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Somebody behind the scenes was pointing out that Lesgle could just do his darn job! It's been a while! and that somebody was quite correct.

Lesgle's strong work ethic has of course been keeping him on a routine schedule of busing tables and cleaning the kitchen, and here he is right now, bustling about in a way that is so far un-disastrous. Do interrupt him!

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"It might be similar!" he agrees cheerfully. "What's - his? - name?"

"Feuilly." Lesgle has begun to look sheepish. "I may be entirely mistaken. I know just enough about his trade to know that it's much more complicated than I ever thought. But he does paint. I'll mention to him that you're working here? --That is, if you even want help."

"It would cut down the time it takes to complete", he says easily, "if he feels able to do part of the work. I've never done a whole one alone before - please do send him my way."

"I'll let him know. --And while I'm here, is there anything I can bring you?"

"Hm." He thinks about it, leaning back and stretching. "I think I'd like a hot chocolate - and bring something for yourself."

Edited 2015-01-13 21:23 (UTC)

"Certainly--and thank you!"

He's back in a minute or two with a pair of chocolates. Why not? But he'll be very careful not to spill. "How long will a project like this take?"

As will Athelstan, and just to be on the safe side, he removes the few pages he's completed from the table.

"If I do it all myself? Months. A single page can take a day or more."

Lesgle looks a bit relieved. There may or may not be a special level of Hell for people who spill chocolate on a Bible-in-progress; at any rate, he'd feel terrible spoiling a page. "Old and New Testaments, Psalms, and all? That could be years, at that rate..."

"I might cut a few corners", he says with a quick grin. "Stick to plain lettering on some pages, for example."

"Surely not all of the begats need illustration."

"Not all, it's true. It would be fine with the first letter of each chapter being fully illustrated, and some smaller side and corner pictures on other pages."

But he might get carried away.

"Do you enjoy it?"

"Very much", he says honestly. "And I miss it, at home. The Northmen have no such art."

"Have you tried to bring it to them? Or--do they not make parchment, the right sort of inks...?"

He really doesn't know very much about book-craft of a thousand years ago.

"They certainly don't make the inks - the only writing they have is their runes, which are usually carved or scratched into something, from bark to stone. And animal skins are used for clothing, more than anything."

"And you're probably kept busy enough as it is." Laigle works on his chocolate, looking over at Athelstan himself now, rather than the work. "But you look well. An admirable beard."

"Why, thank you. It took a month to grow. And then our young Gyda decided it wasn't quite right."

"I wasn't going to ask."

But good: that sounds good. Whatever else is happening in the monk's life, he's able to work on his art and make small cheerful jokes. "But it's inarguably a look."

His life could really be much, much worse. He's even - complicatedly - content.

"All the Northmen braid their hair and beards. And if I'm now to be part of the family..."

It doesn't sit well with Lesgle, the man's acceptance of slavery. But then, he's not there himself. He's not such an ideologue as to demand that an eight-century monk act like a nineteenth-century student.

So he finds a smile. "You'll be braiding it yourself in no time."

It might be different if he'd ever really been free. But serf child to monk to thrall, he never has been free to make all his own decisions... yet.

"When it's long enough, most likely. It's a sad little braid for now."

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