A white metropolitan moved within range, and suddenly Afanásy attacked, wielding his sword with deadly accuracy, striking him down mercilessly. He stood there appalled while the churchman bled all over the square, crying out: “My brother, my brother, why hast thou forsaken me?”
He would have stopped and begged for forgiveness or at least tried to aid the archbishop, but there was nothing he could do: he could not cross the boundaries surrounding him on all sides. He seemed doomed to repeat what he now knew was an old, old game.
The white king was soon besieged within a protecting ring of his few remaining warriors. The boy could hear the black king gloating as he drew ever closer behind him.
“I have you this time, old friend, I have you now!” the fiend chortled.
But as the black monarch passed the boy on the square next to his, suddenly Afanásy swiveled with all of his strength, and somehow struck right through the wall of his square, cutting into the legs of the dark king, hamstringing him.
The face of the creature turned toward him, hissing, “S-strike the traitor down.”
The remaining dark warriors began closing in on all sides, and the boy knew that he was doomed.
Then the hand of the white king elongated across the board and touched him lightly on the head.
“You’ll do,” he said, and the boy passed out.
* * * * * * *
When Afanásy awoke, he was still sitting on his stool in the abbot’s antechamber, his left hand gripping the original pawn so tightly that he could feel the cold ridges of the piece digging into the cuts on his palm. He released it, and looked down at the brown, dried blood staining the insides of his rings. He then caught the hard eyes of the hieromonk staring directly into his soul.
“Never forget, son,” Arik Rufímovich said, “that I know who you are. I am not the fool that you think I am. Neither are most people. Now let’s go find the abbot.”
Outside on the terrace, Jován was staring northward at a large, dark cloud that was billowing up on the distant horizon.
“When did that storm arise?” Arik asked.
“Sevyerovínsk is burning,” the older man replied. “The Nörrlanders have come.”
The hieromonk could see the tears staining the older man’s cheeks.
“Time for you to go, friend Arik,” the abbot said. “Use the viridaurum in my study to transit directly to Myláßgorod, and report to the king immediately. We need reinforcements and supplies as quickly as possible. Ah, I see that you will be traveling with a boon companion. Very well, I give you my blessing, but remember what I told you earlier.
“Come, there’s no time to delay. The barbarians will be here within a few days, and I have much to do to prepare their especial welcome.”
Half an hour later the two men embraced and gave each other the kiss of peace.
“Keep well, my brother in Christ,” the hieromonk said. “Don’t take any unnecessary chances, Jován.”
“Nor you, my old friend,” the abbot said. “You were always my best pupil, Arik, and watching you progress has been one of the great joys of my life. Never forget this place whence you sprang, when you walk amongst the tiled halls and titled nobles of Paltyrrha. I see great things yet to come for you, great sorrows and great joys. Keep true to Our Lord, and keep true to yourself, always.”
Then he turned to the boy.
“As for you, Athanasios Hokhanêmsos, the Unvraveler of Fate, I know how much you like that name. You shall walk the path of the righteous man, and then you shall have nothing to fear when you come before the throne of God for His final judgment. I specifically charge you to serve, protect, and obey the hieromonk Arik Rufímovich as if he were your own father, for all of your days, for as long as you both shall live. Now, give me your pledge on this, and be gone, the lot of you.”
“I do so swear, Father Abbot,” said the boy, kneeling, crossing himself, and kissing his paired thumbs as they were both blessed by the primate. Then Afanásy entered the alcove with Arik, hand laced in hand.
As the travelers stepped through the viridaurum with a slight whoosh of air, Jován made the sign of the cross and whispered a quick prayer to the Holy Abbot Ézzard, asking him to watch over his two friends throughout their many journeys to come.
The cleric said out loud: “I shall not see you again in this world, my dear ones. May Almighty God bless you and care for you, forever and ever. Amen.”
He turned his back on the great glowing greengold mirror and attended once more to his duties, but his last words echoed within the chamber for long after he was gone from this earth, until they too finally faded away with time.
