CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
This part of the story in the past is very good! I am enjoying the relationship between Anton and Ash. Great writing and I look forward to more next week!
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The Book of the Blessed
- Thread starter ChrisGibson
- Start date
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
And when we return to Anson and Ash we will be back in the present, or their present, and all sorts of wonderful things will be happening there. Like, a coronation.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
BLUE TEMPLE
The next morning, the seventh floor of Hyrum House began to fill quickly, and Velnon noticed people he’d never seen before or Blues who had left long ago to establish new lives. Among the visitors was Hace Maracandas, the Chancellor to Queen Sendra, and they all assembled, as members of Hyrum House, to vote on the new Master and therefore the new Hyrum.
Downbelow, the lounge and the court were still open to visitors, though Blues came in and out to cast their votes. The voting was done by midafternoon, and Vetrip and Athalon, two of the oldest Blues set to counting the ballots. The rest of the day went on as normal. Velnon saw no one that day, but supervised the cleaning, and at a meeting before the evening prayer they talked about beginning a daughter house outside of town because of the number of Blues gathered in this one place. After the evening prayer, and after the last course at supper, those who had counted the votes—for any Blue could be elected to succeed Hyrum—called out the five highest in alphabetical order.
“Aldan,” Vetrip read, and there were applause.
“Ah,” Vetrip smiled, “Caradoc. That is Caradoc Red Hands. And then Kerem and, yes, Velnon.”
When Velnon looked around the room in surprise, part of him pulled away from himself to wonder if he was truly surprised or simply feigning it.
He was not feigning.
The next round of voting occurred simply among the people of the House or those who had moved out of the House in the last year and it would be for the five chosen. This election was quicker, and when at the end of the day it was announced by the Counters that the two highest had been selected, it was these two names, never told to anyone else, that were handed to Hyrum. It was from these two, not knowing which had received the most votes, that Hyrum would choose his successor, and he could not announce it until the next night.
As Velnon looked up at the high table and saw Master Hyrum slip the names into his pocket he wondered if, in fact, Hyrum already knew exactly whom he was choosing. It would have been bad form to shout it out and decide right then and there, and so it was for form’s sake that Hyrum must wait one night.
But the next night, the fourth after Hyrum had announced his retiring, he stood up, placed his hands on the table, and then walked around, stood behind Velnon, and placed his hands on his shoulders.
“Velnon,” Hyrum declared, “is my successor.”
KINGSBORO
The bells had been ringing all day from every chapel, carillon and monastery, and as they crested the hill and looked down on the city of Kingsboro, Myrne said, “I could really go for a pastry right now.”
Wolf looked at her, almost in disgust, and she said, “What?”
“You just said the the King of Westrial is dying! Those could be his death bells.”
“Neither one of is Westrian. I didn’t know him, and I’m sure you didn’t either. And I am very hungry.”
Wolf could not protest this wisdom, but it still seemed Myrne was being awfully cold about this as they rode into the valley where the King’s city lay against a spur of the River Tam.
“And any mourning and shock I felt, ended two days ago. Unlike this bell ringing, which is unending.”
Myrne said, “Give me the purse. If you’re so sad you can’t eat, I will get food for the both of us.”
“We will be at the palace very soon.”
“Have you ever been to a palace?”
“What kind of question is that? Of course I’ve never been to a palace.”
“Well, I grew up in one,” Myrne said, simply, “and I can tell you for free that nothing happens very quickly. So we’re going to stop for food.”
Wolf could tell that even Myrne was impressed by Kingsboro, and she said, “It reminds me of Ambridge,” but impressed or no, she led him to the bazaar and got cheese and bread and a skin of wine, water from the public fountain in the Myerbur District. They took their slow time coming to the nearest gate of the castle, whose walls began in the city and whose limits extended beyond the walls.
“By the way,” she said, as they came to the gate, ‘I would like to be as invisible as possible.”
“Invisible as…”
“I don’t want to see anyone I might know.”
“Gods! How famous are you?”
Wolf knew that his own master was from the royal house of Rheged. He had met minorly royal people, lords, ladies, their children. That much did not surprise him about Myrne. But if the girl was from Hale, why in the world would she worry about being known here?
“From the sound of these bells we may be attending the funeral of a king. All manner of people, people my father wanted me to marry, my father for that matter, might come here. Cousins, all royal families are cousins one to another. I don’t wish to be known.”
They had asked the palace guard for Master Ohean and given a token of who they were, or at least who Wolf was, and one guard had gone to find the porter. Now, as the porter returned, Wolf said to the girl, “Who are you?”
“I am Myrne,” she said stubbornly. “My father is the Earl of Herreboro.”
“The most powerful lord in Hale!”
“How do you know such things?” Myrne demanded. “You said you were from Rheged.”
“But my family is of Hale. I know enough to know the Herreboros are descended from the Wulfstans, one of the few remaining families with Wulfstan blood.”
“I would thank you to forget that, seeing as everyone else has. It’s the only reason my father still has power. We shouldn’t talk about it again considering what happened to the rest of that clan.”
“Oh, you survived,” Wolf said. “You’ll keep on surviving.
But now the gates were open and servants said, “We’ll take your horses and your things.”
“Where to?” Wolf asked.
“I think the Master Ohean will show you.”
Wolf was dazed enough as they went through the baileys, looking up at the great towers and passing through courts, chicken yards, stable yards, walled off gardens. Myrne, her black hair swinging over her shoulders, looked more put out than anything.
“I promise I will never say a thing again, and we will hide the hell out of you. I’ve got secrets and I’ll keep yours too.”
“You have secrets?” Myrne looked at him, And then she said, “Of course you do. I don’t doubt you have a whole nest of secrets.”
“Nest? Like a viper?”
“Yes, and you can keep my secrets in that den of yours as well.”
But Ohean was crossing a yard before the main gate. With him came a dark haired girl who looked not unlike Myrne, and like Myrne she was informally dressed. Ohean was in a brown mantle and he came to them quickly before they could reach him.
“For some reason I feared for you, my Wolf,” he said. “There has been a black cloud over me for some time, and not simply the cloud of death.”
“Then the King is dead?” Wolf said.
Ohean blinked, “What?” Then he said, “No, not yet. These are coronation bells. I present you the Princess Imogen.”
Myrne and Wolf curtseyed and Imogen inclined her head awkwardly.
Ohean looked to Myrne and said, “You have brought a friend.”
“This is Myrne. She is of the Rootless Isle and,” Wolf almost stage whispered, “she has foreseen the King’s death. She said it plain as anything a few days back.”
“Then you are a seeress of power,” Ohean said to her.
Myrne forgot her fears and curtseyed the way she did before no lord and certainly no king.
“Lord Ohean,” she told him, rising, and pushing her black hair from her face, “I have received dreams and portents that there is one with you, one who had become close to you, who even at this time is in the gravest of dangers.”
“Anson,” Ohean and Imogen both whispered, looking to each other.
“The Prince?” Wolf and Myrne said.
Ohean nodded, then said, “But this is not the place to talk. Come, let us away from here.”
When they had entered the gallery under Longhall, away from much hustle and bustle and in the shadows, Ohean made a gesture with his hand and then said, “We are a little more free to speak, now.”
“I can perform a seeing tonight,” Myrne said. “But I would need help.”
“Master?” Wolf said to Ohean.
“It depends on who you are looking upon,” Ohean said.
“Possibly the Prince Cedd,” Myrne said.
“Then such a seeing would work best with one of his blood.”
“Prince Anson?” Wolf suggested, but Imogen said. “I will do it. If you only need me and not my skill, for I have none. I would do it with you.”
Myrne turned on her, smiling.
“Yes,” she said. “Princess, that would do fine.”
MORE TOMORROW
The next morning, the seventh floor of Hyrum House began to fill quickly, and Velnon noticed people he’d never seen before or Blues who had left long ago to establish new lives. Among the visitors was Hace Maracandas, the Chancellor to Queen Sendra, and they all assembled, as members of Hyrum House, to vote on the new Master and therefore the new Hyrum.
Downbelow, the lounge and the court were still open to visitors, though Blues came in and out to cast their votes. The voting was done by midafternoon, and Vetrip and Athalon, two of the oldest Blues set to counting the ballots. The rest of the day went on as normal. Velnon saw no one that day, but supervised the cleaning, and at a meeting before the evening prayer they talked about beginning a daughter house outside of town because of the number of Blues gathered in this one place. After the evening prayer, and after the last course at supper, those who had counted the votes—for any Blue could be elected to succeed Hyrum—called out the five highest in alphabetical order.
“Aldan,” Vetrip read, and there were applause.
“Ah,” Vetrip smiled, “Caradoc. That is Caradoc Red Hands. And then Kerem and, yes, Velnon.”
When Velnon looked around the room in surprise, part of him pulled away from himself to wonder if he was truly surprised or simply feigning it.
He was not feigning.
The next round of voting occurred simply among the people of the House or those who had moved out of the House in the last year and it would be for the five chosen. This election was quicker, and when at the end of the day it was announced by the Counters that the two highest had been selected, it was these two names, never told to anyone else, that were handed to Hyrum. It was from these two, not knowing which had received the most votes, that Hyrum would choose his successor, and he could not announce it until the next night.
As Velnon looked up at the high table and saw Master Hyrum slip the names into his pocket he wondered if, in fact, Hyrum already knew exactly whom he was choosing. It would have been bad form to shout it out and decide right then and there, and so it was for form’s sake that Hyrum must wait one night.
But the next night, the fourth after Hyrum had announced his retiring, he stood up, placed his hands on the table, and then walked around, stood behind Velnon, and placed his hands on his shoulders.
“Velnon,” Hyrum declared, “is my successor.”
KINGSBORO
The bells had been ringing all day from every chapel, carillon and monastery, and as they crested the hill and looked down on the city of Kingsboro, Myrne said, “I could really go for a pastry right now.”
Wolf looked at her, almost in disgust, and she said, “What?”
“You just said the the King of Westrial is dying! Those could be his death bells.”
“Neither one of is Westrian. I didn’t know him, and I’m sure you didn’t either. And I am very hungry.”
Wolf could not protest this wisdom, but it still seemed Myrne was being awfully cold about this as they rode into the valley where the King’s city lay against a spur of the River Tam.
“And any mourning and shock I felt, ended two days ago. Unlike this bell ringing, which is unending.”
Myrne said, “Give me the purse. If you’re so sad you can’t eat, I will get food for the both of us.”
“We will be at the palace very soon.”
“Have you ever been to a palace?”
“What kind of question is that? Of course I’ve never been to a palace.”
“Well, I grew up in one,” Myrne said, simply, “and I can tell you for free that nothing happens very quickly. So we’re going to stop for food.”
Wolf could tell that even Myrne was impressed by Kingsboro, and she said, “It reminds me of Ambridge,” but impressed or no, she led him to the bazaar and got cheese and bread and a skin of wine, water from the public fountain in the Myerbur District. They took their slow time coming to the nearest gate of the castle, whose walls began in the city and whose limits extended beyond the walls.
“By the way,” she said, as they came to the gate, ‘I would like to be as invisible as possible.”
“Invisible as…”
“I don’t want to see anyone I might know.”
“Gods! How famous are you?”
Wolf knew that his own master was from the royal house of Rheged. He had met minorly royal people, lords, ladies, their children. That much did not surprise him about Myrne. But if the girl was from Hale, why in the world would she worry about being known here?
“From the sound of these bells we may be attending the funeral of a king. All manner of people, people my father wanted me to marry, my father for that matter, might come here. Cousins, all royal families are cousins one to another. I don’t wish to be known.”
They had asked the palace guard for Master Ohean and given a token of who they were, or at least who Wolf was, and one guard had gone to find the porter. Now, as the porter returned, Wolf said to the girl, “Who are you?”
“I am Myrne,” she said stubbornly. “My father is the Earl of Herreboro.”
“The most powerful lord in Hale!”
“How do you know such things?” Myrne demanded. “You said you were from Rheged.”
“But my family is of Hale. I know enough to know the Herreboros are descended from the Wulfstans, one of the few remaining families with Wulfstan blood.”
“I would thank you to forget that, seeing as everyone else has. It’s the only reason my father still has power. We shouldn’t talk about it again considering what happened to the rest of that clan.”
“Oh, you survived,” Wolf said. “You’ll keep on surviving.
But now the gates were open and servants said, “We’ll take your horses and your things.”
“Where to?” Wolf asked.
“I think the Master Ohean will show you.”
Wolf was dazed enough as they went through the baileys, looking up at the great towers and passing through courts, chicken yards, stable yards, walled off gardens. Myrne, her black hair swinging over her shoulders, looked more put out than anything.
“I promise I will never say a thing again, and we will hide the hell out of you. I’ve got secrets and I’ll keep yours too.”
“You have secrets?” Myrne looked at him, And then she said, “Of course you do. I don’t doubt you have a whole nest of secrets.”
“Nest? Like a viper?”
“Yes, and you can keep my secrets in that den of yours as well.”
But Ohean was crossing a yard before the main gate. With him came a dark haired girl who looked not unlike Myrne, and like Myrne she was informally dressed. Ohean was in a brown mantle and he came to them quickly before they could reach him.
“For some reason I feared for you, my Wolf,” he said. “There has been a black cloud over me for some time, and not simply the cloud of death.”
“Then the King is dead?” Wolf said.
Ohean blinked, “What?” Then he said, “No, not yet. These are coronation bells. I present you the Princess Imogen.”
Myrne and Wolf curtseyed and Imogen inclined her head awkwardly.
Ohean looked to Myrne and said, “You have brought a friend.”
“This is Myrne. She is of the Rootless Isle and,” Wolf almost stage whispered, “she has foreseen the King’s death. She said it plain as anything a few days back.”
“Then you are a seeress of power,” Ohean said to her.
Myrne forgot her fears and curtseyed the way she did before no lord and certainly no king.
“Lord Ohean,” she told him, rising, and pushing her black hair from her face, “I have received dreams and portents that there is one with you, one who had become close to you, who even at this time is in the gravest of dangers.”
“Anson,” Ohean and Imogen both whispered, looking to each other.
“The Prince?” Wolf and Myrne said.
Ohean nodded, then said, “But this is not the place to talk. Come, let us away from here.”
When they had entered the gallery under Longhall, away from much hustle and bustle and in the shadows, Ohean made a gesture with his hand and then said, “We are a little more free to speak, now.”
“I can perform a seeing tonight,” Myrne said. “But I would need help.”
“Master?” Wolf said to Ohean.
“It depends on who you are looking upon,” Ohean said.
“Possibly the Prince Cedd,” Myrne said.
“Then such a seeing would work best with one of his blood.”
“Prince Anson?” Wolf suggested, but Imogen said. “I will do it. If you only need me and not my skill, for I have none. I would do it with you.”
Myrne turned on her, smiling.
“Yes,” she said. “Princess, that would do fine.”
MORE TOMORROW
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
Great to get back to this story. Lots going on leading up to the coronation and I am enjoying it. Great writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
Yes, there really is a great deal happening at this point. Thank you for reading.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
THE RED DISTRICT
Pol finished his coffee in one swig and said, “Look at that sunlight! Look at that morning!”
Austin had come out of the shower and sat on the bed, his leotard half on, his black hair sticking up.
“I wish I had my makeup,” he said. “I feel like I cannot go out into the world with it.”
Then he said, “I hate going out into the world during the day.”
“We should take a shady cab,” Pol decided. “It can drop me off in the Everdeen, and take you to the palace.”
“You aren’t coming back? Oh, you should come back. Prince Anson will be glad to see you. I will be glad to see you.”
Pol shrugged and then said, sitting on the edge of the bed, “I have to make some money first, and there is money to be made even in the day. We can’t all be rich lords.”
“Not all lords are rich,” Austin corrected.
“Ah, but all lords are richer than me,” Pol told him.
Austin nodded. His hand was on Pol’s leather trousered thigh, and now Austin pulled at the lacing of Pol’s trousers, and he opened them up and then, leaning over him, suddenly he pulled Pol’s cock into his mouth and Pol made a startled noise.
Austin kept sucking, and there was very little noise in the room, except for a small creaking of the bed.
“Oh!” Pol let out a surprised noise and he felt himself growing larger and harder in Austin’s mouth. Austin pulled on his cock, and the same time the lust in his belly descended, a stinging sensation was behind Pol’s eyes. Tears pressed from his lids.
“Austin…” he whispered. “Please…”
Austin stopped long enough to say, “When we woke up you said your cock was so hard it hurt.”
“Fuck!” Pol almost cried. His tone was almost one of despair, his eyes going unfocused, his face soft as he looked down on Austin, the black haired boy’s mouth moving up and down on him, His hand went down to Austin’s hair, soft and silky in his hands. He tugged down his trousers a little and Austin got down on his knees between Pol’s legs.
“Oh,” Pol murmured again. “Oh, fuck. I’m about to—”
His body shuddered while Austin’s hands rested on his thighs. From his belly a thrill went down. From behind his balls, going over them, stiffening his sack to a round globe, went another thrill. Those two thrills and Austin’s mouth and his hands and the perfection of this day all melted together until he made a faint groan and, pulling Austin’s head closer, spilled into his mouth.
Where there had been only his cock, larger, more firm, more desired than Austin had ever thought until a few minutes ago, now there was heat and honey and salt and then he swallowed it, and Pol was still in his mouth, still hard, and it was when he began to wilt that Austin got back up onto the bed and Pol pulled up his underwear and then his pants.
Neither of them said a word. Austin pressed himself into the crook of Pol’s arm. And Pol’s arm went about him tighter.
“How was it?”
“I can still taste you,” Austin said.
Then Austin said, as he placed his hand on Pol’s stomach, “What do you want me to do?”
Pol reached into Austin’s pants.
“You’re so fucking hard. I always knew you would be. I want you to feel the same way I did.”
Austin looked outside at the late morning, the sun through green trees. Pol’s hand still hugged Austin’s cock, working up and down on it.
“Austin, do you still have to go?”
“Do you?”
Austin murmured, while Pol stroked him. “Please suck my cock.”
“I will,” Pol said. “But then I want you to fuck me.”
They slept together, Pol curled in a fetal position. In their sleeping, Austin wrapped an arm about him. He ran his hand down Pol’s back, and in the afternoon darkness of drawn curtains, he lay there with Pol, sneaking a hand down, thrusting his finger between his buttocks to feel the bristly hair, running his hand back up over Pol’s back. Pol snored harshly and lay on his back, and Austin massaged him until he felt him becoming harder.
Pol allowed him to turn him over and, cock crying out, Austin planted his prick in the firm roundness of Pol’s ass. They both moaned at the same time as Austin moved up and down in that tightness. He didn’t warn Pol. There was little warning for himself. His toes bunched, his fingers clinched.
He came all over Pol’s back.
Pol got up from the bed and went out to use the pissroom. Pol came back, closed the door, climbed into bed with Austin, and wrapped his arms around him.
KINGSBORO
ABBEY
Abbot Merrill sat in one of the front pews under the main dome of the Abbey. He let Prior Richard move through, shouting orders at a work crew which knew exactly what it was doing, and ignored him, as they prepared Kingsboro Abbey for another coronation. The first coronation here had been upon King Kenneth eight hundred years ago when Archbishop Caedan had placed the crown on his head alongside the Lady of Rootless Isle, who was no long asked to preside over the crowning of kings. The event was painted above the altar where new white candles were being installed.
Under the long windows, gold streamers were arched, and the janitors swept an already clean floor. For the most part there was very little to be done for a coronation. The only thing Merill objected to was that, on the day before a national event, the Abbey was closed to the ordinary people it belonged to, and the services which would have usually taken place here were relegated to the basement chapel.
Beyond the altar, in the choir stall, the choirmaster was leading the choir in the singing of the entrance psalm.
Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.
Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his
presence with singing.
Know ye that the Lord he is God:
it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves…
In white, an underpriestess was polishing the grey marble image of the Trium. Varayan, his hands outstretched, flanked by his Mother and his Sister. This was the faith that had emerged out of Armor where the Royan across the sea lived, and been brought here to Ynkurando through the monk saints. Those monks, like Merrill, had very little interest in power or triumph.
Their religion had blended easily with the ways of their kindred, and it was not until the Communion had taken its more powerful form in Rhufain, and bishops had been sent across the sea, that the newer religion had fallen under the sway of bishops and archbishops. Merill was in charge of Kingsboro Abbey insofar as it was an ancient abbey, but it was also the cathedral, the seat of the Archbishop who even now could not be bothered to be here, but was at an emergency parliament meeting in the House of Lords, looking over the vows for the coronation.
The choirmaster thumped on his podium, changing the pace of the choir, and from the pillars behind the altar, and the stretched out arms of Ahnar, the chorus sang:
Hear my prayer, O Lord, and let my cry come
unto thee.
Hide not thy face from me in the day when
I am in trouble; incline thine ear unto me:
in the day when I call answer me speedily.
Abbot Merrill, as he watched a white streamer brought over the arch above the altar, had a brief flash of fear. What if the King was to die right now? What if Cedd were to come to the throne under the traditional contract? Merill had overlooked the new vows and knew they limited Cedd’s power. He understood why. His prayer right now was the Archbishop and the men who supported Cedd would not.
THE KINGDOM OF
SUSSAIL
CASTLE ESTILLON
“That’s it. That’s it. Nice and slow. You be a good girl. You want to make me happy? I know you do. That’s it. Don’t stop. When we get finished with this, when it gets a little more aggressive and I give you a good mouth fucking, then we can finish on the bed. Or, I don’t know. Ohhh, damn. You’re just too good. You’re just… Ohhhh….”
For a moment it bothered Bohemond that he could not remember the girl’s name, but he sang low in the chair while he mouth worked on him.
“That’s real good. You’re a naughty girl. You’ve had practice.”
She didn’t speak, and whatever she was, not being stupid, she knew he didn’t really want her to speak. Bohemond was so brown he was almost brown as a Royan. He lay back luxuriating in the girl’s pleasure’s, taking his own hands through his thick black hair, his almost girlishly thick eyelashes blinking over dark eyes.
