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The Book of the Blessed

A great start to the chapter! I like the character Nimerly and all the goings on with the royal families are very interesting. The start of this portion with Conn, Derek and Gabriel was very hot and well done! Great writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!
 
I am almost afraid there is too much going on, but I do know where it is leading, so I feel good about that, and am glad you're enjoying the story.... I LOVE the seen between Conn, Gabriel and Derek!
 
THE KINGSBORO

Anson had spent most of his life in this castle, this boro. He loved the sound of the word. His old father had told him, “We are not like the Hale who built the long houses, or like the Daumans who built castles only for themselves to dominate the land and tax the people. When we came, we built the Boro.”
The Boro was the great network of walls and towers and towered houses that could shelter a city, where endless apartments connected guests and lords and workers, and not simply the royal family. It was, Father had said, the physical embodiment of the land as a community. But even in the northwest towers, that most dense network of familiar apartments, there were spaces of great privacy and now Anson came to Ohean’s door, and said, “Well, here is me.”
“Yes,” Ash said. “Please come in,”
As Anson entered, he called, “Light.”
He heard that in Chyr they relied on the old magic for such things, but this was simply the new technology, and as he called for it, the anteroom was filled with a soft light.
“Not nearly as lavish as Father’s quarters,” Anson said, prying his boots off. “Or Cedd’s for that matter.”
“Do you mind if I shower?” Anson said to him.
“Not at all.”
“Do you think you could share it with me?”
Ash blinked and Anson laughed lightly.
“Say no if you wish.”
“I don’t know how hot you’ll like it?” Ash said. If we can agree on a temperature.”
“If I promise,” Anson clasped his hands together dramatically, “to not fight you about the water, will you get in with me?”
Ash stood up.
“It has been such a long time,” he said. “Are you ready for it?”
“Are you?” Anson said, and now Ash realized he was not trifling.
“Ash, are you ready for me?”
“I don’t really know,” he admitted after a moment of thought. “I’m not ready to not be with you.”
“Then come into the water with me,” Anson said to him.
Gravely, the magician smiled.
“How could I say no to such a reasonable proposition?”

Under the water neither speaks for some time. Ash takes the cloth and soap and, as if he were cleaning a golden statue, and gently washes Anson’s body. They take turns scrubbing and massaging each other and then, under the water, embrace. Anson is taller, bends down to lay his head against Ash’s, murmurs, “My own brother? My sister? Wanting to kill me.”
“Do not be afraid.”
“I’m not afraid,” Anson says. “Fear is not the feeling.”
Nothing happens for a while, and then he trembles.
“I thought I was past feeling this way. I thought I was past being touched by them.”
But he is not past it, and painfully, a man used to smiling or fighting his way through things, he convulses in Ash’s arms. How different from the rounds of drinking and even fucking, and now, of course, as hot tears mingle with the hot water, he understands why, after so long a time, they must be together and why, though there is love, the risk is so great.
So they turn off the water and, barely toweled, not speaking, go to the bed, Ash leading Anson into the darkness where they lay down in each other’s arms wearily and, at last, give way to kissing, to stroking, to releasing the most vulnerable feelings on both sides.
“Fuck me!” Anson whispers in the dark, turning over, and opening for Ash, who is surprised by this dark magic more than any enchantment he has ever worked.
Anson demands this of him so tenderly in the bed that tonight is their bed. Anson pushes his naked back to Ash’s front, lifts up his thigh, and reaches back for Ash, pulling him in.
“Fuck me like you did that first time. When we didn’t expect it.”
The first time neither of them has spoken of until now.
So quiet, in the dark. The lovemaking, the fucking, is just as much about how they got to this point as that moment itself, bodies together.
Anson is a surprise of tightness and moistness, of deep, deep, shocking, electrifying, deeps, hands pressing on Ash’s chest, moving down his chest to his stomach, moving to make his hips buck, taking Ash’s hands in his and moving them up his own chest, and then touching his own chest, massaging his own cock, coming down so that Ash’s hands can plant themselves in his dark, tawny hair, putting his own hands in his hair as, full of his own sex and power, he bucks up and down, riding him. Anson is so beautiful and skilled this way, so full of the same heat that is in Ash, both of their voices catching. Anson is arching his back, opening his mouth, planting his hands behind him, on either side of Ash, opening his mouth in swears and promises of love, whisper moaning:
“Fuuuuuccck—”
As he comes, he cuts himself off with the arc of hot semen, all up Ash’s stomach, a trail on his chest, speckles of desire under his chin.





Ash turned on the light for a moment because he wanted to see Anson’s face. He wanted to look over Anson’s body, long and lightly muscled, to run his hands over his tight little ass, and watch his body as he made him moan, but then he turned out the light because shadow was sacred. Fumbling and light touching grew into love and mounted to orgasm.
When it was over, they lay on their backs, chest heaving, breath shallow in the darkness, and Ash said, “How was it?”
Anson did not speak at first immediately. When he had gone on his hands and knees, his eyes had watered and the dimness of night vision had gone even dimmer from the pain of Ash pressing inside of him, the burning of being entered. He had let his gasps of pain escape, reaching back, cupping the smooth, round hills of Ash’s ass, so much meatier and rounder than his, and expertly pulled Ash back inside of him.
“It hurt like hell,” Anson said. “But when you were fucking me I didn’t want it to stop.”
It was the most feeling he’d ever had. It was the most intense thing he had ever known, save being inside of Ash, and feeling him react the same way, being deeper and deeper inside of him, again on the edge of everything, coming, exploding, his insides twisting, ascending out of his body.
“It still hurts,” Anson said.
“I can still feel you inside of me,” Ash confided, laughing as he turned to kiss him.
“I don’t want the hurt to stop,” Anson said. “I didn’t know something could be like this, you throbbing like a heart inside me. All night, all day, to ride through the city and sit in council, squeeze myself tight, and I’ll still be throbbing, Ash, feeling you deep inside me.”




THE ROOTLESS ISLE






This was the last council before the Great Council which would take place at Year’s End. Like all council days, Nimerly kept herself inside. It had been a manner of coincidence or perhaps blessing, that her courses ended right before the time of the Council. Growing up she’d heard a great deal of rapturous delight in the nature of women and the flowing of one’s courses, how they made women like the Goddess herself, but to Nimerly, since the age of fourteen, they had been bloating, bleeding, discomfort and weariness which were made better only be her seclusion from the business of the Rootless Isle.
As the oldest daughter of Viviane, the leadership had come to her immediately after the death of Coviane. Senaye, Ohean’s mother, was often gone from the Isle, and had never shown a desire to take her mother’s place. It was said that in the Rootless Isle every girl might not be an enchantress, but every girl was a priestess. This was not entirely true. What was more, some girls brought to the Isle had the talent for neither witchcraft nor the craft of a priest. The Rootless Isle was school and finishing school and it wasn’t until the age of twelve or until the onset of menarche that the finer points of magic and then, later, of the apprenticeship to the Goddesses was begun, but from the moment school began, at six, Nimerly was head of her year, and by the time she was sixteen, and in the midst of a particularly wearisome cycle where she could not rid herself of sluggishness and a headache, she was appointed head acolyte of all the girls going into the service of the Birch Goddess.
This evening she slipped the hoop earrings with their abstract owl designs into her ears, and she put the black cord hung with the golden key about her neck Upon her burgundy hair she placed the silver circlet, and then she came out into the anteroom of her house where her loose retinue was waiting. Meredith, her daughter, in her blue and white gown, her twigged dreadlocks reset immaculately. Nesset and her younger sister Sorcha all the way from Southern March with her red headed daughter, Siona. The wind came in through the great stone windows and they could see in the valley where the women were gathering. They could hear the singing and they took it up:

Fairest Mother
I hear your singing
Fairest Lady
I hear your call
Our sweet Mother
Keep me from falling
Holy Mother
Enfold us all

As they came out of the front door of the house and descended into the valley where the women assembled, Nimerly, her sister, her daughter, her red headed cousins chanted:

“Auset, Hemace, Amana, Demeter, Arsane, Inte, Addiwak, Ivana…” All the Goddess of their people, and the Mothers of other people, long forgotten who, in the shadow of the Rootless Isle and its ancient mysteries were known to be the mothers and the daughters, the faces of she who is One Face the One Goddess.

Selu, Belecane, Ammatae, Kemeter, Asha, Sheradah, Itame, Thedater, Hama, Sayophan, If and Regan, Morgan, Atanna, Evan Ima Nada

They sang:

Fairest Mother
I hear your singing
Fairest Lady
I hear your call
Our sweet Mother
Keep me from falling
Holy Mother
Enfold us all.


As she took her seat on the Stone Chair, Meredith placed her mother’s wand in her hand. It was of light wood, and old, one of the first she had made as a girl of fifteen when her Grandmother said, “A witch must find her power. Go out and pull your first wand.”
She sat, surrounded by her small retinue, at the apex of a crescent of women. They were divided roughly into three groups, the Three Branches of the Tree over which she presided. There were the enchantresses of the Rootless Isle who had separated themselves from the Men of the Tower long ago. They were, in truth, derwydd and wizards as those men were, and their training and Orders corresponded, for the most part to those men. They sent their daughters to the Tower sometime, and sometime the Tower sent their sons. They had split up not in anger, but in a time of danger when the treasures and powers both held had been attacked. Well over seventeen hundred years ago, the sorcerer Akkrabath, and his sister Nimue had separated the men from the women in order to preserve and to protect their power, and their magic.
The next group, at the western horn of the crescent, were the women of the hedge, the various groups of magical women from all over the land who were loosely assembled in covens and taught each other the old inherited magic around fires at the full moon. Theirs was midwifery, house lore, the cures and simples. At the Great Council, this lower horn was replaced by women like the red heads beside Nimerly. At the Great council, journeyed all the way from near the desert lands past armor came the Red Women.
Lastly¸ on the eastern horn, under their high brimmed, pointed hats, looking much like their hedge sisters, though more formals, were the Witches of the Heap. Though these women, who had not so much separated as arisen from the women of the Rootless Isle, were the only ones who called themselves witches, and they eschewed such terms as derwydd—indeed had turned away from derwydd practice—all women here called themselves witches. Nimerly, sitting on her stone stool, looking at the three Schools, rejoiced in her witchcraft, and in the solidarity of the sisterhood.
Now, from the Heap Witches, the white haired Semana lifted her head and sang, her voice reverberating through the amphitheatre:

Return, return, return, return
Time to give all to the Mother
By the water, the fire,
earth and the air,
may the Mother bring us back
to her.
She has given
All earth and heaven
Return, return, return!

