Word Usage Key is at the end. The brackets after a character eg CLAIRE (4nc) indicates Claire is a character who is 4 years old. nc indicates new character not encountered before.
29th of Towin Day 2
Muriel had worked in a university library as an assistant librarian. She was twenty-six and had never had a long term relationship. She’d had relationships which had lasted a year or so, and then mostly faded away. The only one that had ever bothered her had ended in a blazing row over money. She was naturally cautious and Ben wasn’t. He’d wanted a fortnight in Spain when it would have cost all the money they had, mostly her savings. The result was no holiday and no Ben, but her savings had remained intact. She had always wanted a husband and children, but had come to the reluctant belief perhaps what she wanted was only to be found in færie tales. She had always been of a timid disposition, which was why she preferred working with books rather than people.
She was a mousy looking woman who, owing to a lack of confidence, did not make the most of herself. She had her dark brunette hair cut in a nondescript way, but it could have been her best feature. She was thin rather than slender, of little figure, and in a crowd had an androgynous appearance. She was bullied at work but was too timid to seek help. She was taking antidepressants prescribed by her doctor who had telt(1) her she needed to find help to stand up for herself and advised her to see her professional association representative. She took the prescription, but she resented the advice because her doctor was a tall, attractive and confident woman with a bosom that wouldn’t have been out of place on a ship of the line’s figurehead in Nelson’s(2) day, in short everything Muriel would have liked to be.
Her parents were both dead, and she avoided her brother who bullied her far worse than her work colleagues. In an attempt to make friends, Muriel had attended several evening classes over the years. She’d made no friends, but the one on leather work had been interesting, and she now had her own tools and worked at home in her bedsit producing items she sold to Gavin a local mart trader who gave her a fair price which virtually doubled her income. She considered it to be a pity Gavin was gay and in a stable relationship.
She arrived on Castle in the middle of the night in mid-summer which puzzled her because she was wearing the outdoor clothes she had put on to go Christmas shopping in, and she had gone out in appalling weather early in the afternoon in late December. After the first meeting when Thomas the Master at arms spake to them, she felt apprehensive regarding being adequate for this frighteningly cold and different place, but also a little hopeful concerning her prospects. The most exciting thing to her was she felt she had a better chance of finding a husband and having the children which she had always wished. The Folk were kind, and she felt more at ease with them than she had with any other than Gavin for a long time.
At her interviews, she was asked what could she do as a craft, and because to her the word craft associated with leather, not books, she telt them of her leather work. When she was interviewed in deepth,(3) by Grayling assisted by Larch, she had been asked if she would be interested in making horse tack, and when she had realised it would provide her with a living, or a craft as these Folk referred to it as, she had said, “Yes.” She had to wait for a few minutes whilst someone was sent for. Filbert, who was a saddler and tack maker, duly arrived, and after a few minutes conversation with her he offered her a placement working with him. He was a pleasant and cheerful man of her own age, and she felt comfortable in his company and accepted immediately.
After he had gone the discussion turned to what was referred to as a personal placement. She was asked if she had left any behind she had a care to, and she’d replied, “No, I was quite on my own.” When asked what she would like to do concerning a family she had blushed and said quietly, “I always wanted to marry and have children, but somehow it never worked out that way.”
She had been taken aback a bit when she saw the smiles berount(4) her, and she was telt yet again, but this time by Siskin, “There are a lot of men mongst(5) us seeking a wife, for many widowers loes(6) theirs to the fevers, and many have children who need a mother. Would you like to be introducet(7) at the dinner dance thiseve?”(8)
In this embarrassing but friendly atmosphere Muriel felt able to say, “Yes please.”
“Would you prefer a man with children or no?” Grayling asked gently.
“I’m not a terribly confident person,” she admitted, unaware it was unnecessary to say so, “and I’m not sure how I should cope with older children—” She was going to continue when she was interrupted.
“That’s all right,” Grayling said, “there are men who have registert(9) with us seeking a wife who have either never had children, or sadly loes them with their wife to the fevers. What age of a man would you prefer?”
The Master of arms staff knew whilst age was almost irrelevant to the folkbirtht(10) it was not that way with the newfolk. Muriel looked berount her a little desperately, but seeing only encouraging faces managed to reply, “I’m twenty-six, and a bit older is normal where I come from.”
