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The citizens of Rone would likewise find themselves shutting these four out of their homes, without so much as a cup of tea.
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Though much closer to the Turin side.
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That was something else the Turin never understood. When so many of the southerners seemed intent on killing the defenseless Turin, why was there always one who insisted on waving around a stitched blanket?
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Though, I guess, if that’s your thing, go for it. Who am I to stop you?
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Inbreeding usually ensues.
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Except that Rutherford kept calling Lady Caroline, “Marisa.”
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Especially in the conspicuous and grossly unsuccessful way in which he seems to go about it.
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The Spicy Kangaroo was one of dozens of taverns that littered the Deliem River. The problem was that taverns all used the same formula for names: The Adjective Animal. The Gold Dragon. The White Horse. The Hungry Lion. The sort of names that made you feel like you were on an adventure, even if you were just trying to sell horseshoes.
But with so many locales, confusion arose when too many taverns chose similar names. After the White Horse, there was the White Pony. Then, the White Stallion. The White Steed. The White Knight. The White Rider. The White Equine.
So, the Trade Commission of Taverns and Inns had to develop a code that would reduce this confusion. Each adjective could only be used once, and each animal only once. The Taverns all had to register their names. Many, many taverns registered their names before the owners of the Spicy Kangaroo. There weren’t many options left.
As it turned out, business did well as a result of this name. People could easily remember the name of the Tavern, and if someone wandered into town and was looking for a place to stay, they might ask a local. And who really wants to remember which tavern is which? Is it the Flying Eagle and the Charging Stag or the Charging Eagle and the Flying Stag? Oh, never mind; just go to the Spicy Kangaroo.
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or enjoy, or delight in
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or fields
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or singing, or serenading
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or glowing, glittering, star-like, dazzling, radiant, resplendent, incandescent, or shimmering
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also possibly joy or mirth
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abide, bide, bunk, continue, dally, delay, dillydally, endure, halt, hang, hang about, hang around, hover, lag, last, linger, loiter, nest, pause, perch, procrastinate, remain, reprieve, reside, respite, roost, settle, stick around, stop, or tarry
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or field
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And, like, thirty other people. But if you asked her who she spent time with during the day, she would innocently say, “Count Michael.” And your heart would melt. For no good fucking reason.
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Remember him? He died in the prologue. He’s alive now because we’re doing the ol’ flashback thing. He’s not a zombie. You didn’t miss anything. We just haven’t gotten back to the scene in the prologue yet. I’ll let you know when we get there.
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Actual Noblemen. Not men named “Noble.”
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You only needed one part death for it to count.
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If you were still keeping track, we’ve now caught up to the prologue. If you want a detailed description of King Vincent’s fall from the North Tower, please go back to the beginning of the story. But remember to skip to here right after, or you’ll end up going through the first thirteen chapters of this book in a Groundhog’s Day-like loop.
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Sommelier (n) - wine steward, or wine specialist. Come on. You didn’t know what a sommelier was? It’s not like I had to ask a friend who had that job and then look it up to get the spelling right.
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Oh, and if you’re still keeping track of when it was that Vye regretted not dressing with her sword, it was right at this moment.
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“Well,” Vye thought, “Countess Sarah now.”
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Indeed, if Vye had only trained in Rone, she would have been no match for him.
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Really, it was a small miracle it hadn’t done her in before now.
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Really? You’re laughing because I said balls? Fine, if you want to play it that way...
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Hey, you asked for it.
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Flopson had a personal mission to collect the bootlaces of noblemen. Not while they were sleeping. That would be too easy. He only found it fun if he took the laces while they were wearing the boots. To date, no one had caught him in the act.
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You forced me to do this.
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I’ll be here all week, folks.
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How she had escaped the Fist of Earth would have to wait for another time, he thought.
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What’s that? You’ve had enough? Fine. I’ll stop. Try to have some maturity about these things, OK?
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He had it removed when it failed to repeat everything he said.
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It was, incidentally, the first time he had ever seen the sea.
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He kept saving so he could commission a Jolly Roger flag, but was having trouble finding someone who would agree to make one.
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Little did they know that the current Jousting Tournament held an even better story.
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Congratulations for noticing the “Sir” at the beginning of his name. Good work. Pat yourself on the back.
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He did not bother to correct the contradiction.
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He probably figured that if things had gotten that bad, there was nothing left to rule anyway.
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And if the awkwardness of that proposition didn’t ruin the moment
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Corthos tried to exchange a look with Jareld, but his look got deflected off of Thor’s look, and he ended up exchanging a look with a low-hanging branch.
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Or Michael’s body. The possibility hadn’t been ruled out.
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One guy might say early sixties, but only because he was a jerk and knew it was a trick question.
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A generous word for the portal through which she walked
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An Etch A Sketch of the mind, if you will.
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Look it up.
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So, yeah, this time we’re talking about worms. Not Wyrms. Are you following me?
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The worms were not so named because of their brotherly nature, but rather because they had a philosophy that was largely based on shadows on the walls of caves.
