Story for the Day: Family Feuds

A lesson in pettiness, from one scandalmonger to another:

A sound in the hall drew everyone’s attention, one loud enough to make Alasdair forget about molds and mildews for a while: it was coming from the courtyard, the voices of three persons squabbling caroming through the servant’s quarters and into the oven room. At first, the argument was faint, catching the notice of anyone who happened to be passing by, but when the quarrel moved closer to the keep, the halloos of heated confrontation were in everyone’s ears. Alasdair took particular interest here: it was three nobles who were arguing, not an uncommon occurrence for the keep at this time of the year—the heat always made someone disagreeable-- but as most disagreements were usually kept within the confines of the court, the private family chambers, or the royal parlour, to uphold the standard of the nobility being perfectly civil to anyone but their servants, that the gentry should risk pulling aside the glamour in favour of scrutiny was something. A few shameful words were shouted across the courtyard, someone was telling another to lower their voice, which only made the person shouting shout louder, and before long, the party in the kitchen were gathered in the gallery, peering through the stained windows to watch the scene without.

                “Tell ‘em to yell a bit again,” said Sheamas, tiling his head and straining to hear. “Can’t tell whether the girl doesn’t want to be married, or she does wanna marry but wants more money.”  

                “Oh, it’s probably the usual nonsense,” said Alasdair, “women not wanting to marry a horrid old git, the family trying to reason her into it, family alliance and clan pride and so forth.”

                “You should make them fight it out front of the king,” was Boudicca’s suggestion. “A physical contest under the watchful eyes of the court can be an afternoon of wild entertainment.”

                “They might do that without my ordering it.” A hand in the distance was raised, and Alasdair cringed before someone else interfered and held the hand back. “Besides, if it does become a physical discussion, then I will have to get involved, and I’d really rather not talk to them unless one of them is dying or hasn’t paid their taxes—and even then, I would send Aldus to harass them.”

                “Then they should beg for death. Do one better and send Brigid after them. Tell her they have a book that is late being back, and she will appear at their window, to haunt them into submission.”

                Carrigh hemmed to hide a laugh.

                “You need not worry about a fight breaking out, Alasdair. Only the women of the farms will take a piggin when punching. Our hands are too precious to be used in bouts, so implements make for better connections when attacking and parrying.”

                Alasdair looked to Sheamas for confirmation, but Sheamas only shrugged and said, “Never needed a tellin’, ‘cause when I saw Aiden and Adaoire havin’ their tellin’, I knew I wouldn’t like bein’ told.”

                “Women upon the whole don’t wage wars on other women when we can have a perfectly good feud instead,” Boudicca continued.

                Alasdair seemed bemused. “I suppose a feud means something different for women?”

                “Wars are messy things that usually involve physical pain and apologies, the latter of which a noblewoman would rather die than do. I know because my mother would feud with me every day, hoping it would kill one of us. I won there. Feuds are battles fought by directing hate at one another until one of the combatants dies.”

                Carrigh coloured and turned away to hide a smile.

                “Reputations are never sullied by a feud, and a lord or lady would never have the whole thing over in one blow when it might be drawn out over a lifetime,” said Boudicca, with dignity. “There must be sides, there must be little lies spread about the combatants, there must be alliances between houses, there must be generations spurned by a parent scorned—it is a noble’s birthright to be in a feud. A war is between nations and men, but a feud is between families. There is an art to it, of course, as there is to any game worth keeping up so long. Women in feuds do not say they are in feuds. They simply threaten their enemies with health and happiness in public and have them slowly poisoned in private.”

                “That’s very true,” said Carrigh, with a blush. “I’m almost ashamed to say it, but when I was young, I had a feud with another girl in my class at church. She made some comment about my clothes one day and decided she disliked me. I don’t think I actively disliked her back, but I did stay away from her. I discovered later that her mother was a seamstress and my father had refused to hire her, not because she wasn’t skilled, but because we did not have the money to take someone else on.” She studied the embroidery along the front of her gown and smiled. “A feud two generations in the making. I never spoke to her after that, but we would exchange looks from time to time.”

                “I hope Brighel will never have to deal with this,” said Alasdair thoughtfully. “And it’s normal that women would rather hate one another forever rather than talk over their disagreements?”

                “Ay, Majesteh,” said Aghatha, who was passing in the gallery and had stopped to speak to Carrigh for a moment. “Ay still have a grudge against Brigid MaCleareh, her what werks oveh at the Reagan estate. Been twenteh years now that she tryed teh pinch mah Ebhilin from meh. ‘Tis long passed now, but Ay still hope she dyes.”  

