Friday 29 November 2013

This section is a brain dump of miscellaneous plans I had for various people and story lines.

MEGA SPOILERS BELOW!

The Kingdom of Lothere

In 1086, Sigefrith’s kingdom is on the verge of spilling over the hills and into the surrounding areas as ever more lords swear allegiance to him.

However, in early 1089 Sigefrith will die of a heart attack in Ralf’s arms while a guard runs off to find Caedwulf. (Caedwulf arrives too late.)

Caedwulf will grow increasingly mad, but Queen Ogive will put up a front for as long as she can. Eadie and her children go to live with Leofric, and Leofric begins scheming to put Drage on the throne.

None of this is good for Lothere, so I suppose the kingdom’s fate depends greatly on the ongoing allegiance of the allies that Sigefrith made.

Caedwulf’s other woman

When Cecily begins to show, her father will send her to live with his sister on the mainland of Man. Her aunt and aunt’s husband will treat her like a servant. After her father’s death they will sell her to a shepherd who wants a wife, though in spite of her pleas he never officially marries her. She will live even more miserably there. She will have a daughter.

Eventually Caedwulf, still besotted, will track her down and try to convince her to come back to Lothere with him. She refuses, but her husband sees dollar signs dancing before his eyes and offers to give the baby to him, in exchange for a hefty sum. When Cecily realizes she will lose the baby, she agrees to go. (For an additional sum.)

She never loves Caedwulf, and her distaste for him is one of the things that makes him rage as his sanity starts to go.

Caedwulf will die in 1096, completely mad.

Emma

Emma gets to keep her sanity, but she does cause her father grief. I think Saeward + Emma could have happened.

Drageling

Drage has some latent magical powers due to his parent’s mixed blood. (Troll and elf.) Myrddin believes he is some sort of modern-​day Arthur, but I think the true “Pendragon” will be Iylaine and Malcolm’s son Duncan, if it is anyone. (I hadn’t thought much about where I was going with that.)

The Hingwars

Leofric and Lady Eadgith

Leof will live to be 91, and Eadgith will live to an old age. After King Sigefrith’s death, Leof will be in many ways the true power in Lothere.

Sigefrith and Wynflaed

A pregnant Wynflaed will die in December 1086 of a bleeding ulcer. Sigefrith and Haakon will both witness. Sigefrith will never be the same. He will die in 1088, when Haakon is but twelve years old.

Cedric

In spite of his interest in girls, Cedric desires to serve God. He believes he is destined to be a priest, but by the time he is old enough to do so, another option has opened to devout young men: Crusader.

He and Cubby embark on that adventure, brothers-​in-​arms. Cedric’s role in the story is explained in more detail in the previous post.

The Sebrights

Alred

Alred will live to a ripe old age. Hetty will die in 1095 at the age of 34, and he will not marry again.

Dunstan and Britamund

Dunstan and Brit will have a happy life. Brit will live to be 98!

I will tell you what I had planned for their baby’s birth, and regret I never got to write this chapter.

Sigefrith and Alred were to be waiting in an anteroom while Eadie, Ogive, and other ladies were helping Britamund. Ogive will see the baby being pulled out of her and will fall over in a faint. A couple of maids will help her out to where Alred and Sigefrith are waiting and dart away again, leaving Ogive to announce the successful birth and inform the gentlemen that she saw it was a boy before she fainted.

Sigefrith will be ecstatic, but he will wonder at Alred’s melancholy. Alred will say that he might as well admit the truth now, since it turns out to have been only a dream or a fantasy of his… how he had seen Matilda on the night he nearly died, and Matilda had told him it would be a girl, and how he had come back to life almost for that alone. That, and due to the knowledge that there was still such a thing as Matilda, and she still loved him.

That is when Sigefrith will admit that he thought he saw Matilda’s ghost that night, and definitely thought he saw Alred for a moment by the bed… So it did happen!

And that is when Eadie will come out, with the baby girl, and it will be revealed that Ogive saw the umbilical cord, and thought it was the baby’s thing! (Never having seen a thing herself, of course.)

So yes, Brit and Dunstan have their baby Matilda, and doubtlessly many other delightful children. Matilda may have had problems with her health, hence Grandmother Matilda’s warning that she would need lots of love.

Gwynn

Of course she will marry Finn! There must be many obstacles and misunderstandings first, however.

I do like the idea of her getting involved with Aed, even though (or especially because?) Aed can never truly love her. Reading the marginalia of Matilda’s Psalter at the right moment might help her figure this out.

Margaret

Margaret will continue corresponding with Cynan and squabbling with /​making up with Conrad.

