A Bit Late *Open*

[Thomas Scarlett]

Although Thomas had never really been one to travel away for long periods of time, he was rather enjoying his time in Nottingham. Such, he was prepared to stay there for a lot longer, and he was sure that he would not be missed at Roe's household. If anything, he was just relieving the man of having to keep providing him with another bed for the night and free food. It was a very nice gesture of his new found friends, and he wasn't the type to feel guilty about taking full advantage of that. However, Tom enjoyed traveling far too much to just decided to stay in one place for a long period of time. After all, he had been traveling for many years, and was obviously not in the right frame of mind to decide to just stay in one place.

Nottingham was a very interesting place to want to live in though. The streets were busy with various people inhabiting them, form all walks of live and so he was pleased to be experiencing all of the different cultures that were there. It mad everything seem much more colorful and lively whereas most towns were just dull and boring. This was definitely the city for him, and he would like to remain there for a some time to come yet. Perhaps not for for more than a fortnight, but at least for a week.

One thing he did not expect to want to visit however was the chapel. The church and Tom did not mix, and they probably would never do. Good Christian men didn't gamble and drink as much as he did, so that automatically put him in their bad graces. Another quite large factor of him not working very well there was the fact that he didn't think God actually existed. Still, he was up to just paying it a visit. It was just a dull afternoon after all, for Nottingham's people seemed to be somewhere else today, and as a result had nothing better to do. As Tom walked up the path, he was starting to get a bit of a bad feeling about it.

[Orla Lahey]

Orla sat slumped in the middle of one of the back pews, twiddling her hair as her eyes blinked sleepily. As usual the church was cold and drafty and if it wasn't for the shade from the spring wind it might have been just as cold as out side. Luckily Orla had managed to save a small amount of money to buy wool, of poor quality and knit a warm but shabby looking shawl. This shawl had kept her warm enough over the last few months that she had been able to avoid catching a cold. Unfortunately not everyone had been as lucky are she had been. A few pews away on the left hand side and elderly man sat sniffling loudly. A loud sneeze broke Orla out of her daze and she raised her head for a moment before dropping it again slipping easily back in to her daze.
get
This was one of the few days that Orla had a day to her self. Rather than spend the day at home where she would get more hassle than she would have at work, she had wandered in to Nottingham where she found her self sitting in the towns chapel. She had been attracted to the place expecting to find it nice and peaceful but was bitterly disappointed when she was greeted by a loud and long sniff from a local towns man. She sat down anyway deciding that while she was here she should probable pray for her brother who at that moment had found him self sat in the castle dungeons. Orla sniffed, not as a result of a cold but in the place of a sigh. She had spent to much of her time over the last while sighing and had decided that sighing wasn't helping her at all. The sigh was soon replace with a sniff which made her appear as if her warm shawl hadn't worked at all.

After a good half an hour sitting in the church thinking deeply Orla gave in and he rmind wondered off in to a dull daydream. With out her brother around life had become slow and eventless leaving Orla with only her active imagination to entertain herself. Sitting, still fiddling with a strand of her dark hair Orla had been replaying a story she had heard in passing. The story had involved some unnamed men one large dairy cow and the death of a friend.She wasn't sure if it was true or not but had decided to just assume it was true to make the story more entertaining.

[Thomas Scarlett]

Tom, finally deciding to just go ahead and walk into the church, pushed open the heavy and dark wooden door which looked as old and worn as the church did. He guessed that was part of the appeal, however, for a new and fresh looking church would just not look right at all. There were things that were meant to look fresh, such as clothes for instance, but buildings looked better if they were classic looking. It gave a sense of history and beauty to them. Of course, new buildings could also be architecturally magnificent, but they always seemed to lack something if they had just been built yesterday. He smirked at this bizarre line of thought he was having. The matter of buildings had never concerned him in the past, so he was not too sure why they did now. It must have been an effect of seeing many buildings on his travels, he figured.

Inside the church, it was effectively silent apart from a poor looking man sniffing and sneezing near the front. He didn’t understand why people went out why they were ill, all that happened was that it spread. It was rather selfish in his opinion, not that he could speak about selfishness though. At least he wasn’t ill however, for then his line of work became so much difficult. No one wanted to gamble with a man who was sneezing and coughing. It was then that he noticed a very familiar face sitting at the back of the church, in a rather shabby choice of outfits but he was still pleased with her appearance never the less. It was quite worrying for him really, that he was attracted to such a person who would otherwise have such an awful appearance if it was not for the fact she was quite pretty. He strolled over to where she was sitting, making sure that he did not make too much noise, and sat down close next to her. An added advantage of where she was sitting was the fact that it was near to the back. Sitting at the front had always worried him, even as a grown man. Tom didn’t like the idea of being so close to God, for then he may be able to see his faults more clearly.

