The Book of the Blessed

The whole time Anson stood beside his father, trying to keep his composure, trying not to stare like a complete fool, the conversation between his father, King Idris and Ash, who was apparently Ohean, went on like buzzing bees about his ears. He needed to stop being an ass, after all, hadn’t he been with several men who had no idea who he was, who perhaps, having seen him on horseback riding with the King, were suddenly tongue tied upon learning the identity of their lover from the night before?

And yet, the things he had done were as nothing. For he had promised no love to any of those others, and though Ash had not promised love there had been something. Hadn’t there? Certainly he had not asked for last night to be something. He couldn’t even be angry. He had found what he was looking for and so had Ash. No, Ohean.

Imogen nudged Anson and Anson cleared his throat and looked at his sister.

“My Lord King Idris was asking,” Imogen continued, “if the new foals for the cavalry were promising this year?”

“Oh, yes,” Anson cleared his throat. “Yes. They are… better than last year. Though last year was good. Rheged horses are always good.”

Anson saw Cedd scowling, and the old King said, “My son’s head is with the army. He is army man more than regal.”

“Yes,” Cedd said. “He’d probably sleep in the stables if he could.”

“It may prove a good thing,” Ohean said, “if things go on as they are in the north, then we will need a warrior on the throne of Westrial rather than a…” he looked to Cedd, “regal.”

“Well, I suppose he is regal enough,” Cedd continued. “After all, he must be related to you, Lord Ohean.”

Anson blinked at Ohean and Ohean said, “This is true, Prince.”

He looked to Anson, “The Queen Essily, who remained with his royal highness for a time, was my first cousin. We are blood.”

But while Anson was absorbing this, Idris said, “My cousin Ohean is right. It is better for a king to know sword play over lute play.

Idris agreed was handsome, the color of dark chocolate, but Ohean said, “That is not entirely what I meant. It is often necessary in days like these that a king know sword play, but a lord of a land ought to be a whole man, minstrel and fighter possible.”

“Like King Davyn?” Imogen said.

“Hopefully not, Princess,” Ohean said. “He murdered two hundred men in one night and offered their heads in the temple of Myr, and then wrote poems about it. But that was twenty centuries ago. I think we can do better than that. And now,” Ohean said, “I will take my seat.”

“But of course,” the King said. “You all will sit with us at the high table, and you, Lord Ohean, sit in the place of king’s counselor to Idris.”

“Forfend,” Idris shook his head. “Ohean is not my counselor, but an equal. He is a prince of Rheged, and counsels all the kings of the Old Kingdoms.”

“Ohean is a light to the Ayl as well,” Anthal said. Turning to Ohean. “Well then, will you be seated at my left, where no Counsel has sat? Where the great Elwin sat in days long ago?”

Ohean smiled, nodded, and folding his hands into his mantle, following the King and. As he moved through the high hall, past the hanging banners and by the magnificent guests, Ohean paid them no mind, and was amazed not a wit when the servants pulled his chair back for him and sat him there.

The night was spent in what seemed idle chatter, and for Anson, sitting three seats away from Ash, between Imogen and Cedd, it was everything he could do not to shout to the wizard who seemed so courtly and so unmoved. But through the plain conversation he heard important things. Rheged and Westrial were old allies. Of the Young Kingdoms it had been Westrial which had often married princesses of that land. Over two hundred fifty years ago, a high princess of that land had married Aethulwulf, the first king of House Aethylan. They discussed Edmund King of Inglad and the Hales. Twenty years he had been wed to his Halic wife, Edith, but sired no children on her.

“It is not that she cannot bear them,” Imogen said, “rather it is said that she will not bear them with him.”

“Daughter, such gossip.”

“Not gossip, but truth,” Imogen said, “and more than truth, the reason we should all worry a little.”

“The Princess is right,” Ohean said. “Edmund’s heir is the King of Daumany.”

“The King of Daumany lies on his deathbed,” Cedd said, “and he still suffers from the wounds we gave him when he tried to fight us.”

“Tried and succeeded and took many Westrian lives,” Anson remembered.”

“And do you imagine there won’t be one to displace him, Prince?” Ohean looked to Cedd, amused.

“Rufus is a bastard.”

“Rufus is the only son of King William, and beloved of him and Edmund,” Ohean said. “If things continue as they are, he could be heir to Daumany in the east and the northern kingdoms as well.”

“The North will never simply submit to him,” Anson said, suddenly.

“No, Prince,” Ohean said, levelly, “it will not. The descendants of the Wulfstan remnants Edmund hunted down and supplanted will rise up after his death, along with Queen Edith’s family.”

“The remnants…” Cedd protested while Anson frowned. “The Wulfstans are all dead.”

“Let’s not discuss that here,” Ohean said.

“Well, aren’t they?” Cedd demanded, and though Anthal said nothing, he looked eager to hear the answer.

“Aren’t you all Wulfstans? Does not the blood of Wulfstan remain in the House of Senach, and even in Rheged and Elmet? Tourmaline and Emmeline, your mothers, were of that line. Royal lines are as easy to snuff out as bed bugs,” Ohean said. “And often as troublesome. All I know, and I need no magic for this, is that what is happening now, at this moment, is setting the Young Kingdoms up for bloodshed, and this time around the Royan kingdoms will not be able to escape it.”

Anson sat back in his chair, choosing not to speak, but it was Princess Imogen who said, “Then what do we do?”

