Paul Briggs's Blog, page 5
June 6, 2016
Down to the Wire
“When’s the next book coming out?”
I know it from both sides. I have awaited the next installment of A Song of Ice and Fire, the Dresden Files, the Safehold series and “Now Blooms the Tudor Rose” as impatiently as anyone. (Not in the case of the 1632 series, but only because that particular fictional universe has branched out in so many directions I can’t possibly keep track of them all.) So yes, I feel the pain of those of you who really, really want to know when Locksmith’s Journeys is coming out.
Be patient. I’m almost done. I’m planning on a release date of August 23. That gives me over two months to finish the book, edit, make the book trailer, edit, plan and implement various other promotions, edit, put together the proofs for the print edition and edit. I just hope I’ll have enough time to edit.
In the meantime, here’s something I have finished — the cover. I made it with a little help from Obsidian Dawn and DepositPhotos and a certain amount of advice from CoverCritics. (They were right. My original plan really was a little too boring.)
I know it from both sides. I have awaited the next installment of A Song of Ice and Fire, the Dresden Files, the Safehold series and “Now Blooms the Tudor Rose” as impatiently as anyone. (Not in the case of the 1632 series, but only because that particular fictional universe has branched out in so many directions I can’t possibly keep track of them all.) So yes, I feel the pain of those of you who really, really want to know when Locksmith’s Journeys is coming out.
Be patient. I’m almost done. I’m planning on a release date of August 23. That gives me over two months to finish the book, edit, make the book trailer, edit, plan and implement various other promotions, edit, put together the proofs for the print edition and edit. I just hope I’ll have enough time to edit.
In the meantime, here’s something I have finished — the cover. I made it with a little help from Obsidian Dawn and DepositPhotos and a certain amount of advice from CoverCritics. (They were right. My original plan really was a little too boring.)
May 23, 2016
Lennox Part III
A little late this week. Sorry. Busy writing a big chunk of "Locksmith's Journeys" yesterday.
* * *
Tyrant Takes the Helm
It was a quiet day in the court of King Macbeth. There was supposed to be a meeting of state discussing the situation with Malcolm and Donalbain, who have taken shelter in England and Ireland and are “filling their hearers with strange invention.” Lennox could make a pretty good guess as to what the princes have been saying, but when Macbeth’s old friend Banquo announced he and his son Fleance would be spending the day riding, the king decided at the last moment to postpone the meeting until tomorrow and spend the day alone. But never mind all that. The important thing is, it’s dinnertime, there’s a big feast on and Lennox has a place of honor.
Nothing can prepare Lennox for what happens at the banquet. It begins ominously — he heard Macbeth repeatedly remind Banquo to attend, and now Banquo is a no-show. Macbeth, after saying he will “mingle with society and play the humble host,” disappears from the hall and has to be dragged back in by his wife. Even then, he seems strangely reluctant to take his seat.
Then, just as the feast is about to begin, the king appears to go crazy. First, he says “The table’s full,” even when there’s an empty seat right in the freaking middle of it. When Lennox gently points this out, Macbeth screams, points at the empty stool and starts raving. “Thou canst not say I did it! Never shake thy gory locks at me!”
Lady Macbeth assures everybody that this is totally normal and they should try to ignore it. Lennox, ever polite, tries to do this, but he can’t help overhearing his king babbling about murders too terrible for the ear and corpses rising from the grave with twenty mortal wounds on their heads.
Finally Macbeth calms down and tries to lead the table in a toast to the missing Banquo… only to then start gibbering and pointing at thin air again. Even his wife seems to lose patience with him at this point, and announces that the dinner party is at an end. Lennox (have I mentioned this guy is a courtier?) manages to get in a “Good night, and better health attend his Majesty” before the queen shoos him out the door.
As the thanes leave, they find Banquo in a ditch near the palace… stabbed repeatedly in the head. Fleance, instead of taking shelter in the nearby castle, has gotten on his horse and headed for the hills.
This is when it really sinks in how bad the situation is. If Lennox had any doubts about who really murdered Duncan, this puts paid to them — and now it’s clear that Macbeth was just getting started. And being his friend, which Lennox has tried so hard to do, doesn’t seem to be any safer than being his enemy. Safety just isn’t on the menu right now.