And they all sang in rounds and harmonies swooping around each other. The song would end when it was time to end, and the Council would speak of great issues when it was time, and vote on them as well, but the power, the energy, the unity had to be raised, and it was all raised first through the singing.
The music carried on until the sky turned black, and large stars, white, purplish blue bruised the night, and when they finally calmed down, Nimerly rose, placing her wand on one of the great arms of the stone chair. She stretched her hands over her sisters and called out:
“By the water, the fire, earth and the air, may the Mother bring us back to her. May the old religion be ever new.”
She took up her wand, and now Meredith came forward and placed a small table in the middle of the gathering of what must have been about one hundred fifty women. There were always that many at a Council though many more lived on the island. No one ever said, only this many of you may come, but it just seemed to work itself out, that, at the most there were two hundred. The council lasted three days, and to be sure, different women came and went, but at a time there were never more than these.
“I have received word from my cousin, Ohean,” Nimerly continued, “that King Anthal lies on his deathbed.”
Murmurs of, “Well, yes, we knew this,” or “How much longer could he last?” or even “Is it sure?” were heard, but Nimerly continued, “His son, Cedd, has already taken the Throne.”
Now one of the hedgewitches stepped forward and she picked up the wand.
“Sisters, I am Dissenbark from the village of Leighton near Kingsboro. I know of this Cedd. Every woman, every cunning man by the road, and all apothecaries who practice the art magic know of this Cedd. He has the hatred of magic many of his ancestors had. Do you remember the Burning Times? He is sure to bring them again. It is said that if he could, he would have taken down the very Tower, but since he cannot vent his power against the Wizards, nay, against most of you sisters, surely he will find a way to come against the women of the hedge.”
“It would have been better for us if Anson had received the Crown,” called out one.
“It was the whole reason Essily went to King Anthal.”
“Sisters, enough,” Dissenbark called out. “We all know this, that Essily was a witch of the Rootless Isle, mighty in power. We all know how we looked with great hope to the reign of Anson, but all of that, it would seem is in the past—”
“Unless we, here, work a great magic!” cried out another one. “We could come together, all of our minds, all of our power, and force the new King’s mind.”
Dissenbark shook the stick, which meant she still had the power, but now, serenely, she saw a woman in a white hat, among the Witches of the Heap, holding out her hand, and so Dissenbark brought the wand to her, bowing:
“Sisters, what you are speaking of is bending a king’s mind by out power and such a thing is forbidden. Down such a road lies only destruction. Do you not remember that the first rule of power is power over oneself, and to take power over another is the road to ruin?”
There was much nodding, and even some applause over this, and the witch continued:
“I am Avreday of the Grey Order, so quickly did I have to quelsh this idea of ruining a new king’s brain, I had not the chance to introduce myself. I understand your fears, especially the fears of the hedgewitches. But now that one idea has failed, perhaps another one can be found.”
Nimerly came forward, and she took her own wand up. She brandished it about the gathering and said, “I do not know if one way has been found, but there are many ways, and there is one which may succeed.
“My cousin, Ohean Ashenstaff, is still King’s Council, and he had written letters to the royal house of Sussail. Now, as you may remember, the wife of their king is Hermudis, and she is a princess of Armor, trained and of our number, as is her daughter, the Princess Isobel. This was never widely spoken of, and indeed ought never be widely spoken of, but my hope is to unite the house of Cedd with that house, and thus, if Ohean and Anson must leave, then Isobel will come in.”
Dissenbark Layton put up her hand, but when Nimerly extended the wand, the hedgewitch only shook her head.
“Lady, are you saying that no one knows this queen and this princess are of us… are like us?”
“Did you know?” Nimerly asked her.
“No, Lady.”
“Then the secret was well kept, and may it remain so,” Nimerly said.
“And in the time between this proposition being made reality, and the death of King Anthal, may the Horned One keep all witches safe,” Dissenbark added.
“Let it be so,” Nimerly murmured. “Let it be so.”


MORE THURSDAY
 
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That was an excellent portion! Lots going on and I am liking how it is unfolding! I sense that more big things are coming soon. Great writing and I look forward to more in a few days!
 
THE KINGSBORO


The bright sunlight in Anson’s rooms shone against the tapestry of the winding dragon glittering across the wall.
“You are a dragon, then?”
Ash, laying before Anson, watched him turn and stretch his long, strong arm, gesturing across the serpent tattoos to his arm and to his side as well as the one on the wall.
“It is said that my ancestor, Sevard became the dragon, eating the dragon’s heart. He was the dragon, as his father was the wolf.”
“I think,” Ash said, “I have heard the tale before.”
“Do you know it?”
“Not well,” Ash said. “Would you tell it to me?”
“I will tell you about the Wolf,” Anson said, “and save the Dragon for later.
“Valkyra was a son of the son of the son of Wode called Wayland and Angytyr, the One Eyed,” Anson began. “Valkyra, being a warrior of a giant spirit, married a Giant maiden named Hljod, and the two of them had great and beautiful twins, a girl and boy, Jikama and Jikimundo. King Valkyra had eleven children with his giantess wife, but in time they grew to full strength and a wicked man, Siggeri by name, came to ask Valkyra for a boon. King Valkyra vowed to give him whatever he wished and so Siggeir asked for the hand of his daughter Jikama. Now, Siggeir and Jikama both wished to resist, but because of honor they could not, and so Jikama went with Siggeir.”
Hearing the tale Ash was touched by the oddness of it. His lover, kissed by the sun, spoke from his northern roots, and cold winds and longhouses, long haired warriors whom the Ayl had not been in centuries, a land not only removed by time, but by place, where neither Anson nor any other would ever go again moved across Ash’s mind’s eye.
“Three months after their wedding,” Anson said, the sunlight playing on his face, “Siggeir invited King Valkyra to his house along with all his sons. He had Valkyra killed, and the sons captured and tied to trees, and sent wolves out to them each night. Each night a wolf ripped out the throat of one of Jikama’s brothers, and it was only on the last night she came with honey and placed it in her brother, Jikimundo’s mouth. When, at night, the wolf came to kill him, Jikimundo opened his mouth, and the wolf stuck in his tongue. When the wolf began to eat, Jikimundo bit down and ripping out the wolve’s tongue, killed it, blood gushing from his mouth. Thus he freed himself and fled into the woods where he lived as a brigand.”
Ash said: “Much like Michael Flynn, no doubt. It is times like this I know Ayl come from some place else.”
Anson ignored this and continued.
“Jikama swore revenge on her husband. She had one child, and when he grew to a certain age, she sent him to her brother. Her brother, to test his courage, placed a snake in a basket of wheat and then asked the boy to make bread. When the boy opened the basket and saw the snake, he cried out in fear and Jikimundo sent him back to Jikama saying, ‘He lacks courage.’ And so Jikama killed him.”
“So Jikama sent her second son,and again, Jikimundo did the same thing. Again the son failed and so, when he returned to his mother, Jikama killed him. She decided that only a son between herself and her brother could be as strong as was needed and so, by a mighty spell, she changed her form and went to Jikimundo, and lying with her brother, she began pregnant with Fitela.
When Fitela grew to a certain age, Jikama called him and said, “Here, let me hem this shirt I have made you.” And while she was sewing it, she sewed his hands together. Then she commanded him, ‘Take them apart.’ Like nothing,” Anson said, eyes wide and pulling his hands apart, a born storyteller, “he ripped his hands apart and Jikama said, ‘Now I know you are ready,’ and sent him onto Jikimundo.
Jikimundo tested this boy as he had tested the ones before, but when Fitela saw the snake, he simply cut it up and served it with the wheat in the bread. Then Jikimundo knew that this one was strong and bold. Fitela and Jikimundo had many adventures, but in time Jikimundo and Fitela trapped Siggeir's entire family in their house and set it on fire. Jikama rejoiced at seeing her father avenged. It was here she told Jikimundo that Fitela is his son, and then, because of her duty as the wife, she entered the burning house to die alongside her despised husband.”
Ash lay on his back.
“I’ve always loved a good Sendic tale.”
“Those were the tales we told when we crossed the sea from cold Aylland, in what is now Dayne, almost a thirteen hundred years ago. When we were more like the Dayne than unlike. We spent a few centuries with the Rufanum, and then in Ververland before we came here. You see before you a civilized knight in a civilized kingdom,” Anson stretched out before him. “The wolf and dragon tamed.”
Ash turned over and placed his head on Anson’s chest.
“Yes?” Anson said, smiling.
“I look in your eyes,” the mage said. “The wolf and the dragon are not tamed. They are only sleeping.”
“Are you calling me a dragon?”
“Yes, Lord,” Ash said simply. “Yes I am. I see it clearly. You do not understand, but even as I look at you, your form flashes in and out. It is as if you are attempting to look like a man and unable to. Plainly before me I see a dragon.”
“But I am in trouble,” Anson said, “How could a dragon be in trouble?”
“Because it doesn’t know it’s a dragon,” Ash said plainly.



