For the populace I will certainly do some kind of script. There are thousands of people in the valley, I don't want to do that manually. For sickness and famine I'll probably do some sort of household-by-household thing: the more people who get sick in your household, the greater your own chance of getting sick. And maybe make it tougher on babies and old people, I don't know.

I will probably include all the characters we know and love in that calculation, but if I don't like the results I of course reserve the right to ignore them. Leofric can't die yet!

I will do something similar for the upcoming war (assuming they go). To pick the men who will go, and to pick those will die of illness along the way, and those who will die in fighting, etc.

It's an eerily timely question, since just two days ago I went through and assigned random death dates to everyone who didn't have one. (Which was basically everyone we knew.) I'm sure I will ignore some of them -- I already plan to swap Sigefrith's supposed long lifespan with Alred's supposed short -- but I will try to be at least a little true. Otherwise the death rates for main characters could end up being seriously skewed.

It also gives me some interesting constraints to work within in my storytelling, if so-and-so has to die by a certain date. I rolled a shocker for the end of 1086, and my first reaction was "No way!" but I'm already getting ideas...

And likewise if I know that someone is supposed to die young, I know ahead of time that I ought to make him a little sickly or something. (Unless I decide to make it an accident.)

I do have to be careful though, because some of those slated to die in the next five years showed up on people's favorite character lists. I don't want to let chance actually hurt the story, either, but even so, not everyone can live to be 70 just because they're favorites. The fact that I'm not writing a novel with just one or two "MAIN" characters means that you can never be sure so-and-so won't die before the end of the story. Otherwise the structure of the story wouldn't be possible anyway... it's the chronicle of a place and time, and if it goes on long enough EVERYONE will have to die.

Same with the pregnancies: I try to stick to the random results as much as possible, so that I don't feel guilty when I break out and do something unlikely. We can't have every DRAMA-tic rendez-vous end in pregnancy. (Maire, I'm looking at you.) But other times that's just what the story needs. (Estrid, I hope you are enjoying the last PMS you will have for a while.)

Even due dates are sometimes ignored in favor of the story. I wanted Alred's latest to be named David, and since the English didn't often name themselves for Biblical characters at that period, I had to make him be born on St. David's Day. And make sure the Welshwoman Mother Duna was there to remind them of it.

As it happens, every one of Eadie's babies was due to my intervention. One of them -- I think it was Stephan -- was almost random... I think I rolled once, didn't like it, rolled twice, didn't like it, rolled three times and she got pregnant. Eadie is pretty darn infertile so even getting pregnant after three times is like a lightning strike. So I kept it. Just like some deaths, some pregnancies are due to my own boredom and whims.

My new random pregnancy scripts are lot harder to cheat now, though. I would have to go back and manually reset the last-checked-date if I didn't like a result. Never underestimate the power of my laziness. I expect that in the future there will be fewer Whim of Jenny pregnancies in Lothere.

I don't presently plan on giving Eadie any more kids unless she rolls them. Sigefrith is getting older too, and I imagine he will have a lot less tolerance (and libido) if she goes back into ravenous baby-making mode. Sigefrith has three sons alive, so his succession is largely secured, and after his experience with Brit (and with what Emma likely has in store for him) he probably feels like he's had enough kids and would be content to relax a bit and catch his breath before the grandrunts start coming in.

Eadie surely sees things differently (I bet she at least wants a daughter), but there's a twenty-year difference in their ages. Sigefrith has passed the prime of his life and Eadie is just now in hers. To me, the strain that all this is going to put on their relationship is more interesting than any further kids that Eadie could have. If she gets pregnant again, great, but if not, I'll probably just keep writing down that path.

I think the oldest person I saw out of the 400+ people I rolled random deaths for was in his/her early 90's. And most of those people were elves. (Saralla is the exception... I think she might get up over 100.)

