The Lady's Champion

by M F Sullivan

  “I will,” she said. As his gaze fell from hers, she followed his focus, and her breath hitched.

  Between the rows of ferns enclosing them, that gold-and-cerulean doorway opened into the Kronborg kennel. The disorienting thing was she did not even become conscious of the intention to walk forward. She simply noticed the doorway, then found herself upon its other side. Yes—back to Earth. Basil at her feet, joint pinched between her fingers, and the magician’s hand replaced with none other than a relieving (if shocking) sight for her sore eyes: her lost gun. Still too in the afterglow of dreaming to register the full oddity of the find, she shifted the joint to the corner of her mouth and reflexively checked its chamber.

  One bullet.

  “There you are, Ninny!” Lavinia’s sigh of relief bounced from the corner of the kennels, startling the General out of her reverie (or, possibly, out of the Kingdom, for who was to say that the happenings in the Kingdom were not mere symbols for the happenings of reality). With a surge of adrenaline and hyper-trained reflexes, she stowed the weapon under the back of her shirt before she could savor the reunion. Her sister carried on without notice. “I was worried when you went off like that. Are you all—euch!” The girl’s sound was a crossbreed of disgust and indignation. “You can’t smoke in here, Ninny. Think of the doggies!”

  In one swift motion, Dominia pinched the cigarette out and crammed it away, not worried if it broke. The General felt more liberated than she ever had, whatever happened. By the Lamb, she was downright high! (Or by Valentinian’s drugs? Hard to say.) The blessed truth whispered to her by the universe that night—that one encouragement she had ever needed—played out in phantom kisses relived by her giddy mind. Cassandra was not lost! Anything else Dominia had learned that night—any threat or horror hanging over her head—was nothing compared to the thought that she had, just moments ago, held Cassandra in her arms. Ah! She could weep had she the time, but she had none, and could not excuse her weeping in front of Lavinia except to misappropriate its source.

  “I’m sorry I ran, Livvy. I guess I didn’t know…how to react.”

  With an anxious glance for the door, the Princess edged through the dogs and tangled her fingers sheepishly amid the sumptuous folds of her dress. “Her” fingers—ugh. One wretched remembrance proved more evil than Cassandra’s presence proved good, and brought the General’s mood down a few notches. Lavinia, innocent to these thoughts, said in anxious hush, “I didn’t know how you’d react, but I guess I didn’t expect that. I’ve never shown anyone before.”

  “Livvy…”

  “Daddy told me people wouldn’t understand—even other martyrs. They don’t understand anything about me. But I guess I thought you would understand, and that it might help you. You being so scared and all, maybe it would make you feel better to know I’d been through the same thing.”

  “But why, Lavinia?” The General tried to stifle from her voice those notes of natural horror in favor of warm and open concern. “Why did he take your limbs?” She knew his internal reasons, of course. She just wanted to know his excuses, and Lavinia seemed eager to supply them after decades of keeping the issue to herself.

  “Well, the first time—you can’t tell anybody this, Ninny, you hear me? Anyway, the first time I was about…forty, and I was sad that I couldn’t marry anyone. I just wanted to be a part of that deep, deep love that a man and a woman share! That you had for your wife. Even Cicero and the Lamb seem happy together, though poor Lambie is always so tired from his work…but his plight just reminds me that being a saint is too important. I can’t throw away everything I represent to the Church and to God! Worse, if I had to look outside the Family for a man, and he swooped me away, why, whatever would Daddy do?”

  Yuck. Focus, Dominia. Her little sister continued, still in her own, purer world. “He would be so sad without me. But the temptation to have a boyfriend was just so strong! I had all these sinful thoughts and couldn’t focus—couldn’t do anything but lay around and sigh. Finally, I asked Cicero for his advice during confession, and he talked to Daddy for me. He’s so helpful! They both were, and so understanding…Daddy came to talk to me right that very morning as I went to bed, and said he had a good idea that would solve all of our problems!”

  “You gave him your leg because you felt sinful for wanting to be in love? To be an adult?”

