Bian -23- No Lunks

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Conversations, divine and inane...

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Bian
(Bee-Onn)

Book 2 - The Reluctant Princess

by Erin Halfelven

 

Chapter 23 - No Lunks
 

The Green Gosling Inn made a rectangle with one of the long sides on the street and the gate we had entered by in the middle. The walls of the compound held up two-story buildings surrounding a courtyard in the center. The street-side structures were a tavern and a stable. Next to the tavern, making the short end of the rectangle on that side, a kitchen building stood with baths alongside on the ground floor and two dormitories above it for women, I learned later.

The construction methods varied with the front buildings being half-stone with some brick and timber while the newer looking construction in the back was mostly split plank with some plaster covered walls.

The back wall of the compound held latrines, the innkeeper’s family rooms, and storage buildings. The other short side had a smithy, more storage and a dormitory for men. The courtyard in the middle included two small garden plots and a chicken yard. A pair of large, furry, black-and-white dogs, named Snout and Wagger, did impromptu comedy sketches in all the open areas. Usually involving tripping someone.

Hubricht, the innkeeper, showed us to rooms and shooed the dogs away when they followed us upstairs. I shared a room with Kilda at the top of a flight of stairs, and Lillakatye got a smaller one next down the hall. These were above the innkeeper’s own rooms and those of his family. Valto, Rotgar and Zenner had rooms above the common area in the front building facing ours across the courtyard, and Lang and Cordle got bunks in the men’s dormitory above the smithy.

My room was smaller than either of the rooms Alenna had back in Moleena, big enough for a bed, a table, a chair and a keldringer/wardrobe and not much else. Katye’s room was even smaller. Both rooms smelled nicer than I expected, though; most of the construction was of cedar or some other fragrant wood, and the keldringer and bed had herbs and flower petals sprinkled inside and between the linens. Rushes covered the floor. I wondered if the guys’ rooms got flowers, too.

I felt a little guilty for flopping onto the bed while Kilda bustled around putting some of our stuff away, but it had been a long hard ride and my tiny body was exhausted. My mind reeled a bit, too. A lot had happened in not much more than 48 hours.

Kilda didn’t seem to mind me flaking out at all. “Let me get things put away, and I can ask for a mid-day meal be prepared.” She beamed at me. Having something to do always seemed to make her happy.

I nodded agreement and closed my eyes, so I didn’t have to watch her bustling around. I still felt guilty but being an adelsdochter came with privileges and at the moment I felt inclined to take advantage of them. Just knowing that I would not have to get back on a horse in a few minutes made the cramps in my thighs and butt I had endured for so long relax into an almost pleasant ache.

It seemed ridiculous that it had been barely two full days since I saw the naked girl in the fountain in Los Perdidos, California. So much had happened.

First of all, instead of a nearly forty-year-old male Sheriff’s Deputy named Gus Gallant in the 21st century, I was now to all appearances Alenna docht Adelwalt, a fourteen-year-old runaway bride in what seemed to be an alternate timeline of the 10th century. Or thereabouts. No one seemed to know a calendar I could recognize.

After much struggle and some strife along the Bright Road, I had reached the relative security of Lundenna, this world’s version of London, a free city where Alenna’s father and prospective husband could not legally compel me. And I had friends, my companions on the trip:

Kilda, my maid and confidant, the only one here I had told about being Corporal Gus Gallant.
Rotgar, my noble guardian, appointed by Alenna’s father, Adelwalt.
Valto, Alenna’s half-brother and nearly a physical double of my old male self.
Zenner, a spy from Rema, charged by the Dux of Song Isle with returning me to Alenna’s mother.
Katye, a strange woman-warrior and healer who may also be a displaced person from another reality.
Lang and Cordle, hired swords who went through battle with me and my friends.

Everyone speaks a version of Old Norse called Bloddingr or Bloddish, but I understand it because… because magic works and the gods are interfering busybodies.

