Well, here marks the September blog post, only 35 more to go. August is always a busy time for park ranger so I haven't taken off writing the way I had hoped however, I did find enough time to have a prologue to throw at everyone!
A good prologue can be what captures a reader in, but a poor one (even a poor first page) can turn away many light readers. Just looking for some honest opinions about it. Would you keep reading? Or does it not interest you.
Keep in mind that this version still needs editing and copying onto this blog is annoyingly difficult, so expect plenty of errors, look more at the content and story idea.
Thanks a bunch,
P.S. focusing a lot on world creation. Next months post should show off a little about just how ambitious of a world I am trying to create.
You could tell a lot about people by their feet, Marvyn had discovered. What class of person they were, where they traveled, what occupied their time, and of course, the most important part about feet to Marvyn Blahz the cobbler, was what kind of shoe they needed. His oil lamp lit up the shelves where various shoes, sandals, and boots were located. He could recall each set of feet he had made them for. The double goat skin shoes for the stone hardened feet of the mason three days ago. The calve skin leather boots with the attachable wooden pattens on the heel and ball of the foot to raise them out of the manure that had still spattered the feet of the farmer last week. The pair that was before him now, a soft, quiet doe skin moccasin for a smoky smelling hunter he had met the day before. Rare to have a hunter order a pair of shoes in the hamlet of Firstmill, too far from the good hunting grounds further south in Suthweard and too close to the populated areas of Aedelmare. Almost all of the hunting done in these lands was for nobles only. Still, Marvyn wasn’t going to turn a paying customer away, not if the coin was good anyway.
Being a cobbler was all he knew how to do, all his father ever knew how to do, and his father’s father, and his father’s father before that. The Blahz family had always been Cobblers and good ones at that, and it was high time that Marvyn started adding to that family name. He was nearing thirty summers after all, far too late for his father to see his grandchildren, not since the fever took him three winters ago. Odds were it was probably too late for Marvyn to see his own grandchildren, he knew men younger than him who had already sired half a dozen little ones. The thought made him sigh, and he set the doe skin shoe on the work table and reached for his tools, a small metal leather punch and hammer. Truth was his skill in making shoes far exceeded that of finding and keeping a woman. Plus he just had rotten luck with the fairer sex; even his father had said so.
It’s not as if he hadn’t tried to have a family. His father had arranged a marriage for him at five and ten, a year earlier than most. She had been a scrawny thing, but Marvyn had loved her easy smile and the way her long brown hair had felt when she lay with him. Ida had been her name, simple and kind, he had never loved anyone more. She had actually given them their first child, a baby girl, but the pox took them both a year later. That was over a decade ago, and Marvyn had been married two more times since, both properly of his father’s arrangements. First to another young thing barely past her first blood; one day not long after the wedding Marvyn had woken up and she was just gone, never to be seen again. Rumor was that another young lady at village down river had also disappeared, most likely ran off together. Next he was married to a distant cousin he had never met who, to everyone’s embarrassment, turned out not to be a woman at all. That had certainly left a mark on his family’s reputation, so he told his father to stop trying. After that he had gone through a string of uncommitted and some less than reputable lovers through the years, ones of his own choosing that tended to displease his father, and didn’t help his reputation around the settlement. A travelling troubadour that stuck around for a summer, a whore who drained him of most of his coin, and a plump widow past child bearing age that he nearly married until she passed of the same fever his father had.
His latest lover had been quite the mystery, a stunning brunette that had called herself Gwynn. Marvyn would never be able to explain what possessed her to take any interest in the likes of him, but she reminded him greatly of Ida. An easy laugh, contagious smile, the same lovely long brown hair, but with piercing silver-grey eyes; never before had he seen eyes like hers. She had rarely told him anything about herself, but somehow he knew she was different. She seemed older though she didn’t look much older than he was now, but the way she carried herself showed great wisdom and intelligence, a confidence that kept him in awe of her. Perhaps she was a runaway noble, or a rich merchant from a far away land, she certainly had had the education of one, but Marvyn always knew that Gwynn wasn’t her real name. He had also known that she was only with him temporarily, as if he was just a pleasant inn that she wanted to stay at before continuing with an important journey. Somehow it hadn’t bothered him though, most like his previous mishaps had prepared him not to become attached to someone that beautiful and dignified, just accept a good thing while it was happening cause soon enough his luck would turn rotten again. He missed her greatly now. People like that tended rarely came to a place like Firstmill in the first place; it was stranger still for them to stick around. He wondered where she had gone to and what she was doing now.