I don't have to worry about unnaturally long lifespans since mine are based on actual medieval demographic data. If you want to see the data I'm using, go here:

Lotherian Life Tables

If you want to know the odds of someone living to a certain age, go down the leftmost column to the age you want, and then go across to the last column (lx). The lx column shows the probability that a person will live to that age. For 102, the percent chance is less than 0.00% so it's effectively impossible. 101 years has a probability of 0.01% -- or otherwise stated, one person out of every 10,000 will live to age 101. If you have a huge enough population I suppose it will happen from time to time, but Lothere has half that many, so I doubt we'll ever see that. And if we do, odds are it won't be a MAIN character. (I can't quit saying that.)

If you want to get more realistic medieval lifespans, you can use the same generator I do. Go here:

Create Random Person

1. If you just leave all the fields blank and click "Create" you will get a person with a random lifespan born in 1085. (Possibly they will die as a child...)
2. If you enter a birth year, you will get a random person born in that year.
3. If you enter a birth year and an "Aged at least" value, then the random lifespan you get will be at least that old. That's useful if you want to get a random lifespan for someone who is already an adult in your story.
4. If you don't enter a birth year but you enter an "aged at least" it seems to ignore the "aged at least". Bug! Just enter "1000" or something for a birth year if you only care about the age at death, I'm too tired to fix that tonight.
5. If you enter both an "aged at least" and "aged no more than" then you get someone with a lifespan in that range, but I'm not 100% sure it's based on the correct data. So, uh, better stick to options 1, 2, or 3.

I was going to say something else, but I seem to have forgotten. Maybe it was this:

LAAAARRRRL!

The odds of any of those guys living to the end of their natural lifespans are pretty slim anyway.

Oops. That should be fixed now. *deposits coin*

Lothere, those tables are pretty...mind-boggling.

GAH! Double post!

So, do the women ever talk about Eadie's apparent difficulty getting pregnant? Do they just assume she and Sigefrith don't have sex much, or have they pinned it all on her and her infertility? Or do they just keep their mouths shut since she's the queen?

It's never too hard to guess which chapters I've reread recently, is it?

Poetically tragic, really, that the wife who actually loves him is the one who has difficulty giving him kids. Oh well.

What's Sigefrith going to do with his younger sons when they're grown? Since they're princes, I doubt they'll be content to just become knights or lords. Is he going to make some more duchies, or what? You said something about Hwaelness if he gets that back, which works for Drage, but what about Stephan?

DUNDUNDUNDUN!

Now what comes with Crusades?

Disease, genocide, spices, and NEW PEOPLE???

I have the strange impression that ermine has been reading ahead.

I don't think Egelric could have a love of his life. So far he has always managed to love the one he's with. I don't really know what that means... and it seems like it could spoil the whole Romance Hero persona, but for some reason in Egelric's case it just fits.

Finn on the other hand...

I admit there was something special about Lili though. Perhaps not because she was the love of his life, but because they were so well-matched. He didn't have to do as much work in the relationship, if that makes sense. They just... had fun and stuff. A pity he couldn't have grown old with her. Of course, Lili might eventually have grown bored and roamed. I wonder if it is better to lose them young, as Egelric did, or watch them stop loving you, the way Alred had to. And of course, you can never know for sure.

I know Devin is going to disagree, but I think Sela had the least chance of being that, even if she had lived longer. Egelric fucked up that relationship too much in the beginning. He would have been carrying that guilt around forever. Plus they were from two such utterly different worlds, and Egelric has never had much truck with poetry. I don't think either of them could have been soul mate to the other. Egelric's very decision to pursue that relationship was another thumbing of his nose at Alred and the rest of the men who oppressed him or whatever. (And perhaps there was some of that on Sela's side as well. Take that, Imin!) It was just a mess.

However I think he might have remained true to Elfleda if she hadn't lost it. I am looking forward to their prologue chapter actually... pre-stillbirth, pre-depression and all. I think Egelric at twenty-odd, when he thought he was King of the World, looked at young Elfleda and decided she was to be his Queen. And they were a lot alike, haughtiness and all. She could have cut it as his lady, no matter how high Alred placed him.

