#and when forty passes it's henry

[quismetarc]

you s3 isn't a study of how love loses her mind because of her cheating, good for nothing husband, but how love loses her mind without her other half, her twin brother.

[delinquentbookworm]

I just realized, if Henry doesn't get killed by something, he's going to live a really long time. Like, stupidly long.

He's a druid and at 18th Level he gets access to the class feature Timeless Body, meaning that for every 10 years that pass, his body only ages one year.

He was mid-thirties when Odyssey took place, it's like two and a half decades later and biologically, he's only now in his late thirties, maybe forty at a push. He probably looks more like Lark and Sparrow's brother than their dad.

Also I fully believe that Henry wouldn't think it was magical in nature, he would be totally convinced it was due to lifestyle choices.

Glenn - Henry, look, here's a picture of us from twenty years ago. And here's a picture of you I took earlier today. Side by side, look, you look exactly the same.

Henry - Well, would you look at that? Gee, it looks like wearing all that sunscreen is really paying off!

Ron - Okay but you're sixty and your hair isn't even thinning.

Henry - Huh, I guess you're right. That's probably the all natural shampoo that Mercedes makes - she puts rosemary oil in it, she thinks it smells nice, but it's also supposed to be good for hair follicles. I guess it's working?

Darryl - Henry, everyone else your age has creaky knees and back problems and groans when they get up out of a chair!

Henry - Ah, yes, but you're forgetting I do yoga every day, so, that keeps me limber.

[resowrites]

A Day In May - oneshot.

Summary: It proves to be a birthday to remember for Henry and his wife…

Pairings: AU!Henry Cavill x Wife!OC

Warnings: fluff, banter/British humour, language, dialogue heavy, a couple of sensitive topics mentioned but no detail, nondescript OC body type/appearance, hastily written/lightly proofread.

WC: 2992

A/N: Remember, this is pure fiction (as in completely made up) and not in any way meant to reflect reality. My work must not be copied, reposted, or translated elsewhere. Likes, follows, reblogs and comments are thoroughly welcome and appreciated! Gifs/pics not my own. I hope you all enjoy and thanks for visiting!

A Day In May - oneshot.

"Good morning birthday boy!" Henry rolled onto his back, his eyes adjusting slowly to the early morning light.

"Mmm, g'morning… you're up early."

"Well, who was gunna make breakfast if we both slept in? I made you your favourites; pancakes, Belgian waffles, and pan aux raisin. There's even a little bowl of fruit for you to ignore…" He chuckled as he sat up and helped her guide the tray over his lap.

"Aren't you having any?" Her eyes quickly darted to the floor.

"Er, maybe later—"

"Oh no, don't tell me you're still not feeling the best?" She had in fact been sick all morning and had even used the downstairs toilet so as not to wake Henry up.

"I'm fine! I felt a little peaky when I first woke up but it's passed. Anyway, when you're finished, have a quick shower and come downstairs, there might be a gift or two waiting for you in the kitchen…" She shot him a wink while he guiltily sipped his coffee. Henry knew she'd already gone to great lengths to make his fortieth birthday a success. For weeks she'd been planning a huge party at their favourite private member's club in London. Everyone they knew was going to be there and it promised to be a night to remember.

"Are you sure you're alright though? I mean I know you've worked hard on today but we can always cancel and just spend the day together if you're not feeling the best?" She scoffed and waved a hand in the air.

"Nonsense, I'll be alright. There's no way I'm missing my old man's birthday! Tell me, seeing as I'm still the better part of a decade away from it, how does forty feel so far?" He responded to her smirk with one of his own.

"Why? Do I look forty?!" She pursed her lips, remaining silent as she plucked a couple of blueberries off the tray. "Oh my God, you cheeky cow!"

"What?! You're as handsome now as the day I met you…" Henry pulled her into a headlock.

"Hey! Let go, you're messing up my hair!" Suddenly her stomach churned and she felt her mouth moisten. Clearly, the fruit and the headlock had proved a mistake. She dashed to their ensuite bathroom with him throwing back the covers so he could run after her.

"Darling! Oh God… I'm so sorry. There we are, oh sweetheart…" She continued retching into the toilet bowl as Henry held her gathered hair on top of her head. When she was finished, he hoisted her up and sat her down carefully on the edge of the bath. "I think I'd better ring the doctor's, don't you?" She looked into Henry's panic-stricken eyes as he carefully rubbed the sides of her thighs.

"Darling, I'm really alright, it's just a virus. So long as I'm careful about what I eat and don't go too crazy tonight, I'm sure I'll be okay."

"Well, we'll see. For now, I want you to get back into bed. Come on…" He tried to take her by the hand.

"Henry, I don't need to be babied! Honestly, stop being such a fusspot." But she started to sway unsteadily on her feet. Henry caught her before she fell and swiftly put her back in their bed.

"Right, that's it. I'm calling the doctor. You're so pale you look like a ghost!"

"Wait, Henry… don't. There's no need to call them." He looked up from searching through the contact list on his phone.

"What, why? Darling, you're not at all well. Hang on let me get you some water…" Henry wedged the phone in the crook of his neck while he refilled her glass in the bathroom.

"Henry, you won't get through at this time. Besides all they'll tell me to do is rest and drink plenty of fluids."

"How do you know that? Have you already spoken to the doctor?" She took the glass of water from him, carefully avoiding eye contact.

"Yes, and he said I'll be fine so stop please stop worrying. I just want you to enjoy your birthday." She sipped the water slowly and rested her head against the headboard so she could close her eyes. Henry took a seat on the edge of the bed and caressed her hand.

"Are you feeling any better, love?" He spoke tenderly which only made her feel worse. Today was supposed to be about him and already things were getting off track.

"Mmm, though I'm sorry I've ruined your birthday breakfast…" Henry scoffed and got back in bed beside her.

"Rubbish, you know nothing comes between me and food. But I'll take the tray downstairs if the smell's making you feel worse?" She shook her head and he cautiously began chomping his way through a pastry. She attempted to change the subject, more to keep her mind off the food than anything else.

"So, are you looking forward to tonight?"

"You're damn right I am! It'll be nice to have everyone gathered together again. I've not seen most of them since the wedding."

"I know, I can't believe that was only last month."

"Me either. What can I say, time flies when you're married to a stud…" Henry leaned in and peppered her cheek with crumb-filled kisses. She breathed hard. "Are you sure you're alright? I feel awful sitting here stuffing my face when you're not well." She looked into his pale blue eyes and sighed. She then eased herself off the bed and walked slowly around it. Henry pushed the tray aside and stood to face her. "What is it?" He took her face gingerly into his hands. For a while, he could see the wheels turn in her head. Clearly, she was struggling to find the right words.

"Henry, I…" She faltered and instead pulled his hands down to rest on her stomach. Henry's eyes went wide.

"You're… you're pregnant?" She nodded weakly, her eyes filling with tears when she could see the ones in his. Eventually, he choked out a laugh. "Oh my God… Oh my God!" She took a few steps back while Henry ran backward and forward whooping and cheering. He then lifted her into the air, quickly dropping her back down when he remembered she was still feeling queasy. Instead, he settled for holding her tight. "You're pregnant… you're pregnant!" Henry broke down in tears once again and they stood, swaying and crying together until the noise caused both Copper and Kal to nose their way into the bedroom to inspect the commotion. "Guess what, guys? Mummy's having a baby!" He danced around excitedly, whipping the dogs into a similar if rather confused, frenzy. When she could get Henry to stand still again, he dotted her face with more kisses.

"Henry… Henry stop!"

"Oh, sorry, are you still feeling sick? Here let's sit you down…" A sinking feeling washed through her as she was plonked onto the edge of the bed. "Darling, what's the matter? You're going to be a mum! Aren't you thrilled?" She brushed the tears from her cheeks.

"Of course, I am! I want this just as much as you, it's just that…"

"What?" Then it dawned on him. Henry mentally kicked himself for not realising how bittersweet that moment must have been for her. He softly stroked her back. "Oh darling… what happened last time won't necessarily happen again—"

"But I'm only four weeks! I didn't want to tell you so soon but then I started getting morning sickness and… and…" Her voice trailed off. "Oh Henry, what if we lose it?! I can't go through that agony again…" Her head fell into her hands as she sobbed. Henry swivelled off the bed and kneeled in front of her.

"Ollie, listen very carefully to me, sweetheart. I want you to know that no matter what happens, either now or in the future, I'm right by your side and always will be. Nothing is going to change that, okay? Darling, look at me…" But her eyes were still awash with fear.

"… I'm so scared Henry. This is such a big change, are you sure we're really ready? It's not like having another dog, it'll be really hard work at first. God, the responsibility of it all…" His heart ached for her.

"I know sweetheart, but remember things are very different this time. We have each other and I'm also going to make sure you get the best possible care. If anything does go wrong, we're going to figure it out and work together, alright? We can even get a nanny if that'll help at first?" She flung her arms around Henry and went to kiss him before stopping herself. "What? What is it?"

"Well… my mouth still tastes awful!"

"Don't be silly. You're perfect!" He pulled her up off the bed and kissed her hard. For a while, they just stood holding each other steadily.

"And don't worry about a nanny, I'm sure we'll manage. I'm not a great sleeper anyway and I've looked after my sister's kids when they were newborns. Once you get into a routine things settle down eventually… Henry? Are you listening?"

"Yeah, sorry. It's just, wow… we're gunna be parents!" She beamed up at Henry. "I just can't believe it… when did you find out? Do you still have the test? When are you due?!" She smiled as he fired off each excited question, and reached into her bedside cabinet. She pulled out a thin, blue, and white stick. When she handed it to Henry, he blinked a couple of times at the two pink lines before his eyes swelled with tears once again. He then kissed the stick and let out another excited cheer. She felt so happy - not to mention relieved.

"I'm not sure it's very hygienic to kiss that you know," she teased. "I took it a few days ago when I started feeling off. I don't know what made me do it, something just felt… different. The baby should be due no later than December. To be honest I'm surprised it happened so quickly, I thought we'd have more difficulty—"

"So I shot and scored on the first try?! Wait a minute, if you're four weeks… that means you must have conceived on our wedding night!"

"… Oh my God, you're right. Are we really that tacky?!" Henry chuckled.

"Aww, I'm so thrilled though! Honestly, you've made me the happiest man alive. And don't worry, I'm gunna be here to get everything sorted—"

"But Henry you've got to go away again in June—"

"No bloody fear! I'm not leaving now that you're pregnant!"

"Why not?! Henry you've got to go back to work!"

"You must be joking, I'm not missing you being pregnant!"

"Well, once I'm out of the first trimester things should hopefully go a lot smoother anyway. Honestly, you won't be missing much—"

"I don't care, I'm not missing any of it—"

"But Henry I'll need you here when the baby's born, it's better that you're away now and here later, trust me."

