Chitterleigh, Jasper I

One of the principal characters of the first story in The Winterbough Saga, The Thin Line.

Sir Jasper (a squirrel) is the son of Augustus Chitterleigh, Lord Twelveoaks, and is an officer in the Imperial & Royal Army of Faerie. When first met, he is an aide-de-camp in the Royal Court, and is living in spectacularly messy bachelor's quarters. He's gone through a number of soldier-servants, and his affairs are almost a complete mess. Fortunately, he is assigned Private Westersloe Winterbough V as a soldier-servant, and gradually that roebuck straightens out his affairs.

Sir Jasper doesn't get along with his father very well, especially since his father not only forbids him to marry Eudora Eichelgruber, a very charming squirrel-femme, but also ties him up in a hair-brained scheme to intermarry with non-Elves, on the theory that somehow Lowfolk vigour would arrest the decline of the Elven race. It doesn't work, and is in part responsible for Lord Twelveoaks' fall from power as a minister of the Crown.

Sir Jasper is, in fact, quite brave, and proves it by taking prompt action to foil an attempt to murder the commander of the I&RA, Marshal Roland, and Crown Prince Gawain. This action is successful, though Chitterleigh suffers a severe case of stranglewort poisoning and nearly dies. However, he survives in part because of Winterbough's use of magicks to stop the spread of the poison.

Sir Jasper ends up marrying Eudora Eichelgruber, and their brief marriage is extremely happy. Alas, the officer gets assigned to the Imperial embassy in The United Cities, a realm under threat by The Grand Duchy of the Grey Horde. That lupine realm causes a revolt in the U.C., which results in the destruction of the Imperial embassy, and Chitterleigh's imprisonment, during which he is severely beaten, incurring injuries that would ultimately prove fatal.

Nevertheless, he is rescued by a team of furs including Winterbough and Meadow Grainmaster, who had been assigned to the nearby border areas, and he is present and in nominal command at the Battle of Mossford, one of the twin battles of Flourford-Mossford, where outnumbered I&RA forces defeat a superior force of Grey Horde wolves.

The mortally wounded Chitterleigh is ordered evacuated to the winter capital of Persoc Tor, and makes it just in time to both receive the I&RA's highest decoration, the Valour Medal, and to die in the arms of his now-pregnant spouse.

Winterbough opines that Chitterleigh arguably should have received two V.M.s, the second for stopping the assassination, but since no firm evidence came to light linking that plot to the Grey Horde, no medal was awarded. Nevertheless, Chitterleigh has a statue in the Hall of Ancestors in Albric Tor (one that Winterbough thinks does him justice), and a memorial brass in the temple where he is interred.

Chitterleigh was survived by his mate, Eudora, and his posthumous son, Jasper Chitterleigh II. In one of his final conversations with Winterbough and Grainmaster, Sir Jasper stated his wish that his mate find happiness with other furs after his death; he did not want her to be chained to a ghost. (In fact, Dame Eudora -- as she became -- openly flirted with Winterbough, and is known to have had an affair with Adler Gawainsson.)