Just thinking about the situation made me feel exhausted. I closed my eyes, determined not to think of the death and destruction we had dealt to the ambushers night before last.

* * *

I guess I fell asleep, not too surprising considering all that had happened. The bed was soft enough and the room while not toasty was warm in comparison to the early spring weather outside. Kilda bustled around quietly and at one point, pulled my cloak off the back of the door and threw it over my legs. I was tired, safe and cared for. No wonder I slept. Or maybe I had another sort of help.

At first, I became aware of dreaming of being in high school. Only instead of being Gus, I was Alenna: a high school freshman girl with ponytails and a satchel full of books. I hurried through corridors that looked familiar but were not any of the schools that I had actually attended. I felt ridiculous and a little worried, knowing even in the dream that I was not Alenna and that someone might notice.

I felt a skirt brushing around my knees but did not look down to see what I might be wearing. I didn’t want to know and it wasn’t that sort of dream. I felt hurried and harried as if I were late for a class. All of the other students were taller than me and I couldn’t see much of the scenery. A few of the boys looked directly at me and smiled but mostly everyone ignored me.

I came to an old-fashioned door with a frosted glass window and “R.T. Firefly, Counselor” painted on it. I had the idea in the dream that I had an appointment, so I pushed my way through.

A slender red-headed man sat behind a desk in one of those cubbyhole offices that school counselors seemed to get stuck with. He wore an old-fashioned suit from my world and had thick black eyebrows and a mustache painted on his ruddy face. “Say the magic woid and win a hunnert dollars,” he said. He looked like Danny Kaye doing a Groucho Marx impression.

I stood there blinking because for some reason he was hard to look at, as if he had a light behind or inside of him.

The room, the books I was holding, the eyebrows and mustache all faded away leaving me standing in front of… a person I realized must be another of the gods. Now he wore an armored coat like Rotgar wore, but his was lacquered black and red. His red-blond beard and mustache were almost as wispy as Rotgar’s too, and he held a knife in one hand and a cup in the other. Something flickered above the cup as if it held a burning liquid. The cubbyhole office had disappeared and we were in some vague space that resembled Adelwalt’s great hall.

He looked at himself then at me, smiling. “Interesting,” he said. “You know who I am?” He put the knife and burning cup on a desk that still looked like something you might find in a high school counselor’s office.

“Hlokki,” I whispered, giving the name in its Bloddish version though I had never heard it while waking. He wasn’t someone good Bloddings talked about much.

He nodded. “The others have taken an interest in you, so I thought I would see what was up.”

“Please, don’t,” I said.

He laughed softly and his blue eyes twinkled. “What do you want more than anything else in the world?” he asked. “I might be able to give it to you. Especially if it is information?”

I kept blinking. “I want to go home. I want to go back to being myself. This—“ I gestured vaguely at the slender body that I wore. “This is not me. I want to be Corporal Gus Gallant of San Bernardino, California in the U.S. Of A. again.”

He smiled. “That might be possible. But probably not soon. You’ve been given a role in a drama that is being played out. And only you can play that part because you have gifts no one else has.”

I wept a little in the dream and it pained me to do so because it came out as girlish whimpers and sobs and I felt humiliated and helpless. The scene changed while my dream eyes were filled with tears.

I saw a girl who looked a lot like me, like Alenna, and the world seemed to be my old world again. This was not high school, though, but another familiar and more specific place. It looked like the Sheriff substation in Barstow, with Alenna sitting in an institutional green chair wrapped in one of the beige thermal blankets all deputies carried around in the trunk of their cruisers.

A voice was saying somewhere. “I called Child Protective Services. They’ll send someone to take her until we can find out where she belongs….”

I knew what that meant. Alenna would be going into the foster home system where I, as Gus Gallant, had grown up.

I gasped and heard Kilda ask, “Varkensey?” Meaning, “Are you awake?”

* * *

I opened my eyes, the reality of the dream bursting like a bubble and leaving only a vague memory, like a soapy smell in the air. “Ig amst nu,” I said. “I am now.”