  “No, Ninny! I gave him my leg—well, you can’t tell anybody this, either, but I told Cicero what I did in confession because I tried to run away once, too, and after I was foiled by my girl friends…they didn’t tell on me, but I felt so guilty. I knew I had to confess to God.” At Dominia’s visible surprise to hear all this—that the devoted girl ever had one iota of desire to get out of Dodge, as they said in an ancient Western show—Lavinia crossed her arms. “I told you earlier, Ninny, I’m not perfect! And, my goodness…you think it’s a fun time sitting around in these castles while you and everybody else in the whole Family gets to run around all over the planet, wherever you want?”

  Poor Lavinia. No one in that world could have ever known the sorrow the General felt for this girl, who should have been her daughter as much as Cassandra’s. In that rejection, the child had lost not only her psychological self but the greater part of her bodily self. What kind of life would she had lived if Dominia had not sold off the unborn infant to her Father? Would it have been possible, by any stretch of the imagination, for the mothers to make their way to safety anywhere in the world? Could they have ever had any modicum of happiness here? She would only plague herself with the questions she’d neglected for a century if she continued down that track.

  “Trust me,” the General tried at last, “running all over the world isn’t the privilege you’d expect.”

  “But I want to decide that for myself! I’m sure it’s scary sometimes, and that the world is very harsh, especially to traveling martyrs—but, Ninny, don’t you love coming and going as you please? Don’t you feel so strong and brave? I think you must. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever known.” Her voice dropped and she edged in, conspiratorial. “I was very worried about you, Ninny, but I was also very happy for you when you left. I thought—I hoped that you would find peace somewhere, maybe. You’ve always been so troubled. There are so many books about you, you know? I’ve read a few, but I don’t have a head for military biographies, so they take me a long time to finish…but you’ve done such hard things. In your letters, you would only ever talk about governing work and the happy things you and Cassandra did, and I always thought…I guess I got the sense after a few decades that you did that on purpose, you know. Being optimistic in front of me. That you were trying to support me, so I wouldn’t worry about you.”

  Aching with the weight of long-suppressed guilt, the General tried to assure herself there was no time like the present. “There’s a reason for that.” The pure sweetness of her sister’s earnest face forced her gaze away; she was no more able to stare into its glow than was a non-Lazarene into the heart of the sun. “Lavinia—”

  “—must be in here,” interrupted Cicero, as the door pushed open and the cadre of dogs charged to greet him—save for Basil, who, while theoretically no longer possessed by the magician, seemed no less displeased by the prospect of Cicero’s presence. Though, admittedly, it was odd for the dogs to be so thrilled by El Sacerdote. They preferred the Lamb, which was why it did not surprise Dominia when both brothers rounded the corner. If anybody was surprised, it was Cicero, who seemed shocked, then displeased, to discover the General along with Lavinia. Any hint of levity scalded straight off his face and left his expression tight beneath his devilish goatee.

  “Ah. And our other dear sister is also here. I do hope we are not interrupting you girls.”

  Although Dominia was about to forge some cover story, Lavinia leapt in so immediately that the General was once more shocked by her younger sister’s “naughty” streak: she had a heretofore unknown ability and willingness to lie, which was just more proof she was a natural m
ember of the Holy Family. “Oh, I was just showing Ninny some of the new dogs from this year, and talking about the after-party! I’m so excited, Cicero, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, my dear, it should be very fine time…did you tell Dominia about the play?”

  It must have been a special occasion. The Hierophant and Cicero (or Cicero Prime and Diet Cicero, as she strove to think of them) loved having concerts at the drop of a hat—as or more frequent than their parties, though the two were often paired. Theater productions required much more time and effort than the standard gala, meaning that the Ciceros, depending on venue size and location, could only force their actors and crewmembers to pull off about ten to twenty shows a year while working their thespians in repertory. That was to say, ten to twenty separate shows, of which there were sometimes nightly performances, over the course of that year-long season.