KINGSBORO
ABBEY



Cedd loathed coming to the Abbey every morning and listening to the monks of the great monastery drone on. He knew that others considered this a pleasure, and their music holy, but he had little use for it.
Oh, for those days when they had worshiped the old gods and killing and plunder had been the way they had worshiped, the simple sacrifice of blood on a stone, prayer and ritual for the skalds, the old men and women of magic. But most of those had disappeared and the ones who had remained gone into the White, the Black and the Grey orders. Now no one remembered the old gods, and if they’d had any power it was gone.

“kæpa: vēdanākārī insoblevada, læbūvada samahara
viṭeka mē anta dekama,
mē Ard visin avabōdha mæda mārgaya
kirīsamana væḷakīma - dækma niṣpādanaya,
dænuma niṣpādanaya - ṛju dænuma kirīmaṭa,
svayaṁ-pibidīmaṭat kirīmaṭa,
Unvininh kirīmaṭa, sansun kirīmaṭa yomu karayi…”

Even as he thought this, waiting for the monks to bow, in their puddle of white robes, rise, bow again, and leave, Cedd realized he was no corsair warrior. He knew how to use a sword well enough, and had done so for sure. The Dauman war had nearly broken him in two. But to go a season washed in nothing but the sea, a beard to your waist, helmeted with horns on the top, rowing a ship across the Strait of Dayne and back, was a bit much. To imagine that once his ancestors had been like those Dayneland bastards, looting, raiding and carrying off, but never really having, never being able to create something worth holding onto, was too much to believe.
The price of civilization, of a clean shaven face with a narrow black beard and the oils rubbed into the skin, the rich fabric of doublet and the supple black leather of a lord’s trousers, was this pretense to holiness. It had been since the time of Athelstan the lords of Westrial had been transformed from raiders who came back with the most booty for their people to the servants of God who kept the peace, and though such a change seemed dull and often slavish, the rewards were ripe. All of Kingsboro, the great thick red and brown stone of the palace, the high towers, the rich marketplaces, the gold and silver that spilled into the treasury, was the difference between the warlord king Eoga who raided, and the savior king Athelstan who protected with a gentle and beneficent hand. The Ayl had forgotten they were ever anything else until their Hale cousins had come from the north almost two hundred years after they had settled in the south.
Rightly, Cedd noted, as they came to the great portico, under the brass images of the guardian spirits, the Ayl had thought of themselves as more civilized than the Hale. Then came the Dayne, and they had all remembered, while the dreadnoughts came on shore, and the helmeted raiders killed and plundered with little thought, where they had all come from.
As they passed from the portico, the monks in black reverently handed them their swords, and beside Cedd, Sir Anthony took his sword and put it in his belt, red cloak like a streak of blood flowing behind him, he walked ahead of the King but waited for Cedd to come near ear level.
“You need me to go abroad for a thing you keep forgetting to find.”
“Eh?” Cedd raised an elegant black eyebrow.
“A wife,” Anthony said. “You need a queen or your throne might as well go to Anson now.”
Cedd grimaced.
“You know,” Cedd said, “I do not hate Anson.”
Anthony opened his mouth, but Cedd said, “I fear him, but I do not hate him. He is my brother. I know you may not believe this, but there was a time when I loved him.”
“I do believe that,” Anthony said, “In fact, I believe you love him still.”
“At the coronation, when he knelt before me and placed his hands in mine, something passed between us. I knew he was my brother, and he was loyal to me. That he would never plot against me.”
An agonized looked passed over Cedd’s face, and he said, “If only I could know that all the time. If only…”
“If onlys do not matter,” Anthony said, not ungently. “You cannot help your suspicions. No king could do otherwise. And speaking of suspicions, you are five and thirty with no queen and no children.”
Cedd smiled at Anthony, looking almost foolish.
“Dear Anton, what do people suspect?”
“You’re infuriating.”
“I’m King.”
“Which isn’t as powerful as you think, and nothing at all without a queen. Give me a list of women and I’ll go looking for them as soon as your father passes.”
“Edmund has swallowed up three kingdoms and has no daughters,” Cedd said.
“You could marry the daughter of an Earl.”
“The Earl of Herreboro’s daughter… I heard vague talk that she was here, but I did not see her.”
“The Baldwins were Earls of Hale, is there one among them?”
“The Baldwins are poisonous,” Anthony nearly spat as they mounted their horses.
“Should we think Royan?”
“Not if you plan to make an enemy of Anson. Not if you wish to defy Ohean.”
“Why should I give a damn about that black spider?”
“Because he is the Black Spider,” Anthony said. “Remember what he did to the dreadnoughts when they came against Cair Daronwy. And he was only fifteen.”
“Who saw that? Were you there? ”
“No, but many were,” Anthony said. “What if I go to Senach, and to Sussail?”
“Bereneice rules there. Her husband has Wulfstan blood as does she. Marrying their daughter might seem like I was making a bid for Edmund’s throne.”
“Edmund has no children, and he does not have the loyalty of his people. He may welcome your bid. And, at any road, your mother was of the Hale line too. In the morning shall I depart for Senach and see if the King and Queen there wish to stick their finger in Edmund’s eye?”
“I’d rather you go to Sussail.”
“I’ll go where you wish, but either way I must go.”
“Fine,” Cedd said, as Anthony’s manservant came and began to relieve him of his cloak as Anthony’s did the same for him. “But tonight you stay here. I need my old friend with me.”


END OF THE CHAPTER AND END OF PART ONE

WE WILL RETURN ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WEEKEND
 
Anson’s story was very interesting! So Cedd has to find a wife and Queen? I am very interested to see how this goes! Great writing and I look forward to more on the other side of the weekend.
 
Well, every king has to find a queen, and of course we already know who she will be, because she's been in the story a while now, and her mother and the Sacred Isle already made the plans even if Cedd doesn't know.
 

SEVEN





“There will come to you a mighty man,
a comrade who saves his friend—
he is the mightiest in the land, he is strongest,
he is as mighty as the serpents of Amana!”
Oloreth spoke to his mother, the Goddess Addiwak, saying:
“So may it to pass!
May I have a friend and adviser, a friend and adviser may I have!
You have interpreted for me the dreams about him!”

-From: The Song of Oloreth


RIVER’S REST




That day King Anthal declared, “I feel younger and more fit than I’ve been in ages.”
With that, they rode out of the city to the lodge of River’s Rest. Hilda and Morgellyn, who were not at all convinced of their father’s health, remained behind, but Imogen and her brothers went on, and Wolf joined Ohean, accompanied by Myrne, veiled and dressed in the grey of a servant.
“I think,” the King of Westrial decided, “it is because Ohean has come among us.”
“And nothing of me?” Anson jested.
“But I see you everyday,” Anthal taunted. “But come, Son, lets you and I go hunting and see if we can bring back the Autumn Stag?”
“And Ohean, will you come with us?”
“No,” the mage said, watching Cedd mount his horse beside Anson. “Hunting has never been suitable for me.”
“Not to your taste?” Cedd said
“Hunting is to the taste of anyone who ever sat at table, Grace,” Ohean said. “But it is not to my talent.”
“I will come back,” Anson said, “with great stag horns for you.”
At once Ohean felt disoriented, but hoped no one saw and simply said, “Keep your stag horns and only bring back the meat.”
As they prepared to ride away, the King said, “And I will desire one of your high tales, one of the ballads of the West country when I return.”
As they rode away, Imogen asked, “Are you well, Ohean? You looked taken by something.”
He shook his head, fingering the collar of his dark red mantle.
“When one’s chief gift is visions, he is always being taken by something.”
“Nothing horrible, I hope.”
“There is always something horrible,” he said, dismissively. “Do not let it disturb you, there is nothing in my mind that a cold drink of water cannot cure.”
They joined Wolf and Myrne, and made their way back to the walls of the lodge outside the city.
“When I hear your songs,” Myrne said, “I am tempted to believe your highest gift is music, not vision.”
“I think they are one in the same,” Ohean said. “One delights hearts, one warns them. I prefer the first, and I have mastery over it the way I do not over the other. Come, we will fix ourselves something nice to drink and maybe to eat, and I will sing an old tale to you if you would like.”
The princess said that she would.
“I have had no one to sing to me since my mother died,” Imogen said. “She was a fair singer with a fair voice. I think that’s why Father loved her.”
She moved through the kitchen with Wolf and Myrne, skillful as a maid, fixing drinks and treats and coming out with a frosty ewer of water while Ohean, the mantle gone, brought out the tray. They were eating in peace for some time, and keeping the silence that people who are not uncomfortable around each other can keep when Ohean got up and returned with a lute and sat down to sing.
“This is a tale of ancient times, long before the Ayl and Hale came, ages even before the Remulans, when the world was young and stars sang and cats still talked.

“In those days before the first flooding, when the
Sons of Heaven came frequently to wed the
Daughters of Earth, lived Assanad, called
Harmon, fairest of
the Everlasting people.
Daughter of Amfe and Corum,
a lord and lady of the Sea the White Oak.
Black as night was her hair
and her eyes were grey.
She was the mother of heroes.

When Enkial was a young King,
after the death of his father,
he went onto the sea and wandered into
the Ever Lasting realms.
Came he into the land of Corum
and as he was riding past the palace
of the King there leaned out Assanad,
and when he saw her, his sorrow
was gone and he fell in love.
They say this was the song, he sang:
‘I long to be healed of everything
that dams
me like a flood
if, on this night
at this feast
at this wedding table
ghostly, black and grayed I vague remember
how I felt that
joy
will you give me that trembling
opening,
spilling
in which all of me pours out
once water
now drunken wine!’


