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Maud’s Recollection of Battle of Crécy
Les Français ont perdu la bataille, mais la confusion régnait.
La pluie est tombée comme le vin d’un tonnelet split. The bruit rolled in across the fog, the cruel, crawling fog. My ears, I could not bear it! The shouts, cries, a cacophony of languages. An infernal boom to tear the skies!
“Madame, the battle has come to us,” my host cried. “No time for even a hasty fortification. You must hide before the belligerents find you.” He took my hand and together we made egress through the rear. When we reached the gate, which was slow to open, every time I wiped water from my veil the onslaught grew larger and louder.
“Mon Dieu! The churlish maggot-pies have surprised us! Bonne madame, I must fetch my crossbow. I fear I imperiled you. Yet I cannot leave you.”
“I see our predicament. Mayhap the Rosbifs have evolved since the last time I saw them and know better than to hit a lady. Let us leave it to God. I have made my peace. Go then, and thank you.” I ducked, my hat and its scarves damnably caught in the portcullis. Blinded, I was wrenched away by a mailed hand.
“Have mercy on a poor lady!” I cried. My hat fell away into the mud, I unsheathed my Dandy Burdock to pick it up and accidentally hit someone, judging from the yell. Someone tried to grab my sword from my hands, I would not have it. The blade sliced. People kept getting in the way of my fetching my hat! I was pressed against the stone wall. I screamed.
“Lady, if you stop screaming, I will get your hat for you!” a man cried. “That is if I have any limbs left. STOP BATTLING ME!” I could not see, could barely breathe with metal upon metal pressing me in. I felt something warm and sticky pour from my arm, then I grew weak, faint and cold. A body fell on me. I last heard a gurgle, “Mother of Mercy, is this the end of Harry?” before the darkness took me in like a mother’s love.
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My arrival at the Imperio Orientalis was initially unappreciated, but the profundity of my erudition made a suitable impression on the right kind of people. As the 200,000 Ming sailors set sail, my command of the Analects got me command of a Ming ship.
From my ship I proudly displayed
As the navies closed, the more numerous and nimble Ming vessels easily out-maneuvered the Han tower ships. I held my ship back, hoping to chronicle the great event. The Han tower ships, chained together together in a ragged line, made an impressive yet disorderly sight. One Han tower ship in particuar was a disgrace, displaying the banner :
The worst, sloppiest calligraphy I had ever seen displayed! This dreck was a revival of Confucius? My DOG could make better brush strokes! I ordered my ship to close, so I could tutor this errant scholar and improve his ways.
I could not get close enough for the misguided scholar to hear my emendations, so I jumped on board with my largest calligraphy brush. As I tried to make the required corrections, a dog with a Gaelic accent appeared and tried to correct my corrections – with a sword!!!
We went back and forth – me with my calligraphy brush, he “editing” with his sword, until that poor silk banner was nearly destroyed.
The Han sailors, entranced by our scholarly exchange, missed the Ming fireship closing on their tower ship and abandoned their vessel in a panic as their ship ignited.
Bark McBarkruff @ghoti fled his burning ship. Watching that execrable penmanship go up in flames, I finally discerned the character that miserable scholar was trying to make:
“fish”
— Mr Collins
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I was quietly going about my business leaving the house of my latest conquest by the window when a sharp metal disc thudded into the window frame next to my head, taking some hair and a small chunk of ear with it. It couldn’t have been the husband as he had just come in through the front door, hence the need to defenestrate myself.
I scrambled to my feet to find a handsome woman standing in the alley with a number of farmyard tools at her disposal, looking angry. I was sure I hadn’t bedded her, so it must be retribution for someone else’s good time she was seeking. Daughter? Sister? Mother? An academic appraisal of the statistical likelihood of any particular incident being the cause of this jealousy and/or revenge would have to wait as she screamed , and attacked me with a machete.
Having made a rather hurried exit she had caught me with my trousers down, quite literally, and I took several blows from her blade before I was able to pull them up and free my sword, severing the tendons in her wrist as I did so. Rather than retreating she picked up the machete in her other hand and continued her reckless attack. The combination of her off hand and my skilful bladework allowed me to disengage gracefully without further damage (to me, at any rate) and leave the scene, as the husband and his guards came running out.
I led them a merry chase through Sevastopol that night, only having to kill one or two of them, and ended the evening with a pretty little nurse and a surprisingly good bottle of wine to tend to my wounds.
I still haven’t worked out who that other woman was or why she attacked me, though.
