The Book of the Blessed

Anson

“Are you well?” Ash asked as Anson downed another pint of beer.

“Not really,” Anson said. “I think I’m as alright as I can be.”

He groaned and planted his face in the palm of a large hand.

“I feel like I should be inside a chapel, or an abbey with nothing but the dark, and me praying in front of a candle. Or…. In my room. But I don’t want to be alone.”

Ash stopped himself from saying, “But you don’t have to be alone.”

“Is this why you came? You knew all this was happening?”

Ash said, “I knew you would need me. I knew the kingdom would need me, but I knew you would too.”

“So you left the Hidden Tower, and with a torch and book of flame you came!”

And then Anson shook his head and said, “I’m so drunk I’m going to say stupid things.”

“Whatchatofor?” the innkeeper came to Anson.

“Ale. No, Usqua. Small Malt,” Anson said absently, in almost grunts. He held out two long finger to indicate two fingers of the whiskey. The barkeeper grunted and departed. It wasn’t that he wasn’t friendly. He was as friendly as he knew the people here wanted, and Anson had been coming to this tavern for years because of him.

There were pubs and taverns full of light and noise, but light and noise were something for which he had little use. The light was too bright, the noise too happy. In a corner, a water minstrel was singing.

My lady left me, she left for another man

He had more money, money’s what she loved

Oh, and I’m gonna get that money back

I’m gonna get my lady back.

The minstrel more croaked than sang, and he was impossible to see as much for the smoke that drifted to the center of tavern as for the lack of light. So when the whiskey came, Anson handed over two bits and a third he said was for the minstrel, and he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a cigarette, which he lit, inhaled, and sat back, feeling more relaxed feeling better than he had all night. He had been in his good clothes all this night, but when he had been able to get rid of them, he had, and then he was down here, at the taverns by the docks, where whores and boy whores and all of those tired of life or longing for life only they didn’t know it, came.

“I want you to go,” Anson said, suddenly.

“What?”

Anson had whispered this. He said to Ash, “I need to do stupid things tonight, and you’re above stupid things. I need you to go.”

A grim look passed over Ash’s face, and then Anson added, “And I need you to forgive me.”

Ash rose, shaking his head.

“There is nothing to forgive.”

Pol, who had heard nothing, looked at Ash getting up to leave and said, “You’re leaving?”

“Aye.”

“Well, damn,” Pol got up and threw his arms about Ash. “It was good to see you. This whole day with you and been something.”

Ash took Pol by his shoulders and said, firmly, quietly, “Take care of him.”

Pol looked serious now. He looked at the slightly drunken prince.

“You have my word, friend,” he said.

Ash nodded, and lifting the hood of his brown traveling cloak, he left, placing tree coins before the minstrel as he headed out the door.

Anson and Pol drank on and a time later, Pol spoke.

“Well, look,” Pol murmured taking a plug from his beer and resting his elbows on the table.

At the door opened, in came one in a fabulous, plush green cloak. In the darkness it would have only appeared black, but here it was utterly expensive and now, Anson and Pol saw, as the velour cloak fell, the slender, tight form of Austin Buwa, dressed as a fertile young god, horns perked up, ivy leaves climbing up his green thighs, the olive colored leotard molding his chest. His kohled eyes beamed on them as he approached.

“I thought we were about to have a serious night,” Anson said.

“It is a different type of sobriety,” Pol said.

As Austin approached, he stepped into Pol’s arms, and the amber haired man kissed him.

“Prince Anson,” Austin bowed, most humbly, and Anson kissed him as well.

“Word is already going out that Prince Cedd will be crowned King within a day.”

“A round of drinks!” Pol called loftily, rapping on the bar and offering a seat to Austin. “Drinks for the future king!”

Austin was well onto his second drink, and Pol said, “I think, friends, we should get out of here.”

As Anson stared, half smiling, into Austin’s eyes, Pol clapped him on the shoulder.

“To where?” Austin said. “Surely not the palace.”

“Not at all,” Pol said, “to my rooms where we first met Lord Buwa’s acquaintance.”