So Lennox does what comes naturally to him — gather information. First, he wants to get a sense of where everybody else stands. Second, he wants to know about Macduff, who didn’t come to see the coronation or to the big feast, and is now in bad odor with the king. Of course, he has to do this very carefully — he’s in what is now Macbeth’s castle, and he has no way of knowing who else is listening. But he does learn that none of the other thanes have any illusions about Macbeth, and that Macduff is headed to England to rouse support for Malcolm’s cause. Having gained this vital bit of intelligence, Lennox (who is at this point one of Macbeth’s top advisers) proceeds to sit on it until the last possible moment.
The Moral Event Horizon
That last possible moment comes when two or three of Macbeth’s henchmen arrive at the castle with the word of Macduff’s fleeing and ask Lennox to lead them to him. Lennox would really rather not be going off alone with Macbeth’s henchmen after dark, but he doesn’t have a lot of options.
Somehow, that morning Lennox manages to find Macbeth’s horse tied outside a cave. From within the cave comes the king’s voice — “Come in, without there!”
Lennox enters the cave to find Macbeth in an even worse state than he was during the banquet — wild-eyed, unwashed, unkempt, having apparently slept in his armor, and raving about “weird sisters.” Also, the cave smells like somebody’s been boiling toads and snakes and poisoned entrails in it. For the first time in his life, Lennox has encountered a situation he doesn’t want to know any more about. He also doesn’t want to be the one giving the boss bad news at a time like this, but again he has no choice.
Macbeth’s reaction is worse than Lennox could have imagined. He announces that in lieu of killing Macduff, he’s going to kill the Thane of Fife’s entire household.
What You Are In the Dark
As soon as Lennox is alone, he sends a message to Castle Fife, warning Lady Macduff to take her children and get out of there.
Why send the messenger instead of going himself? If you asked him, he’d tell you that the messenger was a faster horseman and would be more likely to get there in time. Also, Lennox probably had duties that day that he couldn’t be spared from without drawing the king’s ever-increasing suspicion down upon him. And this is what our bright young thane tells himself.
But the real reason is that Lennox is a thane. He might not be the mightiest sword-slinger in Scotland, but he has been taught how to fight. More importantly, he has been raised in the ethos of the warrior class. The low-class, unwarlike messenger he sent has no obligation except to deliver the message and go. But if Lennox were there, faced with a situation in which a noblewoman and her children were in immediate danger of being murdered by thugs, he would be expected to do something about it. He would be expected — and would expect himself — to fight. However many assassins the king sent to massacre the inhabitants of this castle, Lennox would have to battle them all alone. He doesn’t quite feel up to that.
But if he isn’t a hero, neither is he a coward. He could choose to do nothing at all, and nobody would ever know. And by sending the messenger, he is incurring a certain amount of risk — if the murderers waylaid the messenger (they are all headed in the same direction at nearly the same time) Lennox would be found out.
So Lennox decides that now is a great time to desert Macbeth and go over to Malcolm’s side. At the end of the play, he has once again landed on his feet, one of “his kingdom’s pearl” with the new title of earl to go with it.
And that’s the story of Lennox.
* * *
Tyrant Takes the Helm
It was a quiet day in the court of King Macbeth. There was supposed to be a meeting of state discussing the situation with Malcolm and Donalbain, who have taken shelter in England and Ireland and are “filling their hearers with strange invention.” Lennox could make a pretty good guess as to what the princes have been saying, but when Macbeth’s old friend Banquo announced he and his son Fleance would be spending the day riding, the king decided at the last moment to postpone the meeting until tomorrow and spend the day alone. But never mind all that. The important thing is, it’s dinnertime, there’s a big feast on and Lennox has a place of honor.
Nothing can prepare Lennox for what happens at the banquet. It begins ominously — he heard Macbeth repeatedly remind Banquo to attend, and now Banquo is a no-show. Macbeth, after saying he will “mingle with society and play the humble host,” disappears from the hall and has to be dragged back in by his wife. Even then, he seems strangely reluctant to take his seat.
Then, just as the feast is about to begin, the king appears to go crazy. First, he says “The table’s full,” even when there’s an empty seat right in the freaking middle of it. When Lennox gently points this out, Macbeth screams, points at the empty stool and starts raving. “Thou canst not say I did it! Never shake thy gory locks at me!”
