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Posted on September 19, 2014 at 09:42:50 PM by Arthur
Arthur was smiling with genuine amusement. His was not a face that was made for smiling, and as with every movement it made the transformation was subtle. An unwise man might have believed that Arthur was a man of shallow emotion, more hard stone than passion based purely on his face. It would have done the king a great injustice; he was, and always had been a man of fundamental compassion. He had learned to be a closed book, he had been taught wisdom and he had experienced more than his fair share of sorrow. If you knew him well enough he might consent for the smallest of moments to let you see just a trace of it in his eyes. “Pen is new to neither,” Arthur said, stroking the feather’s of his familiar’s chest with the knuckle of his pointer finger, “and yet still a stranger to the latter.” Pendragon clicked his beak crossly and glowered in Trouble’s direction; disrespectful rodent he thought indignantly. “Please forgive him his rudeness.” The merlin tightened his grip on Arthur’s hand to an uncomfortable extent to portray silently exactly what he thought of that idea. The king could take a hint. Raising his hand quickly he launched Pendragon back into the air. The merlin flew a circle above their heads before positioning himself on a new perch far away from Trouble and any curtains he might lose himself in. “Think nothing of it,” Arthur reassured Rohmarr as Wilfred, who had been watching the scene play out from the sidelines finally felt secure enough to return to his job. “One of my son’s friends has a strange little familiar who has a habit of eating my carpets. I fear my soft furnishings regularly live in fear of their lives.” The king finished as he handed the signed parchment over to his scribe. Silence fell as Wilfred scurried back over to his desk and picked up a dagger. Holding the tool in one hand and the parchment in the other he cut a wiggly line down the centre. The sound of ripping paper echoed in the cavernous room and Arthur sunk back down onto his throne as he waited for Wilfred to finish. Stashing the king’s half of the contract in his desk draw to be filed in the archives at the end of the day Wilfred hurried over to Rohmarr and held out the piece with the king’s signature on. “You can keep it in your personal possession if you wish,” Arthur explained, nodding for the ex-pirate to accept the offered sheet, “or you can sign it over into the keeping of the royal archives. Our scribes keep a section especially for such documents and you can sign it out again at any time. If you decide you want to do the latter just make an appointment with Lord Mordred and he will guide you in the right direction.” Glancing over at the candle-clock in the corner of the room Arthur checked to see how much time was left before he had promised to meet his son. Very little. The sounds of hoof beats were detectable out in the yard beyond the window. Arthur climbed to his feet and descended the dais. “That will be all, thank you, Wilfred,” he said to the scribe, before looking back to Rohmarr. “I have a promise to keep,” he explained, gesturing in the direction of the stables, “I will show you to the barracks, they’re in the same direction.”  |
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- the sea at dawn is a cathedral - By rohmarr September 20, 2014 at 01:00:20 AM
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