I've been cracking on with my WIP which if you've had a look at any of my rambles here lately, you'll know has narrative sections across different historical eras. I'm happy with the comments I've been given in the previous crits and would appreciate more of the same on the following excerpt.
I'm more after the obvious jump-out anachronisms that I may have overlooked, although all the words I've been unsure of I vetted using etymology site etymonline.com.
Not really after line edit-y stuff, and of course I'm working first draft, but I'm putting these historic sections up because I want to keep on the right course.
Background: the church from 1178, evolved to an abbey and is now a leper colony tended to by Benedictine monks; Henry Shielde has made a shady arrangement with the Benedictine abbot Firmin to obtain the land so as to form a mutual trading post (The abbot thinks he will be getting a backhander but Sheilde has other plans...). This section introduces that (is that obvious in the text?) and the tension between the pig farmers and Shielde. I'm guessing the dialogue and characters are going to confuse, not least because I mention 6 under the tree, but only show 4 talking. (Also, if anyone can find the name of what cider is drunk from I'd be interested as I'm sure it has a special name and need to see if they were in use around 1340s.) Oh, and I made the name of barkskin herald up because 'leprosy herald' sounded so prosaic and tell-y.
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Henry Shielde watched the shambling mob disgorge from the side of the old church in revulsion; no amount of boiling would clean the grimed and unsanitary cream rags that shrouded each of them. They slowed, directed by some imperceptible signal, and the trembling one at the front, the barkskin herald, pawed at his - or her - side and slipped a mitted hand inside the folds to withdraw a wooden rattle. It fumbled with the thing, its filthy linen-covered stumps eventually managing to grasp it. The beggardly procession resumed, the herald shaking the castanet, warning those few people working the strips and lynchets immediately surrounding the colony to beware.
They exited the shade of the church, into full sunlight, their pestilent robes a calico jumble of red and brown smudges. The mob became a line which shuffled between the colony houses on the generous emerald plain, approaching the gap in the low henge marking the abbey’s boundary. Although a light summer breeze was blowing away from him, Henry moved back and ascended the higher of the henge mounds, covering his nose and mouth with a cloth bag, loosely filled with angelica and rosemary, until the procession had passed. Up to two-score of them marched, yet none of the cowled figures acknowledged his presence apart from the monk at the rear who looked up and nodded at Henry.
He dropped his head letting loose curls of sandy hair fall over his eyes and shifted his footing so his back was to the line of the sick. From this angle he could see the plains arranged in slim irregular strips like rills on the beaches of Lour Dene, the abbey hospital behind him like a stain on linen, out of place; a blot that prevented excellent land being worked for fear of contagion.
After a while the lepers shuffled out of sight, and all that remained of their presence was the clattering alarm of the herald. Henry descended the mound and stole inside to meet Firmin.
###
Afterwards, he walked back to his own strips, assessing his mean wheat crops and cursing the hospital's presence on such valuable land. The crop, although satisfactory, would barely justify his efforts after the middlemen had bitten into his yield. The limited land he had would seem far more profitable without the pawing brokers and he hoped his plan with the abbot and the others would come to fruition before the winter harvest was due. He kicked at the dry husks of wheat and straw by the perimeter of the strip.
The land is bone dry. This is most propitious, he thought and went to find the others.
‘Our share is bound to be larger, Shielde, there are three of us!’ Perke said and slapped a boney hand on the oak's huge trunk under which the six of them stood.
‘Yet we are wanting of the presence of two of yours,’ Henry replied.
‘I would not expect a grain huckster to understand the demands placed on us swine farmers,’ Perke said, through a sneer. ‘They are tending to their… flock.’
‘Please, friends, let us start as we mean to proceed,’ de Gros said, putting his hands on both Shielde and Perke’s shoulders. ‘This guild will be of no use if we cannot work together with grace.’
‘We cannot work with grace if we do not have equal shares, Maurice,’ Henry said. ‘We might as well remain indentured to the lords.’
‘What would you recommend, Henry? Do you not wish the other two part of this union? Two rope makers, two of us, but three swine farmers is too many?’
‘And I number only one,’ said Walter Webb.
Henry turned to the net maker. ‘Webb, I did not bring forth this arrangement with the abbot so we could be directed by swineherd!’
‘ ‘Ere’s a tank to the day that happens!’ Roper said with a laugh before swigging deeply from his cider.
