The day had not been going well for Fergus. It had started with a pounding headache which, while not unusual, wasn’t pleasant. Then someone had dared notice and comment over the morning repast. They’d shut up fast enough when Fergus had glared at them, but the damage had been done and he’d been getting sympathetic, understanding or disapproving looks all morning. Really he could have done without them and had been scowling at everyone for the last few hours, which did nothing to help stop the looks coming his way or his headache.

After managing to avoid the midday meal by claiming he was working and having food sent to his rooms he’d actually felt optimistic. The day was halfway done, if he could just hide for the rest of it he’d be fine. Hiding was always fairly difficult for him, for all he’d lived in Aedan’s shadow all his life and didn’t try to attract attention he was still the heir and as such people tended to notice when he was around. Mostly because they wanted things. But on a good day it was possibly for him to tuck himself away in some remote part of the keep and avoid detection.

Today, though, was not one of those good days and no sooner had he found a spot in a tower room a servant in the livery of a minor fiefdom turned up with his Lady’s family recipe for a hangover cure. Others followed. He tried moving to a different spot, but there didn’t seem to be any hiding from the servants. Eventually he collared one of his own manservants and told him to go and get two horses saddled – one for him and one for the servant. They’d gone out in the hottest part of the day and had soon been dripping with sweat, stopping at the first patch of trees and finding some peace there for a while. The manservant had known Fergus long enough to know that talking to him was usually an unsuccessful and unwelcome endeavour, and so hadn’t bothered as Fergus stretched himself out beneath a tree and fallen asleep. On the way back later that day, his horse had thrown a shoe.

Sneaking back into the keep without being bothered proved to be a problem, everyone was hanging around with little to do but watch what was going on. After having to try and politely brush off the fourth courtier – and failing badly – he gave up on the main routes and ducked down the narrower passages, startling a few of the servants as he made his way back to his rooms. There were an assortment of headache and hangover cures waiting in a heap on the desk, and someone had sent him a bottle of brandy as well. Fergus could only assume that it was intended as some sort of joke and ignored the heap with the intention of throwing the lot in a draw later on.

At this particular moment, he was covered in dust and didn’t look much like a prince. Alone in his room he didn’t even try to maintain the posture of one, allowing his shoulders to slump and rubbing at his temples before pushing his hair from his face and picking up the decanter of wine. The ease with which he handled it pointed to him being a heavy drinker. Setting it back down on the desk and holding the goblet in his other hand he turned away, only for a loud crash to make him jump. The decanter was lying on its side on the floor, red wine soaking into the rug. For a moment he stared at it, then muttered “God give me strength” and picked it up, placing it more carefully down on the desk. There wasn’t much he could think of doing about the rug.

The morning had started out well enough. The keep was always a place of busy bodies and rushing. For some reason she doubted that people actually took pleasure in their work here sometimes. Perhaps that could have been from the recent gossip she’d heard. Her own brother no less! What a scandal! Kate had woken before dawn as usual, had eaten what her father had made for her the night before, and had made sure to wake her father so he could prepare the morning meal for the lords and ladies that made their home in the Keep. She would make sure that her brother had finished the repairs on the clothes he had been assigned to the night before. Her mother had been more than happy to wake before her, which explained why she did not have to wake her up.

Kate ate the bread and broth that her father had set out for her before heading off, the clothes in her arms. She had tagged them all so she knew where to take them. The last set she had in her arms were those of a lady that had to have them for something or another. Dropping them off to her room Kate returned to her father and mother in the kitchens, helping where she had to. It was still some time before she was set to wake the people of the Keep. The people that had status, anyway.

The time passed quickly, Kate teasing her younger brother as she swung her feet. He was bedding a lady, but she had nothing ill to say about it. As long as he was not caught he had no reasons to fear. He could, however, have been put to death if caught, which scared the young woman. He was a man and the lady was a woman. All she had to do to save herself was to cry that he forced himself upon her. Kate knew well that her brother was too much of a gentle spirit to do something like that, but cowards would do anything to keep themselves from trouble, even damn their lovers.

That was why she hated those cowardly bitches that called themselves nobles. She’d seen more noble women tucked away in whore houses.

The red head woke those that were required, the ladies that requested her help in dresses. She was not a maid of that sort but she helped without complaint, helping them dress and do their hair before they left on their way. By the time Kate made it to the Prince’s room he was gone.
Wasting no time the young woman drew the curtains back, allowing the sunshine to fill into the room. She huffed at the unmade bed and the clothes strewn about, taking her time to pull the covers up, picking up the clothes and dropping them by the door so she could take them out on her way down. No one ever got the Prince’s clothing confused. He was a tall man but smaller than the king, and he always had simple garments, as if he did not like to flourish.

She didn’t mind, however. He could dress how he wished to dress. The freedom was his own.