"Well, we'll see how things go, I have no problem taking another year out if I have to, you and the baby are far more important to me." He gently cradled the lower half of her stomach. "So, when can we tell everyone?"

"Not yet, we need to wait until I'm at least twelve weeks."

"God, it's going to be hard keeping it a secret…"

"I know, but it's for the best. I don't want it announced by your publicist either."

"That's okay, I completely agree. We will have to tell her at some point. After all, we don't want her catching wind of it further down the line. She's very good though, she'll make sure it's kept under wraps."

"Well, I certainly hope so. I mean, it's not like it's some dirty secret, but I don't want the stress of the media trying to release the story—"

"Don't worry sweetheart, I'll make sure everything goes as smoothly as possible. Now, when do we have to arrange to see the doctor?"

"I've already booked to see the midwife next week. It's only an hour-long appointment, you don't need to go with me…"

"Are you joking? I want to be involved every step of the way!'

"Well, I appreciate that but you must promise not to start becoming a fusspot over me?"

"But this is our first baby, you can't blame me if get a little bit protective!"

"I know but remember, until the later stages I can carry on pretty much as normal. I want to continue working for as long as I can, as well." Henry bit his lip.

"Darling your job can be very stressful, I don't want you juggling contract negotiations with being sick and tired all the time."

"The morning sickness should go away by the time I'm four to five months gone. To be honest, I've had it earlier than normal. Usually, it doesn't start until you're at least six weeks—"

"But maybe that's a good sign? Last time you said you had no symptoms so maybe everything will go smoother this time around?" She smiled at him sadly, always in awe of his eternal optimism.

"Well, I certainly hope so, God there's so much to do…"

"Don't worry, we've got eight months to get everything sorted. But what do we do about the party later? Do you think you'll still be up to going?"

"Yeah, I'll feel better as the day wears on. But I won't be able to drink so I'm going to have to fake it somehow. I hope no one cottons on…"

"You'll be fine, just make sure you stick close to me so that if you want to leave we can call a cab. God, I'm going to be a Daddy! I'm so excited! Aren't you?"

"Of course! My head's swimming though. We'll have to figure out what room we want to use as the nursery."

"Well don't worry, I can paint it in a day, just tell me what colours and furnishings you want—"

"Well that's the thing, is it okay if we don't find out whether it's a boy or a girl?"

"Oh, are you sure?"

"Yeah, I mean I don't think I'm going to have another, so it's tough shit if it's a girl, cos we won't be trying again—" Henry cackled.

"I'd love a little girl! Our family's full of boys so it'll be wonderful to have a daughter. Especially if she looks like you…"

"Oh God, what if she gets your arse chin?" He snorted.

"Well, that's just charming! There's nothing like a mother's love is there?!" Her face turned serious for a moment.

"Will you promise to look after them though? I mean whatever happens between us in the future, do you promise to always be there for them?" Henry felt his heart sink. The poor relationship she'd had with her own father was obviously weighing heavily on her mind.

"Darling, I've already promised that I will love and protect you both until I take my dying breath. Nothing will ever stand in the way of that, okay?" Her face still looked clouded with worry.

"… God I'm going to get so fat."

"Oh stop it, as long as you're both healthy and happy that's all that matters. And besides, I can always get you one of those electric scooters…" She swatted him on the arm.

"Oh Lord help me, it's gunna be a bloody long eight months…"

"Yeah, but it'll be a laugh too. And there are lots of positives. Just imagine how big those are gunna get…" Henry pointed at her chest, a look of pride on his face. "And this!" He gave her backside a determined pinch. She couldn't help but roll her eyes. "Think of all the baby classes we'll have to attend as well—"

"Oh no we're bloody not! We can do virtual ones, there's absolutely no sodding way I'm attending any of those with you!"

"What? Why not? How else am I going to learn about everything?!"

"Henry, you will just play up and then every week afterward I'll be too embarrassed to show my face! Besides, you're famous. I'm not having people come up and ask for autographs while I'm trying to practise breathing techniques!"

"Okay, you've got a point. But please don't worry, alright? I promise I'm going to be hands-on and do as much as I can to educate myself. I want to be involved as much as possible."

"Is that right? So you're going to get up in the middle of the night to do a feed? And change shitty nappies?!"

"Well, we can draw straws on that last one…" She smiled, realising that there was no one else with whom she'd rather embark upon the journey to parenthood. "So, do you think we'll have a girl then? What about names? Personally, I've always liked Henrietta," she scoffed.

"Henry, if you think I'm naming my daughter after you, you’ve got another thing coming!"

"What? Henrietta's a lovely name! Better than Ollie at any rate!" She thwacked Henry on the arm again.

"Don't be so bloody cheeky, or I'll take all your birthday presents back! Come on, enough about the baby for the moment, we can talk more about it later. Now let's go downstairs Daddy so you can open all your gifts—"

"Well don't worry, you've already given me the best gift I could have asked for! Thank you so, so much darling. I didn't even know I could feel this happy. Look, I know it won't always be easy, but there's no one else I'd rather do any of this with. You're going to be an amazing mother. I love you, sweetheart… best birthday ever!" They grinned widely at each other, shared another kiss, and went down to the kitchen holding each other's hand.

To be updated on when I post please follow @resowrites and turn on post notifications.

@elizabetharegina @fanfictionaddiction99 @luclittlepond @caffeinatedfestivalsheep @summersong69 @ushijimbo

[iboatedhere]

Thank you @henryspearl @suseagull04 @orchidscript @cha-melodius @lemonlyman-dotcom & @jmagnabo92 for the tags!

I hit the lower limit for my @aroyallybigbangrwrb fic this week!

--

It takes him almost forty five minutes to go less than three miles but he doesn’t mind it. He sits with his head against the window and watches the city pass in jilted starts and stops, his breathing getting easier and deeper the further he gets from home.

The shelter is packed, but it’s easy to spot Henry behind a long row of tables, scooping steamed corn and carrots onto plates. 

He smiles warmly at everyone who steps in front of him, dressed in an orange volunteer shirt, a red apron, and a hairnet. 

Alex feels like a complete fucking asshole standing there in his designer leather jacket and hundred dollar shoes. 

He thinks about cutting and running, but then Henry lifts his head and spots him, pinning him in place with a smile. 

Alex tries to smile back, but whatever he manages to do with his face must be worrying because Henry’s smile fades and he tilts his head with concern.

Alex really wants to run now but his feet carry him forward instead of away and soon he’s standing in front of Henry.

“Are you all right?” 

“I’m fine.”

Henry raises his brows.

“Seriously, I’m good,” Alex tells him. “Just put me to work.”

Henry looks him over then nods. “Go see Donna,” he says, “she’ll tell you where to go.”

Donna, the recreational coordinator who takes Thanksgiving very seriously if her pilgrim hat and light-up turkey necklace are anything to go by, throws an apron and a hairnet at him and sets him up at the beginning of the line, handing out rolls and prepackaged pads of butter.

It helps to take his mind off things. Having something to do with his hands and people to talk to. 

When the line ends Donna pushes a full plate of food into his hands and tells him to enjoy. 

He finds an open seat and doesn’t look up when Henry sits down across from him with his own plate.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Alex says. 

“I didn’t say that you had to.”

“I know, but the way that you’re looking at me….”

“How do you know how I’m looking at you? Is it projected in your cranberry sauce?”

Alex heaves a sigh and lifts his head to meet Henry’s ocean blue eyes. 

“You’re looking at me like that.”

“I’m afraid it’s just the way my face looks.”

“Yeah, that’s the problem.” He pokes at his food then groans. “I left,” he admits. “My parents had been at each other's throats all night and then June got into it with them and I couldn’t take it so I left.”

“That seems like a valid response.”

Alex scoffs. “How? I left my home.” He taps his finger against the table. “I ran away like a little kid. I’m thirty three years old.”

“And I still think it was a very mature thing to do. You were in a situation that made you uncomfortable and instead of engaging or making things worse for yourself or others you left. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“You really are best friends with Dr. Okonjo, aren’t you?”

“The bestest,” Dr. Okonjo says, appearing at Henry’s side as if he’s been summoned. He’s stolen Donna’s turkey necklace—or maybe he has his own—and his hair is a rich auburn, perfect for fall. “What are we talking about?” 

“How you’ve rubbed off on Henry.”

“Never,” Dr. Okonjo, says brightly, “but I do try to be a good influence and please, Alexander, if we’re going to be friends we’ll need to drop the formalities. Call me Percy, darling, or better yet, Pez.”

“Then call me, Alex, please. Alexander is reserved for my mother.”

“And how is your mother?” Pez asks. “Your lovely sister mentioned that all your parents were in town for the holiday.”

“They were alive last I knew. Slight chance my sister has killed them by now. Maybe she let my step dad survive or maybe she thought it would be better to leave no witnesses. She and Nora might be on the run.”

“How exciting,” Pez says without missing a beat and Alex laughs. “I assume you came here to have plausible deniability of any wrongdoing.” 

“Yeah, that sounds a lot better than just running away.”

“At least you only crossed town to get away from your family and not the Atlantic,” he says with a significant look toward Henry who rolls his eyes.

“As I was telling Alex, sometimes the mature thing to do is leave.”

“Indeed,” Pez agrees. “It’s important to take care of yourself. No guilt, love.”

“Just the dread of having to face them again.”

“That can be difficult,” Pez says, suddenly serious. “And you can’t hide from it forever. If you ever need to talk, my door is always open.”

“Thanks,” Alex tells him, feeling overwhelmed by the support. “That means a lot.”

“Anytime,” Pez answers easily while Henry presses his knee against Alex’s beneath the table. 

--

Tagging: @lightningboltreader @liminalmemories21 @porcelainmortal @fullsunsets @sunshinestrand @maxbegone @oxfordslutphase @inexplicablymine @anincompletelist @accol-fics @youcancallmekathyp @bitbybitwrites @cricketnationrise

[pinkamour1588]

WIP Wednesday

Tagged by @thighzp (Thank you thank you! I love excuses to share what I'm writing.)

One of the fics I'm causally working on is a polo injury fic because I thrive on hurt/comfort. It's mostly done, but I'm not fully satisfied with it yet.

Henry let out a noise that sounded like an attempt at “Alex.” “Shhh, I’m here. Fuck, I’m here, baby.” Alex carefully curled his fingers around Henry’s left forearm.  Henry just stared at him as the doctors went through their exams now that he was conscious for more than a few moments, wishing he could get his mouth to cooperate and form words. He only looked away when he absolutely had to and would immediately look back at Alex the second he could. Every few minutes, he would furrow his eyebrows and try to say something, anything, but all that would come out was garbled. His frustration only made his head ache more with each passing attempt.  “Hey, you don’t need to talk. Just rest,” Alex soothed after the last nurse left forty-five minutes later.  Henry wanted to argue, but could neither form the words nor find the energy to do so.  “Rest, sweetheart,” Alex repeated as Henry’s eyes began to drift shut again. It made his chest ache, not wanting to lose sight of Henry’s eyes again, but he knew it was for the best.