“Oh, you know it! I didn’t even had to tell you to slip your finger there. I didn’t even have to tell you—”
The door flew open and Bohemond sat bolt upright, the girl backing away as Bohemond pulled up his trousers.
“Don’t you have beds to make?” the woman who had just entered demanded of the girl who rose, curtsying and prepared to leave.
“Don’t worry, Roelle,” the young woman, who was scarcely past girlhood said, “He’ll won’t you back tonight. You can finish what you started.”
Flabbergasted as much over being known as being addressed, the servant girl curtseyed and fled.
“Don’t make a liar out of me, Bohem,” the young woman said. She was well dressed in white and blue shimmering silk, her sleeves shimmering with an intricate silver pattern. She was golden brown, not as dark as Bohemond, and her eyes were green, but there was a likeness between them. “You know you can have them because they love you. If you’re going to use them for your pleasure, try giving a little pleasure as well.”
“Issa why are you here?”
“Only because Mother and Father sent me. Now hurry, we’re wasting time.”
The great hall was of golden limestone done in intricate latticed work and before the dais of two old thrones stood a black haired woman and a black haired man who looked like older versions of their offspring. Their children curtseyed, though Isobel made it to her parents before Bohemond.
“Your mother,” King Raoul began, “believes it is time for us to set out for Westrial.”
“In time for King Anthal’s death,” Queen Hermudis explained.
Bohemond blinked, but noticed his sister was unaffected.
“News has come that, even though Anthal still lives, Cedd is being crowned in the morning so that the succession will be secure,” the Queen said.
“And your mother feels that we ought to be at the funeral of the old King if not the coronation of the new one.”
“Westrial will need a Queen,” Hermudis said, frankly. “And, incidentally, Bohemond will need a Queen one day as well. This is the perfect time to travel north.”
“Then it is decided,” Bohemond’s brows knit looking from his mother to his father.
“Of course it is,” Raoul murmured.
Hermudis disregarded her husband’s irritation and holding out her arm to her daughter she said, “Walk with me.”
“What do you think they are saying?” Princess Isobel asked.
“That I am a imperious old crow and you are as bad as me,” her mother told her. “You are scarcely back from the Rootless Isle and your father had not forgiven me for sending you there or for you bearing my family name. But he has Bohemond, and Garcia. Allow me one!”
They walked the long gallery of Galema which overlooked the Great Bailey. Latticed sunlight came through the wall that looked down on the bailey below and the Queen whispered so that the stone walls did not echo her, “What are you thinking?”
“I am thinking that you do not give a damn if I am a queen, that you would see me content at Rootless Isle, perhaps even raised to the rank of Lady. I am thinking you don’t really care very much if Bohemond gets a wife or no.”
“I pity Bohemond’s wife,” Queen Hermudis said. “I lost the raising of him and blame myself. Pleasure is pleasure, but no sooner is a wench hired to the palace than he’s mounted her. It’s a wonder…. Well, not a complete wonder, that there are no bastards.”
“Have you bewitched him?”
“I will not speak of that,” the Queen, who had also been schooled on the Witch’s Island, said. “I would have wed him off to a Dauman lady. But I received a letter from Ohean.”
“Ohean Penannyn?”
“Well, there is no other. He said that Anthal was soon to die. Anson would not be King. Indeed, that he would probably flee with him, but that he thought you should marry Cedd.”
“Cedd hates witches! Everyone knows that.”
“Aye, but no one knows you are one. Ohean has said he has seen desperate times and that you might prove a fit Queen to rescue Westrial from them, rescue all the kingdoms. You might prove far more useful there than on the Rootless Isle.”
Isobel nodded as they walked, almost scowling.
“But then there is this matter… do you wished to be useful, used?”
“What would you have me do, Mother?”
“I would have you come to Westrial with me and judge for yourself. Judge as if you had not heard what I just told you. Meet this Prince Cedd and decide for yourself. I think this is all Ohean is asking of you.”
Isobel nodded, not speaking for a time. At last she said, “I will do this.”
“We can leave the day after tomorrow,” The Queen said.
“No,” Isobel differed. “If we’re going to go and reach Kingsboro on time, we ought to leave tomorrow.”
MORE ON TUESDAY
Pol finished his coffee in one swig and said, “Look at that sunlight! Look at that morning!”
Austin had come out of the shower and sat on the bed, his leotard half on, his black hair sticking up.
“I wish I had my makeup,” he said. “I feel like I cannot go out into the world with it.”
Then he said, “I hate going out into the world during the day.”
“We should take a shady cab,” Pol decided. “It can drop me off in the Everdeen, and take you to the palace.”
“You aren’t coming back? Oh, you should come back. Prince Anson will be glad to see you. I will be glad to see you.”
Pol shrugged and then said, sitting on the edge of the bed, “I have to make some money first, and there is money to be made even in the day. We can’t all be rich lords.”
“Not all lords are rich,” Austin corrected.
“Ah, but all lords are richer than me,” Pol told him.
Austin nodded. His hand was on Pol’s leather trousered thigh, and now Austin pulled at the lacing of Pol’s trousers, and he opened them up and then, leaning over him, suddenly he pulled Pol’s cock into his mouth and Pol made a startled noise.
Austin kept sucking, and there was very little noise in the room, except for a small creaking of the bed.
“Oh!” Pol let out a surprised noise and he felt himself growing larger and harder in Austin’s mouth. Austin pulled on his cock, and the same time the lust in his belly descended, a stinging sensation was behind Pol’s eyes. Tears pressed from his lids.
“Austin…” he whispered. “Please…”
Austin stopped long enough to say, “When we woke up you said your cock was so hard it hurt.”
“Fuck!” Pol almost cried. His tone was almost one of despair, his eyes going unfocused, his face soft as he looked down on Austin, the black haired boy’s mouth moving up and down on him, His hand went down to Austin’s hair, soft and silky in his hands. He tugged down his trousers a little and Austin got down on his knees between Pol’s legs.
“Oh,” Pol murmured again. “Oh, fuck. I’m about to—”
His body shuddered while Austin’s hands rested on his thighs. From his belly a thrill went down. From behind his balls, going over them, stiffening his sack to a round globe, went another thrill. Those two thrills and Austin’s mouth and his hands and the perfection of this day all melted together until he made a faint groan and, pulling Austin’s head closer, spilled into his mouth.
Where there had been only his cock, larger, more firm, more desired than Austin had ever thought until a few minutes ago, now there was heat and honey and salt and then he swallowed it, and Pol was still in his mouth, still hard, and it was when he began to wilt that Austin got back up onto the bed and Pol pulled up his underwear and then his pants.
Neither of them said a word. Austin pressed himself into the crook of Pol’s arm. And Pol’s arm went about him tighter.
“How was it?”
“I can still taste you,” Austin said.
Then Austin said, as he placed his hand on Pol’s stomach, “What do you want me to do?”
Pol reached into Austin’s pants.
“You’re so fucking hard. I always knew you would be. I want you to feel the same way I did.”
Austin looked outside at the late morning, the sun through green trees. Pol’s hand still hugged Austin’s cock, working up and down on it.
“Austin, do you still have to go?”
“Do you?”
Austin murmured, while Pol stroked him. “Please suck my cock.”
“I will,” Pol said. “But then I want you to fuck me.”
They slept together, Pol curled in a fetal position. In their sleeping, Austin wrapped an arm about him. He ran his hand down Pol’s back, and in the afternoon darkness of drawn curtains, he lay there with Pol, sneaking a hand down, thrusting his finger between his buttocks to feel the bristly hair, running his hand back up over Pol’s back. Pol snored harshly and lay on his back, and Austin massaged him until he felt him becoming harder.
Pol allowed him to turn him over and, cock crying out, Austin planted his prick in the firm roundness of Pol’s ass. They both moaned at the same time as Austin moved up and down in that tightness. He didn’t warn Pol. There was little warning for himself. His toes bunched, his fingers clinched.
He came all over Pol’s back.
Pol got up from the bed and went out to use the pissroom. Pol came back, closed the door, climbed into bed with Austin, and wrapped his arms around him.
KINGSBORO
ABBEY
Abbot Merrill sat in one of the front pews under the main dome of the Abbey. He let Prior Richard move through, shouting orders at a work crew which knew exactly what it was doing, and ignored him, as they prepared Kingsboro Abbey for another coronation. The first coronation here had been upon King Kenneth eight hundred years ago when Archbishop Caedan had placed the crown on his head alongside the Lady of Rootless Isle, who was no long asked to preside over the crowning of kings. The event was painted above the altar where new white candles were being installed.
Under the long windows, gold streamers were arched, and the janitors swept an already clean floor. For the most part there was very little to be done for a coronation. The only thing Merill objected to was that, on the day before a national event, the Abbey was closed to the ordinary people it belonged to, and the services which would have usually taken place here were relegated to the basement chapel.
Beyond the altar, in the choir stall, the choirmaster was leading the choir in the singing of the entrance psalm.
Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.
Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his
presence with singing.
Know ye that the Lord he is God:
it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves…
In white, an underpriestess was polishing the grey marble image of the Trium. Varayan, his hands outstretched, flanked by his Mother and his Sister. This was the faith that had emerged out of Armor where the Royan across the sea lived, and been brought here to Ynkurando through the monk saints. Those monks, like Merrill, had very little interest in power or triumph.
Their religion had blended easily with the ways of their kindred, and it was not until the Communion had taken its more powerful form in Rhufain, and bishops had been sent across the sea, that the newer religion had fallen under the sway of bishops and archbishops. Merill was in charge of Kingsboro Abbey insofar as it was an ancient abbey, but it was also the cathedral, the seat of the Archbishop who even now could not be bothered to be here, but was at an emergency parliament meeting in the House of Lords, looking over the vows for the coronation.
The choirmaster thumped on his podium, changing the pace of the choir, and from the pillars behind the altar, and the stretched out arms of Ahnar, the chorus sang:
Hear my prayer, O Lord, and let my cry come
unto thee.
Hide not thy face from me in the day when
I am in trouble; incline thine ear unto me:
in the day when I call answer me speedily.
Abbot Merrill, as he watched a white streamer brought over the arch above the altar, had a brief flash of fear. What if the King was to die right now? What if Cedd were to come to the throne under the traditional contract? Merill had overlooked the new vows and knew they limited Cedd’s power. He understood why. His prayer right now was the Archbishop and the men who supported Cedd would not.
THE KINGDOM OF
SUSSAIL
CASTLE ESTILLON
“That’s it. That’s it. Nice and slow. You be a good girl. You want to make me happy? I know you do. That’s it. Don’t stop. When we get finished with this, when it gets a little more aggressive and I give you a good mouth fucking, then we can finish on the bed. Or, I don’t know. Ohhh, damn. You’re just too good. You’re just… Ohhhh….”
For a moment it bothered Bohemond that he could not remember the girl’s name, but he sang low in the chair while he mouth worked on him.
“That’s real good. You’re a naughty girl. You’ve had practice.”
She didn’t speak, and whatever she was, not being stupid, she knew he didn’t really want her to speak. Bohemond was so brown he was almost brown as a Royan. He lay back luxuriating in the girl’s pleasure’s, taking his own hands through his thick black hair, his almost girlishly thick eyelashes blinking over dark eyes.
“Oh, you know it! I didn’t even had to tell you to slip your finger there. I didn’t even have to tell you—”
The door flew open and Bohemond sat bolt upright, the girl backing away as Bohemond pulled up his trousers.
“Don’t you have beds to make?” the woman who had just entered demanded of the girl who rose, curtsying and prepared to leave.
“Don’t worry, Roelle,” the young woman, who was scarcely past girlhood said, “He’ll won’t you back tonight. You can finish what you started.”
Flabbergasted as much over being known as being addressed, the servant girl curtseyed and fled.
“Don’t make a liar out of me, Bohem,” the young woman said. She was well dressed in white and blue shimmering silk, her sleeves shimmering with an intricate silver pattern. She was golden brown, not as dark as Bohemond, and her eyes were green, but there was a likeness between them. “You know you can have them because they love you. If you’re going to use them for your pleasure, try giving a little pleasure as well.”
“Issa why are you here?”
“Only because Mother and Father sent me. Now hurry, we’re wasting time.”
The great hall was of golden limestone done in intricate latticed work and before the dais of two old thrones stood a black haired woman and a black haired man who looked like older versions of their offspring. Their children curtseyed, though Isobel made it to her parents before Bohemond.
“Your mother,” King Raoul began, “believes it is time for us to set out for Westrial.”
“In time for King Anthal’s death,” Queen Hermudis explained.
Bohemond blinked, but noticed his sister was unaffected.
“News has come that, even though Anthal still lives, Cedd is being crowned in the morning so that the succession will be secure,” the Queen said.
“And your mother feels that we ought to be at the funeral of the old King if not the coronation of the new one.”
“Westrial will need a Queen,” Hermudis said, frankly. “And, incidentally, Bohemond will need a Queen one day as well. This is the perfect time to travel north.”
“Then it is decided,” Bohemond’s brows knit looking from his mother to his father.
“Of course it is,” Raoul murmured.
Hermudis disregarded her husband’s irritation and holding out her arm to her daughter she said, “Walk with me.”
“What do you think they are saying?” Princess Isobel asked.
“That I am a imperious old crow and you are as bad as me,” her mother told her. “You are scarcely back from the Rootless Isle and your father had not forgiven me for sending you there or for you bearing my family name. But he has Bohemond, and Garcia. Allow me one!”
They walked the long gallery of Galema which overlooked the Great Bailey. Latticed sunlight came through the wall that looked down on the bailey below and the Queen whispered so that the stone walls did not echo her, “What are you thinking?”
“I am thinking that you do not give a damn if I am a queen, that you would see me content at Rootless Isle, perhaps even raised to the rank of Lady. I am thinking you don’t really care very much if Bohemond gets a wife or no.”
“I pity Bohemond’s wife,” Queen Hermudis said. “I lost the raising of him and blame myself. Pleasure is pleasure, but no sooner is a wench hired to the palace than he’s mounted her. It’s a wonder…. Well, not a complete wonder, that there are no bastards.”
“Have you bewitched him?”
“I will not speak of that,” the Queen, who had also been schooled on the Witch’s Island, said. “I would have wed him off to a Dauman lady. But I received a letter from Ohean.”
“Ohean Penannyn?”
“Well, there is no other. He said that Anthal was soon to die. Anson would not be King. Indeed, that he would probably flee with him, but that he thought you should marry Cedd.”
“Cedd hates witches! Everyone knows that.”
“Aye, but no one knows you are one. Ohean has said he has seen desperate times and that you might prove a fit Queen to rescue Westrial from them, rescue all the kingdoms. You might prove far more useful there than on the Rootless Isle.”
Isobel nodded as they walked, almost scowling.
“But then there is this matter… do you wished to be useful, used?”
“What would you have me do, Mother?”
“I would have you come to Westrial with me and judge for yourself. Judge as if you had not heard what I just told you. Meet this Prince Cedd and decide for yourself. I think this is all Ohean is asking of you.”
Isobel nodded, not speaking for a time. At last she said, “I will do this.”
“We can leave the day after tomorrow,” The Queen said.
“No,” Isobel differed. “If we’re going to go and reach Kingsboro on time, we ought to leave tomorrow.”
MORE ON TUESDAY
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
Wow lots going on once again but I am here for it! That Pol and Austin scene was very hot. I am still very fascinated by this story and I greatly look forward to more in a few days!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
The Austin and Pol scenes are always hot and they are very different types of characters than I've written before. Yet, in his section they might be far less interesting than our new characters down south in Sussail. Who knows?
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
THE BLUE TEMPLE
The rest of the week was like the preparation for a wedding feast. Hyrum House was finally closed for business and streamers were brought out while flowers and food were delivered. Velnon, walking about the house blinking, could not believe the rapidity with which it all happened until he remembered that of course this was prepared ahead of time. The day Hyrum announced his retirement everything had been put in readiness for his successor and they had known there would be one in four day. The only question was who it would be.
“I was terrified, for a while,” Quinton confided in his Calon, “not that I would be chosen, but that you or Derek would be chosen.”
“Or Conn?” the low browed Matteo suggested.
“No,” Quinton said, “I feel like everyone knows Conn is off limits and on his way out of the city.”
“Well,” Derek raised an eyebrow and grinned, “I feel like they all knew the same about me and Cal. About Gabriel. That we planned to leave and start our own house. At least that’s what I tell myself to make myself feel better about not being voted for.”
“Every single one of us,” Conn began, making Derek jump, “is to young to be voted the next Hyrum.”
“Have a care love,” Derek turned around and caressed Conn’s shoulder, “you have a way of sneaking up on people these days.”
“Not on purpose,” Conn said with a small grin.
“No,” agreed Quinton, bronze, red lipped and small, graceful as a dance despite his once injured leg that caused him to lope when he walked, “our Conn is just quiet as a cat.”
But Velnon, who heard none of their conversation, had never seen a wedding before and he kept blinking and looking amazed. When he asked if he could be of any help, Master Hyrum pulled him aside and said, “The only thing you need to do is stay out of the way.”
That morning was one of the only days when every Blue Temple was closed in Sayers. All Blue Houses operated independently, but the Houses were motherhouses or daughter houses to each other, and the three other large Blue Houses in Sayers and the two smaller ones in the suburbs were all daughter houses of Hyrum House, located in the Citadel two blocks down from Greatkirk whose shadow it sat in. That great structure which could be seen from Velnon’s window every morning, had stood for fourteen centuries, and before it another one had stood for two hundred years. It was the symbol of the religion that had been dominant on both sides of the ocean for nearly twenty centuries.
And yet the rites of the Blue Order were older still. This was not the first Hyrum House. There had once been—though it had been destroyed in the time of the Persecution—a great Blue Temple, and it was not even the first. That temple had been founded by the legendary Hyrum, and where he had come from no one was entirely sure, though some said he came from Atle itself. Some of the frescoes on the wall and some old paintings and statuary had been rescued from that old temple. The original Hyrum has given his name to the House and to every Master ever afterward. When that House was full, then ten Blues were sent out under the charge of another one who was newly appointed Master as, surely, in the mists of time, Hyrum had been. Thus the other houses had been founded. Some were daughters or granddaughters or even great granddaughters of Hyrum House with intervening houses having failed, relocated or still running strong. No one knew the house from where Hyrum had come, and some thought it might have been the daughter house, or granddaughter house of the original Blue House itself. No one knew what the first Blue House was, but wherever that house was, that Master was the Viathan, the legendary and unseen High Priest of the Blue Order.
This day every house was closed, and Hyrum House was packed with Blues not only because it was the mother of all houses, but also because anytime a Wedding took place, a Blue House was crowded. Velnon remained in his rooms like a bride. In truth, for the last few years he was only with a client about twice a a week. Most of the time when he had sex it was with other Blues. After all, the Blue gave himself in service and the ones over thirty, expert in love, counsel and pleasure, were usually reserved to pleasure and train other Blues.
The last Blue he had been with was after the second election, and then he had purified himself in the ritual bath. After he had been elected he was separated, for he would be made pure like a virgin bride for his Wedding day.
That morning, Master Hyrum came to him and said, sternly, though there was a twinkle in his eye, “Are you a virgin today?”
And Velnon had answered, “I am.”
And then other came in and said, “Bathe him, wash him, anoint him in oils and perfumes, the wedding feast of the Rose has begun.”
He was not led to the wash house, that most sacred of places, but to Master Hyrum’s own private bath. He gasped at this, for it was, after all, Master Hyrum’s bath. And then he realized he would be Master Hyrum before the day was over. Fourteen years ago, Hyrum had made love to him all night, and then placed him in this bath, and after washing him, in this very tub showed him all the ways of desire he had been afraid to explore. Now he was placed in here, a virgin again, for his Wedding day, and afterward oils were massaged into his body until he fell asleep.
When he woke up he was being dressed in pure white linen, taken out of blue for the first time in his consecrated life, and the locks of Velnon’s black hair were combed out and oiled and then he was led into the domed, high ceilinged great chapel for the feast of penitence.
“Holy One, you have created from the
love of your two faces, Erkovan and Escovan,
bodies striving together.
The seed of one exploded into the body
of the other, and from that milk white
flood all life was born.
From the fire of their love all was made
and all was burned to dust,
the dust of the earth…”
They chanted.
Velnon was the only one not dressed in Blue, and he was the last to leave the sanctuary. Along with old Master Hyrum, he remained a long while and did not leave until the shawms played from the banqueting hall and Master Hyrum held out his hand to escort Velnon to his Wedding.
And I heard as it were the voice of a great
multitude, and as the voice of many waters,
and as the voice of mighty thunderings,
saying, Blessings: for the Lord Illathin
reigneth!
Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour
to him: for the marriage of the Rose is come,
and his Lover hath made Himself ready.
Some would have thought the Wedding was based on the great marriages in the minsters, but it was the other way around. Jadaye the Holy, when he had passed on the wedding ritual to the Fidelis, had passed it on from this one.
And to Him was granted that she should be
arrayed in fine linen, clean and white:
for the fine linen is the beauty of
the beloveds.
Come, I will show you He,
the Spouse of the Rose.”
“I, Illathin, have sent my servant to give you
this testimony: I am the
Root and the Offspring of Uruset, and
the bright Morning Star.”
And then he came to the altar at the end of the room, adorned with flowers and set up before a door which led to the wedding chamber. While he stood there, his hand in Master Hyrum’s, the singers chanted:
Let the one who hears say, “Come!”
Let the one who is thirsty come;
and let the one who wishes take the free
gift of the water of life.
And with that there was a clashing of cymbals, and then it was time for the feasting to begin.
THE KINGSBORO
The house had set up chambers for Ohean overlooking the main bailey, and he was there, writing at his desk while Anson sat in a chair across the room.
“Myrne wishes to remain hidden.”
