Tim Boucher

A lai (or lay lyrique, “lyric lay”, to distinguish it from a lai breton) is a lyrical, narrative poem written in octosyllabic couplets that often deals with tales of adventure and romance. Lais were mainly composed in France and Germany, during the 13th and 14th centuries. The English term lay is a 13th-century loan from Old French lai. The origin of the French term itself is unclear; perhaps it is itself a loan from German Leich (reflected in archaic or dialectal English lake, “sport, play”).The terms note, nota and notula (as used by Johannes de Grocheio) appear to have been synonyms for lai.

The poetic form of the lai usually has several stanzas, none of which have the same form. As a result, the accompanying music consists of sections which do not repeat.

Source: Lai (poetic form) – Wikipedia

Hearken now to the Lay that once I heard a minstrel chanting to his harp. In surety of its truth I will name the city where this story passed. The Lay of the Dolorous Knight, my harper called his song, but of those who hearkened, some named it rather, The Lay of the Four Sorrows.

Source: Lays of Marie de France/The Lay of the Dolorous Knight – Wikisource, the free online library

From about the 12th century, knights wore long, flowing surcoats, frequently emblazoned with their personal arms, over their armor. These usually extended to about midcalf, had slits in the bottom front and back, thus allowing the wearer to ride comfortably and were either sleeved or sleeveless. Historians believe that the practice of wearing white ones was adopted during the Crusades, their main purpose of reflecting the direct sun, which overheated the armour (and the soldier inside) – although it may be argued that here its color would have been of little help; while in poor weather they helped keep rain and the muck of battle away from the easily corroded mail links. The surcoat displayed the device of the knight (origin of the term “coat of arms”) thus identifying him; which in turn, combined with the increased use of the great helm (late 12th century, early 13th century) became an essential means of recognition. Indeed, some historians cite this as one of the reasons behind the spread of heraldry across medieval Europe.

Source: Surcoat – Wikipedia

A hauberk is a shirt of mail. The term is usually used to describe a shirt reaching at least to mid-thigh and including sleeves. […]

The word hauberk is derived from the Old Frankish word halsberg (c. 1300),[1] which originally described a small piece of mail that protects (“bergen”, literally “to give protection, to save, to rescue”) the throat and the neck (the “Hals”).

The short-hemmed, short-sleeved hauberk originated from the medieval Islamic world[2]

Source: Hauberk – Wikipedia

It was nearly noon when Benda arrived on the edges of his home village of Stennax, which he had not seen in over three years. A storm-at-sea had driven his fishing vessel with his fellow countrymen Tendar and Offend onto the strange shores of the lost and largely forgotten land of Quatria. There, the river of time took a course all her own, and an entirely different one from that of the Wide Lands and Kremel. For him, his sojourn there, and his perilous voyage back to Kremel, and finally to his home kingdom of Cannaxus had seemed to take no more than a few months. But he was keenly aware that for those he’d left behind, the pace of time had flowed with a quickness which for him it had not.

As such, despite his joy at returning, he was filled with trepidation upon entering the outskirts of his village, and seeing the few wattle and daub huts that began to line the cart path. He felt painfully aware too of the strangeness of his appearance, dressed in the garb of foresters of the northern Drynarean kingdom. And if his reflection in the surface of Lake Squamat had shown him anything, it was that he looked ragged and thin, with a scraggly unkempt appearance of one who had been on the road for a long, long time.

He noticed as he went along that the villagers who saw him all avoided eye contact, and somehow this made him feel ashamed – like a stranger in his own home. Tob, before entering the village proper had, perhaps wisely, suggested Benda hide him again in the folds of his cloak. For though Benda might only seem a stranger to this people of Stennax, Tob truly would appear like a wholly alien being.

The few villagers he did see scurried about their business. Benda thought they seemed nervous, and he wondered at what had happened in the intervening time since he left to make them so. He remember them as proud, certainly, but also filled with warmth. But then, perhaps that was because they had regarded him then as one of them, whereas the people who saw this bedraggled wraith walking through the village most certainly did not.

He brushed it aside though, and turned off the main path, and along a series of branching trails down through to the lower part of the village, nearer the sea. He saw there as he went some children play-fighting with sticks. Among them was a small boy, no more than a toddler, who upon seeing Benda froze completely still, and stared. Until one of the older boys whacked him across the back with a stick, startling him awake, and all the children ran off again together to some other part of the village. Benda estimated the boy to be approximately the same age as his own son, Sol, according to the passage of time in this place. But he had not seen him since he was a baby, and he pressed on.

At last, he rounded the final bend to where his family’s hut was, constructed decades ago by his father. As he approached, he felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He strangely felt, at the very last moment, the urge to flee. But to where? This was everything he’d striven for all the while on this long voyage. So he strode up to the door, which was closed, and knocked on it.