‘’Hello, I do hope that you remember me from our previous meeting’’ Tom said, smiling at her. He had actually quite wanted to meet her again, for obvious reasons. He had enjoyed their previous time together, and so wanted to have a similar experience again. Of course, he could not guarantee that she shared similar feelings. ‘’How have you been lately anyway? It’s a rather cold winter, I have noticed so I hope very much that you have been well.’’

(OOC: Sorry about taking a while to reply)

[Orla Lahey]

Orla’s eyes where unfocused as she lifted her head to look at the stranger who had appeared suddenly beside her. She had been so deep in the fresh plot to free her brother that she hadn’t noticed him enter. These plots and schemes to try and free her brother never went feather than the castle gates where Orla would mentally loose her nerve and abandon the thought. She had once come close to putting one of her feeble plans in to action but bottled out when she saw the size of the 2 guards. They stood towering over anyone who passed there chain mail glinting brightly in the sunlight. She had immediately turned and headed back to the stables where she sat for a long time scolding her self for her stupidity.

The thought of the stables seemed to connect with the strangers face. It didn’t take her long before she remembered who he was and she smiled apologetically after all this was a church she should probably be polite. “Hello Thomas… It was Thomas wasn’t it”. She squinted her eyes slightly as she rummaged around in her brain for a name,” Thomas Scarlett”. To tell the truth she hadn’t really forgotten there meeting. In her line of work it was hard to find some one to talk to as the only people who ever entered the stables where disgruntled guards who barley even noticed her presence. It had been a while since there last meeting and Orla had suspected Thomas being a traveller had moved on.

“Oh iv been quite well, which can’t be said for half of Nottingham” she said lowering her voice as the elderly man let out yet another long loud sniff. That winter had been unfairly cold and word had spread round of a lot of older folk and small children dieing. It had worried her, coming from a house with many young children and a limited number of blankets that her younger siblings could be next. They weren’t which was lucky as Orla could imagine that a death in the family would some how be her fault, one of her more melodramatic thoughts.

“How about your self, I would have expected you to have left Nottingham by now? Or are our Taverns just too good to give up”. She was being sarcastic Nottingham must have the worst Taverns and inns in the whole of England. There where so many pickpockets and drunken bar brawls that you just came to expect that you would leave with little money and a broken nose.

[Thomas Scarlett]

‘’Yes, that is me. I would have thought that you would have at least remembered my name in a more definite manner however. I’m a bit insulted’’ Tom replied, a playful grin on his face. He wasn’t really too bothered and she remembered it in the end so it was all good. Sometimes it was better to be forgotten in his line of work anyway, even if this didn’t count for that. The amount of times, though, that he had wished to be forgotten was ridiculous, as people were usually livid when they had been beaten at gambling by him. He didn’t cheat of course, but that didn’t seem to matter to men who needed the money that they’d just lost to feed their family.

Most people, men or women, would be guilty in the knowledge that they’d just effectively taken someone’s else’s livelihood which may have meant that there would be starving children and wives. However, he didn’t feel any of that. For a start off, he needed to eat as well and this was his chosen profession. Of course, he could have become a farmer or a carpenter but those never did really appeal to him. It seemed too sweaty and too hard work, Gambling was a languid profession. You could get up whenever you wanted, for it was so much easier to gamble at night when people had had too much to drink, and didn’t even have to stand up very often. The only walking he really did was going to fetch a few more drinks, which perhaps he was a little too fond of. Another reason why he was guilt less was because any selfishness that he had was only beaten by the person who gambled away all of their money anyway. They should have been more responsible with it in the first place, as opposed to getting rid of it in such a stupid manner. If the money was needed for food, then that is what they should have spent it on.

‘’Yes, I’ve noticed that a lot of people are very ill. I just hope that I don’t get it. It’d make my gambling a lot harder you see’’ he replied, smiling pleasantly to try and make her see that he was trying to be nice. However, he had been relatively worried about this illness and what effect it would have on Will and Luke. He didn’t want them to get ill, and perhaps die. Will was a strong lad, and so he had little worry about him, but Luke appeared to be fragile sometimes and he hardly looked the muscular type. He hadn’t actually talked to Luke in too long, and decided he should probably make an effort to do that. It seemed a little unfair when his brother was an outlaw saving Nottingham, and the rest of his family dead, and as a result he was completely on his own.

The taverns at Nottingham were rather awful, he did have to admit. They were rough, dirty and the beer was of very low quality indeed. However, he loved the fact that most men were easy to outwit in the ways of gambling and they always seemed to want to waste their wages. It was a quick and easy way to make a living. ‘’I haven’t left Nottingham for various reasons. I like the city itself being as it is so busy and I come from quite a quiet place. Also, the men here are idiots and so it is easy to get their money. I think that I should probably leave soon however. I feel I may have to check up on my two nephews in a while.’’