Marvyn took his leather punch and began making the holes along the top of the moccasin where the laces would go, it was one of the last steps needed to complete the shoe. He let his imagination wander while he worked. The smell of all different kinds of leather filled the air, but it was the smell of Gwynn’s hair that tickled his nose. He found, as he did most nights lately that he wished there was more than just the sound of his leather punch making holes. Perhaps the pitter patter of little feet running, or a woman scolding him, he even missed his father milling around muttering his grumpy curses about the cost of oil for the lamp. Marvyn sighed again as he worked, yes it was time to try and start a family again despite his rotten luck. This time he would try the honest and respectable way again, one that people and his father, rest his soul, would approve of. Its not as if he wasn’t undesirable, he was a free man after all, there were plenty of indentured families who would be happy to offer their daughters a better life even if his love life wasn’t considered the most respectable . A loud knock on the door made him miss his mark with the leather punch and hammer.
“Shit,” he cursed as he hit his thumb instead of the punch. “Shit,” he repeated when he saw that he had pushed the punch anyway and damaged a perfectly good doe skin shoe. The knocking came again even louder, more of a pounding. Who the hell was looking for him at this late hour of the night? Certainly no one needed shoes from him this badly. He stuck his hurt thumb in his mouth and silently cursed whoever was at the door. Too loud and urgent for a pleasure call, too late for customers, nothing good would come of this he didn’t doubt. He stomped over all the same, taking his oil lamp with him, the pain in his thumb and anger growing more with each step.
“What?” he demanded jerking the door open. “Gwynn?” he whispered. The anger drained out of him as quickly as it had built up, for sure enough it was Gwynn standing before him. The same Gwynn he had just been fanaticizing about. She wore a dark hood over her head but he could still recognize her face with his lamp light. He found himself at a loss for words, how odd it was that he had just been thinking of her, and here she was. He thought about saying that out loud but she spoke first.
“Marvyn, may I come in?” There was an urgency in her voice that made him hesitate. Was it fear? Gwynn had always been so confident and loving, what did she have to fear? Then again, Marvyn had to accept the fact that despite loving the woman a season, he barely knew anything about her. The moment passed and he held the door open for her.
“Of course,” he found his voice. She brushed passed him quickly without even a thank you. “Is everything alright?” he asked as he closed the door behind him. She didn’t respond but was quickly unwrapping something she had been holding in her arms. He hadn’t noticed it before because of the evening gloom and the fabric matched the cloak she was wearing.
“What?...” he began, but his words failed him when he recognized what she was carrying. It was babe, a boy by his reckoning. He was small even by baby standards, with a tuft of lightly colored hair and piercing deep silver grey eyes like his mothers. They darted this way and that taking in the dusty leather scented room, and fixing Marvyn a stare that was so much like Gwynn’s that he knew without a doubt that this was her child. “Gwynn,” he began again, a thought suddenly occurring to him as he was rapidly trying to recall the last time they had lain together.
“Marvyn,” she interrupted him setting the babe down on his work table, still wrapped in a swaddle of clothes. The child didn’t protest, didn’t make a sound at all actually, and the only thing it moved was those unique eyes. “Marvyn I need your help,” the desperation her voice made him turn his eyes away from the baby, and he stared at her dumbly. “I don’t have a lot of time and I need you to do something for me.”
“Gwynn,” he uttered, his heartbeat suddenly racing.
