Tuesday, April 19, 2016

The Diary of Reynhild Andersdottir

[written in Rjurikan in a very elegant hand]

I CAN'T BELIEVE Father sold me like a whore for two hundred silvers to be married off to some dogshit-caked mongrel-breeder from the armpit of Taeghas. He married big sister Freydis off to a proper Rjurikan lord from Leivika, and she isn't nearly as pretty as me! And now she's like a queen and has already given him three sons while the nursemaids care for them and she just struts about in her silks and jewels all day. But no, he says, "Reynhild, you're to help us foster stronger ties with the Anuireans." Stronger ties, indeed! Laying on some flea-infested pile of straw while some inbred yokel ineptly plows me day and night! I should have thrown myself in the icy waters of the Sidhebyrn before it was too late!

I'm headed off to this dreadful pit of a barony now; it's barely an ale-stain on the map, right next to the lands of that awful monster, Rhuobhe. What manner of madman would live there by choice?! I was excited at first when I heard Father had picked an Anuirean lord. I've always felt like I belonged someplace other than Rjurik, and the Anuirean merchants always have such pretty things. But if anything, this barony sounds worse than the most godsforsaken backwaters of Rjurik. If I'm to be sold to an Anuirean, the least Father could have done would be to pick a nice civilized place where I can get velvets and that nice Anuirean embroidery and rubies. The Taeghans probably wear stained rags, and the Wilders (I'm told that's what they call themselves) dogshit-stained rags. Wilders. Even their name sounds loathsome.

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