Of Winding Ways and Cunning Devices

12th of May 867 A.D.

"Ours is a sad tale, best told with song and drink to dull the edge," you say after a moment.

Rare is the man even among those who claim to care nothing the fairer, softer things in life who does not bend an eat to a song. It is almost enough to draw a smile seeing all the youngsters sporting more the ambition of a beard than the carefully combed and braided facial ornament of their elders, all nodding soberly at the mention of a dark tale in far off land. Or maybe you had not hidden your thoughts as skillfully as you thought for you catch a smile on the face of the king as your gazes meet across the crowd over the head of one particular dark haired youth. Unlike with Rurik's brother you cannot see the family resemblance here, but the gaze of a proud father is hard to mistake.

"Well then mayhap you will teach Helgi here, he fancies himself something of a skald at least when there are women about," the king grumbles fondly.

To judge from the careful way the lad speaks, as though afraid his voice is going to break, more out of the habit of the last few years than need you would say he is sixteen, mayhap seventeen. He has a man's years by the messure of his own folk, though still looking out at the Daring Wanderer, at her crew in arms and armor of Westernese with the wonder of a child. Or at least he had the wonder of a child before his father had said the word 'women' at which point his gaze flies to young woman who would seem to you more kin to the Easternlings than the Edain from the cast of her face.

Signjótr laughs freely at his brother's words and his nephew's discomfort you mark though you are more interested in the lady herself, her dress and her manner all mark her to be as foreign as you are in these lands

Alone of all the women near the docks she sits atop a shaggy horse one bred for hard riding not bearing a lady in a leisurely peace from the palace to the shore as they say. And yet even if it were not for the fact that she is returning the gaze of a prince with some boldness the fine embroidery around the hem of her over robe and ringing the long selves would mark Tzitzak of Atil as one of high standing.

As far as you are able to discern the lady is, if not a princess among her own people than at least the daughter of a high chief, grown great in wealth and power from trade with the empires of the south, though it has hard to say if the implication is that her people are adjuncts to one of the empires or if they demand tribute from them.

Still you add another dozen or so words, most in yet a fourth tongue, to your vocabulary among them the name of lady Tzitzak's people the Khazars. What you would not give for a quill and parchment to get all this down while it is still fresh, but you would probably strike an odd note scribbling away while half a dozen warriors of Rurik's hearth-guard question you about your ship, whence she had been made and how she sails as well as about news from the mouth of the Neva and if any raiders had come from the west in your wake.

Recall well Eriol that crude of manner does not mean a fool. The way Thorvardur, younger brother of the king asks the question you would think he is asking about the Danes and the Saxons, but they could just as easily be interpreted as questions about your own people and if they are a threat. You have the distinct sense man would very much like to catch you in a lie, but of course you have no reason to lie and no cause for enmity thus you step into the hall of Rurik king with cautious but unburdened step.

In most ways the hall is like what you had seen in Novozem writ large, the floor is still beaten dirt, with long tables stretching out from the double doors into shadows lit only by the sullen flame of the firepit. Dogs walk freely among the legs of the feasters, begging for bones and playing with the barefoot children too young to sit still at the tables. Alas belt knives seem to be the only cutlery expected and as for plates ... the best one can apparently hope for are particularly thick slices of bread.

Lovely... Maybe you could leave behind the concept of the fork, if nothing else future generations will be endlessly thankful for the gift of clean fingers at the table.

"Ah... captain, how much detail do you think I should get into this?" the young singer breaks you from your contemplation of culinary chaos

"How much detail can you get into?" you scoff. "Just sing in Adunaic and I will translate as best I can when you are done."

"I speak their tongue better than the one you learned. I might even hazard to sing in it if you allow." He sounds for all the world like he is afraid you will be offended he had mastered the local tongues faster than you. Luky for him you are forty years too old for that nonsense.

"You should sing of..."

[] The Wars of the Edain, the travels of the Mariner, the glory and the fall of his people

[] The pride of Ar-Pharazon who clutched a scorpion to his breast and was thus destroyed

[] The Glory and the Wrath of the Valar, from the Fall of Morgoth to the sinking of Numenor they would brook no rival to their power

[] Write in

OOC: I was going to do the song this update, but then I realized I had a lot of people to introduce so here you guys get a bit more control as to how you frame your story.