Tagging: @starrypiscesao3 @firstprincehornyramblings @everwitch-magiks and an open tag to everyone else cause I really really love reading what other people are working on.

[dailyanarchistposts]

State and Credit Theories of Money

Mitchell-Innes was an exponent of what came to be known as the Credit Theory of money, a position that over the course of the nineteenth century had its most avid proponents not in Mitchell-Innes’s native Britain but in the two up-and-coming rival powers of the day, the United States and Germany. Credit Theorists insisted that money is not a commodity but an accounting tool. In other words, it is not a “thing” at all. You can no more touch a dollar or a deutschmark than you can touch an hour or a cubic centimeter. Units of currency are merely abstract units of measurement, and as the credit theorists correctly noted, historically, such abstract systems of accounting emerged long before the use of any particular token of exchange.[60]

The obvious next question is: If money is a just a yardstick, what then does it measure? The answer was simple: debt. A coin is, effectively, an IOU. Whereas conventional wisdom holds that a banknote is, or should be, a promise to pay a certain amount of “real money” (gold, silver, whatever that might be taken to mean), Credit Theorists argued that a banknote is simply the promise to pay something of the same value as an ounce of gold. But that’s all that money ever is. There’s no fundamental difference in this respect between a silver dollar, a Susan B. Anthony dollar coin made of a copper-nickel alloy designed to look vaguely like gold, a green piece of paper with a picture of George Washington on it, or a digital blip on some bank’s computer. Conceptually, the idea that a piece of gold is really just an IOU is always rather difficult to wrap one’s head around, but something like this must be true, because even when gold and silver coins were in use, they almost never circulated at their bullion value.

How could credit money come about? Let us return to the economics professors’ imaginary town. Say, for example, that Joshua were to give his shoes to Henry, and, rather than Henry owing him a favor, Henry promises him something of equivalent value.[61] Henry gives Joshua an IOU. Joshua could wait for Henry to have something useful, and then redeem it. In that case Henry would rip up the IOU and the story would be over. But say Joshua were to pass the IOU on to a third party—Sheila—to whom he owes something else. He could tick it off against his debt to a fourth party, Lola—now Henry will owe that amount to her. Hence is money born. Because there’s no logical end to it. Say Sheila now wishes to acquire a pair of shoes from Edith; she can just hand Edith the IOU, and assure her that Henry is good for it. In principle, there’s no reason that the IOU could not continue circulating around town for years—provided people continue to have faith in Henry. In fact, if it goes on long enough, people might forget about the issuer entirely. Things like this do happen. The anthropologist Keith Hart once told me a story about his brother, who in the ‘50s was a British soldier stationed in Hong Kong. Soldiers used to pay their bar tabs by writing checks on accounts back in England. Local merchants would often simply endorse them over to each other and pass them around as currency: once, he saw one of his own checks, written six months before, on the counter of a local vendor covered with about forty different tiny inscriptions in Chinese.

What credit theorists like Mitchell-Innes were arguing is that even if Henry gave Joshua a gold coin instead of a piece of paper, the situation would be essentially the same. A gold coin is a promise to pay something else of equivalent value to a gold coin. After all, a gold coin is not actually useful in itself. One only accepts it because one assumes other people will.

In this sense, the value of a unit of currency is not the measure of the value of an object, but the measure of one’s trust in other human beings.

This element of trust of course makes everything more complicated. Early banknotes circulated via a process almost exactly like what I’ve just described, except that, like the Chinese merchants, each recipient added his or her signature to guarantee the debt’s legitimacy. But generally, the difficulty in the Chartalist position—this is what it came to be called, from the Latin charta, or token—is to establish why people would continue to trust a piece of paper. After all, why couldn’t anyone just sign Henry’s name on an IOU? True, this sort of debt-token system might work within a small village where everyone knew one another, or even among a more dispersed community like sixteenth-century Italian or twentieth-century Chinese merchants, where everyone at least had ways of keeping track of everybody else. But systems like these cannot create a full-blown currency system, and there’s no evidence that they ever have. Providing a sufficient number of IOUs to allow everyone even in a medium-sized city to be able to carry out a significant portion of their daily transactions in such currency would require millions of tokens.[62] To be able to guarantee all of them, Henry would have to be almost unimaginably rich.

All this would be much less of a problem, however, if Henry were, say, Henry II, King of England, Duke of Normandy, Lord of Ireland, and Count of Anjou.

The real impetus for the Chartalist position, in fact, came out of what came to be known as the “German Historical School,” whose most famous exponent was the historian G.F. Knapp, whose State Theory of Money first appeared in 1905.[63] If money is simply a unit of measure, it makes sense that emperors and kings should concern themselves with such matters. Emperors and kings are almost always concerned to established uniform systems of weights and measures throughout their kingdoms. It is also true, as Knapp observed, that once established, such systems tend to remain remarkably stable over time. During the reign of the actual Henry II (1154–1189), just about everyone in Western Europe was still keeping their accounts using the monetary system established by Charlemagne some 350 years earlier—that is, using pounds, shillings, and pence—despite the fact that some of these coins had never existed (Charlemagne never actually struck a silver pound), none of Charlemagne’s actual shillings and pence remained in circulation, and those coins that did circulate tended to vary enormously in size, weight, purity, and value.[64] According to the Chartalists, this doesn’t really matter. What matters is that there is a uniform system for measuring credits and debts, and that this system remains stable over time. The case of Charlemagne’s currency is particularly dramatic because his actual empire dissolved quite quickly, but the monetary system he created continued to be used, for keeping accounts, within his former territories for more than 800 years. It was referred to, in the sixteenth century, quite explicitly as “imaginary money,” and derniers and livres were only completely abandoned, as units of account, around the time of the French Revolution.[65]

According to Knapp, whether or not the actual, physical money stuff in circulation corresponds to this “imaginary money” is not particularly important. It makes no real difference whether it’s pure silver, debased silver, leather tokens, or dried cod—provided the state is willing to accept it in payment of taxes. Because whatever the state was willing to accept, for that reason, became currency. One of the most important forms of currency in England in Henry’s time were notched “tally sticks” used to record debts. Tally sticks were quite explicitly IOUs: both parties to a transaction would take a hazelwood twig, notch it to indicate the amount owed, and then split it in half. The creditor would keep one half, called “the stock” (hence the origin of the term “stock holder”) and the debtor kept the other, called “the stub” (hence the origin of the term “ticket stub.”) Tax assessors used such twigs to calculate amounts owed by local sheriffs. Often, though, rather than wait for the taxes to come due, Henry’s exchequer would often sell the tallies at a discount, and they would circulate, as tokens of debt owed to the government, to anyone willing to trade for them.[66]

Modern banknotes actually work on a similar principle, except in reverse.[67] Recall here the little parable about Henry’s IOU. The reader might have noticed one puzzling aspect of the equation: the IOU can operate as money only as long as Henry never pays his debt. In fact this is precisely the logic on which the Bank of England—the first successful modern central bank—was originally founded. In 1694, a consortium of English bankers made a loan of £1,200,000 to the king. In return they received a royal monopoly on the issuance of banknotes. What this meant in practice was they had the right to advance IOUs for a portion of the money the king now owed them to any inhabitant of the kingdom willing to borrow from them, or willing to deposit their own money in the bank—in effect, to circulate or “monetize” the newly created royal debt. This was a great deal for the bankers (they got to charge the king 8 percent annual interest for the original loan and simultaneously charge interest on the same money to the clients who borrowed it), but it only worked as long as the original loan remained outstanding. To this day, this loan has never been paid back. It cannot be. If it ever were, the entire monetary system of Great Britain would cease to exist.[68]

If nothing else, this approach helps solve one of the obvious mysteries of the fiscal policy of so many early kingdoms: Why did they make subjects pay taxes at all? This is not a question we’re used to asking. The answer seems self-evident. Governments demand taxes because they wish to get their hands on people’s money. But if Smith was right, and gold and silver became money through the natural workings of the market completely independently of governments, then wouldn’t the obvious thing be to just grab control of the gold and silver mines? Then the king would have all the money he could possibly need. In fact, this is what ancient kings would normally do. If there were gold and silver mines in their territory, they would usually take control of them. So what exactly was the point of extracting the gold, stamping one’s picture on it, causing it to circulate among one’s subjects—and then demanding that those same subjects give it back again?

This does seem a bit of a puzzle. But if money and markets do not emerge spontaneously, it actually makes perfect sense. Because this is the simplest and most efficient way to bring markets into being. Let us take a hypothetical example. Say a king wishes to support a standing army of fifty thousand men. Under ancient or medieval conditions, feeding such a force was an enormous problem—unless they were on the march, one would need to employ almost as many men and animals just to locate, acquire, and transport the necessary provisions.[69] On the other hand, if one simply hands out coins to the soldiers and then demands that every family in the kingdom was obliged to pay one of those coins back to you, one would, in one blow, turn one’s entire national economy into a vast machine for the provisioning of soldiers, since now every family, in order to get their hands on the coins, must find some way to contribute to the general effort to provide soldiers with things they want. Markets are brought into existence as a side effect.

This is a bit of a cartoon version, but it is very clear that markets did spring up around ancient armies; one need only take a glance at Kautilya’s Arthasasatra, the Sassanian “circle of sovereignty,” or the Chinese “Discourses on Salt and Iron” to discover that most ancient rulers spent a great deal of their time thinking about the relation between mines, soldiers, taxes, and food. Most concluded that the creation of markets of this sort was not just convenient for feeding soldiers, but useful in all sorts of ways, since it meant officials no longer had to requisition everything they needed directly from the populace, or figure out a way to produce it on royal estates or royal workshops. In other words, despite the dogged liberal assumption—again, coming from Smith’s legacy—that the existence of states and markets are somehow opposed, the historical record implies that exactly the opposite is the case. Stateless societies tend also to be without markets.

As one might imagine, state theories of money have always been anathema to mainstream economists working in the tradition of Adam Smith. In fact, Chartalism has tended to be seen as a populist underside of economic theory, favored mainly by cranks.[70] The curious thing is that the mainstream economists often ended up actually working for governments and advising such governments to pursue policies much like those the Chartalists described—that is, tax policies designed to create markets where they had not existed before—despite the fact that they were in theory committed to Smith’s argument that markets develop spontaneously of their own accord.

This was particularly true in the colonial world. To return to Madagascar for a moment: I have already mentioned that one of the first things that the French general Gallieni, conqueror of Madagascar, did when the conquest of the island was complete in 1901 was to impose a head tax. Not only was this tax quite high, it was also only payable in newly issued Malagasy francs. In other words, Gallieni did indeed print money and then demand that everyone in the country give some of that money back to him.

