by D. J. Butler
“Your Majesty doesn’t give herself enough credit.”
“I give myself a hell of a lot of credit. But what you’re talking about…it sounds pharaonic, palatine, Masonic, I don’t know. Secrets inside secrets, times and places. I have no preparation for this.”
“You have much more preparation than you realize.”
“I can’t even recite all the Electors.” Sarah snorted. “If I command you, the blame’s on me. The sin, whatever. It’s not your fault, if I order you to do it. I’m carrying enough fault already, a little more won’t hurt me.”
“If you order me,” Alzbieta said, “I only have to choose between two oaths. I am not certain what I would do in that moment.”
Sarah knew the older woman was telling the truth. Or at least, she thought she was.
“We could find out,” Sarah said. “Experiment, ain’t that the way of the age?”
“I doubt you’d understand, anyway.”
Sarah sucked in air, prepared to blast her cousin for the arrogance of her words, but checked herself. “What do you mean?” she grunted slowly.
“Forgive me, I’ve sounded arrogant, and that wasn’t my intention. I mean that the nature of an initiatic secret is not to remain secret forever.”
Sarah had no idea what her cousin was talking about. “Go on.”
“The nature of an initiatic secret is to reveal itself, in the proper place and time, to a person who has been properly prepared. Like a flower opening. Like a riddle that suddenly answers itself. Like—”
“Enough similes.” Sarah raised a hand to stop Alzbieta. “I…need time to think.”
Alzbieta nodded. “And I have one last qualification for the throne that is very important, Your Majesty.”
“If it’s just the one thing, I expect I have enough stamina left to hear you out.”
“I’m a woman,” Alzbieta said. “That, of course, is essential.”
“Pax vobiscum!”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“I hear the Irish girls dance naked,” Landon said, shooting a sidelong grin in George’s direction.
~Dance with me!~
“What, all the time? Stop dreaming,” Charles said.
“They dance naked when I tell them to, by the Hammer,” George said.
“That’s not because they’re Irish,” Charles said. “They do idiotic things, even things that they know are stupid, to please you. That’s because they’re poor, and you’re rich and their master, and you’re a bastard.”
“Figuratively,” George said.
“Thank you for reminding us.” Charles looked away from the others, at the dark forest around them. The moon was in its dark phase, which left the stars brilliant, but the trail hard to follow, especially here where it picked its way through thick trees.
“At their druidic ceremonies, they dance naked,” George said by way of clarification. “Those dirty old druids, they like to see everyone naked. Before they drown them in bogs or burn them in wicker men.”
“I suppose they have that in common with the godar,” Charles said. “And the Earls of Johnsland. And the earls’ sons.”
“You don’t have to come along,” George snorted.
“I rather think I do,” Charles said. “You’ve picked the darkest night you could to run around in the woods looking for young women. I expect you’re much more likely to find a hungry highwayman, or a rabid beastwife, or just a big hole in the ground you’ll fall into because you can’t see it. If I let you go unaccompanied, the earl might not forgive me.”
“He might not forgive you anyway,” George said slyly. “Just for being Charles Lee.”
“I know it.” Charles sighed and patted the two horse pistol holsters alongside his saddle, confirming in the near-darkness they were still there and full.
“Hands away from your pistols, Lee,” George growled.
“Do the druids dance in the dark to avoid being seen?” Nathaniel asked. The sound of his own voice rang with the aural halo of the background whine he always heard, and he cringed, hunkering down inside his coat.
“They use torches,” Landon assured him. “You’ll be able to see all the naked flesh you want.”
“I don’t want to see naked flesh. I’m curious. To understand, I mean.” And he wanted to distract George and Charles from the argument that seemed to be perpetually building between them.
~Grow up, grow down, seek waters deep.~
“Seek,” Nathaniel whimpered.
“Poor mad bastard,” George muttered.
“They dance by the dark of the moon because they worship the moon,” Landon said.
“Wouldn’t they dance by the full moon instead, then?” Nathaniel was puzzled. “Or maybe they dance when the moon is new to summon it back?”