He felt strange knocking on the door of his own house, but if his wife Lualla had lived on her own without him all these long years, he didn’t want to scare her by simply walking in like a ghost out of the wilderness. As he stood there waiting, he ran his fingers through his uncombed hair nervously. Would she recognize him? Would she still love him, and accept him as her husband?

After what seemed like an endless moment, the door swung gently inward, and a woman’s voice – Lualla’s – said softly, “Come in.” His heart leapt to his throat, and in his excitement, Benda pushed aside the strange note of warning he thought he heard in her voice, and he passed through the threshold into the dark interior.

His eyes adjusted to the dimly lit space within, and as he did, across the room, he saw her there, beautiful as they day they wed. She turned from the fire she was cooking over, and cried out in recognition, “Husband!”

Benda rushed to embrace her, but she threw her arms up in warning, shouting, “Run!”

The door swung shut behind Benda, though, and as he went to sweep his wife up into his arms, strong hands seized each of his arms from behind. He struggled and, turning his head this way and that, was confronted by two gruff armor-clad men, who held him fast. Over their coats of mail were red cloths bearing the insignia of the Citadel, and the First King of Kremel.

Lualla sobbed and went to caress his cheek, “Forgive me, Benda! I had no choice.”

“Welcome home, sailor!” one of the soldiers said roughly, and clubbed him in the back of the head. Benda fell once again into unconsciousness.

A letter of marque and reprisal (French: lettre de marque; lettre de course) was a government license in the Age of Sail that authorized a private person, known as a privateer or corsair, to attack and capture vessels of a nation at war with the issuer. Once captured, the privateer could then bring the case of that prize before their own admiralty court for condemnation and transfer of ownership to the privateer. A letter of marque and reprisal would include permission to cross an international border to effect a reprisal (take some action against an attack or injury) and was authorized by an issuing jurisdiction to conduct reprisal operations outside its borders.

Popular among Europeans from the late Middle Ages up to the 19th century, cruising for enemy prizes with a letter of marque was considered an honorable calling that combined patriotism and profit. Such privateering contrasted with attacks and captures of random ships, which was unlicensed and known as piracy; piracy was almost universally reviled.[1] In reality, the differences between privateers and pirates were often at best subtle, and at worst more a matter of interpretation.[2][3]

Source: Letter of marque – Wikipedia

Benda stepped lightly into the small coracle of Velornix, taking care not to upset the balance of the slight craft. Velornix himself stepped in after and positioned himself opposite him to counter-balance. With his one paddle, he cut the figure eight motion ahead in the water which softly but surely pulled them forward. Tob perched himself on Benda’s shoulder, and they peered out into the early morning mists of the lake.

No one spoke. They heard the occasional sound of ducks quacking, and frogs or other small creatures slipping into or through the water. On their periphery, they could barely make out the slim dark currents which marked the silent passing of the kumbios, who escorted them on this solemn mission.

The sky gradually grew lighter, and the mists which clung to the early morning lake seemed to dissipate somewhat. Benda was certain they would be spotted from the air, but said nothing, trying to keep his mounting anxiety down to a manageable level.

At long last, Velornix leaned slightly forward and made a sort of grunting noise. Suddenly, out of the mist, another small and lonely island rose up in front of them. Velornix deftly paddled up to its shore, hopped out, and pulled the craft just up onto the pebbly beach. Benda, a fisherman himself, stood low to maintain his balance, and hopped out to stand beside Velornix.

“Is this it?” Tob whispered. “Another island? I thought he was going to take us to-” But Benda reached up and put his hand over Tob’s mouth to shut him up.

“We’re very grateful for your help,” Benda whispered to Velornix, who, he remarked to himself, seemed uncharacteristically worried.

“Get on then,” Velornix replied in hushed tones. “Up the hill, there’s an arch. Pass through it, and you’ll be that much closer to home.” He took Benda’s arm, and clasped it in the manner of that country. “Good luck,” he said.

The two kumbios accompanying their party splashed up out of the water, and rolled over on their backs in front of Benda, who reached down to scratch them affectionately in farewell.

Velornix’s voice was urgent now. “Come then – no time to lose. The mist is almost lifted. We must both be away before that happens.”

Taking one last appreciative look at Velornix and the kumbios, Benda turned and trudged inland up the beach, over grass and brush to the foot of a low hill. It’s top was crowned in mist, but it was nearly parted. Benda kept down the panic eating at the back of his mind. An arch – like the Arch of Passing? Eradus had told him there were other portails in hidden places. Where would it take him? He tried to push the worry from his mind. He turned to glance over his shoulder, and saw that Velornix and his little vessel were already well clear of the island, heading in the opposite direction.