Most striking of all, though, was language he used to describe this tax. It was referred to as the “impôt moralisateur,” the “educational” or “moralizing tax.” In other words, it was designed—to adopt the language of the day—to teach the natives the value of work. Since the “educational tax” came due shortly after harvest time, the easiest way for farmers to pay it was to sell a portion of their rice crop to the Chinese or Indian merchants who soon installed themselves in small towns across the country. However, harvest was when the market price of rice was, for obvious reasons, at its lowest; if one sold too much of one’s crop, that meant one would not have enough left to feed one’s family for the entire year, and thus be forced to buy one’s own rice back, on credit, from those same merchants later in the year when prices were much higher. As a result, farmers quickly fell hopelessly into debt (the merchants doubling as loan sharks). The easiest ways to pay back the debt was either to find some kind of cash crop to sell—to start growing coffee, or pineapples—or else to send one’s children off to work for wages in the city, or on one of the plantations that French colonists were establishing across the island. The whole project might seem no more than a cynical scheme to squeeze cheap labor out of the peasantry, and it was that, but it was also something more. The colonial government was were also quite explicit (at least in their own internal policy documents), about the need to make sure that peasants had at least some money of their own left over, and to ensure that they became accustomed to the minor luxuries—parasols, lipstick, cookies—available at the Chinese shops. It was crucial that they develop new tastes, habits, and expectations; that they lay the foundations of a consumer demand that would endure long after the conquerors had left, and keep Madagascar forever tied to France.

Most people are not stupid, and most Malagasy understood exactly what their conquerors were trying to do to them. Some were determined to resist. More than sixty years after the invasion, a French anthropologist, Gerard Althabe, was able to observe villages on the east coast of the island whose inhabitants would dutifully show up at the coffee plantations to earn the money for their poll tax, and then, having paid it, studiously ignore the wares for sale at the local shops and instead turn over any remaining money to lineage elders, who would then use it to buy cattle for sacrifice to their ancestors.[71] Many were quite open in saying that they saw themselves as resisting a trap.

Still, such defiance rarely lasts forever. Markets did gradually take shape, even in those parts of the island where none had previously existed. With them came the inevitable network of little shops. And by the time I got there, in 1990, a generation after the poll tax had finally been abolished by a revolutionary government, the logic of the market had become so intuitively accepted that even spirit mediums were reciting passages that might as well have come from Adam Smith.

Such examples could be multiplied endlessly. Something like this occurred in just about every part of the world conquered by European arms where markets were not already in place. Rather than discovering barter, they ended up using the very techniques that mainstream economics rejected to bring something like the market into being.

[cricketnationrise]

For the followers' fic fest!

6:58 AM, Kensington Palace, Philip Fox-Mountchristen Windsor. I'm not sure about the song but I'm thinking Are You Bored Yet? by Wallow ft. Clairo for the vibes so feel free to use it! (You don't have to tho /gen)

Another first for me, Philip POV! I hadn't heard the song before this ask, but it's going into regular rotation now! Anyway, I hope you like your ficlet! 💜🦗

❤️🤍💙❤️🤍💙

6:58am, kensington

“Mmm…Ph'lip? Why’re you already awake?”

Martha blinks blearily at him from where she’s half-sprawled on his chest. Bollocks. All his shifting around must have woken her up. Philip sighs, puts on half a mask of normalcy.

“No reason. Go back to sleep, darling.” He drops a kiss on the top of her head. “We don’t have to be up for another hour.”

“No, I’m awake enough. Come now, what’s wrong? You’re never up this far before your alarm.”

“Nothing.”

“Pish posh.”

“Martha.”

“I’m still half asleep, but I know utter rot when I hear it. Now spill.”

“I don't have an answer—” 

Martha starts to push upright. “Philip, I swear to—”

“Well, not one I can give you,” he admits. 

“How come?” 

And the truth is that the thing that’s bothering him, that has kept him up all night, it’s so big he can’t even look at it head on; has to resort to sideways glances. The whole is too overwhelming. But Martha makes everything better—everything. So maybe, a moment of bravery on his part will let her soothe this hurt, this howling thing inside him, as well. He takes a deep breath and exhales hard before speaking.

“The man that—the one that slept with H-henry. When he was underage.”

“From his letters?” Martha’s always been quick on the uptake, always willing to follow his wandering thoughts.

He nods. “I can’t get that line out of my head. It seems such a small detail, almost casual for Henry, but for me—”

“It rewrites a large part of your worldview.”

“Yes.”

There’s a long silence as they both sit with that idea. Martha plays with the buttons on his pajama top. Philip takes the back of her collar between his fingers, rubbing the soft neckline like a worry stone.

“Martha?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you think it was one of my friends?” He has no reason to doubt Henry’s words, just a desperate desire to have not contributed, even in passing, to his brother’s suffering.

“Truthfully?”

“Yes, please. If you tell me the truth I won't have to lie to myself anymore.”

“I think you already know the answer, love,” she says gently.

“Martha, please.” The just tell me doesn’t need to be spoken for her to understand. 

“Yes, Philip. I think it's true.”

For all he’d known, for all he’d been subconsciously bracing himself for the words, Martha’s confirmation is sharp pain, a cold knife in the pit of his stomach. Philip can’t quite keep the wet, shaky breath from escaping his throat.

“Oh, darling, it’s alright.”

In a heartbeat, Martha’s sitting upright and pulling Philip into her lap, combing her fingers through his hair as he fights to keep the tears at bay. 

“I’m fine.”

Martha snorts softly. “I’ve known you how long now? I can see you aren’t fine.”

“I can't—”

“Just tell me how you’re feeling. We’re all alone, no one to interrupt or pull you into meetings for at least forty minutes. So just tell me what’s going on. Maybe I can help get through this. You’ve been holding it all together for so long. You’re allowed to let go sometimes.”

“Martha, I—”

“Let me in, Pippy.” He’s so caught in the storm of his feelings that Philip can’t even muster the customary glare at the heinous nickname.

“I just. I feel so lost. Unmoored. There’s so much I don't know about my own brother. I don’t know what happens now. What happens next.” 

“You don't have to have all the answers, love.”

“I just don't know where we’re going.”

She brushes his bangs back from his forehead. “That's alright.”

“Its not—”

“It is. You’re not as alone as you think you are. If you’d let me, I’d like to be right next to you. We’ll figure it out. Together.”

And Philip—

Philip believes her.

[lifewouldbebetteronmars]

This one’s for you Kat <3 @tessherongraystairs

Title from loml by Taylor Swift

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And I’ll Still See It Until I Die (You’re the Loss of My Life)

1939

During her Ascension, Sophie Lightwood (who had been known by Sophie Collins at the time, then briefly Sophie Ashdown) had been told she would have to forfeit everything from her mundane life.

Her parents and siblings were easy enough, she hadn’t seen them since they’d dumped her with a wealthy London family. So had many other things. Adjusting to the life of a nephilim had been easy enough and she’d had Gideon by her side throughout the whole of it, what more could she have wanted?

Funerals, memorials, flowers, memories, tears. Mundane emotions. Mundane things. Things she couldn’t have thought she wanted at twenty-one, but now at eighty years old, she yearned for them.

She had yearned for them many times. More times than she had ever thought.

She had yearned for them when she was twenty-five and lost her third baby, her Sophia. Gideon had named her and Sophie had loved her before she was taken before her first breath. There had been no funeral.

She had yearned for them at thirty when she learned her mother had died and she couldn’t go to the funeral. Not even with a glamour. She didn’t allow herself to cry; she was a shadowhunter, and shadowhunters didn’t cry.

She had yearned for them at forty-five, when her Barbara died so suddenly. The funeral had been brisk and so public, filled to the brim with other grieving families, there was no space for tears, no grave to remember her by.

It was early the next year, in 1904, when Sophie yearned for them again with the death of her nephew, if not for herself, but for Gabriel and Cecily. Another crowded funeral, no flowers, no memorial, no grave. Too many tears.

She had yearned for them last year at seventy-nine when Charlotte had died. Her oldest friend, her mentor. The grief had been nearly indescribable, though it had been something she’d felt too many times before. With Thomas and Jem, Henry and Will. Sophie had lost friends before, but none had hurt as much as Charlotte’s.

She had yearned for them again at fifty-seven when her sweet boy, her baby boy, Thomas had died. Again, it had been so sudden, she hadn’t been prepared. He wasn’t even thirty. No one was the same after Thomas. Gideon was changed, the grief of losing two children had changed him. It had changed her too.

She had yearned for the last time, seven years ago, when Eugenia had passed. This time, it hadn’t been sudden, though Sophie didn’t know if that was a blessing or a curse. An illness had slowly taken her daughter from her and by the time she had passed, Sophie had felt she’d been grieving for a century.

And maybe she had.

There had only been one time, when she knew she would yearn. It had been twenty years now, since she’d lost her Gideon. Neither of them had been the same since Barbara and Thomas. Gideon had taken every loss to heart, he had his whole life. From his mother to his father to his daughter to his son, Gideon had felt them all. Every day the weight had gotten heavier until he finally cracked, a broken heart he died from, she would swear for the rest of her life.

Some days, Sophie was glad Gideon hadn’t been alive when she lost Eugenia, no matter how lonely she’d been, surrounded by her grief and wishing he was there to hold her; she knew his heart couldn’t have taken anymore. Her big-hearted man, who wore it on his sleeve (even if he claimed not to know where their Thomas had gotten it from). The love of her life had become the loss of her life.

Now Sophie was left yearning in the flower garden she had planted at the Lightwood house in Idris. She’d left London after Thomas, she couldn’t lose another child in London, that’s what she had told Gideon, who had agreed without a second thought.

There weren’t too many Lightwoods now, only Sophie, Gabriel, Cecily, and their son Alexander, but he was a man grown now with a wife and a son called Isidore.

She planted a new plant for every big loss. Each had its own meaning, the language of the flowers was something taught to her by Alastair Carstairs before he died nearly ten years ago. Poor Alastair Carstairs who was never the same without Thomas.

White roses for Sophia. Marigolds for Barbara. Meadow lychnis for Eugenia. Red catchfly for Thomas. Wild plum for Charlotte. And stock for Gideon.

It had taken her nearly twenty years to complete her garden, it had become her pride and joy, her heart, her garden was everything to her.

Shadowhunters didn’t have graves, didn’t have memorials or tears or flowers or memories. But in her garden, she had all of those things. In her garden, Sophie could just take a deep breath and inhale all of the perfumes from the flowers around her and for just a moment, she would forget.

She would forget the pain and the grief and the fact that her children didn’t have graves or her husband a memorial. She would close her eyes and imagine opening them to Gideon and Barbara and Thomas and Eugenia playing tag or marbles or whatever all around her.

Other times she’s as young as Tessa looks again, falling in love with Gideon and his scone-hiding for the first time.

But then something would break the illusion, a twig snapping, the wind blowing. And then it would hurt all over again.

It was a game she’d played too many times, playing round, after round, after round and never winning. She didn’t think she ever would.