“Shhh, just listen.” She came close and took hold of his arms, staring up into his face with a look of incredible intensity. “I’m sorry to bring you into this but I don’t have any other choices. I must leave and quickly, I might not be able to come back for a while and I need you to take care of my,” she corrected quickly, “of our son.” She paused letting the words wash over him and slowly soak in. Marvyn glanced again at the babe on the table and opened his mouth but she put her finger to his lips and spoke. “I loved you Marvyn because you were kind and honest, a good hearted man. I need you to be that now. I need you to promise me that you will take care of our son if I don’t return.” She was gripping his arms so tightly that it hurt, but it was the look of desperation on her face that made him uncomfortable. The kind of look the hare has when the hound is closing in for the kill.
“Yes,” he sputtered, and she gripped him even tighter still. “I promise, I promise,” he told her and a wave of relief passed over her face and she turned away from him back to the baby. He found that he had been holding his breath and let out a long sigh. It was the only answer he could have given her; it just wasn’t in his blood to say anything else. Meanwhile Gwynn had picked up their son and was speaking to him in soft words he couldn’t recognize. It wasn’t gibberish, more likely a foreign language that he had never heard, and never knew she spoke.
“Gwynn,” he started but had the words catch in his throat as she suddenly held the baby out to him. Realizing that the lamp was still in his hand he quickly set it down and awkwardly took the child that was being shoved at him like an overzealous baker holding a loaf of bread under your nose to entice you to purchase it. “Gwynn,” he tried again but she cut him off.
“Give him this when the time is right,” she said slipping a piece of parchment with a wax seal into his cradling arm. She said a few more words to the babe in that odd foreign tongue and then kissed their son with tears running down her face. Without another word she slipped past him towards the door.
“Gwynn wait,” he called turning and nearly kicking his glass oil lamp over at his feet. “Wait,” he called desperately as she opened the door. The piece of parchment she had given him dropped at the same time, and in his attempt to catch it he nearly lost hold of the babe. “Shit,” he muttered under his breath and set the child in its bundle of clothes on the work table. The door shut and he hurried after her. “Gwynn wait just a damn minute, Gwynn?” he called bursting out into the dark of night without his lamp. There was no sign of her, he had been just a few steps behind her and yet he could see nothing except the few lamp lights flickering from the inn on the corner of the dusty street. “Gwynn!” he shouted into the night.
He couldn’t believe it, how could she have disappeared so quickly? He circled his small wooden shop once but saw no sign of her. He considered shouting again but didn’t want to wake up the whole street, and running around in the dark wasn’t helping either. How could she just leave her baby here, their baby? Gods the baby! He had just left it on the work table, what if it rolled off! Marvyn rushed back inside and was relieved to find the child was exactly where he had left it. He walked over and stared into those bright silver-grey eyes. The babe just stared back, completely unconcerned with the situation. What in the all the god’s names had just happened?
“Shit,” Marvyn breathed. He had said that a lot tonight. He’d had some strange nights in his life the gods knew, but this was surely up there with the strangest. He found that his hands were shaking and he gripped the table trying to steady himself and calm his mind. “She will come back,” he told the boy. Though, perhaps he was trying to convince himself of that. He bent to retrieve his lamp and noticed the parchment he had dropped next to it. He lifted both onto the table and with closer inspection noticed that there was a single word written on the outside of the wax sealed paper. He wasn’t a literate man but he felt he could distinguish most of the letter types of the High Kingdom script; these were definitely not any he recognized. He set the parchment down and closed his eyes, trying to recall everything Gwynn had just told him.
“Bah,” the babe cooed. It was the first sound he had heard the child make. Marvyn opened his eyes and saw that the boy was smiling at him. His son was smiling at him.
“She will be back,” Marvyn found himself repeating. Though, he found himself even less certain now. “Women rarely ever leave their children it’s a known fact; a mother’s love or something like that.” His son just smiled at him. “Besides, my luck with women can’t be that rotten, nobody’s luck is that rotten. She will be back. Isn’t that right my boy?” he picked up the babe and suddenly found himself grinning. “My son,” gods, Gwynn hadn’t even told him their son’s name, had she? Perhaps she had left it to him. The child was so small he couldn’t have been born more than a moon or two ago.
It was only later that Marvyn recalled that he hadn’t been with Gwynn since the winter before last, six seasons ago. She would have to explain that when she came back. If she came back.