In a few years Sigefrith will send some men to fight in a conflict in which Cynan’s family also plays a role. Among those men will be Conrad. Conrad will be grievously injured and captured. Cynan will see a boatload of prisoners, be asked if there are any he is interested in ransoming, and he will look right into Conrad’s eyes… and say he doesn’t recognize anyone. The prisoners are sent abroad into servitude.

Margaret accepts that Conrad must have been killed in the battle and is never coming home, and she marries Cynan and becomes the Lady of Gwynnedd. They have a polite but loveless marriage.

One day Conrad walks in, minus an arm, but plus a massive grudge.

I don’t know how it all would have gone down, but you can be sure Maggot would have ended up with her true love.

Yware

Yware will return to Lothere in the spring of 1086 in the company of Matilda’s cousins Godwine and Magnus (of the ratty mustache).

Sigefrith is preparing to send an army to join the King of Denmark as he attempts an invasion of England. Eirik is providing ships. Just as all this is coming together, King William’s son Robert arrives at Baldwin’s manor – they knew each other when Baldwin and Britmar fought in the employ of the Normans – prepared to accuse Sigefrith of raising an army, having seen the ships there.

Eirik encounters Yware and Eadred as they are arriving and waylays them before they can be seen. He claims that Sigefrith needs them to carry an urgent message to the coast, to one of his men. Eadred is skeptical, but Eirik bullies him into it. Yware on the other hand is ready for some fun.

Upon arriving at the coast Yware gives the message to Njal – the message being, that Eirik is sending the cat to clear out the rats at last. Njal realizes the “rats” are at Hwitsands, and Eirik is finally making good on his promise – or threat, rather – to the lord of Hwitsands. Yware, of course, is the cat.

Njal forces Yware and Eadred to join him in an attack. They are successful, and Yware is obliged to become the new lord of Hwitsands, or face some unnameable fate at Eirik’s hand.

Meanwhile, Eirik has put Robert off the trail by convincing him that the ships were there preparing for an innocent little attack against Hwitsands – a fact which is proven by the time Robert returns to the coast.

Yware ends up remaining there, at least for a time, and his siblings visit him on occasion. This is likely convenient for Young Aed in his pursuits of both Gwynn and political power.

Cynewulf

I don’t see much of a future for this poor guy. I think he will emulate his father to the point of suicide, only he will have enough of Matilda’s gumption to succeed at it.

The Wodeheads

Iylaine is carrying Vash’s child. She and Malcolm will separate, and she will go to live with her father, who takes a farm in a remote valley on Dunstan’s land, near Bertie’s manor.

In August 1086, Ethelmund will die on the job. Gunnilda will take her younger children and go live with Bertie.

In early December, a few weeks before she is due, Iylaine will go into shock and within a few minutes will die. Only Egelric, Wulf, and Gils are there. Egelric can do nothing to save Iylaine, but Gils tells him the baby is still alive, and remembering how Gils was saved, Egelric cuts the baby from her belly. Distraught and in a daze of grief, he takes the baby to Bertie’s and begs Gunnilda for help. This is the first time he has spoken to her in months, and this is the beginning of the rekindling of their relationship. They will eventually marry at last.

Malcolm dies in the summer of 1088 at the age of 22. I suppose Egelric would raise his two children.

Wulf and Gils

Wulf’s parents genes are incompatible in some way. His growth will not proceed normally and he will die before adulthood.

Gils grows increasingly withdrawn and curious about his elven heritage. He will eventually try to find his family.

The Elves

The khírrón

Druze will find his way home after finally vanquishing Hel. He will have figured out that it was the death of Theobald that made it possible for Hel to truly die – the end of the seventh generation. He will realize that Sorin is the seventh generation on his side, and one night he will come up behind Sorin and bash in his skull with a stone. After this Druze kills Midra and finally himself.

Vash will inherit his father’s title. Though Iylaine and Malcolm are separated and Iylaine is carrying his child, Vash avoids seeing her. But in December, Egelric summons him to his house and presents Vash with his infant son. Vash takes the baby home with him to raise among the elves.

The blood hunger

Lar, his father Dru, his half-​brother Ris, and a number of other male khírrón elves are afflicted with a hereditary genetic illness that gives them a hunger for blood. This disease is a secret among the elves, though it has given rise to a strong taboo against tasting blood of any kind, including in food. However, there is a sort of depraved secret society of those afflicted with the disease, of which Dru is a member. After Sorin’s death, most of the highest-​ranking elves will be members of this society, and they will attempt to take over and turn Vash into a figurehead.

The kisór

Lar will eventually go too far, and his elves will mutiny. They beat him almost senseless and turn him loose. He staggers to the abbey, where Aelfden finds him and installs him in a cell. That same night, Imin’s daughter Sina shows up with Seven. She knows she can’t go back now. Aelfden sees Seven, and in his mind the pieces begin to fall into place.

