Scilly Seasons

by Chris Tookey

  “Uther!” cried Wenda in dismay. She wished she were close enough to kick him. “Perhaps the Empress doesn’t wish to talk about that!”

  “No, no, that’s quite all right,” said the Empress. “For reasons that are for the moment immaterial, when my daughter was born I had to have her adopted. I was in Londinium at the time, staying with distant cousins, and they put me in touch with a wizard who they said would handle the matter for me in return for a small fee.”

  Honoria turned to look Osprey in the eyes.

  “I expect you can guess the identity of the wizard in question.”

  “Merlin,” said Osprey.

  “Precisely,” said Honoria. “I understand he has quite a profitable sideline in placing unwanted royal babies with surrogate parents.”

  “I wouldn’t know about that,” said Osprey. “My brother and I are scarcely on speaking terms. You found my brother trustworthy?”

  “Very much so,” said the Empress. “However, after I had established myself here, I began to wonder what had happened to my daughter. And I sent one of my dwarves to find out.”

  “It was Drains – I mean, Plumba – wasn’t it?” said Wyrd, suddenly.

  “How did you know that?” asked Honoria.

  “I guessed.”

  “Perhaps if you were to allow me to tell the story in my own way without interruption?” suggested Honoria.

  “Ah, sorry,” said Wyrd.

  “Where was I?” mused the Empress. “So, I sent Plumba to ask Merlin if I could have my daughter back. The next thing I knew, Plumba was flying back on a large gryphon, with my daughter on its back. He left here and then left us, saying he’d found a better job with Merlin. We’ve never seen him since.”

  “But where had your daughter been?” asked Osprey.

  “It turned out that Merlin had placed her in the foster-care of his own mother.”

  “What?” gasped Osprey.

  “Oh, yes, of course. That’s your mother too, isn’t it?” said Honoria.

  “Yes,” said Osprey, “but I haven’t seen her in years. We do not… see eye to eye.”

  “That rather seems to be a characteristic of your family, doesn’t it?” said Honoria. “Not that I’m in any position to cast the first stone.”

  “And you allowed my mother to bring your daughter up?” asked Osprey.

  Wyrd noticed that Osprey seemed appalled at the thought of his mother mothering anyone and wondered what Osprey’s own upbringing had been like.

  “I must say that she does seem to have brought up my daughter with a near-total lack of discipline,” sighed Honoria. “Morgana has a remarkably bad temper, which she makes little effort to control. And I don’t know what sort of ideas your mother had been filling her head with, but Morgana seems to find it impossible to embrace Christianity. Many of her beliefs appear to me to be – there’s no other word for it, I’m afraid – pagan. And her obsession with drugs, herbs and magic borders on wilful insanity. That is why I am hoping that you…”

  Here the Empress nodded towards Osprey and Wenda.

  “You will take her in hand.”

  “I shall certainly attempt to do so,” replied Osprey.

  ***

  “Well,” said Morgana, appearing beside Wyrd’s bed, wearing nothing but a diaphanous shift that left little to his imagination, “are you the one who’s meant to be taking me in hand?”

  “I, er,” said Wyrd, swallowing hard, “I think that’s Osprey’s job.”

  “What a pity,” said Morgana, licking her lips lasciviously.

  “How did you get in here?” asked Wyrd. “I thought my door was locked.”

  “A locked door is hardly going to stop me,” said Morgana. Her voice caressed him like a soft hand on his inner thigh. “As no doubt my mother told you, I spent most of my formative years being cared for by wizards. It’s hardly surprising that some of their magic wore off on me.”

  She slipped into bed beside him.

  “Are you a virgin?” she inquired.

  “Er, why do you ask?”

  “It’s probably because you’re trembling.”

  “Am I?” asked Wyrd. “I – I expect that’s because I’ve never been in bed with a witch before.”

  “Witch?” asked Morgana, her dark eyes twinkling merrily. “Is that what you think I am?”

