by oggbashan
Great story. I, too, love to write about a similar period of conflict and it can be a rich mine for wonderful stories such as this. Definitely the best of the Christmas/Winter Wonderland stories I have read this festive season.
I'm not sure folks had a sense of Englishness or Frenchness in those days as loyalties would be to their feudal Lord. In any case, that part of modern France was English - as it should still be. Continental wars we're very complicated as one's loyalties we're to whoever offered the largest and most recent bribe.
Reminds me of the 1997 Mexican movie “Men with Guns” in which southern Mexican villagers are brutalized alternately and repeatedly by government and rebel soldiers.
After reading your “Men at Arms” as well as many of the stories of the American west from the recent Literotica invitational event, I realized how parallel and fundamental the myths and legends of those histories are to British and American culture. I see the same parallels in the stories of Follet’s Kingsbridge trilogy and McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove series - the brutality, the heroism, the struggle to survive, the need for love, and the battle of good against evil - and yes, the sex!.
Your style is a treat to read. There is a structure and a sensibility that makes it easy and accessible. I think it’s a British thing.? Don’t get me wrong. I’m firmly a fan of American literary tradition from pulp to high art, and everything between. Still I enjoy crossing the proverbial pond literarily speaking. I maintain a linguist’s rather than a grammarian’s view of language - if you’ve said what you meant to say (hopefully with a little style), you’ve succeeded. I don’t mind, in fact, I enjoy variations in spelling, in slang, in diction, etc.
Anyway, I’m rambling on. In short, “Men at Arms” is an enjoyable, thoughtful, well conceived and executed story. Thank you for sharing it with the Literotica readers.*****
If only war could be so civil. Perhaps it would be if the occupying was done by the women instead of the invading hoardes.
Thanks