Sophie-Collins, Ashdown, Lightwood-had known grief in her eighty years of life, had worn it like a favorite gown. Everyone had always told her shadowhunters died young, they lived fast and died young, burning bright until they were snuffed out.

Sudden, quick, quiet, forgettable.

Yet, Sophie Lightwood was still standing here in her garden in Idris and planting her bluebells, the first flowers in the garden that were just for her.

Her light, though it flickered, had yet to be snuffed out.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is about to get really emotional so if that makes you uncomfortable, please feel free to just ignore this:

This is the first fic I’ve written since before my grandfather died almost a year ago. As many of you may know, his death was the catalyst for me taking a break from writing. The suddenness of it and the shocking depth of my grief just hit me like a ton of bricks, I couldn’t fathom writing about anything. I struggled through a school year of essays and writing assignments but still couldn’t find the energy to write something for me until now.

It felt fitting to write a fic about grief, specifically the grief of losing many people at once when you feel like you can’t grieve properly (a feeling I know very well). And I hope you all enjoyed it, even if I’m a little rusty.

And so, I want to take a moment to thank everyone that’s been there for me in the past nine months since I lost my grandfather. I don’t think I would’ve survived the year without any of you.

Thank You,

Riley

[une-sanz-pluis]

I have a question about Henry V and his relationship with John Oldcastle. I was scrolling through some stuff and read that despite Oldcastle's lollardy, Henry was anxious and wanted to spare his life & gave him chances to change his views. I'm wondering if this is accurate, and if so, is there any more information on it? Because honestly the angst possibilities are out of this world

Hey, you managed to send this ask at the exact moment I'd written myself into having Emotions™ about Sir John Oldcastle. The story is true.

Thomas Walsingham says at a convocation of clergy, the "whole body" of the clergy - fed up with Oldcastle's "evil heretical opinions" and apparent tendency to use "terrifying threats" to silence hecklers at Lollard preachers' "wicked sermons" - asked Thomas Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury to proceed against Oldcastle for charges of heresy. But:

the archbishop, out of reverence for the king whose friend Sir John then was, and out of honour for the order of knights, went with all the suffragans present at the council and a great part of the clergy to seek audience with the king who was then at his manor of Kennington, that he might reveal to the king the failings of Sir John. But under pressure from the king who wished to recall Sir John to the right path without disgracing him, the matter was postponed for a long time. But when the king had wasted a lot of time to no purpose in trying to bring him back, he told the archbishop of Canterbury, verbally and in writing, that his labours for Sir John had been in vain.

Now, it's important to recognise that Walsingham - a monk at St. Alban's - is both heavily biased against Lollardy and known for his tendency to exaggerate, perhaps to the point of outright invention. So his description of Lollard sermons as "evil" and "wicked" is the sort of thing he would say whatever was being said at these sermons (of course, some Lollard doctrines were horrifying to orthodox Christians). We should also be very cautious of his claim that Oldcastle resorted to threats of violence. The idea that Henry "wasted a lot of time" trying to convince Oldcastle to repent of his heresy might express Walsingham's disapproval's at Henry's behaviour, i.e. he might be alluding to the question of Henry's fitness as a lay person to intervene on a spiritual matter. It might also be a veiled question about whether Henry really was trying to bring Oldcastle back to the "right path" or just delaying in hope the matter would be forgotten. Or, of course, Walsingham - with the benefit of hindsight - was remarking about how Oldcastle was incorrigible and any effort spent trying to convince him to recant his heresy was wasted despite the king's good intentions.

At any rate, Henry failed to get Oldcastle to repent of his heresies and passed the matter back to Arundel. Walsingham provides a long account of Oldcastle's arrest (where Oldcastle left Henry without taking formal leave and sealed himself up in Cooling Castle, ignoring summons) and trial. Oldcastle failed to abjure his heresies and was excommunicated and set to be executed for his heresies.

After these proceedings, the archbishop of Canterbury informed the king of what had happened. Then with a prayer from his living voice he made the strongest possible petition to the king and asked that he should think it right, now that Sir John had been condemned in the courts, to graciously grant him forty days in which to relent. For in their affection for him both king and archbishop desired not his death but his life, and they worked hard to save him. And so it happened that he was taken back to the Tower, where he could come to his senses in the period allowed him to relent, and so deserve the grace he had received from both church and king. But that special concession from king and archbishop became an opportunity for devilment, since within the fixed term he had escaped from captivity, and, collecting his wicked supporters around him, thought of nothing but vengeance.

W. T. Waugh says that there is no independent source for Walsingham's claim that Arundel urged the king and says: "Arundel had just condemned Oldcastle as incorrigible, to beg for a reprieve would thus have been tantamount to an admission he had gone too far." Edward Powell, Malcolm Vale, E. Amanda McVitty and Maureen Jurkowski all agree that it was Henry, not Arundel, who was responsible for the reprieve and that Henry did so because of their friendship. If so, Walsingham's framing may have been to take the focus off Henry's intervention by implying that he only intervened on the advice of the Archbishop of Canterbury, not out of any personal feeling between himself and Oldcastle or any suspect sympathies with Lollardy. Waugh says it was "doubtless" that Henry consulted with Arundel before his decision to delay Oldcastle's sentence but we have no evidence this was the case beyond Walsingham suggesting the reprieve was Arundel's idea in the first place. It's worth noting that John A. F. Thomson says it's likely that Oldcastle's social standing played a role in the granting of a reprieve and Christopher Allmand gives some credence to the idea that Henry "did not want a sinner lost without some effort being made on his behalf". Neither Thomson nor Allmand deny the possibility that their friendship did or could have played a role in Henry's intervention and it doesn't have to be one or the other - possibly his friendship with Oldcastle made Henry all the more determined to try and save his soul.

The reprieve allowed for Oldcastle to escape custody and rise in rebellion against Henry. At least one novel I've read depicted Henry as behind Oldcastle's escape attempt but, imo, this seems very unlikely.

Historians have suggested that Henry tried to deal with Oldcastle as leniently as possible, even after the rebellion. In December 1414 and February 1415, a pardon was offered to Oldcastle on the condition that Oldcastle came out of hiding and submitted himself to his king - though this may have also been motivated by Henry's intentions for a French campaign in 1415, i.e. he was trying to neutralise any danger Oldcastle posed while he was overseas. It wasn't until November 1417 that sheriffs were ordered to seize Oldcastle's goods.

Why Oldcastle rebelled against Henry is hard to explain. Both Allmand and Peter McNiven suggest that, as Prince of Wales, Henry was tolerant of and perhaps even sympathetic to the Lollard cause. Allmand says that "it should be noted that the Prince numbered among his associates men who some - and in two cases [Oldcastle and Sir Roger Acton] much - sympathy for Lollard doctrine of a rather extreme kind". It is likely that Henry was aware of Oldcastle's Lollard tendencies for some time before 1413.*

Both Allmand and McNiven suggest that Henry, as Prince of Wales, may well have been seen as a potential champion of the Lollard movement, pursuing reformation through the disendowment of the clergy, but hopes were ultimately dashed soon after his coronation. Oldcastle's rebellion may have been driven by the frustration and disappointment that Henry failed to live up to these expectations as well as disappointment that Henry had failed to protect him from trial and judgement.

It does seem Henry was in some way trying to distance himself from Oldcastle after becoming king - Oldcastle was not given coronation livery and he was the only major figure not to continue serving in Henry's household. However, the convocation in which the issue of Oldcastle's heresy was raised occurred - according to Waugh - before Henry IV's death and it is extremely likely that Henry V was aware of what had been said about Oldcastle there. In other words, Henry very likely knew that Arundel was about to move against Oldcastle and distancing himself may have been an act of self-preservation.**

According to Powell, Oldcastle may have seen himself as absolved of "all ties of loyalty and obedience" to Henry due to Henry's failure to protect him from the "humiliation of a public trial" (and, unmentioned by Powell, perhaps his resentment over losing his place in Henry's household). After Henry's failed attempts to recall Oldcastle to "the right path", Oldcastle left his presence without taking formal leave and Powell says this may have implied a form of feudal diffidatio, a renunciation of his allegiance to Henry. His rebellion might be characterised, then, as "the rising of an injured vassal against the lord who had forsworn him". Powell describes Oldcastle's rebellion as a "personal response" and a "personal vendetta" against the king, sentiments that are echoed by both Allmand and Thomson, the latter of whom labels the rebellion as a "desperate attempt at revenge". For Powell, the rebellion broke away from the tenets of Lollardy, "which not only exalted royal authority but contained a strong element of pacifism".

We don't know much about the realities of Oldcastle and Henry's relationship. The Gesta Henrici Quinti describes Oldcastle as "one of the most beloved and greatest men" of Henry's household but tells us very little about why he was so beloved - most contemporary sources confirm his qualities as a manly knight while condemning his spiritual opinions. We don't know when Henry and Oldcastle came in contact with each other but they had worked together in Wales, dealing with the Glyndwr revolt, for some time. McNiven argued that the legend of Henry's wild youth and rejection of erstwhile companions may have been based around Henry's close association with Oldcastle and his (perceived or real) sympathy for the Lollard doctrine. The closeness between Henry and Oldcastle may have been exaggerated in order to heighten the heinousness of Oldcastle's subsequent betrayal. But I do think Henry felt some great affection for Oldcastle. His personal invention was noted, despite the possibility of scandal, and it does seem he treated leniently with Oldcastle wherever possible until Oldcastle's outright rebellion forced him to take a harder line.

What I struggle to understand is just what Oldcastle was thinking and what he felt towards Henry.

It seems likely that Oldcastle's rebellion was not a true Lollard rising but more of a personal vendetta against Henry. It is quite a thing to attack one's friend, even moreso to do so with the intention of causing his death and the death of his three brothers, as Oldcastle was claimed to have intended. Both Waugh and Allmand suggest that Oldcastle's true aim was probably the capture of Henry and his brothers, from which Oldcastle would hold them to ransom and force change and reform. This is better but not a great deal better, since Oldcastle would be effectively making Henry his puppet through force.

After the Reformation, early Protestant writers such as John Bale and John Foxe began to raise the idea that either the revolt didn't occur or it did but was stage-managed by the royal court or by the clergy or that it occurred without Oldcastle's involvement. Most historians have dismissed these ideas because of the issues inherent in them - there is no contemporary evidence that the plot was non-existent or stage-managed or that Oldcastle was set up as the ringleader, these early Protestant texts reflect their writers' own religious biases as surely as the 15th century texts do, and that Foxe - born a century after Oldcastle's execution - is no reliable source. However, Paul Strohm gave new credence to these theories and alongside his own theory that the Southampton Plot was similarly invented or stage-managed by Henry.

