Jo's Journey

[DamedEscrime]

They stepped into the dim corridor and headed in no particular direction. JO though she caught a movment out of the corner of her eye, but hearing nothing ignored it.
"Someone must surely light a lamp in these old hallways. They are always so dark a dusty," she said nonchalantly.

"Yes, why don't we go outside for some fresh air? I'd like to go to the stables and check on my horse," replied Loch.

Concern in her voice, Jo reminded him, "That is quite a way to walk on that injured leg of yours."

Loch's leg did ache and favoring it put pressure on his back which now ached also, but he had responsibilities. His horse had always been faithful to him in crucial moments. He had taken him into and out of the battlefield on the swiftess of hooves and held steady in the face of lance and sabre. He had been the ear most often bent after...Ellen.
"All will be right dear Lady. Trust me," he smiled at her concern.

They continued on down the hall. It was slow going when the came to the narrow winding staircase. Jo went first, never out of arms reach. Fearing that Loch might stumble as he took the stairs one at a time, placing first his injure leg down and then the other onto each step, she held out a hand for him to catch. It truly was a riduculous idea for if he had fallen he would surely have taken her right along with him.

Reaching the bottom Loch let go of the banister, straightened and tried to relax. His face showed no sign of discomfort though all of him was now in hurt. He refused to let the Lady see his pain and had learned well to hide it, so she was none the wiser.

Once again she placed her arm in his as they made their way through the palace and out into the same garden where they had enjoyed a small lesson in astronomy on that fateful night of the ball.

It was quite a different garden this day. The ball decorations had been all put away, but the garden needed none of them. It was beautiful in its autumn splendour. The red twigged dogwood blazed scarlet. Crysanthemums of orange, and red lined the path. The last of the Stella Doro lillies shone bright yellow and were highlighted by rows of dusty miller while bits of pink and purple zinnias peeked through the foiliage.
The air itself joined in the freshness of the day as crunchy brown leaves floated to the ground.

Loch took a deep breath which caused him to start and grasp his side. This time he was not able to hide the pain so easily. Jo immediately put her arms round him and guide him onto an old stone bench.

[Zelda]

As the queen made her way down the corridors to investigate the rabble outside she passed through the ballroom.
"I dont remember ordering teh decorations to be put away!" she thought. "ARcon must have done it". AS she glanced outside she caught sight of Loch and Jo sitting on a bench deep in conversation. She smiled as she saw them. "Its about time Loch found himself a companion" she told herself. She made her way towards the gates, the noise got louder.

[lochinvar]

Gradually, both the ache in Loch’s side -- and his embarassment -- ebbed. Though she now sat demurely and properly next to him on the stone bench, in his mind he still fealt her stong but gentle arms supporting him to his seat. That had flustered him in a way he hadn’t expected, and he was gratful in more ways than one for the interlude.

It was pleasant sitting here, in the sun, with her. The garden was a riot of color, and the early afternoon light had that curious and utterly delightful golden lambency it sometimes assumes, when everything seems viewed through palest amber. He glanced sideways at the young lady in yellow; how fitting that color was today. And how well it suited her.

He noticed again the bruise purpling the side of her face. “Jo, I’ve been thinking,” he said. “These are uncertain times. Perhaps it would be a good idea if you were to resume weapons practice with this Naekos fellow.”

She glanced down at her hands. “I think I should resume my studies, too,” she mumbled, “but not with Naekos. Things didn’t work out very well between us. I haven’t seen him for some time, and I don’t think he would be willing.”

Loch watched her downcast face, her hands twisting unconsciously. Hm. Something more there, he thought, but, though curious, he would not ask. None of his business, after all. Whatever she wanted him to know, she would tell him, and in her own good time; he had no claim to anything more.

