The Blood: A Denouement

“And now,” Owen said, “being the clever nephew I raised you to be, knowing that, even though you would not be a magician, you still have the magical sight, what else would you say?”

“I thought to test you,” Uriah said, “but now you test me.”

“A little,” Owen tipped his hand.

“The most important question is… where are the disappeared treasures, the Grail, the Orb? After all, we have the swords, we have a Crater.”

“And the Golden Lantern,” Onnalee said.

“But what happened to the things that were lost?”

“They disappeared from us not quite seventeen centuries ago,” Onnalee said.

“Stolen?”

“If they were stolen,” Owen said, “they were stolen by one of the Masters. Perhaps they were taken away for safe keeping. For some time we thought it might have even had to do with the story of the Quest for the Holy Grail. Maybe it did, for in the 1800’s, news came to us that both Orb and Chalice were being held in Germany. May still being held in France. I needn’t remind you once upon a time these were one place.”

“Why?” Uriah said, “when you say the word Germany, do I immediately think that this has something to do with the Strausses?”

“I think it does too,” Owen said, “though how I do not know. And the ones who were said to have held the Orb were not called the Strausses. They called the Jacquillards.”

While Owen had spoken, Onnalee rose and went to her front door, but even as she was nearing it, it opened, and a young woman in a gown of shimmering blue satin, pale as Lake Michigan at sunrise, handed her a folder, nodded regally and turned to leave.

Onnalee came to Uriah with the folder and handed it to him. It was heavy, accordioned and of leather, bound with a thick cord, and when he opened it, it was emblazoned with a wolf’s head, and he read:

Dans la mesure où l'histoire de la famille Jaquillard touche à sa fin et dans la mesure où le cadeau que nous avions autrefois été perdu, il me revient en tant qu'historien de cette grande famille de raconter son histoire et sa lignée dans les temps anciens, mais surtout à partir avec la Dame Genève par laquelle nous sommes liés à deux reprises à l’autre ancienne maison, les Wolfemen, qui a traversé une période difficile et qui a ensuite disparu de notre histoire. Voici l'histoire de notre famille qui remonte à cette digne ancêtre, Genève, qui a acquis un grand pouvoir grâce aux Warg, l'esprit de notre maison dont le nom naturel était Stedefeld et qui s'appelle maintenant Hagano…

“Read to us,” Onnalee said. “We know many things, but not French.”

Uriah cleared his throat:

“Insofar as the history of the Jacquillard family is near its end and insofar as the Gift once given to us has been lost, it behooves me as the historian of this once great family to recount its histories and its bloodline into ancient times, but especially beginning with the Lady Geneva by whom we are twice related to the other ancient house, the Wolfemen, who came of hard times and afterward vanished from our history. In way of counting, here is the history of our family back unto that worthy ancestress, Geneva, who gained great power through the Warg, the spirit of our house whose name in natural life was Stedefeld and who is now called Hagano…

“Hagano,” he said.

“Like the Strausses.”

“Seems like.”

“Another family of werewolves?” Uriah raised an eyebrow. “A related one?”

“The Strausses were news to us, until you found Kristian. The Jaquillards we known. There are few of them left now. We have watched them,” Onnalee said. “We do watch them. As they watch the Strausses, and when they come into the orbit of the Strausses again, Seth and Lewis and Loreal will be waiting.”

The days were short, and as they rode back north, Uriah could see the sky going a darker blue, the rails and the passing rows of apartments and townhouses yellow with setting sun. Every time he returned here, he was impressed by the life of the city, but unlike Owen, or Onnalee for that matter, it could not be his city. He felt strange as the night approached, and longed to be back at the brick house near the lake on Morse Street, What was more, he longed for Rawlston and Lassador, the shambled comfort of his study.

As they had left, Onnalee had been more forthcoming with answers than Owen ever had, or perhaps it was that he had never asked Owen many questions, and Owen sitting beside him, looking at the back porches of apartments as they approached the Belmont stop, had certainly never volunteered them.

“You said that Seth was a Master too.”

“In the old tales, sometimes there is a Master, but sometimes the Master has a twin, a shadow. Why, think of the Mabinogion. There is Math, the Old Master and then Gwydion, and his brother is Gilvaethwy, who fades from the story. In the old story Gwydion and Gilvaethwy were transformed into beasts for their sins and mated and bore beasts, each beasts was turned into a man by Math’s magic. So, in this old story, retold by Victorians we see the mystery of two men, lovers, who brought life into the world. Seth is to Lewis as Gilvaethwy was to Gwydion.”

“And Owen is like Math.”

