| Under Which Rock? |
| Summary: | caytiv and Lucienne search for whatever it is Amelia left behind… under the largest rock out the southern window. |
| Date: | 09/September/288 |
| Related Logs: | Hanging Around |
| Players: |
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| Behind the Castle |
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| There are rocks. Big ones. Faces South. But is there anything here of interest?? |
| 09 September, 288 |
Left and right might be something of a puzzle to the mountain lad, but there's seldom a moment of the day he can't identify North without blinking an eye. And so South is just about as easy as turning around and looking out a window, climbing over the ledge and looking out to see which he thinks the largest of the rocks out there in the field, open to view from this angle, before pushing his hands down against the stone sill and jumping out and down the short fall to the ground, the fall ending with a somewhat more gently rolling landing than Amelia had enjoyed, Cayt crouching into the landing as not to hurt his legs.
Catching up to a broad and brawny lad like Caytiv is no mean feat for a slender and whispy girl like Lucienne, and thus it happens that by the time she comes upon said southernmost window in the Tower, he is already on the ground below. She cups her hands to her mouth, not at all enthused for the notion of climbing out of it herself, and calls for his attention: "Master Hill!"
Caytiv stands from his crouch and then turns, pivoting on the balls of his feet and lifting a hand to above his eyes, pushing back his hair as he squints up at the window again. "Ay, Lassie," he calls up to the Lady, there. "Do you reckon t'was this window she did mean? The southernmost, to be sure," he goes on, backing up as he talks, becoming more distant, but easier to see, and neither needing to crane his neck quite so much.
"There're two other windows that could be mistaken," considers Lucienne loudly and between her megaphone-made hands. Amelia was a whore, after all, not renowned for being the best educated of women. "Is there anything to be seen? That rock," and one fine hand motions to point, not that it's terribly easy to determine where at this angle, "Looks to be largest?"
Caytiv thinks he knows which one she means, seeing the general direction of the point and reckoning that together with his recollections of the landscape from the window. "I reckon it is, so," he calls back, and shoulders into the turn back away from the window and to the large rock, "Though I can hardly see how'd one hide something under't. It's right packed in soil, ay."
Lucienne looks rather dismayed by that conclusion, her nose wrinkling up and her frown resurfacing. It's not Caytiv's fault, to be sure, but her frustration shades her voice as she replies to the lad. "Are you sure? What about… that one?" She indicates another, different rock, which is also on the large side and about ten paces further beyond this first one.
Caytiv slows to a halt near to the first rock, circling it and eyeing it, kicking at the base a few times to see whether it budges the earth around it. "I could dig it up, but I doubt the underside of there's seen the light of day in a hound's age," he answers, then backs off and to the side toward the other one, crouching down and getting both hands under a ledge of the smaller rock, shoving at it this way and that to loosen it from the earth and then hefting it up and over.
The lady leans forward over the ledge, as though the extra few inches spanned might get her a better view of what Caytiv does below. Continuing to frown, she drops her hands from her face to hold on, as as her lord brother's squire turns up nothing, she huffs. Huffily. Neck-craning and huffily. "Nothing?" Lucienne sounds impatient in her call down to Cayt. "Should I go to the next window?"
Caytiv holds out his hands, void of anything of particular use, only coated in dust, shroulders rising in a helpless shrug before he gives a terse nod. "Ay, reckon so. Rest out this way don't look like to cover much. Can you see out in the dark, so?" he wonders at her through the night. "Show me which way you're going, I will follow."
Lucienne shifts a look over her shoulder to gauge which way she should direct the squire below. When she turns back around, she indicates to her right with a sweeping gesture of one hand. "If you follow around that way for a spell, you'll see another window?" Having given the nod, she disappears into the room — and a short time later, appears at a different window, not much higher than the last. Flinging the shutters open, she leans out and peers around for any sight of Caytiv. "Master Hill?"
That way. "Ay," he acknowledges the direction, and starts off in that direction at a casual lope. Digging up rocks in the dark might seem an odd sport for a fellow dressed as he is in good livery, but the livery will stand up to getting a little dirty— or it'll learn to, belonging to the rustic shepherd lad. "Here, lass," he calls back. "Can you see aught at all?" Nighttime is getting nice and comfortable overhead.
