Meeting Bodie's ex-merc-mates training in an English hotel?

[moonlightmead.livejournal.com]

Hello, Prosfinder people. Let's see you work your magic again.

I am looking for a story in which Bodie and Doyle head up to a hotel in a fairly rural and mountainous bit of England. I think the Lake District, but maybe the Peak District.

And they find that almost all the hotel is booked by people Bodie recognises as mercenaries, apparently training for something.

Bit hazy then - either they have to pretend to join up, or they pretend they're entirely innocently on holiday and don't know them. But I am pretty sure that this is (yet another?) mercenary troop who take a shine to Doyle and Bodie has to persuade them that Doyle is with him and not for sharing.

Only other thing I remember is that I read it off a screen, so it is available either online or on the CD.

It is neither Long Shadows nor Among the Lilies, but that's the kind of mercenary troop.

Comments

[shooting2kill.livejournal.com]

I can't remember the title either but I think I've read this quite recently. What I remember from it is Doyle feeling really pleased that he liked Bodie's ex-merc mates....Sorry, that doesn't take you very far but does that ring a bell?

[shooting2kill.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I've read your post more carefully and I'm barking up the wrong tree because it doesn't sound as if Bodie even knew the mercs..

[moonlightmead.livejournal.com]

Ooh, that was fast! Thanks!

Well, it could be, but I am so hazy. I do remember that things go sour very rapidly - the mercs have not been fooled, as becomes clear later. So if Doyle is shown being pleased, and then it emerges he's been taken for a ride, yes, that would fit. If it's because he actually is pleased and he stays that way until the end of the fic, no, not what I am thinking of.

And I think (in reply to your added comment), actually Bodie did know at least one of them: the leader of the mercs, or someone who vouched for him to the leader.

[shooting2kill.livejournal.com]

This is bugging me now and I think it calls for a dedicated 'merc' list. And even though I know it's not that one, I keep thinking of ET's Scoring a Try.....I shall keep looking...

[moonlightmead.livejournal.com]

Do you know, I actually checked there wasn't an obvious merc list before posting!

I was reading 'Scoring a Try' just recently, so I can see why it came to mind.

[starlite876.livejournal.com]

Is it possible that the story is "Rules of the Game" by Anne Carr? It's on the Pros CD.

[moonlightmead.livejournal.com]

Ooh. It's certainly on the right lines. But I don't think this is the one I remember. I do think it was a hotel (I have the idea that something is said in the hotel bar) and I think the story specifies the location more - to some degree, at least. Nothing more specific than 'the Lakes' or 'the Peak District' though.

I'm now starting to wonder if there is some kind of scene involving Doyle thinking someone else is in Bodie's bedroom, and one of them knocking the other out.

[kiwisue.livejournal.com]

How about 'Personal Involvement" by Meg Lewtan (CD)?

[moonlightmead.livejournal.com]

Bingo!

So, they don't go there together, they are separate, the second half of the story is nothing to do with hotels, what the mercs are training for isn't specified, and Doyle is caught from the start.

Not quite sure how you spotted the story given all that, but that's the one, thanks!

[kiwisue.livejournal.com]

I didn't actually remember the bit about them going separately! Just the location, the mercenaries and the hotel. So I did a text search for "Lakes District" on the CD 'cos I was pretty sure it was a story from there.

And as you say, "bingo"! *g*

[moonlightmead.livejournal.com]

Lakes District! Aha. Yes. She does use that. I would never call it that, you see. It's either the Lake District or the Lakes (I think I have heard Lakeland, but that might just be the company!).

And as well as looking for lists of stories containing "Bodie meets mercs from his past", I also did search the CD. Remembering there was a character called Lake, I thought it would be pointless to look for just Lake (which would actually have caught Lakes too, groan), and looked for 'Lake District'.

(Funnily enough, one of the hits for that is actually a different Meg Lewtan story.)

Anyway, yes: solved, thanks!

[kiwisue.livejournal.com]

Ah - Meg is Australian - and both Aus and NZ have "Lakes Districts". Explains the use of that phrase & why I didn't pick up your correct wording!