DrabbleWriMo 11: Entertainment

I'm afraid this definitely is stretching the concept of "entertainment"; shorn of its surrounding banter at the 'banquet', Roland's little recital really doesn't come across as bearing much relationship to the prompt at all! :-(

It was, of course, a great honour to be asked to dine at the Marquis' table; Roland was conscious of that. But he was uncomfortably aware of the reprimand due to him over his unauthorised expedition to Mirabel, and of the fact that he was apparently expected to entertain the company with an account of all that had befallen him there.

He did his best. He still had no idea why his description of the kind lady who had saved him should have smitten upon the Marquis de Kersaint, as it evidently did, with the effect of a stupefying thunderbolt.

DrabbleWriMo 12: Grief

Always one of the chief moments in the book for me (which may be why I managed it about five hours earlier than last night...)

And so this — this! — was how she looked when she was truly happy...

He would have given his soul to be the one who brought that glimpse of paradise to her face; instead he had shattered his honour, lied and suffered on the edge of a volcano of hate to keep her from the husband whom it seemed she had loved all along. Gaston de Trélan was at her feet at last with the hard-won laurels she had so long desired for him, and he, Artus de Brencourt, had destroyed himself in vain.

Half-blind, he turned away and mounted, stumbling.