There might have been love-of-his-life potential with Gunnilda though. There was something really sublime with those two. She might have fixed him, which no other woman has been able to do. (OK that is sounding Tortured Romance Hero again, perhaps that is his appeal.) He would have had a real, stable home life (and Iylaine too). But.... perhaps in later years they will learn that they have silently been soul mates all along.

YES the bed is a double bed! I used it in the next chapter in fact... TIMES TWO, with special guest non-appearance by Invisible George and Invisible Betty. That bed has served me well.

It's by pfish at mts2.

I am not sure there would ever have been that castle on the hill for Egelric if she was around. Alred only managed to shove Egelric into it after Sela was dead.

I can't extrapolate that relationship all the way into 1085 -- so many, many things would have been different for everyone. All I can say is that she probably wouldn't have survived that long. If she hadn't been killed when she was, she would have been killed another time. I just can't imagine her being allowed to live all these years. Only Vash's intervention saved her in the first place.

And the more I think about it, the more I think Aia had better get out while she still can.

Do I really need to explain to you the difference between some of the highest-ranking, most powerful elves alive, and the crippled daughter of an outlaw who normally should have been killed at birth?

Lena was no great lady, but she still had far better blood than Aia, and she was under the protection of lords. But she was probably in some amount of danger anyway -- she did get raped by Imin after all.

Ach, Devin, do you really really want to know what would have happened with Egelric and Sela? It's so hard to say -- the farther you get away from the date of her death, the more things would have diverged from what ended up happening for real. Alred might have married Lili, for example. And Ethelwyn might have married Hetty... and so on and so forth.

All I can say is that (1) Egelric probably would have been standing with one foot out of civilization and one foot in, for as long as he was with Sela. (I almost said "married to" but I am not sure he ever would have or could have married her... she wasn't likely to become Christian after all.)

Some of the guys thought Sela was cute and all and liked visiting Egelric in his cottage, but I can't see the likes of Leofric introducing her to the likes of Lady Eadgith, or Sigefrith to Eadie. I think lines would have been drawn, and it would have made Egelric even more of an only-semi-respectable personage than he already was. I doubt your dreams of Sela being a great lady in her castle would ever have come true, Devin, and I doubt Sela would have enjoyed it all that much either.

And (2) Egelric's relationship with her was always sort of doomed. Even aside from the fact that I can't imagine a storyline in which she would not have been killed or otherwise taken away sooner or later, Egelric started that relationship off on the wrong foot, and it wouldn't have gotten any better. As I said, it was partly an act of rebellion, and eventually that would have grown old. It's hardly something to build a relationship on (even though lots of girls with sexy rebel boyfriends try). And beyond that, there was the guilt about how he sort of forced her into the house and that life and all. Egelric is the brooding sort, and he would have been carrying that around until it grew into resentment on both sides. Plus it ruined his relationship with his daughter. One fine day he or Sela would have flung one of those rankling issues at the other, and that would have been the beginning of the end.

So it is not very productive to wonder about "What if things had gone well for Egelric and Sela", because I just can't conceive of a situation where things ever could have gone well. I think their relationship was headed in the same direction that Magog imagined his life with Maud would have gone:

Even though I know she would never have forgiven me for taking her away from her children.  Even though I know she would have come to hate me.  Even though I know we would have lived unhappily and died young.

Sela took Egelric away from his daughter, and he took her away from her sister and her people. (And to some extent she took Egelric away from his people too.) I doubt they would have come to hate each other -- but only because she probably would have run away before it got to that point.

So does that answer your question?

Thanks for the linkage

I have never given thought to the question, but I believe I can prove that he has not the case by means of the propositional calculus:

If Caedwulf sleeps with a girl, then she is "that kind of girl".

If a girl is "that kind of girl" then Caedwulf would not allow her to be Emma's maid.

By hypothetical syllogism, if Caedwulf sleeps with a girl, then he would not allow her to be Emma's maid.

Therefore, by application of modus tollens, since the girl is Emma's maid, Caedwulf did not sleep with her.

QED.

Heehee! I haven't done that in years. I hope my logic hasn't failed me.