For it is time, as Agnós Zélénÿ relates, it is Father Time who grinds down all men’s thoughts into sand, sifting through the leftovers for a mere morsel of worth—but leaving unto history the human accounting of the whole, and to God the Adjudicator the final judgment of the soul.
CHAPTER FOUR
“I CAN DO AS I PLEASE”
Anno Domini 1205
Anno Juliani 845
The King of Pommerelia was drunk, drunk, drunk!, gloriously drunk and in love with himself and his destiny and his power!
This had been the happiest day of his thirty-eight years, and he was determined to relish every last moment of it. All about him the room glittered with promise, everything pointed to his great and glamorous and ever-grasping future. Four walls might restrain this hall, he thought to himself, but they surely did not constrain him or his ambitions one little bit, not at all. He would show them, he would show them all, exactly what he was capable of, now that he had come into his own.
He glanced to his right, and took note of his idiot father, demanding mother, silly brother, insipid sons, and uglier daughter. All were unworthy of this, his great night. To his left, he noticed, his scrawny little wife gabbled at her not-so-scrawny entourage, none of them making or having any more sense than a barnyard full of flighty fowl. Squawk, squawk, squawk, they jabbered, cluck, cluck, cluck, blither, blather, bother. Not worth a pail of warm horsepiss, any of them. And to think that he, His Royal Highness the Rightful King of Hinterpommern and Vorpommern and All the Pommerns in Between, actually derived from such miserable stock. Well, they’d soon be cackling to another chorus, if he had his way.
He peered straight across the great hall at another longtable crawling with the hairy beasts who called themselves the nobility of Kórynthia. There, just at the center, he could see the dreary old dog himself, balefully watching the proceedings with his all-seeing eye, and barking every so often at his pack of supercilious sons, who went running pall-mall to fetch his well-chewed bones. Woof, woof, woof! He had to lick their paws for now, oh, he understand that little fact all too well, but soon, yes, very soon, they would all be baying at the moon, would be howling a very different tune, and he would be the one leading the pack! A smile crossed his face as he contemplated exactly what he had in mind for the old king and his mangy hounds. A few leashes and lashes would do wonders for their dispositions, he knew.
A third longtable, ranging to his left, displayed to rather poor advantage Their Most Petit Sovereignties, the d-duke and d-d-duchess and d-d-d-daughters and all the d-d-d-d-dinky little lords of Mährenia the Minor-Pip-on-the-Map, a pimple of a state if there ever was one, whose “rulers” had presented themselves at this august gathering to set their seal on the “grand alliance” that would finally and forever finish the Walküre line. As if they could contribute anything worthwhile to the coming campaign, other than their toy soldiers and pipsqueak nobility.
Finally, there on the “right side” of the hall he could see the long, lazy line of the lords spiritual, all of them sitting up as straight on their seats as forbidden sins: the Thrice Holy Patriarch of Paltyrrha and All Kórynthia (ho hum, ho hum), together with his equally dreary metropolitans and archbishops and bishops and priestlings and protopresbyters and all that drivel, each of them damning this or prohibiting that, as if anyone ever l
istened to the old farts anyway. Gad, how stultifying that a man of his grace had to waste his valuable time bowing and praying and begging the help of these leeches upon the resources of the state. He’d like to put a few them out on the front lines and see how they’d fare when the Walküres started charging them with their lances leveled at their gullivers. He giggled at the thought of that fat little sissy, Archbishop Sisíny, writhing on the spit of an enemy spear.
He intermittently noticed (without really noticing) the retainers and lesser nobles flitting in and about and behind his table like burly bumblebees, waiting for a chance to cross-pollinate their many masters and mistresses, and thereby harvest, they hoped, a little honey; but only for a moment, because such passing moments were all he seemed to possess on this fine inaugural day. Suddenly the huge, flapping banners celebrating the arms of state and church caught his bloodshot eyes with their vibrant, beckoning hues.
Oh glorious day, he thought, oh irreplaceable day, now slipping away!