“My good lady, that is precisely what we are trying to find out.”

The meal went on and after the dessert, a great pie from which when cut, red cardinals flew out, was served. Ohean stood up.

“I’m not eating anything a live bird has been inside of,” the mage pronounced in a low voice that made Princess Imogen laugh.

“Lord, Ohean, you should know illusion when you see it.”

“I need air,” the wizard said and Anson, seeing his chance, waited until Ohean was a ways off and said, “I need air, too.”

Ohean was quick, his dark red robes swishing the floor as he headed through one of the many pillared doors to the portico that overlooked the outcourts of the Kingsboror and the city beyond. By the time Anson had followed him out, he could already smell the smoke of sweet tobacco. The mage was quietly puffing on a cheroot.

“I hope you do not mind me following you,” Anson said.

“No,” Ohean said, looking surprised. “It was my intention that you would.”

Anson said, “I had no idea who you were. The other night. When things happened.”

“When we slept together,” Ohean said simply.

“Yes,” Anson said.

“You said you were a simple soldier named Cole.”

“But you are a mage,” Anson said. “You had no idea?”

“I had some idea,” Ash admitted. Then he said, “I had more than some idea. But I could not stay away from you.” Anson was surprised by this frank admission.

“Tonight, if Cedd had said nothing, had you planned to tell me that we were cousins?”

“I figured you would find out sooner than later,” Ohean said.

Anson’s face was stern and unchanged.

“What?” Ohean said. “When we were first together, I had no idea who you were, though I ought to have. I should have seen through that very quickly. And even when I learned, it took a moment for me to remember. When I had, I didn’t see much of a point in telling you we were cousins before you needed to know.”

“You are…” Anson sat down on his back side, “Incredible!”

“Thank you.”

“That’s not a compliment!”

“All the same, I’ll take it.”

Anson said nothing and Ohean said, “Are you upset that I did not tell you, or do you think that some taboo has been crossed? Because cousins come together in love every day. Royal families survive on it.”

‘Do you regularly take your cousins to bed?”

“Only my cousin Thano.”

Anson blinked at him.

“He was my first love,” Ohean said. “But that was long ago, and the love has burned itself low into something else.”

“Do you remember me?” Anson said. “From long ago?”

“I do,” Ohean said. “I remembered while we ate, while I made to talk politics the whole time thinking of you then and thinking of you asleep next to me last night. I look on in wonder at the man you have become. I would never have pictured it when you were a child. When you followed me around and I carried you about.”

“Are you serious?”

“I did,” Ohean said, nodding. “And I loved you very well and mourned when Coviane sent you away—”

“Who?” Anson said.

“Coviane.”

“Who is she?” Anson began. “I remember a little bit. Nimerly is the Lady of the Rootless Isle. She is my aunt. She sent me away.”

“No,” Ohean shook his head. “Nimerly is Lady now. Coviane was lady after your grandmother, when my mother and your aunt and even your mother refused. They later came to regret that. It was Coviane who sent you away. Nimerly brought you here, though. I left with Nimerly and my mother to deliver you to the king, but a day before they went to Kingsboro, I turned off the road and went on my own to Rheged. I put you out of my heart. Perhaps a little too well. This is why when you were returned to me and we were together again, I did not quite know you, though I knew I belonged with you.”

Anson nodded. He said, “I imagine we both lied.”

“My name is Ash. It is the name to which I was born and still bear among my father’s people.”

“Cole is what they used to call me,” Anson said.

“Then neither of us lied,” Ohean said. “Only we did not tell each other everything. And why would we?”

He passed the cheroot to Anson who looked surprised and then said, “Thank you.”

He took a long puff on the cigar and returned it.

“Did you plan for me to come back to you?” Anson said. “Or was that… just something you said while we were making love.”

“I never just say anything,” Ash shook his head, returning the cheroot again. “When a witch says a thing it tends to happen. It makes it harder to lie.”

“What if I had come back to you tonight?”

“You would have been told I would not be in till late, for I had no intentions of staying here, and every intention of going back to the inn—”

“Then you were serious about me,” Anson said.

“Yes, Prince,” Ash said. “Even out of your glory, you are still a very beautiful man. I do not know why you think I’d lie about coming back to you.”

“Because we did things,” Anson said, simply. “Even if I am a beautiful man, as you say, when people share things in bed, when two men do, often there is rejection afterward. People do not always care for what they see. A beautiful man is a picture. The lover you lie with is flesh and blood, tastes and smells, tears and emotions.”

“And in the past,” Ash presumed, “have many who came to the Prince of the Western Ayl for his face and form not been able to stand the other things?”

“I look the prince because tonight they dress me as him,” Anson said. “Often I am treated as little more than the bastard.”

“But you are no bastard.”

“I might as well be.”

“Well, the bastard of Daumany is on his way to two thrones, so do not be overly concerned with that. Or,” Ash reached up to touch the side of Anson’s cheek, “your past.”

“What would you find out about me? Would you still want to know me, if we stayed together another night?”

“Are you asking me?” Ash said.

“Lord Ohean,” Anson’s voice was not daring or gallant as it had been the other night when he was just a soldier. His voice was almost unsure.

“If you are willing to stay in my rooms tonight, I am more than willing to have you.”

“And I wonder that you do not fear me or find me undesireable either.”

“Ah,” Anson smiled out of the corner of his mouth, shrugging humbly, but his eyes twinkling, “but you said it last night. We are both dragons.”