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Wow this was fast Meryt! I really like the windows behind Aengus, do you remember where you got them?

Domnall and Gwynn.... I don't think Aengus would be thrilled to see Finn (Egelric's son) winning Gwynn's heart than Domnall... Cat looks different for some reason is it her skin?

Also, those dresses on the girls are GORGEOUS. Where did you get them?

Ooooh, so Domnall is the one who's in the banner with Gwynn!

Aengus and Domnall are so cute! And Colin with his sleeping on his plate and his grunting of "Fuck off". Definitely an interesting family.

It's nice to see that Aengus can put on a brave face for his daughters. He was looking better for the wear than poor Cat--not that either of them are at their peak, obviously. At least they can make each other laugh, though. *shrug* Who knows? Maybe Cat will ditch Paul for Aengus at some point?

I love the contrast between Ete and Aileann. Those girls are going to be a lot of fun when they're older, I just know it

“If we’ve learned one thing lately, my lad, it’s that thinking about doing something doesn’t count for anything. And if we’ve learned two things lately, it’s that time wasted is never coming back. Every day you spend thinking about going to see her is a day you’ll not be spending at her side. And no gentle god will be coming along later and tacking those days back onto the end of your life. Nor onto hers.”

“Remember: there’s no shame in loving a girl out of your reach. The only sort of girl worthy of you is a girl you’re not worthy of.”

Quotable.

What a good show he put on for them. And what good advice he gave Domnall. Have we seen his POV before? And I'm sure we've never seen an Aengus one either.

Poor Cat trying to keep up the witty banter. I can only imagine the pain she is feeling.

All these pregnant women in distress! Makes me a bit hungry.

Oh Hetty The part where she talked about missing her sister and naming the baby after her if it was a girl really stood out to me the most. But if the children come to visit her, can't they sense that anything's wrong with her? Or does Hetty still have to put up an illusion, even in front of the children...

Thank you. It's actually such a relief to hear that he has to get better. Here I was thinking that at this point, he couldn't.

Van, I forgot to mention.... None of this means that Alred really will live the decades left to him. Several times I have thought that Alred is in such, such bad shape that it would seem frankly unrealistic if he went on living like this for the next twenty years. He is so depressed, still so consumed by thoughts of suicide, that something has to give long before then. He will utterly lose himself in drinking, or he'll break down and go sort of catatonic, or he'll leave the keys to the castle to Dunstan and enter a monastery, or (most likely) he'll just hang himself and be done with it.

One of the reasons why I think Alred will get better eventually is because he has to. Otherwise we will lose him. Not because we can't stand him any more, but because his character will have left no other option open to me. A man in his state of mind -- who has violently attempted suicide before -- is such a suicide risk that he ought to be hospitalized.

ermine, Hattie's motives are difficult to guess. Hetty feels she can no longer trust her, but then again maybe Hetty is just getting paranoid? Maybe Hattie's hand-wringing wasn't due to guilt but due to real worry about Hetty's mental condition? Or maybe Hattie really is on Alred's side in this, and has "betrayed" Hetty?

It seems like Hattie ought not to trust any men. Her first encounter with a man was with her stepfather, as I recall, when she was only 12 or so, and she was sent into the convent and had his baby (which soon died). So Hattie's only personal experience with men, that we know of, was rape. She does not seem to have any plans of marrying or looking for a sweetheart, either. (Unlike Lili's intrepid Lottie, who has AT LEAST slept with Stein. Lottie is now Lady Ogive's maid, unlikely as that sounds!)

Then again, Hattie and Alred seem to get along like old pals.

Van, as for the effects of this treatment on the baby, I can't say. At this point I will at least have to look into FAS. I honestly don't know whether Hetty will survive herself, or what "hysterical" thing she'll do next, or whether she's being drugged every day or only when she gets uncontrollable, or whether she truly is losing her mind. I'm playing this relationship chapter-by-chapter.

And as for Alred. Hmm. I wouldn't say this is the last nail in the coffin yet since we don't have Alred's POV at all. For all we know he is in anguish over this, terrified that Hetty is going the way of Maud, and strictly warned by the likes of Yusuf and/or Mother Duna that if he gets "affectionate" with his wife he risks harming her or the baby. This could all be totally NOT what it looks like from Hetty's POV.

And even if he is behind this... What might he be doing here? Awkwardly trying to distance himself from her? Seizing on the first reasonable opportunity to take up separate quarters, maybe? Yes, it's hard on Hetty, but this is a lot like what Leof did to Leila when he brought Eadgith back into his life. Separate apartments, letting her live with her own children, but never letting Leila come down to dine with the company, etc.

