The 6th of June
Heavens, what beautiful pages those were! As I was drinking with Plumwood and Liffey and their pale-haired friend perhaps a week ago, I met a most interesting fellow by the name of Lethiah, a Southron scholar with a keen interest in fencing manuals and in the art itself! It is good to find more men in this town interested in swordsmanship and not merely the dull everyday rhythms of farming or baking or what have you! And one from the White City of Gondor—what a wonderful surprise! A skillful artist and surely a skillful swordsman—I did not get the chance to see his skills in action, but his illustrations were most pleasing to the eye and the plays depicted in his unfinished codex seem effective and not entirely dissimilar to our own. (They do say with men of all countries having but two arms and two legs, there are bound to be similarities in any style of fighting both Bree-landish and outlandish.) We agreed to spar and test our styles of swordsmanship against each other, but that will wait for a later hour for we unfortunately had to part before long. Stars, I am eager! I dearly hope to test his mettle (and see what skills I may learn from the South!) before he returns home, for it would be a shame to have him travel all this way and have not even a taste of the South’s swordsmanship!
That night too, I learned things have been smoothed over with Mae (or properly, Ms. Mae Elizabeth Calder). She is an ex-scholar apparently; how unexpected for such a drunken woman! Perhaps I have judged her too harshly (for she is surely not common at least with a former profession like that—I myself was never the fondest of letters, and I could never be a scholar like Lethiah or even a drunken one like Mae) but we will see how things progress. Luckily, she does not seem to want to destroy any more hats.
On a later occasion, I had the pleasure of meeting Plumwood’s sister, Ms. Piper Plumwood. She is a fair and more ladylike sort than most women of recent days (though seemingly fond of green gowns!—and from what I hear of the Plumwoods, the Peach is a terribly recent acquisition of theirs). But I digress! Her company has been refreshing given all the boorish sorts I have had to deal with lately. Speaking of, the same night I met her, I also met two who were soon to be in her employ as well, a terribly vagabondish woman with an axe and a man with a cruelly-abused sword! An heirloom, he called it? He seemed awfully gentlemanly for a common man, but by the heavens above, that sword! Were he a proper swordsman and I his master, I would tan his hide black and blue for that! And as a swordsman, I would roll in my grave if I saw one of my brood wielding a nicked-up piece (And he calls it an heirloom!) like that!
But back to Ms. Plumwood! I complained to Ms. Plumwood about the previous destructions of my hats, which interested her. Ms. Plumwood then took my hat, as women before have but luckily—and by the stars above, I was praying!—she did not destroy it. Nay, she was fond of it and even complimented me; what a fine thing to hear in recent days! She proved to be pleasant company and a woman the likes of which I am pleased to say does not seem wont to destroy any hats at all. But still, she played at asking to keep it just as Mae (or now that things are apparently smoothed over and we are more properly introduced, perhaps I shall properly call her Ms. Calder?) did—but I told her that was a man’s hat and far too big for her! I would not desire to have another hat even linger too long in the hands of another woman—and besides, I thought a smaller hat would suit her looks much better. Afterwards, she gave me the address of the Peaceful Peach, though I have not yet had the pleasure of visiting.
Liffey has been in a mournful mood lately, judging by the time I saw her and because of Fenley’s account, for apparently the cousin Fenley so desired to meet fell dead the very night we spoke of her! What a surprising turn of events! And what’s more, apparently Liffey was was spurned by a man soon afterwards—perhaps that blond fellow she was so keen on earlier. I pity the woman. But damn if I do not pity Plumwood more!
Heavens! Despite his sister running the Peach, he seems nearly a pauper with his business (though his designs seem quite beautiful)! He was hawking his furniture the other night, telling me how much finer my life would be with Plumwood furniture in my house. His work is lovely, of course, but I will be damned if I replace the heirlooms of my house and have the Hazelwoods look like nothing more than upstart merchants like the Sweetmeadows! Heavens, he was nearly begging me to buy for his lack of clients, and out of pity I was moved to lend him silver from my own purse, for it helps no one to have Plumwood—a master of his craft and a landlord’s brother—to go grovelling out in the street! I hope he is not disheartened. We jested about his conduct with Liffey, Ms. Plumwood and I, but it seems that the jesting wounded him for Plumwood was so terribly offended that he cast doubts on if he should be a man of honour himself! And by the stars you know I could not refuse to raise him up, though I do not know if he took to my words well. I pray he does not become a dishonourable sort of man, the sort of reprobate it would be unseemly for a man of my station to interact with. I am beginning to like him, though his fondness for woodworking still strikes me as strange.
In other news, I saw the barber-surgeon at the Prancing Pony again—it has been too long since I had need of her services, for good or for ill. What a strong and goodly woman who knows her station, if perhaps a little too at ease with rough men! Hers is always good company (though she be but a barber) for unlike the more sensitive women of the Prancing Pony, she is no delicate flower, and yet she does not prod me like the uncouth women of the North.
To close, a hobbit called Rosyn mentioned a hobbit-lady of the Rosethorns called Wisterhya whom I do not believe I have ever been properly introduced to—perhaps at some future ball? From what I hear, she seems an extremely fashionable sort (which seems to be rarer and rarer these days among the Bree-folk both Big and Little!) but I hope to meet her, if she is as good as her reputation. It was good to talk to a proper swordsman, but I would be keenly interested too in talking to someone as fond of fashion as I.
