Ruffians And Roughnecks: The Roughneck
In a new Ruffians And Roughnecks post series, I’m featuring words that mean either a “bad guy”, eg ruffian or rogue, or a “rough diamond”, eg a roughneck, and matching a word a week with a character from my books, either Thornspell, or The Heir Of Night or The Gathering Of The Lost.
The definitions are taken from Merriam Webster Online.
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Roughneck: “a rough or uncouth person”
The perfect lead-in to a first meeting with:
Raven: a hedge knight
“The rider did not look much more reputable than the wolf’s-head who had been on the road. In fact, he looked decidedly shabby in an old-fashioned ringmail shirt beneath a patched tunic, and the pot helm on his head had clearly seen better days. A hedge knight or a mercenary, Carick thought, probably little better than a brigand himself, and yet …
…the shabbiness of Raven’s first appearance did not improve upon closer inspection. The old-fashioned sark had been mended with horn and bone in places, and his cracked leather gauntlets, like the helmet, had definitely seen better days. Carick had noted other signs of the disreputable as well: the tattoos glimpsed between the edge of the knight’s sleeves and his gloves, the fetishes of bone and feather tied as a crest to his helmet—and horses that answered to a whistle.
The father of one of Carick’s university friends, a prominent River merchant, held the unshakable opinion that horses that came to a whistle belonged exclusively to smugglers or brigands. In the merchant’s world, mercenaries and hedge knights were only one step above brigands.”
~ from © The Gathering Of The Lost, The Wall of Night Book Two: Chapter 11 — The Wolfpack
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