The Book of the Blue House

Seven

The Work

You look to me because you fear to look within. You look to the teachers and preachers, to temples and holy words because you do not dare to look at the space within. When you gaze into the dark fire within you, you will be overcome with horror and despair, but in the end you will be astounded.

-Ifandell Modet,The Crystal Teaching

As for what Conn had said about boldly approaching the wizard, he did not get to speak to Akkrebeth then, for the enchanter was gone the next day, and soon temple life moved back into the swing of the last month of the year. The parades came to an end as they approached Holy Week, the Week before Annatide. Bells rang throughout the city as the devout moved to the minsters for the Vesper and the Matins services. Derek was gone more often, and Conn knew why, but he could never believe with his heart or with his body what he knew with his mind, for Derek was always his, and perhaps that was the most important thing, the truest thing, and so he knew what mattered. He and Derek and Conn and Quint and Matt would go out as a foursome, and they would travel to Everdeen Plaza on the top of Varayan Hill and stand before the large edifice of Purplekirk, and there they would see the royal procession entering the great minster for high service.

“Look, there is the King himself,” Derek noted, and they saw, riding on a great white horse, a tall old man with a long beard as white as the horse itself. A golden circlet was on his head and his hair was so white it contrasted with his nut brown face, but his eyes were sharp and blue as the sky.

“And there is Prince Caedmon. Prince Cedd,” Derek said of a man with Doman blood, white skinned, black haired with a trim beard around his mouth. He was handsome enough, but he seemed haughty and unkind. A deep blue cloak was over his shoulders and an ornate sword hung down his side, barely visible from the cloak. He was bare headed save the silver circlet of a prince.

“And that one with the black hair, the girl who waves when they call out to her, that is the Princess Imogen.”

“And there he is!” Quinton said. “Prince Anson.”

He looked nothing like his brother or his sister. He was darker, almost a Royan, and yet he had the eagle bearing of his father the King. He was taller and full blooded, a true soldier, all in red, and his hair was dark bronze. There was no circlet over his hair and he rode his dark horse proudly though, when he was called out to, he gave a wave to crowd and sometimes a hand clasp along with an ironic smile.

“None of them have the same mother,” Derek said.

“Cedd’s mother was the old queen, Tourmaline of Hale. She took ill during the Great Plague thirty years ago. That was when the Lady Essily came, the great sorceress from the Rootless Isle, and she and her sisters, Nimerly and Sanaye, delivered the land from the illness. Her sisters left when the plague was over, but Essily stayed and married the King. She is Anson’s mother.”

“But the people would not accept her as Queen,” Quint said. “They called her a witch, which she was, and they criticized her for going to worship in the Grove and not in the minsters. She left with Anson and she left with her nephew, who is Akkrebeth. But years later Akkrebeth brought Anson to the city to be raised as a prince.”

“By then the King had married his third wife,” Derek said.

“The one who gave birth to the Princess Imogen?” Conn, who knew little of royal business guessed.

“Aye,” said Derek. “But before she had Imogen, she had Hilda, who is a great lady who went north to become a nun, which is what she always wanted, and it was promised that she would be the Abbess of Great Clew.”

“And of course there is Morgellyn,” Quint said.

“Yes,” Derek said. “Morgellyn the Queen of Eassail. She is as golden as her sisters are dark and pale. The most beautiful woman you will ever see some say. And yet some guess her to be evil, and she always looked proud to me.”

“But when she left to marry King Stephen,” Quinton said, “and Hilda left to be a nun, there were no other women in the court but Imogen.”

“King Anthal has outlived all of his wives.”

“All but Essily, who some say is the true Queen,” Quinton said, “only, no one has seen her in over thirty years.”

Conn did not know who had discussed it or how they had decided it, but he thought that, perhaps, Matt and Quinton must be something like he and Derek, moving in a sort of tandem where, very often it was hard to remember who had made what decision. Matt moved from his own narrow room beside Brian’s and on the other side of Brian’s room, the two of them helped Quint take all the possessions he had gathered over the last two years in the temple, and moved them to the fourth floor in the opposite wing from where Conn stayed. Midway through carrying their things upstairs, Brian decided he didn’t want to be left alone downstairs, so Conn joined them as, for the rest of the afternoon, they moved his things into the fourth floor suite as well.

“I told you rooms were all over this house,” was all Nialla said.

They took too large rooms, neither of which had bathrooms or kitchens, but where there was a kitchen between Lorne’s room and Cal’s, there was a small alcove with a window seat, and across the windowseat was a door that led to the same great bathroom where, on the otherside was Cal’s room.

Cal now shared his rooms with Gabriel and Sara now stayed there as well, and often Cal came across though Sara, not being a Blue and not being a man, had to walk all the way around and not cut through the restroom. No one had asked if they could make this move. No one ever did. No one even said that Matteo had gone quickly from living in the small cells to coming to a room that, usually, a Blue had to wait three years to get. He had come with two people, He had come with Quint, and that was just the way it was.

