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Marriage or Death (Part 5)

Henri was haggered from all the moving about he had to do.  So many people were hunting for him now that he didn’t get any sleep before he had to move.  He often woke up when this happened, shaking his head and chuckling softly about how hard it was to get away with openly killing a man, or woman, these days.

He was sorely tempted now to take up the offer that the ships captain had made and to stay aboard his vessel, but he wanted to do this on his own, even if the Sinclaire woman had no trouble at all sending her own friends against him instead!

He’d have to return to the vessel on Wednesday either way if Sinclaire had not accepted his proposal to complete all the arangements he had set up ahead of time.  He had spent a long time thinking of ways to outwit the fate of his family’s doom, and he had
come to a few a long time ago.  Everyone here had only had two weeks to think about it, he’d had years to think about what he would do if his brother did fail.

Despite his situation, he was still laughing and enjoying himself immensly.  He had now taken to reciting Shakespeare aloud, Macbeth especially, atop the northern wall.  He would also often talk to his friends outloud while he walked back and forth planning his next move as he read Arnold’s journal. 

The cat had probably just thrown whatever he had at Henri to distract him from Sinclaire, without thinking since he had been shot, but the information within had proven most useful.  He was glad he’d listened to his friends and gone back to see what it was.

He was warned by Aessesser, while he was reciting atop the wall that someone was coming in a floating contraption of some kind.  Now that was hardly fair, but it just made Henri laugh to himself as he ducked his best into a corner to hide just in case the man wanted to attack him.  

He had chosen a poor position it turned out, because now he was trapped and if he did try to escape by running down the passage he would risk getting shot thanks to the angles.  Fortunately, the man had simply wanted to demand answers and know why he’d attacked those men, but not killed them.  After a moment he’d also inquired as to why Henri looked as if he hadn’t slept.  Henri explained how he’d become a light sleeper, his dad and the wooden knife, simply to inform the man how he’d managed to avoid the patrols of people coming to look for him which was a good thing since they would have found him by now if he hadn’t.

The man had a lot to say about childhood after that, and after awhile it dawned on Henri that the man pitied him.  Henri could have laughed at that, but it would have been rude.  Aessesser and a lot of the other voices on the other hand wouldn’t stop. Still, the man had not attacked him after all, and some of the voices agreed that there was nothing to gain by attacking him.  Strike, or was it Strife, and those that always agreed with him disagreed that there was nothing to gain, but did agree that his opponent was in a hovering vessel of some kind and had a rather unfair advantage over Henri.  It would be much better to attack later.  So when the moment was right, Henri said his goodbye’s quickly and made his quick departure into the wall.  Listening to the voices he was eventually sure that he had gotten away.

The encounter had not been a complete waste of Henri’s time.  In fact it had been pleasant to talk to someone else than the voices for a short time.  And it had even given Strike, or Strife, another idea to suggest.

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One Comment

  1. Tepic Harlequin Tepic Harlequin July 21, 2011

    Bloomin heck! it was getting so a fella couldn’t even get a decent kip in his own camp without some poor deranged bloke yelling from the top of the wall all night….. an who was this Banquo chap anyhow?

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