Suddenly, she looked up and he met her eyes. A certain light was unfolding there, as of a thought newly dawning. “Perhaps…perhaps you could teach me,” she said, somewhat breathlessly. “You are newly arrived, and have no assigned duties that I know of…and we have evidence that you can fight,” she continued, sweeping her hand to indicate his battered condition. “That is…if it wouldn’t be asking too much…” Wary hope warred with slight trepidation in her face, mingled with embarassment at her own presumption.

He looked her over, then, before answering. He took his time, seeing her not as a woman, but as a man-at-arms he was considering taking on, and assessing her accordingly. His frank scrutiny brought color to her cheeks, and caused her to look away nervously. Finally, and with an odd note of regret, he responded.

“As you say, lady, I have no set duties to perform here, and it would please me greatly to instruct you. However, I think the kind of fighting I know best would be of limited use to you. You have the right framing and look strong enough to wield a broadsword, sure enough, but it would tire you too quickly, I think. A lighter weapon would suit you better, something that depends less on strength and more on agility: a rapier, probably.”

“Zelda would be the best choice of instructor for that; her mother was one of the most renowned swordswomen ever. But I don’t know that she would have the time. If you wish, I’ll broach the subject with her. If she cannot, I’m sure there are others who can instruct you adequately. I could teach you the rudiments, but it’s not my weapon of choice, and I fear my instruction would be wanting once we passed the basics.”

“In any case, I would be useless to you in that capacity as I am, at least until my wounds are better mended. There’s quite a lot of footwork and movement involved, and as you see, that is quite beyond me at the moment.”

“However,” he continued as her face fell, “there is something that I CAN teach you that doesn’t require a lot of moving about on my part, and it has often proven useful to me.”

“Tell me; have you ever handled a bow, lady?”

[ 10-08-2001: Message edited by: lochinvar ]

[DamedEscrime]

"A bow? I have never thought of that. My sister was quite good at it. I once witnessed her splitting crabapples on a post. Of course she was good at anything her hand touched, unlike me. A bow. Hmm, yes I think I should like that very much. Sir, if you agree to be my master, I will be happy to take up the bow. And, I promise you I WILL be a good pupil. And...," Lochinvar held a finger to her lips to quiet her. He was amazed at her sudden burst of excitment.

"Oh," she stammered. "Forgive me. I was babbling on."

"It's quite alright," he replied. "But I think we have rested here long enough. Shall we go on?"

[lochinvar]

Jo steadied Loch as he rose to his feet, and they proceeded towards the stable.

He had hobbled on worse before, and could probably have managed without her aid. But he was not above using his disability to afford a legitimate excuse for touching this marvelous creature. At some point, to better support his limping steps she draped his arm over her shoulder and slipped her own arm around him. He was unusually aware of her shoulder under his hand, the warmth of her arm along his back, the occasional brush of her side against his.

He was oddly pleased at the thought of her archery training, not least because now he had an excuse to be with her regularly.

At the stable entrance, he regretfully broke contact, and limped through the door as the familiar mingled scents of horse, leather, dust, dung, and fresh straw settled over him. Anton, the stableboy, came jogging up from the back of the structure, where he had been filling mangers. “Afternoon, miss, Sir Lochinvar. Come to see your horse again, sir?” he asked cheerfully. “You’ll find him fat and happy, you will. Extra ration of oats this morning, just like you asked.”

“Well, that’s fine then, lad. I’m sure you’ve been taking good care of him. Where’s Master Gavrill?” Loch asked curiously, as they made their way along the stalls. “Oh, he’s gone to the front gate, sir. Seems there’s a bit of a row and commotion going on outside, and he wanted to see what it was all about,” the boy answered. Loch noted and filed that information for later. He would like to know what had taken the conscientious stablemaster away from his duties, as well.

They stopped at the stall where the big chestnut stood idly munching, and Loch undid the strap on the gate as the boy returned to his chores. “Hey, there, big fella. How you doing?” He said has he ran his hand along the gelding’s flank. The horse’s ears pricked forward, and he shook his head in greeting. “Jo, this is Morgan. Morgan, this is the lady Jo. You be nice, now, and none of your tricks. She’s a friend of mine.”

