DrabbleWriMo 24: Precision

It's definitely winter now -- not only am I taking a hot-water-bottle to bed, but my central heating came on for the first time at six o'clock this evening! (Not for long, as the sensor is in the warmest place... the corridor outside the kitchen :-p)

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Paris was in a positive ferment of Royalist conspiracy at present, and there had been a great deal of ill-feeling over the circumstances of the Duc de Trélan's capture. It should be possible to effect his escape, and indeed a promising scheme was afoot for the very next day. Precision would be required, and sufficient purloined uniforms to outfit an entire escort and commanding officer, who would present counterfeit orders for the prisoner's transfer to some other place of confinement.

Tomorrow evening, provided it all went exactly according to plan, Valentine and her husband would be making for the coast.

Drabble plans to the end

I've discovered a reference to de Brencourt looking ill, which will serve for 'medicine' (and will get Valentine to the Temple); admittedly the dialogue immediately *following* consists of material that I've already used under the heading of 'herb', but it's more than reasonable to assume that the Comte has been haunted by the same ideas ever since their arrival in Paris, rather than only conceiving them in the moment that he discloses them aloud. But that then means that I need to use the preceding reference to Joséphine, i.e. the discussion with Roland, for 'gossip', rather than Valentine's actual approach to Gaston.

I think poor Roland is otherwise going to have to be excised, including all awareness of his parentage -- 'surprise' needs to be the Cavaradossi moment, and I think 'leadership' will have to be the Vendean peasants rather than anything said during the father/son interview, so that element (and with it any chance of including the events at Hennebont) effectively ends up simplified out of existence. Which just leaves me with 'concentration' to fit into Valentine's scene somewhere. 'Flawed' I think may end up being de Brencourt himself, meaning that we lose the entire Mirabel epilogue.
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