These theories, quite simply, do not strike me as believable - it's too conspiracy minded, marked by a tendency to read Henry as a dictator-tyrant creating revolts to murder large swathes of people while painting himself as the victim. Of course there's "spin" in the 15th century accounts, of course Henry's response in these accounts is stage-managed to show him acting perfectly, of course they're one neat narrative. They were written, after all, with the benefit of hindsight. I think, too, that as far as the Southampton Plot is concerned, if Henry had set the whole thing up, he would've picked much better timing. We know the campaign will result in his great victory at Agincourt despite the delays but Henry V didn't. Why would Henry stage a plot against himself, raising fears of domestic instability and revolt, right when he meant to be heading overseas on campaign? When any delay to his departure meant more expenditure and losing valuable time on campaign?

But it is true that the surviving contemporary evidence is one-sided. We don't have Oldcastle's side, we don't even know how Henry would have privately expressed his view of what happened. We know that Oldcastle apparently distributed manifestos and pamphlets arguing his side but none have survived and just because the story is the "other side" or the opposite of the Lancastrian story does not make it more truthful or less biased. Walsingham wrote a scene for Oldcastle's trial for treason in 1417 where he rambled and declared the fake Richard II in Scotland was his true king but the official record says Oldcastle remained silent. It is possible that Walsingham's scene of Oldcastle's trial for heresy was similarly fanciful.

Putting all that to one side because Protestant writers aren't any less problematic as sources than Walsingham and we can't call on evidence that doesn't exist... I can't figure out what Oldcastle could have reasonably expected from Henry. Even if Henry did have sympathies with the Lollards, any intentions he had for reformation were unlikely to be on the large scale Oldcastle apparently wanted. Once Oldcastle's heresy had been discovered, there was little Henry could reasonably do but delay the process in hope that Oldcastle would chose the option that saved his life. The image of Oldcastle found in contemporary accounts as a false knight who betrayed his liege lord, imho, feels quite truthful to the reality of Oldcastle's behaviour.

* The earliest known evidence connecting Oldcastle with Lollard teaching comes from 1410 when a chaplain was living in Oldcastle's household was investigated for heretical preaching in Kentish churches, which were placed under interdict. It is also considered possible, if not likely, that Oldcastle came into contact with the doctrine when he was still young (per Thomson: "the area in which he grew up had seen manifestations of religious radicalism during these years"). There are also surviving letters Oldcastle wrote in 1410 to Woksa of Waldstein and Wenceslaus IV, King of Bohemia, praising the Hussite movement,. K. B. MacFarlane notes that these showed him as the "recognized leader of the English [Lollard] sect".

** The Prince and Arundel were in conflict during Henry IV's reign and the political crisis of 1412 was spurred by attacks on the Prince's character which Arundel may have had a hand in. Given all of this and the fact the move against Oldcastle pre-dates Henry V coming to the throne, is it possible this was intended as another attack on the Prince, suggesting he harboured heretics in his household and sympathised with them? If so (and this is very speculative), Henry distancing himself from Oldcastle may have also been in hope that Arundel would lose interest. However, we shouldn't forget that Arundel had made the destruction of heresy one of his priorities.

Sources

The Chronica Maiora of Thomas Walsingham, trans. David Preest (The Boydell Press 2005)

Christopher Allmand, Henry V (Yale University Press 1992)

Gwilym Dodd, “Henry V’s Establishment: Service, Loyalty and Reward in 1413“ in Henry V: New Interpretations, ed. Gwilym Dodd (York Medieval Press 2018)

Maureen Jurkowski "Henry V's Suppression of the Oldcastle Revolt“ in Henry V: New Interpretations, ed. Gwilym Dodd (York Medieval Press 2018)

K. B. MacFarlane, John Wycliffe and the Beginnings of English Nonconformity (The English Universities Press 1952)

Peter McNiven, Heresy and Politics in the Reign of Henry IV: The Burning of John Badby (The Boydell Press 1987)

E. Amanda McVitty, Treason and Masculinity in Medieval England: Gender, Law and Political Culture (The Boydell Press 2020)

Edward Powell, Kingship, Law and Society: Criminal Justice in the Reign of Henry V (Oxford University Press 1989)

Paul Strohm, England’s Empty Throne: Usurpation and the Language of Legitimation, 1399-1422 (Yale University Press 1998)

John A. F. Thomson, "Oldcastle, John, Baron Cobham (d. 1417), soldier, heretic, and rebel", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2008)

Charity Scott Stokes, "Sir John Oldcastle, the Office of the Privy Seal, and Thomas Hoccleve's ‘Remonstrance Against Oldcastle’ of 1415", Anglia, vol. 118, no. 4 (2001)

W. T. Waugh, "Sir John Oldcastle", The English Historical Review, vol. XX, no. LXXIX (1905)

Malcolm Vale, Henry V: The Conscience of a King (Yale University Press 2016)

[sayorseee]

for the henry danger asks <33: 1, 3, 9, 15, 19

!!!!!!

1. Favorite character? Least favorite? (If you can't choose, top 3)

Fav: Charlotte, obvs. I feel like I talk about how much I love Charlotte a lot but in simplest terms she’s one of the only female characters in the show who isn’t entirely a female-stereotype.

Least favorite, Jasper. In their efforts to make him the weird comic relief character they did a little too well and he was too weird or did too many gross things for me to ever like him.

3. Favorite & least favorite season?

SEASON ONE. I like how everyone’s still figuring out the ropes, I feel like it has the best episode plots since they’re all so fresh, and it honestly felt more fun and on brand. It feels like after season like three they super lost the plot (Henry balancing regular life and superhero life) which leads to my LEAST FAVORITE being season five. I skip the most season five episodes, I dislike the most season five episodes. Season four is forgettable but five is unbearable and too drawn out. Forty episodes in one season is ridiculous.

9. Share any hc.

Um…Henry has severe anxiety even before the blimp incident and manic shaved his head one night in Dystopia.

15. which character deserved better, and which deserved worse?

By like season four, Charlotte became a forgotten character and hence deserved better. She was barely included in plots of hijinks and she just never felt the same as season 1-3 Charlotte. JUSTICE FOR CHARLOTTE.

I think Ray deserved worse, especially towards the end he was absolutely nuts and a huge jerk and it was just “oh, Ray will be Ray, la-di-da!” And I hated it.

19. Least favorite aspect of the show?

When they introduced Piper to the Man Cave, it felt like everything about her character from the rest of the show vanished. Her and Henry’s fighting, her being over-dramatic and angry, her social media obsession. I like character consistency! Or at least they should’ve had her growth and change happen gradually instead of just “I’m a whole new person now.”

Also Charlotte having no female friends. This show would NOT pass the bechdel test (probably)

[isfjmel-phleg]

During my recent Damage reread, I noticed something that doesn't quite add up.

When Grant was seven, a lab accident at Symbolix (which isn't Grant's doing, by the way) killed Egrin Wahrman, the scientist who experimented on him, and released a genetic virus that infected the rest of the Wahrman family. Egrin's wife, Nadjia, is pictured multiple times fleeing an explosion with two young sons in tow. Narration by her son Dathan in the story's present further confirms that he and his brother were children when the accident happened.

(Damage #12, 2)

This would make the Wahrman brothers pretty close in age to Grant, with the oldest probably not much more than five years his senior. The suggestion that there isn't a great age difference betwen them is furthered by the claim that the Wahrmans were passed over as potential foster parents for the infant Grant because they already had two young sons of their own and presumably didn't want to deal with a third.

(Note that Grant's foster father's name is given incorrectly here as Henry rather than John. Writer's mistake or a clue that Vandal Savage, who is telling this story, is lying?)

(Damage #12)

In the story's present, Grant is sixteen and has just turned seventeen when he finally is told his backstory, so it's been about ten years since this accident, and you would expect the Wahrman brothers to be in their late teens or early twenties.

Except this is the family now, and the brothers are grown men who appear to be in their thirties or perhaps even forties.

(Damage #8)

It's confirmed in the panel above that it's been about ten years since the accident and confirmed in #2 that it was sixteen years ago that Egrin Wahrman experimented on Grant. So it's not a matter of Grant's being older than he looks or having time-traveled somehow.

The Wahrmans have been infected with a genetic virus that all but destroyed Nadjia's body and has had some kind of effect on the sons. Perhaps it has caused them to age rapidly? This would seem to be plausible, but then there's the matter of Gillian, Abriam Wahrman's adopted daughter. He is shown in flashback as a grown man, finding her as an infant. Gillian in the story's present seems to be about Grant's age and speaks of her childhood as if she's aged at a normal rate.

(Damage #5)

So if Gillian is, say, between fourteen and sixteen now, Abriam could not have been an adult when he found her according to the established timeline. Has Gillian been lied to? Was it perhaps Egrin who found Gillian? And if so, wouldn't she have been involved in the lab accident about seven years later?

We don't get any answers for this. The Wahrmans are all killed off by the end of #12, taking any mysteries with them. This could be a writer's mistake, but it's repeated so often that it seems intentional. And I wonder if it was going to be a plot thread that would have come up if the series had been allowed to continue, but we have no way of knowing.

[slutforbuck]

Longing - Part 3

P1 P2

By the time you made it back to the ranch, you had cried yourself to sleep. Tears stained Chavez’s black shirt, and his coat was wrapped around your shoulders. Dick gently pulled you from your safe space in Chavez’s arms while he dismounted. Silently, Chavez took you from Dick and carried you to your room. Your eyes opened as your tense body fell against the softness of the mattress, and the agony from the morning hit you again. Frantically your eyes searched the room for comfort and you choked back a sob. “Chavez..Please. Please tell me he isn’t gone. Please.” It felt as if Murphy himself was ripping Chavez’s heart out of his chest while watching the tears fall freely from your eyes, your body shaking from the sobs and heartache. He pulled you to him, holding you so tight that he may crush you. The two of you sat that way, clinging to each other like burrs on a saddle. When all your tears had been cried, you listened. Silence. Something you had always craved, but was now so unwelcome.

You stood surrounded by your boys, Alex, and Susan as your father was laid to rest. “For as much as it hath pleased Almighty God, in his wise providence, to take out of this world the soul of our deceased brother, we therefore commit his body to the ground. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.” Susan led you to the wagon while Alex led the boys to JP Wilson. “You can stay with us for as long as you need to Y/n. I know how hard it will be to try to go home now.” You gave her a soft smile as Alex joined you, driving you towards home.

“Deputized?! Alex no! First of all I was his DAUGHTER! I should be there right along with them. Am I not allowed justice? And second, you’re going to let hot-headed Bonney go off with AUTHORITY?” “Y/n. You are a lady.” Alex’s voice grew stern as he send an almost disapproving look to you. “I know that you are more than capable of taking care of this and yourself, but this is not something you need to do. As for Billy, he has five other level headed young men to keep his straight. They’ll serve their eleven warrants, and it will all be over.”