“Because she is a woman of the Rootless Isle?”
“No, she has her reasons, and they are her own.”
“That’s as good as saying it’s none of my business,” Anson slapped his knee. “Very well then.”
Trumpets blared outside, and he rose quicker than Ohean, who shielded his eyes looking down into the bailey.
“Two entourages together. One belongs to Essail and the other, I believe, to the Abbey of Saint Clew.”
“My sisters. Will you go out to meet them with me?”
“I have met Morgellyn once,” Ohean said, “and do not wish to do so again. I may have a word with Wolf, or with Myrne.”
Anson nodded, and adjusting his sword belt and his cloak, all in black, he went out of the rooms and through the halls. He met Imogen first, and then the two of them continued into the main hall where Cedd was ahead of them and they were all coming out into the courtyard as stewards led the horses and servants away and Morgellyn, lowered from the wainhouse beside her husband, surrounded by three boys, came forward, holding out her hands while Hilda, flanked by two nuns who were, like her, in white robes hooded and cloaked by body wrapping ground length black veils.
“Brother,” the Queen of Essail turned both of her cheeks to Cedd to have him kiss them, and then she did the same for Imogen, who simply stared at her.
“Well,” Morgellyn murmured, and kissed her quickly, and then Anson. King Stephen was already making the rounds, and Hilda stood on her toes to kiss Cedd, and then embraced Imogen and, lastly, and for a long time, she held Anson.
“Look at us orphans,” she whispered to him before parting.
“And now we are all together.” The Queen of Essail said.
It seemed to Anson, that his half sister could only do an impression of mourning, and her golden haired children, in a way so like him, always seemed as less than nephews and a neice. Linalla was tall for her age, but also a stranger.
“Is it true Father is dying?” Morgellyn asked, frankly.
Cedd said, “He is placing the crown on my head in the morning. That means you have come for a crowning and… you might as well stay for the inevitable.”
Solemnly, the Queen of Essail nodded.
“I was thinking of leading the funeral hymn,” Hilda said.
“I had thought the same thing,” Cedd said. “It would be an excellent thing for the future Abbess of Durham to do, and how long will it be before Gertrude is gone, anyway?”
Hilda frowned at her older brother, and then attempted to turn it into a smile.
“I will shave my head,” she continued. “It is only appropriate.”
“It’s all fine and good for a nun who spends her days veiled in black,” Morgellyn began, “but I can be just as sad with all of my hair.”
“Morga, I never expected anything less. Or more,” Hilda said. “And not from Gen, certainly.
“I would cut off my hair a thousand times,’ Imogen’s voice almost rang out.
“That,” Cedd told her sternly, “you will not do.”
Ah, Hilda thought, of course not, he’s getting her ready for the marriage bed. To anyone who will have her.
“Find me the razor,” Anson said, simply. He turned to Hilda. “Let us do this together.”
There was a separation of years and time between Hilda and Anson. She was not sure what a brother was supposed to feel like. She knew Cedd was her brother, and that she despised him and regretted how much they looked alike, their mothers having been cousins. For Anson, though, she felt a profound respect for a man she always wished she had known better. She took his hand and they went into the main keep while Cedd said, “I’m not shaving a thing.”
“Of course not, you two are peas in a pod,” Hilda murmured, looking from Morgellyn to Cedd and ignoring the King of Essail and her nephews and nieces, “by which I mean adders hatched from the same egg.”
That night, while the hall was being made ready for the next day, and the lights of the great palace were going out one after the other, Myrne and Imogen sat on either side of Ash, and to Anson they looked like the Triple God, Varayan between his mother and sister. Anson reflected on them and part of him was still thinking about the room on the other side of the town where he had left Pol and Austin, where he had made the Triple God just last night. How strange to be loved and loving those two men in such an immediate way and then, a little while later, to be next to Ash declaring love and now here, in this silence.
“Trust me,” Myrne said, taking Imogen’s hand. “Trust my witchcraft.”
The fire gleamed on them as they sat in the dark room, and Myrne took the pipe Ash handed her and inhaled. She took another puff and blew it over the bones and stones. Another puff and another blow, the movement of the hands, the words escaping her mouth.
So above and below, around and everywhere;
And to all as to myself.
I will abide pervading the all-encompassing
world with a mind imbued thrice ringed.
Abundant, exalted, immeasurable,
I go.
These words of magic whispered to the old Ayl gods whose temples most no longer attended, whose images were carved in the rocks and whose names remained only in the days of the week, Waydan, Wednesday, Thynor, Thursday, Fride, Friday. Their names escaped Hilda’s lips, and were murmured by Maude as she sat with her hair in her face, her white hands clasped upon the knees of her dark gown.
“She is gone,” Wolf whispered, looking on Myrne. “They are both gone.”
Ash put a finger to his lips.
In the semi darkness of the room Anson saw the two women looking as if they had fallen asleep, perfectly still, but Ash looked up, and when Anson followed his gaze, he too saw Imogen and Myrne beside their bodies. Just as surely, he knew Wolf could not see them, and that this, he knew, was further proof of the power he had long ignored within him. The young women acknowledged the two men, and then walked toward the door and before passing through it, disappeared.
They moved like comets through the palace, the wish of their witchcraft taking them to the desired place. Now they emerged in chambers they had never seen. The moon was shining through curtains, and Cedd was drinking wine beside Morgellyn, the Queen of Essail.
“Bitch,” Imogen murmured, but Myrne put a finger to her lips. Such rage would ruin the concentration of the magic. They were here only to observe.
“In any proper country I would have been king the moment he died, and there would not be this rushed coronation.” Cedd said.
“I believe, in fact, our father was king the moment his brother died,” Morgellyn said. “But you know what it is.”
“Ever since that Royan bitch from the Rootless Isle came all those years ago, Anson has always been up for the throne. The people love him.”
“The people do not matter.”
“There are many Royan in this land, and the Royan nations to the west find favor in him.”
Morgellyn, sipping from her golden cup nodded.
“This is true,” she said. “But we will have a coronation and everyone will go home knowing there is a king in Westrial and an Overlord of the South. Problem solved.”
“Problem not solved,” Cedd said. “Not as long as Anson lives. Not as long as I have no children.’
“Then, for the love of God, have a child. Get a wife and have a child and don’t tell me about that Anthony Pembroke you’re still mooning—”
“Enough!”
“You need a queen!”
“I said enough!” Cedd slammed his hand on the table.
“Fine,” Morgellyn shrugged, looking little affected. “More thrones for my sons to inherit. And as for Anson, you already know what you plan to do with him.”
“I was hoping you would say something different. Something better.”
“Were you?” Morgellyn asked him with a small smile. “Or were you hoping I would confirm you? Bless your treachery? Well, I do. I stand right beside it.”
“Kill Anson?”
“You’d better do it with stealth. And you’d better do it after his magician is gone.”
“You know better than to refer to Ash as that.”
“Do you fear him?”
“I cannot believe you do not.”
“I fear him enough to say do not take your vengeance until he is well gone. And when you do, do it in secret. Some poison or, perhaps, some impossible adventure. Something that puts as little blood on your hands as possible.”
“No, no,’ Cedd said. “I’ve got it. I’ll kill him the very day of our father’s funeral.”
Even Morgellyn was surprised by this.
“Kill him when Father is not even cold in his grave,” Cedd said. “Make sure there is someone in the crowd who stabs him even as Father’s ashes are being placed in the tomb, someone under my pay who announces himself as so loyal he couldn’t let Anson even stand a chance of being king.”
“Who in the world would—?” Morgellyn began than sat up,.“
Oh…” she laughed in a low tone. “You’ve already got some poor bastard blackmailed.”
“Yes,” Cedd said, “And then I’m immediately sending that little bitch—”
“Which little bitch?”
“Imogen.”
“Of course,” Morgellyn said.
“She’ll be headed for Duke Ganly right after the wedding.”
“Duke Ganly is eighty years old!”
“I owe him. He’ll be glad of a king’s daughter. It’ll do her proud cunt to get pounded by the old man and bear a couple of brats, and after that she’ll be the most powerful Duchess in the land. After all, how much longer can Ganly live…?”
With a great heave like one coming up from under water for air, Myrne shot out of her chair, blinking into consciousness, and Imogen came up, gasping after her. They were both blinking in the dim light of the room where Anson and Ash sat.
“We have to go,” Imogen insisted. “We have to go at once.”
Anson touched his sister’s shoulder.
Wolf looked shaken and Anson thought against touching her shoulder and then did it anyway.
But it was Ash who leaned forward and commanded, face sober:
“Tell me everything.”
MORE TOMORROW
The rest of the week was like the preparation for a wedding feast. Hyrum House was finally closed for business and streamers were brought out while flowers and food were delivered. Velnon, walking about the house blinking, could not believe the rapidity with which it all happened until he remembered that of course this was prepared ahead of time. The day Hyrum announced his retirement everything had been put in readiness for his successor and they had known there would be one in four day. The only question was who it would be.
“I was terrified, for a while,” Quinton confided in his Calon, “not that I would be chosen, but that you or Derek would be chosen.”
“Or Conn?” the low browed Matteo suggested.
“No,” Quinton said, “I feel like everyone knows Conn is off limits and on his way out of the city.”
“Well,” Derek raised an eyebrow and grinned, “I feel like they all knew the same about me and Cal. About Gabriel. That we planned to leave and start our own house. At least that’s what I tell myself to make myself feel better about not being voted for.”
“Every single one of us,” Conn began, making Derek jump, “is to young to be voted the next Hyrum.”
“Have a care love,” Derek turned around and caressed Conn’s shoulder, “you have a way of sneaking up on people these days.”
“Not on purpose,” Conn said with a small grin.
“No,” agreed Quinton, bronze, red lipped and small, graceful as a dance despite his once injured leg that caused him to lope when he walked, “our Conn is just quiet as a cat.”
But Velnon, who heard none of their conversation, had never seen a wedding before and he kept blinking and looking amazed. When he asked if he could be of any help, Master Hyrum pulled him aside and said, “The only thing you need to do is stay out of the way.”
That morning was one of the only days when every Blue Temple was closed in Sayers. All Blue Houses operated independently, but the Houses were motherhouses or daughter houses to each other, and the three other large Blue Houses in Sayers and the two smaller ones in the suburbs were all daughter houses of Hyrum House, located in the Citadel two blocks down from Greatkirk whose shadow it sat in. That great structure which could be seen from Velnon’s window every morning, had stood for fourteen centuries, and before it another one had stood for two hundred years. It was the symbol of the religion that had been dominant on both sides of the ocean for nearly twenty centuries.
And yet the rites of the Blue Order were older still. This was not the first Hyrum House. There had once been—though it had been destroyed in the time of the Persecution—a great Blue Temple, and it was not even the first. That temple had been founded by the legendary Hyrum, and where he had come from no one was entirely sure, though some said he came from Atle itself. Some of the frescoes on the wall and some old paintings and statuary had been rescued from that old temple. The original Hyrum has given his name to the House and to every Master ever afterward. When that House was full, then ten Blues were sent out under the charge of another one who was newly appointed Master as, surely, in the mists of time, Hyrum had been. Thus the other houses had been founded. Some were daughters or granddaughters or even great granddaughters of Hyrum House with intervening houses having failed, relocated or still running strong. No one knew the house from where Hyrum had come, and some thought it might have been the daughter house, or granddaughter house of the original Blue House itself. No one knew what the first Blue House was, but wherever that house was, that Master was the Viathan, the legendary and unseen High Priest of the Blue Order.
This day every house was closed, and Hyrum House was packed with Blues not only because it was the mother of all houses, but also because anytime a Wedding took place, a Blue House was crowded. Velnon remained in his rooms like a bride. In truth, for the last few years he was only with a client about twice a a week. Most of the time when he had sex it was with other Blues. After all, the Blue gave himself in service and the ones over thirty, expert in love, counsel and pleasure, were usually reserved to pleasure and train other Blues.
The last Blue he had been with was after the second election, and then he had purified himself in the ritual bath. After he had been elected he was separated, for he would be made pure like a virgin bride for his Wedding day.
That morning, Master Hyrum came to him and said, sternly, though there was a twinkle in his eye, “Are you a virgin today?”
And Velnon had answered, “I am.”
And then other came in and said, “Bathe him, wash him, anoint him in oils and perfumes, the wedding feast of the Rose has begun.”
He was not led to the wash house, that most sacred of places, but to Master Hyrum’s own private bath. He gasped at this, for it was, after all, Master Hyrum’s bath. And then he realized he would be Master Hyrum before the day was over. Fourteen years ago, Hyrum had made love to him all night, and then placed him in this bath, and after washing him, in this very tub showed him all the ways of desire he had been afraid to explore. Now he was placed in here, a virgin again, for his Wedding day, and afterward oils were massaged into his body until he fell asleep.
When he woke up he was being dressed in pure white linen, taken out of blue for the first time in his consecrated life, and the locks of Velnon’s black hair were combed out and oiled and then he was led into the domed, high ceilinged great chapel for the feast of penitence.
“Holy One, you have created from the
love of your two faces, Erkovan and Escovan,
bodies striving together.
The seed of one exploded into the body
of the other, and from that milk white
flood all life was born.
From the fire of their love all was made
and all was burned to dust,
the dust of the earth…”
They chanted.
Velnon was the only one not dressed in Blue, and he was the last to leave the sanctuary. Along with old Master Hyrum, he remained a long while and did not leave until the shawms played from the banqueting hall and Master Hyrum held out his hand to escort Velnon to his Wedding.
And I heard as it were the voice of a great
multitude, and as the voice of many waters,
and as the voice of mighty thunderings,
saying, Blessings: for the Lord Illathin
reigneth!
Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour
to him: for the marriage of the Rose is come,
and his Lover hath made Himself ready.
Some would have thought the Wedding was based on the great marriages in the minsters, but it was the other way around. Jadaye the Holy, when he had passed on the wedding ritual to the Fidelis, had passed it on from this one.
And to Him was granted that she should be
arrayed in fine linen, clean and white:
for the fine linen is the beauty of
the beloveds.
Come, I will show you He,
the Spouse of the Rose.”
“I, Illathin, have sent my servant to give you
this testimony: I am the
Root and the Offspring of Uruset, and
the bright Morning Star.”
And then he came to the altar at the end of the room, adorned with flowers and set up before a door which led to the wedding chamber. While he stood there, his hand in Master Hyrum’s, the singers chanted:
Let the one who hears say, “Come!”
Let the one who is thirsty come;
and let the one who wishes take the free
gift of the water of life.
And with that there was a clashing of cymbals, and then it was time for the feasting to begin.
THE KINGSBORO
The house had set up chambers for Ohean overlooking the main bailey, and he was there, writing at his desk while Anson sat in a chair across the room.
“Myrne wishes to remain hidden.”
“Because she is a woman of the Rootless Isle?”
“No, she has her reasons, and they are her own.”
“That’s as good as saying it’s none of my business,” Anson slapped his knee. “Very well then.”
Trumpets blared outside, and he rose quicker than Ohean, who shielded his eyes looking down into the bailey.
“Two entourages together. One belongs to Essail and the other, I believe, to the Abbey of Saint Clew.”
“My sisters. Will you go out to meet them with me?”
“I have met Morgellyn once,” Ohean said, “and do not wish to do so again. I may have a word with Wolf, or with Myrne.”
Anson nodded, and adjusting his sword belt and his cloak, all in black, he went out of the rooms and through the halls. He met Imogen first, and then the two of them continued into the main hall where Cedd was ahead of them and they were all coming out into the courtyard as stewards led the horses and servants away and Morgellyn, lowered from the wainhouse beside her husband, surrounded by three boys, came forward, holding out her hands while Hilda, flanked by two nuns who were, like her, in white robes hooded and cloaked by body wrapping ground length black veils.
“Brother,” the Queen of Essail turned both of her cheeks to Cedd to have him kiss them, and then she did the same for Imogen, who simply stared at her.
“Well,” Morgellyn murmured, and kissed her quickly, and then Anson. King Stephen was already making the rounds, and Hilda stood on her toes to kiss Cedd, and then embraced Imogen and, lastly, and for a long time, she held Anson.
“Look at us orphans,” she whispered to him before parting.
“And now we are all together.” The Queen of Essail said.
It seemed to Anson, that his half sister could only do an impression of mourning, and her golden haired children, in a way so like him, always seemed as less than nephews and a neice. Linalla was tall for her age, but also a stranger.
“Is it true Father is dying?” Morgellyn asked, frankly.
Cedd said, “He is placing the crown on my head in the morning. That means you have come for a crowning and… you might as well stay for the inevitable.”
Solemnly, the Queen of Essail nodded.
“I was thinking of leading the funeral hymn,” Hilda said.
“I had thought the same thing,” Cedd said. “It would be an excellent thing for the future Abbess of Durham to do, and how long will it be before Gertrude is gone, anyway?”
Hilda frowned at her older brother, and then attempted to turn it into a smile.
“I will shave my head,” she continued. “It is only appropriate.”
“It’s all fine and good for a nun who spends her days veiled in black,” Morgellyn began, “but I can be just as sad with all of my hair.”
“Morga, I never expected anything less. Or more,” Hilda said. “And not from Gen, certainly.
“I would cut off my hair a thousand times,’ Imogen’s voice almost rang out.
“That,” Cedd told her sternly, “you will not do.”
Ah, Hilda thought, of course not, he’s getting her ready for the marriage bed. To anyone who will have her.
“Find me the razor,” Anson said, simply. He turned to Hilda. “Let us do this together.”
There was a separation of years and time between Hilda and Anson. She was not sure what a brother was supposed to feel like. She knew Cedd was her brother, and that she despised him and regretted how much they looked alike, their mothers having been cousins. For Anson, though, she felt a profound respect for a man she always wished she had known better. She took his hand and they went into the main keep while Cedd said, “I’m not shaving a thing.”
“Of course not, you two are peas in a pod,” Hilda murmured, looking from Morgellyn to Cedd and ignoring the King of Essail and her nephews and nieces, “by which I mean adders hatched from the same egg.”
That night, while the hall was being made ready for the next day, and the lights of the great palace were going out one after the other, Myrne and Imogen sat on either side of Ash, and to Anson they looked like the Triple God, Varayan between his mother and sister. Anson reflected on them and part of him was still thinking about the room on the other side of the town where he had left Pol and Austin, where he had made the Triple God just last night. How strange to be loved and loving those two men in such an immediate way and then, a little while later, to be next to Ash declaring love and now here, in this silence.
“Trust me,” Myrne said, taking Imogen’s hand. “Trust my witchcraft.”
The fire gleamed on them as they sat in the dark room, and Myrne took the pipe Ash handed her and inhaled. She took another puff and blew it over the bones and stones. Another puff and another blow, the movement of the hands, the words escaping her mouth.
So above and below, around and everywhere;
And to all as to myself.
I will abide pervading the all-encompassing
world with a mind imbued thrice ringed.
Abundant, exalted, immeasurable,
I go.
These words of magic whispered to the old Ayl gods whose temples most no longer attended, whose images were carved in the rocks and whose names remained only in the days of the week, Waydan, Wednesday, Thynor, Thursday, Fride, Friday. Their names escaped Hilda’s lips, and were murmured by Maude as she sat with her hair in her face, her white hands clasped upon the knees of her dark gown.
“She is gone,” Wolf whispered, looking on Myrne. “They are both gone.”
Ash put a finger to his lips.
In the semi darkness of the room Anson saw the two women looking as if they had fallen asleep, perfectly still, but Ash looked up, and when Anson followed his gaze, he too saw Imogen and Myrne beside their bodies. Just as surely, he knew Wolf could not see them, and that this, he knew, was further proof of the power he had long ignored within him. The young women acknowledged the two men, and then walked toward the door and before passing through it, disappeared.
They moved like comets through the palace, the wish of their witchcraft taking them to the desired place. Now they emerged in chambers they had never seen. The moon was shining through curtains, and Cedd was drinking wine beside Morgellyn, the Queen of Essail.
“Bitch,” Imogen murmured, but Myrne put a finger to her lips. Such rage would ruin the concentration of the magic. They were here only to observe.
“In any proper country I would have been king the moment he died, and there would not be this rushed coronation.” Cedd said.
“I believe, in fact, our father was king the moment his brother died,” Morgellyn said. “But you know what it is.”
“Ever since that Royan bitch from the Rootless Isle came all those years ago, Anson has always been up for the throne. The people love him.”
“The people do not matter.”
“There are many Royan in this land, and the Royan nations to the west find favor in him.”
Morgellyn, sipping from her golden cup nodded.
“This is true,” she said. “But we will have a coronation and everyone will go home knowing there is a king in Westrial and an Overlord of the South. Problem solved.”
“Problem not solved,” Cedd said. “Not as long as Anson lives. Not as long as I have no children.’
“Then, for the love of God, have a child. Get a wife and have a child and don’t tell me about that Anthony Pembroke you’re still mooning—”
“Enough!”
“You need a queen!”
“I said enough!” Cedd slammed his hand on the table.
“Fine,” Morgellyn shrugged, looking little affected. “More thrones for my sons to inherit. And as for Anson, you already know what you plan to do with him.”
“I was hoping you would say something different. Something better.”
“Were you?” Morgellyn asked him with a small smile. “Or were you hoping I would confirm you? Bless your treachery? Well, I do. I stand right beside it.”
“Kill Anson?”
“You’d better do it with stealth. And you’d better do it after his magician is gone.”
“You know better than to refer to Ash as that.”
“Do you fear him?”
“I cannot believe you do not.”
“I fear him enough to say do not take your vengeance until he is well gone. And when you do, do it in secret. Some poison or, perhaps, some impossible adventure. Something that puts as little blood on your hands as possible.”
“No, no,’ Cedd said. “I’ve got it. I’ll kill him the very day of our father’s funeral.”
Even Morgellyn was surprised by this.