So I don't think Alred's actions are utterly depraved from the mindset of a medieval nobleman. His wife betrayed his trust and caused a scandal. He's within his rights to put her aside. The ugliest thing about it is that he seemed to have forgiven her, and now seems to be coming down on her. But then again, we know how Alred is with forgiveness. He can't even fake it very well.

I don't intend to give up on Alred and kill him, as if he were a character I inadvertantly ruined and now I must discard him lest my readers get too annoyed. There isn't a coffin for Alred, and there isn't a last nail. His character is what it has always been. He has had many moments of sublime beauty, but also moments of petty ugliness over the years, of shallow, selfish deeds; and we know he is capable of abiding hatred. At the moment we are passing through one of the worst periods of his life, but that doesn't mean we will feel this way about him forever.

The thing with Alred is that, important as he is -- he has more chapters than anyone except Egelric -- he is not the protagonist of this piece of literature. He has always played a sort of "best supporting actor" role to the likes of Egelric and Sigefrith, which is why I have never been able to put together a coherent "the life of Alred" storyline. (Or an Alred + Matilda storyline.)

This means that I don't have to plot out a hero's journey for him, wherein things go from bad to worse, and he struggles and loses a lot, and finally wins and is redeemed. Alred may putter along for the next few decades pretty much as he always has... helping at times, and hurting at times, but always existing mainly to provide a poetic POV onto certain events, and to poke and prod a few people (mainly Egelric, but also people like Vash and Sigefrith) along their own paths.

I sometimes think that Alred serves almost as the narrator of this story, or could serve as the narrator if I decided to rewrite it with a suitable "Let me tell you the story of Lothere, a kingdom I lived in many years ago" old-man-reminiscence prologue. He always seems to stand just to the side of the action, but he's privy to so much of what happens, and has such an interesting point of view.

Anyway, another reason why I don't give up on Alred, and have no desire to do so, is that his story and his problems are so real. This is precisely what happens when a person trudges on through a profound depression week after week and month after month: friends and family start giving up on him and dropping out of his life. I imagine readers are bound to do that too -- even Alred-fans, after a while. Alas, he has changed! Where is the Alred we used to know? So I am not surprised by your reaction. Especially since Alred is only a fictional character and no actual depressed people were harmed in the writing of this story.

But that's another reason why I want to keep on writing him. It sounds weird, but I don't want to dump Alred just because he's depressed and behaving in a manner that appears selfish and erratic from the outside. Mind you, I haven't lost sight of the fact that I'm writing a story and I have to keep the story engaging, but that's a challenge I'll just have to rise to.

So to answer your question, no, I am not worried about Alred losing his appeal as a character in the long term just because he is going through an exasperating, confusing phase right now. I think the most exasperating thing about Alred at the moment is that we have no clue WHY, so simply getting his POV sooner or later should clear things up a little.

Besides, we have almost 19 years of his history documented here, and there's nothing that indicates he will "stay like this forever." He has always had his ups and downs, like most everybody around here. Alred is one of those fellows -- like Egelric, actually, but for different reasons -- whose character development is "long term" by nature. Alred requires patience. And I think he deserves it, too.

And I have seen it happen time and time again, that a chapter or two from the character's own POV can cause readers to drastically change their minds about the character...

And speaking of POV, Casey, nowadays I always write a strict third-person limited. Not only can we not know what Hattie is thinking in this chapter, we can't know anything that Hetty can't see or perceive herself. Her characterization of the way she moves is entirely her own thoughts about the matter. I think there is some self-loathing in there, but it was more towards the beginning, when she was imagining herself lying there till morning with her hair crusted to her face with her own dried vomit, and what Alred would think when he saw her. She didn't seem to feel pity for herself, nor did she seem to expect any from Alred. It was simply disgust on both sides.

The descriptions of how she felt swollen and sick and numb, however, were more like Hetty wondering what on earth was the matter with her. She knows her morning sickness days are over. On the other hand, I think her relative lack of direct thoughts about what was wrong with her (compared with the explicit question she posed to Hattie) indicates that she already does think she knows why she felt so sick, and why she threw up when she woke. Perhaps she just wanted to hear Hattie's explanation to see if it would provide clues about the plot against her. Either that, or she is in some kind of denial in her own head. She never explicitly thought about wine or the possibility of being drugged at all.

