The Book of the Blue House

Later, near the approach of midnight, Derek Annakar took Conn aside into a corner of the hallway before their rooms.

“Yes?” Conn said.

Derek smiled down at him, scooped up his face and kissed him deeply.

“What are you doing tomorrow? You’ve been gone from me all day.”

“It is you who have been gone from me.”

“Stay with me tomorrow. I am not doing anything. Let’s stay together all day and I swear I won’t ask you to do laundry.”

Conn laughed, but said, “I should be doing something, like going to the kitchens or making beds or… something. Gods know I didn’t do anything today.”

“I heard that’s not true at all. I heard you spent all morning being a friend to Matteo, and then half the afternoon listening to Cal.”

“That is just… being a friend.”

“Well, in this house being a friend actually is doing something,” Derek said. “It’s earning your keep and,” Derek said holding Conn by the waist, “seeing as I am a Blue Preist of the second class in sore need of companionship all day tomorrow, that would be doing something too.”

Conn laughed and nodded and Derek pulled him forward and kissed his head.

“If you’d like, you can even list yourself as my attendant.”

“I’ll attend to you all right.”

Derek looked shocked by Conn’s joke, and Conn reddened with embarrassment.

“Will you reall?” Derek pressed himself against Conn in the hall while Brian and two other first years passed, grinning.

“I wish you’d attend to me now. I don’t think I’ll be able to wait till bedtime.”

“I’d think,” Conn said, dragging him to the main room, “that after attending in the sanctuary all day you’d have been sated.”

“I was for the most part only attending and not participating,” Derek said. “And besides. Whatever I do when I’m not with you, I’m not with you. And you are who I want to be with,” Derek whispered into his neck, biting it, and growled, “all night.”

“….his Contemplation, which absolves the second part of our Admonition, is Celestial, and to be understood with Spiritual Reason; for the circumstances and depth of every thing cannot be perceived any other way, then by the Spiritual Cogitation of Man: and this Contemplation is twofold. One is called possible, the other impossible. The later consists of copious cogitations, which never proceed to effects, nor exhibit any form of a matter, which falls under the Touch. and his Justiceby Prayer, and all other things, which Man seeks in these Temporals, and he hath need of, either for the sustentation or health of his body, shall be added to you…”

They were listening to a lecture from earlier that day on the dollspeaker, and though it seemed like Gabriel was engrossed in it as he sipped his rich cup of sweet coffee, Nialla was lying between John’s knees like he was a throne, and sewing while he gently held her, while Sara was sketching in a notebook and Brian and Quinton, who was staying with them that night, were quietly talking and Matt was dozing next to Cal.

“…As if any one should endeavour to comprehend the Eternity of the Most High, which is vain and impossible, yea a Sin against the Holy Spirit, so arrogantly to pry itno the Divinityitself, which is Immense, Infinite, and Eternal; and to subject the incomprehensive Counsel of the Secrets of GOD, to humane Inquisition. The other part of Contemplation, which is possible, is called the Theory. This contemplates that, which is perceived by Touch and Sight, and hath a formed Nature in time: this considers, how that nature may be helped and perfected by Resolution of it self; how every body may give forth from it self, the good or evil, Venome or Medicine latent in it; how Destruction and Confraction are to be handled, whereby under a just Title, without Sophistical deceits, the pure may be severed and seperated from the impure. This Seperation is instituted and made by divers manual operations, and various ways; Some of which are vulgarly known by experience, others remote from vulgar experience. These are, Calcination, Sublimation, Reverberation, Circulation, Putrefaction, Digestion, Distillation, Cohobation, Fixation,and the like of these; all degrees of which are found in operating, learned, perceived and manifest by the same. Whence clearly appears what is moveable, what is fixed, what is white, red, black, blew, or green, viz. when the operation is rightly Instituted by the Artificer, for possibly the Operator may err, and turn aside from the right way; but that Nature should err, when rightly handled, is not possible. Therefore if you shall err, so that Nature cannot be altogether free, and released from the Body, in which it is help Captive, return again into your way, learn the Theory more perfectly, and enquire more accurately in the method of operating, that you may find the foundation and certainty in Seperation of all things. Which is a matter of great concern. And this is the second foundation of Philosophy, which follows the Prayer: for in that the sum of the matter lies, and is contained in these words. Seek first the Kingdomof GOD…”

“Does someone need to go to bed?” Cal asked.