Lady Macbeth assures everybody that this is totally normal and they should try to ignore it. Lennox, ever polite, tries to do this, but he can’t help overhearing his king babbling about murders too terrible for the ear and corpses rising from the grave with twenty mortal wounds on their heads.
Finally Macbeth calms down and tries to lead the table in a toast to the missing Banquo… only to then start gibbering and pointing at thin air again. Even his wife seems to lose patience with him at this point, and announces that the dinner party is at an end. Lennox (have I mentioned this guy is a courtier?) manages to get in a “Good night, and better health attend his Majesty” before the queen shoos him out the door.
As the thanes leave, they find Banquo in a ditch near the palace… stabbed repeatedly in the head. Fleance, instead of taking shelter in the nearby castle, has gotten on his horse and headed for the hills.
This is when it really sinks in how bad the situation is. If Lennox had any doubts about who really murdered Duncan, this puts paid to them — and now it’s clear that Macbeth was just getting started. And being his friend, which Lennox has tried so hard to do, doesn’t seem to be any safer than being his enemy. Safety just isn’t on the menu right now.
So Lennox does what comes naturally to him — gather information. First, he wants to get a sense of where everybody else stands. Second, he wants to know about Macduff, who didn’t come to see the coronation or to the big feast, and is now in bad odor with the king. Of course, he has to do this very carefully — he’s in what is now Macbeth’s castle, and he has no way of knowing who else is listening. But he does learn that none of the other thanes have any illusions about Macbeth, and that Macduff is headed to England to rouse support for Malcolm’s cause. Having gained this vital bit of intelligence, Lennox (who is at this point one of Macbeth’s top advisers) proceeds to sit on it until the last possible moment.
The Moral Event Horizon
That last possible moment comes when two or three of Macbeth’s henchmen arrive at the castle with the word of Macduff’s fleeing and ask Lennox to lead them to him. Lennox would really rather not be going off alone with Macbeth’s henchmen after dark, but he doesn’t have a lot of options.
Somehow, that morning Lennox manages to find Macbeth’s horse tied outside a cave. From within the cave comes the king’s voice — “Come in, without there!”
Lennox enters the cave to find Macbeth in an even worse state than he was during the banquet — wild-eyed, unwashed, unkempt, having apparently slept in his armor, and raving about “weird sisters.” Also, the cave smells like somebody’s been boiling toads and snakes and poisoned entrails in it. For the first time in his life, Lennox has encountered a situation he doesn’t want to know any more about. He also doesn’t want to be the one giving the boss bad news at a time like this, but again he has no choice.
Macbeth’s reaction is worse than Lennox could have imagined. He announces that in lieu of killing Macduff, he’s going to kill the Thane of Fife’s entire household.
What You Are In the Dark
As soon as Lennox is alone, he sends a message to Castle Fife, warning Lady Macduff to take her children and get out of there.
Why send the messenger instead of going himself? If you asked him, he’d tell you that the messenger was a faster horseman and would be more likely to get there in time. Also, Lennox probably had duties that day that he couldn’t be spared from without drawing the king’s ever-increasing suspicion down upon him. And this is what our bright young thane tells himself.
But the real reason is that Lennox is a thane. He might not be the mightiest sword-slinger in Scotland, but he has been taught how to fight. More importantly, he has been raised in the ethos of the warrior class. The low-class, unwarlike messenger he sent has no obligation except to deliver the message and go. But if Lennox were there, faced with a situation in which a noblewoman and her children were in immediate danger of being murdered by thugs, he would be expected to do something about it. He would be expected — and would expect himself — to fight. However many assassins the king sent to massacre the inhabitants of this castle, Lennox would have to battle them all alone. He doesn’t quite feel up to that.
But if he isn’t a hero, neither is he a coward. He could choose to do nothing at all, and nobody would ever know. And by sending the messenger, he is incurring a certain amount of risk — if the murderers waylaid the messenger (they are all headed in the same direction at nearly the same time) Lennox would be found out.
So Lennox decides that now is a great time to desert Macbeth and go over to Malcolm’s side. At the end of the play, he has once again landed on his feet, one of “his kingdom’s pearl” with the new title of earl to go with it.
And that’s the story of Lennox.
May 16, 2016
The Further Adventures of Lennox
I’d just like to start by saying that the opening night performance of Macbeth on Friday the 13th went quite well. Superstition, as aforesaid, can suck it. Now, where were we?