  “It doesn’t matter what I think you are,” Wyrd pointed out, hoping that Morgana couldn’t see his hands shaking. “It’s what most people call a female wizard, and isn’t that what you are?”

  “Calling me a witch – that seems very unfair,” pouted Morgana. “Don’t you think?”

  “Right now I don’t know what to think,” said Wyrd honestly, as she trailed a finger across his chest.

  “When a man practises magic, they call him a wizard – which is another name for superb. But when a woman uses magic, she’s a witch. Which makes her sound old and wizened. Not all of us are ancient crones, you know.”

  “Oh, no, absolutely not,” stammered Wyrd. “I can see that, obviously.”

  “Want another dreamweaver?” asked Morgana. “I could vanish back to my room and get one.”

  “Not on my account,” said Wyrd. “I’m not sure I’ve recovered from the last one. Did I make a terrible fool of myself in front of your mother?”

  “A bit,” said Morgana, “but she won’t mind. She’s man mad.”

  “You think she liked me?”

  “It’s not a question of liking,” said Morgana. “Just imagine what it’s like living here, surrounded by nothing but dwarves and the occasional lizard-man. It’s very, very… Oh, what’s the word?”

  She pondered for a moment.

  “Tiresome?” suggested Wyrd. “Tedious?”

  “I think the word I’m searching for,” said Morgana, “is frustrating. You’re probably the first good-looking man she’s seen in seven years.”

  “What about Osprey?” asked Wyrd. “Don’t you think he’s handsome?”

  “That dried-up old prune?” laughed Morgana. “I wouldn’t have him. Besides, his parents brought me up. Having it off with him would be like incest.”

  She stretched out her arms and pulled her shift over her head, allowing him to appreciate her body in all its considerable glory.

  “You like?” she breathed.

  “Oh yes,” replied Wyrd honestly. “I, er, definitely like.”

  “Now, whatever you do, don’t call me a witch,” breathed Morgana into his ear, “or I may just have to turn you into a frog, or something worse.”

  “Wh-what would you like me to call you?”

  “Morgana will do. Or, if you like, Enchantress. Would you like me to enchant you?”

  She looked down at Wyrd’s body.

  “Oh, Uther, you bad, bad boy,” she giggled, “I see I already have.”

  ***

  The next morning, Wyrd turned up as arranged in the Empress Honoria’s main drawing room. He found Osprey there, reading.

  “You’re late,” snapped Osprey without looking up.

  Wyrd yawned.

  “Well, the Empress isn’t here either.”

  “That is immaterial,” said the wizard. “She is allowed to be late. She is an Empress.”

  “Ex-Empress,” said Wyrd. “Actually, I’m not sure she’s even that. Isn’t she just the sister of an Emperor?”

  “And the daughter of another Emperor. Not to mention the grand-daughter of the great Theodosius himself. Just sit down there,” said Osprey grumpily, “and ready yourself for her dictation.”

  “What’s that you’re reading?” asked Wyrd.

  “It’s the book she said I could borrow. The one by my brother, about Theodosius the Great.”

  “Wasn’t he known as the Hammer of the Heathens?”

  “He was also known as Def
ender of the Faith,” responded Osprey, icily. “A most determined cleanser of paganism in all its forms.”

  Just then the Empress Honoria swept into the room.

  “Are we ready?” she asked, then continued dramatically before anyone could say a word. “Ah, me, where to begin? What am I doing here? No, no, I can’t go through with it!”

  “My lady, it was you who called us here,” said Osprey.

  “So?” asked the Empress sharply.

  “So…” Osprey thought for a moment about how to phrase his thoughts delicately.

  “So it would be a pity if we were to go away empty-handed,” said Wyrd hurriedly.

  “You think any decision on my part not to go through with my memoirs might disappoint my public?” asked Honoria, who took to flattery like a duck to orange sauce.

  “Quite so,” said Osprey.

  “Ah! But who is my public?” asked the Empress, with exaggerated disdain for the miserable cares of the outside world. “A handful of malodorous monks, perhaps.”