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Fifty Nibwins was a lot of money. It was enough to buy a farm and pay for one year’s salary of the man who tends to the goats (but not the goats themselves.) Eventually, this policy led to the bankruptcy of the Nibwin Kingdom.
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Well, hunters, if we’re being honest.
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His attempt to capture and study one of the Platonics to prove his theory came to a lethal and very messy end.
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Though the Charter had a lot mo
re to say about the propriety of worm excrement.
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Unfortunately, the Scholar’s name was Master East, so while there is an East Wing in the Towers of Seneca, it is unfortunately on the East side of the Main Tower, and none of the current students are aware of the dedication.
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The merchants were furious when they found the pirates drunk, making use of a gaggle of prostitutes, and singing a bad version of the famous camp song, “How Are Things In My Aunt’s House This Fine Summer Mid-Afternoon, If You Don’t Mind My Asking?” in a round.
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Furthermore, she felt like she was losing a game of ping-pong, and she didn’t know what that game was.
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Michael had hoped there would be a sensation that could only be described as a whooshing sensation, but there wasn’t. It was just walking.
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Or so it seemed. Jareld didn’t quite understand why there was a troop of Turin soldiers, and why they wanted to kill Jareld and his friends.
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Only one person had ever won a personality contest. It was in the third century of the Kingdom, when Lord Blueberry announced that Lord Hagglemaffer was the single most unpleasant man in the Kingdom. Lord Hagglemaffer rebuffed that this would be true, if only Lord Blueberry wasn’t around.
The two journeyed together, annoying a great many people on their quest, searching for an oracle that would listen to them. They found, on the remote island of Incenseridden, a prophet named Noseklipp.
“Step forward, gentlemen,” Noseklipp said, “And ask the question that troubles your souls.”
Lord Hagglemaffer chose that moment to fart.
“Sir prophet,” Lord Blueberry added, “We hope you are not as useless as you are ugly.”
“That was very unpleasant,” Noseklipp said. “And it also wasn’t a question.”
“Listen,” Hagglemaffer said, “We need you to tell us which is the more pleasant of the two of us.”
“You want me to judge a personality contest?”
“Yes,” said Blueberry.
“With only the two of you as contestants?”
“Yes,” said Hagglemaffer.
Noseklipp had them perform a number of social acts, while he tried to observe from a safe distance. He set up a rigorous scoring system by which they could gain points for doing socially appropriate things and lose points for doing unsocial things. By the end of the first week of the contest, Blueberry was ahead -143,578 to -143,584. Blueberry had not lost points on one occasion, when he failed to blow his nose into the dinner turkey while urinating on the Count’s boots.
Noseklipp, unable to watch anymore, committed suicide and left a note declaring the winner of the contest. He also arranged for an assassin to put them both out of everyone else’s misery. They were buried side by side, in a small apple orchard located on the point of the planet the furthest away from anyone who knew either of them.
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And Gabriel had been around the block a few times. Gabriel had seen The Red Terror, a man dressed and body-painted entirely in green, who was colorblind and angry about it. He had seen Obblokk the Dark, a manically depressed, homicidal ninja. He had even fought, in his youth, Tur’Nak, Champion of the Fist, a man who had accidentally glued his fists shut when he was young, and since then, had perfected the art of punching people hard enough to kill them.
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Unless you were angry with them, or trying to prove a point, perhaps. In that case, you could just as easily bring home a drunken leper. It would have the same effect.
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This was particularly troublesome for a certain young couple. They had been on their honeymoon, walking along the beach, looking into one another’s eyes, when a hot spring of eternal youth popped out of the ground and burned them both.
After healing from their wounds, their lives were rather normal for a while, until they realized that neither of them was aging. They would apparently look twenty-two forever. A blessing, they thought.
But it turns out they weren’t that great of a match. And always looking so young, they each had plenty of, shall we say, other options. If they had aged normally, perhaps they would have settled for one another. But now they each felt they could do better.
They did finally get an annulment, and went off to live very promiscuous lives. He died, hundreds of years later, when his ship went down during a storm, and she died shortly after from a particularly aggressive strain of crabs.
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Along with a splitting headache
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Now just Emily Rone.
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Which was considered dating in the Towers of Seneca
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Which qualified as the worst thing he had done before doing fieldwork
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Timothy’s older brother, the crown Duke of Brimford
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His voice was said to be compelling, and he had once hired a statistician to sit in the corner of lair for decades and figure out the effects of Devesant’s voice. About ten percent of the people who came to fight Devesant die of a heart attack after hearing his voice. Another thirty percent faint. The next forty percent lose control of their bladders and quiver uselessly in fear. Another nineteen plus percent shudder, then dive for cover.
Argos was the only one who had ever stood perfectly still, in complete calm, and answered with a deep voice.
The statistician, incidentally, had been devoured after thirty-six years of work, when he suggested to Devesant that, after so many years of work, he was due to retire.
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Within the Hollow Crown Page 33