Then his attention was diverted by the macaronic performers scattered around the alternating black-and-white tile squares at center stage: jugglers juggling, clowns cackling, scantily-draped dancers dipping (ripe for the plucking they were!), fire-eaters tossing their brands high and high and higher into the air (one of them missed and set his own hair aflame!), gymnasts swinging and jumping hither and yon and in between, singers awarbling their warbles (whatever they were), and oh! so many others, far, far too many for him to count or even comprehend in this, his wretchedly glorified estate of grace. Every so often they would exchange places, and he tried to renumber and remember them again, but it was all too much, just too confusing for whatever it was that was in his mind. He really should stop them all, he thought, he really should order them to cease and desist!; but that would take too much energy now, just to levitate from his throne into the air, yes it would, and he didn’t really have anything left, after all the contemplation of his gloriosities.
Then he perked up again and tried to catch the eye of the pretty Mährenian princess perched just to the right of her royal father, but she kept her face and lips most dutifully cast down.
“Lift up your bright ey’n, ma petite karlina,” he muttered unto himself, “and I’ll show you a few things about improving the relations between our houses.”
A pity she was promised to that Kórynthi bratwurst, he mused.
That prompted an idea of such a lascivious nature that he laughed out loud, causing some of his family and retainers to eye him queerly.
“I can do as I please,” he shouted back at them. “I’m the king now. I am!”
The newly-minted Queen Pulkhériya, perched immediately to his left, began honking like a goose in response to the mimes mimicking their meaningless, mindless routines.
God’s breath! he thought. She even eats like a fowl, pick-pick-picking at every little thing in front of her. No wonder her bosoms are so small.
He belched quite loudly and wiped his mouth on his greasy sleeve.
“More wine!” he yelled at the morons serving him. “More food!”
More power! he shouted to himself.
None of them understood anything, but they would soon enough! A king had to rule or be ruled—he’d learned that by watching his father—and he was determined never, ever, ever to follow that particular example.
He raised up on his stool and farted a royal blast, and once again suffered the supreme enjoyment of seeing a look of disgust impress itself on his dear, dear wife’s too-thin face. He turned to her, smiled, and deliberately stuck out his tongue, grinning even more when she turned her head away.
CHAPTER FIVE
“MIND YOUR MANNERS!”
Over at the Mährenian table Duchess Johanna caught King Humfried ogling her young daughter and shuddered, frowning in her distaste and disgust.
What boors these Forellës are, she thought. Whatever was Ferdy thinking when he made an alliance with these uncouth easterners?
She looked around the room, her mouth pursing with her displeasure.
And these furnishings: why, nothing matches anything else! In Zaragossa we could have taught these barbarians a few lessons. Now, if I were running things....
She suddenly spotted something out of the corner of her eye, abruptly thrust her husband back in his seat, and leaned her firm bosoms right across his chest.
“Rosanna!” she hissed, “straighten up, girl! You’re a Kürbis! Start acting like one!”
To her left her other daughter started giggling over her elder’s misfortune.
“Quiet!” their mother said, killing them both with thunderbolts from her eyes. “Mind your manners!”
Duchess Johanna then looked across the room at the Kórynthi clergy, and frowned again.
But the worst thing, she thought to herself, is that we’ll have to bow and scrape now before these heathen churchmen. They chant and coo all this Greekish lingo that none of us can understand, instead of good honest Romanish. Oh, dear Lord Almighty, how I wish that I was back again within the warm embrace of Andalusia, listening to the heated homilies of good Archquisitor Sylverio. Our Holy Roman Cæsar would know what to do with the antipapistos. He’d burn them all!
A tear rolled down her right cheek. She daintily and tastefully wiped it away with the linen nappy she always carried in her sleeve. Thank Jehovah that she had had it changed for a new one just before leaving on this arduous journey.
Directly across the hall from her, Timotheos Metropolitan of Örtenburg spotted Johanna looking at Humfried, and slyly canted his head to one side.
“Athy,” he said softly over his shoulder, “who’s that woman in blue near the center of the Mährenian table?”
Archpriest Athanasios, a man of some forty years, quickly stepped forward and squinted a little.
