Song: The Queen of the River

Return of the Kateverse folksongs! Run away! Run and hide!

Soldier song, set ten years after The Deed of Katy Elflocks and twenty before Killer-Kate and Luke Lackland. It does not depend on knowledge of the story.  It has a tune, though not a very remarkable one, and I've probably nicked the musical elements from some part of the Great Folk Cauldron or other.

The Queen of the River

When I was naught but a lad of sixteen,
Ambrosine Wills was the name of my Queen.
Freely she called to me, gaily I strode
Daily to meet her by the old river road!
The old river road, boys, the old river road -
Our babe came sailing down the old river road!

Payments grew many and pennies grew few.
Amber and I barely knew what to do
Till our lords put the young Queen from her throne.
I took her silver, and left Amber alone.
The Allwater road, boys, the Allwater road -
Off with the Green Rose down the Allwater road!

Battles we fought for her, battles we won.
Bounty she showered when her battles were done.
Now I could pay all the debts that we owed,
And farm like a franklin by the old river road!
The old river road, boys, the old river road -
Homewards to Amber up the old river road!

Back home by Siffswater, Amber was gone,
Fled with a pedlar and with Simkin our son.
All the Queen's silver she'd spent for their meat -
Fled with a pedlar so Simkin should eat.
The damned river road, boys, the damned river road -
She saved our Simkin down the damned river road!

I walked a thousand miles, bowed and bereft,
Back to the Green Rose, all the queen I had left.
Loyalty I offered her, loyalty she showed -
I send her foemen down the Black River road!
The Black River road, boys, the Black River road -
Till I meet Amber by the Black River road!

Revision Scene 3: Kate Was a Beggar That Housed on the Hill

We know a song about that, don't we?  Unfortunately, the folk song is about as accurate as folk songs usually are, and Golden Kate is about as qualified to be a beggar as I am to shoot ogres through the heart from horseback.  This turns out to be an issue, since in the first draft her stint  as an impoverished hermit appears to require several tools she can't make for herself in the wilderness, and I'd forgotten to allow her any truly useful interactions with other human beings.  She is a ridiculously good woodswoman for an aristocrat, but nobody is that good.  Her circumstances are accordingly rejigged to fit (i) plausibility, and (ii) the tone of the rest of the book.

Several other changes have been made, all according to the principle that everything that is complete cobblers when you think about it twice has got to go - however fine the prose it made, and however prosaic its replacement.  Sacrifices have occurred.  Boo hoo!

Two more scenes, one of them very short, to fix on Sunday if I want to make my quota.