydreaming about sleeping the clock around and waking to a sunny morning.\u00a0 Kicking it out of bed is necessary, even when it tells me the balance mechanism is sub-par.\u00a0 We had several days of heavy cloud with occasional thunder “somewhere” and not much actual water from the sky.\u00a0 Finally however we got an inch over about 18 hours, including in a last 15 minute thunder on the roof at 1 am Saturday morning (it wasn’t the rain but a big BOOM!! overhead that woke me.)<\/p>\n
No sun, though.\u00a0 Easter Eve is a traditional time for Hispanic families in Texas to have big “end of Lent” parties, and our neighbors did.\u00a0 You can tell when the pinata goes up by the squeals of the younger children and the “thwack-thwack” of whatever stick they’re hitting it with.\u00a0 [drat this touchpad.\u00a0 I just deleted the rest of that paragraph, with the incident of soccer ball recovery…grr.)<\/p>\n
Skipping ahead.\u00a0 Plot bomb burst in my head this morning and there’s a little over 2000 words of something new.\u00a0 You may remember that in Limits of Power, Stammel dies delaying some pirates coming to the village where he’s been living.\u00a0\u00a0 After that, when the people return from the caves where they hid, they decide to honor him by naming children in his memory:\u00a0 Matthis for the boys and Paksen for the girls (they’re not literate and never got Paks’s full name because he talked a little about having trained Paks in Fox Company.\u00a0 Stammel stayed with Cadlin in that vill, so Cadlin’s next children carry Stammel’s family name as well:\u00a0 Matthis Stammel and Paksen Stammel.\u00a0 Everyone else names them as usual with the parent’s name: Matthis Volson, Telson, Rortson, etc and Paksen Voldotir, Rortdotir, Arndotir, etc.\u00a0 This so Stammel’s name never dies out.<\/p>\n
The children grow up knowing why they carry these unusual (for that region) names, and they…get ideas.\u00a0 To live up to Stammel’s memory, shouldn’t they figure out a way to protect not just their village but the whole island?\u00a0 Grownups tell them it’s impossible.\u00a0 But…Matthis and Paksen Stammel are now (where I’m writing) meeting with Meddthal Andressat in the South Marches headquarters…and there’s this younger Lord Marrakai there, too.\u00a0 They have a Fox Company ring…I know (I looked it up and sure enough) that Dragon took Stammel’s ring up to the Duke’s Stronghold with Stammel’s body.\u00a0 But nobody would say Dragon couldn’t reproduce a copy for the village, esp. given that Dragon will certainly hear about the decision to name a boy and a girl in each family for Stammel and Paksen.\u00a0 And the vill does not know Dragon took the ring to give Arcolin, so they don’t wonder when Cadlin finds it on the beam in his workshop where the sack of crossbow bolts hung.<\/p>\n
The young folk now have a net of acquaintances between the vills–not just with the next one over but all the way around.\u00a0 They’ve chosen lookout points to watch for pirates.\u00a0\u00a0 Pirates have come back several times, but now more vills empty ahead of invasion.\u00a0 The adults are beginning to realize something might be done, though none of them have clue of what, or how, or where to find the resources.\u00a0 Pirates being pirates, they decide to let that island alone for awhile to recover some stuff worth stealing and be less watchful.\u00a0 Meanwhile Matthis and Paksen Stammel\u00a0 travel to the mainland in one of the fishing boats to find someone who knows where Fox soldiers are.\u00a0 Hence they’re in Cha…and meet someone who met Stammel (back in Siniava’s War and later) and someone who knew Paksenarrion when he was a boy in the far north (which these young people have never heard of.\u00a0\u00a0 That there is a mainland…but they imagine it as a really big island.)<\/p>\n
But certainly word will go quickly to Fox Company that people who knew Stammel on this island have come to Cha…and from there to the north, to Arcolin. The right music for some of the writing is Elgar’s Engima Variations, esp. the Nimrod section.\u00a0 (Earlier part went fine to Chopin Nocturnes.)<\/p>\n
Oh, you want a snippet?\u00a0\u00a0 But of course.\u00a0 Except they may get cluttered up with Word Sekrit Decoder Stuff.<\/p>\n
………………………………………………………………………………………………………….(And yes the Enigma Variations “Nimrod” fits this particular passage.\u00a0 Esp. toward the end where the soldier realizes…this is a story he’s heard before, years ago.<\/p>\n