“Don’t say ‘ig amst’,” she said. “They say ‘ikk bent’ here in the city. You don’t want to sound like you’re from the sticks.” She grinned while saying so.

I grinned back, rolling my eyes. “Get bent,” I said in English.

“Who? I don’t know anyone named Gitt.” She frowned.

I giggled, a sound that annoyed me but I couldn’t help it. “I mean, I’m hungry. Is it midday?”

“Soon enough,” she agreed. “The innkeeper said he will serve us in a self-dining room.” She meant a private dining room, self-dining sounded weird if you translated it directly.

Someone scratched at the door then entered. Katye. The tall war-wife looked twice life-size in the narrow doorway. “I’m hungry,” she said. “Who do we have to shoot to get some lunch?”

“Lunks?” repeated Kilda, confused again.

“It’s what they call leek soup with bacon where she’s from,” I said. Katye winked at me. “And don’t say ‘ig hebst honger’; it’s ‘ikk heft honger’ here in the city.” I winked back at her.

“I’m one of those hicks from the sticks, I guess,” said Katye. “But leek soup does sound pretty good right now, doesn’t it?”

“Hicks from the sticks” was “Yugelen aff den kugelen,” and I got the giggles again.

“Are you from Wesmarch?” asked Kilda. “They eat a lot of leeks there, I hear.”

Katye just shook her head. “I’m from a lot further away than that.” She grinned at me.

I nodded. “We are going to have to have that talk,” I said and she nodded back. She held her hand up in a split-finger, Mr. Spock salute but neither of us was willing to delay eating to discuss it.

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Comments

That was mean...

Offering information and then pulling away the football again!

Any chance of another episode soon?

I'll try

erin's picture

I want to have more than a couple in hand before I post. Getting it written has been a problem.

Thanks for the comment.

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

Lucy?

Erin is Lucy?

Coud be :)

erin's picture

LOL.

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

Wow, a blast from the past

I was following this when it last ran 14 months ago. So good to see it again. And you worked in just enough recap to save me from having to go back and reread. It’s a lovely story and I hope you have the time to keep it going. Well written and exciting (well not this chapter) but I assume the next ones will be.

Dawn

You can reread if you want to

erin's picture

I won't mind. :)

I know this part wasn't very exciting, I was really going for the mood of winding down after the big fight three chapters ago. ButI do hope it was just as well-written. :)

Thanks for the comment.

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

Viewers seem to like that tactic

Morpheus is using the same tactic in his serial Game of the Gods. The readers seem to like the concept (action-living-action).

Texture

erin's picture

It is one way to add texture to the world you are building. A straight ahead action story would have to take place in a familiar world.

Thanks for commenting. :)

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

Live Long And Prosper

joannebarbarella's picture

Definitely from a long way away.....and with TV.

Just never seem to get the time

erin's picture

Lillakatye and Gus-Alenna never seem to get the time to sit down and talk. Maybe after they've had their lunks. :)

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

Oh yeah

erin's picture

It's Loki all right. :)

Thanks for commenting.

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

Wonderful -

Podracer's picture

"Alenna" and the gang are back. Bacon and leek looks good, nearest I've had is a cabbage casserole; boiled cabbage, a dried soup (chicken) and chunks of hot dog sausages.
Katye isn't just keeping Alenna in suspense, she's doing it to us as well!
So.. The gods are using Gus as an agent, hm. Not an expendable one we hope. Perhaps they will feel obliged to return their worm to the compost afterwards, but who knows with gods. Ambivalent about Hlokki getting involved, could be a sneaky ally or a cruel joker.
The real Alenna isn't going to enjoy her little trip over to the other side unless she has some magical aces up her.. er, blanket.

Teri Ann
"Reach for the sun."

Besides Hlokki

erin's picture

There are going to be some new characters, more mystery and intrigue... and of course, the election!

Thanks for commenting.

