Page 008: Honesty
Honesty
Summary: Rygar finds the Lady Isolde sending missive to Terrick's Roost and questions her on it.
Date: 21/07/2011
Related Logs: It's Hard to Say Goodbye (IC Memoir)
Players:
Isolde Rygar 
Rookery - Tower Hall
The center built rookery is in the shape of a square. On all three sides that the door is not on, nests and cages are settled, marked with sigils or names to show where the raven within is ready to go. Many have two or more when they are of import. Feed and water is kept below the cages and are often refreshed daily.
Wed July 20, 288

The evening is nearly spreading its dark fingers out over Stonebridge the storm clouds overhead deep purples and blacks. Lightning caught within them sets the air to life and the musty scent of rain rises around the rookery as the birds in their cages shift. Stepping out onto the landing, Isolde hesitates, casting a gaze to her left at the immediate crenellations. Releasing a long breath, she cups the rolled parchhment in her hand and begins to move forward. The grated door is opened with a creak, relief washing over her once she reaches the enclosure.

Ravens stir and caw, the coming storm making them anxious. She moves along the cages and reaches the one of five that is meant for Terrick's Roost. Opening the first, she reaches in and begins the task of tying the note. Biting her lip, her head tilts and her dark hair brushes over her face for a moment. Once it is tied successfully, she carefully cradles the wings of the raven against it's sides. Backing up, she turns, moving for the opening along the side of the rookery to release the bird. As her hands give a good toss out and release. She watches as black wings beat the air and off it soars, cutting into a small figure rather swiftly as it heads to the west and the sun that is nearly gone.

The ominous lightning and looming storm are no more grim than the level words of greeting Isolde recieves as she turns back toward the rookery door, finding it open with its frame occupied. "My Lady," Rygar's stern voice greets, cold stare fixed on Isolde's.

With the raven free and her missive gone, Isolde lets out a long breath, eyes red with tears still. A delicate hand lifts to cover her mouth and the smooth her cheeks as she turns. But when she does, that presence rocks againt her much like the thunder outside and she jumps. Her heart hammers in her chest, her eyes lifting as she stares up at Rygar, the lightning illuminating his face, "My Lord…what are you doing up?" SHe asks, swallowing as she keeps her shoulder brushed against the cages, back facing the large opening for the release of the birds.

Her question is ignored for a long moment. "My lady stands before the western window," he observes crisply. "What danger could be so dire as to force a lady from her bed at this hour, to the rookery? What menace so grave and immediate that not even the master of Ravens be consulted?" The words are spoken cold and steady as Rygar draws closed the door at his back, depriving Isolde of the only safe means of exit.

His words are chilling enough, yet it is the door closing that causes her chest to seize up. The air rushing through the rookery catches her dressing gown and hair, pressing it from her face with a few damp drops of the rain. "Nothing pressing, my Lord." She tries to be strong in the face of the taller man blocking her way out. Her hand lifts behind her and slides her fingers against the cages. "A personal message that is of no import." She can feel the rumble crash through the cages and steal her breath. "My Lord, the storm.." As he has enclosed them close together, she has backed up a step, that opening felt behind her making her tense utterly.

"Ravens are a costly means of sending messages of no import, Lady," Rygar states pointedly. "They are dirty things, as well, crawling with bugs. Ink stains the fingers, script strains the eyes. An honest lady would employ a Master of Ravens for such things." A message drawn in slowly through his long nose. "I will not be so rude as you call the Lady a liar, rather I will invite you to answer again: what message have you sent the Terricks, my Lady?"

Caught, even as she had denied it for the first few moments, it can not be anymore. His direct question causes Isolde to lift her chin. "A good Lady knows how to send missives of her own. To be capable is to be strong." It is a poignant statement she offers him and she bides her time. "Nothing to the Terricks…but to the young Lord." A few more drops of rain fall through the grates above and she shifts, "My Lord, it is best we take this talk elsewhere." She looks back over her shoulder to the small lip between her and a fall. She shivers and grips the cage at her side a bit more, the crows cawing.

"I commend the Lady's industry," Rygar compliments coldly. As she grips the cage, and glances over her shoulder, the Nayland knight extends a hand, palm up to invite her own. "I will escort your Ladyship out of the weather. It would not do to have you take ill. Yet I think it best we have these words now, my Lady. Shall you tell this message, or must I presume the worst?"

Lifting her head as she meets his gaze, they flicker down againt to study the hand he offers. Isolde remains am moment longer and finally disengages her hand from the cages to place in his. The indentations of the gratings are cut into her hands, impressions made deep by her fear. He might yet feel a shiver as she says as smoothly as she can, "M'lord there is no need to persume the worst of me. I have accepted the Nayland presence in my lands and my life, grant me a small measure my Lord."

"Then tell me, Lady," Rygar returns, his own finger stiff and strong as they close about Isolde's, drawing her away from the raven's window. His hand is chill as his manner, as the knight guides the lady toward the Rookery door. "What is this message you send in the dead of night?"