But just then there was a long, low, clear mournful horn heard beyond the hills, into the forest.
“It is nothing,” Imogen said as the others looked out. “The stag is dead. They will soon be home.”
Ohean waited for the trembling that had come upon him to pass, and placing a smile upon his face. He said:

Assanad commanded Neti to open the gate,
Enkial came in to ask for her hand.
To Araw it mattered little that Enkial was a King,
or even that he had the blood of Amana.
Proud lord of the Nefil was he.

But Harmon made up her mind.
She took from her father’s house the Jewel of Tethys, woman of the Sea, her mother’s mother, and
with her few possessions she came to Enkial.
In rage, Araw sent his hounds after them,
but Enkial charmed them with his singing.
Araw caused the earth to shake,
but by the power of the stone and for love
of Assanad it was calmed.
They sailed across the waves the waves,
And Araw raised up his army.
Then did Tethys, Lady of the Waves rise up.
“Peace,” she said to Araw, “for she who has found
Her man and blessing upon them. Harmon,
Bear this Jewel, always before thy children and
They children’s children, gift of my sister Alliyah,
Sign of our blessing upon you.
From you may there be born heroes and heroes,
mages and nations
Soon shall come the time of the Great Flooding.
Who shall withstand it without you?”
So saying, did the mighty Lady of the Waves,
mother of Nereids and Merfolk, sink back to the Deep.
Having heard the voice of the daughter of Aiuryn,
a mother of gods and men, did Araw relent.
So Harmon Assanad sailed with Enkial to
Avarum the House of Heroes,
and Araw raised a great storm,
but Enkial reminded the waters
that he was a son of Io, Amana’s daughter.
And at last they came to Avarum,
where she was received as Queen.
With Assanad at his side, Enkial
reigned long as lord in Avarum,
and from their line came Oloreth,
the might hero after the Flood and Osse, father of our fathers,
No war was in Enkial’s day,
and when he was old and full of years,
Assanad called up the great barge,
Ereshaan, on which they had sailed
across the sea, and they returned to the Outer Isles.
But not to her father’s home.
They say there she and he still reign,
In gold and wine and glory.”


Ohean was idly strumming his harp and yawning a bit.
“It was a beautiful tale,” Imogen said, yawning and stretching before the fire, “though there was much about gods and goddesses and long gone people I did not entirely understand, but the way you sang it made it not matter the same time it made me more curious.”
But even as the last strum of Ohean’s harp sounded, the horns grew louder, more frantic. The four of them rose and left the great room, coming down the steps to see the party riding toward them. Imogen had expected to see a stag draped over a horse or trussed behind two poles, but across two horses was a man on a litter and Anson was covered in blood as were Cedd and others. Their faces were pale and Imogen shrieked and ran out seeing the King on the bier.
“Father! Father!”
Cedd caught her a little roughly, and Anson pulled her back from him.
“Imm, Imm, calm down!”
“He began coughing blood,” Anson explained. “We thought he would choke but then…. I did something. And he’s still alive.”
“Did something?” Ohean began.
But Imogen was weeping, and the Ohean, heedless of the blood on her and on the King’s chest, wrapped his arms abour the princess and whispered strange words, whereby she fell into a half swoon, and he said, “Princes, take her to rest. If you can see to her, then I will see to the King.”

Wolf had assisted Maude in setting up a low fire in this warm weather as well as a brazier of frankincense, and as Anson entered the room where his father lay, nodding to Cedd who was leaving, the seneschal Draper, was lowering King Anthal into bed, and Anson genuflected.
“Father,” he murmured.
“My son,” Anthal spoke, nearly at the end of his strength, “Come sit beside me.
“Majesty,” Draper began, “Shall we leave?”
“None of you shall leave,” Anthal rasped, shaking his head.
He raised his old hand to touch Anson’s cheek and said, “Do you wonder why I did not choose you as King?”
“Cedd is the oldest,” Anson said. “He was the son of your first queen. Queen Toumaline was of the House of Hale. You would have needed a very good reason to turn from him to me.”
“And yet I have—” Anthal ran out of breath, and he coughed. But the small cough turned into a great cough, and then he caught at his throat and they all stood over him looking concerned until he could speak again.
“And yet,” he began again, “I have left you to oversee the courts, to govern in my stead., knowing that…” he took a great, painful breath, “knowing that you are preferred by the people and knowing that… you are preferred by me….”
“Father,” Anson said, placing his hand firmly over the old king’s, “I do not need you to explain to me that everything is not about preference. Preference has nothing to do with it.”
“But it does,” Anthal said, “for I do prefer you, and your blood is of the Holy Isle. Your lineage links you to the ancient House of Chyr, the line of Osse. You…” Anthal sought to push himself up, and when this did not work, his steward and Wolf propped him up.
“You are not king for one simple reason. It is because your mother,” the old King turned to Ohean, “your cousin, made me promise not to declare Anson king. Essily made me declare that I would do nothing to the succession, for she had foreseen I must not. She was, you know, a woman of great power, and she said that your inheritance would be in the south, at the city of Ondres, the Green Castle.”
“The seat of the ancient Kings,” Anson said.
“Aye,” Anthal nodded his head, wearily. “But she said I must not make you my heir, that your title must be Prince of Ondres and so….” He weezed, “… in the presence of all these… I do declare you.”
He rested his hand on Anson’s head and, at last, said, “Anson Aethelyn, son of Anthal, Anthalson, your true name… Prince of the ancient seat of Ondres, Lord of the Green Desmaine, I do name thee.”
And then the King sat up straighter and said in as firm a voice as he could manage:
“Wilt though solemnly promise and swear to govern thy people according to their respective laws and customs? Wilt thou to the best of thy power cause Law and Justice, in Mercy, to be executed in all thy judgments?”
Anson blinked up at his father and Anthal smiled down at him, looking a little sly and saying, “In ancient times it was the father who bestowed the oath, and no priest or bishop. Now… child… answer.”
Then said Anson to the King, “All this, I solemnly promise so to do.”
And then the King was seized by coughing, and his hand dropped from Anson’s head.
“Your Grace!” Ash began, and Cedd was coming back into the room as Imogen followed.
“Father!” Anson said, and his sister and brother did the same.
King Anthal, stopped coughing, took a deep breath and closed his eyes, and then, those same eyes opening a little, his mouth opening a little as well, while the eyes dimmed, the King of Westrial breathed his last.
While Imogen went to her knees in sobs, Draper closed the eyes of the King with two fingers and murmured, “The King is dead.”
Then turning to Cedd he declared, “Long live the King.”

MORE TOMORROW
 
That was sad to read of the King’s last moments. It was good that he explained to Anson why he was not becoming King. I liked the songs too. Great writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!
 
IN THE WAKE OF KING ANTHAL'S DEATH, ANSON AND IMOGEN FALL INTO GRIEF



Ohean had taken the Princess to the first spare room he saw, and lain her down with a light coverlet. Anson would bring her out of her trance gently, but when the full force of things hit her, then there would be such mourning as would break his heart and make him remember his own mourning. All through the house there was shouting and movement and Ohean was glad to be away from it. He went to look out of the window where the sun was setting, and moved to the fireplace to prepare a small fire. They would not be leaving here tonight. Ohean sat down beside Princess Imogen’s bed, and stretched his legs. He surprised himself by beginning to fall asleep.
He heard feet though, and looked to the entance of the door to see Anson, his tunic rumpled, his faee weary, hairy sticking up.
He did not speak for a long time and when he did he said,
“I actually thought maybe you could save him… as if…”
“That is not how it works,” Ash said gently.
“I know,” Anson nodded. “But if only it did… He was gone so quickly, Ash.”
“What did you do today?” Ohean said.
“What?”
“You said when he began to cough up blood… you did something.”
“I put my arms about him,” Anson said, “And willed him to live. I… he was gone. But I called him back. For just a moment.”
“I knew there was power in you,” Ohean said more to himself than Anson.
Ohean did not rise to go to Anson, but let him stand and the tall man said, “My father is dead. The King of Westrial is dead.’
“The King of Westrial lives,” Ohean reminded Anson, “sitting in a room down the hall, and then preparing to ride back to the city that will mourn your father, and celebrate Cedd.”
“King Cedd,” Anson marveled. “What can it mean?”
Ohean was not sure if Anson meant this in a political sense, or a more spiritual one. The wizard said, simply:
“Nothing good.”