“Haven’t you read your Caesar?” By the sound of his voice, George was probably sneering. “Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres?”
Nathaniel didn’t know what he was talking about.
“Have you ever seen these druids?” Charles asked. “Or their dancers, the famed nubile young ladies’ druidic dancing troop?”
“You’ll regret the scorn you show me.” Landon sniffed.
“So, you haven’t.”
“I haven’t. But George has.”
“George?” Charles said.
“I have indeed seen druidic dances,” George said. “But that’s not why we’re out here.”
Charles stopped his horse. Nathaniel, who’d been following behind him, barely avoided a collision. “You’d better explain why we’re out here, then. I don’t know this trail, but I’d have sworn based on the positions of Orion and the Bear relative to that hill, that we’ve nearly come in a circle. And with all due respect to whatever it is you might have seen somewhere and sometime, no Irish girls will be dancing naked in the woods tonight. It’s November, for God’s sake, and freezing.”
“Say by Woden, rather,” George said. “Or by Ing or Thunor, if you prefer. You’re in Johnsland, after all.”
“Are you allowed to curse by Woden?” Charles asked. “Without Old One Eye’s permission, anyway?”
“He means the Yule log,” Landon said. “And the Ride.”
“I know what he means,” George ground out through clenched teeth. “The Earl of Johnsland will be burning a Yule log at midwinter.”
“Will he?” Nathaniel asked.
The darkness of the evening couldn’t hide the look of wrath that leaped into George’s face.
“Hmm. The dancing girls,” Charles reminded the earl’s son.
“Very well.” From the shifting shadows ahead of him, Nathaniel guessed that George was leaning forward from his saddle. His voice dropped, as if he were sharing a secret. “There are dancing girls out here, but we’ve come out for something even better.”
Charles sighed heavily.
~Help me, I’m buried here beside the road.~
“Help me,” Nathaniel whispered.
Charles gripped him by the shoulder, and it helped. He straightened his back. The whining faded, slightly.
“Go on,” Landon said.
“Whatever it is,” Charles suggested. “Let’s forget it. Let’s go home and drink instead.”
“The druids,” George said, “these druid-chasing Irish we invite into our homes—”
“Plenty of them are Christian,” Charles said.
“Yes, and plenty aren’t. Plenty, especially the ones who pull plows and pick cotton, the ones on the fringes, follow the faith of their ancestors, a disgusting and immoral cult. None of them, of course, rides with Herne the Hunter on All Hallows’ Eve, like the true men of Johnsland. None of them burns the Yule log. None knows the harmony of the Furrow and the Weald.”
“Dancing girls.” Landon’s breath was shallow.
“Dancing girls are only the start of it. They have special priestesses they call moon-women.”
“It stinks here,” Nathaniel murmured. “Something smells really bad.”
No one paid him any mind.
“Moon-women?” Charles snorted. “I have read my Caesar. Enough to know there are no moon-women. What in hell are you talking about, George?”
“Caesar didn’t know everything. The druids have moon-women, whose role is not to worship the moon, but to be it.”
Charles laughed out loud.
~Don’t slaughter me!~
“Slaughter!” Nathaniel slapped at his ear, causing the others to turn and look at him, but only for a moment.
“What does a moon-woman do?” Landon asked.
“It’s not what she does, it’s what she is.” George pointed at the sky, his arm a darker patch of black, silvered at the edges. “On the new moon, she goes to the moon-woman hut and waits there for men to come help her fulfill her destiny.”
A short silence.
“What do you mean?” Landon asked. “Like…?”
“She is empty,” George said. “She needs you to fill her.”
Landon’s shuddering intake of breath was loud. “With my…?”
“With a baby. With the baby of the waxing crescent moon, who will be born tomorrow night.”
“Yes.” Landon breathed out, still shaking.
“Stop this nonsense, George,” Charles said. “You’re making it hard for Landon to sit straight in his saddle. Look at him, the poor clod is turned nearly sideways, trying not to snap off his yard.”
“It’s not nonsense,” George insisted. “The moon-hut is just beyond that tree.”