Imin becomes the leader of the kisór.

Lar becomes a priest and eventually returns to his people with the Gospel in hand.

Galloway

Young Aed is going to continue his Alexander-​like ways and become a threat to Old Aed. Gaethine will die, and Aed will become harder for it. (I think he already has.) For political reasons he will continue to pursue Gwynn.

Lord Colban and a few other lords are going to go in with Young Aed against Old Aed.

Congal is going to marry Leof’s niece Gunnora after one night of unforgettable sex, and only then will they bother getting to know one another.

Man and the Isles

In the summer of 1086, just before the yearly Assembly of the Lords of the Isles, Kormak is going to lead the Gaels in a slaughter of the Norsemen on St. Patrick’s Isle, among them Godred Whitehand, his wife and sons, and some of the other Norse lords. Eirik will be there with Murchad, and it will be Murchad who will convince Kormak to spare Eirik, who is his “brother”. Harald Leki will be hiding nearby and will escape with them. Eirik and Murchad will also rescue Whitehand’s two daughters, one of whom will marry Eirik’s son Olaf one day.

Eirik will now be the most powerful Norse lord in the Irish sea, though the balance of power will have changed in favour of the native Gaels. I don’t know where that would have led.

Eirik’s two younger sons will die only a few weeks apart in 1087. Sigrid will never see her youngest, Sweyn, again. She has a daughter in the summer of 1086.

Eirik is not dying, in spite of what he thinks. He will likely live into his fifties.

Ireland

I don’t know what is coming for Murchad and Synne, though I am certain he will do the right thing, and Synne will keep his head dry through it all.

Murchad’s sister Uallach will marry Cearball.

Eirik has sent Thorkell to keep an eye on Sadb, and it’s a good thing, because Muirgius will try to have her kidnapped. Thorkell will save her, and they will fall in love. Sadb will have a daughter she will raise as a boy, hoping to send him/​her forth to avenge Diarmait’s death one day.

Other Characters

Yusuf

After his return from Galloway, Andronikos will discreetly arrange for him to see Irene alone. Andronikos has been trying to get them together all this time due to Yusuf’s troll blood (his mother was a troll) and they will marry.

Godefroy and Leila

Godefroy will be killed in late summer 1086 by falling off a horse or being kicked by a horse. Alred will give Conrad the choice of staying as his squire, or going home to take over his father’s manor. Conrad chooses to stay with Alred (and his Maggot), and Leila takes over the household.

Myrddin

Myrddin is of course the Merlin of legend. Like Aelfden, he was born by way of a demon, centuries before our story begins. The demon gave him the book of summoning demons, which Lar later found. Myrddin used it to summon Dantalion and bind him to him, making Dantalion his minion.

Long ago, Myrddin fell in love with the Bright Lady, Nimea. At that time, she had no magic – her people (the kisór) had eaten of the Tree of Life, for which she was punished by losing her “knowledge”, or magic. (Her sister Emanation, Eva, was punished because her people ate of the Tree of Knowledge, and her punishment was to lose her eternal life.)

After Nimea learned all she could from him, she imprisoned him. He was imprisoned for centuries, until Dantalion (as the elf Dre) harnessed the magic of his captive, Vash, and freed Myrddin.

Myrddin’s goals are now to find the Pendragon, and to get his revenge against Nimea.

Eithne and Dantalion

Eithne will succeed in freeing Dantalion from Myrddin’s bond. Now that Dantalion can hurt Myrddin and work against him to spoil his plans, he is able to manipulate Myrddin into doing anything he likes.

Eithne has her twin babies, a boy and a girl. They are neither black nor batty, but like Liadan they carry a great power.

Soon afterwards, Dantalion goes too far in taunting Nimea. Nimea comes up through the well in the middle of Eithne’s ruined castle while Dantalion is away – the well leads directly to her lake, and at some point Eithne (in a fit of magical housecleaning and restoration) has removed whatever barrier was keeping Nimea out.

Later that night, Dantalion (still as Cian) is walking across the moor when he comes across a sack in the thorns. Inside he finds Eithne’s beautiful hair… and underneath that her severed head.

Mad with rage and grief, he slays Cian just as Araphel once slayed Sebastian, rises up in his most demonic form, and plunges into Nimea’s lake to savage her. His roar his heard for miles around.

But Dantalion’s mother won’t let him get away with such an outrage. A moment later she manifests on earth and blasts Dantalion to an outer plane. For the instant that she is visible, every shepherd or wanderer who is outside and who has looked up, wondering about the roar, will look directly into one of Kalilletha’s thousand faces and will die on the spot.