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Well, you wouldn’t believe what happened at Woolworth’s today… Harold, are you listening? Good! I went there to pick up some knitting needles that they had on sale. Donna’s baby shower is next month and I want to knit her a little blanket for the baby. I’m thinking of something with a cherry blossom theme. Won’t that be cute? As I went back to the notions section, I saw Mr. Han and Mr. Ming arguing over who got to use the men’s room. A dreadful display, really. Anyhow, that’s how I thought of the idea for the cherry blossoms on the blanket, but that’s not what was so outlandish.
I found the knitting needles, but there were only two of the “on sale” ones left. And just as I was about to pick them up, Mrs. Ennis bumped into me and tried to grab them. Can you imagine? Harold, are you still listening? Yes, well, she got one and I got the other and do you know, she tried to poke me with hers? Well, I have never been so outraged in my life, so I pretended to reach for a pincushion, and I poked her right in her fat arm. Do you know that woman used to be so pretty, a very, very, very long time ago. She likes Bundt cake an awful lot though. Well, she poked me right back if you can imagine that. A few more back-and-forths and I lost my grip and my needle dropped and rolled under the shelf. Well, we both acted like nothing happened, and I told her you were looking forward to seeing Mr. Ennis at your regular Wednesday poker game, and she said today was enough poking for one week. I don’t know what that was supposed to mean. Can you imagine all that? Well, if Mr. Ennis is at poker, you need to win at least 2 dollars off of him, which is what I would have saved on those knitting needles.
Mr. Ming and Mr. Han? Oh yes, they solved their little quarrel. Who got to use the bathroom? Oh, well dear, Han shat first.
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Of course he did. Mr Ming is Greed-y.
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You’re a tricky devil.
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Well, let’s see. First I found my way to Diósgyőr—which everyone insists I can’t pronounce. Lots of laughing, oh ho ho, but no one will tell me how I’m doing it wrong only “Keep that beer coming, miss.” Or something like that I guess because they seemed the least annoyed when I kept the beer coming. They had me running this way and that and it’s a big damn place however you say the name only they seemed to think my name was “Jendesh.” csendes Which is no kind of name I’ve ever heard of and not mine anyway. I thought it was a bit rude but I guess there’s worse things to be called. Until I hear otherwise anyway.
Then they sent me clear over to the other side of the damn castle again and it was late and dark and I was tired. I got a bit turned around over there, well it was late and I might have had a flagon or two was meant for someone else but I hadn’t eaten all day and I’d been running around like no one’s. There in the darkness was the mysterious figure. The one I’d been feeling all day in the back of my head and had my sword handy for.
Well I can’t be dawdling just because it’s time for fighting so I rushed in and made brave talk with my sword—and well, my mouth too to tell it plain—too much drinking. I got a little testy there with all the running around of the day and being ordered about by people calling me Jendesh and temper took away with me.
Fortunately, fate had other plans for me then and I managed not to accidentally kill Maple but instead accidentally stubbed my toe and decided whoever wanted that beer didn’t want it as much as I did after all and also it was time for a little nap.
AND NO I DIDN’T NAP IN THE MOAT. 
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“all within the four seas will be his brothers.”
Analects, Lunyu XII ( 5) 298
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The fog had turned to rain.
The cohort I’d attached myself to was approaching the gated manor, we nearly had the element of surprise but war is not meant for surprises.
Except for sensing another immortal. I hadn’t quite expected that. At least not at that moment. Especially not one trying to retrieve her chapeau from the portcullis.
The rain slick cobbles slowed my advance. I suppose I was too cautious, but I’d yet to cross the century mark back then. I approached and felt the first slice from a woman not yet in a battle stance. Then another. At that point I forgot my training an nearly lost my head in a wild attack. Knowing the end was facing me I fell back and composed myself. I know I got two good hits in before the wave of bodies at the gate separated us.
I fell back. that was too close for one so young.
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Plague towns always provide a good stop over. The beer runs freely. After 10 or so pints I bumped into another pirate. I was glad to see another mate from the high sees. I was just going to buy him a pint when he declared that I was on his list. I thought maybe he was going to buy me a Christmas present but then he ran at me with a puny little sword. I was getting ready to crack his head off when my pet Moe came in to tell me had found a two dozen ladies in distresses who needed my attention. They were all dying of the plague and scared to death of dying as virgins. And so I had to abondon my young combatant to pursue a higher calling.
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"Why did that era draw so many of you to the Crimea? Were the dark winds of time blowing through that troubled peninsula once again? Did you know what you carried with you? And yet we died by the millions unknowingly, only knowing that you fought each other.
As the years continued to pass the stories were mostly forgotten. Mostly."
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For me, it began with the stench of hypocrisy in Avignon—the bawdy houses emptying in the mornings as the bishops hurried to perform Mass, the Scots calling themselves pilgrims, then crowding the taverns, swilling Auld Glencampbell’s Worst Bitter by the firkin, brawling and playing music in the streets till cockcrow. (Seriously, does Scotland only have one tune? It seems ridiculous to devise an entire instrument just to play Scotland the Brave).