For days you were a nervous wreck. There had been no word from or about the boys, and worry began gnawing at your thoughts. Your nail beds had become red and raw from anxiously picking at them. Mindlessly, you floated towards the barn searching for a distraction. Before you could reach it, Alex came riding up the road pulling the wagon to a stop next to you. “Any news, Alex?” Your voice was soft and quiet, but full of hope and worry awaiting any news of your boys. Alex sighed as the paper passed into your hands. “You may have been right about Billy.” He snapped the reins and headed to the house, leaving the dust swirling around you. “"Nine men lay dead or at death's door yesterday noon following a gunfight between Lincoln resident Henry Hill, forty-five, and what patrons have called a ‘kid’. A local miner has identified 'the Kid’ as one Henry McCarthy, also known as William H. Bonney, nineteen or twenty. In a flaming shootout 'the Kid', Billy, killed Mr. Hill then took on an onslaught of Hill's partisans bringing the damage to six verified slayings. Bonney is believed to be the captain of a deputized gang.” Murphy is going to kill them all.

chavez pov

There had to be a way out of the mess Billy had created for them, and Chavez only knew one way to find the answer. Snow crunched beneath his bare feet as he searched the ground, gathering what he needed. Darkness soon surrounded the Regulators, with only a soft light from the fire to illuminate the cup being passed around the circle. “We've come to a place where we are lost, no? When an Indian is lost, he must reach into the spirit world to find the way. On the Spirit Road, he'll be shown a sign. This is the way to the Spirit Road. We're lost right now. But I'll find us the way.” Steve rolled his eyes as the cup made its way to him, “Oh Christ, Chavez! That's all we need is some more of your red-ass Navajo mambojahambo. We're running out of time here, Chavez.” “Is that any good? Chavez, what is that?” Charley looked worried looking at the cup being passed around. A simple reply was given, “Peyote.”

The sun was rising over the mountains, the light slowly filtering through the dust and smoke surrounding Chavez on the ledge he was standing atop. Slowly he turned facing North. East. South. The land was red and the rivers ran with blood in every direction. There must be a way. Please Great Spirits, show me the way. Turning to the west, the blood vanished. A woman turned to greet him, her arms outstretched and her hair flowing in the soft breeze. He reached towards her, only to watch her be pulled onto a golden brown mare and riding off towards Old Mexico. West.

[scotianostra]

On November 16th 1093 St. Margaret of Scotland died.

If you recall my posts a few days ago regarding Duncan II, which led on to Malcolm III and the Battle of Alnwick on Wednesdays post.....Margaret's death is relevant to this.

Margarets religious beliefs and piety were famous, she was never a strong woman physically, constantly fasting, her body was weak, so it was that in 1093, as she lay on her deathbed after a long illness, she was told that her husband and eldest son had been ambushed at Alnwick in Northumbia. She died shortly after aged just forty-seven. The feast of St. Margaret was formerly observed by the Roman Catholic Church on 10 June but is now celebrated each year on the anniversary of her death, 16 November.

Margaret and Malcolm had eight children, all with English names. Alexander and David followed their father to the throne, whilst their daughter, Edith (who changed her name to Matilda upon her marriage, I covered Matilda on the 11th of this month), brought the ancient Anglo-Saxon and Scottish Royal bloodline into the veins of the Norman Invaders of England when she married and bore children to King Henry I.

Under Queen Margaret’s leadership Church councils promoted Easter communion and, much to joy of the working-class, abstinence from servile work on a Sunday. Margaret founded churches, monasteries and pilgrimage hostels and established the Royal Mausoleum at Dunfermline Abbey with monks from Canterbury. She was especially fond of Scottish saints and instigated the Queen’s Ferry over the Forth so that pilgrims could more easily reach the Shrine of St. Andrew.

Malcolm was particularly protective towards Margaret! She initially refused his proposals of marriage, preferring, according to one account, a life of piety as a virgin. Malcolm however was a persistent king, and the couple finally married in Dunfermline in 1069.

Their union was exceptionally happy and fruitful for both themselves and the Scottish nation. Margaret brought with her some of the finer points of current European manners, ceremony and culture to the Scottish Court, which highly improved its civilised reputation.

As well as the towns of North and South Queensferry, we also remember Margaret for the Chapel in Edinburgh Castle, the oldest surviving building in Edinburgh was built by her son David I around and dedicated to his mother.

I would say the majority of Scotland's royals once knelt to worship in this serene private chapel, including Robert the Bruce, who in March 1314 ordered the castle to be razed,, he did however spare the fate of the small chapel.

Buried at Dumfermline Abbey, Margarets tomb was laid waste to during the Reformation and at this time her head somehow passed into the possession of Mary Queen of Scots, it was later secured by the Jesuits at Douai, where it is believed to have perished during the French Revolution.

Pics are first is a gorgeous precious marble statue of the saint is in the Jesuit church at Farm Street in London, the stained glass window in the chapel at Edinburgh Castle and the chapel itself.

[motownfiction]

lonely boy

Sadie gets it in her head that her son, Michael, is a lonely boy.

She first wonders about it when he’s in the first grade. She volunteers to pass out candy for the Halloween party in his class, and when the students arrive at the cafeteria, Sadie immediately notices that Michael isn’t walking in with anyone. He isn’t flanked by friends on either side like she and Daniel were at that age. He doesn’t even make small talk with any of the other kids. He’s just there. Michael. Dressed as a Power Ranger with one of Daniel’s ties because he was afraid that just being a Power Ranger would look unprofessional. Her son. If Sadie didn’t know any better, she’d swear he’d been switched at birth with her cousin Henry’s son, who was born a couple months later. Who would have thought her six-year-old boy would have the heart and soul of a forty-six-year-old accountant?

Sadie’s suspicions only grow as Michael does. By the time he’s fourteen, going into high school, he has two friends: a tall kid with Buddy Holly glasses named Freddie and a girl with a Hot Topic backpack named Megan. They sit together at lunch everyday, and sometimes, Michael even has them over to the house for studying. But they rarely talk about more than mass times acceleration. Sadie doesn’t mean to eavesdrop, but holy shit. When she and Daniel were fourteen, they used to sit around with their friends and make their own music videos, toss Cheetos in each other’s faces, and barring Sam, they were all at the top of their class, too. What the hell is this?

About a year later, once high school settles in, Sadie pulls Michael aside and asks him if he’s lonely. Michael gives her a look like she just told him she doesn’t know how to add two and two.

“Why would I be lonely?” he asks. “I live with you. I hang out with Freddie and Megan.”

“Yeah, but it’s … it’s different,” Sadie says. “When your dad and I … and your uncle … we were always …”

“That was you, Mom. I’m not like that. I’m … actually, you know what? Let me show you.”

Michael leads the way into his room, and Sadie’s actually not sure what she’s about to see. If Michael was anything like Daniel, there would be a girl in the closet, hiding from parental disapproval. But instead, he just opens his laptop.

“Michael, I swear, if you’re about to show me …” Sadie says, but Michael laughs.

“Relax,” he says. “You’re my mother, and I’m not stupid. Look.”

He types something in, and before long, Sadie’s looking at a whole different world. One with elves, fire, and dragons. At least, she assumes there are probably dragons. Michael clicks around for a little while, and it doesn’t take Sadie too long to notice. They love him here. They know him. He belongs here. Here, where he isn’t lonely.

“See?” Michael says. “I’ve got you guys. I’ve got my friends. And I’ve got this. You don’t have to worry about me.”

And maybe a year ago, Sadie would have worried. Maybe she would have worried that it was bad for her son to keep to himself, that it seemed like he was too afraid to take any risks. But that’s all gone. That’s all gone when she sees the gleam in Michael’s eye.

He loves this, and he’s happy.

Sadie puts her hand on his shoulder and squeezes tightly, just once.

“I love you,” she says.

Michael doesn’t say it back. He rarely does. But when the gleam in his eye comes back, Sadie knows what he means.

(part of @nosebleedclub september challenge -- day xxv!)

[thearchmanofgreenfield]

As the sun rose past the horizon and loomed over the skyline of the great City of Hatlynshire Henry found himself to be dazed but also in awe. He had been called to accompany one of the other members of the Great Houses on a ‘diplomatic’ trip to Great Borough. Henry himself wasn’t too enthusiastic about it. He was dazed due to not being able to get enough sleep. Something he hid quite well on the outside but felt quite deeply on the inside. Whatever part of him that was not stuck in this drowsy state was rather preoccupied with thought of his own Borough.

“I should be sending letters to my Nobles. We should start fortifying the Hamlets immediately” he thought as his driver drove him straight to the Town hall of Great Borough. Henry, like most Great House members, drove in a black car with a silver accents and silver grill with two large ball shaped lights on either side. His car’s license plate read TRIDENT-001 which corresponded with the symbol of his house. Henry himself at first glance didn’t seem like much of regal figure. He was in early forties, he had jet black hair and brown eyes. He was clean shaven and wore a black suit with an overlapping collar. Underneath it he wore a white and grey checkered waistcoat. In his coat he carried a golden pocket watch connected with a golden chain and on his finger was a ring studded with diamonds. On his head he wore a black top hat and on his waistcoat, hidden by his coat, he wore a golden pin with his family’s crest imprinted on it. The pin was the only thing that gave him away as a Circulion, hence why he hid it. But without it, he looked perfectly human.

The car drove passed the empty streets of the waking city. Henry knew it was best to travel early in the morning when there was less people. It was less suspicious and it meant less attention. As Henry looked out the window he saw a few people walking around. Most were working men on their way to their occupation.

“Well, there is a certain innocence to humans. They are of course just like us. At least, when their not committing heinous sins” Henry thought. And with that thought he let out a shudder. He remembered a recent incident that had occurred a few days ago. This incident was part of the reason they were going to Great Borough in the first place. It had happened in Bernstein Borough, a group of Hunter had figured out how to access one of the Hamlets through a secret door. They had snuck in and tried to set fire to it at night, luckily they were caught and killed before they could set the entire Hamlet alight. But before they were killed they had succeeded in setting fire to that Hamlet’s orphanage. Whether they had known it was an orphanage or not Henry didn’t know. But no one could put out the fire and from the stories he had heard, almost a hundred residents had burned to death. Henry still vividly remembered the descriptions his men had given him. And the sheer grotesque detail made him want to hurl.

After some time the car finally reached a stop outside the entrance of a building. The driver got out of the car and opened the back door so Henry could step out. Henry gave a nod to the driver and the driver nodded back. The driver then went back to the driver’s seat. Henry looked up at the building in front of him. It was a massive three story tall structure that stretched nearly a hundred meters in both directions. The entrance was grand having a large staircase leading up to an overhanging roof held up by five pillars topped with angels and adorned with banners with the flag of Hatlynshire. The roof face itself was decorated with sculptures of men with the symbol of the Order of Man carved in the center. The building was mostly white and grey with hints of gold embedded into the sculptures. It also had a massive domed roof that reached high into the skyline. In front of the building, across the road, was a massive flat land which was the largest park in all of Hatlynshire.

