After Hours: Tales From Ur-Bar

by Joshua Palmatier; Patricia Bray

  As the last echo of the chime faded, a golden disk appeared on the table. Otto could not read the upsidedown Latin incised into the disk, but spotted his own name, Mars and Roma. Air filled his lungs. It was the terms of his offer. That must mean—

  “I accept.”

  Flushed with triumph, Otto was in a daze as he visited the monastery of San Zacharia, although fortunately the monks misconstrued his befuddlement for religious rapture. He made his way back to the Doge’s palace unseen, and changed into the garments of a mid-level court appointee for his presentation to the Doge the next morning as part of the diplomatic party. He congratulated himself on his cleverness, as none of the Venetian court save Peter and his aides knew that the humble man at the back of the party was really the Holy Roman Emperor. Knowing it was vital that no one suspect the true reason for his visit, he met in secret with the Doge as planned, and still put on his poor pilgrim’s clothes to make his visits to the churches and monasteries that the members of his court thought he’d come for. After two days, he slipped back onto John’s boat to return to the monastery at Pomposa where he’d supposedly been taking a health cure on the shores of Lake Comacchio.

  Once back in Ravenna, Otto redoubled his ostentatious religious devotion, making barefoot pilgrimages, kneeling on stones until his knees bled, and allowing chosen courtiers to discover him wearing hair shirts beneath his court raiment. His devotion had always been at least as much pageantry as piety, but now he put on a show that no one would forget.

  The people and religious leaders must have no cause to question his faith. They must never guess that he had made a deal with Mars.

  He sent messages to his vassals, ordering them to send troops. First he would have his revenge on Rome, and then he would embark upon his destiny. But the wait was excruciating. His messengers had to travel over the Alps and throughout the length and breadth of Germany, summoning men from the fields where they labored.

  But after all, why should he delay? He had the Holy Lance. He could not lose in battle. The troops he had at hand would be sufficient to retake Rome, and from that victory he would launch a campaign that would strike terror into the hearts of his enemies.

  By June, his patience had worn completely through. Despite his advisors’ warnings, he gathered those troops who had already arrived and led them to Rome.

  His small army crested the hills surrounding the city, and he paused, struck as always by the city’s beauty. The travertine buildings gleamed a warm white in the sun. There was the parkland where Roman gladiators had raced their chariots. There was the now empty Coliseum, open to the sky, whose seats would once again be filled with cheering throngs beneath graceful awnings of sailcloth when he returned in triumph from Byzantium. Towering columns and domes of cathedrals dotted the city, erasing all memory of the Romans’ pagan temples.

  He did not sound the charge.

  Instead, he rode slowly back and forth across the hilltops, watching the shifting play of light and shadow on the city as the sun wheeled through the sky, and remembered the speech he had given only last January.

  “Are you not my Romans, for whose sake I left my fatherland and friends? Whose fame I would have carried to the ends of the earth? I have preferred you to all others. . . . However, I find it monstrous that my most faithful followers, in whose innocence I triumph, are mixed together with the evildoers.”

  How many of those glorious edifices would fall when he attacked? How many of those innocent people who were loyal to him would die in the bloodbath that followed? How could he start the conquest of his empire with the destruction of his own capital city? He would not become the next Charlemagne, he’d become the next Attila.

  The problem was the size of his army. The people of Rome did not realize that his divine mandate ensured his victory, so would stand and fight against his troops. The resulting massacre would have no glory to it. It would not be a fitting sacrifice to Mars. There would be no cowed and obedient people, worshipping at the war god’s altar, only piles of corpses.

  No. He could not do it.

  He summoned his captains to him. “We do not have enough men. We will ride back to Ravenna, and wait for the rest of the soldiers. When the full army is here in the fall, then I will return and crush Rome beneath my boot heel.”

  The captains shifted restlessly, and traded sidelong glances with each other, but raised no objections. A few mumbled agreement, while the rest knew better than to question the dictates of their Emperor. The only one he had to explain himself to was Mars, and he was confident that the god would understand his reasoning.

