The White Queen

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Will sat eagerly on the edge of his chair; a mug of coffee in his hand, and waited impatiently while his geriatric teacher took his time settling himself in his favourite chair by the fire with a cup of hot coffee.

'So?' He asked after a few minutes of silence.

Halt glanced over at him, raising one eyebrow inquiringly.

'Who is Alice Whoodinn?' Will asked in earnest.

'It's "Alice Goodwin", Will.' Halt said gruffly, glaring at his former Apprentice.

'Right. That's what I said.' Will nodded impatiently. 'So, who is she?'

'She was a popular lady with nearly everyone in Areluwyn.' Halt said, laying stress to the past tense. 'Nobody's seen nor heard from her for some years now.'

'What happened to her?' Will asked.

Halt stared at his apprentice.

'Didn't I just tell you that she hasn't been seen or heard from? What, are you deaf, boy? Nobody knows what happened to her because she's not been around to tell anyone.'

'Sorry...' Will mumbled. 'Well, who was she then?'

'I'll tell the story from the beginning.' Halt said, leaning back in his chair and stretching his legs out before him, crossing them at the ankle.

'It goes without saying that the White Queen of Areluwyn is no longer. Years ago, when I first came here to Areluwyn, there were places that don't exist now. I first met Mistress Goodwin in a lovely little Inn and Tavern down along the Coast while I was traveling abroad.'

'"Mistress"?' Will interrupted, his mouth falling open. 'She was a harlot?!'

'Will,' Halt sighed heavily. 'The term "Mistress" is not only used for harlots. It's generic. A woman who watches over children is a "Mistress". The woman of a household is referred to as "Mistress".'

'Oh...' Will nodded. '...Halt?'

'Will?' Halt asked slowly, drawing out the name deliberately, and the younger Ranger had the sudden urge to hear more of the story.

'...Would you continue the story?' Will asked hesitantly.

Halt nodded, taking a drink from his mug.


'I first met Mistress Goodwin in a lovely little Inn and Tavern down along the Coast while I was traveling abroad. It was a quaint little village, the people were pleasant enough and didn't give a stranger the evil eye just for walking past.

'It was winter, if I remember correctly; rather late into the season and the light was fading. I thought to rent a room for the night and so I stopped at the first place I saw: a small little place with an worn-out sign. "The Pig's Pen", I believe was the name of it. A small place perfect for short-on-coin travelers who wished to bed down for the night. In two words, the description for "The Pig's Pen" is: Pig Sty.
I had never seen a filthier place passing for an Inn; the floors and surfaces of every item of furniture in the place were an questionable shade and - I thought - a couple inches thicker than what they should have been. The air was reminiscent of a sewer and only a few degrees thinner, so I did what any decent traveler would do in such a place. I went to the counter and asked the man what rooms he had available.'


Will stared in open disgust at his former mentor.

'You did what?!' He exclaimed. 'You got a room in that?!'

'You have to recognize and enjoy the finer points in life, Will.' The older Ranger said with a shrug, taking another drink from his coffee.

'How is a pig sty a finer point in life?' Will asked 'That's disgusting!'

'If you let me go on with the story, then perhaps you'll find out.' Halt told him, his tone suggesting Will would live much longer in life if he learned to keep his mouth shut.

Will wisely snapped his jaw shrug. Halt nodded and went on.


'The short, round, balding man behind the counter politely informed me that he had no rooms available and then proceeded to ask me with a near-toothless and black smile, whether I would like a place in the barn with the horses and other unlucky individuals whom, like myself, had arrived too late for a proper room. I politely turned him down and proceeded to ask him if any other Inn's were available in town.

"The Portly Anchor" may have a room or two to spare, sir." The gentleman in question told me. "Near the docks. It'll be the next cheapest places besides my humble establishment."

I thanked the pig-resembling man and made my way back out of the gutter disguised as a lodge. Despite its wretched and septic state, the Pen was considerably warmer than the blizzard outside and I was almost tempted to take up the offer for the barn. Almost.

Turning up the street, I left "The Pig's Pen" behind and struck out for the harbor. I probably would have made it too, if that damned horse hadn't of gotten tired of the cold and refused to go any further. So I found myself in the barn of a rather high-class Inn. The "White Queen".
The "White Queen" - as I soon found out - was far better suited to my tastes than the sty of "The Pig's Pen". It was spacious, clean, and the women were...well,' Halt made a shrugging motion with his shoulders and cleared his throat. 'Complimentary.'

