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The Saxon Cartel

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"The Saxon Cartel"
February 14th, 2011
Pen, pencil and marker


This. One. Took. So. LONG. SO FREAKING LONG. :faint: *sigh* It's also been sitting mostly unfinished for a long time on my desk. And it drove me nuts. Because I'd been meaning to get around to finishing it but I never did. And it's three pages. With a lot of people (Hey, three is a lot if you're drawing them all EVERY SINGLE PANEL). I'm pretty happy with it though. Those markers make me very happy. :aww: I can't wait to make more of these, even though one page pretty much = one whole day of my life wasted. Again, 100% done with my aching hands, excepting that which was just cleaned up from the scan digitally. :nod: Other than that, all traditional art. ;-) My hands do not thank me.

But to the picture. Okay, so, context. Bois-Guilbert (the Templar) and DeBracy (the captain of a group of Free Companions) and Front-de-Boeuf (the lord of the castle they're in, Torquilstone) have all just come back to the castle after kidnapping Rowena, Rebecca, Cedric, Athelstane, Ivanhoe and Isaac of York. This scene takes place RIGHT after Love's Labor Lost, where DeBracy and Bois-Guilbert are milling around exchanging how their respective Wooing Failures went and waiting for Front-de-Boeuf to see what the "cause of the cursed clamor" is all about. And hence, this comic. They receive a letter from a rather unlikely source. ;-)

"They were soon after joined by Front-de-Boeuf, who had been disturbed in his tyrannic cruelty in the manner with which the reader is acquainted, and had only tarried to give some necessary directions.

"Let us see the cause of this cursed clamour," said Front-de-Boeuf---"here is a letter, and, if I mistake not, it is in Saxon."

He looked at it, turning it round and round as if he had had really some hopes of coming at the meaning by inverting the position of the paper, and then handed it to De Bracy.

"It may be magic spells for aught I know," said De Bracy, who possessed his full proportion of the ignorance which characterised the chivalry of the period. "Our chaplain attempted to teach me to write," he said, "but all my letters were formed like spear-heads and sword-blades, and so the old shaveling gave up the task."

"Give it me," said the Templar. "We have that of the priestly character, that we have some knowledge to enlighten our valour."

"Let us profit by your most reverend knowledge, then," said De Bracy; "what says the scroll?"

"It is a formal letter of defiance," answered the Templar; "but, by our Lady of Bethlehem, if it be not a foolish jest, it is the most extraordinary cartel that ever was sent across the drawbridge of a baronial castle."

"Jest!" said Front-de-Boeuf, "I would gladly know who dares jest with me in such a matter!---Read it, Sir Brian."

The Templar accordingly read it as follows:---"I, Wamba, the son of Witless, Jester to a noble and free-born man, Cedric of Rotherwood, called the Saxon,---And I, Gurth, the son of Beowulph, the swineherd------"

"Thou art mad," said Front-de-Boeuf, interrupting the reader.

"By St Luke, it is so set down," answered the Templar. Then resuming his task, he went on....

....

At the bottom of this document was scrawled, in the first place, a rude sketch of a cock's head and comb, with a legend expressing this hieroglyphic to be the sign-manual of Wamba, son of Witless. Under this respectable emblem stood a cross, stated to be the mark of Gurth, the son of Beowulph. Then was written, in rough bold characters, the words, "Le Noir Faineant". And, to conclude the whole, an arrow, neatly enough drawn, was described as the mark of the yeoman Locksley.

The knights heard this uncommon document read from end to end, and then gazed upon each other in silent amazement, as being utterly at a loss to know what it could portend. De Bracy was the first to break silence by an uncontrollable fit of laughter, wherein he was joined, though with more moderation, by the Templar. Front-de-Boeuf, on the contrary, seemed impatient of their ill-timed jocularity.

"I give you plain warning," he said, "fair sirs, that you had better consult how to bear yourselves under these circumstances, than give way to such misplaced merriment."

"Front-de-Boeuf has not recovered his temper since his late overthrow," said De Bracy to the Templar; "he is cowed at the very idea of a cartel, though it come but from a fool and a swineherd."
~ Chapter XXV "Ivanhoe" by Sir Walter Scott


Heeheeheehee...De Bracy is just the best. :giggle:

It's okay DeBracy. All my letters are formed like sword-blades and spear-heads too. :hmm: *gives sympathetic hug*

Also, the only part in "Ivanhoe" (that I'm aware of ) where Bois-Guilbert actually laughs.

:iconimevenhappierplz:

DE BRACY!!! :iconlaplz:

Enjoy! :aww:
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KarlaBeatles's avatar
the best. Love La la la la Wink/Razz