  A human who had never visited the European theatere might not imagine the size, grandiosity, and variety of shows available in the town of Elsinore, but they frequently did not need to imagine: the Elsinore Theater Festival’s shows, like most forms of theater whether human or martyr, were broadcast globally across a variety of monetized streaming services generously open to human countries so they, too, could line the Hierophant’s digital wallets with the imaginary bits of encrypted data everyone had agreed somewhere along the line to be a measure of wealth. Every human who considered themselves high-class endured a love/hate relationship with martyr culture due purely to the quality of their theater. As they stood, at present, in Kronborg, and it was the Elsinore Theater Festival, she guessed, “A bit of Willy Shakes, I suppose,” to be rebuffed by Cicero, “No, in fact. It is Father’s original.”

  While the General made long-trained eye contact with the Lamb—a sort of brief, exasperated mutual stare used in place of an eye roll when present company made sarcasm unsafe—she maintained a pleasant smile. “That will be great,” she said, while the Lamb said, “Pity about the double-booking, though.”

  “Yes,” agreed Cicero, shaking his head. “I should have very much enjoyed an opportunity to see the opening night—but, duty calls.”

  “I wish you were going to be there, Cicero.” Lavinia worried the black lace frills of her overskirt with gloved hands at which the General could hardly bare to look—particularly not when Cicero took one up to kiss.

  “You know I shall be with you in spirit, my girl. At future performances. But the Lord does not wait.”

  The General maintained her smile, thinking happy thoughts of the place she’d been instead of all they discussed now. “You’re going to be in the show, Lavinia?”

  “Oh, she shall be the star, of course.”

  “Of course,” echoed the Lamb. He stood from where he’d crouched, having mussed sufficiently the ears of the border collie that trotted back around the corner, invisible to the DIOX-I’s scrutiny and Cicero’s arrogant inability to recognize the animal that had stopped the train. “And the Holy Father had to be sure he had his part, too.”

  “Naturally, naturally,” said Cicero, all happy agreement as he studied Dominia’s face like he tried to read her mind. “I’m sorry to say, sister, neither will you be able to attend the premiere performance of Lavinia’s play. Though I’m sure we could find a way to access the stream, if you and I wrap up our ceremony soon enough.”

  “And is this all going to be before the party?” asked the General, to which the priest agreeably said, “Consider it preparation,” with that dark, expectant look in his eye. He knew, of course, what she divined. This ceremony was when Dominia would lose her leg, which would probably then be prepared and served for the New Year’s party once the Hierophant’s show wrapped up.

  That was assuming, of course, any of these events were allowed to get as far as that.

  “Where is this ceremony?” she asked. Cicero, pleased to tell her, waved a hand in the direction before dropping it upon Dominia’s shoulder to guide her along. There she was again, ten years old—human and martyr years combined, mind—and on her way to a beating because she’d snickered in church at some rare verbal gaff of El Sacerdote while the Holy Father was elsewhere on business, where he couldn’t make pretentious suppositions about the Freudian roots of corporal punishment. Interesting how the younger Cicero hadn’t raised a hand to her in the Hierophant’s presence—once she got big enough to hit him back. The first time she broke his collarbone was the last time they’d had a physical altercation until the one on the train. Now those early respites of Cicero’s to treat the “bratty” (read: normal) girl as he thought her behavior merited seemed coordinated efforts on the part of the Family to mold Dominia’s behavior and establish the Holy Father as a savior force. He was a doting, generous, compassionate protector, His Holiness, until he wasn’t anymore.

  No wonder the Hierophant was such a jolly old fucker all the time. He got his bad temper out while living the life of that same hateful priest who gripped her now, and said with a sneer-edged smile, “Shall we take a look? Arrangements are being made in the chapel. It shall be a rather more intimate affair than the show, but still quite pleasant. Always a joy to welcome a lost lamb back into the fold.”

