Date: May 05, 2007 03:00 pm Title: Chapter 5 - An unexpected bathing
This is so good. I love that they're talking, and it's so natural (every once and a while, I get to say that about the real show, too).
I found a few errors...
You have a little floating 'f' for a chapter note.
It was surely a griffon he fought. Some poor landsman’s guard dog. Do you mean not a griffon? (Do you want to fight a no griffin, because that's what we have.)
This may just be an old english usage, not an error. "Halpert willing gave him"
With "he said quietly with as little dignity", did you mean as much dignity?
"had now removed themselves and we’re drying by the cook fires" we're ---> were
“Oh, she is not so bossy as all." Do you mean 'at all', or do you really mean 'as all' like 'as all the rest'? Or is that an old English thing?
Okay, end of errors/error possibilities.
"Very well, I revoke that I called her bossy". So, I'll redact it then. So... no one will know who said it.
I liked Lord Beasley's "each has a place" speech.
Why does Brother Tobias not want Pam to be "the one"? I just realized Tobias = Toby. Duh. He's even got the tonsure. Ah, later he calls her a strumpet. So, she's a hussy. If James starts his lanky leaning, she's a goner.
And in the last 3 lines, we have the best/worst date at Cugino's all over again.
I'm really enjoying this. Does Pam perchance draw?
Author's Response:
Okay you are now officially my beta for all things non-girly girl!
The whole griffon-griffin-gryphon thing is a pun. Yep. That's right. A pun. Because those Medieval wags loved their puns. And so I had to do one little homage to the dying art of lameness. A griffon is an evil, little cur of a watchdog that was very popular at the time. Think of a black bulldog with blood on its mind. A griffin is an Assyrian ÐGreek/Latin/British mythical creature that has a lion (or tiger or leopard) body and a bird's wings and head (hawk or falcon or rooster or roc). The gryphon is the symbol used in heraldry specifically on the King of Scotland's coat of arms. It is a griffin but with a very specific, always the same, head. Gryffindor in Harry Potter is named after the Griffin. Griffin and gryphon are pretty much interchangeable now because no one gives a crap, but in Medieval times, a Gryphon was a very specific type of griffin. See ain't that hilarious? That's why I'm only doing it once.
with as little dignity That's what I originally had and then I changed it because of the nuance that I wanted to get across that he had few shreds of dignity to bring to bear with these women. He was humiliated to be undressed by strange women. It would be like a strange woman coming up and cutting his hair. Not done.
not so bossy as all is similar in meaning to your second suggestion: as bossy as all the rest. It's a medieval way of saying she is not as bossy as compared to all the women I have met, nor all the women that you have probably met, I wager. They pack a lot into a sentence but they had to. The entire old english catalogue of words is actually quite small and almost 90% of them are one-syllabled. Nuance and word order added a lot. And of course a lot of that is not translatable.
Brother Tobias does not want Pam (or any of the women who 'stole' his clothes without his leave) to be the girl that will accompany them for the next few weeks. He wants a nice, mild, quiet girl who won't make a fuss when she's abducted to go God knows where.
Pam would not have drawn. She would not have ready access to the materials to do that. She would not have paper or pen or pencil. There was no chance that she could read or write. I gave her an equivelant Medieval talent. She makes tapestries. This is actually one of the higher art forms of the period. Order of art durig medieval times - Gold and precious metalwork, gemwork and cameo cutting, stain glass, stone sculpture, ivory work, weaving tapestry, stained glass, illuminated manuscripts, wood inlay, frescoes, mosaics, wood sculpture, advanced needlepoint, wood panel painting, lace making, canvas painting, knitting, sketching and drawing. Give me an hour and I'll tell you why pressing flowers was considered more artistic than painting on canvas. It wasn't until the Renaissance that Canvas Painting became popular. Prior to that the only way a church would commission for a painting was if the painting would have LOTS of gold encrusted on it or if the church in question was really, really poor. Drawing has never really been popular. Respected & admired, sure... but there's never been a huge fad where EVERYONE is talking about it. Famous sketchers... Durer... Van Gogh a little... uh da Vinci's notebooks.... uh.... flipbooks?