As the firelight shone on the image of Addiwak, they watched Imogen sleeping.
“I am afraid to leave her,” Anson whispered.
“She woke, she wept,” Ohean said. “I remember when my grandfather died. I did not want to be alone. I was nearly destroyed, more than I thought. But there came a time when I needed to rest. When those around me did as well.”
“I know so little of you.”
“I was raised by my mother and then by my father,” Ohean said, “but when I grew near to manhood I went to live with my grandfather, Idris’s grandfather, the King of Rheged.”
“I guess that makes you are a prince?”
“The son of one,” Ohean shrugged, “though not the legitimate one.”
“Like me.”
“Unlike you,’ Ohean said, “for what I know is that your mother Essily was the wife of your father for a time. She did that on purpose. My mother married no man. She did that on purpose too.”
“Did you mind it?”
“I never have,” Ohean shook his head.
“You are the kind of man who does not feel the need to tell a great deal,” Anson observed.
“If you understood how often visions overtook me,” Ohean said, “if you knew how much of what I see should not be seen or shared, then you would understand.”
Anson said nothing, only looked at him, and Ohean said, “Today, when you spoke before going on the hunt, about bringing back the stag horns, I saw you, I saw you crowned with horns like the kings of old, like the Horned God of ancient times, and when the horns blew and Imogen said the stag had been killed then I knew it meant the King, for the King and the Stag are one.”
“Then are you saying I am the King?”
“No,’ Ohean said. “Not today. Cedd is King, and what he will do to you if you remain in Kingsboro beyond your father’s funeral, I cannot say. We have not talked of it, but I will not remain in Westrial and there is no reason for you to do so. I think you should come with me.”
“This is the only home I have ever known.”
“It is not,” Ohean said. “You are Ayl, but half of your blood is Royan, and even your Ayl blood has Royan in it. You have the whole of Ondres, and people loyal to you there, and if you do not think Ondres far enough, well then, there are other homes, and you may want to find them if you wish to keep your life.”
“We heard what he said to Morgellyn, but Cedd is my brother. Do you think Cedd would plan treachery against me?”
Ohean shook his head.
“I do not know what he would do.”
“I do not know either,” Anson said.
They stopped talking at the approach of feet, and Anson turned to see Myrne coming toward them. She curtseyed and said, “My sorrows, Prince.”
Then, affectionately, she kissed his cheek.
“Prince Anson, I came not only to offer condolences, but to say a thing that is on my heart, toward you.”
He nodded and said, “Speak, Lady.”
And so she did.
“Once my father told me a tale of a sword called Gram. He said it was the very sword of Sevard, of the House of the Valkyras from which our ancestors, and the ancestors of the kings of Hale were descended.”
“All know of this,” Anson said.
Myrne nodded, but continued.
“It is said that Wode the Allfather, him who we no longer worship, thrust the sword into the main beam of the great hall Voldehal, and said only his true son could pull it out. Valkyra pulled it out and passed it to his heirs.”
“But the sword passed out of history,’ Ohean said.
When Anson and Myrne looked at him, he said, “But it is mine to know all lore.”
“Yes,” Myrne said, “of course. But it did not pass out of memory. The wise of the Ayl knew where it was, and it is said to be in Ardan. That is what we murmur up north, in our halls away from the traitor Edmund where the old ways still hold sway. My father told me it was there, and that a true king would take it.”
“Me?” Anson said.
“Perhaps,” Myrne said. “But I do not wish to be a prophetess and a kingmaker. It is only, I was going north, back home, and shall continue to do so. But now I see I came here for a reason, and I see something in you, something more than a man who must flee his brother.”
Anson looked to Ohean and Ohean said, “Do you wish to be a king?”
Anson did not answer, and Myrne curtseyed again and left the room.
“Ohean?”
“Yes.”
“If you can wait just a moment, will you do a thing for me?”
“Of course,” Ohean said.
A moment later, Anson returned to the room with a bowl of hot water, towels over his shoulder, soap and a razor.
Ohean nodded, and as Anson prepared the things and took off his shirt. Ohean planted a chair before the bureau.
They did not speak for a long time, and the only sound in the room was the crackling of the fire, a log falling, the snipping of sheers, sighing, the breathing of Imogen.
When as much hair as could be snipped was gone, Ohean messaged the stubbly bronze hair in soap and water, and then taking the razor, and whispering words over it, he began deftly to shave the hair that was left.
“How dead it looks,” Anson said, viewing the curls of his bronze hair on the floor. “So dull.”
“Duck your head,” Ohean told him.
He rinsed Anson’s head, and then, taking taking a small torch, ran fire over it, murmuring words.
“How does it feel.”
Anson squinted in the mirror and ran a hand over his head.
“It feels bald.”
Ohean stifled a chuckle, murmured, “Stand up,” and began to put things away. Anson left with the basin and then came back a few minutes later for the towers and razors.
“My heart is so sore,” Anson said, at last. “How often I was away from him, or on the border with the troops, fighting Daumans, and in these last two days I felt like his son and not a bastard. More than a soldier. My heart is so sore.”
And then Anson said, “Forgive me, please. Forgive me for what I am going to say. It sounds so foul.”
“Speak freely,” Ohean said.
“Can we please,” Anson whispered, looking across the room almost empty eyed, “please, please can we fuck? I… want to feel something that isn’t sorrow. I want to… Please, can we fuck?”
Anson was too ashamed to look at him, and only looked across the room.
“I am no White Monk, Prince,” Ohean said, simply. “You do not have to be ashamed of anything. Get up. Come to bed.”

END OF CHAPTER SEVEN
 
Poor Anson. Grief is tough on anyone but at least he has Ohean with him now. Great writing and ending of Chapter Seven and I look forward to Chapter 8!
 
While we think about poor Anson, Imogen can't be forgotten. In a really big way her whole life seems to be over. She was the youngest and most doted upon child of a king and now she is at the mercy of a brother who sort of hates her. In addition, she's just torn apart but more of Imogen soon.
 
As the city of Kingsboro prepares for the funeral of King Anthal, Myrne and the princesses hold a private council.

[B]


EIGHT[/B]




“You don’t know me; you never knew my heart. No man knows my many lives. I cannot tell them. I shall never undertake it. If I had not experienced what I have, I would not have believed it myself.”

-The Prophet Joses





THE KINGSBORO



In the night they would look at each other and stand face to face. Anson would bend to kiss him deeply, and then they would begin to undress and move to the bed, tasting each other, moving together, pressing together. For Anson, Ohean’s body was a playground, and the way Ohean cherished him, kissed his eyes, his mouth, even his arms, going down his whole body, taking his cock in his mouth, licking up and down the shaft, paying attention to his balls and the secret places was complete delight. Everything Ohean did to him, he wanted to do to him. That night, when Ohean brought Anson inside of him, Anson’s eyes opened wide in surprise as Ohean, mouth forming an O.
That very same night, Anson wanted Ohean inside of him. and he learned that it always hurt. It never happened without some pain.

In the morning, before they were to return to the palace accompanying the body of the King, Ohean woke right before Anson. He touched Anson’s head and said, “Your hair is stubbly? Do you want me to shave you again?”
“I’m not greatly worried.”
Ohean shook his head, laying beside him. “I only wanted to do something for you.”
“You’ve done plenty for me.”
Ohean ran his hand over Anson.
Anson climbed out of bed, and Ohean lay on his side looking at Anson’s naked body, his tallness, the straight shoulders, the long back, the surprising full ass and athletic thighs.
Ohean reached for his cigarette case.
“We don’t have to decide anything right now,” she said, laying one on the bedstead for Anson, and taking one for himself.
We will, though, and soon.
Anson was headed to the bathroom. He left the door open.
“I have already decided,” Anson said over his piss. “We should head to Ardan, to find… what Myrne discussed.”
“I agree,” Ohean said. “But after that?”
“After that can take care of itself.”
Anson hit the flusher and came out of the bathroom his heavy cock swinging between his legs. He jumped onto the bed and kissed Ohean.
“After that,” he repeated, “Can take care of itself. Now take a shower with me. We must prepare to go.”



The city of Kingsboro, always so alive, had so recently filled with the joy of the coronation. Now the entire city was quiet with the death of an old king, hung with black banners.
“This,” Cedd said to Anthony, “is the time where I wish my coronation had not taken place. We need something to take the people’s mind off the death of a king.”
“What about a royal wedding?” Anthony turned to him. “What about putting a crown on a new queen’s head?”
“You’re a terrible man,” Cedd said.
“Not at all, for it seems I will not have to travel to Sussail. Look ahead.”
The King, Anthony and the Prince Anson came to greet the men on their chestnut horses, King Raoul of Sussail, golden skinned with black with tight black hair, a silver circlet topping his head. Beside him was his Queen, Hermudis and with them rode their two children as well as two mages, one in a brown robe, one in black under a white surplice.
“Cousins,” Cedd greeted them.
“We began traveling when we heard of your coronation,” Queen Hermudis said, and this was all she needed to say. “We have heard that King Duncan and Queen Bereneice are on their way from Senach. This is the mage Thano. He joined us on the way, traveling from the Hidden Tower.”
King Raoul touched his thin beard and murmured, “I’ve always wanted to know where is the Hidden Tower anyway?”
“Hidden,” Thano said, shortly.
While they were speaking, Wolf came running toward them, to slow down and catch his breath, bowing so that his cap fell off of his spiky red hair.
“Have a care,” Anthony Pembroke said, “you intrude in the presence of royalty.”
“I am the servant of Ohean Penannyn,” Wolf said, shortly. “Not you.”
The tall young man pushed forward, extending an envelope.
“I take it you are her Grace the Princess Isobel. This message is for you.”
“What business could Ohean have with the Princess Isobel?” Cedd demanded.
Wolf said, “His business, your Grace,” clicked his heels, and departed.
Isobel placed the letter against her breasts and said, “I shall read it when I am settled, and read it soon.”
Thano, in his black robe, Anson remembered. He was a close friend and cousin of Ash—but not to Anson. After Cedd had greeted them formally, Thano removed his hood to reveal a clean shaven scalp, and kissed Anson’s ring.
“Lord Thano,” Anthony Pembroke said, “it is my lord Cedd who is King.”
“Aye,” Thano agreed, “but it is Anson who is Queen Essily’s son.”
“Myrne!” Imogen hissed dramatically. “Myrne!”
“I’m right here, Imma,” Myrne came out of the windowseat. “Are you well, dear?”
“Better, but never mind me,” Imogen said. “There’s someone here for you.”
She had barely stopped speaking when Wolf ushered in Princess Isobel.
“Myrne!” Isobel ran to her, and the girls embraced.
Isobel looked back, “Your friend, Wolf, is a very bold man! You ought to have seen him out there. And then, when I opened up the letter and saw it was from you! Oh but Ohean had written me before. Maybe you knew that.”
“Is it true you will marry Cedd?” Myrne said.
“Well, dear, I came to see what he was like,” Isobel said. “Our plans are to avoid him asking any questions of marriage and leave here right after the funeral. I was so surprised to know you were here.”
“I’m returning to the North, but you do know the Princess Imogen.”
“Yes,” Isobel bowed deeply to Imogen, “and my condolences, cousin,” she said.
“Thank you, cousin,” Imogen folded her hands together.
“I know Myrne is virtually in hiding,” Princess Isobel said, “but if you need someone else to be with, my door is open as long as I am here.”
Imogen looked suddenly shaken, an Isobel rose, covering her mouth.
“I’m sorry, cousin, did I say something?”
“It is your kindness,” Imogen said, blinking rapidly, and taking a breath. “Thank you for that.”
Quickly the princess, curtseyed, and turned to leave.
“Wolf,” Myrne began.
“I will go after her,” Wolf promised, “but not just yet.”
Isobel nodded.
“You are very wise, Sir Wolf. She is proud,” the Princess of Sussail said, “as a woman must be. She will want some time to herself.”