Will gave his mentor a suspicious look, but Halt only took another drink of coffee and continued.

'The food wasn't the best I've ever tasted, but it was better than most places and offered a surprising amount of exotic dishes that were more to my liking's than your typical Areluwyn foods. They had some decent bards in there too; not your everyday wandering whelp who thinks he can make it on the warble he calls a "song".' Halt gave Will a look then, and the younger Ranger coughed awkwardly.

'After some good food and a few songs, I checked and made sure that stars-be-damned horse of mine had been stabled properly, then got a room for the night. Second floor came with a complimentary breakfast, two free hot baths, and, of course, a woman, if one was so inclined.'


'Were you?' Will asked.

'Was I what?' Halt asked, blinking once.

'Were you...inclined?' Will asked, trying not to say what he was implying, but get an answer all the same.

Halt raised one eyebrow.

'It's just a question...' Will mumbled, flushing and pretending to find his coffee more interesting than the story.

'Finish the question.' Halt told him, staring unblinkingly at the younger Ranger.

'Were...were you...inclined to...to...' Will felt his cheeks redden further. '...to take...a...woman?'

'Try that again.' Halt said, neither his face nor his tone giving hint to any humour. 'Without the stammering.'

Will flushed even harder and he struggled to keep it from his face.

'Were you inclined to take a woman, Halt?' He asked slowly, careful to not repeat any words or leave too much space between them to warrant a stammer.

'Presumptuous, aren't you?' Asked Halt, raising both eyebrows at his former apprentice. Will flushed again, coughing.

'It wasn't until later that week, the storm having-'

'Hey, wait a minute!' Will interrupted. 'You didn't answer the question!'

'Will, if you continue to disrupt the story, I'll finish my coffee and go to bed without telling the rest of the tale.' Halt said in a warning tone.

Will silenced himself and, after a moment, Halt resumed his story.


'It wasn't until later that week, the storm having worsened and preventing any travel save door to door, that I met Alice. I would say it was my fourth day, in the "White Queen" when I first noticed her. If I remember rightly...she was wearing a...green...dress. Mmm...Maybe it was a pale blue.' Halt paused, thinking, then he shrugged. 'Beautiful woman; tall, a little on the plump side, but not too bad. Could still see her curves. She had her hair up with sparkling pins to match her dress. Ah, it was green after all. They were green pins. Brown hair and green pins.'

'Hold on...' Will interrupted, shaking his head. 'Are you describing this Alice woman, or the Lady Pauline?'

Halt stared at Will until the younger Ranger got the feeling that he would be better off a long ways away. He swallowed thickly, wishing his chair worked like his cloak so he could sink further into it and out of sight.

'The Lady Pauline,' Halt said with a growl and a threat of murder in his tone. 'Is not plump. Nor is she a woman of questionable regard. She is a highly respectable woman, and you would do well to remember that when next you speak of her.'

Will nodded meekly. '...Sorry.' He mumbled. 'It just sounded a bit like her, is all...'

Halt sighed loudly, took a long drink from his coffee and cleared his throat.

'They were green pins, and she had brown hair.' He gave Will a dark look then. 'For your information, the lady Pauline had a lighter shade of brown hair than Alice. She also happens to be taller.'

The younger Ranger shrunk back into his chair. Halt settled himself again and resumed his telling of the tale.


'Beautiful woman. The storm drove her in; she was on her way to the harbor, she said, but with all the rain and snow, no ships were sailing until after the storm was over. She didn't have any money to pay for a room, but with the promise of work, she was given a bed upstairs and two free meals a day. She cleaned for the first few days, but she was pretty enough that she was requested to deliver meals, so they put her on the floor rather than behind the counter. She was popular in a matter of hours. I caught her on a rather quiet afternoon; she was sitting at one of the tables looking rather forlornly into her tankard.

"Either your night was very disappointing, or you're looking to drown yourself." I said to her, seating myself down opposite her. "Which is it?"

She gave me a rather wan smile. "A bit of both." She answered, then looked me over. "Either you are bored out of your mind, or you are looking for a companion. Which is it?"

I shrugged at her. "A bit of both."

She laughed then, and I remember it rather like listening to a bird sing. Bright and cheerful, and a little shrill. Not at all like the tinkling music that is-' Halt stopped short, clearing his throat. Will had the suspicion that his teacher had been about to pass a name, but seeing the dark look on Halt's face, he kept his mouth firmly shut. The story went on after a moment.