The darkness sure does come over quick at this time of day, much to Lucienne's chagrin. She sighs out her disappointment, and shakes her head down towards the ground below, straining her eyes to peer through the air at Cayt and his blond locks. "Where? — No. Oh, there you are," she proclaims as her eyes adjust. "This is hopeless, I fear. I'm not even sure the woman would've known our keep so well, nor been able to move freely about it so as to hide things under rocks. I'm sorry, Master Hill, to have bid you so."
Caytiv looks from one side to the other, in a gesture not unlike as if he were cracking his neck, peering for likely rocks before beginning to trot back toward the tower, picking up speed until he seems about to hit the wall in a full-blown sprint, then crouching and leaping tall, scrabbling up on the mostly-smooth surface the couple of extra feet it takes him to snag hold of the windowsill and pull himself to sit upon it. "Matters not, lassie. A wee bit a dust won't hurt me, so. Not so much as to see a lassie swing, I reckon. We ne'er hanged a woman, on the pass… hanged we a good number a menfolk, but… women were a different thing, I reckon. It ended quick, I hope?"
Lucienne looks a little puzzled as Cayt seems like he might run right into the wall of the castle, her jaw dropping open at the moment she predicts for impact. "Oh!" But he means for to climb up, and she scrambles back a few steps to allow him some room at the sill, a nervous glance over her shoulder for the lack of female follower meant to preserve her virtue. "It was a deeply troubling affair," she agrees, laying a hand upon her heart as though affected by it. "But… necessary, in the circumstance. And yes, Master Hill, it was… quick. I worry for my brother, your Lord Ser. I would hazard you may find him in lesser spirits for a time now."
Caytiv stays on the sill, either touched, himself, by the notion of the dangling female and wishing to give his eyes to the star-birthing dark, the way many a person is wont to stargaze when thinking of difficult things, or by way of respect for the lone female in the hall behind him. "He's been in lesser spirits some time already, I reckon. He don't talk about it much, but a bloke can tell, ay? Well, 'tis done, an' done well, so, it seems. That lassie following all at your elbow looked likely for a murder, herself, ay?"
Whatever his reasons for keeping his eyes from her, Lucienne's thanks is conveyed in the gentle inflection her voice takes, now void of her earlier frustration with the squire. "I think you're very right, Master Hill, he has. It's been a very trying time for the Young Lord lately. He's still fierce with the sword though, aye?" As for the scowling lass observing the hanging: "That was Rachael Howard, Master Howard's daughter."
"Ay, and all the fiercer, so, I think me, some a the time," Cayt very nearly snorts with mirth behind the notion. Snorts, at least. The mirth is mitigated by the darkness and death. "I reckon one day I will know all the troubles he sees smithed into my maile when he does bludgeon me so on the field of a morn. Ah, ay, sense that she should come an see… an scowl so, ay, I would not grudge it she."
It's a wistful sort of voice, the one that Lucienne gives to this, her reply. "The rituals of knighthood, I so suppose - for Jaremy had seen it from his knight, my good lord uncle, and some day you might see the same to a squire of your own. Part of the brotherhood, one might say?" The hint of a smile tugging at her mouth dissipates as she references Rachael again. "It is cruel fate to bear, to lose one so close and so dear - I can only imagine it even moreso to know it to be done in cold blood. I can only hope the justice might bring her some small measure of… something. Something akin to reparation."
"Vengeance always smells better than it tastes, I reckon. The lass might well have come hoping for one thing from the hanging, but getting a whole 'nother in the seeing of it," Cayt leans his shoulder against the side of the window. "An I don't say as the Lord Ser treats me bad, ay? He means to make me tough an proper, so. An I can take me a beating, do I need to."
That's very poignant, that point regarding vengeance. It stops Lady Lucienne dead in her thoughts for a brief moment, her eyes blinking wide behind Caytiv's turned back. Lest he think she's disappeared on him, she shuffles her feet. "No, I take your meaning, Master Hill, about my brother. I do." A beat passes, punctuated by a quick out-breath. "I do reckon his squire's a fine lad, ay?" She jests, mimicking the lad's own inflection and accent. "Who should be takin' out the window, mayhap, so's a lady has naught to explain as she strolls back through her castle."