“What if,” Onnalee said in a quiet voice, a whisper would have made it too dramatic, “I were to tell you that Owen was more than like Math.”

Owen was putting on his dress coat and speaking quietly to one of the women who lived in this place.

“Like Lewis he has born many names in many times, some of which you know.

“Come.”

Onnalee had led him through what must have been several apartments joined into one, and came from one room with what he knew was a sword, but was wrapped in pale blue silk.

“Because Azul is now in the keeping of Lewis, here is another sword. Unlike Azul, which was in the keeping of the Master and only for his use, this is to be in the home of the Master, but lent out to whoever desires it.”

Uriah took the weight of the sword in his open palms. It was heavy, and the pommel resembled a heavy brass skeleton key.

“Is there a name?”

“There have been many names,” Onnalee said.

As they tode back Uriah blinked and noticed the sword was on his uncle’s lap. Once he noticed he couldn’t unsee it and he realized Owen had cast a subtle spell of hiding. Memory of the sword had even left Uriah’s mind. It threatened to do so again, but it if did, Uriah realized he wouldn’t even see it, and certainly no one else on this train did.

Who were you? he wondered, looking at his uncle.

And when he did, he saw him differently, in different garments, for just one moment, in the bough of an ancient tree, half sleeping, half dreaming, and he heard a singing:

Broceliande! in the perilous beauty of silence

and menacing shade,
Thou art set on the shores of the sea down

the haze of horizons untravelled, unscanned.
Untroubled, untouched with the woes of this

world are the moon-marshalled hosts that

invade Broceliande.

The music grew more subtle, the leaves of the trees thicker,and the perfumed odor of the forest air lulled him into sleep when Uriah felt a sharp shaking of his shoulder and blinked to see his uncle saying, “Get up. This is our stop.”

At home, Owen set a fire to roaring and drew the curtains against the dark. Suddenly Uriah was aware of the night and of things out there, not simply criminals and raccoons or badgers, but deeper things, some in the psyche and some from beyond. He had a sudden serious winter time desire to lock all doors and huddle near the great hearth. Behind the hearth, he remembered, stretched the passages that led even to the House of Onnalee.

Owen made potato cheese soup. It didn’t take long. He cared little for dishes or cleaning tonight, and Uriah promised to help in the morning. As they sat by the fire, with cider. Uriah opened up the folder, and turning the frontispage, began to read, like a litany:

• Leinghelde 496
• Stedefelde 515
• Rosamunda 537
• Wulffaxa 563
• Wulfstan598
• Chlodomar620
• Lodovicis647
• Karloman 667
• Tentaman698
• Ettomar 721
• Theodaran757
• Ereleuva785
• Hadrian805
• Clovis 832
• Wensis860
• Audofleda890
• Amalasunta 913
• Athalaric940

*Athalaric married Wodolfa in 971 and became the Earl of Chlotane on the border of the Kingdom of the East Franks, that is Germany. Here be the Earls of Chlotane who were called also, Wulfmann or Kinderwulfe.

• Otto 973
• Alvin1001
• Otto1028
• Myre1052
• Myron 1080
• Peter1106
• Kristoffer1137
• Alvis1170
• Frederick1198
• Frederick1220
• Ingrid1250
• Marabeth 1272
• Swinda1295
• Calfredo*1315

Uriah could not help but pause over names that looked familiar.

• Claire 1345
• Ignito 1362
• Louis 1390
• Charles 1413
• Maximillian1455
• Sigismund 1478
• Frederick 1501
• Charlotte1525

“And it goes on.”

“Yes,” Owen said. “But the history… now for the history.”

Uriah read: “Insofar as the history of the Jaquillard family is near its end and insofar as the Gift once given to us has been lost, it behooves me as the historian of this once great family to recount its stories and its bloodline into ancient times, but especially beginning with the Lady Geneva by whom we are twice related to the other ancient house, the Wolfemen, who came of hard times and afterward vanished from our history. Here is the history of our family back unto that worthy ancestress, Geneva, who gained great power through the Warg, the spirit of our house whose name in natural life was Stedefeld and who is now called Hagano. The things of which I will speak shall seem, at first, unbelievable. I can barely believe them myself, but they must be set in writing, both for those of us who remain, and for those who are branches of this one tree. For if the long line of ancestors is correct, there is at least one other family who bears the Wolf Gift, and it is my belief that they are not very far. So, I shall tell this story in two pieces, that of our ancestress Geneva, and that of my own life, which revolved around the love of my life, Lucien, and our esteemed Grandmother, the lady Claudette, most magnificent of the Comtesses de Jaquillard.”

“You feel like a bed time story?” Uriah teased.

“Oh, yes,” Owen said. “Please.”