                They stood and listened for nearly ten minutes, the debate without clamouring on by varying degrees, at times simmering to a calm and at others roiling over into a violent rage. The combatants eventually realized they had an audience and moved farther off, away from the gallery and out of hearing, and Alasdair tutted in disappointment.

                “I was beginning to enjoy this,” he admitted. “Now we will never find out the end of it.”

                “Not necessarily,” said Boudicca.

                The party turned to her with expectant looks.

                “If you want information on the many feuds going on in the royal houses,” said Boudicca sagaciously, “all you need do is go to the fountainhead.”

                “Me?” asked Alasdair.

                “Someone better informed on the ins and outs of royal squabbles than you.”

                A moment later, they were standing in the tailory, mantling over Pastaddams, who was lounging in his chair, with his tea in hand and herald in his lap.

                “As I understand the business,” he began, adjusting his spectacles, “the young people in the question did not want to marry. Instead, they wanted to be sensible, but regal partridges will manage their cheepers and get a good match where they can, to the ruin of their children’s happiness and the entertainment of everyone else. Marrying off progeny is a sport to the gentry—present members of the gentry excluded-- and the parentals are always more focused on winning by the marriage than they are upon losing a son or a daughter. In this instance, the young lady is far too languid and dumpish for him, and he is far too old and boorish for her.” He glinked at Gaumhin, who was taking down a few spools in the storeroom. “I mean to say nothing of our age difference, my pet. I meant no offense.”

                “Oh, none ta’en, ‘cause Ah’m the youngin between us,” said Gaumhin, with a broad smile.

                “Hm.” Pastaddams sighed over his tea, licked his finger, and turned the page in his copy of the herald. “The young lady is a darling, say my sources—oh, Lady Wimpole is getting married again. Hopefully she won’t wear the same gown she wore to the last two ceremonies. It is really such a tiresome frock—but the lady is much too learned and forward thinking for a dismal dullard from Varralla. The UiBriens are the best family there, and there is no one for her to marry from Captain Brigdan’s line, so she must do with dizzards of higher rank and lower standard. She is much too good for him, and he knows it himself. The lord is all stuffiness and rust at his age—oh by the Gods, Lord Limmering as died. There goes a fortune to nobody-- I doubt that they will ever produce an heir, if they do marry at all. I hope not for her sake. She will be thrown away on him. He is not a relic, but there is a good thirty years between them, and a lady of twenty five ought to be out in the world doing things with her young life, but parents often stand in the way of their children’s happiness.” 

                  “The Oracle of Scandal has passed her torch onto a most deserving novitiate,” said Boudicca, with mock gallantry. “You see, Alasdair? I told you he would know.”

                “I would,” Pastaddams sighed. “I know everything regarding petty family feuds in the royal houses, not because I want to—well, I do want to, because I love theatrics that have nothing to do with me-- but because these things simply land in my way.”

                “How do these fights land in your way?”

                “Feuds, sire,” Pastaddams kindly corrected him.

                “Yes—families and poison and wishes of death, of course.”

                “I only know about Marridon houses because I read the rag,” said Pastaddams, holding up his copy of the herald, “and I know about what is going on in the royal parlour because I listen—not at doors like a creeping gadabout, but in the halls and the courtyard and anywhere else the regal residents choose to have a public display. They don’t notice me because I am beneath them. A tailor, though a royal one, is window dressing to the tables and chairs. Whenever I am out for my midday walk in the courtyard, there is always a little tiff or two going round the font. Teacups are excellent ornaments for trinkling. They are the opera spectacles of scandalmongering, and if someone does chance to notice me I attach myself to Gaumhin as he is marching along and pretend not to hear.”

                “Really, master tailor,” said Searle reproachfully, coming in to give Pastaddams the morning consignment of cloth from town. “It is far from becoming for king’s servants to be listening at corners.”  

                Pastaddams powers at return were at hand immediately. “Rich coming from you, Sir Connanoaigh,” he rejoined, eyeing him over his spectacles. “You lecture me as though you haven’t hurpled in under the eves and arches, waiting for a certain conversation has finished.”

                A look of meaning was exchanged, and Searle relented a little.

                “Well,” said Seale, with some embarrassment, “I will not say never, but all my active powers of listening and repeating what I have heard are muted-- out of courtesy for the speaker, of course.”

                “You talk of courtesy when it suits you, sir, but I know what is said in your apartments over the breakfast table, and the conversation is no different from what passes between my doors. I own there is nothing decorous in spreading gossip, but idle tongues will wag when they have nothing useful to say, and collecting and storing scandal does have its uses.”

                “And those are, sir?”

                “When the king asks me what three nobles in the courtyard are arguing about.”