She had left the interview feeling optimistic, and Grayling who had asked her most of the questions said to the others, “A quiet understanding man who has never had children if possible. Muriel is fragile and will need a lot of care to her till she adjusts to the Way. She has little sense of self worth, but given the right man and her first babe she will betimes acquire all she is currently lacking for her weäl.”(11) The others agreed, and the notes were maekt(12) to pass on to those organising the guest list for the dinner dance.
29th of Towin Day 2
Raquel’s father had died when she was little, and she had no memories of him. She had no siblings, and her mother was a shrew who resented her existence. As a result, she had grown up in fear all her life. She had a stammer and stuttered which was bad enough, but the presence of her mother made her incoherent. As a result her mother treated her as though she were mentally defective. She allowed her mother to think she was stupid because it minimised her mother’s expectations of her, but her speech became worse as she became older. She had no friends, she had never had any, and she lived a life of fantasy in her head for which her mother continually shouted at her.
She left school at sixteen, and she didn’t even know how good-looking she was. She had a beautiful face and a good figure. Some of the boys had tried to be friendly with her in her last year at school, but since they were the same boys who had made her life a misery when she was younger and as she didn’t regard being described as ‘the drop dead gorgeous dumbo with the big tits in Charlie’s form’ as a compliment she wasn’t interested. The girls carried on being unpleasant to her, but now it was due to jealousy as well as spite, and she was unaware of that too.
The day she left school she left home. She didn’t bother to tell her mother. Contrary to what all thought, she was not stupid and had been planning it and saving all her paper round money for it for over two years. Instead of going to school on leaving day she caught a cheap, early-morning bus that took her three hundred and fifty miles from home. It took her to the farthest moderate sized town to which there was a bus which also had a youth hostel. She found a bed in the youth hostel and went seeking a job, any job. She ended up with a whole series of jobs each one earning a little more than the one before. She was limited in what she could apply for because of her speech, but she was managing, and life was a lot better without her mother. She was careful with her money and was managing to save a bit.
Two years after she had left home, a woman from a missing person organisation contacted her asking her to contact her mother. She refused, and refused to allow the woman even to tell her mother she had found her. The missing person woman had tried to persuade her, but she shrugged her shoulders and wrote down on paper for her to read, If when you leave here I think you’ll tell her you’ve found me I’ll hop on a bus and be hundreds of miles away within twenty-four hours. My mother made my life hell for sixteen years, and I’m not going to have any more hell. So I want an assurance you’ll tell her absolutely nothing, not even that I’ve said that. She received the assurance she was looking for, but worked a week’s notice and caught the bus any way. She was never to know her mother arrived on the following Wednesday intending to bully her daughter into returning home and handing her earnings over to herself as rent.
Raquel started all over again in another town, and this time managed to rent a single room with a shared kitchen and bathroom. The other tenants were all university students. Though her speech was still bad and she still worked in jobs where she barely had to speak her life was better, but she still had no friends, and she still shied away from men. By the time she was twenty, she had begun to consider what the future would hold for her. She didn’t want to continue living the way she was for ever, and she wondered if she could find help to improve her speech. She had never had any hobbies, just to survive she had always worked a lot of extra hours, and in most of her free time she either slept or went for walks in the local parks, which was where she started to notice young mothers with children and young couples, and it was when she started to become a little envious.
Then she awoke on Castle, and when it had finally sunk in she was never going to see her mother again, not even as a result of a freak coincidence, and this was a fresh start she was happier with her incursion than most of the incomers, after all it was just another bus ride, and she hadn’t even been bored for its duration. When she was interviewed the first afternoon, her stammering and stuttering was bad, and she indicated she wished something so she could write her responses. This was provided with no fuss, and though what her written words rendered as in Folk was not always immediate the process was helpful, and after that her spaech(13) improved a bit. She telt them she had no skills or hobbies, but had mended her own clothes, and she would like to learn to sew properly and be able to make clothes. When asked of her personal circumstances she went bright red and reached for the paper again. She wrote, “I should love to have children. I have never held a baby, and I’ve never had a boyfriend, but I should love to have children.”