  Otto turned and led the army back the way they had come, glancing over his shoulder to see the city of Rome disappearing behind the hills. A trick of the setting sun bathed the hills in blood.

  He called for another fur cloak to protect him from the sudden chill that settled into his bones.

  A soldier he didn’t recognize rode up, his arms filled with heavy furs. Otto took a cloak, and swung it around his shoulders. It didn’t help. The cold he felt emanated from within, and no amount of furs could keep it at bay. Still, he took the second fur as well.

  “You retreated from the battle without firing so much as a single arrow,” the soldier accused.

  Otto lifted his head, shocked at the man’s temerity. How dare he question—

  Dimly, like a ghost, the image of Mars’s features flickered over the soldier’s face.

  He stiffened, inwardly cursing the lack of time to prepare an eloquent and reasoned defense. He hated having to depend upon mere facts. “I did not bring enough men. Why waste their lives attacking now, when I will need them to attack Byzantium later? I will come back in the fall, with a full army, and show Rome the folly of her ways.”

  “There will never be enough men to give you the courage you lack. With my spear in hand, you could have taken Rome with only your standard bearer at your side.” A golden disk appeared in Mars’s hands, covered with deeply incised Latin words. The god snapped it in half, releasing a blinding spray of golden light. “You have broken our agreement. You will never stand on the far shores of Byzantium, knowing that it belongs to you. You turned your back on your own God, and the worship of a coward means nothing to me. You will not have the world. You will have nothing.”

  Mars rode off, waiting for neither response nor dismissal. Otto thought about calling him back, but he lacked the strength, instead huddling deep within his furs.

  The world spun around him, and it was almost more than he could manage to keep his seat on his horse. His bones ached, as if a bevy of blacksmiths had tried to temper them on their anvils.

  He had made a serious mistake. But if he could deliver Rome, perhaps Mars would relent and deliver Byzantium. That thought sustained him in the months that followed, when it seemed his very body was determined to betray him with weakness.

  Finally, at the end of the year, all of his vassals’ soldiers had arrived, and he was able to march on Rome with a force large enough to terrify them into submission. But he would never see the city.

  He took shelter in the castle of Paterno, consumed by fever. His dear friend and former tutor, Pope Sylvester, came to comfort him, but his words of Christ’s divine forgiveness meant nothing to Otto.

  A soft summer breeze blew through the room, although the window was shuttered against the January cold. Golden sunlight seemed to stream from the ceiling, illuminating a patch of lush grass growing from the stone floor. A beautiful woman wearing silver armor stepped out of the light.

  Otto struggled to sit up, but she placed a cool hand against his forehead, pressing him back onto the bed. Amazingly, no one else reacted to a woman being in his sickroom.

  “They can neither see nor hear me, Otto. Only you.”

  “Who are you?” he whispered.

  “You know who I am. Minerva.”

  “Goddess of learning.” If he had the energy, he would have laughed. His heart had always belonged to the scholarly pursuits. After all he had done, tr
ying to force himself to be a warrior, she was the one who had come to him.

  “I am also the goddess of war.” All gentleness faded from her expression. “You should have appealed to me instead of Mars.”

  “Have you come only to tell me what a fool I was?”

  She shook her head, her features once again softening. “I cannot heal you from the curse of Mars’s soul fire. But have no fear. You will be remembered. Not for your conquests, but for your mystery. A thousand years from now, scholars will still be arguing over the meaning of your secret visit to Venice, and what you hoped to accomplish.”

  “I failed. . . .”

  “Only because you ended your studies too soon. If you are willing to learn another lesson, I will take you to drink of the river of forgetfulness, and be born in a new body. One born to poverty and squalor rather than an empire. If you can succeed there, you may yet achieve the glory you desire.”

  At least he wouldn’t have to see his mother in the afterlife, and admit how he had failed her, or explain to the father he’d never known why the line of Ottonian emperors ended with him.

  Struggling against the weight of his unresponsive body, Otto lifted his hand to Minerva.

  Her fingers closed around his.

