THE SHIELD OF LOCKSLEY

Part Two: THE TOURNAMENT OF YOUTH

As you already know, this SERIES is PAYWALLED.

It’s nothing personal, but when I first started this Substack two years ago, three friends bought yearly pledges two days after I started. That caught me off guard, simply because I didn’t have anything to offer them. They said they just wanted to offer their support. So I put up JACK OF DIAMONDS.

After a while, I put THE SHIELD OF LOCKSLEY up, thereby forcing myself to finish it. I had PART ONE up, for free, with an amazing deal to buy your way in at $6 for the year. I think maybe four or five of my Subscribers took me up on the offer. When I completed putting all of PART ONE up, I told them I was putting the price back up, and putting the rest of the story behind the PAYWALL.

And that’s where it’s going to stay.

I MIGHT put PART TWO up for FREE, but there’s no real incentive for me to do that, is there? NOBODY is up-grading enough for me to think they want to read it, and I’m okay with that. Really. (I have 31 PAID Subscribers, four of whom are Comped; one is living at poverty level, another is retired and can’t afford it for budgetary reasons, and the other two, well they can easily afford it, and I won’t say anything more about that.) I say, if the writing’s good, and you like it — and if you can afford it — pay the 30 Bucks. (It’s Canadian $, and it’s for a year.) Why not support me if you like my writing? (I still have FREE stories you can read.)

Now, the story so far…

After having gone to the Castle and seeing the True King, (a meeting that involved the King’s nephews, the Orkney Knights), the three Knights and two Squires, return to the Inn. On the way, Locksley realizes they are being followed. Brennis looks and sees that it is a woman — a pretty woman — and that she is being escorted by an older maid, as well as an elderly knight.

Instead of returning to the Inn, they stop at a nondescript place where Brennis takes the horses to the stable out back, and there meets with the Lady in White, Nimue, the Lady of the Lake. She tells him he has to keep the girl away from Lamorak De Gales. That’s when the man escorting the girl and her maid confronts Brennis, who tells him this is not the type of place a man brings ladies to, as it serves as a brothel. The man turns as he sees the two women entering the Common Room.

Grummer assumes the two women are whores, and decides he want to ride the pretty one. The old man comes to her defence, and Grummer strikes the man down to the ground. This is when we find out that the owner of the brothel is Dagonet, King Arthur’s fool.