Here, In This Place: An Origin Tale

F  I  F  T E E N

 

EATING

WITH

OTHERS

 

“My eyes demanded they see such a man.”

-Hagar

The meal was in the dining room they had merely passed through this afternoon. The lanterns Sunny had barely noticed were brightly lit, and a chamber orchestra played softly in a corner of the well lit hall. He and Kruinh arrived where Chris and Laurie were already standing in burgundy and charcoal suits, and David and Dan looked like different versions of James Bond in their tuxedos. Tanitha’s hair was in elaborate black coils,, sparkling with jewels and Miriamne, whom Kruinh stood beside, placing Sunny on his right, was in her usual black, but in a great belled and lavish gown, her hair caught up in a pearl snood.

“It is good to dress for supper now and again,” she said.

Now, coming into the hall from the other side were two women Sunny had never seen. One wore a bronze colored matte gown, and her skin was bronze, her eyes were blue and her hair polished and held back in a great braid was as bronze as her gown. Jewels as bright blue as her eyes hung from her throat and around her wrists, and Miriamne said, “This is our older sister, Asenath.”

The woman behind her walked with a third, and Sunny knew they had an oldest sister, one who had gone through strange times, and this third woman was hooded, but the sister behind Asenath was redheaded and green eyed, though the same color as Kruinh, and looking at that hair, before she spoke, Sunny knew her.

“Rhodias,” Miriamne said.

“The mother of Rosamunde.”

Each sister decorously came to the table, kissing Miriamne on both cheeks and then Kruinh, each giving a slight genuflection, and then the hooded one lifted her hood and Sunny’s eyes nearly fell out of his head while Kruinh, so full of romance and lust all day, looked like a cat as he nearly slashed at the face of no woman, but of Gabriel.

“What is the meaning of this?” Tanitha demanded.

“If your father can bring you, can I not bring my son?” Rhodias demanded.

“I am not a murderer.”

“We are all murderers,” Rhodias said.

“Uncle,” Gabriel began. “Sunny—”

“Get my name out of your mouth.”

“I should kill the both of you,” Kruinh said, simply.

“Your son is fugitive,” Tanitha said. “His life is forfeit. As is your daughter’s.”

Rhodias threw back her head and laughed. She laughed so long, Sunny though she might never stop.

And then before speaking, Rhodias spat.

“Oh, the mighty Tanitha! Ever the proudbitch as was her half breed mother!”

“Enough,” Kruinh said.

“I was a princess for centuries, born to the blood before you or your whore of a mother or this, my brother, were ever born, but now, in the house of my fathers, when my own daughter is already a prisoner, you would take from me the comfort of my remaining son.”

“Are you through?” Kruinh asked.

Rhodias fixed him with an angry green eyed smile, and Asenath said, “Brother, sister, let us find some measure of peace. So close to the Yuletide of the year.”

“And you knew she would do this?” Kruinh said to his sister.

“That,” the bronze haired Asenath said, “I did not. Not until today. None of us was supposed to be here, but we are all here, so there it is.”

Kruinh prepared to speak, but Asenath said, “You may be the head of this family, and Miriamne may be the head of this house, but I am the oldest of us in this room, and I say,” she took Rhodias’s wrist, “hold your peace.”

“Apologize to Tanitha,” Miriamne said, “and to the memory of her mother.”

“I will not apologize,” the golden skinned drinker said, “to this black bitch, who has plagued my family for so—”

Before David could leap to her defence, just like that, in her fine gown, Tanitha had rounded the table and seized her aunt by her red hair, slamming her face into the table.

“Listen, you wicked old whore,” she hissed. “Your daughter lives on my sufferance, and you stay in this house because of me. Never forget, I am the Mistress of Visastruta, and your allegiance is to my father and to me.”

Rhodias whimpered and Tanitha lifted her head, only to slam it with a great clanging of china to the table again.

“Every breath you take is by my grace, you stupid bitch,” she hissed. “Do you understand?”

Rhodias whimpered and no one did anything. The law of the family was a rough one, and Gabriel blenched while Tanitha slammed his mtoher’s head into the table again.

“Do you understand”

“Yes…” the words came from Rhodias’s mouth, more like yesh than yes.

Tanitha released her, taking a breath. Her aunt’s face was battered and red, bleeding on one side.

“Now apologize,” Tanitha said.

Rhodias drew a great indignant breath, but she curtseyed low, despite her ruined appearance and spat out a tooth.

“Forgive me,” her muffled voice murmured, “my lady.”

Tanitha, expressionless, held out her dark hand. Rhodias kissed it. Nodding for her aunt to rise Tanitha returned to her seat beside the amazed David.

“And now,” Kruinh said, folding his hands together, “someone should ask the blessing.”

Later, Sunny would insist that if one could imagine a food it was at that table. Lobster, crab, shrimp, all manner of fish, great trouts heads on, flounders baked and fried, an enormous beef haunch, roast, deep purple borsht, bright red ghoulash, round breads, gold breads, white breads, flat breads, rolls, sausages and sauces. Dark wines, sweet wines, light ones, and desserts of delicate cakes that came in the middle of eating and then came around again. David was surprised to see that all the bruises on Rhodias’s face had vanished by the time the third course was done. Food came, but it was not taken away. Course after course they dined and David wondered, as large bowls of soup were placed before them, how Dan could continue eating.

In the midst of the once tense supper, a tall, stoop shouldered, hollow eyed man entered the dining hall and leaned down to whisper in Kruinh’s ear, and then Kruinh nodded, and the man came, to David’s surprise, right to him.

“Mr. Lawry?”

“Yes,” David said, though his yes was far more long and drawn out than he meant it to be.

“Vasilisa Hagar wishes to see you as soon as you are able.”

David opened his mouth.

“Grandmother,” Tanitha said.

David pushed back his chair and rose.

“I will go to the Vasilisa now,” he said.

The grim servant nodded.

“Follow me.”

“What the fuck?” Dan whispered beside Sunny.

“Have you ever met her?” Sunny whispered.

“He has,” Kruinh was still eating as David went out the hall behind the nameless servant, “And you will too.”

“The first time I met her, I though Vasilisa was her name.”

Sunny frowned, “But he just said—”

“It’s a title,” Kruinh said. “Lady. Exalted lady. The male form is Basilius. It’s what Byzantine emperors and lords called themselves. An old term for royalty, to distinguish her from me, or from Tanitha, or from Elisaveda when she lived.”

“Elizaveda,” Sunny thought. That name again. The wife and the mother rarely spoken of, the shadow between him and Kruinh.