  THE TALE THAT WAGGED THE DOG

  Barbara Ashford

  AS Michael, Rona, and I enter Gil’s establishment, a familiar voice calls out, “Stop me if you’ve heard this one. A priest, a selkie, and a talking dog walk into a bothy. . . .”

  The fur on my neck instinctively bristles. Although I usually smile at Thomas’ lame jokes, my transformation has rendered me understandably sensitive to those about talking dogs. Before I can concoct a clever retort, a tankard soars through the air. Still smiling, Thomas the Rhymer falls backwards off the bench, landing with an audible crunch of rushes.

  Every head in the place swivels towards Gil. Slowly, he lowers the wooden cup he is wiping and leans on the trestle table, staring at the corner from whence the tankard was launched.

  I think Wallace gives a half-shrug—all he can manage since he has yet to unearth the final quarter of his body from its unmarked resting place in Perth—but it’s hard to tell. The peat fire smoldering in the center of the bothy lends a lovely aroma to the place but little light.

  When Gil continues to stare, Wallace calls out, “Sorry.”

  Gil resumes his meticulous cleaning. The faeries flanking Thomas help him back onto the bench. Every head swivels towards Rona.

  Although my companion is dressed in a sober kirtle and gown, there’s no mistaking her otherworldly origins. Her face glows like the rising moon. Her linen kerchief merely accentuates the silky black hair that cascades down her back. And when that dark gaze rests upon you, you feel the warmth from toes to belly and your pintle grows hard as a stave.

  Needless to say, she’s quite popular with the largely male clientele at Gil’s. Even Robert the Bruce stops picking at his scabs when she comes in.

  It’s a pretty good crowd for a Saturday. The usual mix of dead heroes, enchanted folk, and curious locals line the three trestle tables. The scent of roasting lamb emanates from the central fire pit, combining with a dizzying bouquet of peat smoke, wet wool, and stale sweat. My nostrils quiver with delight and my tongue flicks out to intercept the thin line of drool oozing down my muzzle.

  Rona and I head towards our usual table, leaving Michael to linger before the stone tablet. Like all those who find their way to Gil’s, Michael desires the magical elixir. So far, the only elixirs I’ve seen Gil serve are ale and whisky. However, Michael remains convinced that the small stone tablet hanging near the doorway holds clues and spends countless hours attempting to decipher the queer scratchings etched upon it.

  When Wallace first pointed Michael out to me, I naturally hurried over to make his acquaintance. If the famed Wizard of the North could transform copper into silver, he might be equally adept in returning me to my natural form. I made it as far as “My name’s Tam Lin and the Queen of Faerie transformed me into a Border collie and I was wondering. . . .” Whereupon Michael launched into a tirade about his non-magical credentials—theologian, mathematician, philosopher, astrologist, confidant of Frederick II—and I politely excused myself.

  Thomas is far easier to talk to, and I am especially eager to talk to him tonight. My hope that he has finally convinced the Queen to lift her curse far outweighs my pique over his taste in jokes.

  As Rona and I approach, the faeries rise and make their way to another table, ostentatiously snubbing me. Thomas rises as well and bows to Rona. For all his eccentricities, he has retained the fine manners of a laird. Maybe that’s why the Bitch Queen dotes on him no matter how many times he leaves her, while my desertion sent her into a rage.

  As I leap onto the bench, Thomas suddenly bellows, “On the morrow, afore noon, shall blow the greatest wind ever heard in Scotland.”

  A hush descends. The last time Thomas uttered those prophetic words, Scotland’s king died the following day.

  Several things happen in rapid succession:

  Robert the Bruce shakes his fist at Thomas, shouting, “You’ll not prophesy the death of the last heir to the House of Bruce!”

  Michael strides towards our table, shouting something about substance, potentiality and actuality.

  William Wallace jumps to his feet. His head rolls across the rushes, shouting, “I’ll give you a great wind!” His body rips out a tremendous fart.

  Gil leans over the table to murmur something in Thomas’ ear.