MORE TOMORROW
 
Poor Imogen. I really feel for her. At least Anson has Ohean but she doesn’t seem to have much in the way of support. Hopefully that changes. Great writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!
 
While Imogen has no lover--she may not be so alone after all. Isobel, Myrne and Wolf are looking after her. We will see what becomes of our princess.
 
The claws of queens come out tonight at the funeral of King Anthal and Queen Hermudis receives an invitation to stay with Morgellyn while Princess Isobel points Myrne in the direction of a broad shouldered red head.




KINGSBORO
ABBEY



The Abbey was filled to capacity this morning, far more full than at Cedd’s coronation, filled with all of the black robed mourners for the great funeral in this space of white stone, where the sun shone through the new windows. Entering last, even after the royal family, came the nuns and monks of Saint Clew, led by Hilda. The nuns, like the monks, were bareheaded and bald, all of them having shaved their heads in solidarity with Hilda. They came to the very front where there was a great empty space with only the royal children before a dais where was a table, and over the table, legs folded under him, a blue stone image of the Ard, the first of monks and the last incarnation of God, eyes closed in peace, hands folded in meditation. They all assumed his pose. Hilda and all of her nuns were in black and bald like the monks. Anson and Cedd, Imogen and Morgellyn were in black as well, and, accepting Anson, they were the only ones with hair, though fair wisps were growing back on Anson’s face. From the galleries, Ohean, Idris and Wolf watched him along with Myrne, and Thano whispered to his cousin, “I can see why you love him.”
“I think all the kingdom loves him,” Wolf said.
But just then, Hilda, sitting like every one else in the sanctuary, struck the bell beside her and sang out, her alto voice ringing through the nave:

“Jeso Dharani!”

All the monks and the nuns began to sing:

“Om ha ha ha vis ma e sva ha!”

Now the whole abbey took it up, singing it over and over again
Hilda reached forward and lit three sticks of incense, and then burned them before Ard, smoke lifting while Ohean watched Anson, sitting there, clean shaven, the light on his high cheekbones, looking as peaceful and sorrowful as the Ard himself while he chanted. Prayer beads slipped through his fingers as singing filled the abbey.

Main ek timaahee mein vyaapak rahoonga
ek daya ke saath pyaar dayaalu ke saath imbuaid;
isee tarah doosara,
isee tarah teesara, isee tarah chautha;

Suddenly a rage and a great sorrow filled Ohean. Oh, if only he were Elwin or Ellesin or one of the great kingmakers of old. If only this lover of his, so strong, so true, gentle, laughing, loving and weeping in the middle of the night, was the King and not this Cedd. If only he could have turned the way of things. Ah, but this was how wars began, and as Ohean looked over the crowd and saw the fair head of Anthony Pembroke, he realized this man felt the same way, only about the black haired man who truly was King.
Beyond the altar some could smell the burning. It had begun some time ago. When Anthal had died they had taken his body to the coldhouse under the palace. There were some far off lands where the bodies of the dead were embalmed, but this was considered a desecration, and of old the Ayl had burned bodies right after death. But this was a funeral, and when many days must past, after the bodies of the dead were washed and bound, they were placed in the coldhouses. Anthal had been brought out, and finally lain to rest in the basilica yesterday evening for all to pay their respects. He was under a golden sheet, coins upon his eyes. And then, this morning, as people came to fill the abbey, as the royal children except for Hilda came, the priests of the basilica bore the king away. Beyond the sanctuary, they shaved his head and gave him a new name, and then they took him to the burning house and, as the chanting was continuing over and over again, the burning was ending.

To oopar aur neeche, aasapaas aur har jagah;
aur sabhee ke roop mein mere lie
main sabhee ko shaamil karane mein sarvavyaapee hoga
dimaag ke saath vishv ek daya ke saath pyaar dayaalu ke saath imbuaid

prachur, ooncha, aparivartaneey,
shatruta ke bina aur beemaar bina
main ek ke saath ek timaahee mein vyaapak rahana hoga
man kee karuna se prabhaavit;
isee tarah doosara,
isee tarah teesara, isee tarah chautha

The image of Ard was before the final altar where the choir and the royals sat. Two doors were on either side of that plain stone altar and, out of one, came black robed monks bearing a golden urn, elaborately chased with dragons. As they approached the table before Ard, Hilda struck the gong, and there was the end of that round of chanting, and then silence.
Anson, Cedd, Morgellyn and Hilda rose, Cedd a little stiffly, Ohean noticed. Though Cedd had put his hands out for the urn, the Abbot placed the urn in the arms of Anson and Wolf hissed, “Well, that did it!”
“I’m afraid you’re right, my friend,” King Duncan of Senach said beside his wife, Queen Bereniece.
Thano said, “We’d better make a line to Anson as soon as we can.”
But Anson had already handed the urn to Cedd, who tried to hide a scowl, and then turned, leading his siblings out of the abbey past the main altar while the monks, minus their future Abbess, began to take up the chant again.


“Well, they are both gone,” Imogen said. “My mother and father. I am an orphan now.”
They stood on the porch of the abbey.
“You know you can come with us,” Prince Adrian of Senach said. He was dark haired, red cheeked, open faced.
Queen Bereneice, his mother, said to Imogen, “It is not required, you are a woman grown, but if you wish it, come to Senach.”
“Thank you, Aunt. Thank you both.”
Adrian hugged her quickly, and Imogen was touched by how gentle her cousin was, though she often wondered if so gentle a person could one day be a king.
“We’re your family,” Adrian said, certainly, “if that means anything.”
“It means everything,” Imogen said. “Still, I may be taking another path.”

Myrne, so heavily veiled in black no one could know her, walked beside Isobel who said, “That Wolf!”
“He laughed the first time I called him Sir Wolf, but he thinks you’re quite striking.”
“And I think him striking as well,” Isobel said. “You might not want to take him for granted.”
“What are you saying?”
“I think I just said it. Or do you look down on him because he’s a servant?”
“I don’t look down on him at all!” Myrne said. “I haven’t looked at any man. Men have not been on my mind. I’m just surprised that the Princess of Sussail would suggest I marry a servant.”
“Well, we all serve someone. If I marry Cedd and become Queen of Westrial, that is its own service. But you can be with whomever you wished, Lady Herreboro, and when you think that no matter how long our royal lineages may go, at the head of them is a pirate, a raider, or a soldier, what does it matter if you fall in love with a tall, strong, courageous, red head with broad shoulders-”
“Maybe it’s you who should make a pass at Wolf.”
“Broad shoulders,” Isobel continued, “and not just any servant, but the servant and ward of Ohean Penannyn himself!”



“I am truly sorry for this tragedy,” Queen Hermudis was saying to Queen Morgellyn.
“If by tragedy you mean the natural consequence of being an insanely old man who outlived all of his much younger wives, then yes, it is quite a tragedy.”
“Try to pretend you have some manners,” a golden haired woman, veiled in black murmured to Morgellyn. They were not unalike, for this was Queen Bereniece of Senach, the younger sister of the late Queen Emmaline.
Morgellyn frowned at her aunt, but King Stephen said to Hermudis, “Please, your Grace, forgive my qtueen.”
Hermudis who looked like she had not only forgiven Morgellyn, but forgotten her as well, shrugged.
“We are traveling back home immediately,” King Stephen continued, “Pray ask your husband if he and your family would journey on with us to Raymond House.”
“How long have we known the King and Queen of Sussail?” Morgellyn said. “Whatever they call Hermudis, you know it’s she that’s the King in that household.”
“How big is Raymond House?” Hermudis asked.
“So much space!” Stephen confided in her.
“Big enough,” Bereneice said, “For you to never have to see anyone you do not want to.”
“Will you be coming, Aunt?” Morgellyn asked her.
“Unfortunately, no.”
“Yes,” Morgellyn said, “What a misfortune. But she’s right,” Morgellyn turned to Queen Hermudis. “Raymond House is an old castle. It will almost be like we’re not even there.”
Hermudis fixed a long smile on Morgellyn.
“Do you promise?”


On the streets across the palace, while bells were ringing from the carillon of the abbey, Ohean and Princess Isobel approached with Myrne veiled and Wolf beside her. Anson came to them, and swooped down, wrapping Ohean in a tight embrace. He was heavy and he hung upon him, and Ohean said, “You looked so noble, and I was so very proud, I wanted to reach out and touch you.”
Anson wiped his face with the back of his hands. “I don’t mean to be such a baby. Really. And I hope I did not embarrass you.”
“My friend,” Isobel said, stepping forward ,and deliberately embracing the tall prince, “you did the best thing you could for yourself. You publicly let it be known that you were allied with Ohean Penannyn and with the most powerful mage in the island.”
“Politics was not on my mind.”
“No,” Ohean said, “and that is why I love you.”
“Well, then there is some good in all this,” Anson said.
“Come,” Ohean said, including Wolf, Idris, and Myrne. “Let us attend the repast with as light a heart as we may.”

MORE ON THURSDAY
 
Wow you were right the claws really did come out at the funeral! I am glad Isobel has some support and I hope her and Anson make it out safely after all that has went on. Great writing and I look forward to more in a few days!
 
