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starting on the shopping lists
Dec. 11th, 2011 02:34 amManaged to cross a few items off the Christmas list today, but still have a lot to go. The weather is cold, but not yet really bitter. (No doubt I will soon find out that I Spoke Too Soon.) I've got out the big knitted blanket (knitted by me, hah!) to go over the duvet for that extra layer of warmth.
Things to do tomorrow include hoovering and making bracelets. They should not include playing computer games, but I take no bets.
---
Again the door rattled to an imperious knock, and the sergeant scuttled to answer before Gazemon could address him. With trembling hands he admitted those who stood without: Lorin, who had slain Gazemon by treachery and usurped his throne; Angus, who had reclaimed that throne into the rightful line of descent; then Caed; then Dame Degrance who passed for a man and ruled like one until the physicians at her deathbed unmasked her sex; then Walter of Meux; then Auberon; then Lams, and the first Vengis who was a stout and brave leader for the one short year he survived, and others and others to the latest who had sat the chair below prior to the advent of the incumbent lord.
With axes, maces, swords, with pens and scrolls and moneychanger's scales according to the form of power by which they had made Ys great, they gathered around the hapless target of their contempt.
"We have walked abroad in this city since we were called from rest," rumbled Gazemon, his grip still fast on Vengis's shoulder. "We have seen stagnant puddles in the streets, shutters dangling from one hinge on the cracked walls of once-fine houses; we have been followed by beggars and starving children in Ys which we devoted our lives to, making it a city that the world should envy! You have given our golden towers to tarnish, our iron doors to rust; you have given our splendid harbour to the mud and our fat grain-fields to the weeds; you have squandered our treasury on baubles, forgetful that we paid for it with blood. How say you all, you who listen here? Is it not time that we held an accounting?"
"Aye, time," they said as one, and hearing the menace in their voices Vengis rolled his eyes upward in their sockets and let go his hold on life.
-- Traveller in Black, John Brunner
Things to do tomorrow include hoovering and making bracelets. They should not include playing computer games, but I take no bets.
---
Again the door rattled to an imperious knock, and the sergeant scuttled to answer before Gazemon could address him. With trembling hands he admitted those who stood without: Lorin, who had slain Gazemon by treachery and usurped his throne; Angus, who had reclaimed that throne into the rightful line of descent; then Caed; then Dame Degrance who passed for a man and ruled like one until the physicians at her deathbed unmasked her sex; then Walter of Meux; then Auberon; then Lams, and the first Vengis who was a stout and brave leader for the one short year he survived, and others and others to the latest who had sat the chair below prior to the advent of the incumbent lord.
With axes, maces, swords, with pens and scrolls and moneychanger's scales according to the form of power by which they had made Ys great, they gathered around the hapless target of their contempt.
"We have walked abroad in this city since we were called from rest," rumbled Gazemon, his grip still fast on Vengis's shoulder. "We have seen stagnant puddles in the streets, shutters dangling from one hinge on the cracked walls of once-fine houses; we have been followed by beggars and starving children in Ys which we devoted our lives to, making it a city that the world should envy! You have given our golden towers to tarnish, our iron doors to rust; you have given our splendid harbour to the mud and our fat grain-fields to the weeds; you have squandered our treasury on baubles, forgetful that we paid for it with blood. How say you all, you who listen here? Is it not time that we held an accounting?"
"Aye, time," they said as one, and hearing the menace in their voices Vengis rolled his eyes upward in their sockets and let go his hold on life.
-- Traveller in Black, John Brunner
