ROW80 and Story Snip from Captive of the Sea

nip day!

In honour of today being KissPitch, on Twitter, hosted by All The Kissing.

On the other hand, the snip I'm about to share isn't from the story I'll be pitching. Instead, this is a sort of fairy tale synopsis of Santiago and Magdalena's story, Captive of the Sea. It is a love story, though!

I reread it recently for the first time in a couple of years, and it wasn't so bad. Of course the final action scenes and the ending, as always happens with me, need a lot of work. But it's next on the editing list, after The Handful of Time and the World War Two story (which really needs a proper title. I can't keep calling it Mystery at Bertram's Hotel, as if it was an Agatha Christie retelling).

Of all of my ROW80 goals, though, the crafts are currently at the forefront, as there's a deadline for them! And school, of course. I'm hoping to get back into editing more intensely in April. And I'm trying to decide whether I can manage the A to Z Blog Challenge this year. Even though I have a theme! But I may not have time... Which is one reason I'm so horribly behind in blog commenting, forgive me!

Santiago

(why, yes, that's Mike Wolfe)

Magdalena

(painting by Rob Hefferan)

Captive of the Sea
Mawdlen was born on King Arthur's grave.

That is the story her father told, along with other legends of the court of the King who had reigned over 500 years before. Each tale started with a daring knight who, peradventure, fell afoul of a lovely maiden, and fought his way through perils back into her grace and favour. The stories were scarfed by the mists of time, and her father ended each with the words, "you are a daughter of Snowdonia, of the mountain whence Arthur will rise again."

Then the battles of the kings of their time began anew, and Master Cunnick packed up his household and brought them to the teeming, reeking city of London. He disappeared every day into the milling crowds, seeking his fortune, and Mawdlen hardly saw him.

The smoke and fogs choked her, and she stayed as much as she could indoors. She looked out of her shutters early each morning, seeking green sloping hills and purple-headed mountains. But looming timber walls blocked all farsight, and her mother's strident tones summoned her to her duties. Her father returned home later and later of nights, and he did not tell her any more stories.

After some years, though the Wars of the Roses continued, their own hardships eased, as Master Cunnick found a measure of success as a merchant. On a time, when Mawdlen had reached an age when her mother began to voice opinions regarding eligible suitors, she was sent to deliver her father's noon meal to his warehouse, where he was entertaining clients from far off Spain. Mawdlen was late as usual because she dawdled in the streets, her head filled with fancies of courtly knights who rode out on errantry. She blundered in before her father had completed his work, and chanced to meet a young sailor named Santiago.

He won her heart, because he too spoke the language of chivalry, but he was not yet master of his own ship, and when his captain sailed away, he was forced to follow.

The years passed. Mawdlen was over late to be married, but a suitor had not yet been found that pleased her, no matter how many fetes and dances she attended at the home of wealthier friends.

Wealthier, because Master Cunnick's fortune had failed him, and every day saw the family's luck and prosperity dwindle further.

Mawdlen, unable to watch her father sink into dissolution, found an opportunity to help and, unbeknownst to her family, began delivering goods for a back street merchant, not a member of any guild. She was unaware of the other businesses operating from that same establishment.

Then, Santiago, having finally achieved his first aim -- a ship to call his own -- returned to claim his long-awaited princess. He saw Mawdlen emerging from the back door of the merchant's and assumed the worst.

But the fate that had brought them together was too strong to be thus thwarted. They met again at a lavish costume party, where, despite their masks, their loving hearts each recognised the other.

They passed through many perils, and Mawdlen devised a plan to rescue them and her family from the evil merchant and his nefarious gangs. In the midst of their strife, unwilling to delay the bliss of their union, Mawdlen and Santiago were wed in secret. And, once all dangers had been vanquished, Mawdlen sailed with her knight to his hometown in the south of Spain.

There she bore him a daughter. Yet too soon after, she caught a new plague the sailors had brought on their ships, and she passed on, to where King Arthur and his court waited, leaving Santiago with the words, "love her as you loved me".

Santiago could not, for many years, as his grief and his mourning consumed him. It was only after his daughter Rosa had grown, and married her own true love, that they were reconciled, and father and daughter shared the memory of Mawdlen between them, and each had joy in the other, and comfort in the memory of the maiden of the mountains, until they too passed away.

And the tradition was handed down among Rosa's many descendants, that the blood of the kings flowed through their veins as well, and each of them that found his or her true love was certain to rejoin them in the life thereafter, even as Mawdlen had surely been reunited with her knight, Santiago, and they would nevermore be parted beyond the veil.

Do you have a snip to share for Valentine's Day?

Or a favourite (love) story to recommend?