And then some pompous pedant godsplaining the old religion that my people have followed for millenia, and, as usual with these types, taking it all too literally—Cernunnos is a metaphor, for Gwydion’s sake. Am I supposed to turn to the Romish faith like my big brother Uther, who, let us not deceive ourselves, only did it for political reasons, or like my nephew Arthur, that sanctimonious git who can’t seem to grasp the concept of the separation of church and realm? And not only…
Forgive me. I get carried away. Let me say only that I shook the dust of the Pope’s city from my shoes and set off on my wanderings again. Although rumours of wars reached me, I had long lost my stomach for carnage, and tried to fill my time helping peasants with winnowing and barn raising, and getting cats out of trees (one word - arbalest).
When word came of the great pestilence in the Crimea, I felt a call to try and help. The many souls I had sent to the underworld in the past weighed on me. Perhaps I could rescue a few, or at least comfort their journey.
As for the slanderous reports that Immortals carried the pestilence, we can no more carry it than die of it. False news!
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Overheard:
So there I was, covered in filth and asleep on a bench when I hear footsteps and some half man, or maybe it was a half woman, maybe it was a child?, hit me with the broad side of a sword. I’d been eating moldy bread, trying to hear that “want to live forever” song again I heard once in my youth.
Anyway, I grabbed me sword (it currently lacks a point. Note to self, do not pry open doors with your sword). Anyway I fought off the halfman and sustained fairly serious injuries. At one point, it seemed like they were trying to cut me head off. Never thought of the consequences of that before. I certainly don’t want to spend eternity as a talking head.
Anyhoo, some a band of Ostrogoths was walking by and it spooked the halfman. I think it must have been the language they spoke. Made the halfman think it was my compatriots. Little did he know that those fellows would have just as gladly seen me in the ground as he, but that’s another story.
Oh well. Such is the life of someone who lives forever.
[Other room: Hey, does that fat bastard ever shut up?]
Oh, I guess that’s me they’re looking for. I’ll be heading next to …
Groß Wilhelm, the First of His Name
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[excerpt from The Diaries of Other Pendragon © 2017 by TrilloCom LLC]
My efforts to save the piteous victims of the pestilence here in the Crimea have availed me little, I must confess. I did my best, even devising garments to protect myself from the smells and contamination of the afflicted, and not incidentally to disguise my Immortal status, since we are regarded with suspicion here.
I enclose a woodcut of myself thus arrayed:
I have had little luck in convincing the local physicians to follow my example. Like many of their profession, they are conservative and loath to adopt the latest advances in medical practice. But it was while I was on the way to visit an outbreak in a nearby village that I saw a figure approach in a similar costume. He said something as he came near, and although his voice was too muffled to understand, something in his bearing made me suspect he was another Immortal. Sure enough, he must have suspected me too, for he threw off his coat and mask to reveal a muscular fellow dressed only in a breechclout and wielding a curious weapon that looked as if a battleaxe had had biblical knowledge of a lute. “I am Red Dog!” he proclaimed, “You may sing your death song now!”
He charged recklessly to the attack, but he was clearly unused to fighting swords, and the weight of his weapon slowed him down. The strings on his axe rang loudly as I parried his ever-wilder swings.
I don’t know how the contest would have ended had we continued, but the nearby church bell rang for Vespers, and he jumped back crying, “Hold, man. Enough”. He explained that he had to be at a “gig”, whatever that may be, that evening, and he had no more spare strings for his lute. We parted warily, but with mutual respect. I feel we shall meet again.
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“Hey, Bon! Yer back! How was the battle?”
"Fuckin’ Christ, Aengus, what a sheepfuck it was. Ed Junior’s guys running around Stirling like beheaded chickens, the Bruce’s lads picking them off wherever they could, and there’s Yours Truly, finishing off an abandoned cask of aqua vitae near the castle’s sewer drains and feeling much the worse for wear. I wandered out rather unsteadily to see if there were any English necks I might perforate to thank Robert for his hospitality, and… well, I was overwhelmed by the sights and smells and the influence of that aqua vitae. I could swear I saw some crabby-looking Turk bastard carving away on the Loch Ness Monster, right out there on the battlefield. That inspired me to pull out me pipes, but just as I started to skirl an inspirational tune, I hear the rumble of galloping hoofbeats and a panicked cry of “Look out!”
“I drops me pipes and hits the dirt, but just my luck, this great fuckin’ warhorse steps right on my bum, trips, and sends his passenger flyin’. The bloke landed square on his head, and I heard his neck crack even over the sound of my own spine splintering under that damned horse.”