Unfortunately, I suspect Emma's maid is simply too cunning to fall for Caedwulf's wiles. She might not be "that kind of girl" in deeds, but she is filling Emma's head with enough information that he might have been better off letting her be dressed by one of the empty-headed little armfuls he does take to his bed. OH EMMA the fun we will have with you.

Does Gils grow up to look much like Lar? I'm just asking because I don't see too much of a resemblance, although maybe that's because it's difficult to imagine Lar as a kid.

Hmmm... still, I wonder if it's a worthy investment to put karma toward the possibility of Gils marrying a daughter of Finn and Gwynn... HMMM...

If Gils grows up to have a more Larl-like appearance, they could get some good-looking kids. Just sayin' *whistles*

Also, just so we can brace ourselves for either Eadie-like angst on Gwynn's part or frenzied, rabbit-like reproduction or some happy medium between those two extremes... how are Finn and Gwynn on the fertility scale? Is that genetic (I remember you saying Egelric had some issues)? If so, how are/were Alred, Matilda, and Elfleda for fertility? I'm guessing Elfleda wasn't too fertile either, otherwise this might have been a very different story.

Hmm...That's interesting. Fwynn spawn and Gils?

And about the fertility...poor Eadie.

I think that was just a case of an experienced medieval midwife having noticed that some women who have Matilda's problem tend to get worse if they eat sweet/rich things. Most women in that period wouldn't have access to honey and wine anway, so they might have associated it with the rich and idle.

I have no idea how realistic that is, but a simplistic explanation is sufficient for my story... especially early on in my writing career, when I didn't even do research on the level of a quick peek in Wikipedia.

I am not sure. Brede lives pretty far from Nothelm, and he does all his "shopping" at Kingsmarket and the vicinity. Shirtless K is already somewhat legendary at Nothelm, but less and less as you get farther away. That's how Finn knew about him and Sigefrith and Eadred apparently didn't, or didn't much.

More importantly, Brede has no reason to care. (Yet.) They aren't in the same milieu after all. K's current best friend is Wulsy. (aka Woolies.) Brede mostly hangs out with Sigefrith, Malcolm, Stein, young Sigefrith, Caedwulf, etc.

I am sure Shirtless keeps an ear open whenever he hears someone mention Brede, but unless he happened to be standing outside when Brede rode by -- and talking to someone who could tell him who it was -- it's not likely he has ever seen him.

People married for more than reproduction. A woman had to have a place to live, and a man had to have someone to cook and clean and so on. A medieval household was a sort of miniature economy -- very self-sufficient from our perspective, in terms of producing what they needed, but also very labor-intensive. Men and women needed each other, and the easiest way to acquire an adult worker of the opposite sex was to marry one.

So for example if you had a widowed woman with no grown children she could go to live with, she might want to marry again. Or if you had a widowed man who already had a few grown heirs, he might not feel the need to have any more kids and wouldn't mind marrying a woman past child-bearing age. (Though odds are one or more of his grown children would have been living with him anyway.)

Anyone "on their own" after the death of a spouse would have wanted to get themselves back into a stable and well-run household as soon as possible. There's a reason why charity to "widows and orphans" was such an important duty for Christians -- the widows and orphans desperately needed it.

And there's always companionship as a factor. (And desire for sex.) Plus both sexes might have wanted to get married again so people would quit gossiping about them and their "housekeeper" or "hired man" as their gender may be.

And as you said, there's always LOVE.

That's a good question. She was invited to a Nothelm dinner.

I Want Maire Dead before 1086 fund - Please kindly support

Its always so ugly when people turn mad. Good riddance to her anyway.

I Want Maire Dead before 1086 fund - Please kindly support

Ohhhhh I'm sure he's tempted. I kinda wish I had done a post-Aed-party chapter with Sigefrith. He HAS to have stars in his eyes when he thinks of a Gwynn + Young Aed alliance. And maybe a Cynan + Meggie alliance while he's at it. (Exactly the same thoughts Young Aed was having, for what's that worth. Talk about mutually beneficial.)

