~a parfait good et gentil knyght~

mood: pissed off

I really don't tend to write unless something's gone wrong.

We're sitting here in the Great Hall waiting for the lightning to come. I don't think that it will be long because the ground shook under us. Earthquakes--that's a new thing. Bobby's as frantic as ever I've seen him, and I've poured half the whiskey I own down his throat in the hope it'll settle him down. Fuck Pettigrew, I'm sure he saw us, he can write us up for demerits if he wants. School's over here. I'm sure they won't be keeping tallies when the castle starts to come down. I don't know what's worse. Getting struck by lightning or dying under rubble when the earthquakes shake the building apart. What the fuck are they doing out there. Claudien has endless faith in Rosenthal and Liane Leffoy. I do not have the heart to remind him that nothing they did kept the Jerries out of Armorica.

Gresham. Well. At least if we all die, he won't outlive me. Fucking 'danelaw and their fucking stupid rules. He actually thinks that him and Ari's no worse than Bobby and me. I ought to tell Vieira he said that.

Angelo's planning something and for once I think I want in. Maybe if we're doing something, Bobby will be able to sit still for a minute.

Also, I am going home with him and not with Mother. I don't care if I have to blow Mathers, I am not going back to that house. And neither is Ari. Even if I have to put her in a box and post her to Uncle Bradbury's house. Or Yvon's. Alessio can just fucking deal, they're so married it's not like he has any right to be jealous.

mood: angry

Seems I never write in here unless something’s gone wrong, and with few exceptions.

I’m free for the rest of the day, until van Rensselaer’s thing tonight...but Bobby’s in the infirmary, and I won’t get in ‘til Arianwen does, ‘cause she’ll let me in through the back when Lindsey’s not looking--they’re being punished for fighting, Perkin and him, by having to serve detention in there all day, and they’ve been healed up right, Arianwen says, but nothing’s been done to make it go faster or pleasanter, they just have to sit there till Lindsey thinks they’ve learnt their lesson, and the profs’ve decided what to do with us.

They’re blaming Bobby just as much as Perkin, which isn’t fair at all, because Perkin started it, and I’m not allowed to stay with him in his room any more, and I don’t know whether they’ll let Bobby stay with me. They’ll ask my roommates. And nd even then they might not let us, because Pettigrew and a few other people don’t like what we’re doing.

It wouldn’t be worth noticing if we were in Avalon, but if I say that, I’ll only get us in worse trouble. Cousin Charis, who I didn’t think liked us much, has said a few things, but she can’t do much and I know that.

Perkin Hawkwood is going to pay for this though.

Why did it have to be my cousin Claudien and not HIM

mood: disappointed

I think Bobby had a decent time at the Vieiras’ ball with me, even though he wasn’t sure it was a good idea for him to go. Hadrian organised two queer quadrilles in a row, which was a lot of fun. He and Endymion are both so much happier together than apart.

Ramsden’s party was rather a bust. Bobby and I stopped in but he had one of his Really Bad Feelings and we stopped right out. Turns out that was the right decision.

I do, however, really wish I knew where Arianwen is. Mother has no idea that she’s not still at Dr Chattox-Kyteler’s house, but in fact, she left the party with Andrew Gresham, whom I have not in the past considered a leadhead but in whom I am extremely disappointed, because he ought to know better than to think he can get away with laying hands on my sister. I don’t want her to marry Yvon (he’s our cousin, and there has been more than enough of that) but there has to be some kind of compromise. And Siobhan isn’t over him yet.

Mrs Goulston wrote to Mother about it but I broke the wards and burned the letter. If I were in Avalon I would say that Arianwen owes me but the truth is that nobody deserves what Mother would do if she knew about this, and the other truth is that I don’t want to listen to it. If we can just get through today and tomorrow then Tuesday we will all be on our way to school and Mother can explode while we’re at school and out of earshot, not to mention swat-shot (and when she hits, she always has rings on too).

Laird Macmillan sent Bobby’s things for school so I suppose we’re staying here till then. It’s just as well, but I feel for Bobby in this house; the Macmillan household is mad but not in the same way as ours.

I really should tell my father about Arianwen, though. He and Mercy would know what to do. I just don’t know how. I feel like I should have done something, but I was having fun with Bobby and I didn’t notice that she was dancing so much with Gresham until they were gone!

mood: aggravated

Mother sent a letter to the Macmillans last night demanding that I should come home to her, but now that we’re here, she isn’t. Which is fine with me.

Father is, though, and he came up to get Bobby and me this morning. He had Mercy with him, but not Arianwen. He took us down to Castle Perilous and they fixed up my court robes. Bobby’s got his with him, and from there we went to the Leffoys for the luncheon. Mother didn’t come. Arianwen did, but she was with Yvon.