“Kill him when Father is not even cold in his grave,” Cedd said. “Make sure there is someone in the crowd who stabs him even as Father’s ashes are being placed in the tomb, someone under my pay who announces himself as so loyal he couldn’t let Anson even stand a chance of being king.”
“Who in the world would—?” Morgellyn began than sat up,.“
Oh…” she laughed in a low tone. “You’ve already got some poor bastard blackmailed.”
“Yes,” Cedd said, “And then I’m immediately sending that little bitch—”
“Which little bitch?”
“Imogen.”
“Of course,” Morgellyn said.
“She’ll be headed for Duke Ganly right after the wedding.”
“Duke Ganly is eighty years old!”
“I owe him. He’ll be glad of a king’s daughter. It’ll do her proud cunt to get pounded by the old man and bear a couple of brats, and after that she’ll be the most powerful Duchess in the land. After all, how much longer can Ganly live…?”
With a great heave like one coming up from under water for air, Myrne shot out of her chair, blinking into consciousness, and Imogen came up, gasping after her. They were both blinking in the dim light of the room where Anson and Ash sat.
“We have to go,” Imogen insisted. “We have to go at once.”
Anson touched his sister’s shoulder.
Wolf looked shaken and Anson thought against touching her shoulder and then did it anyway.
But it was Ash who leaned forward and commanded, face sober:
“Tell me everything.”
MORE TOMORROW
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
That was a very eventful portion! So much going on and I just hope Anson finds some way of surviving. I don’t have much else to say as I am pretty tired. Great writing and I eagerly await await tomorrow’s portion to find out what happens next!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
Yes, I was well asleep by the time you message I believe, and I'm checking this Wednesday morning. Anson is no punk ass. Cedd is. Cedd won't win. Cedd doesn't even have a wizard or a witch in his life, just a bitch of a sister. but now we know Cedd and Moregellyn's game: scandalous assholes!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
WHILE KINGSBORO AND PURPLEKIRK GET READY FOR A CORONATION, ACROSS TOWN AT THE BLUE TEMPLE, A NEW HYRUM IS MADE...
THE THREE BRIARS
AND
HYRUM HOUSE
“Will you be alright?” Brynn asked him, his voice light as he touched the back of Talon’s hand.
“I’m already better,” Talon said. “I just need to walk around the city a bit.”
“We were supposed to pay our respects to the King.”
“Well, then let me dress appropriately.”
“I was about to say,” said Brynn who was wearing a coarse, button down blue shirt open at the neck, and brown trousers, “I will go address the King for both of us, and you may walk about if you wish.”
“Are you certain?”
“A better question is would the King mind? And I think he would not.”
Brynn swallowed the last of his coffee and then kissed Talon on the cheek. “Now, I really have to see about cleaning my mouth. I can’t address His Grace with coffee breath.”
“Give my greetings to the baby Andry,” Talon said with the first note of enthusiasm in his voice. He watched Brynn brush and spit, and dab his mouth and finished his hair. He thought of the children, Brandon especially, who should come to the city soon, who was growing into a dark complexioned version of his father. Far from regal, which would have looked strange walking out of this inn and down the streets, Brynn took only the sword clattering at his side and departed.
Talon waited only a few moments before dressing and leaving the same way Brynn had come, but he did not go in the direction of the palace, rather he went to Hyrum House and he heard music and singing from above, though the lower part was empty except for, strangely enough, a white robed city guard.
“You are not a patron?” the man said, his eyes narrowing.
“No,” Talon said. “I am a Blue. Or was.”
The look on the man’s face changed, and then he smiled and said, “Then you must go upstairs, for today is the Wedding Day.”
It took Talon a while to think, and then he remembered, “A new Master Hyrum?”
“Yes,” the guard said. “And most of the Blues of the city are there.”
Talon nodded and headed up the steps wondering if he was still Blue enough to belong to this. But when he emerged upstairs into the raucous music, one of the first people he saw, in fawn trousers and an indigo blazer, clapping his hands, was Derek Annakar, the Senechal of Hyrum House. He was still milke pale, sharp faced and handsome, with the shock of black hair in his face and the long black lashes that nearly hid his green eyes, and he came toward Talon followed by Burz, Tagon and Emry, three he remembered from long ago, all in the clothes of well off burghers and merchants.
“I heard you were coming to the city,” Derek told him, “and wondered if you would be here for the Wedding.”
The hall was festooned with white flowers and wine poured freely. The old Master Hyrum sat at the head table in the place of the bride’s father, and a cup of wine was before him. A man Talon could not at first remember, who appeared possibly thirty so might have been forty, was in a white floral litter being hoisted about the hall by young shirtless first year Blues only some of them very fit. The Blues took all kinds. The hall chanted:
Like an apple tree among the trees of the forest,
So is my beloved among the young men.
In his shade I took great delight and sat down,
And his fruit was sweet to my taste.
“He has brought me to his banquet hall,
And his banner over me is love.
“That is Velnon!” Talon remembered.
“That was Velnon,” Derek said. “Now he is Master Hyrum.”
After a time Talon knew that he would remain, and he borrowed Derek’s messenger, the small bird shaped invention, to send a word to Brynn and let him know he was at the Wedding.
“Does it please you?” Brynn asked him. “You sound pleased.”
“I am very happy.”
‘Then remain, love,” Brynn said.
The day went on into night and he danced and laughed with these men, many who had served as Blues during his time. They were all bound in that service that everyone failed to understand and so many despised, and a great pain had brought most of them there. Most of these men knew exactly the kind of life he had led, might have led lives more painful in some ways. And many of these men had helped him through his pain and taught him how to be a lover.
“Can one ever be a Blue again?” he asked Derek.
“What’s that?” Derek said.
“Could I ever be a Blue again?”
“What a question!” Derek said. “Is Brynn not treating you right? You are the High Prince of Meredd.”
“No, no,” Derek said. “It is only a question.”
On my bed night after night I sought him
Whom my soul loves;
I sought him but did not find him.
I must arise now and go about the city;
In the streets and in the squares
I must seek him whom my soul loves.’
I sought him but did not find him.
The song went on for some time and, at last, Derek said, “This is the first time of peace I have felt in days. Memories rise up. Dreams. Things I do not want to remember. But not here. And I wonder… might I not find peace here. The Blues helped me once. Maybe being Blue can help me again.”
“Maybe,” Derek said, doubtfully. Then he shrugged, “But surely you understand that no one stops being a Blue. You can come anytime you wish and remain when you want. You have been gone a while. That’s one of the first things they teach us.”
“What’s that?” one of the Blues asked.
He was not in prosperous dress clothes, or even in the almost transparent thighs and form fitting gossamer trousers worn by some in the house. He wore the ancient thick blue hooded robe and he was with his wavy bronze hair, equally bronze skin and reflective green eyes, more than goodlooking. There was something of the magician about him, and Talon found himself stumbling a little to repeat to this man who seemed young and old, boyish and no boy at all what he had just said.
“Of course, of course,” Conn murmured. “I myself and leaving for Rheged when all of this is over. And not long after, Derek and our other friends will be doing the same. If you would, maybe you and your friend Brynn could see about following me.”
Talon looked surprised by this offer, but he said, “I have been feeling… strange of late.”
“Yes,” Conn said, and it was as if this mild man whom he had barely noticed a moment ago had always been there, and even the beautiful Derek was not, “Of late we are all, truthfully, feeling a little strange.”
An hour ago he saw Master Hyrum leave even though no one else had. Hyrum had placed hands on his head and that was the moment Velnon was Hyrum. Burse and Regiel had been sitting next to him and they had left the room behind him the old Master. Once Hyrum was gone he was not seen again. One day, Velnon realized it would be him.
But now he was plunged again into the magic and the revelry of this night.
On my bed night after night I sought him
Whom my soul loves;
I sought him but did not find him.
Beside Derek Annakar and Gabriel Rokamount, Lorne Kellen drunkenly stood up and cried, “To bed with the bride! To bed with the bride!”
There was, at the end of the great hall, set up on a dais like an altar almost, a paviliion, white and draped with spring flowers and here, Velnon, now newly made virgin, now newly made Hyrum, would stay the night. Eventually one would come to him in that tent, and whom it was, Velnon… no, Hyrum, could not say.
As he rose up in his white robe and Derek Annakar took him by his right hand while Gor Votaman took him by the left, they led him quietly to the dais, up the steps of the great stage and to the very entrance of the tent. He was Hyrum he told himself. Any clinging to Velnon would not work. He would not be Velnon again until the day he died or the day he gave up this office. He had clung to his old name in fear that he might forget it, and so forget himself.
“Rest well, my Lord,” Derek kissed him on one cheek.
“Rest well, Lord,” repeated Gor, also kissing him, and so they brought him into the tent, Derek placing down smoking incense, and Gor a candle. The pavilion was well appointed. He’d had no idea what it would look like. It was all covered in white and rose blossoms with a bed of rushes, The two men left, and Hyrum knew something of the ritual. He undressed, folding his clothes at the foot of the bed until he was naked, and then he went and blew out the candle, plunging the room back into darkness save the light of charcoal in the incense burner. Nervous as a virgin, the new Hyrum lay down.
Even though he had known the door would open from the back of the tent, and whoever was chosen for him was chosen in deepest secrecy and would arrive in the tent just so, he was surprised when the door at the back opened and he felt a new presence. As clothing shuffled off, he trembled, and he was glad that he couldn’t be seen. He felt nothing like the powerful Blue priest he had been before, and certainly not at all like Master Hyrum.
A body settled beside him. It ran hands up and down him, tweaking his nipples, sucking on them expertly, and not like those men who came to the House did when they were trying to be better lovers than they were. This one kissed up and down his breasts, to his belly, moving up and down his body, igniting a fire, and he kissed between Hyrum’s thighs and over his sex. Hyrum refused to cry out as the hand and the mouth went closer to his sex. Now, with force, he pulled the man down on top of him, pulling his mouth to him, running his hands up and down his body. The man knelt and kissed him down his stomach, lay his cheek in the soft cloud of hair over his sex, and then plunged his mouth onto Hyrum making him cry out.
When they heard the first outcry, the guest outside acted as if he truly had been a virgin, but then again he had, for this was a new Hyrum and the moment a new Hyrum had come into this room he was a virgin. Outside of the tent a few listened to the startled cries, the moans of pleasure. Talon came with Derek to stand at the foot of the dais as they listened. At last they heard a groan, the release of orgasm and one and then another murmured, “He has been made.”
“He has been made.”
“He has been made.”
Their faces smiled in delight and rapture, but it was not like naughty childen.
“I will walk you to your home,” Derek said.
As they walked the streets Derek said, “If you are serious about what you said, come and speak to Master Hyrum at the beginning of the next week, when the honeymoon has ended. And for the love of Ilmaro, speak to Brynn!”
He embraced him at the door of the inn, and as he did they saw two men in red robes with shells around their neck walking.
“Who are they?”
“Pilgrims to Sanjahn. Haven’t you seen them?”
“No,” Talon shook his head as the men disappeared down the street.
“Oh. Well, they were looking for peace too.” Derek said. “I hope both of you find it.”
Derek departed, and standing at the door, Talon thought both of the red robed pilgrims, and of the Blues. And then he went inside.
When he woke up, the first thing he said to himself is, “I am Hyrum.”
He had to relieve himself so badly, and he heard nothing beyond the tent flap.
All sides of the pavilion had a door and he had been brought in through the side. Last night, as this faceless lover had taken him through raptures, and he had wondered which one of his Blues was making love to him, he knew they all heard, were supposed to hear the sounds of their sex. For a Blue’s life was not private, and certainly not private from other Blues, though they tried to make the experience as private as possible for the patrons who came to the house. Just now, he wished for some privacy, and suddenly realized that as Master Hyrum a certain degree of privacy was now his.
He pushed the tent flap open and saw the hall empty and abandoned of the great feast. Things would be cleaned up, and the feasting would resume later, would continue for three days in fact, and only on the fourth day would work begin. By then, Hyrum realized, he would long for work.
He walked naked and aching with that forty year old ache across the dais, and them limped to the nearest restroom. When he opened the door he was surprised to see two of the revelers in the midst of heavy sex, one fucking the other against a sink, his face pressed in ecstacy to the mirror of the medicine cabinet.. Part of him wished to join in, but the biggest part sought out the first empty bathroom.
He entered the main wash house, which was currently not in use because the Blues were not in use. After the feast every Blue House in the city would be busy with men who had been kept away during the time of the Wedding.
In the end he found peace in one of these stalls and, not caring about his nudity eventually returned to the pavilion and the arms of his lover.
“You were gone some time,” the gruff voice, rusty with sleeplessness said, and Hyrum said, “Indalis?”
“Of course. Has my body changed that much?”
Indalis was his first Companion. For Blues traveled two by two as journeyman so that even places where there were no Blue Temples could experience Blue Magic, and Indalis had been his first Companion.
“God, no! Never!” Hyrum lied even as his memory was returning.
Now it came back to them. They had woved together over twenty years ago. His very first experience had been with Master Hyrum, the one newly departed, and then after so many experiences he had been sealed and sent off with Indalis. The thing about sex was that even though a bored prude, or a bored slut for that matter, would say that sex got old after a while, the truth was its infinite variations, and the infinite souls attached to bodies that one joined to, never grew old. That first night there was no town near them, and they were twenty miles north of Sayers. They bathed in a river, and then in the tall reed grasses, Indalis showed him ways of love he had never known were possible and pleasures he still wasn’t used to. They bent their bodies into several forms moving through the changes of love.
“And there is enough time to show you still more,” Indalis’s voice said in the dark. “Though now you are Master Hyrum, and doubtless there are many things you can show me.”
“Aye,” Hyrum said, sounding a little shy. “I imagine I could.”
Indalis cleared his throat, and Hyrum could hear him beginning to stand up.
“Let me refresh myself in one of the washrooms ,and then I will return presently so you can do just that. Show me, I mean.”
He and Indalis did show each other. For hours they tasted each other, bent each other over, climbed into and crawled under each other remembering the Ninety Nine Movements. And the smell of their bodies was intoxicating. Eventually the light in the tent changed, and Hyrum could hear the sounds of some people coming to eat though the true feasting would begin after midday. Sometime later a Blue in his apprentice year came into the tent to air it out, to replace the rushes and sheets and to bring wash water and raisin cakes.
When he left, they remained in the tent twined together, discussing old matters, sleeping, making love again. But as evening approached, Indalis took his leave through the back door, not the front, so that honor might not be taken from Hyrum. Now an old Blue came in to lead Hyrum through a back passage to the bathing house so that he might appear purified for the feasting tonight and virginal for the lover of the second night.
That second night it was Faramy, the only Blue he had pledged himself to. Their pledging had not lasted, though at one time they both believed they would leave the Order together and make their own home together.
The third night however, Hyrum was taken through all of his paces, exhausted and loved so thoroughly he realized it was like a struggle or like wrestling, and he would have to give as good as he got. The two men cried out in an agony of ecstasy, taking each other to the limits, and when Hyrum said, “I must seee you,” and lit a candle, he took in his breath and cried, “Master Hryum.”
“No longer,” the old Hyrum, who looked truly old now, the creases of his face, the slope of his breast showing, said, “But who I was before. Copernal. The old Hyrum is almost always the last of the three lovers. For he comes with all the information you will need, or much of it.”
“Where are you now?” Hyrum demanded. “Or, where have you been?”
“One day you will do the same thing I have done,” Old Hyrum—Copernal—said. “The old Hyrum leaves with the three closest to him in the middle of the Wedding Feast, after he has conferred his name upon the new one. He is then taken through many rites and rituals in the Dark House, and returns to serve one last time. That last time is now. After that he returns to the Dark House.”
“What is… the Dark House?”
“Have you never heard of the Viathan?”
“He is our High Priest… Or at least that’s what they say.”
“Well, what they say is true. And the Dark House is wherever he lives, attended by his most sacred priests, men retired from the Work. He becomes head of the Dark House and the Dark Order.”
Hyrum said nothing, but Copernal said, “Do you ever wonder what becomes of the retired heads of the Houses?”
“Yes.”
“They go to the Dark Order. The Dark House.”
“But where is it?”
“Wherever they choose to live. In secret, serving the Viathan.”
“But you are…. In the real Dark House. With the Viathan.”
“Hyrum,” Copernal said, “I am the Viathan.”
“What?”
“Every Hyrum, or almost every one, in time becomes Viathan.”
Hyrum blinked and said, “I knew our house was one of the oldest, that our orgins were lost in time. I knew that we must have been founded from that very first Blue House, which is called the Dark House, but…”
“Listen,” Copernal said, “and listen with care. The Dark House is no true and fixed place. Hyrum House was established by the very first Hyrum who came from across the sea in the days before the destruction of Atle, with the Blue Knowledge, and this is the first Blue House. This is the oldest of them all.”
“I thought…” Velnon, or better to call hi Hyrum, “that the new Hyrum would not be me.”
“Gabriel Rokamont and Derek Annakar are too young—”
“And—”
“And Connleth Arragareth is not only too young, but meant for other things.
“You all are the two secret poles on which the great Blue Order spins, through age after age, through all worlds. You and me and all the Viathans hold the Oldest House. They the New.”
MORE AFTER THE WEEKEND.
THE THREE BRIARS
AND
HYRUM HOUSE
“Will you be alright?” Brynn asked him, his voice light as he touched the back of Talon’s hand.
“I’m already better,” Talon said. “I just need to walk around the city a bit.”
“We were supposed to pay our respects to the King.”
“Well, then let me dress appropriately.”
“I was about to say,” said Brynn who was wearing a coarse, button down blue shirt open at the neck, and brown trousers, “I will go address the King for both of us, and you may walk about if you wish.”
“Are you certain?”
“A better question is would the King mind? And I think he would not.”
Brynn swallowed the last of his coffee and then kissed Talon on the cheek. “Now, I really have to see about cleaning my mouth. I can’t address His Grace with coffee breath.”
“Give my greetings to the baby Andry,” Talon said with the first note of enthusiasm in his voice. He watched Brynn brush and spit, and dab his mouth and finished his hair. He thought of the children, Brandon especially, who should come to the city soon, who was growing into a dark complexioned version of his father. Far from regal, which would have looked strange walking out of this inn and down the streets, Brynn took only the sword clattering at his side and departed.
Talon waited only a few moments before dressing and leaving the same way Brynn had come, but he did not go in the direction of the palace, rather he went to Hyrum House and he heard music and singing from above, though the lower part was empty except for, strangely enough, a white robed city guard.
“You are not a patron?” the man said, his eyes narrowing.
“No,” Talon said. “I am a Blue. Or was.”
The look on the man’s face changed, and then he smiled and said, “Then you must go upstairs, for today is the Wedding Day.”
It took Talon a while to think, and then he remembered, “A new Master Hyrum?”
“Yes,” the guard said. “And most of the Blues of the city are there.”
Talon nodded and headed up the steps wondering if he was still Blue enough to belong to this. But when he emerged upstairs into the raucous music, one of the first people he saw, in fawn trousers and an indigo blazer, clapping his hands, was Derek Annakar, the Senechal of Hyrum House. He was still milke pale, sharp faced and handsome, with the shock of black hair in his face and the long black lashes that nearly hid his green eyes, and he came toward Talon followed by Burz, Tagon and Emry, three he remembered from long ago, all in the clothes of well off burghers and merchants.
“I heard you were coming to the city,” Derek told him, “and wondered if you would be here for the Wedding.”
The hall was festooned with white flowers and wine poured freely. The old Master Hyrum sat at the head table in the place of the bride’s father, and a cup of wine was before him. A man Talon could not at first remember, who appeared possibly thirty so might have been forty, was in a white floral litter being hoisted about the hall by young shirtless first year Blues only some of them very fit. The Blues took all kinds. The hall chanted:
Like an apple tree among the trees of the forest,
So is my beloved among the young men.
In his shade I took great delight and sat down,
And his fruit was sweet to my taste.
“He has brought me to his banquet hall,
And his banner over me is love.
“That is Velnon!” Talon remembered.
“That was Velnon,” Derek said. “Now he is Master Hyrum.”
After a time Talon knew that he would remain, and he borrowed Derek’s messenger, the small bird shaped invention, to send a word to Brynn and let him know he was at the Wedding.
“Does it please you?” Brynn asked him. “You sound pleased.”
“I am very happy.”
‘Then remain, love,” Brynn said.
The day went on into night and he danced and laughed with these men, many who had served as Blues during his time. They were all bound in that service that everyone failed to understand and so many despised, and a great pain had brought most of them there. Most of these men knew exactly the kind of life he had led, might have led lives more painful in some ways. And many of these men had helped him through his pain and taught him how to be a lover.
“Can one ever be a Blue again?” he asked Derek.
“What’s that?” Derek said.
“Could I ever be a Blue again?”
“What a question!” Derek said. “Is Brynn not treating you right? You are the High Prince of Meredd.”
“No, no,” Derek said. “It is only a question.”
On my bed night after night I sought him
Whom my soul loves;
I sought him but did not find him.
I must arise now and go about the city;
In the streets and in the squares
I must seek him whom my soul loves.’
I sought him but did not find him.
The song went on for some time and, at last, Derek said, “This is the first time of peace I have felt in days. Memories rise up. Dreams. Things I do not want to remember. But not here. And I wonder… might I not find peace here. The Blues helped me once. Maybe being Blue can help me again.”
“Maybe,” Derek said, doubtfully. Then he shrugged, “But surely you understand that no one stops being a Blue. You can come anytime you wish and remain when you want. You have been gone a while. That’s one of the first things they teach us.”
“What’s that?” one of the Blues asked.
He was not in prosperous dress clothes, or even in the almost transparent thighs and form fitting gossamer trousers worn by some in the house. He wore the ancient thick blue hooded robe and he was with his wavy bronze hair, equally bronze skin and reflective green eyes, more than goodlooking. There was something of the magician about him, and Talon found himself stumbling a little to repeat to this man who seemed young and old, boyish and no boy at all what he had just said.