  “Your words might reach Rome,” suggested Osprey, “and acquaint them with the injustice of your position. They might even enable you to return.”

  “You really think so? Ah, Rome! Rome!” whispered the Empress. “It seems but a dear, distant dream to me!”

  “I’d be fascinated to hear about your life,” said Wyrd.

  “You would?” Honoria gazed upon him. “What a dear, dear boy you are!”

  “As would I,” added Osprey. “I have been reading about your great ancestor, Theodosius I, in my brother’s book.”

  “I never got beyond the first chapter,” murmured the Empress.

  “It is through such books that the great are remembered,” continued Osprey.

  “Yes, yes,” replied the Empress tetchily.

  “It is through me that you may, indeed, achieve a kind of immortality.”

  “I believe you have made your point, Mr Osprey,” said the Empress. “There is no reason for you to labour it.”

  She sat and composed herself.

  “Very well,” she said. “I shall tell you my story, painful though it is. It is a tale such as no man has ever heard. Nor any dwarf, either.”

  “My lowly scribe is ready to transcribe your words,” observed Osprey, with a servile inclination of the head. “You have only to begin.”

  “Well, then,” began the Empress, “Ah, where to begin?”

  “Your name, perhaps?” suggested Osprey.

  “My name is Justa Grata Honoria. I was born in the year 428.”

  Osprey cleared his throat.

  “Excuse me, my lady, but should that not be the year 418? I happen to know that your age is…”

  Before he could complete the word ‘thirty-eight’, the Empress had interrupted him.

  “Is a lady not allowed some… liberty when it comes to her age?”

  “Not if she is embarking upon an autobiography,” replied Osprey. “That is, if it is to be an honest one.”

  “Very well,” continued Honoria with a sigh, “418 it is. My grandfather was of course Theodosius I, commonly called The Great. His daughter, Aelia Placida, was my mother. My father was the Emperor Flavius Constantius, usually known as the Emperor Constantine III. Sadly, I never knew him. He died when I was only three.”

  “You see?” said Osprey. “If we’d made your year of birth 428, your father would have died seven years before you were born. Which is, to say the least, biologically improbable.”

  “Am I constantly to be interrupted?” the Empress asked bleakly.

  “Of course not,” said Osprey. “Please forgive me.”

  “My father, the Emperor Constantius, started out as a career soldier from Eastern Europe. He rose to become the most powerful general in the Roman Army. He helped the empire resist barbarian invasions and that was when he was happiest. They say he was a master of military strategy but disliked the compromises of bureaucracy. He certainly abhorred the onerous formalities of public life.”

  “So perhaps, my lady, you could explain why he agreed to become Emperor?” suggested Osprey.

  “I think that his decision to assume the imperial burden may have been on the insistence of my mother, Gallia Placidia. She was more of a politician than he was. She persuaded her half-brother, who was of course the Emperor Honorius, to invite my father to be co-Emperor of the Western Empire. That was in the year 423, and within seven months my father was dead. I am not sure that the poor man could handle the responsibility.”

  “Surely he was used to responsibility,” inquired Osprey. “He had been leader of the whole Roman Army.”

  The Empress Honoria raised an imperious eyebrow. Wyrd had already noticed that she did not like it when anyone argued with her. She seemed particularly annoyed by Osprey’s latest interruption.

  “I blame the barbarians,” she said. “You must remember that, for years before that, the barbarians had been rampaging through the empire like mad dogs. It was in 410 that the Visigoths, under their King Alaric, sacked Rome. That was the first time the city had been taken by barbarians in seven centuries. And my uncle Honorius was powerless. He recalled the legions from Britain, but there was little he could do against forces that were quite obviously superior.”

  “It was around this time, was it not,” said Osprey, “that the British kings appealed to Honorius for assistance against the invading Picts, Scotti, Saxons and Jutes?”

  “Yes, but what could my uncle do, other than tell the British they were on their own, that they must do the best they could?”