Oh Crap
When Lennox and the rest of the court got to Inverness, it was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, the air was sweet and the temple-haunting martlets (at least, that’s what the birdwatcher Banquo said they were) were everywhere.
The night, however, was miserable. The sky was clouded over and, as Banquo pointed out, starless (“There’s husbandry in heaven; their candles are all out”) and sometime after midnight a horrible windstorm began. Lennox (who normally couldn’t be pried away from the royals with a crowbar) didn’t manage to get a room in the castle and found himself sharing a room with Macduff, Thane of Fife, in one of the outbuildings… and apparently it wasn’t one of the better outbuildings, because the chimneys blew down. Servants who took refuge in the outbuilding were babbling about how the wind sounded like lamentings i’ the air, strange screams of death prophesying with accents terrible of dire combustion and confused events, blah, blah, blah. (Some said the earth was feverish and did shake, but Lennox is pretty sure he would’ve noticed if it had.) Worst of all, this damn owl somewhere in the dark wouldn’t stop hooting all night.
Now, by the clock ‘tis early morning, which is strange because (a) clocks haven’t actually been invented yet, and (b) the sky is completely overcast to the point of being almost indistinguishable from night. Macduff has been given the job of waking up King Duncan. Lennox, with no prospect of getting any more sleep tonight, is accompanying him to the castle. They’re kept waiting outside in the cold wind for a really long time while the drunken porter rambles about being the gatekeeper of Hell, but finally the two thanes are allowed inside.
Macduff goes in to wake up the king… and comes out raving like a lunatic. He uses such highflown language that it takes Lennox a moment to figure out what he’s talking about — the king is dead.
When Lennox and Macbeth enter the king’s chamber, there’s the king. Stabbed to death. Blood all over everything. And on either side of him, a guard with blood on his hands and face. There are bloody daggers on the pillows.
The guards are waking up.
Lennox didn’t think to bring his sword.
Then, right behind him, he hears Macbeth’s cool and steady voice — “Go find Ross.”
Right. Good old Ross. He’ll know what to do. (Of course, Macbeth doesn’t need Ross. He just said that to get Lennox out of the room.)
So Lennox goes and wakes up Ross. Then they have the horrible job of giving Malcolm and Donalbain the bad news. And then it turns out that as soon as Lennox was out of the king’s chamber, Macbeth killed the two guards — in a fit of rage, he says, which doesn’t quite square with what Lennox saw.
From Bad To Worse
So far, nothing about this has given Lennox any reason to feel sorry for himself. He’s outraged on Duncan’s behalf and heartsick for Malcolm and Donalbain, but he’s still in pretty much the same position he was before.
All this changes that dark morning. The princes flee without a word… and everyone seems convinced they murdered the king.
To Lennox, this is crazy. First of all, he knows these guys as personal friends, and knows they’d never kill their father. Second, it makes no sense. Everybody was all set to crown Malcolm king, and now he’s run away and they have to crown Macbeth — and this proves Malcolm killed his father so he could become king? WTF?
Lennox is an intelligent young man. It makes him feel frightened and alone to hear the people around him — people whose judgment he’s always thought sound — solemnly repeating silly nonsense like this. What he isn’t old enough to understand is that the highest priority of the thanes right now is putting a strong leader on the throne before another Macdonwald gets ambitious or the Norwegians attack again. Macbeth has proven himself as a leader in battle, and is related to the royal family — that’s more than good enough. And they can’t very well accuse Macbeth of murder while they’re crowning him.
But Lennox, a courtier and politician to his core, keeps his thoughts to himself and lands on his feet. He quickly works his way into King Macbeth’s good graces and serves him as capably as he served Duncan. In fact, at the big solemn supper he’s seated right next to the king — no small honor.
And that’s when the plot really starts to thicken…
(Next week the saga of Lennox concludes.)
Oh Crap
When Lennox and the rest of the court got to Inverness, it was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, the air was sweet and the temple-haunting martlets (at least, that’s what the birdwatcher Banquo said they were) were everywhere.