“Of course, of course,” Conn murmured. “I myself and leaving for Rheged when all of this is over. And not long after, Derek and our other friends will be doing the same. If you would, maybe you and your friend Brynn could see about following me.”
Talon looked surprised by this offer, but he said, “I have been feeling… strange of late.”
“Yes,” Conn said, and it was as if this mild man whom he had barely noticed a moment ago had always been there, and even the beautiful Derek was not, “Of late we are all, truthfully, feeling a little strange.”
An hour ago he saw Master Hyrum leave even though no one else had. Hyrum had placed hands on his head and that was the moment Velnon was Hyrum. Burse and Regiel had been sitting next to him and they had left the room behind him the old Master. Once Hyrum was gone he was not seen again. One day, Velnon realized it would be him.
But now he was plunged again into the magic and the revelry of this night.
On my bed night after night I sought him
Whom my soul loves;
I sought him but did not find him.
Beside Derek Annakar and Gabriel Rokamount, Lorne Kellen drunkenly stood up and cried, “To bed with the bride! To bed with the bride!”
There was, at the end of the great hall, set up on a dais like an altar almost, a paviliion, white and draped with spring flowers and here, Velnon, now newly made virgin, now newly made Hyrum, would stay the night. Eventually one would come to him in that tent, and whom it was, Velnon… no, Hyrum, could not say.
As he rose up in his white robe and Derek Annakar took him by his right hand while Gor Votaman took him by the left, they led him quietly to the dais, up the steps of the great stage and to the very entrance of the tent. He was Hyrum he told himself. Any clinging to Velnon would not work. He would not be Velnon again until the day he died or the day he gave up this office. He had clung to his old name in fear that he might forget it, and so forget himself.
“Rest well, my Lord,” Derek kissed him on one cheek.
“Rest well, Lord,” repeated Gor, also kissing him, and so they brought him into the tent, Derek placing down smoking incense, and Gor a candle. The pavilion was well appointed. He’d had no idea what it would look like. It was all covered in white and rose blossoms with a bed of rushes, The two men left, and Hyrum knew something of the ritual. He undressed, folding his clothes at the foot of the bed until he was naked, and then he went and blew out the candle, plunging the room back into darkness save the light of charcoal in the incense burner. Nervous as a virgin, the new Hyrum lay down.
Even though he had known the door would open from the back of the tent, and whoever was chosen for him was chosen in deepest secrecy and would arrive in the tent just so, he was surprised when the door at the back opened and he felt a new presence. As clothing shuffled off, he trembled, and he was glad that he couldn’t be seen. He felt nothing like the powerful Blue priest he had been before, and certainly not at all like Master Hyrum.
A body settled beside him. It ran hands up and down him, tweaking his nipples, sucking on them expertly, and not like those men who came to the House did when they were trying to be better lovers than they were. This one kissed up and down his breasts, to his belly, moving up and down his body, igniting a fire, and he kissed between Hyrum’s thighs and over his sex. Hyrum refused to cry out as the hand and the mouth went closer to his sex. Now, with force, he pulled the man down on top of him, pulling his mouth to him, running his hands up and down his body. The man knelt and kissed him down his stomach, lay his cheek in the soft cloud of hair over his sex, and then plunged his mouth onto Hyrum making him cry out.
When they heard the first outcry, the guest outside acted as if he truly had been a virgin, but then again he had, for this was a new Hyrum and the moment a new Hyrum had come into this room he was a virgin. Outside of the tent a few listened to the startled cries, the moans of pleasure. Talon came with Derek to stand at the foot of the dais as they listened. At last they heard a groan, the release of orgasm and one and then another murmured, “He has been made.”
“He has been made.”
“He has been made.”
Their faces smiled in delight and rapture, but it was not like naughty childen.
“I will walk you to your home,” Derek said.
As they walked the streets Derek said, “If you are serious about what you said, come and speak to Master Hyrum at the beginning of the next week, when the honeymoon has ended. And for the love of Ilmaro, speak to Brynn!”
He embraced him at the door of the inn, and as he did they saw two men in red robes with shells around their neck walking.
“Who are they?”
“Pilgrims to Sanjahn. Haven’t you seen them?”
“No,” Talon shook his head as the men disappeared down the street.
“Oh. Well, they were looking for peace too.” Derek said. “I hope both of you find it.”
Derek departed, and standing at the door, Talon thought both of the red robed pilgrims, and of the Blues. And then he went inside.
When he woke up, the first thing he said to himself is, “I am Hyrum.”
He had to relieve himself so badly, and he heard nothing beyond the tent flap.
All sides of the pavilion had a door and he had been brought in through the side. Last night, as this faceless lover had taken him through raptures, and he had wondered which one of his Blues was making love to him, he knew they all heard, were supposed to hear the sounds of their sex. For a Blue’s life was not private, and certainly not private from other Blues, though they tried to make the experience as private as possible for the patrons who came to the house. Just now, he wished for some privacy, and suddenly realized that as Master Hyrum a certain degree of privacy was now his.
He pushed the tent flap open and saw the hall empty and abandoned of the great feast. Things would be cleaned up, and the feasting would resume later, would continue for three days in fact, and only on the fourth day would work begin. By then, Hyrum realized, he would long for work.
He walked naked and aching with that forty year old ache across the dais, and them limped to the nearest restroom. When he opened the door he was surprised to see two of the revelers in the midst of heavy sex, one fucking the other against a sink, his face pressed in ecstacy to the mirror of the medicine cabinet.. Part of him wished to join in, but the biggest part sought out the first empty bathroom.
He entered the main wash house, which was currently not in use because the Blues were not in use. After the feast every Blue House in the city would be busy with men who had been kept away during the time of the Wedding.
In the end he found peace in one of these stalls and, not caring about his nudity eventually returned to the pavilion and the arms of his lover.
“You were gone some time,” the gruff voice, rusty with sleeplessness said, and Hyrum said, “Indalis?”
“Of course. Has my body changed that much?”
Indalis was his first Companion. For Blues traveled two by two as journeyman so that even places where there were no Blue Temples could experience Blue Magic, and Indalis had been his first Companion.
“God, no! Never!” Hyrum lied even as his memory was returning.
Now it came back to them. They had woved together over twenty years ago. His very first experience had been with Master Hyrum, the one newly departed, and then after so many experiences he had been sealed and sent off with Indalis. The thing about sex was that even though a bored prude, or a bored slut for that matter, would say that sex got old after a while, the truth was its infinite variations, and the infinite souls attached to bodies that one joined to, never grew old. That first night there was no town near them, and they were twenty miles north of Sayers. They bathed in a river, and then in the tall reed grasses, Indalis showed him ways of love he had never known were possible and pleasures he still wasn’t used to. They bent their bodies into several forms moving through the changes of love.
“And there is enough time to show you still more,” Indalis’s voice said in the dark. “Though now you are Master Hyrum, and doubtless there are many things you can show me.”
“Aye,” Hyrum said, sounding a little shy. “I imagine I could.”
Indalis cleared his throat, and Hyrum could hear him beginning to stand up.
“Let me refresh myself in one of the washrooms ,and then I will return presently so you can do just that. Show me, I mean.”
He and Indalis did show each other. For hours they tasted each other, bent each other over, climbed into and crawled under each other remembering the Ninety Nine Movements. And the smell of their bodies was intoxicating. Eventually the light in the tent changed, and Hyrum could hear the sounds of some people coming to eat though the true feasting would begin after midday. Sometime later a Blue in his apprentice year came into the tent to air it out, to replace the rushes and sheets and to bring wash water and raisin cakes.
When he left, they remained in the tent twined together, discussing old matters, sleeping, making love again. But as evening approached, Indalis took his leave through the back door, not the front, so that honor might not be taken from Hyrum. Now an old Blue came in to lead Hyrum through a back passage to the bathing house so that he might appear purified for the feasting tonight and virginal for the lover of the second night.
That second night it was Faramy, the only Blue he had pledged himself to. Their pledging had not lasted, though at one time they both believed they would leave the Order together and make their own home together.
The third night however, Hyrum was taken through all of his paces, exhausted and loved so thoroughly he realized it was like a struggle or like wrestling, and he would have to give as good as he got. The two men cried out in an agony of ecstasy, taking each other to the limits, and when Hyrum said, “I must seee you,” and lit a candle, he took in his breath and cried, “Master Hryum.”
“No longer,” the old Hyrum, who looked truly old now, the creases of his face, the slope of his breast showing, said, “But who I was before. Copernal. The old Hyrum is almost always the last of the three lovers. For he comes with all the information you will need, or much of it.”
“Where are you now?” Hyrum demanded. “Or, where have you been?”
“One day you will do the same thing I have done,” Old Hyrum—Copernal—said. “The old Hyrum leaves with the three closest to him in the middle of the Wedding Feast, after he has conferred his name upon the new one. He is then taken through many rites and rituals in the Dark House, and returns to serve one last time. That last time is now. After that he returns to the Dark House.”
“What is… the Dark House?”
“Have you never heard of the Viathan?”
“He is our High Priest… Or at least that’s what they say.”
“Well, what they say is true. And the Dark House is wherever he lives, attended by his most sacred priests, men retired from the Work. He becomes head of the Dark House and the Dark Order.”
Hyrum said nothing, but Copernal said, “Do you ever wonder what becomes of the retired heads of the Houses?”
“Yes.”
“They go to the Dark Order. The Dark House.”
“But where is it?”
“Wherever they choose to live. In secret, serving the Viathan.”
“But you are…. In the real Dark House. With the Viathan.”
“Hyrum,” Copernal said, “I am the Viathan.”
“What?”
“Every Hyrum, or almost every one, in time becomes Viathan.”
Hyrum blinked and said, “I knew our house was one of the oldest, that our orgins were lost in time. I knew that we must have been founded from that very first Blue House, which is called the Dark House, but…”
“Listen,” Copernal said, “and listen with care. The Dark House is no true and fixed place. Hyrum House was established by the very first Hyrum who came from across the sea in the days before the destruction of Atle, with the Blue Knowledge, and this is the first Blue House. This is the oldest of them all.”
“I thought…” Velnon, or better to call hi Hyrum, “that the new Hyrum would not be me.”
“Gabriel Rokamont and Derek Annakar are too young—”
“And—”
“And Connleth Arragareth is not only too young, but meant for other things.
“You all are the two secret poles on which the great Blue Order spins, through age after age, through all worlds. You and me and all the Viathans hold the Oldest House. They the New.”
MORE AFTER THE WEEKEND.
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
Wow a very detailed portion! I may have to read it a few times with so much going on. To be clear I am still enjoying it though and I look forward to more after the weekend!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
Well, you have an entire weekend to go back and catch what you missed. Hope you enjoyed the movie. I really want to see it.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
A CORONATION IS IN THE WORKS AS OUR CHAPTER CONCLUDES....
KINGSBORO
ABBEY
On most days, the massive cathedral knew an early morning service so small everyone was gathered in the first few pews before the main altar, and then a midday one as well. Today, Kingsboro Abbey was more full than on a Sunday, full as it would be on a great holiday, and this before ten in the morning. Every lord and every bishop who could be present under such short notice was present in the great seats around and before the altar, and whoever in the city could attend did, under the sunlit dome in the quiet hush of the cathedral in anticipation of the service.
A great hush was over the large space, and little noise was made even when the King himself came through the East Door with his son, Prince Anson, and his daughters and son-in-law the King of Essail. There were small rumors of Ash, the one Westerners called Akkrabath, representative of an older order. All was silence. All was hushed expectation.
Then, at precisely ten o clock, the choir leapt to life singing:
I was glad when they said unto me,
Let us go into the house of theLord.
Our feet shall stand within thy gates!
The King’s City is builded as a city that is
compact together:
Whither the folk go up! Wither the folk go up!
The acolytes, swinging their thurifers, entered, young boys in black robes under white lace surplices. Between them the tallest, most handsome boy bore a brass lance and they marched slowly ahead of the Archbishop, his tall mitre with its tails sweeping behind, his robes white and gold, hazy through the smoke of frankincense. Behind him came the bishops of the surrounding counties, and the abbots of the great houses including Abbot Merrill, for once in a white habit and not his normal brown and black. Behind them came the lector with the golden holy book, and the vectors with the tray bearing the elements, the golden chalice, the dish, the long silver scepteron, the crystal water bowl, the bread, the wine.
For there are set thrones of judgment,
the thrones of the House of Kings.
Pray for our peace!
For my brethren and companions’ sakes,
I will now say, Peace be within thee!
But this was a lengthy procession, and in the time they had made their way down the great nave to the high altar, moving about it, lighting the candles, swinging the incense and standing behind their thrones, the whole hymn was done and now, the cathedral filling with incense, all still standing, there was a space of silence before the choir began to file from its secret place behind the altar, and through a secret side gallery winding its way to the vestibule of the cathedral so that, white robed, with a new thurible of sweet incense and led by the choir master, they could emerge into the great high nave singing:
God bless our native land!
May heaven's protecting hand
Still guard our shore:
May peace her power extend,
Foe be transformed to friend,
And Westr’al’s rights depend
On war no more!
More immaculately white than any bishop was Prince Cedd. Whoever doubted him, the doubt was gone as a young, black haired man with trim beard came into the cathedral, in snug white trousers and fitted white tunic, white cloak brooched in gold and bronze at his shoulders, falling down his back, lined in ermine, a great train spreading behind him, carried by the Knights of the Rose, in their burnished armor. The strangeness of a coronation while the old king still lived, the oddness of such a rushed ceremony, the suspicion many lords held for Cedd, vanished, at least for a moment, as he came down the main corridor of the house of God.
O Lord, our monarch bless
With strength and righteousness:
Long may he reign!
His heart inspire and move
With wisdom from above;
And in a nation's love
His throne maintain!
The choir filed back into their stalls while, slowly, majestically, the Prince moved down an aisle long as two street blocks and, at long last, knelt at the altar as the hymn was finished and even the knights who had born his train left him kneeling, his hands folded before him on the kneeler while, at the altar, acolytes opened the great book for the Archbishop and he came before Cedd while the hymn ended.
Not in this land alone,
But be God's mercies known
From shore to shore:
Lord make the nations see
That men should brothers be,
And form one family
The wide world over.
Anyone closer would have seen a marvel, for in the last moments of the hymn, the Bishop of Hurst left the altar to go to King Anthal and the King, lowering his head, removed his crown and placed it in the bishop’s hands. Then the bishop came to Archbishop Cardalan and placed it in his hands so now, the Archbishop raised it over Cedd’s head and called out, as he raised it in all four cardinal points:
“Behold, in the east, Caedmon, your undoubted King. Behold in the west, Caedmon, your undoubted King. Behold in the north, Caedmon, your undoubted King. Behold,” he called holding the golden crown aloft, “Caedmon, your undoubted King.
“My people, I here present unto you Cedd, your undoubted King. Wherefore all you who are come this day to do your homage and service, are you willing to do the same?”
Ash had looked to Anson, and was surprised to see tears in his eyes, but then he saw that, head bowed, Cedd’s eyes were wet as well. Anson rose up, shouting with the rest:
“Aye!” and though Ash heard Imogen say: “Aye,” her voice was not nearly so enthusiastic.
The Archbishop read: “Will you solemnly promise and swear to govern the peoples of the Kingdom of Westrial according to their respective laws and customs?”
Westrial was a land of many people, Royan and Ayl and the many of mixed blood, the men of the New Faith, and of those who worshiped what was before it or worshiped nothing at all.
Cedd replied: “I solemnly promise so to do.”
“ Will you to your power cause Law and Justice, in Mercy, to be executed in all your judgments?
“I will.”
“Will you to the utmost of your power maintain the Laws of God and the true profession of the Holy Will? Will you to the utmost of your power maintain in this Kingdom, the Religion established by law? Will you maintain and preserve inviolable the settlement of the Faith of Ynkurando, and the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government thereof, as by law established in Ynkurando? And will you preserve unto the Bishops and Clergy of Ynkurando, and to the Assemblies there committed to their charge, all such rights and privileges, as by law do or shall appertain to them?
“All this,” Cedd said, “I promise to do.”
Reading from the book lowered for him, he said, “The things which I have here before promised, I will perform, and keep. So help me God.”
“And do you here vow to follow, unaltered, in the footsteps of the King from whom this power has succeeded?”
And there it was! Ash did not even dare to turn to Anson. On that one simple line hung Cedd’s inability to change a single law without great force, rested the protection of the many people who were no part of the Communion of Ynkurando. In this one simply line, Cedd set back into the motion, the long set of laws which Anthal had signed gladly at his coronation and added to since his reign, and it was on that one line he answered:
“All this, I promise to do.”
As they led him behind the altar, the choir sang, and none but those gathered so far back into the basilica could see as the Archbishop, sitting him down in the seat of coronation, anointed Cedd’s brow, his chest, his palms, and lowered the crown to his head. As it was done, there was all silence, and Anson remembered a verse from the Holy Book.
In heaven there was a space of silence for a half an hour.
And then, as Cedd rose, the choir triumphantly sang:
God save our gracious King!
Long live our noble King!
God save The King!
Send him victorious
Happy and glorious
Long to reign over us
God save The King!
Ordinarily, a coronation would have taken place within fifty days of the last king’s death. Depending upon which king and what time, the king might have had a funeral immediately, and then the coronation would have been fifty days following, or he would have had one forty days later, the coronation following almost immediately after. But all the lords and ladies of the land would have been present.
At such a time as this, only the lords here present and the mighty burghers of the city would come one by one to kiss Cedd’s ring and give him allegiance. Others would come in the next weeks and days, but it was generally assumed that the real time to do so would be after the death of King Anthal which, all knew, even as he coughed in the chapel and was taken back to the palace, would not be far off.
Lady Sanessa and Lord and Lady Buwa did Cedd homage, Lord Kelvin, and the Lords of Ondrade, Strathkiss, Northrup and Amberly did so. Princess Imogen did so, and, all noted, so did Prince Anson. Ash wished to look on the two brothers and see what passed between them, but he dared not.
Though Queen Morgellyn bowed, she did not give homage, for she was not a subject of Westrial, and this was the same with Ash who noted, “Soon, it is doubtful if I will even be living here.”
But all cryptic murmuring died as the solemnity of the morning service turned into the celebration of the rest of the day, and of the night, where fireworks burst into the sky and whoever had doubted Cedd as Prince, now saw him as King, tall and handsome, black and white, gold crown on his head, standing beside the tall and proud Sir Anthony Pembroke. As day went into night and the dancing and drinking continued, it was easy to forget the old King who lay in bed up in one of the highest rooms of the Great Keep, writhing, coughing and spitting up blood until Ash came with Anson, Hilda and Imogen to dose him with laudanum and magic so that, at last, he fell into a fitful sleep.
MORE TOMORROW
KINGSBORO
ABBEY
On most days, the massive cathedral knew an early morning service so small everyone was gathered in the first few pews before the main altar, and then a midday one as well. Today, Kingsboro Abbey was more full than on a Sunday, full as it would be on a great holiday, and this before ten in the morning. Every lord and every bishop who could be present under such short notice was present in the great seats around and before the altar, and whoever in the city could attend did, under the sunlit dome in the quiet hush of the cathedral in anticipation of the service.
A great hush was over the large space, and little noise was made even when the King himself came through the East Door with his son, Prince Anson, and his daughters and son-in-law the King of Essail. There were small rumors of Ash, the one Westerners called Akkrabath, representative of an older order. All was silence. All was hushed expectation.
Then, at precisely ten o clock, the choir leapt to life singing:
I was glad when they said unto me,
Let us go into the house of theLord.
Our feet shall stand within thy gates!
The King’s City is builded as a city that is
compact together:
Whither the folk go up! Wither the folk go up!
The acolytes, swinging their thurifers, entered, young boys in black robes under white lace surplices. Between them the tallest, most handsome boy bore a brass lance and they marched slowly ahead of the Archbishop, his tall mitre with its tails sweeping behind, his robes white and gold, hazy through the smoke of frankincense. Behind him came the bishops of the surrounding counties, and the abbots of the great houses including Abbot Merrill, for once in a white habit and not his normal brown and black. Behind them came the lector with the golden holy book, and the vectors with the tray bearing the elements, the golden chalice, the dish, the long silver scepteron, the crystal water bowl, the bread, the wine.
For there are set thrones of judgment,
the thrones of the House of Kings.
Pray for our peace!
For my brethren and companions’ sakes,
I will now say, Peace be within thee!
But this was a lengthy procession, and in the time they had made their way down the great nave to the high altar, moving about it, lighting the candles, swinging the incense and standing behind their thrones, the whole hymn was done and now, the cathedral filling with incense, all still standing, there was a space of silence before the choir began to file from its secret place behind the altar, and through a secret side gallery winding its way to the vestibule of the cathedral so that, white robed, with a new thurible of sweet incense and led by the choir master, they could emerge into the great high nave singing:
God bless our native land!
May heaven's protecting hand
Still guard our shore:
May peace her power extend,
Foe be transformed to friend,
And Westr’al’s rights depend
On war no more!
More immaculately white than any bishop was Prince Cedd. Whoever doubted him, the doubt was gone as a young, black haired man with trim beard came into the cathedral, in snug white trousers and fitted white tunic, white cloak brooched in gold and bronze at his shoulders, falling down his back, lined in ermine, a great train spreading behind him, carried by the Knights of the Rose, in their burnished armor. The strangeness of a coronation while the old king still lived, the oddness of such a rushed ceremony, the suspicion many lords held for Cedd, vanished, at least for a moment, as he came down the main corridor of the house of God.
O Lord, our monarch bless
With strength and righteousness:
Long may he reign!
His heart inspire and move
With wisdom from above;
And in a nation's love
His throne maintain!
The choir filed back into their stalls while, slowly, majestically, the Prince moved down an aisle long as two street blocks and, at long last, knelt at the altar as the hymn was finished and even the knights who had born his train left him kneeling, his hands folded before him on the kneeler while, at the altar, acolytes opened the great book for the Archbishop and he came before Cedd while the hymn ended.