The rest of the day was spent listening to the gossip from the ladies downstairs as she cleaned hither and thither, passing her time with laugher and dust, the same as she always did when time became too long. Her father called her in for lunch when the sun was in the sky. By this time people were demanding to know where the prince was. No one asked the staff, but if they had not a one of them would have known. Kate, of course, tried to find out by using her skills as a snoop. All of the ladies were tucked away with their husbands or out on the town. One lady in particular was said to have stopped by the tailor’s shop. She wondered what he was doing in there, but in all sarcasm, she knew what he was doing in there. Leave it to a married Lady to have a fancy for the young faced tailor boy. She was happy for her brother, however.

He was a good boy with high aspirations. So what if he bedded a Lady every now and again? All Kate figured was that he should stay with his own class. Things got ill for those that tried to mingle outside of it. She was a working girl. Her father had tried to set her up with a stable lad but he’d heard the rumors about her. She was no harlot, but she had had her rounds of fun with one man. Ah, well, she didn’t mind being unmarried. She had no children to break her back for, had no reason to be tied to any one place.

Once her family was gone (and in the direction her brother was heading…) it wouldn’t be long after that that she made her way from the Keep to another place, somewhere less habitual and more open and free.

Rumour of war spread throughout the Keep lately, each one more frantic than the last. But that couldn’t be so. She already worried enough for the prince.

When he had returned it was almost time to make the cleaning rounds again.

Once she’d finished up with her chores she made her way to the Prince’s rooms, and her eyes landed instantly on the mess he had created for her. Wine - or something - was on the carpets. This was joined with dust from the day’s riding and wanders. Her eyes narrowed at the mess before, huffing silently, she dropped to her knees, cleaning up the mess. Those that cleaned rarely announced themselves, they didn’t matter, they were just people that showed up when a mess needed clean, not a real person at all, rather a creature that deserved to be ignored.

That didn’t bother Kate. In fact, she reveled in that idea. She didn’t have to worry about being pretty or smart, all she had to do was clean. But why was his heavy drinking highness spilling things on the floor? He was not sloshed yet! Could he not hold his drink?

For almost a minute he stared at the wine slowly seeping into the rug, leaning back on the desk and drinking the wine in the goblet as he did so. It was by no means the first time he’d spilled something all over a rug – one reason why the ones in his rooms were by the standards of the court plain and inexpensive – but this was probably one of the most impressive accidents he’d managed in recent years. It didn’t help that the rug was a pale colour and the wine a deep red.

How exactly did the cleaning staff deal with this sort of mess? As a prince it wasn’t something he had to know or was even encouraged to know, but staring at the patch with the growing feeling that it was going to stain – and badly – he did have to wonder what they were going to do about it. Personally he’d have been inclined to add it to the charity heap and simply get a new one rather than bothering to clean it, but the staff didn’t have that option. Maybe a scrubbing brush and soap of some sort, and they’d probably have to remove it from the room as well before it sank through and stained the floor. At least he assumed it could stain the floor beneath – it was a wooden one.

Goblet drained, he placed it on the desk – making sure it was placed down a safe distance from the edge by the decanter, which now had a dent in its side – and with a last look at the rug stepped around it and into the bed chamber. While stripping out of the dirty riding clothes he managed to knock a fair amount of dust onto the floor, the clothes chest and just about everything else he touched. The dirty clothes were tossed into a heap by the foot of the bed and he did his best to clean his face and hands with water from the washstand’s jug, wincing as a stray drop of the icy liquid trailed down his back. The water was turning brown by the time he’d finished and set about dragging the clean clothes on – a set in dark blue, not a colour he usually wore but this time his clothing choice had been decided by what was at the top of the chest. They were slightly fussier than his usual choice as well, but not fussy enough that he had to ask for help with them. Those clothes were only dragged out on the very formal occasions.

Once fully dressed and ready to face the world the fact that he didn’t want to go and face the world make itself known. Swept up in the routine he hadn’t spent long changing – perhaps ten minutes at the most, and now he realised that he could have dragged the process out more to avoid people. With a soft curse he glanced at the door with an expression akin to horror, as if courtiers waited just beyond it to bombard him with irritating questions. They wouldn’t be, they generally had better things to be doing than hanging around in corridors and would probably have left a servant to run and tell them when he emerged instead, but it wouldn’t be long before he had to go and be sociable again.

Flinging himself back onto the bed he thought dully of his options – options he’d long ago exhausted and were of little value. Whatever he did, sooner or later he’d be with the rest of the court, trying to be sociable with people. Probably sooner rather than later as well, as much as he wanted to hide in them there was little for him to do in his rooms aside from drink and enough questions had been asked about his behaviour for one day, he was sure. As he’d spent a good part of the midday period asleep he couldn’t even do that and was left restlessly staring at the canopy and ceiling, one leg hanging inelegantly off the edge of the bed and his booted foot brushing against the floor.

A noise in the next room made him sit up suddenly with a rustle of fabric, hands shoving his hair out of his eyes. Although listening intently he couldn’t work out what was making the sound, it wasn’t one he was familiar with. It sounded like someone was moving around though, which did cause him some concern as it seldom happened that someone entered even the outer rooms without his permission. Only the bedchamber itself was strictly off limits, but even so experience told the courtiers that it was a lot of stairs to climb for little reward at the end if they weren’t invited.