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

Reread

This deserves a reread because I don’t remember everything that happened before, but otherwise interesting.

hugs :)
Michelle SidheElf Amaianna

It's there for rereading

erin's picture

The chapters of the first book are still here and are likely to be so for some time, so enjoy. I've reread the whole thing myself a couple of times to keep the characters and details of the world fresh in my mind.

Thanks for commenting.

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

I'm getting confused, but I

I'm getting confused, but I'll muddle through.

Karen

I'm here

erin's picture

I'm always here. :)

You can ask questions about confusing parts in PMs, on the story comments or on the blog. I'll try to answer. But if you're confused, think of poor Gussie. :)

Thanks for commenting.

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

Yugelen aff den kugelen...

Nice job of getting us back into the story.

Yugelen looks like a reverse-engineer from "yokels", but none of the various European definitions I'm finding for kugel are even giving me a clue. (Well, there's kuh, German for cow, but...)

Eric

Thanks!

erin's picture

Well, yugelen was chosen to rhyme with kugelen but they are both appropriate. Yugel is from an old word for woodpecker, that's what the call of the European green woodpecker sounds like ("yugel-yugel-yugel with a sort of a glottal hiccough sound in the middle). Modern yokel is just a variant. And kugel is from the same root as the more recent spelling, cudgel, both from an old word for... stick. :) Kugel was, in fact, the proto-Germanic word for a stick for hitting things with. Yugelen-aff-den-kugelen, woodpeckers from the sticks.

I asked my Dad once why "peckerwood" was an insult in the South. Nowadays it's mostly used by black folk to describe an ignorant white person but when I was a kid, it was just a common insulting reference. Dad said that what it implied was someone who lived alone, most woodpeckers do not flock, and amused themselves with solitary habits. Took me a while to figure out what he meant by that, too.

We linguists (even amateur ones) do make some obscure jokes. :)

Thanks for commenting!

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

I'm going through a bad time

Wendy Jean's picture

or I would comment more. I have very poor linguistic skills. Other than agreement what does Ekka mean?I am following the story better than I usually do an am enjoying it

Hugs

erin's picture

Ikka literally is the Old Norse word for "also". In Bloddish, it is used to mean agreement, recurrence, or follow-thru. You can usually translate it as either "ditto" or "and also" or "again".

The other word you see a lot of in Bloddish is "den" which is actually two words spelled and pronounced the same. One is the, used for some classes of nouns. The other word translates as then. One is from Old Saxon and the other from Old Norse, the "parents" of Bloddish which also has a bit of Old Frankish and Old Frisian mixed in with a dollop of Cymric (Old Celtic) as well.

"Ikka den ikka" is a phrase that occurs more than once in Bian. It means, "Also then again," and is used to affirm agreement or sarcastically to mean, "Of course you are." :)

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

Role in a drama? Special skills?

Jamie Lee's picture

So was Gus just in the wrong place at the wrong time to be exchanged with the real Alenna? Or after her dream, was Gus the one the gods saw who could help out with a problem?

What roll in this drama is the new Alenna to play? And what skills does the new Alenna that will help? She has the glocks, with limited ammunition--or so it seemed at first. She has the batton and taser and a knife. The taser has limited charge, or maybe not since the baby glock somehow kept almost all the ammunition that was fired. Maybe the taser can recharge after being used.

If Alenna was to be married in order to change something, then the new Alenna would have been kept home by the gods who have her playing a roll. Since she has bugged out, and made it to Lundenna, and learned why Gus is there, sort of, then she must be needed for something where they are now.

Others have feelings too.

Okay, so I'm just getting around to reading this great serial...

...and enjoying the puns in various languages including Yiddish, but I'm somewhat amused that, even with the hints about Groucho, no has commented on R, T. Firefly, aka Rufus t. Firefly, president of Freedonia in the 1933Marx Brothers movie Duck Soup. Hail, hail Freedonia...

Freedonia waives the rules?

erin's picture

I guess that joke flew under most people's radar. :)

I'm glad you enjoyed it enough to comment.

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.