Not in this land alone,
But be God's mercies known
From shore to shore:
Lord make the nations see
That men should brothers be,
And form one family
The wide world over.
Anyone closer would have seen a marvel, for in the last moments of the hymn, the Bishop of Hurst left the altar to go to King Anthal and the King, lowering his head, removed his crown and placed it in the bishop’s hands. Then the bishop came to Archbishop Cardalan and placed it in his hands so now, the Archbishop raised it over Cedd’s head and called out, as he raised it in all four cardinal points:
“Behold, in the east, Caedmon, your undoubted King. Behold in the west, Caedmon, your undoubted King. Behold in the north, Caedmon, your undoubted King. Behold,” he called holding the golden crown aloft, “Caedmon, your undoubted King.
“My people, I here present unto you Cedd, your undoubted King. Wherefore all you who are come this day to do your homage and service, are you willing to do the same?”
Ash had looked to Anson, and was surprised to see tears in his eyes, but then he saw that, head bowed, Cedd’s eyes were wet as well. Anson rose up, shouting with the rest:
“Aye!” and though Ash heard Imogen say: “Aye,” her voice was not nearly so enthusiastic.
The Archbishop read: “Will you solemnly promise and swear to govern the peoples of the Kingdom of Westrial according to their respective laws and customs?”
Westrial was a land of many people, Royan and Ayl and the many of mixed blood, the men of the New Faith, and of those who worshiped what was before it or worshiped nothing at all.
Cedd replied: “I solemnly promise so to do.”
“ Will you to your power cause Law and Justice, in Mercy, to be executed in all your judgments?
“I will.”
“Will you to the utmost of your power maintain the Laws of God and the true profession of the Holy Will? Will you to the utmost of your power maintain in this Kingdom, the Religion established by law? Will you maintain and preserve inviolable the settlement of the Faith of Ynkurando, and the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government thereof, as by law established in Ynkurando? And will you preserve unto the Bishops and Clergy of Ynkurando, and to the Assemblies there committed to their charge, all such rights and privileges, as by law do or shall appertain to them?
“All this,” Cedd said, “I promise to do.”
Reading from the book lowered for him, he said, “The things which I have here before promised, I will perform, and keep. So help me God.”
“And do you here vow to follow, unaltered, in the footsteps of the King from whom this power has succeeded?”
And there it was! Ash did not even dare to turn to Anson. On that one simple line hung Cedd’s inability to change a single law without great force, rested the protection of the many people who were no part of the Communion of Ynkurando. In this one simply line, Cedd set back into the motion, the long set of laws which Anthal had signed gladly at his coronation and added to since his reign, and it was on that one line he answered:
“All this, I promise to do.”
As they led him behind the altar, the choir sang, and none but those gathered so far back into the basilica could see as the Archbishop, sitting him down in the seat of coronation, anointed Cedd’s brow, his chest, his palms, and lowered the crown to his head. As it was done, there was all silence, and Anson remembered a verse from the Holy Book.
In heaven there was a space of silence for a half an hour.
And then, as Cedd rose, the choir triumphantly sang:
God save our gracious King!
Long live our noble King!
God save The King!
Send him victorious
Happy and glorious
Long to reign over us
God save The King!
Ordinarily, a coronation would have taken place within fifty days of the last king’s death. Depending upon which king and what time, the king might have had a funeral immediately, and then the coronation would have been fifty days following, or he would have had one forty days later, the coronation following almost immediately after. But all the lords and ladies of the land would have been present.
At such a time as this, only the lords here present and the mighty burghers of the city would come one by one to kiss Cedd’s ring and give him allegiance. Others would come in the next weeks and days, but it was generally assumed that the real time to do so would be after the death of King Anthal which, all knew, even as he coughed in the chapel and was taken back to the palace, would not be far off.
Lady Sanessa and Lord and Lady Buwa did Cedd homage, Lord Kelvin, and the Lords of Ondrade, Strathkiss, Northrup and Amberly did so. Princess Imogen did so, and, all noted, so did Prince Anson. Ash wished to look on the two brothers and see what passed between them, but he dared not.
Though Queen Morgellyn bowed, she did not give homage, for she was not a subject of Westrial, and this was the same with Ash who noted, “Soon, it is doubtful if I will even be living here.”
But all cryptic murmuring died as the solemnity of the morning service turned into the celebration of the rest of the day, and of the night, where fireworks burst into the sky and whoever had doubted Cedd as Prince, now saw him as King, tall and handsome, black and white, gold crown on his head, standing beside the tall and proud Sir Anthony Pembroke. As day went into night and the dancing and drinking continued, it was easy to forget the old King who lay in bed up in one of the highest rooms of the Great Keep, writhing, coughing and spitting up blood until Ash came with Anson, Hilda and Imogen to dose him with laudanum and magic so that, at last, he fell into a fitful sleep.
MORE TOMORROW
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
That was a great ending to the chapter! It was nice to finally see the coronation. I don’t know where this story is going but I am enjoying it quite a bit! Excellent writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
I am enjoying this story as well. Where is it going? Is it Game of Thrones? Will there be one person sitting on a fucking piles of swords? No. Is there an epic quest to find a Jewel or throw a Ring into the fire. No? Is it an Anglo Saxon semi medieval steampunk Rossford with prostitute priests? Possibly. Where is it going? Wait and see. Wait and see.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
THE BOOK OF THE BLESSED WILL RETURN TOMORROW. FOR NOW..... THE BEASTS
AS ONE STORY CONCLUDES, THE PROMISE OF ANOTHER BEGINS.....
“You’re so cold,” she told him. “You’re so cold and I thought you weren’t. I thought I saw something in you, but I was just fooling myself,” she shook her head, “Beth was right. They all were.”
Peter Keller is sitting in his first car, his hair in his face, but he doesn’t want to push it away.
“I offered to go with you. I WANTED to go with you.”
“And I didn’t want you there,” Terry says. “I’m so glad you weren’t there.”
“Do you want me to come over tonight?”
They are outside of her house on the far south side, near Rosary High school where she goes.
“Did you not hear me?” she says. “I don’t ever want to see you again.”
Terry gets out of the car and walks up the steps to the little shingled bungalow that is like all of the shingled bungalows on Monroe Street, and Peter sits in the car looking up at her until the door slams.
He figures it’s time to drive away. He doesn’t want any music. He drives up Martin until he reaches Buren, and then heads north for home. The house on Williams is crowded, and Peter doesn’t expect it not to be. Marabeth is sitting on the steps with Amy and she looks up.
“What’s got you?”
But he doesn’t want ot be bothered by his cousin, and he feels so heavy, he just walks past them and the girls know to make way. Why does Dad always have to have them over here? Aren’t they supposed to be at Nate’s house? Isn’t that the thing? Peter decides if this house is ever his it will be just that, his, and every damn cousin won’t be dropping by, sitting on the steps, zooming in and out of the kitchen. He goes into his room and shuts the door. Suddenly it’s too much, and he buries his hands in his face and begins to sob. He hopes the door is locked, but he doesn’t have the strength to get up and see. It hurts so bad right now, and no one can know. How could Terry know? And he couldn’t tell her why, or why he was so firm about it. He couldn’t tell her that he didn’t want to do it, didn’t want that at all.
I wish I could die. I wish I could die.
And he has never wished that before. He hates himself.
The door opens and he makes himself stop crying, He hopes that Jim can’t see that, but this is ridiculous. His face is red, his eyes are red, his face wet. Jim closes the door behind him. He’s only twelve. His mom didn’t just wish she could die. Delia really did kill herself about this time last year. Did she feel like this, this bottomless grief? At seventeen, Peter never thought he would feel this way. Jim closes the door and has the sense to lock it. Wordlessly, he sits on the floor with his cousin, and even though Peter is five years older and almost a foot taller, when Jim hugs him and holds him, Peter falls into his arms and begins bawling.
“Oh, Jim, Jim. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to, but I had to.”
And he just continues to cry.
“I was in college,” Joyce said. “When it happened to me. When I did it, I guess it didn’t happen to me. But I felt like it did. It wasn’t even for a very good reason.”
“I was afraid,” Peter said, almost shyly. “I was afraid of what would be born. I was just learning about what we were, and I promised myself I’d never have children, and so when Terry told me she was pregnant, I just said she couldn’t have it. It couldn’t be born. And then, years later, I had three kids, and now there really isn’t a time I don’t think about that first one.”
“At least you had a reason,” Joyce said, lying on her back.
“Do you know the only reason I told Marabeth is because she was there. It’s not something you tell people, not really. Well, I know someone who does, but she’s sort of morally bankrupt, and then I’m like, if I feel that judgmental, what the fuck am I? I hear that one in every three women does it, and then I’m sort of like, fuck, that’s a lot. And then I’m like, I hope it’s true, because then I don’t feel the way I do. And I’m not exactly sure how I feel.”
“Well,” Peter lay on his side and cocked his head, “Let’s play lawyer. Why did you do it?”
“I,” and then Joyce started to laugh almost at the seriousness of his expression and touched the bridge of his nose, “I had broken up with someone and I didn’t want him in my life. He had broken up with me, really. And then I found out I was pregnant, and I just didn’t want to be tied to him. In any way. I wanted to kind of just go on with my life.”
Joyce was pulling her hair into a braid and she said, “Do you know, I’ve had years ot think about every other scenario, and I think about the selfless one where I should have had a child and put up with having Ronald in my life, and being a single mom. I think about what this woman said at church. When I still went. How, if you’re going to have sex you have to pay the price. But, kids aren’t really supposed to be a penalty, and that baby would have been paying the price for my lack of parental skills.
“And then I think, well, I could have been pregnant for the majority of the year and given up the baby, but the only thing that makes that believable is that it’s almost twenty years in the past. I mean, it’s easy to tell a girl she can do that, but to actually do it…”
Joyce shook her head.
“You did what you had to do.”
“That’s the thing Peter, I don’t know if that’s true, and you don’t either. Do you?”
“Can we switch the subject,” Peter said, “to something more cheerful than ambiguous abortions we can’t do anything about?”
“I would love to switch the subject,” Joyce said.
Then she said, “I’d love to be one of those bitches who is unambiguous.”
“Let’s talk about more cheerful stuff,” Peter caressed her hand. “Like… the funeral.”
Joyce turned her head and laughed.
They lay together naked, face to face and Joy said, “you better start getting dressed.”
And then she said, “Actually, you better get home.”
“You’re coming with me. Aren’t you?”
“I.. thought I might be going,” Joy said. “I just didn’t know if you wanted me to, or who I would be with. I mean, I couldn’t sit next to Marabeth in the front, and…”
“You’ll sit with me,” Peter said, sitting up.
“What will people think?”
“People you don’t know? Do you care? I know I don’t.”
And then Peter said, “Unless you think it’s too public. We’re still new. Very new. Newer than new. I wasn’t thinking… If you don’t want to—”
“Peter, I want to.”
One bread, one body, one Lord of all
One cup of blessing which we bless
And we, though many, throughout the earth
We are one body in this one Lord.
The church was crowded for a funeral at this strange time of the year, and why was it a strange time, Marabeth wondered? Why was it that no one could die on Christmas, that nothing bad could happen on the second day or the third day of the year as this was. Why was it someone said, “Oh, your mother died on Christmas, how horrible!” As if, had she died in the middle of summer it would have been better. Been smellier maybe, but surely not better. Anything could happen any time, and it was just the lie of the holidays that nothing awful could happen here.
And then, this had not happened over the holidays, anyway. It was only that it was the dreadful news, like the gift of the Wicked Fairy, had come to them at this time.
”…And we, though many, throughout the earth
We are one body in this one Lord
Many the gifts, many the works
One in the Lord of all…”
It was as if, at this moment, there was no room in the story for her life, for what had occurred in the last few days. Jason McCord over last night. The broad faced, good natured detective in her bed this morning. He had been watching her, playing with her hair, making faces when Kristian called, and she wondered if her brother suspected something. No matter, life was short and often painful. The proof was right here before them all. One must take what pleasure one could.
And yet, Jason McCord was part of the story. He was at work now. She had lain in bed watching him dress, pull on underwear then trousers and, shirt, push his thick hair from his neck and straighten his collar. It had been so long since a naked man had been in this apartment, slept in this bed, she lay their treasuring it even when he told turned around and said, “Do you want met to come with you?”
Things had changed now, and now Marabeth wanted to talk to Kris’s friend, or rather his mentor, Uriah. She could not do it at the moment of even today, but she would be knocking on his door shortly.
“Yes,” Marabeth said. “I think I would.”
He kissed her roughly then. He kissed her so powerfully she almost undressed him and brought him back to bed. She felt the power in her she’d felt the night before. She saw Jason’s eyes change, then he pulled away and barked, “Fuck off! This is for me and her.”
Just like that, the strange heat was gone, and a more ordinary desire passed over her. She pulled Jason down by his tie and kissed him.
“I wish I could go with you,” he told her.
He had to work, and she had to mourn, and that was that and that’s where they left it.
Right now she was sitting beside Kris, and if he hadn’t gently nudged her, she wouldn’t have gotten up to go to the Communion line. She didn’t go to church all the time now, and she wasn’t sure she would in the future. Here she was in the front row, and she thought it would be false to take a look at the covered casket, to touch it affectionately, though she was tempted to let her family know she was a dutiful daughter, to let everyone know that she was what she should be. But who she was was someone who did not want to look at the long and silent casket on its catafalque and wonder what it housed, certainly nothing like the father she had known. And the truth was she had what was left of him. She had it in her apartment, had been reading it for over a week.
“Body of Christ.”
“Amen,” Marabeth said to Father Jefferson, which was the one concession the family had made. The pastor of Saint Agatha’s would preside over the funeral, and she was glad to take Communion from him. She took the chalice from her cousin Myron who always looked nervous when he was a Eucharistic minister. He was staring at her so hard, and she thought, “Well, he loved Father.”
Can you hear me?
Marabeth blinked.
The world seemed to have slowed down around them, and she looked at Myron.
Can you hear me?
What in the absolute fuck?
We need to talk.
Myron?
We need to talk.
Marabeth did not know how to hide her…. Not terror, but she only nodded, then she moved from her cousin, the goof of the family, shaken, How in the world… But not now. At the house.
Marabeth nodded to the altar remembering what her cousin Marianne, the old nnn in short habit and silver cross sitting by Amy, had taught them, “You bow to the tabernacle, not to the altar. The Tabernacle contains the physical presence of Christ in this world. In the Tabernacle, Jesus is present.”
,
One bread, one body, one Lord of all
One cup of blessing which we bless
And we, though many, throughout the earth
We are one body in this one Lord
We are one body in this one Lord
Because she was one of the first to the altar, she could watch the long line of cousins in black, and friends, some in black, some not, as well as parishioners from Saint Agatha’s. There was Joy with Peter. She dipped down to kiss Marabeth on the cheek on her way back to her seat, and Marabeth looked around the church, at the old apse with the veiled tabernacle behind the white stone altar, the statue of the Blessed Virgin in her niche on one side of the altar, and Saint Joseph on the other. High and away from the altar, the marble statue of Jesus with his arms outstretched looked over the people heading down the eastern arcade, and all along the back wall of the apse were the saints and angels in a mural of clouds, Saint Peter reaching down with his keys, toward Saint Paul who carried, negligently, the sword that had once beheaded him. The piano swung into another song, not sad at all, and tears sprang to Marabeth’ s eyes as she remembered the vaguely soulful choir at Saint Agatha’s, and her father, in his watery silky blue Hawaiian shirt, his hair thick and dark, singing along with her mother when Rebecca’s hair was long and red.
River of glory, springs of our birth
flood of God's riches poured on the Earth
We are born from the darkness
and clothed in the light!
We are bathed in the glory of God!
And suddenly she was so sad. It was as if she had been frozen by winter, frozen by everything, and life was just so sad and so cold and so awful and so hard, and everything she was learning was hard, and she wanted that happiness, the happiness that seemed to be more like a rest from life than actual life, when she was happy and Kris was happy, and Mom and Dad were happy and the house was filled for feasting and not this funeral.
Marabeth had retired to her room. After a while she didn’t think she needed to do anything but be by herself. There was no message from Jason, and that almost bugged her. He usually knew the right thing to do, then again, their relationship had been a matter of days and started with a fuck on the floor. Besides, maybe he knew the right thing was to leave her alone. Being alone was, after all, what she really wanted right now.
Also, after all of Myron’s strangeness at church—no, that was not it—Myron had reached into her mind and spoken to her. Myron was Amy’s brother, and her favorite male cousin next to Jim, who wasn’t really a cousin at all, but a brother. She had always thought he was more than a loveable goof, but she was not ready for what he had done. And then he had departed the house as if his urgent words were not urgent at all, and now no one knew where he was.
Downstairs she had played the gracious host, and wasn’t it good enough that she wasn’t going home tonight? It was as if all the misery of the last few days could not overwhelm her, and now she let it. Why must this life be so hard, and with no promise of getting any better? And then she cried till there was nothing else really, until she just lay on her back in the half dark and gathering shadows of a new year that would surely have as little promise as the last.
Even as she allowed herself the rare luxury of this self pity, Marabeth heard something. It was hum, but with rhythm. There it was again, an almost singing. The tune was familiar, and the words were coming over and over again and she realized, Not in the house. On the street. Christmas carolers. But Christmas was over, and now she pushed open her window to the cold air.
In the gathering darkness, holding lanterns, their voices rising eerily from down below, she heard several people singing, low, and then with high intensity:
“THIS ae nighte, this ae nighte,
—Every nighte and alle,
Fire and fleet and candle-lighte,
—And Christe receive thy saule.
When thou from hence away art past
To Whinny-muir thou com'st at last
If ever thou gavest hosen and shoon,
Sit thee down and put them on;
And Christe receive thy saule.”
She sprang from the bed as if this were some sort of Christmas gift, struggled into shoes, then plodded down the steps, trying not to call attention to herself as her family looked up at her, Amy, putting a hand to her cheek, Peter touching Joyce’s hand. Marabeth came through the living room, and wrapping her grandmother’s shawl about her, that she’d taken from the hook on the wall, she opened the great door and stood there, hearing them sing
“If hosen and shoon thou ne'er gav'st nane
-—Every nighte and alle,
The whinnes sall prick thee to the bare bane.
—And Christe receive thy saule.
From Whinny-muir when thou may'st pass,
-—Every nighte and alle,
To Brig o' Dread thou com'st at last;
—And Christe receive thy saule.
From Brig o' Dread when thou may'st pass,
-—Every nighte and alle,
To Purgatory fire thou com'st at last;
—And Christe receive thy saule.”
Their voices had risen and fallen, like an enchantment, and now they rose to their height and then went down to their depths finishing.
This ae nighte, this ae nighte,
-—Every nighte and alle,
Fire and fleet and candle-lighte,
—And Christe receive thy saule.
By now, Kris had come. And Jim and Peter. Cyrus, Joy, Rebecca, too, but they were all behind Marabeth, and from the circle of singers came one, bearing a lantern of cut glass that winked in the night. Marabeth thought people were not like her family, because they did not inhabit the normal world, but they were like her, because she, in a way did not inhabit the normal world either, and the Black man in his wool cap and flashing spectacles, stopped singing, extended the lantern and said, “Marabeth Strauss, I have come to bring you greetings and condolences. This is my clan, and I am Lewis Dunharrow.”
When daylight returns, we shall conclude the story of the Strauss family and learn more about witches, blood-drinkers and all creatures of the night in
The Wicked
AS ONE STORY CONCLUDES, THE PROMISE OF ANOTHER BEGINS.....
“You’re so cold,” she told him. “You’re so cold and I thought you weren’t. I thought I saw something in you, but I was just fooling myself,” she shook her head, “Beth was right. They all were.”
Peter Keller is sitting in his first car, his hair in his face, but he doesn’t want to push it away.
“I offered to go with you. I WANTED to go with you.”
“And I didn’t want you there,” Terry says. “I’m so glad you weren’t there.”
“Do you want me to come over tonight?”
They are outside of her house on the far south side, near Rosary High school where she goes.
“Did you not hear me?” she says. “I don’t ever want to see you again.”
Terry gets out of the car and walks up the steps to the little shingled bungalow that is like all of the shingled bungalows on Monroe Street, and Peter sits in the car looking up at her until the door slams.
He figures it’s time to drive away. He doesn’t want any music. He drives up Martin until he reaches Buren, and then heads north for home. The house on Williams is crowded, and Peter doesn’t expect it not to be. Marabeth is sitting on the steps with Amy and she looks up.
“What’s got you?”
But he doesn’t want ot be bothered by his cousin, and he feels so heavy, he just walks past them and the girls know to make way. Why does Dad always have to have them over here? Aren’t they supposed to be at Nate’s house? Isn’t that the thing? Peter decides if this house is ever his it will be just that, his, and every damn cousin won’t be dropping by, sitting on the steps, zooming in and out of the kitchen. He goes into his room and shuts the door. Suddenly it’s too much, and he buries his hands in his face and begins to sob. He hopes the door is locked, but he doesn’t have the strength to get up and see. It hurts so bad right now, and no one can know. How could Terry know? And he couldn’t tell her why, or why he was so firm about it. He couldn’t tell her that he didn’t want to do it, didn’t want that at all.
I wish I could die. I wish I could die.
And he has never wished that before. He hates himself.
The door opens and he makes himself stop crying, He hopes that Jim can’t see that, but this is ridiculous. His face is red, his eyes are red, his face wet. Jim closes the door behind him. He’s only twelve. His mom didn’t just wish she could die. Delia really did kill herself about this time last year. Did she feel like this, this bottomless grief? At seventeen, Peter never thought he would feel this way. Jim closes the door and has the sense to lock it. Wordlessly, he sits on the floor with his cousin, and even though Peter is five years older and almost a foot taller, when Jim hugs him and holds him, Peter falls into his arms and begins bawling.
