Warriors of Love

[Odalisque]

Final chapter of "Tuerqui" now given a silent read through, and readied for polishing.

[Odalisque]

I've written "sudden shock", and now feel that I should delete the word "sudden". Can a shock be other than sudden? I doubt it.

[Odalisque]

I have, tonight, polished "Tuerqui" Chapter 20, completing the novel.

I did, incidentally, delete the word "sudden" from "sudden shock".

[Odalisque]

I've made a small start on Margaret Again. I'd be interested to hear it, if anyone has an opinion on the following.

In previous volumes I've quoted, on the title page, from letters exchanged by the characters. This time, I'm making the title page quotation something from a dictionary:

polly n an ornamental caged bird; a slave formerly of exulted station.

pollygogger n a criminal who steals slaves formerly of exulted station in order to sell them to their families, friends or enemies. pollygoggery n the activity of a pollygogger. pollygog vi to act as a pollygogger, usu as the pr p pollygogging.

The Imperial University Dictionary First Edition, Year 6 of the Imperial Era.

Here's the draft for the start of the novel. It seems to need a lot of synopsis material. Is it too much, I wonder? Of course this is a draft, and will certainly see some changes...

Chapter 1

In which pollygoggers take me away from everything, and everybody, I love.

My head ached and, subjected to a jolting motion, I felt sick. The taste and smell of vomit filled my mouth and nose. Beneath my back was a hard and deeply rutted surface – wood. The smooth waxed University floors had been damaged by slaves dragging crates of weapons, but scarcely reduced to this state.

Goading my sluggish brain into action, I remembered the head of a bronze statue descending towards mine. A rock had shattered the window, fracturing at the neck the Leather Mistress’ image. Watching the heavy metal chunk falling, I’d realised that I was in its direct path. Had I been quick enough to avoid its trajectory?

The previous day I’d felt a presentiment of impending evil. On the surface, all seemed to be well. Lady Isobel, my beloved owner, was expected to return within the week. There had been news of a military victory.

In celebration, the persons of the house and University had descended into drunkenness. Their keepers’ guard having dropped, dangerous untrimmed he-slaves escaped from pens on the far side of the campus. A muscular barbarian, I’d been told, had raped my friend Honeyminge. Fear gripped me – concern for the safety of Tuerquelle, my six year old daughter.

With some relief, I recalled being told that Tuerquelle was safe, but wondered what had happened to my friend and lover, Passibelle. Why hadn’t she moved me? Had she been injured? Had she been raped?

Had I been raped? Experimentally, I moved my thighs. The once familiar feeling of recent penetration was absent. Investigating with my fingers, there was no stickiness – no semen, no blood.

Shifting with insufficient caution brought vomit to my lips. Coughing, I tried to spit. My mouth was dry. My tongue felt swollen.

Raising cautious fingers to my cranium, I found a lump the size of a hen’s egg. The Leather Mistress’ head had certainly connected with mine. That accounted for the throbbing pain. Touching my injury served only to aggravate it.

[Odalisque]

An excerpt from "Tuerqui" Chapter 15, my narrator is a cart slave at this point in the story:

There was a short unladen run before taking on our next load. Sam halted the empty cart in a spacious square set about with civic buildings. Unbuttoning his trousers, he entered the public convenience. The smell should have warned him that it was ready to be emptied.

Sam was scarcely inside when the stink cart rumbled into the square. The lavatory man connected his hoses to the inlet and outlet valves, before fixing the other end of the inlet hose to the cistern on the convenience roof. We smiled knowingly and watched the entrance – the carter was about to be drenched and, forbidden to speak, we could utter no warning. Sam soon emerged, dripping and furious, his breeches still about his upper thighs.

In the excitement, I almost missed seeing the carriage. The well oiled axle made hardly a sound, there was no obvious reason for me to move my head. Indeed, I was almost certainly the only slave to turn from Sam and the lavatory man. Perhaps I was prompted by the goddess.

