The Book of Battles

AMBRIDGE

“That is a fair idea,” King Rufus said when Allyn had spoken that evening. “I could go with you.”

Edith was about to speak, but she said nothing. She was relieved when Duke Richard said, “But I believe Queen Hermudis is on her way to see you.”

“I can’t make her wait,” Rufus said ruefully, and Richard laughed over the indomitable Princess of Armor who had become Queen of Sussail.

“Well, the trip will be quick,” Allyn said. “We will ride up and return back in a week. We will take the Private Guard.”

“And some of the Inglad Guard,” Edith chimed in. Tonight she looked fair with only a thin veil under a light golden tiara and Hilda, sitting across from her, wondered, “What is she about?”

“And some of my men as well,” Rufus said.

“Well, we hardly need that,” Queen Edith said. “The King is riding up to talk to your brother, a monk, not going to make war against the pretender Osric.”

“But he may be surrounded by Osric’s men,” Richard suggested.

“Then bring a white flag,” Allyn said, flippantly.

She wished he wouldn’t. Edith had thought to say the same thing, but one had to be so careful, to look less than obliging was to be suspicious and they could not afford that.

“Rufus,” Queen Edith said, “if you think that is necessary, then—”

But she stopped talking, for at that moment a messenger flew into the great hall, squawking, and Edmund murmured, “Goddamn.”

The messenger was never good news and Allyn said, “I wonder if that cunt has written us to tell us she is pregnant again with another ruler of the three kingdoms.”

But this bird belonged to the curly haired Duke Richard, and he placed a bit of meat into his mouth, then unfolded the letter from about its leg and read, scowling.

“Out with it!” Rufus said to his brother.

“Osric has no more of Hale to take,” Rufus said. “We no longer hold Southcastle or River Tyne. Somehow his east troops were met by troops who, unbelievably, seem to have come through the Giant Mountains.”

“What does he have helping him?” Allyn laughed, “Dwarves?”

“Whatever he has,” Richard looked at Allyn scornfully, “he has Carchester, Cardeshire and all of Southcastle and. Aidenton surrendered to him yesterday.

“As of now, King Wolf and his armies are literally at your door, Edmund. The priests and bishops have been exiled and abbots and monks have risen in support of Osric and Myrne.”

“Then we cannot wait,” Edmund said to Rufus.

“Allyn and I will ride tonight. We must reach Odo at Canossa immediately.”

 

THE ZAHEM BORDER

Arvad Lavran kept Turnthistle Farm alone, assuming there would be no visitors. The jingling jangling vardo with a princely man on a horse riding at its head and a red headed woman riding a cart behind it, and coming down the path and toward the door of the great old farmhouse was a surprise. No one ever came to this part of the country, days from the city, close to the border. Arvad decided it was better to greet than to wait and see if they would ask hospitality from him, and the night was drawing on, anyway, so he put on his jacket and ran to meet them. Turnthistle House was like a long, high peaked, wide, unpainted barn itself, and Arvad came out of a central, swinging door, up the dusty walk to meet the brown faced man sitting in the wagon with a young, beautiful but strangely beautiful, copper haired and delicate boned boy in blue beside him.

“Hail!” Ohean called.

And then Arvad said, “Will you all be staying the night?”

Ohean and Anson looked at each other, and from behind them, the woman on the cart shouted, “We are! I’ve been in this thing for two days. I need a room!”

“Dissen!” a voice from in the cart chided.

“And some good food and beer if you’ve got it,” she added.

Arvad put a hand to his face to cover a laugh.

“I think, we have it, Mistress….?”

“Dissen. And my shy, hidden friend back here is called Theone.”

 

“So you’re on your way to the city?”

“Yes,” Ohean said. “And we are perfectly capable of helping you prepare a meal.”

“Nonsense,” Arvad said, “Have another drink. This is all on me. I’ve got the farm for a while. My master and the true mistress of this place, one formidable Mehta, are gone to town to replenish stock.

“And yet,” Arvad said, “There is just enough for you.”

“I hope more than just enough,” said Anson. “I hope we’re not running you out of house and home.”

God he was beautiful! Tall, lantern jawed, a sword at his side, so certainly a soldier.

“House, maybe,” Arvad said. “But certainly not house and home. That would be intolerable.”

The fey white one called Austin laughed and looked a Arvad with affection. Arvad, not entirely sure if he had imagined Austin’s affectionate gaze, but he smiled and laughed back just the same.

“After the baby died two years passed with Ethan as my only company, and then one day Ethan fled and there were only two things for me to do,” Theone said.

Ohean, who had known Ethan, and heard from cousins about his journey down south, listened carefully. Arvad and Austin had built a large fire in the hearth, touching hands, looking at each other, laughing, while Dissenbark raised an eyebrow and looked to Conn who only shrugged.

“But you are a Blue Priest,” she said.

“Here they know nothing of my magic,” Conn said, “though both could use it.”

Dissenbark nodded. Theone was still speaking.

“Now, when I learned that Ethan had fled, I could go back to serving the Hands, as I had before. Or I could lose my mind.”

“And that’s when you decided to leave,” Arvad said, leaning across the fire, the light catching his green eyes, his red hair.

“Yes. And no. I could not believe that Ethan would abandon me, and when I went to find his old cell, that was when I learned he had left money, and directions and a cloak for me. He had provided a way out. I was terrified, but there was nothing else to do. I didn’t even know how to get out of the house on my own. I’d never seen an exit door. Gimble could have taught me. But… he was gone.

“The Place of the Hand is strong, and my mind was slow and sad. I was almost at the end of sanity by then. That night I gathered up scraps of food, and I already knew a little of how to move through the outside world. The Place of the Hand faced the Border Country toward Zahem and Sussail. I set out on the way. I left from the scullery that led to the courtyard of the Hands.”

