(SS6.3 Savage AI VH/VH) FIDEM TENE - Rise of the English Cathars
PROLOGUE
1100AD
William de Patris awoke from a troubled slumber, his head thick with pain. Indistinguishable images and incoherent voices seeped through the gloom that enveloped him – echoes of a memory not too distant.
“Oů suis-je?” his voice rasped. It seemed small and insignificant in the darkness, “Where am I?” he asked again, though whether or not another soul inhabited this purgatory to provide him with an answer, he did not know.
The pungent odour of stale wine and cheese hung in the thick, humid air around him and his clothes stuck to him with sweat. A thought came to him, searing through the fog of waking, “Le livre...”
His head ached and swam as he fumbled in the lining of his surcoat for the book. Hauling his muscular frame into a sitting position he became immediately aware that he was laid upon a paillasse. He could feel the chaff and straw digging into his legs through the worn woollen blanket laid across the top. At this thought he came to the puzzling conclusion that he, therefore, must be within a bed chamber. His memory jolted and tumbled through a haze of uncertainty.
His attention snapped back to the book. His heart pounded in his chest, his breathing was ragged and sour with the consequence of sleep.
It was no longer there. “Bâtards!” he grimaced, holding his sweat-sodden brow in his hands. The realisation of what had happened struck him then, alone and in the dark. “Mon Dieu...” his voice was again lost in the enveloping obscurity that surrounded him.
“Your God, indeed, bon homme.”
Another voice, low and rough, stole the very breath from William’s chest. Orange light spilled across the floor casting flickering shadows across a small but well kept room as William span around to see a thick wooden door open slowly behind to his left. The sudden movement made him nauseas and he retched violently. Wood chippings and chaff were strewn across the floor – as were the possessions from his pouch. Two thick leather boots came to a halt in front of William and nestled in the chippings and chaff.
“Here, drink this...you’ll begin to feel better. Wormwood, mint and balm” reassured the voice as a hand, ashen and huge, offered a bowl of steaming liquid.
William slowly raised his head, conscious of the bile rising again in his raw throat. Before him stood a thick set man with features hewn from weather, work and worry. His eyes, blue and set deep into dark sockets aged and starved of sleep, glistened in the light of the flickering candle he held before him. The man wore a warm smile beneath a beard of curling auburn hair that bristled around his mouth, chin and face.
“Drink,” insisted the man “you need your strength for we have much to discuss. Then you can have your book, bon homme.”
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(at least for me...)
and I notice the Languedoc coat of arm in your signature and avatar.)