“Moon-hut!” Charles hawked phlegm from deep in his throat and spat.
“And here’s the best part of it. I’ve told old Murphy, he’s a sort of connection to the moon-women, he organizes them…”
“Murphy is the imaginary pimp of your imaginary brothel,” Charles suggested. “Poor Murphy. I’d have expected better things of him.”
“You do them dishonor!” Landon snapped. “Just because the ladies aren’t Christian, doesn’t mean their faith deserves no respect.”
“I can practically hear the respect your erection is trying to give these legendary moon-women,” Charles said.
“I told Murphy I had two young men here who had never called upon the moon-women before. He agreed he’d keep others away tonight, keep away the Irishmen and the secret druids of our own people, so Landon and Nathaniel could—”
“Could rut with a stranger in the fields,” Charles said.
“—have a special experience,” George finished.
“I’m first,” Landon said quickly.
“I don’t want to,” Nathaniel said.
“Well, he can’t go alone,” George said. “If Landon is to have his special experience, he has to have a witness.”
“What are you playing at?” Charles asked.
“Come on,” Landon said to Nathaniel.
“I don’t want to.”
~Feed me, feed me.~
Nathaniel clamped his jaws shut tight and managed not to repeat the voice’s words. The whine spiked to a sudden shriek and he gasped.
“All you have to do is stand in the corner. You can look at the wall if you like. Where’s the moon-hut, George?”
George pointed, and Nathaniel could just make out the corner of a log-chink wall. “The entrance is on the other side. You’ll have to hop that fence and turn the corner.”
“What are we waiting for?” Landon snatched the reins of Nathaniel’s horse and dragged him ahead several lengths.
“Wait!” George called. “This is no ordinary tryst. There are taboos.”
“What does that mean?” Landon asked.
“Rules. You go in naked.”
Landon laughed. “Well, of course you go in naked.”
“No,” George said. “I mean from here. You take your clothes off. Nathaniel, your witness, will carry your clothes and hold them for you in the moon-hut. You may hold his when it’s his turn. I’ll keep your horses.”
“George,” Charles protested.
“Shut up, Charles,” George said. “You and I have no role here, but to wait and stand watch.”
Landon slid from the saddle. He practically pulled Nathaniel from his horse and threw clothing into his arms: a coat, a tricorn hat, a greasy shirt, breeches that smelled sour, stockings that smelled worse. “Boots?”
“Best give them to Nathaniel, don’t you think?” George said. “Just in case the moon-woman is particular.”
“Just in case!” Landon shoved his boots on top of the pile teetering in Nathaniel’s arms and then seized Nathaniel by the elbow. “Anything else I need to know?”
“The moon-hut is extremely primitive. That’s part of the taboo, it’s identical to huts the Irish lived in two thousand years ago. Dirt floor. No lights are allowed, that’s part of the ritual. But she’s expecting you, so just find her bed and do your sacred duty.”
Landon dragged Nathaniel with him. In the starlight Nathaniel could see the other boy’s pale shoulders and naked back; he was grateful he couldn’t see more, and terrified of what he was about to see in the moon-hut.
The smell got worse as the two boys approached the hut. At the fence, Landon didn’t wait, hurling himself over the split rails and landing on the other side with a soft squelching sound.
“You’re mad, but your nose works,” he whispered to Nathaniel. “It does stink. We must be near a pasture somewhere, or a bog. Don’t let the druids grab you! Now come quick, if you’re going to witness this heroism.”
In that moment, Landon’s face caught the light of the stars, and Nathaniel saw fear in the other boy’s eyes.
“You know,” Nathaniel said. “You know this is nonsense. What George is saying can’t be true. Don’t let George do this to you just to amuse him. Don’t let George rule you like this.”
He felt like the words should have come from Charles’s mouth, rather than his.
Landon’s face twisted from fear to indignation. “Shut up! Shut up and follow me!”
Nathaniel stumbled over the rail fence more awkwardly. Dropping most of Landon’s clothing, he hesitated, and then decided simply to leave it. The other boy disappeared into a low square doorway darker than the silver-gray log-chink wall into which it was cut.