But given how Alred reacted when it was just Connie in question, Sigefrith must know better than to go to Alred with such ideas. He must just cross his fingers and hope for the best. I think even he must know he's too ham-fisted where romantic relationships are concerned for him to attempt any really sneaky matchmaking tricks.

Oy, godparents... I wish I had documented that a little better. In my old-old database I had some godparents noted. Gwynn's are Sigefrith and Colburga, Meggie's are Cenwulf and Gunnilda, Yware's are Cenwulf and Maud. Caedwulf's are Cenwulf and Colburga, Britamund's are Alred and Matilda, Emma's are Theobald and Githa. Harold's were Leofric and Edris. Oh, and of course Cubby's godfather is Gog.

How aware is Malcolm of the difference between his feelings for Iylaine and her feelings for him? Or is that just a blind spot of his?

What is Alred's opinion of Lady Eadgith as a woman? I'm just wondering because aside from her, Leofric and Alred seem to have similar taste in women (Matilda, Hetty, Sir Leila), and I'm just curious as to how similar.

Matilda, Leila, Hetty, Eadgith.... one of these things is not like the others.

Nowadays Alred's feelings for Lady Eadgith are doubtlessly bound up with his feelings for Leofric. He must have sympathy for her, as being another victim of Leof's infidelities, but at the same time he must find her inexplicably depraved for welcoming Leof back every time he beats her or has another affair. I don't think Alred is capable of understanding Eadgith. Alred is not very good at forgiveness.

For all that he's a flirt, Alred does have a distinct taste in women. They must be pretty and clever and educated, and if not that then at least pretty and clever. Eadgith is none of those things.

We do know that Eadgith was always more Colburga's friend than Matilda's friend back in the day, and she sort of dropped off of everyone's radar after Hastings, so I doubt Alred really knew her all that well before Lothere days. And his next sighting of her was of her getting a little too cozy with Sigefrith, which I doubt Alred appreciated at all. And then Leof took her back, and Alred probably stopped even pretending to understand.

So I don't think he admires her much as a type of woman, nor as the actual woman she is. But I am sure he is unfailingly gracious when he sees her, as he is with all women. He just wouldn't seek her out to chat with her the way he would an Irene or a Britamund or a Lasrua.

Leof's taste in women is a little more complicated -- Hetty and Matilda are rather different, after all -- but in any case I think there could only be one Eadgith for him. He didn't pick her, but he has her now, and he wouldn't give her up. His relationship with her is complex. But I doubt he would ever pick another like her for himself, so you can't even really say she is to his "taste".

I do not know, because Maud was crazy. Roll a die!

Non-crazy Maud + Crazy Caedwulf ? Would he have felt that sort of longing for his mother if he had simply grown up with her? Would they have had some sort of weird, stifling, sexually charged relationship as he grew up anyway? Would Caedwulf spend the rest of his life in therapy and/or on Jerry Springer? Would he kill his father?

Insufficient data. Unable to process your request. *head explodes*

According to the Wikipedia entry on Enna's big brother Murchad, Enna only ruled after Murchad and Murchad's son Domnall were dead. So he ruled starting from 1075. That's OK for me since he wasn't mentioned in the story (at least by name) until 1080.

Why not Murchad's younger son? Maybe because he was only 13 when Domnall died.

How did Murchad rule if his father died after him? I don't know, that's what Wiki says. I presume they had some co-regent thing going on. Either that, or the article on Mael na mBo explains it:

In time he was able to claim the title "King of Leinster" and install his son, Murchad, as King of Dublin. Thus ruler of two of the most powerful and wealthy towns on the island, he was able to make a bid for the High-Kingship. It was during a battle against the king of Mide, Conchobar Ua Maelsechalinn, that he was killed, near to Navan. County Meath, on 7 February 1072.

So maybe Murchad was only ever truly the King of Dublin, and Wikipedia has it wrong where he's called one of the Kings of Leinster.