‘As well you know it will not, Henry. None shall let that day come,’ Maurice de Gros said, eyeing each of them. ‘We are equals, each, in share and status, all.’
I'm more after the obvious jump-out anachronisms that I may have overlooked, although all the words I've been unsure of I vetted using etymology site etymonline.com.
Not really after line edit-y stuff, and of course I'm working first draft, but I'm putting these historic sections up because I want to keep on the right course.
Background: the church from 1178, evolved to an abbey and is now a leper colony tended to by Benedictine monks; Henry Shielde has made a shady arrangement with the Benedictine abbot Firmin to obtain the land so as to form a mutual trading post (The abbot thinks he will be getting a backhander but Sheilde has other plans...). This section introduces that (is that obvious in the text?) and the tension between the pig farmers and Shielde. I'm guessing the dialogue and characters are going to confuse, not least because I mention 6 under the tree, but only show 4 talking. (Also, if anyone can find the name of what cider is drunk from I'd be interested as I'm sure it has a special name and need to see if they were in use around 1340s.) Oh, and I made the name of barkskin herald up because 'leprosy herald' sounded so prosaic and tell-y.
____________________________________________________________________________
Henry Shielde watched the shambling mob disgorge from the side of the old church in revulsion; no amount of boiling would clean the grimed and unsanitary cream rags that shrouded each of them. They slowed, directed by some imperceptible signal, and the trembling one at the front, the barkskin herald, pawed at his - or her - side and slipped a mitted hand inside the folds to withdraw a wooden rattle. It fumbled with the thing, its filthy linen-covered stumps eventually managing to grasp it. The beggardly procession resumed, the herald shaking the castanet, warning those few people working the strips and lynchets immediately surrounding the colony to beware.
They exited the shade of the church, into full sunlight, their pestilent robes a calico jumble of red and brown smudges. The mob became a line which shuffled between the colony houses on the generous emerald plain, approaching the gap in the low henge marking the abbey’s boundary. Although a light summer breeze was blowing away from him, Henry moved back and ascended the higher of the henge mounds, covering his nose and mouth with a cloth bag, loosely filled with angelica and rosemary, until the procession had passed. Up to two-score of them marched, yet none of the cowled figures acknowledged his presence apart from the monk at the rear who looked up and nodded at Henry.
He dropped his head letting loose curls of sandy hair fall over his eyes and shifted his footing so his back was to the line of the sick. From this angle he could see the plains arranged in slim irregular strips like rills on the beaches of Lour Dene, the abbey hospital behind him like a stain on linen, out of place; a blot that prevented excellent land being worked for fear of contagion.
After a while the lepers shuffled out of sight, and all that remained of their presence was the clattering alarm of the herald. Henry descended the mound and stole inside to meet Firmin.
###
Afterwards, he walked back to his own strips, assessing his mean wheat crops and cursing the hospital's presence on such valuable land. The crop, although satisfactory, would barely justify his efforts after the middlemen had bitten into his yield. The limited land he had would seem far more profitable without the pawing brokers and he hoped his plan with the abbot and the others would come to fruition before the winter harvest was due. He kicked at the dry husks of wheat and straw by the perimeter of the strip.
The land is bone dry. This is most propitious, he thought and went to find the others.
‘Our share is bound to be larger, Shielde, there are three of us!’ Perke said and slapped a boney hand on the oak's huge trunk under which the six of them stood.
‘Yet we are wanting of the presence of two of yours,’ Henry replied.
‘I would not expect a grain huckster to understand the demands placed on us swine farmers,’ Perke said, through a sneer. ‘They are tending to their… flock.’
‘Please, friends, let us start as we mean to proceed,’ de Gros said, putting his hands on both Shielde and Perke’s shoulders. ‘This guild will be of no use if we cannot work together with grace.’
‘We cannot work with grace if we do not have equal shares, Maurice,’ Henry said. ‘We might as well remain indentured to the lords.’
‘What would you recommend, Henry? Do you not wish the other two part of this union? Two rope makers, two of us, but three swine farmers is too many?’
‘And I number only one,’ said Walter Webb.
Henry turned to the net maker. ‘Webb, I did not bring forth this arrangement with the abbot so we could be directed by swineherd!’
‘ ‘Ere’s a tank to the day that happens!’ Roper said with a laugh before swigging deeply from his cider.
‘As well you know it will not, Henry. None shall let that day come,’ Maurice de Gros said, eyeing each of them. ‘We are equals, each, in share and status, all.’
