[It would be entirely fair to wonder… why is she bothering to put that much detail into this story? They know they aren’t from the same world or time… it’s not like she could expect him to be familiar with her lands or customs or language. And yet…
Was this simply how the tale was told, or was she far more intimately familiar with a five hundred year old “legend” than one might guess?]
No, no, let’s not be hasty.
[She laughs just a little, as if this was a laughing matter.]
What awaited them in the rocks was not the welcome warmth of the temple they were fleeing towards, nor the cold embrace of freezing winds…
It was ruffians, bandits on the trail who had once been men of honor on the battlefield. Perhaps they even served with the widow’s late husband, once…
But honor was no longer a pillar in their hearts, and the paltry gold on her person was not enough to pay their self-imposed crossing tax… or convince them not to help themselves to what else she possessed instead.
She ran… But she did not get far.
[It’s obfuscated, because this sort of tale often dressed such things up… But Kiritsubo doesn’t think Charlie needs clarification on what happens to women set upon by “wolves” in the night.]
Which leaves us, of course, with her two little girls. Beauties, it is said… enough so that even brutes covered in their mother’s blood could be convinced not to lay hands so that they might be filled with more coin instead.
[The man she spoke to had made a point to tell her he did not usually peddle in flesh…
no subject
Was this simply how the tale was told, or was she far more intimately familiar with a five hundred year old “legend” than one might guess?]
No, no, let’s not be hasty.
[She laughs just a little, as if this was a laughing matter.]
What awaited them in the rocks was not the welcome warmth of the temple they were fleeing towards, nor the cold embrace of freezing winds…
It was ruffians, bandits on the trail who had once been men of honor on the battlefield. Perhaps they even served with the widow’s late husband, once…
But honor was no longer a pillar in their hearts, and the paltry gold on her person was not enough to pay their self-imposed crossing tax… or convince them not to help themselves to what else she possessed instead.
She ran… But she did not get far.
[It’s obfuscated, because this sort of tale often dressed such things up… But Kiritsubo doesn’t think Charlie needs clarification on what happens to women set upon by “wolves” in the night.]
Which leaves us, of course, with her two little girls. Beauties, it is said… enough so that even brutes covered in their mother’s blood could be convinced not to lay hands so that they might be filled with more coin instead.
[The man she spoke to had made a point to tell her he did not usually peddle in flesh…
But others were not so scrupulous.]