Morgan glanced sidelong at the girl with mild curiousity, and swished his tail desultorily in her direction. “Oh, he’s beautiful!” she breathed, as she approached the big animal, tentativley running her hand along his coat.

With one hand holding the halter, Loch stroked Morgan’s long neck, ran his hand over the cheek. “Yes, isn’t he? He’s fine stock, and even-tempered, as soldier’s horses go. Even good with young ladies, aren’t you?” he crooned to the horse.

“Is he the one you rode…” Jo began involuntarily, then stopped in confusion. “I mean…at Lord Graeme’s…” she began again, weakly, then tapered off, mortified. Oh, why had she asked that? Now he would think her silly.

[lochinvar]

“So, you’ve heard that tale, have you?” Loch asked ruefully as he gathered up the curry comb and brush. “Well, then, I imagine you have questions about it. I haven’t met anyone yet who didn’t. So,” he added, his eyes twinkling with mild amusement as he began methodically brushing, “to save you the embarrassment and trouble of trying to find a diplomatic way of asking, I’ll do you a favor: I’ll ask the major ones for you, and then I'll answer them.”

“Did it really happen? Yes. Did it happen the way they tell it? That depends on which version of the story you’ve been told. I’ve heard all kinds of fantastic variations. Stories grow and change their shape to suit the fancy of both the listener and the teller. The truth, of course, is somewhat less dramatic than the stories – truth usually is. Though it was quite exciting enough for me!”

“So, to begin with, I didn’t arrive the night of the wedding. You know yourself that weddings, especially in the bigger houses, take time in the planning. This one was neither sudden nor secret, so I heard about it long before the date, and had plenty of time for traveling."

"And I didn’t storm into the hall and confront everybody there. I’m brave enough, I like to think, when bravery’s needed, but I’m not a fool. I don’t go looking for trouble; there’s quite enough trouble in the world that comes to a man without any effort on his part to bring it.”

“The facts are these: When I heard of the wedding, I sent Ellen a letter by a go-between. In the letter, I begged her to come away with me, and told her that I would be waiting at a certain postern gate behind the hall on a certain night. I would wait through the one night. If she met me there that night, we would leave together; if she did not, then I would go away forever and leave her in peace.”

“Looking back on it now, it was a daft and desperate scheme, but what other course was open to me? The hall was well-guarded; any attempt to take her by force would probably have meant my death. And an appeal to her father would be laughed to scorn. Eloping by stealth would be the only chance. ”

“The specified night was actually a week before the wedding. I picked that night because it was the night of the new moon, and the darkness would be our best chance to escape.”

“So, on the night chosen, I arrived at the back of Netherby Hall at the appointed place just after sunset, and settled in to wait.”

[lochinvar]

“If I live to be a hundred, I’ll remember that night as the hardest of my life. I didn’t know if she would come. I’d had no word back from her yes or no, and I was there on pure hope and faith. And truthfully, I had doubts that she even wanted to come with me. I’d been gone a long time, and people’s feelings sometimes change with time and distance. Also, it was a hard thing I was asking her to do, to leave her home and her family, and go roaming the world with a poor man of no prospect, without any surity from day to day where we would lay our heads.”

“I only knew that I couldn’t, wouldn’t live without her if there was any chance at all of having her. So I waited. And waited. And suffered all the sick torments of the damned thinking that she mightn’t come, and that by her own choice. No night I ever spent, even the one before my first battle, was so long and dark as that one.”

“And then, just when I was about to despair, she appeared…and I fealt as giddy and drunk with relief as a condemned man who’s just been reprieved even as the headsman is raising the ax.”

“That wasn’t the end of it, of course. The parts about the chase across Cannobie Lee is true enough. We were spotted as we were making away from the hall, and the hue and cry was raised. It was a wild ride, and a close one. But we had a head start, and a good horse,” he said, giving Morgan’s rump a light slap, “and we managed to evade or outrun the searchers. We went to ground finally in a hiding place I had prepared beforehand. We stayed there through the next day, and moved on again that night. Eventually, they gave up.”