Siskin was observing Raquel’s main interview on her second day on Castle. Grayling assisted by Larch was chairing her meeting with Celandine, a thirty-ish seamster.(14) Celandine had been telt of Raquel’s stammer and said “I am Celandine. I am a Mistress seamster, and I believe you would like to learn to sew. I also have been given to believe you have little experience is that correct?”
Raquel, who was less nervous than she had been the day before, thought Celandine to be kind, and nodded vigorously, and replied, “Y—Yes.”
“We can take you as a lærer(15) and see if you like it. If you don’t, you can always try something else can’t you?” Celandine telt her.
“Thank you,” Raquel managed to reply.
When the conversation turned to personal placements Grayling asked, “I believe you would like to marry and have children?”
Yet again Raquel was unable to form words and reached for the paper, which had been on the table ready for her need. She wrote, ‘I’d love children. I have no experience of children or men. I never thought to try because of my stammer.’
Celandine said to the Grayling and Larch, “It would be a kindth(16) to take Raquel to the crèche, do you not bethink you? When you are finisht,(17) I shall take her myself.” The dinner dance was explained to Raquel, and she was asked if she would like to be introduced to men seeking a wife. The tears in her eyes were noticeable as she nodded.
Siskin remarked to Grayling after Raquel had left, “She will place quickly here. She has tremendous courage, and is willing to face what ever she has to. She was Folk before she came here. Her spaech will rapidly improve as whatever the horrors in her past were that took it off her become a riandet(18) to her life here.”
Larch added, “She wills a man and babes, and she’s pretty. She’ll have agreement betimes.”
29th of Towin Day 2
The day before when Grace had attended Thomas’ meeting at the incomers’ camp, she had been shocked to find she was no longer on Earth and couldn’t go back. However, the shock had been transient. She had left none behind whom she was close to, her family were somewhat indifferent to each other and kept in desultory touch out of habit rather than because they felt close to each other. When she heard of the fevers and there were many men with children seeking a wife and a mother for their children her attitude towards being on Castle became much more positive.
All the women in her family had trouble becoming pregnant, many didn’t. She had a number of aunts with no children and her sisters had had several attempts with in-vitro fertilisation treatment. Even when pregnant, the women in her family often failed to remain pregnant long enough to have a child. She had two sisters and no brothers, but her mother had become pregnant over a dozen times and was regarded by the family as a fortunate woman. Though Grace had never used birth control in any of her relationships she had never become pregnant. She was twenty-six, and though she was slim and good-looking had never managed to keep a man for long. She suspected it was because she was distressingly independent and was not prepared to acquiesce to any simply because he was male.
She thought on Castle she could find a man who would concede her right to be herself, who had a number of children and wished a mother for them as well as a wife for himself. When she was interviewed, she had telt the interviewers she had been a school cook, which she had to explain, and she wished to continue to cook if possible. She had been accepted as a Keep cook by Mistress Abigail after a scant few minutes’ conversation, and subsequently chose to join Grangon’s fish cooks. She didn’t realise how desperate the kitchens were to recruit crafters of any level of ability.
When the discussion turned to a personal placement she had no embarrassment explaining her family’s problems in becoming pregnant, and she explained she wished a man with a family to which it was doubtful she would be able to add. The purpose of the dinner dance that eve had been explained to her, and she was asked if she would like to be introduced to potential husbands. She had said yes, and been telt she would be introduced to whoever they thought from a study of their files would be the best match for her first. She had no problems with what some of her acquaintance would have contemptuously referred to as a marriage mart, as in an attempt to find a man for a long term relationship she had tried the lonely hearts adverts and even attended a couple of speed dating meetings, unfortunately with no success, but she had still been trying right up to her arrival on Castle.
Word Usage Key
1 Telt, told.
2 Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, 1st Duke of Bronté, Knight Companion of the Order of the Bath (29 September 1758 – 21 October 1805).
3 Deepth, depth.
4 Berount, around.
5 Mongst, amongst.
6 Loes, lost.
7 Introducet, introduced.
8 Thiseve, this evening.
9 Registert, registered
10 Folkbirtht,
11 Weäl, well being.
12 Maekt, made.
13 Spaech, speech.
14 Seamster, strictly a needle worker, one who sews.
15 Lærer, an adult apprentice.
16 Kindth, kindness.
17 Finisht, finished.
18 Riandet, a matter of no consequence.