  That hand was so much like her Father’s as to be identical. Amazing they’d gotten away with the con for so long! But reality was just so absurd in this case, anything was easier to believe. Why, Cicero and the Hierophant had similar ways of speaking? It was only because Cicero had his nose stuffed so far up the Holy Father’s ass—because of two thousand years of cohabitation and co-working. They looked near completely alike, save for the distance of two thousand years or more, which, on a martyr’s face, rested like sixty or so without the upkeep of occasional genetic engineering? That was because the Hierophant was an alien, bequeathed with alien technology, and had taken the form of the first man he’d met on Earth.

  Incredible, the fairy tales people let themselves believe.

  “Do we have to see the chapel now?” asked Lavinia, with a glance for her sister and a clear desperation for someone to tell her something true. “Ninny and I were just catching up.”

  “I know you wish to chat with Dominia all night—you’ll doubtless chew her ear off soon enough—but Father does have a need for you. You’ve lines to practice, queen mother Bathsheba.” At Lavinia’s pout askance, Cicero clicked his tongue. “Now, my dear, don’t fret. You shall see the chapel before the ceremony, I’m sure.”

  The Lamb brushed his hands free of dog fur while studying the General. “You can always talk to Dominia after your rehearsal.” This meant, “Be careful what you discuss with Lavinia after her rehearsal.” She could see it in his face even as he dropped back to let Cicero lead them from the kennels and into the greater building. With a smile for the Princess, Dominia said, “Don’t worry. I’ll see you soon enough; and if I don’t, you can always come to see me.”

  Anxiously, the girl nodded, then was out of sight.

  Kronborg’s chapel was certainly intimate by the standards of some of the Hierophant’s most ostentatious and thus most favored basilicas. But, to Dominia’s eye, it was no less flamboyant, and floored with that same ominous checkerboard tiling she’d begun to assess with particular wariness. Worship had been suspended so workers could prepare for the ceremony of Dominia’s alleged contrition. As a few buffed to golden shine Christ and his thieves on prominent display, several human carpenters below slaved over the construction of some wood structure, which, in pieces, went unrecognized by the General.

  “I do hate to allow the house of the Lord to be disrupted by such clamor,” said Cicero with a distasteful glance for those indentured to the task of construction. “But the dimensions of the crucifix shall be such that constructing it outside our modest chapel is simply not an option. Did you know, my dear, that the Romans may have popularized the act of crucifixion, but they did not invent it? They only learned it from the Phoenicians around the time of the Punic Wars, in the third century BC. It is thought to have originated with the Assyrians and the Baby
lonians, but the Persians perfected it…and, of course, your savage Hunter friends still do it to our people all across the globe. Many have had their martyrdom completed in the pattern of the Greatest, much to the Lord’s sorrow. Christ died upon the cross, after all, so none of us would have to. And you do not have to die upon it, either: but you do have to take some time to think about what you’ve done.”

  The General observed the construction with a new and sicker eye. “I thought that I was just going to be losing a leg.”

  “That, too, my girl: but all things in their time. It is a punishment, after all. Not some simple operation. It is vitally important that you be aware you are about to lose your leg, and even more important that you remain aware the moment you do.”

  “And how is crucifixion related to the loss of my leg?”

  “Upside down,” explained the Lamb, looking particularly dead inside as he studied the crucifix, then the face of his daughter. “For a long, long time.”

  With far greater pleasure, Cicero expounded to the very anatomy-conscious General that, “The upper half of the body lacks in valves to retard the flow of blood, as man was not made to spend his time hanging inverted without a break. After, oh, ten or so hours in such a position, the average person’s head will burst from the intensity of the pressure. But we can’t have that, can we?”

  Tightly, humorlessly, the General bared her teeth.

  “We will suspend you by your right leg,” explained El Sacerdote, continuing on with perfectly mild expression. “It will soon fall asleep, and quickly thereafter—in the grand scheme of your torture—be dead, for the protein cannot heal your tissues without circulation! Just think of what a clean and easy job the amputation will be when all of this is over. No blood to heal the atrophied fibers of those muscles. But we will take measures to ensure such a thing does not happen to the rest of you, so long as you truly have returned to the Family.”