“Oh, Jim, Jim. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to, but I had to.”
And he just continues to cry.
“I was in college,” Joyce said. “When it happened to me. When I did it, I guess it didn’t happen to me. But I felt like it did. It wasn’t even for a very good reason.”
“I was afraid,” Peter said, almost shyly. “I was afraid of what would be born. I was just learning about what we were, and I promised myself I’d never have children, and so when Terry told me she was pregnant, I just said she couldn’t have it. It couldn’t be born. And then, years later, I had three kids, and now there really isn’t a time I don’t think about that first one.”
“At least you had a reason,” Joyce said, lying on her back.
“Do you know the only reason I told Marabeth is because she was there. It’s not something you tell people, not really. Well, I know someone who does, but she’s sort of morally bankrupt, and then I’m like, if I feel that judgmental, what the fuck am I? I hear that one in every three women does it, and then I’m sort of like, fuck, that’s a lot. And then I’m like, I hope it’s true, because then I don’t feel the way I do. And I’m not exactly sure how I feel.”
“Well,” Peter lay on his side and cocked his head, “Let’s play lawyer. Why did you do it?”
“I,” and then Joyce started to laugh almost at the seriousness of his expression and touched the bridge of his nose, “I had broken up with someone and I didn’t want him in my life. He had broken up with me, really. And then I found out I was pregnant, and I just didn’t want to be tied to him. In any way. I wanted to kind of just go on with my life.”
Joyce was pulling her hair into a braid and she said, “Do you know, I’ve had years ot think about every other scenario, and I think about the selfless one where I should have had a child and put up with having Ronald in my life, and being a single mom. I think about what this woman said at church. When I still went. How, if you’re going to have sex you have to pay the price. But, kids aren’t really supposed to be a penalty, and that baby would have been paying the price for my lack of parental skills.
“And then I think, well, I could have been pregnant for the majority of the year and given up the baby, but the only thing that makes that believable is that it’s almost twenty years in the past. I mean, it’s easy to tell a girl she can do that, but to actually do it…”
Joyce shook her head.
“You did what you had to do.”
“That’s the thing Peter, I don’t know if that’s true, and you don’t either. Do you?”
“Can we switch the subject,” Peter said, “to something more cheerful than ambiguous abortions we can’t do anything about?”
“I would love to switch the subject,” Joyce said.
Then she said, “I’d love to be one of those bitches who is unambiguous.”
“Let’s talk about more cheerful stuff,” Peter caressed her hand. “Like… the funeral.”
Joyce turned her head and laughed.
They lay together naked, face to face and Joy said, “you better start getting dressed.”
And then she said, “Actually, you better get home.”
“You’re coming with me. Aren’t you?”
“I.. thought I might be going,” Joy said. “I just didn’t know if you wanted me to, or who I would be with. I mean, I couldn’t sit next to Marabeth in the front, and…”
“You’ll sit with me,” Peter said, sitting up.
“What will people think?”
“People you don’t know? Do you care? I know I don’t.”
And then Peter said, “Unless you think it’s too public. We’re still new. Very new. Newer than new. I wasn’t thinking… If you don’t want to—”
“Peter, I want to.”
One bread, one body, one Lord of all
One cup of blessing which we bless
And we, though many, throughout the earth
We are one body in this one Lord.
The church was crowded for a funeral at this strange time of the year, and why was it a strange time, Marabeth wondered? Why was it that no one could die on Christmas, that nothing bad could happen on the second day or the third day of the year as this was. Why was it someone said, “Oh, your mother died on Christmas, how horrible!” As if, had she died in the middle of summer it would have been better. Been smellier maybe, but surely not better. Anything could happen any time, and it was just the lie of the holidays that nothing awful could happen here.
And then, this had not happened over the holidays, anyway. It was only that it was the dreadful news, like the gift of the Wicked Fairy, had come to them at this time.
”…And we, though many, throughout the earth
We are one body in this one Lord
Many the gifts, many the works
One in the Lord of all…”
It was as if, at this moment, there was no room in the story for her life, for what had occurred in the last few days. Jason McCord over last night. The broad faced, good natured detective in her bed this morning. He had been watching her, playing with her hair, making faces when Kristian called, and she wondered if her brother suspected something. No matter, life was short and often painful. The proof was right here before them all. One must take what pleasure one could.
And yet, Jason McCord was part of the story. He was at work now. She had lain in bed watching him dress, pull on underwear then trousers and, shirt, push his thick hair from his neck and straighten his collar. It had been so long since a naked man had been in this apartment, slept in this bed, she lay their treasuring it even when he told turned around and said, “Do you want met to come with you?”
Things had changed now, and now Marabeth wanted to talk to Kris’s friend, or rather his mentor, Uriah. She could not do it at the moment of even today, but she would be knocking on his door shortly.
“Yes,” Marabeth said. “I think I would.”
He kissed her roughly then. He kissed her so powerfully she almost undressed him and brought him back to bed. She felt the power in her she’d felt the night before. She saw Jason’s eyes change, then he pulled away and barked, “Fuck off! This is for me and her.”
Just like that, the strange heat was gone, and a more ordinary desire passed over her. She pulled Jason down by his tie and kissed him.
“I wish I could go with you,” he told her.
He had to work, and she had to mourn, and that was that and that’s where they left it.
Right now she was sitting beside Kris, and if he hadn’t gently nudged her, she wouldn’t have gotten up to go to the Communion line. She didn’t go to church all the time now, and she wasn’t sure she would in the future. Here she was in the front row, and she thought it would be false to take a look at the covered casket, to touch it affectionately, though she was tempted to let her family know she was a dutiful daughter, to let everyone know that she was what she should be. But who she was was someone who did not want to look at the long and silent casket on its catafalque and wonder what it housed, certainly nothing like the father she had known. And the truth was she had what was left of him. She had it in her apartment, had been reading it for over a week.
“Body of Christ.”
“Amen,” Marabeth said to Father Jefferson, which was the one concession the family had made. The pastor of Saint Agatha’s would preside over the funeral, and she was glad to take Communion from him. She took the chalice from her cousin Myron who always looked nervous when he was a Eucharistic minister. He was staring at her so hard, and she thought, “Well, he loved Father.”
Can you hear me?
Marabeth blinked.
The world seemed to have slowed down around them, and she looked at Myron.
Can you hear me?
What in the absolute fuck?
We need to talk.
Myron?
We need to talk.
Marabeth did not know how to hide her…. Not terror, but she only nodded, then she moved from her cousin, the goof of the family, shaken, How in the world… But not now. At the house.
Marabeth nodded to the altar remembering what her cousin Marianne, the old nnn in short habit and silver cross sitting by Amy, had taught them, “You bow to the tabernacle, not to the altar. The Tabernacle contains the physical presence of Christ in this world. In the Tabernacle, Jesus is present.”
,
One bread, one body, one Lord of all
One cup of blessing which we bless
And we, though many, throughout the earth
We are one body in this one Lord
We are one body in this one Lord
Because she was one of the first to the altar, she could watch the long line of cousins in black, and friends, some in black, some not, as well as parishioners from Saint Agatha’s. There was Joy with Peter. She dipped down to kiss Marabeth on the cheek on her way back to her seat, and Marabeth looked around the church, at the old apse with the veiled tabernacle behind the white stone altar, the statue of the Blessed Virgin in her niche on one side of the altar, and Saint Joseph on the other. High and away from the altar, the marble statue of Jesus with his arms outstretched looked over the people heading down the eastern arcade, and all along the back wall of the apse were the saints and angels in a mural of clouds, Saint Peter reaching down with his keys, toward Saint Paul who carried, negligently, the sword that had once beheaded him. The piano swung into another song, not sad at all, and tears sprang to Marabeth’ s eyes as she remembered the vaguely soulful choir at Saint Agatha’s, and her father, in his watery silky blue Hawaiian shirt, his hair thick and dark, singing along with her mother when Rebecca’s hair was long and red.
River of glory, springs of our birth
flood of God's riches poured on the Earth
We are born from the darkness
and clothed in the light!
We are bathed in the glory of God!
And suddenly she was so sad. It was as if she had been frozen by winter, frozen by everything, and life was just so sad and so cold and so awful and so hard, and everything she was learning was hard, and she wanted that happiness, the happiness that seemed to be more like a rest from life than actual life, when she was happy and Kris was happy, and Mom and Dad were happy and the house was filled for feasting and not this funeral.
Marabeth had retired to her room. After a while she didn’t think she needed to do anything but be by herself. There was no message from Jason, and that almost bugged her. He usually knew the right thing to do, then again, their relationship had been a matter of days and started with a fuck on the floor. Besides, maybe he knew the right thing was to leave her alone. Being alone was, after all, what she really wanted right now.
Also, after all of Myron’s strangeness at church—no, that was not it—Myron had reached into her mind and spoken to her. Myron was Amy’s brother, and her favorite male cousin next to Jim, who wasn’t really a cousin at all, but a brother. She had always thought he was more than a loveable goof, but she was not ready for what he had done. And then he had departed the house as if his urgent words were not urgent at all, and now no one knew where he was.
Downstairs she had played the gracious host, and wasn’t it good enough that she wasn’t going home tonight? It was as if all the misery of the last few days could not overwhelm her, and now she let it. Why must this life be so hard, and with no promise of getting any better? And then she cried till there was nothing else really, until she just lay on her back in the half dark and gathering shadows of a new year that would surely have as little promise as the last.
Even as she allowed herself the rare luxury of this self pity, Marabeth heard something. It was hum, but with rhythm. There it was again, an almost singing. The tune was familiar, and the words were coming over and over again and she realized, Not in the house. On the street. Christmas carolers. But Christmas was over, and now she pushed open her window to the cold air.
In the gathering darkness, holding lanterns, their voices rising eerily from down below, she heard several people singing, low, and then with high intensity:
“THIS ae nighte, this ae nighte,
—Every nighte and alle,
Fire and fleet and candle-lighte,
—And Christe receive thy saule.
When thou from hence away art past
To Whinny-muir thou com'st at last
If ever thou gavest hosen and shoon,
Sit thee down and put them on;
And Christe receive thy saule.”
She sprang from the bed as if this were some sort of Christmas gift, struggled into shoes, then plodded down the steps, trying not to call attention to herself as her family looked up at her, Amy, putting a hand to her cheek, Peter touching Joyce’s hand. Marabeth came through the living room, and wrapping her grandmother’s shawl about her, that she’d taken from the hook on the wall, she opened the great door and stood there, hearing them sing
“If hosen and shoon thou ne'er gav'st nane
-—Every nighte and alle,
The whinnes sall prick thee to the bare bane.
—And Christe receive thy saule.
From Whinny-muir when thou may'st pass,
-—Every nighte and alle,
To Brig o' Dread thou com'st at last;
—And Christe receive thy saule.
From Brig o' Dread when thou may'st pass,
-—Every nighte and alle,
To Purgatory fire thou com'st at last;
—And Christe receive thy saule.”
Their voices had risen and fallen, like an enchantment, and now they rose to their height and then went down to their depths finishing.
This ae nighte, this ae nighte,
-—Every nighte and alle,
Fire and fleet and candle-lighte,
—And Christe receive thy saule.
By now, Kris had come. And Jim and Peter. Cyrus, Joy, Rebecca, too, but they were all behind Marabeth, and from the circle of singers came one, bearing a lantern of cut glass that winked in the night. Marabeth thought people were not like her family, because they did not inhabit the normal world, but they were like her, because she, in a way did not inhabit the normal world either, and the Black man in his wool cap and flashing spectacles, stopped singing, extended the lantern and said, “Marabeth Strauss, I have come to bring you greetings and condolences. This is my clan, and I am Lewis Dunharrow.”
When daylight returns, we shall conclude the story of the Strauss family and learn more about witches, blood-drinkers and all creatures of the night in
The Wicked
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CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
That was a great end to The Beasts even in the wrong thread. I have really enjoyed this re-visit and look forward to The Wicked!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
SIX
Jikama gleðst yfir að sjá föður sinn hefna. Það var hér að hún sagði Jikimundo að Fitela sé sonur hans, og þá, vegna skyldu hennar sem eiginkonu, gekk hún inn í brennandi húsið til að deyja við hliðina á fyrirliði eiginmanni sínum.
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.
-From: The Valkyrasaga
THE BLUE TEMPLE
“You’re leaving in the morning?” Derek whispered in the night.
“Yes,” Conn had said.
Early in the morning Conn woke up full of heat and desire. On either side of him, hot and firm and soft as life were his lovers. Lying on their stomachs they were just blinking in and out of sleep. He loved them so much. He kissed one and then the other, and he placed one hand on Derek’s long white back, another on Gabriel’s. He stroked them gently and they both sighed. He moved his hand down to the small of their backs and they shuddered. He massaged their asses and they sighed, mouths open. They made child noises. Gently, he slipped a finger into each of them, and both boys’ mouths opened. Their eyes flew open in amazed wonder. While Conn worked them they moaned, grasping their pillows, then the sides of the mattress. And then, Conn kissed them. He kissed them down their backs, first Gabriel, burying his face in his red curls, and then Derek and then again, all the way down until his tongue moved inside of them, from one to the other and they both cried out now. They shouted a little now. Derek banged on the headboard with his fist and shuddering sounds escaped from Gabriel. Conn’s mouth worked on them, his hands reached around and kneaded them. Derek and Gabriel looked at each other, eyes wide. Suddenly they began to kiss. As they kissed fiercely, Derek reached down and brought Conn up. The older boys kissed, pressing together with Conn between them, going up and down Conn’s body until, gently, Derek turned him on his stomach and Gabriel, entranced into a strange contemplation, watched Derek fuck him. His mouth was half opened. His eyes glazed over. Conn grabbed the mattress and his eyes went dull under Derek’s thrusting. It ended all too quickly in an orgasmic flood, Derek’s hands bunched on Conn’s shoulder, the cords of his neck strained, his red face to the ceiling, his cock, thick, wet, spewing, deep inside of the younger boy. But when Derek came out of him, still stiff, his cock wet, Conn reached for Gabriel, and Gabriel came to him. Now it was his turn. Now they were together. He wanted to hold it in. He did, a little longer, making love to Conn the same way he did when they were in private, holding back his burst. Derek was there, exhausted, on his side, watching. In a way it was like they were doing this for him. When it was time to let go, Gabriel almost mourned it. Conn gave a long whimpering cry.
The room was hot, and it smelled like sweat and the long night and fucking. They all three, sprawled, limbs together, their stomachs sprayed by their semen. No one said a word. Conn wanted to say, “No one would mistake us for brothers now.” He liked it when they all did this, though they often felt bad afterward. He didn’t want them to feel bad, so he said, “Come and hold me. Come clean off, and then come and hold me.”
Derek got up a little unsteadily and made his way to the bathroom. Somehow Derek was different after Derek had been inside of him, and Derek’s body would seem different still when, inevitably, in their room tonight, the older boy asked Conn to fuck him. Derek returned with a cloth and gently he wiped off Conn, and then Gabriel, and lastly, up and down his own chest. Lightly he put the cloth on the bureau, and then he went to shut the curtains and hide the light from the world outside.
Drowsily, he climbed into bed and Conn pulled him in. Gabriel lifted up the covers.
They slept.
THE ROOTLESS ISLE
Tonight on the Rootless Isle, Nimerly’s dreams troubled her. Long ago, when she was just a girl, she lay in the dark, often filled with terror from the visions her budding power gave. Her grandmother said, “When you are troubled, rise up and go to the water. Go to the Earth. Go to the Mother, and open your soul.”
So now, many seasons later, after her grandmother was long gone, and her mother and her sister, after her cousin turned enemy, Coviane, was also long gone, Nimerly, daughter of Viviane, rose in the half light and went into the empty room. Blank lay the wooden table, and blank were the white walls, grey in the night. She went into the next room, to the long brass candle holders and the black candles. She set them down, and she set the little light between them. She took an old wick and lit candles from them. Their light turned the black room golden. She lit the censer, and now the small brass dish burned with a heavy sweetness, and she folded her long hands over her knees and sat down and murmured a spell, a prayer, a sound from before language was born.
Nimerly, daughter of Viviane, was the sister of Essily. They were like dark and light, grandaughters of the Mighty Lady who had ruled the Rootless Isle before Coviane. Essily with her golden hair and golden skin, Nimerly, wide of frame with her red-brown hair cascading down her back. When their mother lay dying, and had chosen Nimerly, Nimerly said she must go out into the world as their aunt Senaye had done, that the title should be passed to Essily. When Essily did not desire it, though it was her duty, though it had been both their duties, it passed to Coviane, the Ladyship, as if it were a bone no one wanted, she not the heir but the third choice, and long before this Nimerly ad gone out into the world and was gone some time before she returned with their Aunt Senaye, the one who should truly have been Lady, and her little boy, Ohean.
“He will be raised here,” Nimerly said.
“A man has no place on the Isle,” Coviane said.
“This one does.” Senaye said.
“If you wanted things to be so,” Coviane said, “then you ought to have been Lady.”
Senaye and Nimerly ignored their cousin. Everyone knew Senaye, daughter of Messanyn, Senaye the Shapeless, Senaye of Many Colors, was in all things but the very title, Lady. In the past, hadn’t there been a Lady who stayed on the Isle and one who went out into the world, and now that Senaye remained here, ever was Nimerly going out into the world, sometimes for whole stretches of years. When Nimerly returned again it was with her own child, Meredith.
When Meredith was three, the White Plague broke out, and the envoys came from Westrial, across the short water, the half-Royans with hats in hands, and begged them to come to the King’s City. Kingsboro was ravished with plague, the Queen dead, her only remaining son a boy whose black eyes burned with hatred. Essily had remained with that King after they had all gone, and she returned some time later with a golden haired boy.
“This is a proper place to raise a prince,” Nimerly had said.
“Who are you?” Coviane snapped. “Or who are you?” she turned to Essily. “I am the Lady of this Isle. You do not rule! You gave up the ruling.”
“Sister,” Nimerly addressed her by the formal title, “we are all three rulers, you only the foremost. This Isle is ruled by the Nine.”
Coviane said nothing to her cousins until Essily sickened, and was sent away to the Farthest Isle. There she died, and to compound her sin, Coviane had her body burned so that only her ashes returned to the Rootless Isle. In the midst of this sorrow, while Nimerly wept, Coviane insisted Anson be sent away to Westrial.
When Senaye had heard of it, Ohean and Nimerly were already traveling to Kingsboro.
“He is with his father now,” Coviane had told her kinswoman. “Do you or Nimerly, believe you have the right to him?”
“I curse you,” Senaye had said simply. Her face had been covered in tears, but now she stood straight, and her short black hair seemed to sizzle with electricity. She raised one hand, and it hung in the air before her face.
“I curse you,” she repeated, “by air, and by water, by the fire and by very earth. May you never rest easy, may your womb be closed, and may you know your end tied to the beginning of that boy whom you have sent away, our kin. For I tell you, when the old king dies and the new king rises in the land to the north, then shall you pass from this world too.”
It was no light thing, no thing where Coviane could simply respond that she was cursing her cousin in return, and so she stood there, glad her great skirts hid her shaking knees, and Senaye, full of rage, had taken only a one bag of possessions, and her horse and ridden from the Rootless Isle, never to return until the time fulfilled when, around the time Edmung became King of Inglad, Hale and North Hale, dispossessing the conquering Dayne king, Sweyn, Coviane had also died through disintery, and Nimerly at last took her place.
Nimerly did not travel to see Anson immediately. It was nearly two years before Nimerly traveled with Ohean, who was by then seventeen and living in Rheged most of the time, and her daughter, Meredith. The journey from the southern shore of Westrial to Kingsboro, through the southern peninsula was weeks, not days.
When they reached the high walls of the city and saw a great keep, strong, forboding, reaching into the blue white sky, Nimerly was reminded that, though they called the Ayl the New People, they had been in this land seventeen hundred years, and their walls and towersr looked ancient. The ramparts of this mountainous castle made her, tall woman that she was, feel small.
“We have only to walk through the gate, Cousin,” Ohean said, lightly.
They went through the open gates into the great city, and Nimerly noted how Meredith took to it, her eyes everywhere. She had loved the cities too, though neither the western cities of the Royan, nor these cities of the Ayl were home to her. Now she saw Ohean scanning everyone, everything and then the trumpets blared.
“Make way, make way, for the royal house, for King Anthal and his Queen, Emmaline, and for the royal children.”
Nimerly felt disoriented and small here, though she was tall and brown, auburn haired, broad shouldered. Meredith was nearly tall as she, but she pulled her daughter closer as the streets opened for the guards on white horses, and then the flapping banner of Westrial with its wyvern. On white horses came the King, his Queen, that same Prince Cedd, grown larger and prouder and beside him, waving, a blue eyed golden haired boy.
“So like them,” Nimerly marveled. “More like an Ayl than his black haired brother.”
“He looks so happy,” Meredith said.
Her mother studied the prince as he departed, waving, his stepmother, the new Queen, caressing his hair.
“I thought to take him away and bring him back one day as a child of the Isle, for his own safety,” Nimerly said. “Now I know it was not for his safety, but my desire for my sister.”
She turned to Ohean.
“You are the Lady of the Rootless Isle,” he said. “Say what you want, and we will do it. I believe, in time, he must come to us anyway.”
As the royal party passed, Nimerly murmured, “But not today. I came all this way simply so I could say let us turn and leave.”
Anson never came back to the Isle. Surely he had forgotten it. Tonight, in her visions of the nephew she had put out of her mind, Nimerly knew he had not only forgotten the Isle, but most probably knew nothing of it, thought his mother little more than some witch who had disappeared into the mist. He had no idea of who he was. Word had come, but too late, that Anson was not regarded as second prince, but guard to the King, the same title one would throw out to a bastard. Even after all the King’s sons but Cedd had died, this did not change.