Just over the final crest, Benda saw it. It was not at all like the Arch of Passing which connected the Isle of Edeb to the Edebian mainland. This arch in fact had fallen in on itself, and all that remained were two rough stone columns, with some faded carvings Benda could hardly make out.

“Doesn’t look like much, does it?” Tob said from his shoulder as they approached.

“You of all people should know looks can be deceiving,” Benda replied, causing Tob to blush to the best of his ability.

The mist was very nearly completely lifted at this point. And there was no doubt in his mind that the eagle Murta was hunting somewhere in the sky overhead. Benda stepped up to the two stone columns, ran his hand across the face of one of them. Holding his breath, and closing his eyes, he lightly stepped over the fallen threshold between the two pillars.

When he opened them, sure enough, he was somewhere else. The arch hidden on an island in the lake, though old and fallen, still retained whatever measure of power was necessary to transport Benda and Tob somewhere – he hoped – far, far away.

He could not tell, at first, just how far they had passed, or where in actual fact they now found themselves. Eradus had offered no details about the possible distances one might traverse using the portail system. But it did not matter, for before long, a dawning sense of recognition rose in him as he surveyed the landscape.

They found themselves on a hill, and there was no trace of any arch or passage back to where they had come. To his right, still, Benda could sense the sea. No, he could smell it now too. It smelled near and familiar, and if he listened carefully, he could hear gulls crying. As his eyes adjusted to the brighter landscape, and he squinted off into the distance, he saw something which he had longed for dearly, but had not dared to hope for so soon. He saw home.

The city of Cannaxus rose up from the flood plain in the distance, and seeing its white towers made his heart soar. For in front of it, no more than a few hours’ march, was the little fishing village named Stennax he called home, and beyond it, the shining surface of the sea.

Home. A million thoughts and emotions surged through him, but within them all, he found a still point. The image of his wife, Lualla, and their infant son, Sol, who he had not seen in more than three years now, and who by now had no doubt grown into a child.

“We’re going home,” Benda said proudly to Tob, and he broke out into a run down the hill in the direction of the village.

Tob, who bounced along, and hung on for dear life on Benda’s shoulder, said to him, “Be careful, my friend. According to my vision, the danger is not yet passed.”

“The danger,” Benda said, between breaths as he sprinted down the hill, “is never truly passed. We must go on living just the same.”

“So we must,” agreed Tob. “So we must.”

They were silent then a while as Benda’s burst of energy gave way finally to a brisk walk, and he struck upon a cart path coming out of the north which would lead him to Stennax village, and Cannaxus city beyond.

Mount Erebus is currently the most active volcano in Antarctica and is the current eruptive zone of the Erebus hotspot. The summit contains a persistent convecting phonolitic lava lake, one of five long-lasting lava lakes on Earth. Characteristic eruptive activity consists of Strombolian eruptions from the lava lake or from one of several subsidiary vents, all within the volcano’s inner crater.[6][7] The volcano is scientifically remarkable in that its relatively low-level and unusually persistent eruptive activity enables long-term volcanological study of a Strombolian eruptive system very close (hundreds of metres) to the active vents, a characteristic shared with only a few volcanoes on Earth, such as Stromboli in Italy. Scientific study of the volcano is also facilitated by its proximity to McMurdo Station (U.S.) and Scott Base (New Zealand), both sited on Ross Island around 35 km away.

Source: Mount Erebus – Wikipedia

The Greek god Zeus is sometimes called Zeus Xenios in his role as a protector of guests. He thus embodied the religious obligation to be hospitable to travelers. Theoxeny or theoxenia is a theme in Greek mythology in which human beings demonstrate their virtue or piety by extending hospitality to a humble stranger (xenos), who turns out to be a disguised deity (theos) with the capacity to bestow rewards. These stories caution mortals that any guest should be treated as if potentially a disguised divinity and help establish the idea of xenia as a fundamental Greek custom.[1]

Source: Xenia (Greek) – Wikipedia

The Kingdom of the Isles comprised the Hebrides, the islands of the Firth of Clyde and the Isle of Man from the 9th to the 13th centuries AD. The islands were known to the Norse as the Suðreyjar, or “Southern Isles” as distinct from the Norðreyjar or Northern Isles of Orkney and Shetland. In Scottish Gaelic, the kingdom is known as Rìoghachd nan Eilean. The historical record is incomplete, and the kingdom was not a continuous entity throughout the entire period. The islands concerned are sometimes referred to as the Kingdom of Mann and the Isles, although only some of the later rulers claimed that title. At times the rulers were independent of external control, although for much of the period they had overlords in Norway, Ireland, England, Scotland or Orkney. At times there also appear to have been competing claims for all or parts of the territory.

Source: Kingdom of the Isles – Wikipedia