Tonight, a big long juicy portion: Dissenbark makes ritual, Pol falls deeper into love with Austin and Gabriel and Derek recommit to their vocation as Anson meet with Cedd and Ohean plans their flight from Kingsboro.




HYRUM HOUSE


“Friend, we saw you sitting alone,” Gabriel said, coming to sit across from the young man.
The young man nodded and he said, “I just like to come here.”
“Well, that’s fair too,” Gabriel told him.
In the last few years Gabriel had come back to the Blue Work which, for a time, he had avoided. When he was not doing it, merely living as a scholar, he felt something missing from his call, and when Conn said he would be leaving, then Gabriel knew he would be returning to the work of meeting and loving men.
This boy, who looked like he was barely twenty, possibly a university student, came to the tavern room often. Across the sea there were blue temples, but here the temples were set up like taverns so that those who were curious, but not ready, could sit, like this one, with a drink, and look at the young men walking off with others.
“I haven’t even been feeling very well,” the boy said.
“What’s the trouble?”
“Tonsilitis, I think.”
“That’s something to be here with a sickness like that,” Gabriel told him. He was a strong man, thickly built and orange haired, with northern blood. “Maybe it’s a sore throat only.”
“Maybe. Hopefully,” the young man said.
“Tea,” Gabriel said. “And pineapple juice. Hot. And swallowing raw honey.”
“Thank you,” the boy said. “But I don’t know that I have any of that.”
He lifted up his cup, which was sasparilla, and Gabriel said, “That will help, but not much.”
The compact man rose and said, “I will get something for that sickness.
The boy watched him walking away. He wore a blue shirt, as all Blues did, but unlike many of the blues here, he wore leather trews, and they clung to his thick thighs and firm buttocks. He walked slowly away, and the boy felt his penis rising as he watched him. The whole time Gabriel was gone he wondered after him, and though it could not have been five minutes, when Gabriel returned, the boy thought he had been gone forever.
“This will make you feel much better,” Gabriel set it down, smiling at him with great green eyes.”
“It smells so good, the young man looked down at the thick golden juice, and them up at Gabriel, and when Gabriel signaled for him to do so, then he drank, and opened his eyes in pleasure.
“And it will make you feel much better much quicker.” Gabriel told him while he drank.”
“Is there magic in it?”
“Not as you think,” Gabriel said. “But I believe there is a magic in all things.”
They boy sipped the sweet, dark liquid, and it was hot with something in it which Gabriel said was pepper.
The boy took a few sips and he said, “Sir?”
“You can call me Gabriel.”
“Gabriel—”
“Or you can call me sir, whatever suits you.”
Apparently neither did because the boy simply said, “I don’t know what I am supposed to do. Or what you are supposed to do. I mean… do I buy this? What do I owe you for this?” he gestured to the hot drink.
“This is our home,” Gabriel said, “and everything in it is free.”
“Well, then, what do I do? I mean…?”
“You do what you wish,” Gabriel said, simply. “If you come to make love, you come to make love, and if you come to experience things which most would frown upon you for experiencing, then you may do that here too. And if you come here, merely to gain courage, then that is fine as well. You do not pay us. We are not whores. We never press, though we may encourage if we see the encouragement is needed.”
The boy nodded, continuing to drink, and after three sips, when there was a bit of orange moustache on his upper lip he said, not daring to look at the beautiful Gabriel:
“Do we choose the men we can be with?”
“Oh, yes, and they can choose you.”
“Can I choose you?” the boy took another sip.
“You may,” Gabriel said, “for I have already chosen you.”
The boy looked up, past Gabriel, to the rest of the room. But no one was concerned with him. There were Blues talking to each other or to other men.
“I think…” the boy said, “that I could use some encouragement.”
Gabriel moved closer, and he placed his hand high on the boy’s thigh.
“I think,” Gabriel told him, “ that I would like to straddle you and ride your cock and watch your eyes get all big.”
And as he said this, the boy’s penis swelled, and under the table he felt Gabriel’s hand close around it, and squeeze gently.







DISSENBARK





There was a death in the city, and not a day’s journey away, the people of Kingsboro mourned. But this was the driest year they’d experienced since the drought thirty years before and so all that day they had cleared the land, making sure there was nothing but dirt, and now, as the fires were lit, the people began their song. Dissenbark lifted her voice, for they knew that she was not only the cure all, but a wise woman of the old ways, close not only to the God in the great cathedral, but to the Gods of the trees and the land the heah, to the Mother herself gone bone dry and flammable.
The firelight shone on the plains of Dissenbark’s young face as she sang:
“I am the holy one!”
The women behind her keened:
“I am the yielding one!”
The women sang again: “I am the holy one!
“All of the grain on the earth is me.
The skill in the reaper’s hand is me!”
“I am the yielding one!” Dissenbark keened, stretching her hands out, and the women keened after her, “I am the bounteous one!”
“All the wealth of the trees is me.”
“The holy one!”
“I am the bounteous one!”
The wind lifted and threatened to carry away the fire.
“I am the holy one!”
“The skill in the reaper’s hand is me.”
Dissenbark stretched out her hands like the priestesses of old. They put the wooden cup in her hands, and she lifted it. She drank from it, and then she passed it to the women behind her. Caitlin Mallory, Dawn Ingalls were among them, white as anything, but surely with the old Royan blood somewhere. What they were was only whispered. Wise women, this was better to say. Dissenbark had been orphaned, and lived on the edge of town. Dawn was a slip of a girl in the service of Dissenbark and Caitlin in the glow of her first year of marriage to Cotton the Weaver. They passed the cup about, Caitlin first to her flaxen haired husband and then Cotton to another and as kirk bells rang in the night, the women sang:
“I am the holy one!”
“I am the holy one!”
When the cup had made its way around the circle, reverently, Dissenbark raised it and spilled the last of the water upon the ground, and then she lifted the two torches lying on either side of her and stepped forward, touch them to the fire as she moved about, and Caitlin murmured:
“So did the Queen of the Underworld bear her torches as she came up to meet her mother, the Belledame of all the Earth, and so did she bring for fruitfulness again.”
With great care Dissenbark moved slowly at the head of her people, throught their fields, swishing the fires over their boundaries, but never touching the fires to the dry grasses, singing as she went:

“I am the holy one!”
“All that you need I give to you.”
“The bounteous one!”
“I am the bountiful one!”






HYRUM HOUSE


“But what do you want?” the Blue asked the man in the corner.
“I want to not be judged?”
The Blue raised an eyebrow.
“I don’t want to go to hell.”
“Annatar is the Lover. He is the Lord of Mystery and Shadows as much as he is the Judge of the World, and he weighs the balance between those things done in the dark for desire, and those things atoned.”
“I am afraid.”
“Are you afraid to speak what you want?” the Blue said, not touching him. “Nothing can happen until you speak it. This is how the world was made.”
Nervously, the young man leaned forward and whispered quickly:
“I want my cock sucked!”
The Blue placed his hand on the man’s knee, and he looked around. surprised.
“Surely not…” the young man began, though his penis was making a tent in his pants. “Surely not here.”
But the Blue, on his knees, opened up the young man’s trousers, and before he could protest, he took his cock in his mouth and, bracing the bench, the young man looked up to the ceiling, closing his eyes tight while the Blue worked his mouth up and down.
“You would never have come here,” the Blue said, taking his mouth away, “if you did not want this.”
His mouth descended on the young man again, his head moving up and down the man’s shaft.

At another table a Blue talked to a man with steel grey hair who seemed to be in his fifties.
The Blue said: “I am presuming that you love your partner and are loyal but not sexually fulfilled and this is why bath houses are easier for you than actually meeting men.”
“Yes, something very close to that....Gonna need to go in a minute. Check on my father. Remember, I said he was sick.”
“Forsake thy father,” the Blue said, placing his hand on the man’s knees.
“What?” the man looked as if he were just waking.
“And forswear thy mother.”
“From the plays,” the man began. That is from—”
His voice rose as the Blue straddled his lap and kissed him on the mouth.
“Oh, but—” the man’s voice was lost in the kiss, and the Blue’s hand moved in the man’s trousers.
“Say nothing,” it was the Blue who spoke at last. “Say nothing at all.”

