No Man's Child - Chapter 36
‘That is the road to the vales of Tumladen and Lossarnach, and the mountain-villages, and then on to Lebennin,’ said Beregond. ‘There go the last of the wains that bear away to refuge the aged, the children, and the women that must go with them. They must all be gone from the Gate and the road clear for a league before noon: that was the order. It
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It's not immediately apparent what the purpose of hanging the cloth is. In a couple of paragraphs, it become clear, but here I didn't make an automatic jump to "for privacy".
"Mamil," says my son, his small face wretched and his shoulders fallen. "I want to go home. May it please you, Mamil, may we go home now?"
OMG, if that is not adorable, I don't know what is. Sad, too, of course, because obviously he can't understand why they're not sleeping in their own beds; he sounds terribly bewildered, and the clinging to his mama just makes me want to snuggle him. But so cute with the "maybe if I say please, we'll get to go home".
My skirts and the hem of my cloak are covered in filth a hands-breadth deep and more and I despair of e'er drying out the good leather of my boots...And all I have I would give for a mere palmful of powder for my teeth. They feel as if covered in a foul film
This is very nice. I think readers tend to think about the fear you'd feel in such a situation, of course we always think of the angst, and we usually think about the extremes of weather - but often we don't stop to consider things like how terrible everyone would smell and how disgusting your teeth would be.
Through all these seasons of fear and wandering, Mistress Nesta's vigilance has kept the coughing plague at bay
And see, here I was thinking of dysentery being the problem in a camp like this.
We have rolled barrels of water from the Angle's square and keep them where they might catch the rain, should it be so kind as to fall in them, but we have no well from which to draw water.
Yikes, they must have been in an hurry - I'd think a well would be one of the very first things on the list of Stuff We Need To Do.
"We need not worry for that. The sickness takes at least a score of days to settle in the lungs and do its work. We will have been burned out or put to the sword well before that."
AhahahahahahahaHA. Nothin' like gallows humour.
*sigh* You know the drill. Back in a minute.
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