“Yeowch. What a shit turn of events.”
“Aw, wasn’t that bad. My bones knitted up fine in a minute or two. And turned out I’d accidentally taken out the Earl of Gloucester while I was at it!”
“Hero for the side, eh? Cheers!”
“Yeah, but for some reason Robert wasn’t too fuckin’ happy about it. I think he had a soft spot for the ol’ Earl. Anyway, that’s all the action I saw. Kinda glad I didn’t get too close to that Turk. He looked fierce, although anyone who can take that many swings at a neck as long as Nessie’s and still miss may not be all that much of a foe to be reckoned with.”
“Did yer learn anything out there?”
“As ever. There’s always a lesson to be learnt for those who keep their eyes open and their wits about them, even if the aqua vitae doesn’t sharpen the focus.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“(Ahem.) Gettin’ robbed. Gettin’ stoned. Gettin’ beat up, broken-boned. Gettin’ had. Gettin’ took. I tell ya folks, it’s harder than it looks. It’s a long way to the top, if you wanna rock and roll.”
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[A letter fragment discovered in the blood-soaked satchel of a dead Ottoman messenger]
… and after that I drifted through the Mediterranean region, earning what coppers I could. I had “died” only six times this century. Four drownings, one scaffold collapse and one cave-in. At this point, I appreciated the cave-ins the most; years of solitude in the inky blackness. As I inched forward through the rubble, I pondered the Kurgan. Were they an answer? A release?
Late in the century I found myself thrown together with a pitiful company of Ottoman Azaps, barely indistinguishable from farmers and peasants. We marched towards a meat grinder. The battle bored me. I saw no reason to give the gift to the pathetic wretches on either side.
I noticed the shining armor and ostentatious sword across the bloody, savage wasteland. His carriage and manner indicated that he was here to glorify himself only. Had to be an immortal.
Run through with four arrows and nearly cloven by a chance halberd strike, I trudged towards the inevitable duel. He probably asked my name or attempted some manner of witty repartee. I couldn’t read his lips so I just raised my board. Wootz steel met Lebanese cedar. Splinters flew as I calmly parried his reckless attacks. He was angry, but not with me. I saw in his eyes the madness only those who have been buried alive can know. I pitied him like I do all immortals.
Eventually we were attracting too much attention and the battle had turned. We disengaged with a nod and dissolved back into the fracas.
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I remember… strolling toward the stables of Lubeck, late in our trip to the city. We’d made some very profitable deals, and we needed to purchase more horses to transport our finds to the next town. That was when I felt the odd rush that signaled the presence of another of my kind. I slipped warily into a back alley, eyes scanning my surroundings. A familiar form stepped into view.
“You!”
“No, I’m YOwOL.”
I blinked. “I know who you are. We met in Avignon. You sold me that Venetian periscope necklace… and that useless piece of junk broke three months later.”
He had the nerve to smile at me as he replied, “The terms of warranty were specified by the manufacturer.”
“It also turned my neck green. For a month! Have you no honor in your dealings?”
“I take your complaints very seriously.”
“Perhaps you’ll take this complaint more to heart, prokhindey,” I retorted, freeing my lovely karabela from its hiding place among my skirts. In answer, he drew an odd looking cylinder. With a flick of his wrist, the long blade-like portion began to glow an ominous red. Bozhe moy, it almost looked like a toy, but as we cautiously circled each other, he handled it with skill. And in the first clash of weapons, I discovered that it could indeed cut like a blade, when it drew a thin line of blood from my left shoulder.
But for all his bluster, the fight did not go well for him. Only his first two strikes injured me, while more of my blows struck home. Soon enough, he was sprawled across the cobblestones at my feet, scrambling backward frantically, as I lifted my sword to end the fight… and his Immortal existence.
But he did something I didn’t expect. He flung his hand toward me, flinging mud-- and worse-- from the stones across my face. For a moment, I could not see, and he took that opportunity to spring up and dash down the alley to the busier streets beyond. I ran after him, only to see him swing himself into the back of a departing wagon. From the stench of it, the bed of the wagon was full of middens and manure. How appropriate. “New replies are no longer allowed,” he called as it rolled away.
I could do nothing but scream in frustration. There were far too many people around to resume our duel… “and this was my favorite dress!” In that moment, I swore to any listening god that when YOWOL and I next met, I would take his miserable head.
Then I filed his dirty little trick into my memories for future reference. You never know when a move like that could come in handy…
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Clearly you are mistaken. That was no midden cart, and I resent the aspersions against my prized Westie.
Completely un-related, I have aroma vaporizers for sale. I’ve recently tested them myself, and found them adequate.
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