Altriona: Journal the Third

Who was the poet who said that absence made the heart grow fonder? Is he still alive? If so, I need to challenge him to a duel.

Valadar, my younger brother, is as obsequious, as oily, as underhanded, as ever. Far from an increase in fondness for him, our lengthy separation has only served to underscore how very disagreeable his company is to me. His ship overtook ours off the coast of Bretonnia and he invited us to dinner - us, of course, meaning Lorandara and myself. His purpose was to convince us to let him go find Mallion. This was not done out of any great care for our brother, of course. He knows a noble cause when one is taken up by his sisters. He simply believes that we are incapable of seeing the matter through, and needed at least the appearance of gallantry to save face amongst the noble houses.

I had forgotten that Lorandara barely knew him. He was at sea for all but a few weeks around the time of their wedding, so all she witnessed of him was his charm. She complimented him several times on his gallantry, which was so forced to my eye as to screech in protest at being turned a quarter-notch.

I have never revealed my reasons for my distrust of my brother. I did not give even Mallion the full tale, not out of concern but because the bile rose in my throat each time I tried. But I shall set it down here, and swear here to its truth. Mayhap it will absolve me of some future crime against he who ought to be dear to me.

Many years ago, before Valadar went to sea, while we three were still under the direction of tutors back in Laurelorn Forest, there came a time when one of our tutors needed to take leave of us and no new one could be immediately found to replace him. For a brief time we had several hours free in the afternoon each day, and we used it to visit friends and accept visits from them. Mallion and I were engaged one afternoon in the study of poetry in the library, having eschewed Valadar's invitation to some sport with a neighbouring family. He had attempted to insist, and Mallion had thoughtlessly put him off, in that scholarly way he had that seemed to indicate that no consideration was necessary after he himself had come to a conclusion. I admit to the thoughtlessness of the act, and I could see in Valadar's eyes that it had wounded him, but I was still smarting over some altercation he and I had had earlier and was simply glad to see him go.

After an hour or so of Mallion expounding and me replying, I bored of the discussion and went outside to seek Valadar and his guests, presuming that at least a couple of them would be palatable company for the remainder of the afternoon. I found the party, most of whom were engaged in shooting at targets some distance away. Valadar was sitting with a young - well, I suppose I must call her lady, but understand, dear reader, that the term applies to her parentage rather than her behaviour - who had been swooning after Mallion for months. She had shown her claws to me on more than one occasion, primarily when I would not help her in her quest to trap my brother into marriage. When I approached them that afternoon, she and Valadar stopped talking. Valadar moved away from her on the blanket, ostensibly making room for me. I took the offered spot.

There followed a conversation full of arch references I did not understand, titters of pretended embarrassment, and other behaviours designed to make clear to me that she and Valadar were engaging in a conversation from which I was excluded. Finally, she went too far, asking me if I had remembered to put on a certain item of intimate apparel after my time in the library. I understood then. She meant me to understand. Valadar pretended discomfort, and tsked at her. But I could read what was in his eyes. It was triumph, pure and simple. In one stroke, he had ruined my reputation and Mallion's, dishonoured the family before a neighbour and a peer, and distanced himself from the dishonour.

I would fain have lost my temper, were it not for the knowledge of how such a rumour would hurt my gentle brother, both personally and socially. Instead, I ascertained that the rest of the party was out of earshot, and then informed them both that it would take no effort at all to malign her character far more thoroughly than she had just maligned mine. I warned her that she would keep that lie to herself until her dying day or I would tear her down piece by perfectly-coiffed piece until she was engaging in a vulgar business in the streets of Marienburg for a living. Oh, I painted a nasty picture. Then I turned on Valadar and made similar promises. By the time I finished with them, Valadar's ire was again up, but the lady's demeanour was that of a whipped dog. (Indeed, that is a good analogy for her attitude towards me ever since!)

Valadar tried several other tricks over the years to malign me and Mallion, but he never used that one again, and the other tricks all slid off us, doing more to harm his own standing than ours. As I watched him attempt, half-heartedly at best, to convince us to give up our quest and let him search for Mallion, that he might save face amongst our people, the loathing I had felt for him that day at the family manor rose up again and threatened to choke me.

In any case, we managed to get away from Valadar with only a man of his to account for at some future date. We must needs find a way to put him off the ship before we are much closer to our destination than we are now. I have no trust of this Gallos, for anyone with the skills to become Valadar's most trusted advisor is someone I want nowhere near me in any capacity.

(Note: combat scene redacted until the next journal, because it hadn't really finished at the end of the session.)