Oh, and Gwynn is the one you need to watch for signs of self-loathing in her thoughts about her body. She never got over that "bumpy dumpling" comment from Estrid.

Poor Hetty! I would be thinking that my maid was sleeping with my husband after she acted like she just did! I feel so bad for her...

Lothere, when you're writing a chapter, is it from the character's point of view, or a completely subjective 3rd person? I'm asking because of all the negative-sounding adjectives in this post that described how she moved...

Is Hetty feeling some self-hate?

Sorry, Lothere. I probably should have caught that. I'm going blame lack of sleep... and not my poor cognitive skills.

This baby's going to end up with FAS, isn't it?

Err... quick question about Alred, since it seems like this is the last nail in the coffin of his former self. You said recently that he still has a few decades to live. Hmm... how to put this? Uh... if he stays like this forever, which is looking increasingly likely, do you think there'll get to be a point where either the readers and/or you yourself get so sick of him that you just put him out of his misery, much to everyone's relief? Or that when he finally does reach the end of his lifespan, his death won't have all that much of an impact on readers?

Sorry if that was phrased really indelicately, or if it sounded like I was being overly critical. I love your work, I just have trouble seeing a future where nobody pleads for Alred's death at this point.

I'm not sure why Hattie is helping with this. One of my first thoughts was something like this: maybe she doesn't trust any man(including Leof, hah) and wants Hetty to stay away from Alred and the other way around. But after reading this I'm not sure... she seems to agree with Alred. Maybe I'm making this too complicated. ^^

And from that fact you are supposed to conclude that she finally surrendered and drank some. It seems unlikely that she could have been unconscious since yesterday afternoon if she had simply fallen asleep due to being tired from her struggles.

At the beginning she did also notice that her vomit smelled like sour wine and bile, so there's more evidence that she had drunk some wine.

Wait--Hetty had too much wine? In the last chapter she hadn't had her wine yet, and she was refusing to drink any.

Poor Hetty, feeling the way she does. Sadly she doesn't have it in her to be sneaky, devious and manipulative as some women. Otherwise the situation might have been completely different for her. A bat of an eyelid, the chance of a false promise etc.... that's not quite in her, from what I've gathering here.

She's so meek and quiet and accepting of most events. Although this one, the feeling of forced solitude IS making her rather resentful indeed.

On the other hand, Alred's actions might not be that of locking her away out of everybody's gaze. It's possible that he 'thought' he was doing what was best for her... giving her some space. But sadly, from reading these past couple of chapters, he's more patronizing towards her. Treating her like a naughty child instead of his wife.

But there again, we're only getting Hetty's POV. So no wonder she's beginning to feel resentful, sullen, frustrated and paranoid too.

I agree with Devin too.... she definitely needs a friend about her age. Someone to confide in, plot naughty plans and have a good gigle instead of being cut off and surrounded by - basically - Alred's 'yes men'.

Men who are afraid to stand up to him - with the exception of Egelric, who as we know, is out of the picture.

Oh boy, I wish Hetty had a friend especially someone her own age... Its so strange seeing Alred in this very bad light. He seems so manipulative and posessive. I really do think after the baby's born Hetty should move into Egelric's castle.

Look at Aengus he looks so happy! This is good, that grieveing over Marie nonsense is so tiresome. I hope Benedict is in the next post.

I hope this doesn't cause her to lose the baby...

Morning sickness is usually a feature of the first trimester, not the third, such as Hetty is in. She hasn't been sick like this in months.

Medieval people didn't know much about the effects drugs or alcohol could have on the fetus. Hetty already drank too much wine as it was.

If Hetty has a chastity belt, what does Gwynn have? A chastity armor?

And oh dear, what are they putting in that wine?

Alred just delivered the final blow to his marriage. Hetty is really starting to resent himnow, isn't she?

I guess the children won't think it's odd that she's confined since she's about to give birth, but if word gets out about this little incident... Dammit, Leof, just come back already!

I absolutely cannot wait for that Gwynn chapter.

Yeah, it almost sounded like she'd been drugged. Didn't want to jump to any conclusions, though. I suppose if they were willing to move stuff around just when they'd gotten her settled, they must have been fairly confident that she would stay asleep too.

That might explain the vomiting, and also this part:

She felt sick all over: muzzy-​​headed, thick-​​limbed, and shaking from an inner chill.

I almost wish I knew more about morning sickness, but that doesn't sound like it.

But what kind of person would drug a pregnant woman? I hope I'm mistaken, Alred.