Brian continued in his amorous training. He explained that for him, and for many Blues, while they attended the classes and attended the priests in the temple, and had to go to at least one of the chanting services in the chapel every day, what he spent his days doing was exploring his sexuality and seeing what he desired as well as, often, what he did not. He had not come to the Temple shy. He had not met one particular Blue with whom he had bonded. He had come immediately working his way through all the pleasures he could. But he knew now that Quint was with Matteo, Quint was off limits. On the fourth floor, Brian stayed one loud night two evenings before Wheelturn with Gabriel and Cal while Sara stayed with Nialla. And then, on another night, he called Lorne to his bed. He was young, and there were few days when nothing happened at all. Sionn, Randall, Cody, and the other first years who lived in the hall across from Conn, Brian took in turn, and his face was flushed and exhilarated. As Wheelturn arrived, Conn was aware that the only one in their group, besides Quinton, that Brian had not ridden or been ridden by was Derek.

And Conn realized that he wasn’t entirely sure if that was true. Derek was discreet and gone from him in service three days a week. Anything could have happened then. And yet, Conn was not upset by this, but strangely aroused. When he heard Brian riding Cal and being railed by Gabriel in the night, or when Lorne’s heavy body returned to their room and stomped naked into the shower, and Conn knew where he had been, Conn flushed with desire and he reached for Derek. Derek had no lack of Conn’s affections.

Quinton had been with Matteo only three days when he, himself presented Matt with a soft robe of light blue.

“Take off your clothes and let me put it on you,” he said.

That afternoon, Matt showed up for their lunchtime looking sober in his blue, and when he was congratulated he blushed hotly. Conn rose from where he was sitting on the bed, and kissed him on both cheeks.

“I feel so foolish,” Matt confessed in a low voice. “I don’t know if I can wear this every day.”

“None of us wears it every day, Dove,” Cal said, as he tore apart the chicken on his lap and stuffed bits of it wrapped in sheet bread into his mouth. “But you should try to wear it every day for a little bit. Maybe just for the morning. Since you’re new to things.”

“That is something most of us do,” Derek added. “Wear it a little bit for some of the day.”

“And always to chapel,” Gabriel added.

“It reminds you of who you are,” Quinton chimed in now, but he seemed more interested in the dates and the chicken he was wrapping in sheet bread.

“It reminds you that you’re more than an eighteen year old with the license to get your rocks off,” Obala said simply.

When Matt had chosen to take the Blue, Quinton went to Abbot Hyrum to take care of everything around that. Matteo trusted Quinton to train him, and after three days of them in their private love nest, Quinton said, “Luckily it was allowed and proper because, blessedly for us, making love was just part of what Blues do, but now there are other things for you.”

In the morning they worked in the kitchens rather than in the rooms or the sanctuary. Quinton was a cook and Matteo a dishwasher and Matteo had the sense that some who they worked with downbelow did not know they were Blues. The Temple, aside from having dependents, had employees. In the kitchens there was that easy friendship where everyone accepted each other with open arms, but refused to ask many questions about where someone came from or what was their business, and the kitchen was massive. They went to the kitchens every day, often looking across to each other and grinning and then, as eight o clock arrived, Quinton prepared to go up to the chapel for first service.

At the beginning of the month, the Grey Brothers and Sisters had begun to straggle into the Blue Temple. Now, as Annatide approached. Conn recognized many of those who had welcomed him on his first day in the city. Every evening they sang together in the sanctuary, and often in the nights, their elders spoke.

“Over and over again,” Conn would whisper.

And Matteo would reply, “They speak of the Age of Love.”

“When the ancient prophets spoke in the Book of Breathing,” Jacinth, a young, wide eyed and pretty Grey Sister said, “what did you think they meant? All the verses you hear at this time of year?”

She quoted:

“A shoot will come up from the stump of kings;
from its roots a branch will bear fruit.
The Spirit of the Love will rest on him—
the Spirit of Wisdom and of understanding,
the She of great counsel and of might,
the Lady of the knowledge and fear of the Gods—
and the Prince to come will delight in the fear of of his Lord.

“All of those old verses and songs, did you think they were only for snow and warm Annatide feelings? Are you not the oldest priests of Adaon. All prophecies are fulfilled in time, and this Age of War will end, and the Age of Love be born.”

But war was still spoken of, and in the south it was said the dukes were summoning their troops and the cities fortifying their walls. It was Abbot Hyrum who said, “You must not imagine one age ending the other, or one truth refuting another. The Age of Love’s very seeds are in the ground of the Age of War. The Age of Love is in your hearts.”

Annatide Eve they all gathered in the sanctuary. This was the first time Conn had seen the hall, all blue and white and filled with murals. More than the murals, the solemn hall was filled with candlelight, and as they lay the gifts one would give a small child, on the lap of the great image of Adaon, they sang:

“Makriá se fátni Den ypárchei

koúnia gia kreváti O mikrós

Hannas Annas xáplose to

glykó kefáli tou

Ta astéria ston foteinó ouranó

Koítaxa ekeí pou vriskótan

O mikrós Hannas Annas

Koimátai sto sanó.”

Here, the candlelight was warm, and the singing gentle. All across Kingsboro, minster bells rung steadily at midnight, and as their service ended in the sanctuary, and they wound their way out of the lit sanctuary. Cal, laughing, led their group to the roof. They were not the only ones on its surface, their mouths open to catch snowflakes that fell thick and heavy, and as Conn and Matt looked out on the city, they saw all of Kingsboro covered in white.