Faith Long (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
charitylovehopefaith) wrote2013-11-27 08:43 am
charitylovehopefaith) wrote2013-11-27 08:43 am
The Ninth - [written]
November 27th,
I apologise for my recent absence. I remember very little of it, but I know with certainty I have been a "guest" of the Malnosso. Thankfully, I can detect no physical or mental imperatives. No harm done, it seems.
As Christmas is coming, I had had hoped to ask: What is typically done here for it? Is it celebrated? Do you have services for Advent, the Eve, the Day, and Epiphany? Are there feasts? Dances? Or is it a very quiet affair?
I confess, I will be disappointed if the latter most is true, but I suppose one cannot expect the culture one has grown up with in a place like this.
Faith Long
I apologise for my recent absence. I remember very little of it, but I know with certainty I have been a "guest" of the Malnosso. Thankfully, I can detect no physical or mental imperatives. No harm done, it seems.
As Christmas is coming, I had had hoped to ask: What is typically done here for it? Is it celebrated? Do you have services for Advent, the Eve, the Day, and Epiphany? Are there feasts? Dances? Or is it a very quiet affair?
I confess, I will be disappointed if the latter most is true, but I suppose one cannot expect the culture one has grown up with in a place like this.
Faith Long
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"Secure." He breathed the word. "Men like me may never be secure in our rank; our fortunes -- our futures -- depend upon being useful. No king gives a common soldier a commission unless he's useful. And no common soldier keeps his commission unless he's productive. Waste your chance, and you end up commanding nothing but the baggage train. Command a baggage train and you'll end up in ruin."
But that was all the short term, wasn't it? So his demeanour softened: "Some nights, I think I want a farm. Not a big one. But big enough to keep me busy when the fighting is over."
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But most yellow admirals were not so.
"A farm." She'd spoken before of her desire for a house in the country, away from the city she knew so well. She envied her sister-in-law to have Crawford Manor all to herself save her staff. "With someone trustworthy to watch it for you and a few labourers while you were at war, that might provide some security. An income, at least, separate from the whims of commission."
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Sharpe's dream-farm had no labourers beside himself. Perhaps that was naive? He did not know. But the notion of employing someone was foreign to him. He was no employer.
"Though I can't see it doing much, income-wise. But I suppose it's better than spending your whole bloody pay on mess bills."
Officers had to pay for the mess, even if they did not use it. And most officers saw it as a negligible expense because they had their own incomes coming from somewhere else. But for a man whose commission had to pay for it all -- sword, bills, all of it? He'd often been left with very little but his silver buttons to show for it.
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It wouldn't require many labourers, especially in the case of them being only a measure while the landowner himself was away at war. She could respect wanting to work the land himself, certainly, but her own sense of practicality -- fuelled by his mention of wanting security -- led her mind to a more calculated idea.
"Would you intend to only have crops? Or livestock as well?"
Not that it really matters, but she's curious, eager to hear more about this dream-farm.
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The youngest Everdeen at the house? She keeps a goat. It gives milk what's good enough. And cheese, if you're patient. She's a hardy little beast. A few of them might suit me."
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Growing up in London, he had little of that.
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He would not say the word. He would not say wife.
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