The night, however, was miserable. The sky was clouded over and, as Banquo pointed out, starless (“There’s husbandry in heaven; their candles are all out”) and sometime after midnight a horrible windstorm began. Lennox (who normally couldn’t be pried away from the royals with a crowbar) didn’t manage to get a room in the castle and found himself sharing a room with Macduff, Thane of Fife, in one of the outbuildings… and apparently it wasn’t one of the better outbuildings, because the chimneys blew down. Servants who took refuge in the outbuilding were babbling about how the wind sounded like lamentings i’ the air, strange screams of death prophesying with accents terrible of dire combustion and confused events, blah, blah, blah. (Some said the earth was feverish and did shake, but Lennox is pretty sure he would’ve noticed if it had.) Worst of all, this damn owl somewhere in the dark wouldn’t stop hooting all night.
Now, by the clock ‘tis early morning, which is strange because (a) clocks haven’t actually been invented yet, and (b) the sky is completely overcast to the point of being almost indistinguishable from night. Macduff has been given the job of waking up King Duncan. Lennox, with no prospect of getting any more sleep tonight, is accompanying him to the castle. They’re kept waiting outside in the cold wind for a really long time while the drunken porter rambles about being the gatekeeper of Hell, but finally the two thanes are allowed inside.
Macduff goes in to wake up the king… and comes out raving like a lunatic. He uses such highflown language that it takes Lennox a moment to figure out what he’s talking about — the king is dead.
When Lennox and Macbeth enter the king’s chamber, there’s the king. Stabbed to death. Blood all over everything. And on either side of him, a guard with blood on his hands and face. There are bloody daggers on the pillows.
The guards are waking up.
Lennox didn’t think to bring his sword.
Then, right behind him, he hears Macbeth’s cool and steady voice — “Go find Ross.”
Right. Good old Ross. He’ll know what to do. (Of course, Macbeth doesn’t need Ross. He just said that to get Lennox out of the room.)
So Lennox goes and wakes up Ross. Then they have the horrible job of giving Malcolm and Donalbain the bad news. And then it turns out that as soon as Lennox was out of the king’s chamber, Macbeth killed the two guards — in a fit of rage, he says, which doesn’t quite square with what Lennox saw.
From Bad To Worse
So far, nothing about this has given Lennox any reason to feel sorry for himself. He’s outraged on Duncan’s behalf and heartsick for Malcolm and Donalbain, but he’s still in pretty much the same position he was before.
All this changes that dark morning. The princes flee without a word… and everyone seems convinced they murdered the king.
To Lennox, this is crazy. First of all, he knows these guys as personal friends, and knows they’d never kill their father. Second, it makes no sense. Everybody was all set to crown Malcolm king, and now he’s run away and they have to crown Macbeth — and this proves Malcolm killed his father so he could become king? WTF?
Lennox is an intelligent young man. It makes him feel frightened and alone to hear the people around him — people whose judgment he’s always thought sound — solemnly repeating silly nonsense like this. What he isn’t old enough to understand is that the highest priority of the thanes right now is putting a strong leader on the throne before another Macdonwald gets ambitious or the Norwegians attack again. Macbeth has proven himself as a leader in battle, and is related to the royal family — that’s more than good enough. And they can’t very well accuse Macbeth of murder while they’re crowning him.
But Lennox, a courtier and politician to his core, keeps his thoughts to himself and lands on his feet. He quickly works his way into King Macbeth’s good graces and serves him as capably as he served Duncan. In fact, at the big solemn supper he’s seated right next to the king — no small honor.
And that’s when the plot really starts to thicken…
(Next week the saga of Lennox concludes.)
May 8, 2016
Introducing this blog, and Lennox
I've decided to start posting a regular blog here. I’ll be posting these on Mondays, because (a) that gives me the whole weekend to write them, and (b) Monday is a day of the week that needs all the help it can get.
I'll be posting every other week, unless I have a story or essay too long to tell it one post, which as it happens I do right now.
Character Development
In addition to being a writer, I’m an actor. This is surprisingly good training for being a writer, because one of the things actors are encouraged to do is think about the characters we play and develop a backstory for them. It helps us understand what sort of people they are and how they react to their situation. At the moment, I’m playing the relatively minor character of Lennox in a production of Macbeth. (No, I won’t call it “the Scots play.” Superstition can go hex itself.)
An actor always starts by picking up clues about the character from the text and extrapolating from there. So what do we know about this Lennox? We know he’s a thane, nominally of the same social class as Macbeth, Macduff, Ross and the rest. That means he’s been trained from birth in fighting and in leading others in battle.