  “Oh, dear,” Thomas replies. “Well. That would explain....” He waves his hand vaguely at the shades of Wallace and the Bruce, still gesticulating angrily from their respective corners. “Sorry. Sorry, everyone! Still a little flummoxed from Faerie. Starting to prophesy backwards like Merlin.”

  Wallace retrieves his head. I’ve always wondered how he manages to find it when his eyes are looking elsewhere, but being transformed into a dog and cursed to spend eternity in that form encourages one to accept the unexplainable.

  Before I can ask whether the Bitch Queen has relented, Thomas whispers, “Forgive me for prying, Tam, but surely Janet cannot approve of a liaison with a selkie.”

  Knowing that Thomas’ memory is always a bit hazy in the days following his return from the Otherworld, I remind him that my wife moved back to her father’s hall seven years ago. This after clinging to me like a leech on that harrowing flight from Faerie, during which I was transformed into any number of horrible beasts as well as a vessel of burning iron.

  “But after I threw you down the well, you were a man again,” Janet remarked as she briskly packed up her belongings. “For a while.”

  “It’s not my fault the royal bitch held a grudge.”

  “Maybe not. But you can’t expect me to have carnal relations with a dog. It would be sinful. Besides which I don’t much like you.”

  After all I’d been through. Even now, it galls me.

  Thomas gestures for Rona to sit. She pays no attention, of course. Webbed fingers idly braiding a lock of hair, she stares east, her head cocked as she strains to hear the sea. She’s always doing that. Even when I’m humping her leg. It’s a bit off-putting.

  I bark to attract her attention. Her gaze focuses on me. When I see tears forming in those dark eyes, I look away. She seats herself, sighing.

  “Your lovely companion seems melancholy tonight,” Thomas notes.

  “Selkies are a melancholy lot.”

  “Only if someone steals their sealskins and they are trapped in human . . . ah.”

  There is much to recommend Thomas. Beautiful singing voice, beautiful ballads, beautiful manners, but definitely not the sharpest scythe in the shed. Another reason the Bitch Queen dotes on him.

  I can’t hold a tune or write one, and my manners are only so-so, but I was an incredibly handsome man. Faery or human, queen or serving wench, women couldn’t get enough of me. Even now, I attract more than my share of feminine attention, although th
ese days, it’s generally from hounds and collies and the odd lapdog. Since Janet left, I’ve had most of the bitches betwixt Dryburgh and Galashiels. Rona takes little notice of my infidelities. Even when I recount them. Too busy sighing and staring east towards the sea.

  The threatened tears now ooze down her flawless white cheeks. Each time Thomas dabs at one with his handkerchief, another spills over.

  “You had to mention the skin.”

  “Sorry,” Thomas mumbles, still trying to stem the flood. “Can’t seem to do anything right tonight.”

  “I don’t suppose you know where it is?”

  Thomas’ eyes widen. “You mean to say you lost it?”

  “I didn’t mean to!”

  I don’t mean to snap at him, either, but his appalled expression makes me feel nearly as guilty as Rona’s tears.

  A dozen times a sennight, I apologize. I tell her that I was overcome by her beauty when I saw her sunbathing naked on that boulder. I tell her that I was lonely. That I wanted to feel flesh under my tongue instead of fur. That I fully intended to return her skin after a bit of firkytoodling.

  Back in my cottage, we firkied and toodled the day away. And the night. All right, so I didn’t go back to the river the next day. Or the day after. It was raining fit to drown us. And Rona was having as much fun as I. Smiling and laughing and performing all manner of carnal acts that Janet wouldn’t consider even when I was a man.

  The morning after the storm, the River Tweed was in full spate. Took two days for the waters to recede. The alder I’d buried her sealskin under was gone, but I nosed around, digging under every branch and log and uprooted tree littering the riverbank.

  Come to that, Rona bears some of the blame for swimming so far upriver. Imagine thinking Selkirk was a church for selkies. If she’d stayed at Berwick, none of this would have happened.

  Now she’s bound to me. Every morning, we walk the banks of the Tweed, searching for her skin. Every evening, we return empty-handed to my cottage. Every night, I have to listen to her weep.