  “If you don’t mind my saying so,” Osprey interposed reluctantly, “some might see that as a betrayal of Britain.”

  “Well, yes, perhaps they would,” said Honoria languidly. “But that is hardly my concern, is it?”

  Wyrd was surprised when Osprey persisted with his line of questioning.

  “Did your Uncle Honorius not promise the Emperor Theodosius I on his deathbed that he would never give up Britain?”

  “I daresay he did,” said the Empress airily, “but I can’t really be held responsible for the actions of my uncle, can I? Remember that all this happened before I was born. Besides, I was never able to ask Uncle Honorius about any of this. He died when I was five.”

  “Hmm,” commented Osprey, non-committally.

  Wyrd noticed that Osprey looked a trifle shaken, as though the Empress’s insouciance challenged his own concept of Roman honour.

  “So tell me, Empress,” continued Osprey, “do you remember anything about your Uncle Honorius?”

  “Very little. My mother once told me that, without my father to handle the military side of things, Uncle Honorius was a broken reed. He died, a couple of years after my father, and my mother realised that Italia was too dangerous a place to stay. So, she took my little brother and myself off to Constantinople and, let us say, ingratiated herself with my older uncle, Theodosius II. He had inherited the Eastern Empire from my mother’s oldest brother, Arcadius.”

  “How old was your mother?” inquired Osprey.

  “She was born in 390, so she would have been thirty-five at the time of Uncle Honorius’s death.”

  “And still an attractive woman?” suggested Osprey.

  “I see what you are driving at,” said Honoria. “But you are wrong. The Emperor Theodosius II was twelve years younger than my mother, practically a boy at twenty-one, and already married with a one-year-old daughter.”

  “Ah,” said Osprey, smiling, “but he had no son and heir.”

  “Precisely,” said Honoria, evidently gratified that Osprey was quick to grasp the niceties of imperial politics. “My mother saw the opportunity for my younger brother Valentinian to unite the empires of east and west – a project also dear to Theodosius II. And so they betrothed his daughter, Licinia Eudoxia, to my brother.”

  “I’m so
rry,” said Wyrd, whose head was spinning with all these names, places and dates, and was wondering how he would ever be able to put them in any coherent order. “I’m confused. I thought Valentinian was your little brother?”

  “Correct. So?” asked the Empress, in a puzzled voice.

  “But you said you were only five at the time of your Uncle Honorius’s death. How old was your brother?”

  “He was four.”

  “So, how old was he when he became betrothed to this Licinia Eudoxia?”

  “Four,” said the Empress.

  “And how old was his bride-to-be?”

  “I think she was one,” said the Empress, unable to see any problem. “Perhaps a month or two younger.”

  “But,” said Wyrd, attempting to understand the curious ways of Roman civilisation, “what would have happened if they’d grown up and hated each other?”

  “Funny you should say that,” said Honoria. “That is exactly what did happen. They married thirteen years later in 436, or it might have been 437, and neither of them ever could stand the other. I don’t think my brother ever forgave her for bearing him two daughters and no sons.”

  “But let’s return to the year you fled to Constantinople,” persisted Osprey. “Did this young Emperor Theodosius II look after you?”

  “He did more than that. When some ghastly usurper – Ioannes, I think his name was – seized power in the west, Theodosius sent a military expedition against him, defeated him and installed my little brother as emperor in the west.”

  “But how could a four-year-old boy rule an empire?” asked Wyrd.

  “Naturally, he didn’t,” said Honoria. “My mother ruled for him. And very effectively, too. She had Ioannes hideously mutilated, paraded before his followers and eaten by lions in the Coliseum, to set an example. And when that failed to deter all his followers – a general called Aetius immediately arrived in Italia with a huge force of Huns – my mother bought them off. She gave the Huns gold and made Aetius her chief of staff.”

  “Your mother sounds like a redoubtable lady,” said Osprey.

  “Oh, she was infinitely more competent than any of the men in my family,” said Honoria. “That is where I take after her.”