Henry was standing in front of the only piece of the Order of Man that the public knew about. At least, what they thought they knew. He was standing in front of the City Hall.

As Henry gazed up onto the massive symbol of the Circle’s greatest foe another car pulled up behind his. The driver of that car got out and opened the backdoor. And from that back door walked out an older gentlemen in his sixties. He had a white beard and wore the same top hat Henry did. He wore a light grey coat with an overlapping collar but he also wore a large light grey overcoat over it. He had no ring on his finger. For he was a widower. He too like Henry gazed at the massive structure in front of him.

“Well Ulysses, looks like we’ve arrived” said Henry.

“Yes, I can see that Henry. It looks just as atrocious as it did the last time I was here” said Ulysses. Henry grinned and together he and Ulysses ascended the steps. When they reached the top they were immediately greeted by a very old copper statue of the city’s ‘founder’, a man who went by the name of George Montgomery. Henry had always wanted to spit on that statue every time he saw it. Knowing that, unlike the revisionist story of how he built this city from nothing he in fact built it from the dead corpses of thousands of Circulions.

“Perhaps this statue is greatest insult the Order ever did to us” said Ulysses as they passed the statue and went towards the front door.

“They keep him front of their building as a glorified hero, while lying to the public about his deeds”

“Well, on the day we finally bring these wretches down. I’ll be sure you leave a rope for you so we can pull down that statue together” said Henry with a smile and Ulysses smiled as well since both men knew that it was unlikely that the Order would be brought down in either of their lifetimes.

They walked through the front door of the City Hall. There was no guard at the front, a fact that Henry always taught as an oversight by the Order. He’d assumed the reason for it was that the Order never thought the Circle would dare attack them in the day. Which was a reasonable assumption.

As they entered the lobby a wave of caution washed over Henry. It was an instinctive response sine knew that now that they were inside, they were in the most danger. The lobby was a large room. Intricately decorated with lavish designs. It was a whitish grey but the walls were adorned with portraits and paintings, the real meanings of which only certain people knew. There was people walking around all over the place and nothing seemed that out of the ordinary. But Henry knew. He could see that gazes that followed them around. He knew that Hunters roamed this building in disguise. But nonetheless, he and Ulysses pressed on forward and blended into the crowd so as not to arouse suspicion.

Henry followed Ulysses passed the lobby and then a left turn through a hallway and then through a corridor to the door at the very end. Ulysses followed these steps precisely with a single second guess which only confirmed to Henry that Ulysses had been to this place often.

Finally, through the door at the end of the corridor they entered a spacious room with walls made of polished wood. The room was decorated with portraits on every wall and it was lit a large and lavish chandelier which hug from the domed ceiling.

It the room was a waiting area and next to it was a table which had a lamp, a stack of papers and a typewriter. In the chair behind this table sat a lady in a thin suit. She was typing something, her hands moved along the typewriter’s keyboard like lightning as she gave it her absolute focus. A focus that was only interrupted when she heard the sound of the door open. She lifted her head over the typewriter and looked at Henry and Ulysses.

“Well…uh. Do you have an appointment, Sir?” She asked with a soft tone and a smile.

Ulysses walked up to the lady while Henry stayed back. He leaned over to her desk and reached into his overcoat.

“Why yes we do, miss” he said opening part of his overcoat revealing the golden pin he kept underneath. “Is the Mayor occupied?”

The lady blinked and paused for a moment as though in shock. “Uh… no! You may go in” she stuttered in an almost frightened tone. Ulysses nodded, gave her a smile and tipped his hat. He and Henry then made their way passed the lady and through the door that laid next to her.

This time they entered a somewhat smaller room. Smaller but much more grand. The ceiling was about two stories tall with another golden chandelier over it. One of the walls had a large window that overlooked the part in front of City Hall. Another wall was completely taken by a massive bookcase. And in the middle of the room was a large semicircular table with a chair on either side. There was a red carpet on the floor and a fireplace too. The walls looked brand new and there was even a Hunting rifle mounted on the mantle under a large portrait of the first mayor of Hatlynshire.

On the other of the tale was the mayor. A man who both slightly fatter and older than Henry. He wore an open black coat over a silvery waistcoat and he had a golden monocle on his left eye which was a complimented by his straight and thin black and grey moustache and sharp eyes. He had been preoccupied with something as they walked in but he dropped it immediately and stared directly at Henry and Ulysses as they entered. A grin then appeared on his face.

“Well, well, well. What a pleasant surprise! Two Circulion industrialist swine walk right into my office! A rare sight indeed!” he said in cheerful tone. A tone that neither Henry nor Ulysses found amusing. Ulysses then took the seat of the other side of the table while Henry stood by the door. Henry kept one arm close to the gun he hid under his waistcoat. Just in case.

The Mayor leaned over Ulysses. “So what do I owe the pleasure, Mr. Everton?”

Ulysses said calm. “I think you know why, Victor”

Victor Del Mir reclined on his chair. The grin still in his face. “This isn’t about that fire now is it? Your men killed my men. Your revenge is served. You have no business coming to me!”

Ulysses gave a light chuckle. Something that made Victor flinch. “You flatter yourself, Victor. I think you why we’re really here”

Victor’s grin disappeared. He leaned over to Ulysses once more and spoke in a darker voice. “Well Mr. Everton, it appears that I don’t. Care to enlighten me?”

Ulysses nodded. Henry was told why they had come here but this was not he expected things to happen. But then again he knew not keep assumption of the future, unless he was a Morrow.

“While the fire is one reason our REAL reason is something much larger” said Ulysses.

“And that real reason is?”

Ulysses’ expression darkened. “That real reason is that ever since your ‘election’ you have plunged your Hunters deep within our territory. You’ve intentional started a minor conflict on the streets. And we want it to end”

Victor raised his eyebrows as though Ulysses had told him some shocking revelation. And then began laughing audibly while leaned on his chair. Ulysses looked at him with disgust and so did Henry. After he was done laughing he looked Ulysses as though he had said some marvelous joke.

“You cannot be serious! I take it that you didn’t consult with your dear friends the Morrows about this. Because if you did those foreseeing wretched would have told you that you can’t waltz here into MY OFFICE AND EXPECT ME TO THE BEND THE KNEE TO YOU CIRCULION SWINE!” he ended his sentence in a bout of rage yet Ulysses still stayed calm on the outside.

“We are not asking you to bend the knee, we know you are too prideful for that” he said calmly.

“Oh good! So what makes you think I’ll comply with you ‘request’?” a reply to which Ulysses grinned.

“I doubt your superiors would want to go to all out with the Circle. I doubt even the Grand Overseer himself would want that. Seeing as it would cripple the city with an already overwhelming population”

Victor raised his eyebrow. He thought Ulysses was bluffing.

“You wouldn’t! The Circle would not just go to war again over such minor of an issue as some street aggression!”

“Well…” said Ulysses. “War is only a last resort since we know that if we allow you to continue in your activities, they will only get worse. But as a means of ending this before it escalates to major conflict we offer you a price”

“A price?” asked the now intrigued Victor.

“One million Sorasy. In cash.” said Ulysses. “We pay you to pull back your troops. If you agree, you walk away with a hefty fortune. If you don’t well, you know what happens to a Mayor in a conflict”

Ulysses then reached into his coat and pulled out a set of old newspaper articles from the city newspaper, The Hatlynshire Herald. He then put them on the table for Victor to see. Henry could read some of the headlines. One said in large bold letters, ‘MAYOR KILLED IN CAR ACCIDENT!’ another said, ‘CITY MAYOR DIES IN HOUSE FIRE! ARE GANGS TO BLAME?’ while another read, ‘OLD MAYOR MURDERED IN STREET SHOOTING! PERPETRATORS STILL ON THE LOOSE!’

Victor looked through every headline. He then looked at Ulysses with a furious glare. His cheeks turned a shade of red like he was a volcano that was about to erupt.

“You dare threaten me? IN MY OWN OFFICE?”

“I was merely alerting you to the consequences. So what will it be, Mr. Del Mir?” asked Ulysses.

Victor calmed down a little. He then bought he hands together and smiled at Ulysses. Henry was not expecting that.

“One million Sorasy…a year” he said in calm and confident tone.

“Excuse me?” said Ulysses who was obviously not expecting that answer.

“You hear me, Mr. Everton. If you wish for me to comply I would need one million Sorasy every single year. Those are my terms and they are nonnegotiable” said Victor. He then stood up from his chair and gave a grim glare to both Ulysses and Henry. Henry then tightened his grip on his gun.

“Because if you think you can buy me with a pathetic sum like the one you offer then you ARE MISTAKEN, YOU WRETCHED SCUM. YOU THINK YOU CAN ENTER MY OFFICE AND THREATEN ME? WELL THEN YOU WILL SOON FIND ME TO BE MUCH MORE CAPABLE THAT MY PREDECESSORS I PROMISE YOU THAT!”

He then straightened himself and sat back in his chair before giving Ulysses and Henry a grin. “So yes, those are my demands. If you cannot meet them I quite happily ask you to withdraw from my office and the City Hall. And I have a feeling that the Grand Overseer Montgomery will want to hear of this conversation”

Ulysses stood up and stared at Victor blankly. “I think we are done here. I thank you for your time… Mr. Mayor” Ulysses then tipped his hat to which Victor nodded agreeably. Ulysses then swiftly turned around and he and Henry promptly left the office shutting the door behind them. Henry then followed Ulysses as they made their way out of the building.

“Well, it appears that the Mayor is unwilling to work with us” said Henry. He had come here knowing that the likelihood of a peaceful solution was unimaginably slim given how brazen and determined Victor’s actions were. But still part of him had hoped no to turn to conflict for it was both financially costly and costly when it came to lives as well.

“Well I expected as much. I told the Morrows that a peaceful resolution was futile yet they convince me to try it anyway. Well, now there is no resolving this peacefully Henry” said Ulysses.

They made their way down the steps past the statue. By the time they had exited the building the sun had well passed the city's skyline and was slowly inching its way to the center of the sky. Henry’s driver was waiting for him and opened his car door for him. Henry nodded at the driver and then turned to Ulysses before he could get into his own vehicle.

“Are you sure this would work, Ulysses? Are you certain that your plans can succeed?” he said before getting into his car.

“Not to worry, my dear Henry. I know by the end of this this city will be a safer, cleaner place. And If I were to die, I would die while getting my long awaited vengeance upon those who massacred my family”

Henry went silent. He the waved Ulysses goodbye and go in his car. His mind was full of doubts as they drove out of Great Borough. But he had known Ulysses his whole life, he had been a sort of mentor figure to both him and some of the other Great House members. Henry understood his pain and he was confident in his plans. But still…

“But what if it all fails?” he couldn’t help but wonder. What if Ulysses had underestimated the Mayor and Montgomery?

 “Then we’ll all be in danger.”

Back to Contents- HERE