The carriage was worth more than a cursory glance. Occasionally I had seen such vehicles, but not often. It was lightly and gracefully built – royal blue and gleaming silver– rolling silently on its two well-oiled wheels. The vehicle’s beauty brought a lump to my throat.

Lovely as the coach was, it couldn’t compare with the twelve perfectly matched slaves at the traces. They were tall and slim, platinum blonde hair falling almost to the waist. Stepping high, their knees rose to navel level on each precisely synchronised pace. Their faces were masks of arrogance – proud of their slavery, they would surely have sneered at a princess.

The fittings were worthy of the slaves. Their tall royal blue plumes were set in headpieces of what was certainly real silver. The harnesses were fitted with the same metal. The leatherwork matched the plumes – no detail less than splendid.

A beautiful girl, dressed in royal blued trimmed with silver, drove the carriage without glancing to the left or right. My eyes met those of a passenger for a moment, although I could not clearly see either of the shadowy figures within. For a few heartbeats I gazed in wonder, before the swift carriage turned a bend in the road. My breath came in a deep sigh – it had been a vision from another, wonderful, world.

Flicking the reins angrily, the bedraggled Sam urged us the short distance to a disagreeably low pub called the Peace Pot. If the carriage represented a world more wonderful than reality, the Peace Pot belonged to one more sordid. Although it was still morning, a wretch vomited from an upper window. Some of the slaves on the right-hand shaft had difficulty in avoiding the drunk’s filth.

[Odalisque]

This little castle came into my possession in this month. It was in my parents' china cabinet when I was a child. It always fascinated me -- partly, I think, because it's quite a complex building. My mother forbade me to touch it, and I think that I may have touched it for the first time in within the last week.



I find that, on the bottom, it's marked "The Castle New Castle on Tyne". That seemed odd to me, since I've visited Newcastle-upon-Tyne several times, and can't recall seeing a castle there. If there was a castle like that, it's very strange that I either didn't notice it, or have forgotten it.

The little castle is also marked "Made in Bavaria" (in English). It may be that Bavarians, in general, know little of Newcastle. To judge from the other inscription, at least some Bavarians think that Newcastle is New Castle.

This object fascinated me as a child, perhaps at least partly because of the evident complexity of the building depicted.

Its relevance to this thread is that several volumes of "The Warriors of Love" are at least partially set in the enormously complex Palace Victoria. I think that this small ceramic castle may have been the earliest inspiration for the Palace Victoria. Rather than "The Castle New Castle on Tyne", the existence of which being a matter on I'm not convinced, perhaps it represents one of the towers of the Palace Victoria.

Here's a second picture of the little castle:



And a third:

[Nemonymous]

Fascinating. The uncertain connectivity of creativity and one's past.

I also suddently asked myself - why, in chess, can one only 'castle' with one's king and not one's queen piece?

[Odalisque]

Quote Originally Posted by Nemonymous

I also suddently asked myself - why, in chess, can one only 'castle' with one's king and not one's queen piece?

Except in Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There. At the beginning of the book, the chess moves are listed. In move 9 "Alice becomes Queen". Then, move 10 is (white) "Alice castles (feast)" and (red) "Queens castle". This is clearly an unconventional form of chess. When it lists "Queens castle" for the red move, it clearly means that the red and white queens castle (as well as Alice). So the white queen, as well as the red, moves during the red move.

[Nemonymous]

Ah. Again, fascinating.

These are the rules of Castling:
http://www.chessvariants.com/d.chess/castlefaq.html

I wonder if one can lay this skein of rules as a transparency over any fiction and draw new meanings from it.

[Odalisque]

In Alice, "castling" seems to mean "to enter a castle to partake of a feast". Whether chess kings are supposed to feast when castling is a matter beyond my knowledge. Perhaps in alternative chess rules, they could move more sluggishly after castling to represent shifting with a distended belly.

Apart from the "castling" it's not too difficult to follow the Through the Looking Glass moves on a chess board. I believe that, at one point, one player checks the other's king without either player (seemingly) noticing that this happens.