Currently Enna is King of Leinster and Dublin. I don't know what his nephew Donnchad (now 23) is up to, but he isn't ruling in Dublin. Enna is keeping Dublin for his son Diarmait, now 15. Enna definitely has a lid on things in Leinster. And that's the setting for some interesting events in 1086.

Leof and Co. arrived in Paertantun on the 29th, just southwest of modern-day Manchester, so at this rate they still have a few more weeks of traveling to go before they even get to Winchester, much less come back. They are advancing quite slowly on account of Theobald, averaging only about 10 miles a day when they travel, and taking some days to rest.

I miss Leof too! But the one I'm really hankering for is Lar, and I can't think of anything I need to do with him. I shall simply have to content myself with lots of Magog.

1. I am not sure about Donnchad and Cathal. I am still learning about them every time I write a chapter with them. Donnchad was never supposed to be so compassionate -- he was even originally scheduled to take part in the lynching. Likewise I'm not sure Cathal was ever supposed to be so scary, but with his face in that particular paint job, he's just blood-curdling. And then of course there's the way he just stood there.

I know a little bit about Cathal's back story, and he's had a tragic life. I think he is profoundly sad, which is why Egelric was surprised to see him smile.

Donnchad is also well-known for being grim-faced -- read "Synne speaks of beards" for a hint of that. But he is something of a softie at heart, and I think he suffers a lot just from the cruelty of the life he and the people around him have to live.

But for Cathal it kind of seems like his sadness transforms him into something truly grim. I don't know, I'm sure we would have to get to know him better. At least his eldest daughter seems nice -- she hid Domnall in her room the night after he disowned his father.

Knowing Donnchad he probably feels very sorry for his brother and tries to help him, but Cathal just doesn't want to be touched. Actually Cathal sort of reminds me of Egelric in some ways.

2. I'm not sure what you mean by "Maud-like personality". I don't think they are all that similar, except insofar as Emma occasionally seems to take cruel pleasure in hurting Matilda-like people for no reason. Maud was very reserved and haughty (perhaps as a self-defense mechanism, but even with Magog she often was), and Emma's nothing like that. Emma's a real princess with a lower-case P... the sort of gum-snapping, eye-rolling, make-up-wearing preteen with capital-P "Princess" written in rhinestones on her skimpy T shirt. Sigefrith thinks she's the cutest thing going and she gets away with murder -- which Britamund never did. Just so long as it's not affecting the dynasty of course... he wouldn't be pleased if she had a fling and spoiled his betrothal plans. But otherwise Emma is always gallivanting around the castle and the kingdom and getting into everyone's business and no one dares do anything about it. (Though I can imagine Eadie running around after her, all flustered and "Oh, dear!"-ing.)

What does everyone think of THAT Emma? Well for one thing I think Emma has a Cubby-like ability to appear innocent when she wants to. I expect Caedwulf and Sigefrith don't know the half of her pranks. But even so they both seem very indulgent with her. She is definitely Sigefrith's pet and perhaps Caedwulf's too. Caedwulf has a much more mature relationship with Brit... I think everyone sees Emma as the butterfly and Brit as the clever but responsible sister.

I don't think Alred holds anything Maud did against Emma. He seems to be pretty OK with her actually. You know, Nothelm is a rather anything-goes place anyway. Giggling girls running barefoot down the corridors in the middle of the night probably don't faze anyone. Emmie really seems to like to hang out at Nothelm since the rules are more lax. Alred's big thing seems to be protecting Gwynn, so I think Margaret and her companion tend to pass under the radar a lot of the time. There is no way Alred has a clue that things have gone as far as they have between Margaret and Conrad, so I think he's just sort of oblivious overall.

Edris! Hard to say, we never see her anymore. But I can see Edris being totally overwhelmed by Emma. She knows Emma is all wrong for poor Baldwin. She probably tries to make Emmie be more ladylike (I have the sense that spending time at Baldwin's is counted among Emma's most BOR-ING activities *cue eye-roll*). But Edris is no Lady Eadgith so I can see her getting flustered and oh-deary too. Emma probably does a decent job of ruling in that castle already.