The Book of the Blue House

“We thought you were gone. We saw the grand procession.”

“We did leave,” Anson said. “I led out the armies. We got as far as Rutupiae. It was for show, and we’re holed up there tonight. I will be back by mid morning.”

“You snuck back into the city.”

“Indeed I did,” Anson said with a smile. “I snuck back in.

“I did not come alone,” he continued.

“Not the Lord Akkrebeth?”

“Akkre—oh, no. Not Ash. No. Ash is always somewhere far off these days. Another friend, and a good one. Robin Loxley, a highborn lord, but you’d never know it.”

“Much like you.”

“What’s that?’ Anson said.

“You are a highborn lord, highest there is, but one would never know it,” Derek said. “Only, I would,”

“Because you know me.”

“Because you have the bearing of a prince and you cannot hide it no matter how hard you try.”

The two men lay together, Derek’s arm over the prince’s, tracing his hip bone and his thigh.

“I do not try to hide it. The court has done that well enough for me, made me all but a bastard.”

“But you are not a bastard,” Derek said. “And everyone knows this. You are the right born son of Queen Essily and the King no matter what the bishops say, or how they made null the marriage. Even I know that, and I was yet unborn.”

“I will not argue it,” Anson said. “And I do not argue it.”

“I just think that Cedd and all of his allies would put so much upon you,” Derek said, “and you have been quick to let them. But I speak in haste of things I do not understand. However, my Prince, know that I speak them because I love you.”

Anson was about to respond when Derek said, “This Robin who has come with you? Is he in the Temple as well?”

“No, no.”

“Not a man of the Old Faith?”

“He is,” Anson said. “But he is of a different devotion.”

“The Red Temple, then? But we do not even have one in Kingsboro.”

“You certainly do not. And I don’t think you could now. Even here is too far north and too far east for a Red Temple. But no, Robin and his friend Will, who also came, they are of the Green Rite, and do their worship in the Grove tonight on Fair Isle as they say my mother used to do when she lived here. We will all meet in the morning.”

Derek had heard of the Green Priests and the Green Priestesses. He knew little of them, and this was not the time to ask more. One of their strongholds, so he had been told, was the Great Wood at least two weeks north in the Old West Country, and it was said it was not safe for a King’s man or one of the New Faith to go wandering there, especially after dark.

But now his heart turned back to the present matter and he said, “Cal will be unhappy not to have seen you again. His face is always light, but not his eyes. He cannot hide his worry from me.”

“We will be at Rutupiae for a couple of days,” Anson said, “but I know the rules, and I cannot summon which Blue will come to me.”

“Still, we can choose,” Derek said. “If you would, Cal could come to you of his own free will.”

“I would,” Anson said. “I would say goodbye to him. Calm his fears. Hear his sweet voice again. Maybe have him call mine.”

Anson turned around and his hand traveled over Derek. “Perhaps even the two of you together. Like in old times.”

Derek smiled and was aroused and Anson saw it. His hand stroked him.

“As much as all of me would love that,” Derek said. “It is not fair that Cal should share you with me when he comes. You have a long history with him, and he deserves what we have, the night uninterrupted.”

“A penny for your thoughts?”

“Just a penny?” Derek jested, “not a Crown.”

“A whole sovereign if you wish,” Anson said.

Derek lay on his stomach, his elbows under him fiddling with the pillow, and beside his long white body, Anson stretched naked and strong like a bronze lion. The prince puffed on his cheroot and exhaled the sweet smoke.

“I worry for this war,” Derek said. “We all do. And we worry for you.”

Anson started to say something, maybe something falsely calming, and Derek, lying on his side now and feeling beautiful, feeling like a Blue priest, said, “Why is it that you lead troops, and your brother stays right here?”

“Cause Cedd is no soldier, and I am soldier trained.”

“Because you made yourself so.”

“Exactly, because I made myself so.”

“And now you fight the wars for—forgive me for saying this—a very old father and a prince who everyone knows despises you.”

This was the measure of how long Derek had known Anson, and he added, “And he despises not only you, my Prince, but everything you love, all the old ways. All of us.”

Anson sat up, grinding out his cheroot in the little glass tray. He touched Derek’s hand.

“Is that your fear?”

“Truthfully,” Derek shook his head and sat up, “when it comes to you, my Prince, who I have known so long, who was one of the first to come to me, whose body I have known better than my own, the truth is my fears of losing you and my fears for what will happen to us if the nation loses you are so entertwined it is no easy thing to say where one ends and the other begins. My heart is not right, and I am only too glad we could have this night together.”

“If you fear for me then put a charm on me,” Anson said seriously. “Though most forget, I remember the Blue Priests have magic. All of you are embued with magic at your ordaining, a holdover from the original days. Ash has told me. And you forget, my mother was from the Rootless Isle.”

“Aye,” Derek nodded, “then you should remember your own magic, sir. As for any magic I have, I was not born to it. It does not flow through me. The only time I have ever felt it is on those few times when we all work it together. That is now the territory of the Blue Mages, and of the Fourth Degrees. The magic I give you and all men is the magic of sex and comfort, love and acceptance. It is not battle magic or the sorcery of old.”

“There is one of your number who does possess the old magic, though, and possesses it strongly,” Anson said.

“What?” Derek nearly frowned. Unthinking, he took Anson’s cheroot, which was not completely ground out, and puffed on it.

“Not Gabriel? He is studying the Fourth Degree. Or Quinton? He is a southerner. They have the old Royan blood.”

Anson looked at him blankly, almost amused.

“I cannot guess it,” Derek said.

“Or will not guess it.”

“Or will not, then fine,” Derek said. “Since I am so thick, Prince of Westrial, enlighten me.”

“Your love. Who you have left behind to be with me. The young man, Conn.”

“Conn!” Derek said.

“Ash told me himself. Ash sent a letter. I have not seen him in some time. I… do not even know if we will ever be together again. But he wrote and told me that there was a boy from the north—which surprised me until I realized that Rheged borders the northern kingdoms, and he said the Old Blood was strong in the boy.”

“Well, yes, Conn is not pale. Conn is bronze, and bronze haired. He is… he and his sister definitely have Royan blood, but this doesn’t necessarily. But…”

“I have seen him,” Anson said. “A few times. He is different than many of you. Different, but the same.”

“Yes,” Derek said.

“His path is not your path, but it is along your path.”

“Does he know?” Derek almost whispered, staring blankly at the wall.

“I doubt it,” Anson said.

“Should I be the one to tell him. That seems strange, but even stranger that I should be the one to keep it from him.”

“Derek, that is something I cannot speak to.”

Derek frowned, now stuck with a burden and also knowing that if what Anson said was true, and it was, he would lose Conn, for he would have to go someplace else to be trained properly. He tried the sentence out, his voice sounding hollow in his ears.

“Connleth is a witch.”