A Memoire of a Thegn
This was the session report written by Lewis who played Druisten.
The Tale of Aymeri: The tears came suddenly. He’d ran and ran and ran till he tasted blood in his mouth, his lungs seared and his heart felt like a hundred rams battering his chest without pause. Then he’d kept running. Covered in blood, not his own, arm aching from the blow that had shattered his shield.
He’d collapsed in a litter of dry, brown leaves, retching bile and gasping like a drowning man between convulsions. Unable to go on anymore, unable to fear anymore. From one breath to the next the retching became sobbing. That pig-headed fool! That arrogant shit! How could he have done this to Aymeri?
How could Aymeri have let him? It had been plain to see where the path Druisten was walking led, but Aymeri had done nothing to stop him.
The spite for the Church Amyeri could understand, if not share but the open contempt for Friar Gwydion - clearly a good man who had done nothing but help - had become unbearable these last few days. Only, Aymeri had beared it, hadn’t he? “A pox on all Christians” Druisten had said - too many times to count - “and upon me? Was I not baptised in the faith? And so my mother and father and all my kin?” Aymeri had thought. Thought.
There had been a wrongness in his mind too. They’d spent a week in the forest with not a squirrel to show for it when the bear had stumbled into their snare. Aymeri had never seen one before and this thing was so great a beast, a prize like no other. Their songs would have been sung till the end of days. But Druisten would not strike the blow. Instead, he’d let Rurik, naked but for a shield, risk his life loosing the snare.
That nearly cost Rurik his life, a life so expensively bought. The price? A week on his deathbed for Druisten. And yet he’d not learned the lesson still. So sure of himself when he’d proudly stood face to face with that killer Skaldr and told him he’d take his head. Sure, he’d done it but he’d been bled like a pig in the doing.
And Aymeri had egged the fucker on! He’d stood as second, risked the brand again and shouted to the rafters of Druisten’s heroics. Some friend eh? It had all seemed like a game, one the invincible Druisten couldn’t lose. The duel had shattered that illusion for Aymeri. Not for Druisten, his arrogance was harder than his body.
But it wasn’t arrogance, was it? There wasn’t pride in him, he’d sleep in barns with swine or under a bush or stars. He took his watch with the rest of them and bristled whenever any of them called him ‘lord’ or master. “You weren’t brought from bondage to cast yourself back into it.” he’d said.
He’d seen the fear in Druisten’s eyes as the javelins rained down on them in the river, when he faced off against Skaldr, when that thing…
Druisten had felt his mortality at hand and still did what he did. Because he’d know it to be right and because he couldn’t not. No more than a fish could breathe air. And Aymeri had loved him for it.
Even then, in the… that place. He’d not paused or hesitated. He’d felt the crush of the beast, he’d seen it nearly kill Aymeri and Gwyndolin and he’d drawn it back onto himself, given them time to get away while he’d been… Aymeri looked at his hands, covered in blood. Druisten’s blood. He retched again as the sounds of it came back to him.
How could God or the gods let it happen? Who was left now to right the wrongs? Aymeri? He who’d pissed himself and ran as the man who’d saved his life was… …was saving his life again. He couldn’t bear the mantle. Yet Druisten had left it to him. Druisten told him as they had entered the Weald, if he didn’t come back the Karvi and horse were his. Aymeri felt the stab of more emotions than he could name as he remembered how he’d brushed it off “Ha, like so great a warrior would die in such a miserable wood” Aymeri had said, even as he’d known the truth. They both had.
There was a snapping of twigs underfoot. Aymeri swung round as terror ran cold as winter through him. Gwyndolin stepped into the clearing, white as a sheet and covered in blood and filth and vomit. Her dazed eyes focused on him, recognition slowly working across her face. “What do we do? Where are the others? Where do we go?”
Why was she asking him? How should he know? He wanted to scream. Instead, he said “We make our way back to Diserth, if the others are alive, they’ll be there. Then to the coast, try to get word to the Stone Circle. Make sure Druisten’s death wasn’t for nothing and that his songs are sung.”
It seemed like the right thing to say. The kind of thing Druisten would have said.
Below is a symbol drawn by Lewis as a symbol for Druisten.