As she gazed into the black water, fires arose. Scenes of death and of burning as she had seen when the Daumans under King William had struck not five years ago. Now Nimerly felt her age, and as she had seen war raging across the fields of the south, now she saw, even while sitting in the semi darkness of her room, fires and feuds, disruption touching the land again.
MORGELLYN
Over a month ago, the torch fires had been seen early one night, and the towermen had communicated back and forth. By midnight the bells were ringing in Herechester. They rang low and long but not as long or low as they might. A king was dead, but not their king. Queen Moregellan had been awakened by a servant and dressed herself to come into the Small Throne room where her husband sat. She was annoyed by his sympathetic look.
“I have something to tell you my dear,” he began.
She told herself she should feel more warmly toward him, that he was only trying to be a sympathetic husband, but anyone in the world knew death bells, and she knew the death bells of a kinsman king, and she certainly knew the strange pattern of death bells that meant the father of the Queen was dead.
Morgellyn was taller than many women, with long thick hair she always wore down, fine and wavy, almost like the gold of the legendary fleece from the eastern legend. In the night she wore a great white gown that swept along the floor and she sat down now at the table beside her husband.
“So my father has gone to join my mother at last,” she said.
Though Stephen King of Essail nodded his head, Morgellyn had no idea where her father had gone. He had wanted to make a good marriage for her, and when she was sixteen, Stephen, widowed but not by the love of his life, had arrived at the court of Kingsboro Castle. Anthal had thought he would have to talk his daughter into a marriage, and he had been very gentle about it, but Mother was gone and she had always been a little foolish. It was a shame to leave the girls, and she felt a little sorry for Anson, though he was old enough to walk away from this, go as far away as possible, possibly even to his mother’s people. Morgellyn knew exactly where she was going, so she married Stephen with little prompting. The wedding had taken place in Estelwild Abbey outside of Kingsboro, and then they had immediately gone north to Herechester and the castle that dominated that great city, Sunderland.
When a servant brought a cup of mulled wine, the Queen thanked him negligently with a wave of the hand and lifted the pewter cup to her lips.
“I suppose that bastard is King now.”
“No,” Stephen said, misunderstanding, “it will be Cedd.’
Morgellyn looked at her husband as if he was the stupidest man alive, which, sometimes she thought, could be possible.
“Make no mistake,” she said, “in my family Cedd is always the bastard when I speak of bastards.”
“What of Anson?”
“Anson,” she pronounced, putting the steaming cup from her, “is no bastard. He is simply not going to be accepted by the Council. I knew nothing of his mother. She was before me. But she was no beloved queen, and she was no Ayl. The council wants the goodwill of Edmund in the north—ah another bastard—and Cedd is a kinsman of his.”
“My Queen you would do well to respect the King of the North.”
“Fuck the King of the North,” Morgellyn murmured, carelessly. “Usurper. Who can’t even get up a child. If only you would take my advice and make bids among the oldest families who still have Wulfstan blood, then we could marry Linalla off to one of them and really begin something.”
“By something you mean a civil war?”
Morgellyn humphed and took up her cup.
“The Queen is grieving,” the house steward said. “If this makes her feel better—”
“If I want to feel better I’ll chop off your tongue and follow with your hands,” Morgellan snapped. “I am not a child. Not anymore.”
“Yes, your Grace,” Bendick said, bowing quickly. “Forgive it, your Grace.”
“Some people are a little too free in this house,” Morgellyn continued, sitting deeper in her seat, “a little too often.
“No,” she continued, “I am not mourning for a man who was already old when I was born and had the good fortune to outlive three of his wives. We must leave for Kingsboro in the morning and bring Linalla with us to secure a marriage.”
Stephen asked his wife, “Do you have anyone in mind?”
She reflected, with greater irritation, feeling a throbbing in her left temple, that her husband might have thought of this himself.
“There will be many lords at the gathering.”
“Anson? He’s next in line to the throne.”
Are you stupid?
“He’s her uncle,” Morgellyn said, “and I don’t see much of a future for him in Westrial. He is very low hanging fruit. All the North is ruled by Edmund.”
“But the old kingdoms are individually ruled by earls, the Earl of Hale, or North Hale or….”
“Too far north,” Morgellyn shook her head. “The children of Senach are too young for marriage. Sussail? Hermudis has a son. Or I am thinking we should turn to the Royan kingdoms. I have heard Idris is at Kingsboro right now, and a fairer man I have never seen. I would not look to other Sendic kingdoms.”
“No?”
“Cedd will marry Imogen off as soon as possible. She’ll have a veil on her head and be either the next queen of Sussail or Senach before out father’s cold in the tomb.”
“She should like that.”
“I’m going to bed,” Morgellyn said, suddenly.
“We have to be up early in the morning.”
She had kissed her husband briskly and, wrapping her night gown tight around herself, departed.
It was only the next morning, while they were dressing, the news came that the bells they had heard were of an entirely different order. How could she have known this pattern? Father still lived, but Cedd was to receive the crown. Clearly it meant old Anthal was dying, and so Morgellyn asked herself if this new information changed anything, then realized it did not.
She wondered if her brother suspected that the coronation was so rushed because Father had some sort of plan to control what kind of king Cedd would be? Surely Cedd could not believe Father was doing it for his welfare? But here is the thing: men are stupid. And vain. Perhaps Cedd fancied that Father wanted him safely crowned so that the Council could not give the crown to Anson. But Morgellyn knew her father, and she knew which child he favored, and so that could not have been the answer.
Yes, men were stupid. When Morgellyn had married Stephen, she had not been so bothered by his amazing stupidity, and her good sense told her that if he was smarter he would be less easily controlled. Control was what she wished for above all, and Morgellyn never deceived herself on this score. But the last comment about Imogen! Morgellyn had not seen her in two winters, but if she was the same—and it turned out she was—the girl would sooner kill herself than be married. Well, maybe she could end up like Hilda.
This morning in Kingsboro, days after the coronation of a new king, Morgellyn laughed to herself as she lifted her skirts and, hair hanging behind her, went up the winding stair to her chambers, saying, “Maybe the convent.”
MORE TOMORROW
Jikama gleðst yfir að sjá föður sinn hefna. Það var hér að hún sagði Jikimundo að Fitela sé sonur hans, og þá, vegna skyldu hennar sem eiginkonu, gekk hún inn í brennandi húsið til að deyja við hliðina á fyrirliði eiginmanni sínum.
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.
-From: The Valkyrasaga
THE BLUE TEMPLE
“You’re leaving in the morning?” Derek whispered in the night.
“Yes,” Conn had said.
Early in the morning Conn woke up full of heat and desire. On either side of him, hot and firm and soft as life were his lovers. Lying on their stomachs they were just blinking in and out of sleep. He loved them so much. He kissed one and then the other, and he placed one hand on Derek’s long white back, another on Gabriel’s. He stroked them gently and they both sighed. He moved his hand down to the small of their backs and they shuddered. He massaged their asses and they sighed, mouths open. They made child noises. Gently, he slipped a finger into each of them, and both boys’ mouths opened. Their eyes flew open in amazed wonder. While Conn worked them they moaned, grasping their pillows, then the sides of the mattress. And then, Conn kissed them. He kissed them down their backs, first Gabriel, burying his face in his red curls, and then Derek and then again, all the way down until his tongue moved inside of them, from one to the other and they both cried out now. They shouted a little now. Derek banged on the headboard with his fist and shuddering sounds escaped from Gabriel. Conn’s mouth worked on them, his hands reached around and kneaded them. Derek and Gabriel looked at each other, eyes wide. Suddenly they began to kiss. As they kissed fiercely, Derek reached down and brought Conn up. The older boys kissed, pressing together with Conn between them, going up and down Conn’s body until, gently, Derek turned him on his stomach and Gabriel, entranced into a strange contemplation, watched Derek fuck him. His mouth was half opened. His eyes glazed over. Conn grabbed the mattress and his eyes went dull under Derek’s thrusting. It ended all too quickly in an orgasmic flood, Derek’s hands bunched on Conn’s shoulder, the cords of his neck strained, his red face to the ceiling, his cock, thick, wet, spewing, deep inside of the younger boy. But when Derek came out of him, still stiff, his cock wet, Conn reached for Gabriel, and Gabriel came to him. Now it was his turn. Now they were together. He wanted to hold it in. He did, a little longer, making love to Conn the same way he did when they were in private, holding back his burst. Derek was there, exhausted, on his side, watching. In a way it was like they were doing this for him. When it was time to let go, Gabriel almost mourned it. Conn gave a long whimpering cry.
The room was hot, and it smelled like sweat and the long night and fucking. They all three, sprawled, limbs together, their stomachs sprayed by their semen. No one said a word. Conn wanted to say, “No one would mistake us for brothers now.” He liked it when they all did this, though they often felt bad afterward. He didn’t want them to feel bad, so he said, “Come and hold me. Come clean off, and then come and hold me.”
Derek got up a little unsteadily and made his way to the bathroom. Somehow Derek was different after Derek had been inside of him, and Derek’s body would seem different still when, inevitably, in their room tonight, the older boy asked Conn to fuck him. Derek returned with a cloth and gently he wiped off Conn, and then Gabriel, and lastly, up and down his own chest. Lightly he put the cloth on the bureau, and then he went to shut the curtains and hide the light from the world outside.
Drowsily, he climbed into bed and Conn pulled him in. Gabriel lifted up the covers.
They slept.
THE ROOTLESS ISLE
Tonight on the Rootless Isle, Nimerly’s dreams troubled her. Long ago, when she was just a girl, she lay in the dark, often filled with terror from the visions her budding power gave. Her grandmother said, “When you are troubled, rise up and go to the water. Go to the Earth. Go to the Mother, and open your soul.”
So now, many seasons later, after her grandmother was long gone, and her mother and her sister, after her cousin turned enemy, Coviane, was also long gone, Nimerly, daughter of Viviane, rose in the half light and went into the empty room. Blank lay the wooden table, and blank were the white walls, grey in the night. She went into the next room, to the long brass candle holders and the black candles. She set them down, and she set the little light between them. She took an old wick and lit candles from them. Their light turned the black room golden. She lit the censer, and now the small brass dish burned with a heavy sweetness, and she folded her long hands over her knees and sat down and murmured a spell, a prayer, a sound from before language was born.
Nimerly, daughter of Viviane, was the sister of Essily. They were like dark and light, grandaughters of the Mighty Lady who had ruled the Rootless Isle before Coviane. Essily with her golden hair and golden skin, Nimerly, wide of frame with her red-brown hair cascading down her back. When their mother lay dying, and had chosen Nimerly, Nimerly said she must go out into the world as their aunt Senaye had done, that the title should be passed to Essily. When Essily did not desire it, though it was her duty, though it had been both their duties, it passed to Coviane, the Ladyship, as if it were a bone no one wanted, she not the heir but the third choice, and long before this Nimerly ad gone out into the world and was gone some time before she returned with their Aunt Senaye, the one who should truly have been Lady, and her little boy, Ohean.
“He will be raised here,” Nimerly said.
“A man has no place on the Isle,” Coviane said.
“This one does.” Senaye said.
“If you wanted things to be so,” Coviane said, “then you ought to have been Lady.”
Senaye and Nimerly ignored their cousin. Everyone knew Senaye, daughter of Messanyn, Senaye the Shapeless, Senaye of Many Colors, was in all things but the very title, Lady. In the past, hadn’t there been a Lady who stayed on the Isle and one who went out into the world, and now that Senaye remained here, ever was Nimerly going out into the world, sometimes for whole stretches of years. When Nimerly returned again it was with her own child, Meredith.
When Meredith was three, the White Plague broke out, and the envoys came from Westrial, across the short water, the half-Royans with hats in hands, and begged them to come to the King’s City. Kingsboro was ravished with plague, the Queen dead, her only remaining son a boy whose black eyes burned with hatred. Essily had remained with that King after they had all gone, and she returned some time later with a golden haired boy.
“This is a proper place to raise a prince,” Nimerly had said.
“Who are you?” Coviane snapped. “Or who are you?” she turned to Essily. “I am the Lady of this Isle. You do not rule! You gave up the ruling.”
“Sister,” Nimerly addressed her by the formal title, “we are all three rulers, you only the foremost. This Isle is ruled by the Nine.”
Coviane said nothing to her cousins until Essily sickened, and was sent away to the Farthest Isle. There she died, and to compound her sin, Coviane had her body burned so that only her ashes returned to the Rootless Isle. In the midst of this sorrow, while Nimerly wept, Coviane insisted Anson be sent away to Westrial.
When Senaye had heard of it, Ohean and Nimerly were already traveling to Kingsboro.
“He is with his father now,” Coviane had told her kinswoman. “Do you or Nimerly, believe you have the right to him?”
“I curse you,” Senaye had said simply. Her face had been covered in tears, but now she stood straight, and her short black hair seemed to sizzle with electricity. She raised one hand, and it hung in the air before her face.
“I curse you,” she repeated, “by air, and by water, by the fire and by very earth. May you never rest easy, may your womb be closed, and may you know your end tied to the beginning of that boy whom you have sent away, our kin. For I tell you, when the old king dies and the new king rises in the land to the north, then shall you pass from this world too.”
It was no light thing, no thing where Coviane could simply respond that she was cursing her cousin in return, and so she stood there, glad her great skirts hid her shaking knees, and Senaye, full of rage, had taken only a one bag of possessions, and her horse and ridden from the Rootless Isle, never to return until the time fulfilled when, around the time Edmung became King of Inglad, Hale and North Hale, dispossessing the conquering Dayne king, Sweyn, Coviane had also died through disintery, and Nimerly at last took her place.
Nimerly did not travel to see Anson immediately. It was nearly two years before Nimerly traveled with Ohean, who was by then seventeen and living in Rheged most of the time, and her daughter, Meredith. The journey from the southern shore of Westrial to Kingsboro, through the southern peninsula was weeks, not days.
When they reached the high walls of the city and saw a great keep, strong, forboding, reaching into the blue white sky, Nimerly was reminded that, though they called the Ayl the New People, they had been in this land seventeen hundred years, and their walls and towersr looked ancient. The ramparts of this mountainous castle made her, tall woman that she was, feel small.
“We have only to walk through the gate, Cousin,” Ohean said, lightly.
They went through the open gates into the great city, and Nimerly noted how Meredith took to it, her eyes everywhere. She had loved the cities too, though neither the western cities of the Royan, nor these cities of the Ayl were home to her. Now she saw Ohean scanning everyone, everything and then the trumpets blared.
“Make way, make way, for the royal house, for King Anthal and his Queen, Emmaline, and for the royal children.”
Nimerly felt disoriented and small here, though she was tall and brown, auburn haired, broad shouldered. Meredith was nearly tall as she, but she pulled her daughter closer as the streets opened for the guards on white horses, and then the flapping banner of Westrial with its wyvern. On white horses came the King, his Queen, that same Prince Cedd, grown larger and prouder and beside him, waving, a blue eyed golden haired boy.
“So like them,” Nimerly marveled. “More like an Ayl than his black haired brother.”
“He looks so happy,” Meredith said.
Her mother studied the prince as he departed, waving, his stepmother, the new Queen, caressing his hair.
“I thought to take him away and bring him back one day as a child of the Isle, for his own safety,” Nimerly said. “Now I know it was not for his safety, but my desire for my sister.”
She turned to Ohean.
“You are the Lady of the Rootless Isle,” he said. “Say what you want, and we will do it. I believe, in time, he must come to us anyway.”
As the royal party passed, Nimerly murmured, “But not today. I came all this way simply so I could say let us turn and leave.”
Anson never came back to the Isle. Surely he had forgotten it. Tonight, in her visions of the nephew she had put out of her mind, Nimerly knew he had not only forgotten the Isle, but most probably knew nothing of it, thought his mother little more than some witch who had disappeared into the mist. He had no idea of who he was. Word had come, but too late, that Anson was not regarded as second prince, but guard to the King, the same title one would throw out to a bastard. Even after all the King’s sons but Cedd had died, this did not change.
As she gazed into the black water, fires arose. Scenes of death and of burning as she had seen when the Daumans under King William had struck not five years ago. Now Nimerly felt her age, and as she had seen war raging across the fields of the south, now she saw, even while sitting in the semi darkness of her room, fires and feuds, disruption touching the land again.
MORGELLYN
Over a month ago, the torch fires had been seen early one night, and the towermen had communicated back and forth. By midnight the bells were ringing in Herechester. They rang low and long but not as long or low as they might. A king was dead, but not their king. Queen Moregellan had been awakened by a servant and dressed herself to come into the Small Throne room where her husband sat. She was annoyed by his sympathetic look.
“I have something to tell you my dear,” he began.
She told herself she should feel more warmly toward him, that he was only trying to be a sympathetic husband, but anyone in the world knew death bells, and she knew the death bells of a kinsman king, and she certainly knew the strange pattern of death bells that meant the father of the Queen was dead.
Morgellyn was taller than many women, with long thick hair she always wore down, fine and wavy, almost like the gold of the legendary fleece from the eastern legend. In the night she wore a great white gown that swept along the floor and she sat down now at the table beside her husband.
“So my father has gone to join my mother at last,” she said.
Though Stephen King of Essail nodded his head, Morgellyn had no idea where her father had gone. He had wanted to make a good marriage for her, and when she was sixteen, Stephen, widowed but not by the love of his life, had arrived at the court of Kingsboro Castle. Anthal had thought he would have to talk his daughter into a marriage, and he had been very gentle about it, but Mother was gone and she had always been a little foolish. It was a shame to leave the girls, and she felt a little sorry for Anson, though he was old enough to walk away from this, go as far away as possible, possibly even to his mother’s people. Morgellyn knew exactly where she was going, so she married Stephen with little prompting. The wedding had taken place in Estelwild Abbey outside of Kingsboro, and then they had immediately gone north to Herechester and the castle that dominated that great city, Sunderland.
When a servant brought a cup of mulled wine, the Queen thanked him negligently with a wave of the hand and lifted the pewter cup to her lips.
“I suppose that bastard is King now.”
“No,” Stephen said, misunderstanding, “it will be Cedd.’
Morgellyn looked at her husband as if he was the stupidest man alive, which, sometimes she thought, could be possible.
“Make no mistake,” she said, “in my family Cedd is always the bastard when I speak of bastards.”
“What of Anson?”
“Anson,” she pronounced, putting the steaming cup from her, “is no bastard. He is simply not going to be accepted by the Council. I knew nothing of his mother. She was before me. But she was no beloved queen, and she was no Ayl. The council wants the goodwill of Edmund in the north—ah another bastard—and Cedd is a kinsman of his.”
“My Queen you would do well to respect the King of the North.”
“Fuck the King of the North,” Morgellyn murmured, carelessly. “Usurper. Who can’t even get up a child. If only you would take my advice and make bids among the oldest families who still have Wulfstan blood, then we could marry Linalla off to one of them and really begin something.”
“By something you mean a civil war?”
Morgellyn humphed and took up her cup.
“The Queen is grieving,” the house steward said. “If this makes her feel better—”
“If I want to feel better I’ll chop off your tongue and follow with your hands,” Morgellan snapped. “I am not a child. Not anymore.”
“Yes, your Grace,” Bendick said, bowing quickly. “Forgive it, your Grace.”
“Some people are a little too free in this house,” Morgellyn continued, sitting deeper in her seat, “a little too often.
“No,” she continued, “I am not mourning for a man who was already old when I was born and had the good fortune to outlive three of his wives. We must leave for Kingsboro in the morning and bring Linalla with us to secure a marriage.”
Stephen asked his wife, “Do you have anyone in mind?”
She reflected, with greater irritation, feeling a throbbing in her left temple, that her husband might have thought of this himself.
“There will be many lords at the gathering.”
“Anson? He’s next in line to the throne.”
Are you stupid?
“He’s her uncle,” Morgellyn said, “and I don’t see much of a future for him in Westrial. He is very low hanging fruit. All the North is ruled by Edmund.”
“But the old kingdoms are individually ruled by earls, the Earl of Hale, or North Hale or….”
“Too far north,” Morgellyn shook her head. “The children of Senach are too young for marriage. Sussail? Hermudis has a son. Or I am thinking we should turn to the Royan kingdoms. I have heard Idris is at Kingsboro right now, and a fairer man I have never seen. I would not look to other Sendic kingdoms.”
“No?”
“Cedd will marry Imogen off as soon as possible. She’ll have a veil on her head and be either the next queen of Sussail or Senach before out father’s cold in the tomb.”
“She should like that.”
“I’m going to bed,” Morgellyn said, suddenly.
“We have to be up early in the morning.”
She had kissed her husband briskly and, wrapping her night gown tight around herself, departed.
It was only the next morning, while they were dressing, the news came that the bells they had heard were of an entirely different order. How could she have known this pattern? Father still lived, but Cedd was to receive the crown. Clearly it meant old Anthal was dying, and so Morgellyn asked herself if this new information changed anything, then realized it did not.
She wondered if her brother suspected that the coronation was so rushed because Father had some sort of plan to control what kind of king Cedd would be? Surely Cedd could not believe Father was doing it for his welfare? But here is the thing: men are stupid. And vain. Perhaps Cedd fancied that Father wanted him safely crowned so that the Council could not give the crown to Anson. But Morgellyn knew her father, and she knew which child he favored, and so that could not have been the answer.
Yes, men were stupid. When Morgellyn had married Stephen, she had not been so bothered by his amazing stupidity, and her good sense told her that if he was smarter he would be less easily controlled. Control was what she wished for above all, and Morgellyn never deceived herself on this score. But the last comment about Imogen! Morgellyn had not seen her in two winters, but if she was the same—and it turned out she was—the girl would sooner kill herself than be married. Well, maybe she could end up like Hilda.
This morning in Kingsboro, days after the coronation of a new king, Morgellyn laughed to herself as she lifted her skirts and, hair hanging behind her, went up the winding stair to her chambers, saying, “Maybe the convent.”
MORE TOMORROW
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