'"What will you have?" Alice asked me.

'Roast potatoe and some of that spiced turkey from the other night if there's any left to be had." I answered her. "And a bottle of your best Galic brew to accompany it."

It wasn't too long before we were sitting over a plate and talking the minutes away. As I recall, we spent much of that day and the next just talking.'


'What did you talk about?' Will asked, curious.

Halt waved a hand in dismissal. 'I'll spare you the finer details and just the story moving along. I really don't remember every word.'

Will frowned. Halt seemed to have a proclivity for forgetting things he didn't want to reveal, and Will wasn't entirely sure it was due to old age. Not that Halt was that old...the boy thought hastily, on the off-chance that his teacher could hear his thoughts like sometimes it seemed he did.


'Over the course of the next few days, I learned from Alice that she was travelling to Hibernia ahead of a royal entourage. It seemed that one of the Kings there had made some sort of treaty with one of the realms in Celtica, and the promised price was the joining of some Princess and the King. I don't really remember all that she said was going on, but the entourage was laid behind schedule by the snow-storm, and so Alice was going ahead to inform the King that they were on their way.

As there were no ships leaving the harbor, however, she couldn't very well go far, so she found her way to "The White Queen". Apparently, she hadn't found "The Portly Anchor" a very suitable place. Not such a bad thing after all, I thought at the time. I remember asking her if she had ever been to Hibernia before, and if she did this sort of thing often.

"Not as often as you think." She replied with a smile. "I've never been to Hibernia; I've heard it's cold there." She looked over at me. "What about you?"

"Just travelling through." I told her. "I'd heard there was rooming closer to the Port, but my horse wouldn't go that far."

"There's a blacksmith looking for a hand in the next town over." She told me then. "Of course, one can always find work as a farm-hand. From what I've witnessed, you'd have no problems finding work during the sowing-season." She added slyly.


'What did she mean by that?' Will asked, frowning. He couldn't imagine Halt as a farmer.

Halt sighed wearily. 'If you'd thought about it, you wouldn't ask.' He said, making his former Apprentice scowl before continuing on the tale.


'By this time, the storm was letting up and there were some afternoons that were fairly pleasant out. On these days, we went out for a stroll out around the country-side and enjoyed picnics down along the rocks over-looking the harbor. They were good times, and I can't say I don't miss them.
Alice was the perfect woman for a relationship with any Ranger; she was in no hurry to tie things down, she could handle herself, and she wasn't overly-romantic. Oh, now and again she talked of cottages in the country with little gardens and rooms filled with children, but she never pushed for it. I probably would have married her, if I had a mind for it then. But I never did have a mind for it, and so, eventually, when the harbors opened up and she set off for Hibernia, I packed my things and set out with directions for Castle Areluwyn.'


'Hang on.' Will interrupted again, frowning. 'I thought you said at the beginning that she disappeared and nobody knew where she went.'

'She did.' Halt nodded. 'And nobody does. You see, when the ship reached the port at Hibernia, Alice wasn't on it. I wasn't to find out for a few years, after I had become a Ranger and I was escorting a few banished souls to the harbor, that she had slipped over-board right after it had sailed, and swam back to shore. She became a permanent addition to the "White Queen", and I frequently made trips out to see her. As far as I know, she never did meet a finer man than myself, and now and again she made the trip out to this very cottage just to visit me. In fact, she usually spent the first nights here in the room you had during your apprenticing.' Halt gestured to the curtained room, and Will turned in his chair to look. He would have never guessed a woman had slept in his bed. But now that he thought about it, he wasn't sure he entirely liked the idea. It took a few moments for the rest of Halt's words to reach him, and he turned back, eyes narrowed in suspicion.

'The..."first nights"...?' He asked. 'How many nights did she usually spend here?'

Halt shrugged. 'It would depend on how long a leave she was given. She was, after all, quite popular at the "White Queen". Sometimes it was only a couple of days, sometimes it would be a week.'

'If she spend the "first nights" here...' Will said slowly, watching Halt closely. 'Where did she spend the rest of the nights?'

Halt only shrugged and took a long drink of coffee. Will thought he looked a little smug, but as it was Halt, he could never be certain what was written on the man's face.

'It was a long time ago, Will.' Halt said, as though it explained everything. 'It's not like I would remember everything, anyway.'

'You remember what colour her dress was.' Will pointed out, certain Halt was avoiding having to answer the question.