“We all need to go to bed,” Lorne, who was actually splayed on the bed said, “But none of us is.”

“Do you really think there’ll be a war?” Quinton said, suddenly.

“What?” Conn began. He was lost in trying to understand the lecture that apparently was something like what his friends heard all the time in the halls below.

“…Next to the Theory, which researcheth out the inmost properties of things, follows Preparation, which is performed by Operations of the hands, that some real work may be produced. From Preparation ariseth Knowledge, viz. Such, as opens all the fundamentals of Medicine. Operation of the Hands requires a diligent application of it self, but the praise of Science consists in experience, but the difference of these Anatomy distinquisheth, *Operation shews how all things may be brought to light, and exposed to sight visibly…”

“They’ve been talking about one coming with Daumany,” Jon said, trying to sound as if it didn’t matter, but adding, “even the White Brothers discuss it at chapel.”

“But will there be one?” Conn said.

“No,” Cal laughed this off, but Derek said, “I don’t know.”

“There isn’t going to be a war,” Cal said, his voice gentle, but insistent.

“We don’t know that,” Derek said, simply, “and not wishing for one doesn’t make it so.”

“Everything we’ve heard is just a matter of powerful men talking,” Cal said.

“It is powerful men who make wars,” Derek said. “When the talking is done.”

“Derek—”

“Quinton asked,” Derek said, “and I answered. “We don’t know what’s coming. All we can do is wait and prepare.”

“…but knowledge shews the practice; and that, whence the true Practitioner is, and is no other then confirmation: because the operation of the hands manifests something that is good, and draws the latent and hidden nature outwards, and brings it to light for good. For, as in Spirituals, the way of the Lord is to be prepared; so also in these things, the way is to be opened and prepared; so also in these things, the way is to be opened and prepared, that no errour be from the right path, and the Process may be made, without devious errours, in the direct way to health...”

“There hasn’t been a war in our lifetime,” Cal said.

“There are always wars, Cal,” Lorne corrected. “Just not in Westrial, nd just not touching us. And we have had our arguments with Daumany and occasional skirmishes for years.”

“Well,” it was Matt who spoke, “as long as the wars stay outside of Westrial, as long as we take the war to them, as long as it stays out of Kingsboro.”

“War will not come to Kingsboro,” Cal said. “we are the capital. We are a strongly guarded city well in the interior of the country with allies at our backs. And war has never come here.”

“Of course it has,” Derek said.

Cal looked a little irritated with his friend.

“Our ancestors brought war here. We are Sendics, Cal. Every white man in this room and to some degree most brown, is descended from Aiul invaders who left the north on longships and came here a thousand years ago.”

“Before the Aiul these were the eastern lands of the Royans, the remains of the old High Kingdom,” Gabriel said. “They were easily taken because that Kingdom had already come to an end and unlike in the West, wear the Royan kingdoms are still strong, here they shared the land with the ancient tribes, the People of Plains.”

“I am afraid,” Cal said, simply.

Derek softened, and the arm that was not laced with Conn’s he used to hold Cal’s hand.

“I am too, brother. But if we stand side by side we can look things in the face and know what to do should the worst come.”

“And the worst hasn’t come,” Sara said, finally.

“That’s right,” Nialla reminded them all, putting her needle work down while she propped herself up on John’s knee.

“So far what has come is nothing but us sitting here talking about what we cannot change.”

END OF PART ONE