Aunt Dracaena’s not dead, which is wonderful news, but very confusing. Father says he saw her die but he also says your eyes play tricks on you sometimes out in the Bois and maybe he doesn’t really know what he saw. Mother is supposed to show up for the fealty ceremonies, but she still isn’t here yet and we have to go down. She’s probably going to be late. She always is. She’d do anything she could to insult Aunt Dracaena and get away with it, and so far as I can tell the main thing Aunt Dracaena did to her was look better in dresses than she did.

mood: happy

It’s awfully good to be away from everyone else, just the two of us. I knew I liked Bobby last year in school; I didn’t always know how to talk to him, but boys don’t always need to talk, which is one of the ways I prefer them to girls. My mind gets so clear up here. There’s plenty to do: hunting our food, flying, watching out for things that might attack the sheep and keeping the herd together. I think about my family and the things they care about and I understand why Arianwen says that none of it makes any sense. Bobby says he could live up here forever, together. I know in two weeks and a day we’ll have to go back to school, and that someday I’ll have to be Lord Rosier, with a wife and children and a seat in the Moot. But right now that seems as far away as the moon. And I wish it could stay there.

mood: content

It’s nice up here. Nice and quiet. My father brought me out here yesterday afternoon and he chatted with Laird Macmillan for a little while, then Bobby and I packed up his things and came up here to make camp. We can stay up here as long as three weeks, until school starts. It’s so much more peaceful than being at home.

Sheep are stupid. It’s rather amusing.

Bobby’s family isn’t quite what I’d expected, but he never talks about them, so it was strange of me to have expectations. I think Laird Macmillan is his grandfather or something, I’m really not sure. I don’t even know if he and Jamie are brothers or cousins or what, but there’s time to get round to discussing that. I do know Jamie’s father is someone they never talk about, but only because of all the duels we were both in last year over Isabella Malaspina’s virtue, which exists, I suppose, in the same place that mine does.

Bobby didn’t sleep at all last night. I did—there’s only so long I can stay awake with that much whiskey in me—but something stirred the wind up and he couldn’t sleep a wink. He’s like that at school, too, whenever it storms or rains or snows. You can practically predict the weather by watching him. Fey. But so am I, sometimes. You’d think Arianwen would be more so, but I think my twin sister could eat with an iron spoon if she felt like it.

I think we’ll reinforce the water-repelling charms on the tent today. And given the way his attention wanders when he hasn’t been sleeping, maybe I’ll share some of the stuff I nicked from Arianwen; but not too much too soon, because it’s got to last.

mood: hopeful

I am so unbelievably glad to get out of this house.

I don’t know why my parents can’t live in different houses like normal married people who just happen to hate each other do. Mother is still making noises about that DeVries girl—the one I can’t stand because she’s such a terrific snob, and also, eleven. I wish she and Gemma Dee would just get a townhouse and live in pink, frilly asexual homunculocidal bliss together.

I think I am just going to snog Macmillan stupid. Partly because I’ve always wanted to, and partly for giving me an excuse to leave.

mood: worried

Nerissa and I have made our parents truly furious. (I ought to feel bad about that, but I don’t.) We were pixy-led, and we were out last night while the Hunt was riding. Mercy says we’re lucky we were neither caught in it nor chased. I don’t know what happened to Florrie, but I have never seen him look so small and sad. Julian Delgardie was carrying him, which he would have never allowed if he hadn’t been scared half to death. Magister Kyteler and Mrs Scalara weren’t with the procession coming back. Mother is really angry with them, I heard her swearing at Magister Starn about them, but then they locked the door and started talking about things that I’m not supposed to know about. I think she’s having an affair with him. Hadrian was shocked when I told him so at school. We had a long talk about fathers and their mistresses; and now I’ve met his father’s mistress.

Mother got shot. I saw the bullet. Father said it was because she was trying to sneak into the Circle and they thought she could have been anyone, even a spy. Mrs Scalara did it and of course she thinks it was because Mrs Scalara is a mistress like Mercy is. She also said that they killed Aunt Dracaena but we all know the Germans did that, and finally Father gave her a potion and made her sleep.

Nerissa said it was all her idea, but I said it was all mine. Mercy says she figures it was equally my idea and hers and that in any case once I heard the idea, being the true paladin of Caerleon that I am, I would have to go along with it. (I know it annoys Father, but I like the way Mercy says ‘paladin of Caerleon’ when she talks about me. I rather wish she were my mother sometimes. I love my mother, but I don’t always like her very much.) I hope the Trelawneys come round on punishing Nerissa, because we were just trying to be there for Florrie, we didn’t mean any harm.

Meanwhile, Nick Goyle is hacked off because we didn’t ask him to come along. I can’t win.