'Only because of the pin.' Halt said, holding up a finger. 'She had a pin in her hair the same colour as her dress, and since the pin was green, her dress was green.'

'You remembered the pin!' Will exclaimed desperately.

'It was sparkling.' Halt said with a small shrug. 'It was an expensive piece of jewelry, and you don't see that sort of stuff too often. Of course I'd remember the pin. No doubt you could tell me what colour the pin in Jenny's hair was two Fall Festival's ago?'

Will scowled. He hated it when Halt was right all the time.

'It was white, wasn't it?' Halt prompted.

'No, it was purple.' Will corrected, grinding his teeth together.

'Right.' Halt nodded. 'Jenny's pin was purple. Alice's pin was green. Now,' He cleared his throat, indicating he was about to continue. Will sullenly sat back in his chair.

'Alice and I saw a great deal of each other over the next oh...year? Year and a half.' Halt went on. 'And the, one day, she simply stopped coming. I made a trip out to the "White Queen", but she wasn't there either.

"I'm afraid I haven't the faintest where she might be, sir." The large, rosy-cheeked man at the counter said when I inquired about her whereabouts. "Disappeared from her rooms one evening, sh did. Nobody saw her leave, ain't nobody saw her since. A real shame this. She was my best serving girl. Everybody loved that one."


'So there you have it.' Halt finished. 'The perfect Ranger-wife, vanished without a trace. No Ranger has found her either. There are simply no clues to follow.'

'And she's never turned up again?' Will asked, frowning.

'Never. To my knowledge.' Halt shook his head.

'Have you looked?' Will asked.

'Oh, plenty of times.' Halt nodded. 'Never found her though. I've passed the file around too, but nobody's turned anything up on her. She simply disappeared. Likely, though, she slipped aboard a boar going somewhere. That's the best way to disappear without leaving traces. Unless you're a Ranger.' He added as an after-thought, and Will nodded, agreeing with the statement.

'Well!' Halt said after a few minutes of silence, and he stood up. 'My coffee is gone, I think I'll turn in for the night. You're welcome to stay the night, if you've nowhere better to go.'


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'-and nobody saw her again.' Will finished, relaying the story Halt had told him, to the others.

Jenny, Horace, Alice herself, Gilan, and the unusual company of Crowley and Lady Pauline (the two had merely been meeting nearby when Will and the others had met up, and had joined the table during the story), listened, most in complete awe. Cassandra too would have joined their small get-together, but being a Princess, she was rather busy.

'Wait a minute...' Gilan frowned 'This doesn't sound right. The story sounds a bit...off.'

Will shrugged. 'There are definitely points in there that I'm certain he deliberately clammed up on.'

'That poor girl!' Jenny exclaimed. 'Anything could have happened to her! She could have kidnapped! Or even been visiting a local town and been carried off by Sea-Raiders to be made a slave for the rest of her life!'

'That's a good theory.' Gilan nodded approvingly, and Jenny blushed with the praise. 'You'll have to take that one up with Halt, Will. He might appreciate it.'

'This woman sounds like she left on her own terms.' Alice said, and she brushed a few crumbs from her sleeve onto her plate. 'Though the chance always remains that something did happen to her. Did Halt ever say if she dropped hints that she would do such a thing?'

Will shook his head. 'He just said she stopped turning up one day and when he checked up, she was gone.' He frowned then. 'You don't suppose he just made this up...do you? I mean, not that he always does things like that, but he doesn't exactly not do that kind of stuff either...'

'He definitely was more active than I thought.' Gilan grinned. 'But as far as the story, I don't know. It sounds true enough, but Halt is very good at spinning tales and I wouldn't put it past him.'

'Well, if you're asking me - which, I observe that none of you are,' Crowley spoke up, grinning over his tankard of ale. 'I am reasonably confident that he's having you on, Will.'

Will felt his stomach drop. 'He is?' He asked the Ranger Commandant anxiously.

Crowley nodded. 'That is not quite how things happened between him and Alice.'

'You were there?!' Will and Gilan exclaimed in chorus.

It was the Lady Pauline's soft chuckle that answered their question.

'Shall we tell you exactly what happened with Alice Goodwin and Halt?' She asked the group.

Five heads nodded furiously. Lady Pauline smiled. It was the kind of smile, Will noted, that Halt would get right before he did something totally unexpected. And normally, it was a huge success.

'It began something like this...'