Araphel and Amarel will have recognized the roar as Dantalion’s, and guessed that something has happened to Eithne. Amarel goes to the ruined castle to retrieve the twin babies and leaves them on Catan’s doorstep.

Condal

Condal will want to raise her sister’s babies herself, but Cat and Flann think she is too young, and she has no house of her own. She goes to Eadred, tells him she needs to have a house and a husband so she can be a mother to Eithne’s babies, and asks Eadred if he is still interested in marrying her. They marry and the babies go to live with her.

Osh and Flann

They do have some fat, happy babies together. They are also kept busy raising Liadan, who has an inconvenient habit of performing miracles. Aelfden is an important figure in her life, believing her to be a saint.

Saeward

Saeward knows Sigefrith from Winchester, 1066. Saeward and his father had arrived in the city from Normandy a few years before. After Hastings, Sigefrith is on the run, and Saeward’s father hides him in their house for a few days. Later, after Sigefrith has left, the King’s men follow his traces and come to arrest Saeward’s father for hiding an outlaw. Saeward’s father is offered his life if he will reveal Sigefrith’s destination, but he refuses, and he is hanged, while young Saeward – whom his father had sent fleeing through an attic window on the night of the arrest – stands helplessly and watches.

This starts Saeward on a life of homelessness, poverty, and eventually criminality. He spends some time in prison in various countries. He never forgets his grudge against Sigefrith Hwala.

Then, incredibly, while he is in Flanders, he learns that Sigefrith Hwala is there to visit the Count. Saeward risks everything for his chance at revenge. He sneaks into Sigefrith’s room and is about to kill him when Sigefrith wakes. Sigefrith is helpless in bed, and Saeward has a knife, but Sigefrith keeps talking – reminding him that his father died to save Sigefrith’s life – until Leof overhears the conversation and comes in. Saeward is arrested, but Sigefrith insists that he be pardoned, and before he leaves Flanders, he tells Saeward that he is welcome in Lothere and Sigefrith will offer him a position there if he ever decides to go.

Those are the circumstances under which Saeward comes to Lothere, unable to decide whether Sigefrith is a scoundrel with his father’s blood on his hands, or is some sort of saint.

I don’t think that conflict will ever be totally resolved, and every day Saeward will have to decide again that today is not going to be the day he will kill Sigefrith Hwala.

However, if Emma has her way, Saeward may get some sort of revenge after all.

As for Jorunn, she will be someone he can love without reservation. The two of them will go to live at Ralf’s house, at least for a while.

Malcolm, Aengus, Lasrua

I suppose Lasrua would have stayed with Malcolm in the end. She and Aengus would have been another Maire and Aengus. They will live at Malcolm’s house in Galloway, and Cubby will spend much of his time in Lothere with Sigefrith.

Malcolm will die in 1093, and Lasrua will return to Lothere.

Young Britou, orphaned now, will arrive in Lothere soon after this, asking about the man who loved the Queen there, once, as Malcolm had instructed. He is directed to Cubby, now a young man. Cubby reveals that the man was his father, who is now dead. He sends Britou to meet Lasrua, the elf girl Malcolm told him about years before. Britou becomes friends with Cedric and Cubby and stays with them.

As for Aengus, I’m sure he will find someone to love.

Kraaia

Osh brings one of Frost’s wolf pups to visit Kraaia. Ffraid tells her that he’s just trying to tempt her to come back with him and not to fall for it, but Kraaia finally goes.

Later, thanks to Saeward’s efforts and an abortion gone wrong, Ffraid is finally arrested and sentenced to hang.

Cedric helps Kraaia visit her in prison before her sentence is carried out. Kraaia has learned much from Ffraid, but Ffraid never told her what was the secret ingredient in the abortifacient, and Kraaia wants to know it so that she can continue Ffraid’s work. Ffraid reveals that there never was a secret ingredient, and she only pretended there was to prevent Kraaia and the others from attempting to brew it themselves, and to prevent them from ever being accused of the crime.

As a young woman Kraaia takes over Ffraid’s role as a healer and wise woman. She lives alone with her wolf. She has a love affair with Vash, but she and he are both content to live in their separate worlds.

Aia

Aia and her baby Wendel go underground to live with the kisór. Llen is besotted with her, and she uses that to her advantage in every way. She also has a profound dislike for Lar, and she turns Llen against him.

There are no adults she loves and she has loyalty to no one; and she is intelligent, resourceful, and ruthless in her way. She is bound to play a major behind-​the-​scenes role in the mutiny that sends Lar away and its aftermath.

Her baby Wendel dies in the spring of 1087, not quite two years old. By that time she has a child with Llen.