The mistake had been made in giving her hand over to him, but it is done. Isolde is drawn away, far closer to him than she should wish to be. "You give me no small measure, must you know everything? This is still my father's land and I am his daughter." She breathes, now away from the opening, there is a measure more of confidence as the rain begins to patter very slowly out over the rooftop. The lady's green gaze turns outward, looking to that door with hope, yet there is the rest of the roof to cross over to the stairs.

"What my lady must do is nothing," Rygar notes as she refuses to answer. Guiding her firmly toward the rookery's portal, the knight voices further, "That you share this communication with the Young Lord and Maester of another hall, yet not with those to whom you shall be family by marriage is regrettable. In light of the recent theft from your Treasury, I am sure my Lady will agree that certain.. precautions must be taken to keep this Tower safe."

As he insists on safety, she steps through the opening and out onto the open roof where the wind catches at her dressing gown and loose hair. She turns to face him and she shakes her head, droplets of slow rain gathering to pattern her lightly. Isolde lifts her chin. "This Tower is far safer than you think. The Terricks are not a threat unless you make them so." SHe says, "As for the treasury, it is returned unharmed and the Terricks had nothing to do with the silver gone missing." She insists with fervent certainty.

Rygar does not still he steps as Isolde speaks so defiantly. "How safe do you feel, my Lady?" is his simple reply. Cold blue eyes go aside to fix on the young woman. "You may be assured: if strife is born between Terrick and Nayland, it will be your best intentions which birth it, Lady Isolde, not any acts of mine."

Her brows furrow deeply at his last words and Isolde parts her lips, thunder rumbling low over the fields and stealing the sounds of the crickets. If she were to say she was not safe because of where she is currently, it might steal her strength. Releasing a breath, she takes a step back, keeping her gaze on him. "I want no strife between houses, Nayland gains Stonebrige and that alone will cause some strain. But it will be through negotiation that good will remains." She intones, no fool to think that all will be well with the announcement to come. "I only wished to ease the passing of this announcement with my letter. A personal good bye to the heir of Terrick's Roost. To have him put me from his mind as he was to originally champion for my hand. I have in no less of words told him not to." She pauses, drawing upwards, "Does that satisify my Lord?" Her tone may be said to be somewhat haughty, but her gaze only flickers away from his to cast a look towards the edge of the parapet, shivering.

"It should never be satisfying to learn that kin keep secrets, my Lady," Rygar answers evenly as their steps continue across the castle's peak under skies and looming storm. "Good will comes from honesty, in the end. Not negotiation." A few more steps and the two will pas out of the weather.

At his behest of honesty, Isolde slows, the rain starting to quicken as the tinge of it hits the air in scent. "Honesty. Honesty would have been for my mother to admit that my father had already promised me to House Terrick. What of that? Then you and I would not be standing here and you would not be preaching to me of honesty because I would be honest." Her voice is low, her hand flexing in his and what tears had been spent now come back in words tinged with heartache and loss.

"Alas and alack that all men are not so honest as I," Rygar returns. "Else, you might have been married long ago," in a pointed barb at Terrick tardiness. "'What might have been' is a game for minstrels and mourners, Lady. I prefer to trade in the steel and stone of what is. As should you." Then another door is drawn open, and the way down the steps and into the darkness of the Tower's stair lies ahead.

That barb cuts her but she reacts none to it save a flinch before turning her head to the stairs. She steps ahead of him, hand in his as she takes up her skirts. "One thing is right…that was the past and this is now. As I have said…I have accepted what is to come. I do not deny my husband to be and we speak openly as we can. Time is fast approaching when Tordane colors will no longer fly above Tower Hall. I must grow used to that even if I mourn it so for my father." SHe hesitates, stopping on the stairs and effectively stopping him for the moment as she looks back and up. "My Lord, the missive was but a good bye. Let it stand at that. One final word said between childhood friends and nothing more. Let that ease you." She offers, her green eyes searching his for the acceptance of her late night ravenry.

Rygar's blue stare is as cool and implacable as ever when Isolde stops and searches out his eye. "That you send your childhood on raven's wings to greet the morrow as a woman grown and bride to my good cousin will see to my ease, Lady. Such breaks must be clean, rather than lingering."

His coldness steels some of her over and the stone of the staircase seems even more dank and much less her home. Every day it becomes an extension of the Fortress of Seven and it makes her ill to think of it so. "This break is clean. What promises once made are undone and the allegiance with Terrick has been cut as I have ended the pursuit the young Lord had of me. It need not be morrow, for it is now. All that awaits to make it complete is our wedding day. WE know of it, the announcement will make it clear to all others." She affirms and lingers a moment more. "I will be a wife of Nayland, daughter of Tordane no more." SHe says that with some difficulty in her tightened throat, yet it is said with as much diginity as she can muster dressed a she is for the evening and hand in his. "If that is clear, I will retire to my bed chamber."

Rygar gives only a short nod at first, his countenance seeming more gaunt and shadowed in the low light. "I will escort my Lady to her chambers. It ill becomes a woman betrothed to go unaccompanied." Stern and stiff, the Nayland knight will see her back into the care of Mellicent, before taking his own leave.