“I believe that’s Duchess María Juana, called Johanna, consort to Duke Ferdinand,” he whispered. “She hails originally from Zaragossa. Her father was Hereditary Prince Rómulo. If you recall, he’s the one who was killed in that nasty jousting accident at the Saint-Boeuf Fair in Austrasia. Of course, some folks don’t really believe that it was an accident. After his younger brother Pelayo succeeded to the throne, ten or more years ago, he quickly packed Johanna off to Mährenia as Ferdinand’s second wife. They say that the duke can’t visit the garde-robe without her permission.”
“She doesn’t seem too happy about the proceedings,” Timotheos said.
Athanasios laughed out loud.
“She has a reputation of not being happy about much of anything,” he said. “Rumor hath it that she vigorously opposed the treaty of alliance between Mährenia and Kórynthia, mostly on religious grounds. She’s a staunch cæsarist. Uncharacteristically, she failed to sway her husband’s mind, despite several very loud and public attempts to do so; and thus she sits there pouting her displeasure out for anyone to see. I suspect that old Ferdy will pay a fearful price for his wayward willfulness.”
Both men chuckled at the thought.
“What’s your assessment of our new pretender?” Timotheos asked.
“Well, he’s certainly a cheerful monarch, isn’t he?” Athanasios said. “I’d say he’s in particularly good spirits this evening.”
“Indeed,” the metropolitan agreed. “I wonder what our good King Kyprianos thinks of all this?”
But good King Kipriyán was troubled in his mind: everything was going well, rather too well, in fact. As he gazed around the room with his one good eye, he noticed Humfried guzzling another flagon of the Fontana brew and leering at the female guests.
Gad, he sighed to himself, the man is incorrigible. The damned Forellës always were insensitive louts. We’ll have to keep a tight rein on that one. Well, time to get the thing started.
He caught his eldest son’s eye, and said “come hither” with a quick sideways jerk of his bushy head.
Arkadios, Hereditary Prince of Kórynthia and Duke of Paltyrrha, was just thirty years of age,
but seemed older. His frame was slight and his stature middling. His face was illuminated by a pair of crystalline blue eyes, shining intensely with a keen intelligence that missed nothing. His light brown hair had a curl to it that kept flopping forward onto his brow, but that was the only untidy thing about him. His reddish-brown beard was cropped close to the skin, and contoured along the jawline, giving him a rakish look.
Kipriyán nodded to himself: he liked the face, and he admired the man within. Here was a prince who knew exactly who and what he was, and who accepted the idea with great good grace.
I have done this one thing well, the king thought to himself. If all else fails, I have at least sired a worthy heir.
“Father?” Arkády whispered softly at the king’s shoulder, startling the older man out of his reverie.
The prince shared his sire’s distaste for the House of Forellë, but very carefully kept his opinions to himself. Humfried was, after all, his own first cousin, son of the Old Pretender Ezzö and Arkády’s Aunt Teréza, and it was not the heir’s place to challenge his king’s policies. He lightly touched his father on the shoulder with his psai-ring, immediately establishing a practiced link.
We’d best begin the festivities, Kipriyán thought to his son, before yon kingling finds his way into Slumberland.
The king flashed his son an image of a braying ass with Humfried’s face.
Arkády choked down a laugh.
On my way, lord father, he said psychically.
CHAPTER SIX
“TO SKIM WITH WINGS
THE PATH OF THE ÆTHER”
The prince carefully extricated himself from the group of servers and courtiers surrounding the monarch, and made his way down the left side of the longtable. Arkády was clothed in a striking white tunic enchequed with the crouching tiger from the Tighrishi coat of arms. ’Round his waist he sported a broad silver belt secured with an ornate buckle fashioned as a tughra swirl that, if held to the light, spelled with its shadow-cast the word “Tighris.” The strap itself was embellished with incuse lettering in the Hellenic tongue, reproducing the motto first writ down by Iôv the Magôteros, mage and saint: “Psairein pterois oimon aitheros,” which is to say, “to skim with wings the path of the æther.” These were the words, beyond “I believe,” “I love,” and “I serve,” that had shaped the entire course of his character, and that he followed faithfully until the very end of his days.
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