[lochinvar]

“But I didn’t bring an army and lay siege to the hall, or best all three of brothers one at a time in single combat, or ride Morgan here into the church and snatch her from the altar, or any of the other fanciful nonsense that I’ve heard. It was dangerous enough, as it was. The penalties for kidnapping are severe, and if we’d been taken, Ellen would have been returned to her loveless marriage, and I’d have been imprisoned for a long time – if I survived capture. Her father was a cruel man, and not overly fastidious about the rule of law. He wouldn’t have stuck at a chance to rid himself permanently of a burr under his clothing, which is all that he considered me.”

“But it was worth the risk. Knowing her lost to me forever, and in the arms – and bed – of a man she’d never love…well, I would have been as dead, then, as a man can be and still be walking around. A sword or an arrow would have been a mercy.”

“And so now you know the whole, true story, from beginning to end. I did ‘steal’ my wife, but I didn’t have to outface, outrun, or outfight half the world to do it – though, at the time, I would have attempted that if it had been necessary.”

“Now, if you have any other questions about it, I’ll try to answer them as fully and truthfully as I can.”

[lochinvar]

During this recitation, the brush and comb had never stopped moving. He seemed perfectly at home with this humble task, each stroke lovingly applied. There was a bond between these two that clearly transcended that of mere mount and rider.

The story WAS less dramatic than the one she had heard that morning at the kitchen table, but somehow that only made it seem better. Less heroic, but more real, more human.

Emboldened by his matter-of-fact way of speaking, and taking him at his word, Jo decided to dare another question – quickly, before she could lose her nerve.

“Was she as beautiful as they say?” she asked quietly.

The brush stopped momentarily in its progress, then resumed at a slower pace. "Well, lady, you've surprised me; that's not a question I've heard before." His voice took on a more distant tone.

[ 10-09-2001: Message edited by: lochinvar ]

[lochinvar]

“As beautiful as they say? You mean, did the stars rise and set at her bidding, and did the wild creatures of the woods and the air come to lie adoring at her feet? The short answer is, No. She was not.”

“Oh, she was pretty, there’s no doubt about that, fair of form and face. I had other men’s reactions to gauge by, so I know that to be true; but in truth, lady, she was no prettier than you, if that isn’t too forward of me to say.”

“But I saw different things than other men did when I looked at her. I didn’t just see a pretty face, or a nice figure: I saw grace, and intelligence, strength, courage, kindness, passion…those things made her beautiful. Those, and one other.”

“You see, lady, as a soldier I have done things – been things – of which I’m not very proud. Things which even now, many years removed, I still wince to remember. I’ve given in to my darker moments sometimes, and my hands are not clean.”

“But she loved me despite that, despite knowing what I was, and had been; and her love somehow touched places in me that were strong, noble, and good, and brought those things to the forefront. I know myself to be a better man now for having been with her.”

“And that, at least to my eyes, made her very, very beautiful, indeed.”

[DamedEscrime]

All the while, Jo absentmindedly caressed the the gleding's soft face, never once taking her eyes off Loch. When he was through, she placed her hand on his and said,"Thank you for telling me. Nani... Oh never mind what Nani said. It makes no mind."

Inside she was thinking. What would she give to have a man love her so much as to risk all as Loch had done for Ellen? How lucky that woman was. How unfortunate that it had ended tragically. At that moment her heart melted. Here was a man of honour and daring. Here was someone she knew she could trust with her life.

"I do have one question and you may choose to not answer it. Do you think that a love such as that came come again?"

Loch did not respond immediately. He searched for an answer, wondering himself if it could be so. He chose his words carefully, and said....

[lochinvar]

“Jo, I honestly do not know.”