Getting back up with a frown on his face he strode across the small room to the door, swinging it open and remaining on the bed chamber side of it. For the second time that week he found himself staring blankly at a girl, this one very different from the last. Red hair, fully grown and a very different profession as she looked like she was attempting to clean the rug. At the same time, quite pretty.

Rich Man

Grandfather was a philosopher, and like a lot of philosophers, I guess, he was a mild-mannered man who was always ready to admit that there are two sides to every question. So when people got to arguing with him, or around him, about things that they got heated up and illogical about, like politics and religion,1 he would tell this story that Doc Eaton told him one day up on the Hill. (Wow Power Leveling)

¡¡¡¡It happened a long time ago, when the town wasn't all steel and concrete and automobiles; when you could still hear the whir of a lawn mower without taking a streetcar out to the suburbs, and still see a horse lazily switching at the flies on his flanks under almost any sycamore tree.2 The Forest City had a lot of trees in those days.

¡¡¡¡And it had a lot of people that didn't always see eye to eye,3 like a lot of other cities. And it had a rich man, like almost every other town. And this rich man was a pillar in the Baptist Church;4 and people didn't see eye to eye about him, either.

¡¡¡¡There were those¡ªand Grandfather's eyes twinkled when he said it¡ªthat claimed the rich man was an old hypocrite5, that he was ruthless in his business dealings, that he was so tightfisted he wouldn't spend a nickel to see an earthquake,6 that when he went to church on Sunday morning he was almost as important as God to a lot of people. world of warcraft gold

¡¡¡¡Then there was the other school of thought7. It asserted that just because a man had made money under conditions as they existed was no reason to call him a lot of hard names.8 In fact, they asserted stoutly, the people that called him names were merely envious of his success9. They maintained he went to church not because he was a sanctimonious old fraud10 but because he was at heart, and for all his money, a simple, deeply religious man.

¡¡¡¡It was while these two groups were hot at it that the rich man gave a party. Well, it wasn't exactly a party, Grandfather would explain. It was more like a shower for the pastor of the church.11 One group of parishioners saw in their invitation nothing but a kindly, neighborly gesture. The other just said it showed how miserly the old buzzard was12¡ªgetting other people to do what he could have done a thousand times over without feeling it a mite.13

¡¡¡¡Grandfather said even then he had the sneaking feeling that the rich man wasn't so insulated and isolated by his money14 that he didn't know what people were saying about him, and that was the real reason he gave the party.

¡¡¡¡But both sides of the question went to the party. A lot of them were pretty curious about the inside of a rich man's home. world of warcraft gold

¡¡¡¡They brought offerings for the pastor, as they were requested. Some people brought apples, and others brought sides of bacon and onions and other homey old-fashioned things like that15. But nobody was really much interested in what the other guests brought. They were all waiting for one thing. What would the rich man bring out? Even Doc Eaton, the preacher, according to Grandfather, couldn't help wondering about what was coming. You could feel the undercurrent of suspense.

¡¡¡¡And then the rich man16 brought out his offering.

¡¡¡¡It was a bushel of potatoes.17 They were nice potatoes, extra large and scrubbed white and clean. But still and all, they were only a bushel of potatoes that anybody could buy in the Old Market for a lot less than a dollar.

¡¡¡¡Well, sir, Grandfather chuckled, you could practically see what people were thinking. They were the people who were saying to themselves and to everybody else, "Well, what did I tell you??And then there were those who made it perfectly plain that they thought it was mighty tactful of their host not to make an ostentatious parade of his money18 before a lot of neighbors and friends. cd keys

¡¡¡¡But the host went around as if he didn't notice anything, though Grandfather always insisted that he detected a little twinkle in the rich man's eyes as he shook hands with all his fellow parishioners and wished them good night.

¡¡¡¡The preacher toted19 his gifts into his house, and just because they had been the center of interest, so to speak, he picked one of the big white potatoes out of the basket. Then he noticed that one end of the potato had been opened. He investigated, and discovered that a silver dollar had been neatly inserted through the opening. He examined every potato in that bushel basket, and there was a silver dollar in every single one of them.

¡¡¡¡At this point Grandfather usually sat back and plucked benignly at his white beard20 and smiled. Then he'd turn philosopher and say:

¡¡¡¡"It takes an almighty pile of gall21 for a man to sit up and say what is going on in another man's mind, don't22 it? I mean one way or another. When Doc Eaton told me that story he didn't bother to point out any moral. By the way, he don't do any preaching any more. He's been a congressman from New Jersey for years and years. But I guess the story has a moral, all right. Always sort of tickled23 me, like it must have tickled Doc's rich parishioner." Aion gold

¡¡¡¡"The New Testament says it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.24 Well, I ain't saying it isn't true. But I am saying this: It took John D. Rockefeller to put a silver dollar through the eye of a potato in order that a lot of people could have some food for thought."