The two stood looking for a long moment, then walked forward.\u00a0 Without actually looking at them, the two soldiers blocked their way to the door with the crossed staves of their weapons.\u00a0 \u201cHalt,\u201d said one, and \u201cState your business,\u201d said the other.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to see the Andressat lord,\u201d said Paksen.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho are you?\u00a0 Where from?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m Paksen Stammel.\u00a0 From the island out there in the big ocean.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhich island?\u201d<\/p>\n
She had no idea how to tell him.\u00a0 The island was just \u2018the island\u2019 or \u2018our island\u2019 to the islanders.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s where we live; I don\u2019t know what other people call it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The soldiers looked at each other.\u00a0 The one to her heart side tapped the haft of his weapon on the stone step three times.\u00a0 \u201cWait,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cSomeone will come.\u00a0 Not the lord, someone who will know what to do with you.\u00a0 Do you have a letter or a word from someone Andressat might know?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have his-someone\u2019s ring.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou will need to show it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Matthis pulled it out of his shirt on its thong, just as another man in a long robe of yellow edged with white came to the door.\u00a0 \u201cWhat\u2019s going on?\u201d he asked the soldiers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese two.\u00a0 Fisherfolk, I suspect, from an island.\u00a0 Say they want to see the Andressat lord and that one\u2019s got a ring.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAn island…plenty of islands…name?\u201d<\/p>\n
Paksen shook her head.\u00a0 \u201cWe don\u2019t know what other people call it,\u201d she said again.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s just our island to us.\u00a0 Matthis and me aren\u2019t fisherfolk; we live up the mountain.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cName?\u201d the man asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cPaksen Stammel,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
He blinked.\u00a0 \u201cStammel. That\u2019s not an island name…your father?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, Blind Stammel,\u201d Matthis said.\u00a0 \u201cHe lived on our island a short time and saved us\u2014well, the olders, we hadn\u2019t been born yet\u2014from pirates.\u00a0 He said he was a soldier somewhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSergeant,\u201d the man in the robe said to one of the soldiers.\u00a0 \u201cCould that be–?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLet me see that ring, young man,\u201d the soldier said.\u00a0 \u201cAnd your name?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMatthis Stammel.\u201d\u00a0 He took the thong off over his head and handed the ring to the soldier, who looked, and took in a sudden breath.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy the Dragon, it is!\u00a0 Fox Company ring.\u00a0 Must be three hands of years at least since he was blinded, more like four.\u00a0 I was up in Valdaire when I\u2019d heard the rumor and then saw him riding past with the Duke.\u201d The soldier looked hard at Matthis.\u00a0 \u201cAnd you\u2019re named for him?\u00a0 But not his body-son?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u00a0 Cadlin\u2019s my father.\u00a0 Blind Stammel lived in our house on the island. \u00a0That\u2019s why my sister and I have his last name.”<\/p>\n
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Too many days without sunlight and my brain starts daydreaming about sleeping the clock around and waking to a sunny morning.\u00a0 Kicking it out of bed is necessary, even when it tells me the balance mechanism is sub-par.\u00a0 We had several days of heavy cloud with occasional thunder “somewhere” and not much actual water from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[129,53,97,5],"tags":[112,7,44,28,107],"class_list":["post-2932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-characters","category-life-beyond-writing","category-limits-of-power","category-the-writing-life","tag-life-beyond-writing","tag-new-content","tag-plot-bombs","tag-snippet","tag-the-writing-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2932"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2932"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2932\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2934,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2932\/revisions\/2934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}