“And it was near the exit of the house, so you knew how to get out,” Dissen figured.

Theone nodded.

“That is right. And that’s what I chose. And the moment I chose it I was afraid. I knew I could get caught, and then… But what worse could be done to me? What I feared was not getting to succeed, not getting to take back that Stone and, of course, if I didn’t leave, then nothing would ever happen. So I left.”

“In the the night?”

“Yes, Austin,” Theone said, shaking her head. “I had thought of leaving in the middle of the day, though.”

“The day?”

“In the deepest part of night, if I’d been caught people would have known I was sneaking away. In the middle of the day I was just someone walking out of the kitchen. I could have simply strolled away. I considered waiting several days, storing food outside of the Place, but in the end, I could wait no longer, and I think I knew that to delay was to lose heart. So I set out that night. When I had traveled some few towns, I took a carriage for three days because I couldn’t bring myself to steal a horse. Not then, at least. And then I walked and I walked until I did steal a horse. And well, you know the rest.”

Arvad sat back, rocking on his heels.

“You are so brave, Theone.”

She lifted her head to the rafters lost in the darkness above and said, “I think we’re all pretty brave,” and then she yawned.

“And pretty sleepy,” Ohean said, crushing out his last cigarette.

“Let’s round up the wreckage and head to bed.”

He stretched and yawned and they all separated, but as Austin said, “Here, I come—” he felt a wrist tug his arm and looked down to see Arvad on the floor, smiling up at him.

“Don’t go,” Arvad said. “Not just yet.”

 

 “Where are you going?” Arvad reached for him as Austin was climbing out of bed.

“I didn’t know if you’d want me to stay.”

“I do,” Arvad said, leaning back into bed and pulling the blankets over his waist, “If you would.”

Austin said, “This is Zahem, where I lost my first love, and since we left the Rootless Isle, where I lost another love, that man has been on my mind. Anson and Ohean have each other, and Conn has his devotion and a whole family he will return to. But I’ve been so hungry for affection, and you’re good and sweet and… I don’t want you to feel like I’m using you.”

Arvad leaned on his side, reaching up to touch Austin’s hair.

“I’m a big boy,” he said, his red curls falling in his green eyes,  “I won’t be jealous or angry, and I don’t have to cling. Austin Buwa, you are not the only man who needs affection even if the affection last only for the night.”

“How could I only have affection that lasts a night?” Austin said. “I want to sample everything life has. I want this. You know? And, if we can have something after it, stay friends, stay tender to each other, I’d like that. Alright? We may have sex for the night, but affection, kindness, tenderness? That can go on for far more than a night. I think it can go on for a lifetime.”

“If you’d like it, we could be tender to each other all night. I’d like it. I really would,” Arvad said, leaning over to turn off the lamp so that the last thing Austin saw was the smootness of his gold brown back, of his small, round buttocks.

“Would you?”

In the dark, Austin reached over to pull Arvad to him and answered: “Yes.”

 

“Where are you going?” Theone asked Conn as he wrapped his blue cloak about him.

“Out into the night,” the young mage said, for he was a mage as far as she could tell, and she had never heard of the Blue Priesthood.

“Difficult days are ahead, and right now I must be with the stars.”

“Be careful,” Theone said. Then she said, “Dissen should go with you.”

Conn smiled at this and said, “No. We are in a safe place, and I am the safest of all. I promise, for your sake, friend Theone, not to wander too far.”

 

He went down the long path from the wide farmhouse with its wrap around porch and the high peaked roof, and he turned from the gate and walked down the night dark road. Above the stars were large and white and there was something wild in the air. He longed for his new home where he had left Derek and Cal and the others, and he longed Kingsboro and the old Blue House. He was so sure that he was precisely where he should be, but he wished to be back there, and in the wishing, he sat down by the side of the road.

It was not long before he heard the jingling of reins and the squeaking of wheels and looked up to see a wagon approaching, and then he realized it was the wagon, Dissenbark’s cart.

Theone sent her.

He slightly wished to curse her, for this night he longed to for the comfort of men and his magic had called out for one, but now as the cart stopped, he saw two hooded figures, and when the taller one lowered his hood, it was Anson, his bronze hair silver in the night. By the very way he sat, the driver was Ohean, and Anson said, “Connleth, you know it is forbidden for Blue Priest to journey alone. You know the old rules as well as I.”

The rule, that the Blues always traveled two by two for the sake of safety, and so that they did not seek out sex, but were rather approached and always had each other to turn to, was one of the first every Blue learned.

“And yet, I am alone, and am I even a Blue now?”

“You are not alone,” Ohean said. “And you are certainly still a Blue. Come here, and get in this cart.”

Conn obeyed, and Anson turned the cart around and they becan to ride back toward the old high peaked farm, black against the starry night. They rode to the gate, and then in silence, Ohean undid the ties of the horses and whispered a word and, docile, they trotted onto the farm in the direction of the barn.

Even as Ohean dismissed the horses, Anson pressed his mouth to Conn’s, and Conn went weak, feeling the breath sucked from him while the burgeoning stiffness between his legs went full hard, and while Anson kissed him under the stars, in the empty night and drew him down into the blankets of the cart, Ohean, starely as ever, began to remove Conn’s blue cloak and reminded him, “You are the priest become the mage, and I am the mage become the priest.”

Ohean’s mouth pressed against the back of Conn’s neck, making him shiver while Anson continued you with long, steady kisses.

As Anson lifted off his own shirt to reveal his broad chest, Ohean breathed into his ear, “You are not the only Blue here.”