“There are people in other lands that believe that everything is foredestined, and that we only have one person in our lifetimes that we are fated for. I do not hold with such beliefs. We are what we make ourselves to be, and our world is shaped as we shape it, or at least influenced by how we strive to shape it. And chance is a wild card, and a strange thing, and can and does change all in an instant.”

“If love comes once, I see no reason why it could not come again. Certainly great sorrows can happen to people more than once, and seemingly at random, so why not great joys, as well?”

“At least,” he concluded, “my life continues in that belief and that hope – for if I thought otherwise, I would have taken my own life that day years ago, and we would not be speaking together now.”

He looked steadily at her hand on his, refusing to meet her eyes. His skin burned where she touched it, but he did not draw away. The moment stretched. Finally, summoning strength from some place he did not know, he softly slipped his hand from under hers and resumed brushing in silence.

“Well, then,” he said moments later, putting the brush and comb on the tack table. “You’re as shiny as the day you were born, now,” he addressed the horse. “But you’re getting soft. We’ll have to have the boy take you out for some exercise, work some of those oats off of you.” With a final pat on the gelding’s rump, he finally turned to face her. “Lady, we should be getting back. I need to know what this disturbance at the gate is.”

As they made their laborious way back to and through the garden, a tiny gnat-thought kept buzzing around in Jo’s mind. It had been buzzing about for some time; like a gnat, she kept shooing it away – and like a gnat, it kept returning. Finally, she surrendered and let it alight.

But when it landed, the gnat-thought suddenly blossomed into a bright flower, like a magic bean from a fairy tale. And the flower-thought was this:

‘Pretty. He said he thinks I’m pretty.’

[DamedEscrime]

(Tell a girl she's pretty and the devil will tell her ten more times)

She smiled and fairly skipped along the path leading back to the palace. This time she did not see the the garden at all, but merely floated through it. It was just one silly little thought, but it brought such joy until she thought of Naekos.

He had never said she was pretty. He had even tried to hide her femininity; chopping off her hair and forcing her to wear his breeches.

"Lady, could you slow a bit? I believe you will wear yourself out and me along with you." Lochinvar brought her back into the present.

"Oh, I am so sorry. Forgive me. I was not thinking of your injuries. Do you need to rest again?" she inquired.

[ 10-11-2001: Message edited by: DamedEscrime ]

[Swordsman]

Ego trip, yeah! I got mentioned in another story!

[Fencing Angel]

dame your going to have to stop with that.. his ego will get to become over powering for all of us.. thats why i keep mine in a box while talking to any of my friends and while also reading on the board. cause it almost suffacaited me in my own room.... so naekos, man, becareful with your own ego buddy.... :P

[Moonitic]

Be careful, Angel...that price on your head will double as your ego grows! lol

[Iwant2bafencer]

Now we wouldn't want that! Angel keep your mouth shut! I think your head is just fine where it is! j/k

-------------------
Carpe Diem

[DamedEscrime]

If all of you are done with the commentary, may I procede?

[Iwant2bafencer]

Right sorry Dame. Come on everyone. Let the nice Lady tell her Love story. .er . .story.

-------------------
Carpe Diem

[DamedEscrime]

As the came to a halt they heard voices ahead. Upon inspection they saw that a samll party was meeting in the garden.

Shouts could be heard as several soldiers hurried back toward the satbles where they had just vacated.

As they neared the group they recongnized King Arcon, Queen Zelda, and several others.
Jo graciuosly gave a little curtsey as Loch bowed his head toward the royals.
Jo's heart always gave a little start when she was in Arcon's presence. It was the majesty of him that held her in awe. For once she was tongue tied.

"Your majesty," Lochinvar addressed the king.
"Zelda. I understand that a trouble brews. How may I be of service to the crown?"

Jo looked at Lochinvar in amazement. He was in no condition to be serving anyone yet he was willing to put aside his own pains to be of assistance. At that moment she both feared for and admireed him.

[ 10-12-2