We know he’s young, because he says so in Act 2, scene 3, just before Macduff starts screaming bloody murder. So you’d expect him to be a warrior — but when we see him at the beginning, he’s at Duncan’s field headquarters, right where the fighting isn’t.
In fact, for the whole first act, Lennox never leaves the side of Duncan and his sons. Later on, in the banquet scene, he seems to have a seat right next to Macbeth’s seat, or what would be Macbeth’s seat if some ghost hadn’t already commandeered it.
In Act 3, scene 6, Lennox questions another lord and learns that Macduff has fled to England. For some reason, in Act 4, scene 1, when he reports this to Macbeth, he presents it as news coming from another source entirely (“'Tis two or three, my lord, that bring you word”.) The next time we see him, in Act 5, scene 2, he has not only joined Malcolm’s rebel army, but has compiled a Who’s Who of it (“I have a file/Of all the gentry”) and sounds as enthusiastic as anyone about bringing Macbeth down.
The Smart Guy
A picture emerges. Lennox is a young lord, bright but inexperienced, who gravitates to the leader by instinct. He is a REMF in war and a politician in peace.
They let him get away with this because he’s smart. As a front-line fighter, he doesn’t bring anything to the table that you couldn’t get from a couple of good kerns or gallowglasses. He’s much more valuable at HQ, dealing with problems of tactics, strategy and (especially) logistics. A guy who can make a list of all the important people in an army is a guy who can keep the army in oatmeal and haggis long enough for them to make it to the battlefield.
He’s probably made a point of making friends with Malcolm and Donalbain. When Duncan announces that Malcolm is to be his successor, Lennox is probably one of the few thanes who already knew it. So his life is pretty much on track.
Until one dark and stormy night…
(Continued next week)
I'll be posting every other week, unless I have a story or essay too long to tell it one post, which as it happens I do right now.
Character Development
In addition to being a writer, I’m an actor. This is surprisingly good training for being a writer, because one of the things actors are encouraged to do is think about the characters we play and develop a backstory for them. It helps us understand what sort of people they are and how they react to their situation. At the moment, I’m playing the relatively minor character of Lennox in a production of Macbeth. (No, I won’t call it “the Scots play.” Superstition can go hex itself.)
An actor always starts by picking up clues about the character from the text and extrapolating from there. So what do we know about this Lennox? We know he’s a thane, nominally of the same social class as Macbeth, Macduff, Ross and the rest. That means he’s been trained from birth in fighting and in leading others in battle.
We know he’s young, because he says so in Act 2, scene 3, just before Macduff starts screaming bloody murder. So you’d expect him to be a warrior — but when we see him at the beginning, he’s at Duncan’s field headquarters, right where the fighting isn’t.
In fact, for the whole first act, Lennox never leaves the side of Duncan and his sons. Later on, in the banquet scene, he seems to have a seat right next to Macbeth’s seat, or what would be Macbeth’s seat if some ghost hadn’t already commandeered it.
In Act 3, scene 6, Lennox questions another lord and learns that Macduff has fled to England. For some reason, in Act 4, scene 1, when he reports this to Macbeth, he presents it as news coming from another source entirely (“'Tis two or three, my lord, that bring you word”.) The next time we see him, in Act 5, scene 2, he has not only joined Malcolm’s rebel army, but has compiled a Who’s Who of it (“I have a file/Of all the gentry”) and sounds as enthusiastic as anyone about bringing Macbeth down.
The Smart Guy
A picture emerges. Lennox is a young lord, bright but inexperienced, who gravitates to the leader by instinct. He is a REMF in war and a politician in peace.
They let him get away with this because he’s smart. As a front-line fighter, he doesn’t bring anything to the table that you couldn’t get from a couple of good kerns or gallowglasses. He’s much more valuable at HQ, dealing with problems of tactics, strategy and (especially) logistics. A guy who can make a list of all the important people in an army is a guy who can keep the army in oatmeal and haggis long enough for them to make it to the battlefield.
He’s probably made a point of making friends with Malcolm and Donalbain. When Duncan announces that Malcolm is to be his successor, Lennox is probably one of the few thanes who already knew it. So his life is pretty much on track.
Until one dark and stormy night…
(Continued next week)