“Why have you brought us here?” Yvan demanded.
“Because we should be here,” Bayle said, though his voice had lost its force. It had not been like this last time, men receiving head at tables, there the older man’s trousers being worked down the Blue sitting on his lap, the two of them gasping as he slipped the man’s cock inside of him.
“What kind of place is this?” Keyser demanded.
“Exactly the kind of place you knew it was,” Derek said, pointing to the erection tenting out of Keyser’s trousers, “when you followed your friend here.”
“I don’t want to be here,” Yvan said as the older man began to cry out, and the Blue bounced up and down on him, as the young man tables away that the Blue was servicing, shouted while he filled the Blue’s mouth with his coming.
“No, no,” Derek said, business like. “Come with me.”
Bayle was as one transfixed, one who had seen new mysteries, but Keyer and Yvan looked about and then away. For as they walked up the stairs and down the halls, lovers were kissing, men were getting on their knees pleasuring men who were thrown against the walls to be pleasured. Behind doors; the sounds of shuttling mattresses could be heard. Headboards slammed the wall.
“This is older than the Faith,” Derek said. “They say Holy Jadaye who founded the Faith was himself a Blue Priest, and it was in a house like this that Annatar first came to him.”
None of the three men said anything, but Derek said, as he led them into a well appointed room filled witth gold white light, “The only reason you are afraid is not because these men are different from you, but because they show you what is in you.”
As Yvan opened his mouth, Derek kissed him. He thrust his tongue in his mouth and hooked his hands around his trousers pulling them down. Keyser, in this new place, looked on with frank curiousity. But only a few minutes later he cried out when Derek squeezed his cock while kissing Ivan. All the time, Bayle stood by watching, his penis pointing out of his tight trousers.
“You three must obey me in all things.” Derek said.
“Take off your clothes,” he told Keyser and Ivan, and they did so awkwardly and quietly, their young bodies lean, but not completely formed.
Derek was the strongest, most well formed, and Bayle looked on with rising desire and no jealously as Derek rode Ivan, and the boy cried out in shock. He moved from Yvan to Keyser, from one to the other, finally bending down to kiss them as he climbed off of one onto the other. Bayle did nothing, sensing he would be interrupting, though his cock cried out for touch.
Now Keyser and Yvan moved like fish over and on either side of Derek, greedily kissing him, greedily rubbing him, and he began to place their hands away from him, to each other. They were both kissing him, and now he moved, kneeling over them placing their faces close together. At first they looked afraid, and then, like men starving, they kissed and Derek drew their bodies together. Their thighs twisted around each other, and they began to make love.
“Will they regret it?” Bayle wondered, and did not know if he spoke out loud
But Derek pulled him by his stiff penis and said, “No,” bringing him to the bed, “Now for you.”
While they made love, Bayle could hear his friends beside him, and when he heard a high tenor cry, he turned, and he could see Yvan on his stomach while Keyser entered him slowly. Yvan clung to the bedhseet and clinched his teeth while Keyser whispered, “Tell me when to stop.”
“Don’t stop,” Yvan pled, and soon Bayle had stopped what he was doing with Derek to watch his friends. To watch Keyser press his face into the hollow of Ivan’s throat and then, kissing his ear, begin fucking him. Tears went down Ivan’s face as it reddened, but Bayle did not think they were tears of pain. Yvan grasped at the pillows less and now his wet shining eyes opened, and he looked at Bayle, reaching out. Bayle took his hand while Keyser fucked him, and now Bayle lay on his side, watching his friends.
Keyser’s body was olive colored and lightly covered in black hair, and his buttocks were round and heavy, and they flexed and unflexed. Bayle’s hand strayed to them, running over his friends ass. He inserted a finger and ran it up and down the hotness. His cock went harder than ever, and as he was preparing to straddle Keyser, Derek pulled him back, and so he left his friends alone, he and Derek enacting their own drama, and he was unconscious of his friends until he heard a short shout, and he saw Keyser, dolphin like, back arched, buttocks clenched, face to the ceiling while he shuddered and came, his hands grasping Ivan’s shoulders.


When they had all climaxed in the large bed, and on one side of it, squirreled together in the mess of bedsheets, Keyser was holding Yvan in his arms, Bayle whispered:
“They would have never discovered how they felt for each other if you had not brought them here, if I had not done what I did. There was a great wall up between them. They were being whom they were supposed to be. They might have gone to a whore together or something, married women, spent their whole lives knowing a thing was missing. You did right to bring them here.”
“But in the morning,” Bayle said, looking over his friends, “will they regret it?”
“They would have if you had joined them, maybe,” Derek said. “This was for them to discover themselves. There is no regret in a Blue House.”
Bayle wondered if that was true, but he was already held in Derek’s very capable arms, and he felt no regret.



IN THE MIDDLE of the night he was awakened by hands running over him. He looked up to see Keyser’s lazy, handsome, goateed face looking down at him.
“We’ll always wonder if we don’t.” he said, simply.
And so they fucked, and as they gave themselves up to everything, Bayle realized it was true. If they hadn’t done it, they always would have wondered. He surprised himself by convulsing powerfully in Keyser’s arms. He surprised himself by having sex with Yvan as the sky turned pale. In the early morning the four of them woke up in bed, tangled together. They kissed and one by one got up to relieve themselves and then returned to the bed to sleep, and to experiment a little more. As Bayle shivered, coming between Keyser and Ivan, amazed by the different feels of their bodies, their different smells, he knew there would be no shame between them as sure as he knew that, despite them being with him in this moment, the two of them belonged to each other.






THE KINGSBORO



Anson was aware of brushing down his heavy grey blue cloak and straightening the brooch that clasped it, as he made his way to the private chambers of his brother, the King.
Anthony was there, and Anson said, “I would like a word with my brother, his Grace.”
When Anthony looked to Cedd, Cedd nodded, and then Lord Pembroke nodded to him and left, nodding to Anson as well, though not quite with the grace Anson thought he deserved.
“I request permission to travel north.”
“Toward Inglad,” Cedd said.
“Aye.”
“You do not need my permission,” said Cedd.
“Still I request it all the same.”
“Then it is granted.”
Anson wondered when Cedd thought he might kill him, or if he still planned to do so. He did not dare look at his brother lest his eyes give away his thoughts.
“Morgellyn and Hilda are leaving today.”
“When should I leave?” Anson asked.
“When can you leave?”
Anson answered: “In the morning too.”
“Then let nothing hold you here,” Cedd said, spreading out his hands.
Anson nodded, thumped his chest and clicking his heels together, turned to leave.
“Brother,” Cedd called to him.
The bronze haired man turned to the King.
“I hated your mother,” the King said, simply. “I hated her, and I hated you. She would have taken my place, and so I told myself you would too.”
“I have ever been loyal to you.”
“Yes,” Cedd said. “Yes, I see that. And I ought to trust you.”
“But you cannot.”
Cedd said, “That is to my discredit and not yours. Still,” his brow furrowed, “for years we never saw one another, and it is probably best if we resume that habit.”
“Aye,” Anson nodded, his face expressionless as he bowed low and turned to leave the room

“Then you should leave as soon as possible,” Thano said. He was out of his robe in black snug trews and a fitted black shirt, a shard of silver in his left ear, and his green eyes glowing.
“Exactly,” Ash said. He made a gesture of warding over the door and waved his hand through the room before adding, “The King is in such a hurry to be rid of you for reasons I cannot guess. I do not imagine he has forgotten your father left you the most important part of the country next to Kingsboro, perhaps more important.”
“Ondres holds the sea and the mouth of the River Locryn,” Thano added. “It is the original capital. All the oppressed witches, all the oppressed people are fleeing there. It’s almost an alternate Westrial.”
“Or the perfect ground for a civil war,” Anson said.
Ash, who was sitting on the bed, looked up at Anson with a raised eyebrow.
“I am not starting a war,” Anson said, “I’m only noting how possible it would be, and hoping Cedd does not. That is why I spoke of heading north, and made no mention of going to the south.”
“Then let us not speak of it again,” Thano slid out of the windowseat, closing one of the shutters, “Not even with every wizardly ward we can raise.”
“I think,” Ash said, “you are forgetting something.”
Thano and Anson both turned to him, for it was not clear to whom he had been speaking.
“Or someone,” Ash said.
“Pol,” Ash elaborated to Anson. “Whatever else he was before, he is still one of your closest friends. Take him and whatever other friends of your heart will come.”



POL



Pol turned to open the curtain and let light in so he could find the oil, and so that he might look upon Austin’s face. He wanted to look over Austin’s white body, long and lightly muscled, to run his hands over his ample bottom, and watch his body as he made him moan. But then he got up long enough to shut the curtain because some things belonged to the dark. Growing things belonged to the dark and this, whatever it was, born out of lust and curiousity, turning into friendship, was growing.
When it was over, the two men lay on their stomachs and Pol said, “How was it?”
Austin did not speak at first, but then Pol hadn’t spoken right away either. It took a long time to form words from sensation. When Austin had gone on his hands and knees, his eyes had watered, and the dimness of night vision had gone even dimmer from the pain of Pol pressing inside of him, the burning of being entered. He had let his gasps of pain escape, and Pol had whispered, “Do you want me to stop?” But Austin had reached back, and cupped the firm round hills of Pol’s ass, so much firmer, more compact than his, and expertly pulled Pol back inside of him.
“It hurt like hell,” Austin said. “But when you were fucking me I didn’t want it to stop.
“Pol?”
“Yes, friend?”
“What is that song you always sing?”
“Song?”
“And seven came down! And seven came!”
“Oh, yes!” Pol said. “I think it’s about a battle from long ago. An old folk song.”
“Sing it for me.”
“Now?” Pol ran a hand over his face and narrowed his almond shaped eyes to show how tired he was.
“Please.”
Pol sat up, while he sand in a low voice, his long left hand massaged Austin’s thigh.


First was the mage
Who moved from age to age
And second was his hero strong

Third was the starry maid,
who lived in trees,
whose wood would never die
Seven came down
Oh, and seven came down

Four is for the lady who fits inside
men’s hands
Who gave up arms and legs to
be an arm again
And Seven came down
Oh, and seven came down

Five alive, the Great old Man,
the mighty Oaken Tree
Mighty rash, who bore the Ash,
and Ash and onto Thee
Seven came down
Oh, and seven came down

They say a man gave up his
land to be the Woman’s Key!
Oh! And Seven came down
Oh, and Seven came down!

Pol inside of him was the most feeling he’d ever had. It was the most intense thing he had ever known, save being inside of Pol, and feeling him react the same way, being deeper and deeper inside of him and watching the color drain from his face, feeling on the edge of everything, coming, exploding, his insides twisting, blacking out, feeling like he was dying.
“It still hurts,” Austin said. He clenched himself.
“I can still feel you inside of me,” Pol confided.
“I don’t want the hurt to stop,” Austin said. “I didn’t know something could be like this. If it felt good, it felt good. If it hurt then I didn’t want it. With you the pain is the pleasure. I will be in the great hall, beside my wife, watching the new King at table, watching the minstrels sing their songs, and I’ll still be throbbing, Pol, feeling you deep inside me.”


MORE AFTER THE WEEKEND. TOMORROW AFTERNOON: THE WICKED
 
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