Re: Chapter 3.3 - The Adventure of the Holy Sword (516 AD)
OOC: A reminder that Perin didn't want Alister to be told about any suspicions re the Duke, so as far as Alister knows, he and Perin had a thing over Fiona, but the Duke is otherwise trustworthy. Someone had better let him know at some point... yanno, given he's taking a very-injured Perin with him and all :|
It didn't quite seem real. Like a haze had settled over the world, or he was living a waking dream. It was an effect Alister had felt only a few times before. Once, when his mother died. Again when he heard the news his father and brothers were slain. He passed into the pavilion behind the other men like a ghost passing through the world. As though he wasn't consciously controlling his own body.
Perin's blood was still on his hands. There was a faint tinge of copper every time he breathed in. Alister had always been sharply attuned to the smell blood compared to other men. He was still looking at his bloody hands even after he sat down, listening quietly as the Duke spoke. The air in the tent still smelled of Lady Glesri, but it was blood he watched as it dried, watching it crack along the wrinkles in his palm when he flexed his hand. Perin would be okay. Lady Glesri. The rest, too.
He needed to believe that.
More puzzle pieces were clunking into place as the Duke spoke. The Duke's daughter. Perin had mentioned something of Sejanus’ lover, but the memory took a while to come to the surface. Black. She’d been wearing black. Black could only signal one possible end to the fallen knight's tale. Alister felt his stomach drop.
Sejanus. Peter. Almost Perin too, if God had not been kind and kept his hand steady. The severed vein in his arm had been worrisome, but the linen and the impromptu tieoff along the cephalic vein would hold until they reached town.
Alister forced himself to shake off his thoughts. There were more pressing matters now, and he knew what misery he was like to subject himself to if he allowed them to fester. Speaking, too, was a conscious force of will. His thoughts kept trying to return to Perin, lying in his cart, and how he needed to return his lance.
It was funny, the sorts of things the brain decided was important in a time of crisis.
When the Duke had finished his tale, Alister forced himself to look up, to look the Duke in the eye, and away from his bloodied hands.
"Your Grace, it is an honour to make your acquaintance finally. I must apologise, for it is with a heavy heart that we must deliver news so grim, and I wish the circumstances around this meeting were met with better tidings. Alas, Sir Gracian and I only swore our swords to this venture in your name after Sir Sejanus took his wounds, and as such, I fear there is little that we can tell about what transpired between Sir Perin and Sir Sejanus before we reached Burton.”
Alister paused for a moment, trying to figure out how to condense so much information into something manageable.
“Sir Brocklebuck provided us the same information that he left with you. We followed the same road taken by Sir Peter — the same one you took to reach us — and encountered the same crossroads. The first glade we encountered contained a knight trapped in an eternal feast. The second, one sworn to vengeance. Neither appeared to know their names, and would not speak to us lest we give in to vice.” Alister continued, providing only the briefest description of what they found in the two clearings. The details hardly seemed to matter any more.
"I have come to understand these were Sir Peter’s companions, who were lost to a curse the wyrm had placed over this forest. The woman in this clearing is the Lady Glesri, the armor of Sir Ferdinand, who came to search for him when Sir Peter did not return. Should you send your men to scout along both paths to the side of us, they will discover Sir Guidon and Sir Ferdinand, both unconscious. All three fell into a magical sleep when the curse was lifted. They will need urgent attention, your Grace, and care. I pray that when they wake, they will be able to impart to you more knowledge of Sir Peter’s final moments, given they were with him towards the end.”
Would they remember anything, if they did? Would Lady Glesri remember him at all? The thought was queer, and Alister felt his stomach churn. If she did not remember him, it was for the best that that was how it stayed. Sir Ferdinand may hold her to blame, or treat her unkindly, or she may feel shame, or...
No. No good would come of it. But they couldn't simply be left were they were, at the mercy of the forest. They had to brought back. They needed care.
Alister shook his head slowly, trying to wrack his memory. No doubt the man would want to know more of his son, but there was only so much he could tell. ”Your son was brave, your Grace, and a true knight. He did not succumb to the forest’s enchantments, and sought to meet the beast on the field. Alas, we found the sword on the Holy Field, together with the bones of your son, and the remains of one of the wyrms he had slain.”
Would that comfort the man, to know his son had died fighting? Given the way he had dispatched a wyrm himself in a single blow where Alister and Gracian’s swords had barely touched the creature, he could not be certain.
Alister let the confirmation of Sir Peter's demise settle for a moment before continuing.
“He appeared to us, your Grace, in a Holy Vision.” Hesitantly, Alister described what they saw, as though afraid he would not be believed. If nothing else, such a sight of Sir Peter bathed in Holy Light could only mean that Sir Peter had found his rest at the gates of Heaven, and that, he hoped, ought to count for something.
“It was Sir Perin who risked his life to retrieve the sword,” Sir Alister added, not quite as an afterthought. It felt important the man know that, somehow. As foolish and idiotic as the attempt had been, Sir Perin had still tried. “We bought him time to escape, and faced it in the forest, but the beast was faster than any mortal horse, and sought to destroy the wielder of the sword.”
Sir Alister’s expression was drawn. Solemn. His wording in the last part had been careful. If Perin had of let him race Kelpie for the sword instead of—
No. That wouldn’t help. Not now.
“If it please your Grace, when we are concluded, I can take you to your son's remains, so that the proper rites be made, and he may be brought back home to rest.”
This message was last edited by the player at 11:31, Thu 28 Dec 2017.