Ahead of them, like a magician in a pantomime, Pol marched as they went to the east end of the Everdeen and, crossing into the Red District, Austin and Anson, linked arm and arm sang:

First was the mage

Who moved from age to age

And second was his hero strong

Third was the starry maid,

who lived in trees,

whose wood would never die

Seven came down

Oh, and seven came down

Four is for the lady who fits inside

men’s hands

Who gave up arms and legs to

be an arm again

And Seven came down

Oh, and seven came down

“What are we getting into?” Anson wondered, when Austin answered, “Nothing good.”

“Everything necessary, though,” Pol said. “Trust me in this.”

They had been drinking a while, Anson standing by the door, his arms folded about him.

Pol, who had not stopped kissing Austin, looked up toward Anson. Austin got up off the bed and suddenly kissed the Prince.

“My lord,” he said.

Anson looked at Pol, smiling, and then he said, “So is this happening again?”

The boy still looked good.

“It can be,” Pol said. “It should be.”

Anson sat on the edge of the bed, and Austin, with a relieved and tired sigh, like one preparing for bed, unpeeled his leotard and then pulled it down. Deftly he unlaced Anson’s trousers, and then Pol watched the young lord’s mouth working up and down on Anson and he saw, after a while, how both of them went into it, how Anson’s eyes glazed over, and soon they were both naked, moving together on the bed, and it was when Pol saw their bodies, their smooth round bottoms, hands moving over each other, that he rose, lightly pulling his clothes off, his penis pointing out. He climbed onto the bed and joined them, sighs of pleasure and relief rising from their open mouths and twisting limbs.

Anson woke to a light on him in the middle of the night, he was on the edge of the bed, his arms loosely about Austin’s naked waist. Pol lay on his back asleep. When Anson looked up he saw Ash, and then the door closed and Ash was gone.

Quickly, he scrambled into clothes, and leaving his cloak behind, but not his sword, he came to the balcony where he smelled the scent of Ash’s cigarette before he saw him.

“I did not know you were back,” Anson said.

“I am not back.” Ash said, and he was gone.

Anson stood blinking in the night, wondering how drunk he was. But he was not drunk at all, and he slapped his cheeks and then went back into the rooms that smelled of close air and bodies, of smoke and drink. He looked over the two bodies, linked in sleep, and then reached for his cloak, and leaving a note, went walking to clear his head.

He should have ridden, but tonight he had not, and now, so late, he was quickly wearied. Far south of him he saw, black against the night, the towers of the Kingsboro. Anson decided to walk until he saw a midnight tram, and he caught it until it brought him to the Everdeen. While he rode the rumbling tram, the chant of the singing of the Ahnarynes, the memory of them moving across the Everdeen in their stately dance, was with him.

Ahna Ahnar ahna Ahnar
Ahnar Ahnar ahna ahna
ahna āmar ahna āmar
āmar āmar ahna ahna

“After the Age of War will come the Age of Love. Ahnar is to usher it in.”

Ash had been sitting beside him, then, and now he wished for Ash to be by him again. Why in the world had he announced to the one person he wished to be with that he was going to drnk and smoke and do foolish things, the first person hwo had found him in his darkest place, why was he not with him now?

I am so confused. More confused and stupid than I know.

In Everdeen, he took a last tram until it brought him to the west gates of the Kingsboro. The guards were used to letting princes who smelled of alcohol through the gates, and it was some time before, winding his way through the palace, Anson came to the door of Ash’s rooms. He would never have knocked, but that he could hear the mage moving around in there, and he saw light under the door.

Ash opened the door and Anson blinked at the brighter light of his rooms after the dim light of the hall.

“I thought I saw you. I mean… when I was on the other side of town I thought I saw you. You were standing before me.”

“You have the Skill after all,” Ash said, though not triumphantly. “It was a sending. Not an intentional one. I wondered how you were. I suppose my heart went out to you, and so did I. But you saw it?”

“I did.”

Anson wondered how much Ash had seen. He would not ask. He said, “I know it’s late. And we’re both tired. But may I come in?”

Ash pushed the door further open, and nodded.