| Follies and Lies |
| Summary: | Isolde confronts her mother over Gedeon's letters. |
| Date: | 31/07/2011 |
| Related Logs: | Many Rivers to Cross, Sibling Rivarly |
| Players: |
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| Main Room - Tower Hall |
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| The entrance to the tower opens into a larger common room for receiving guests. Effort has been made to bring warmth and light to the interior, as well. Rugs have been hung from the stone walls as well as placed on the floor to bring at a welcoming ambiance. There is a large table with several chairs off to the left of the door, a cooking hearth against the back wall, and a wooden staircase that leads up. An antechamber behind the stairs is where the servants live and bed down. |
| Sun July 31, 288 |
The preparations for the impending wedding has left Isolde mostly being tended in her room and having dipped out when others had let her be, she is now returning. The cloak about her shoulders is withdraw and the cream colored dress that is fitted to her with golds and lace is brushed at passingly. She passes into the hall, confusion and all together uncertainty settled in her gaze. She winds about the main room and sets the cloak down. "Milicent.." Calls the Lady of Stonebridge before heading for the kitchens in a bid to find her mother's location.
Her mother is not difficult to locate, Valda Tordane dressed for the ceremony in the green, gold and red of her husband's house. Appearances must be upkept, after all. The wedding cloak, with its rich embroidery in golden thread on green velvet is being overseen as Valda turns her eye up to regard her daughter. "Isolde, see to it that your hair is prepared properly. A hair net has been set out for you."
As Valda speaks, Isolde slows and turns slightly, There is no immedate, yes mother, instead she dips her head and draws closer. Moving about her, "There is something out of place.." The trim is flipped at the back of the neck. Slender fingers lift o fix it and she falls to silence. Her gaze looks to her work and then up to the dark hair of her mother's. "I was wondering…father was at the tourney ..at the Crag…before I was born right?" She asks a bit nonchalantly.
Valda's countenance cools visibly as the Crag is mentioned. Her chin raises and her hard eyes fix on Isolde, though her words are for the ladies in the hall. "Leave us." A chorus of 'Yes, m'lady's answers the demand. Nonchalant though the query may have been, something of the past days causes the elder Tordane to answer sharply. "Much to his shame, yes, Geoffrey went to the Crag. Though he failed in tilt against his knightly foes, he fared better jousting with their ladies."
Frowning some at her mother's words, her gaze narrows some and she instead keeps a cool hand to smooth the cloth into place. "I suspect you took no comfort in this." It is a sympathetic tone as the bride moves about her mother to face her now. Green eyes meet blue and she tilts her head in silence. "It must have dismayed you to know that he was…straying." She shakes her head, "I know that Lord Ryker will do no such thing…but if he were. I would know it would be my duty to be faithful and see that his home be kept ready in his absence." She smooths her own dress, fixing a strand of pearls at her neck. "As you did mother.." He rhead lifts again, "Right?"
"I suffered your father's bastard in my house for fifteen years, Isolde," Valda answers sharply. "That is one shame that Ryker Nayland will suffer for if ever he forces such upon you." Something in Isolde's sympathetic tone causes her mother's eyes to narrow slightly. "What have you been told, Isolde?"
"Gedeon was a good brother…and lest you forget…he was father's son like it or not. We do not have choices in these matters, mother. We are women, which as been so perfectly noted to me over many a thing." Isolde keeps her gaze hard on her mother. SHe is hesitant at first how to phrase it but she looks down, moving her hand across the edge of the table in the main room. "Been told? Perhaps I read it from my father's own hand." She presses her lips to a thin line. "I am not his daughter, am I? Tell me."
"Gedeon is born from bad blood, and bad blood breeds treachery. If your father were so brave as he fancied himself, that twisted child would never have grown alongside you," Valda snaps at her daughter, before Isolde voices that last. "How dare you," she states on the heels of Isolde's pressed words. "I have kept this house and protected you for twenty years, and you would accuse me of such? You are my trueborn daughter, and your weakness is proof of Geoffrey's seed," the Dowager Lady nearly hisses the words. "You were half a year in my belly when your father left to father his bastard at the Crag."
Isolde may have flinched once before but with several weeks worth of eye opening and life changing events, she has had quite enough. "I am the Lady of Stonebridge and you will not speak to me as you have. You will not strike me ever again. How dare you!" Isolde snaps. She takes a step closer to her mother eyes glittering. "I have letters that I will not let you see that claims that I am otherwise. Letters to you with dates of the month of which I was conceived proving that father was at the Crag. He confirms in his own words that 'his little cricket' is not of him. That I can not be!" She states, her fist hitting the table in emphasis. "So tell me no lies now. Vow it to the Seven, vow it on your role as the Castellon - as that seems to be all you care about, that I am his daughter or not. Tell me the truth or I shall just accept I am not and hand over Stonebridge to the Terricks and foil your lovely plans."
"Letters!" Valda cries, with disgust. "You are such a fool, Isolde! Words on a page, from Seven know where and you are so quick to believe yourself a bastard? I speak to you with scorn, for it is scorn you deserve with this folly. You are my daughter, Geoffrey's trueborn heir, and I swear this by the same Seven who cursed me with so weak a child for my daughter. Hate me for it if you like, child, but I have kept you safe these many years despite what others would see befall you, and I have no intention of letting you ruin yourself now."
How bitter the words that are spoke between daughter and mother and Isolde holds her ground still. Voice raise and on this day she keeps quiet. "Letters yes.." SHe finally says, a bit more evenly than her temper had allowed her before. "Weak no…but you have kept me from so much and chosen my life for me…taken away from me what I loved…that why would I ever believe you?" She breathes, her gaze narrowing as she looks upon her mother. "Gedeon has these letters, he let me see them. Do you have ANY proof to the contrary mother? Because if not, he will take them and Nayland will fall away from this place and Terrick will be restored."
"Proof?" Valda echoes incredulously. "Letters are not truth, Isolde. I care not if the King's seal appears on a page stating that the seas are deserts, and the Tower in which we stand to be made of bread, it does not make it so! Gedeon is a sorry and twisted creature, who returns from some brutal backwater with 'proof' that somehow I cannot be shown, and you take it for truth? Isolde, I have kept you alive in a world that would have seen you dead. I have held hard to power because the number of those who would rob us of it is Legion. You still do not understand all of what I've had to do to bring you to this day, but by all Gods that have ever been, understand this: clinging to folly is not strength. It is simply deeper folly."
"Protected me from everything…your folly is that you never taught me anything save to quiet to you. So what now, when I finally think for myself? It scares you doesn't it? When I stand up and speak against you. Castellon or not, I wed tonight and Stonebridge is mine." She lets out a long sigh, "For all your scheming you never once thought to be thoughtful of me in speak to me of matters. What I will make of myself will be my own doing and like or not. This Gedeon matter…it is not done, so that that knowledge and use it as you will. Because it is not I that you will need to bring proof too, but Lord Jerold. I am quite certain." She makes no comment on the letters and Isolde just keeps her gaze locked on her mother.
"You are a stupid, spoiled child, Isolde, and no amount of posturing will make your words wise," Valda returns sharply. "But you are right in this much: you marry tonight, and what Jerold Terrick thinks means nothing. What Gedeon Rivers thinks means less than nothing. Go, faithless child!" she bids, with an impatient motion of one hand. "Go, play at being a princess while I keep lesser men from stealing your crown." With that said, Valda Tordane- in a foul mood of rare power- turns and stalks out of the chamber.