The stink was overwhelming. It was an animal stink, but Nathaniel couldn’t identify quite what it was. The ground was muddy with November’s rain and sucked at his boots as he followed Landon to the moon-hut. At least he had foot-gear on. Nathaniel imagined he’d be whimpering from cold, if he were the one who was naked.
He stepped inside.
Within, the air was even closer. Nathaniel heard deep breathing sounds and realized there were several sets of lungs inhaling and exhaling slowly.
How many moon-women were there?
“I think she’s in the corner,” he heard Landon whisper. Then the other boy sang softly, “come to me, my lovely, let us make a child for the moon…”
Oink.
“What in seven hells?” Landon barked.
Oink, oink, oink.
Bang!
Outside, a gunshot. Then more: bang! bang!
“George!” Landon whispered. Then he yelled: “Nathaniel! Thunor’s fist!”
Nathaniel crashed into the wall of the hut trying to get out and dropped the rest of Landon’s clothes. Squishing his way across the muddy pigs’ enclosure, he saw lights come on in the building on the far side.
~Come back, bring food!~
“Come back!” he shrieked. He had no idea where Charles and George were. He saw a length of split-rail fence and ran for it.
“You there! What are you doing! St. Anthony, Mary, get me gun, there’s a naked man in among the pigs!” The shouting voice had an Irish accent, the accent of a servant or a tenant farmer.
Or a druid?
Nathaniel had almost reached the fence when Landon tackled him. They went down together in cold wet pig droppings, and everything Nathaniel had previously smelled was a rose by comparison. Pig feces on his face and in his mouth, he began to vomit.
“You bastard!” Landon dragged Nat
haniel to his knees and punched him in the jaw. Nathaniel fell back into the muck. “You bastard, George!”
George?
But Landon kicked Nathaniel in the ribs several times. His shrieked words began with you bastard, George, you bastard, Nathaniel, but quickly decayed into incoherent screaming.
~Not the knife! No, I’m innocent!~
“Not the knife!” Lights flashed, and Nathaniel didn’t know whether he was seeing real lights, or a falling fit was coming on.
“Get your hands off that man!” The Irish voice had a slight slur to it.
Landon paused a moment in administering his beating. Nathaniel cracked an eye and saw his tormentor, stark naked and smeared with pig droppings from head to foot, standing over him in the watery yellow light of a lantern.
A white light flashed, obscuring his view. It was a seizure. A seizure was coming on.
“Sean, that’s one of the lordlings from the big house.” A woman’s voice. “One of the earl’s sons?”
“George?” the man called. “What in hell would George Randolph Isham be doing, swiving one of me pigs in the middle of the night?”
“Hush with that sailor talk, Sean.” The woman slapped the man’s shoulder.
The man staggered sideways, lantern in one hand and blunderbuss in the other weaving chaotically. Landon cringed as the gun swung past him, and Nathaniel covered his ears. “I’m only saying, George Isham can do better than old Bess. Hell, she’s just a sow. If he wants her, he can have her.”
“Not him,” the woman said. “One of the bastards. Landon.”
Landon shrieked and threw his hands up to cover his face.
“Mr. Chapel!” the Irishman barked. “Good fecking hell, man, if ye want to cuddle old Bess, ye’ve only got to say it!”
Whatever humiliation Landon suffered, he would take it out in rage on Nathaniel. Nathaniel had to get away.
He kicked Landon hard behind his knee. The earl’s bastard fell backward into the muck, feet flying skyward as he hit the ground hard. Nathaniel rolled directly away from the Irish couple and sprinted for the fence.
“And who’s that, then?” Sean yelled.
“Has he hurt ye, Mr. Chapel?” Mary called.
“Shoot him!” Landon squealed.
Boom! The blunderbuss went off, but the shot missed. Nathaniel caught the top rail of the fence in his solar plexus and fell forward over it, landing again in mud that was cold and wet, but had the virtue of not being pig feces. He staggered to his feet, seeing his nude and mud-smeared fellow-bastard charging at him.
