The Book of the Burning

Forty-    Six

Right now your heart is filled with sorrow and you can scarcely breathe for the pain because, though you had heard that all good came with great sacrifice, and that if you would be light then you must burn, until this moment you never knew how great was the pain of fire.

- Viviane Tryvanwy

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HERREBORO

When Cuthbert rose, Wolf rose and Myrne rose. Now, all the assembly began to rise as the choir, the one thing the missionary priests from the South had brought when they came centuries ago that remained in Hale, sang:

 

Whether standing or walking,
seated or lying down
Free from drowsiness,
One should sustain this recollection.
This is said to be the sublime abiding.
By not holding to fixed views,
The pure-hearted one, having clarity of vision,
Being freed from all sense desires,
Is not born again into this world.

 

And then, without the aid of a book as would have been used in the Great Cathedral in Ambridge, the Abbot Cuthbert began to speak to the young man and to the young woman before him.

“Will you solemnly promise and swear to govern the peoples of the Kingdom of Hale  according to their respective laws and customs?”

 Wolf looked down at Myrne, who smiled up at him, and then turning to face Cuthbert, they replied: “I solemnly promise so to do.”

“ Will you to your power cause Law and Justice, in Mercy, to be executed in all your judgments?”

“We will.”

“Will you to the utmost of your power maintain the Laws of the Hale and the Royan, respecting the gods and customs of all?”

“All this,” the said, “We promise to do.”

Myrne cleared her throat, for there was more, and she led Wolf in saying: “The things which we have here before promised, we will perform, and keep. So help us, O Lord.”

Cuthbert anointed their heads, their  chests and palms, and now Ralph came forward and Cuthbert removed the veil from the pillow he bore and on it, identical, were two golden tiaras, glinting in the low afternoon abbey light. As they were placed on the altar, Ralph raised them and sang out:

“Behold, in the east, Osric, your undoubted King. Behold in the west, Myrne, your undoubted King. Behold in the north, Osric, your undoubted King. Behold in the south,” he called holding the golden crowns aloft, “Myrne, your undoubted Queen. Behold, Hale, Myrne and Osric, your undoubted Queen and undisputed King.”

“My people, I here present unto you Osric and Myrne, your undoubted rulers. Wherefore all you who are come this day to do your homage and service, are you willing to do the same?”

And all in that great abbey cried aloud: “Aye!” as Ralph handed on crown to Cuthbert, and he placed it on King Osric’s head, and as the weight of the cold descended on his head and his skull was encircled by kingship, Osric Wulfstan passed out of this world.

He was in the rough hills, stone covered in deep green moss and thick grasses, on the border between Hale and Rheged. Streams sped through the toward waterfalls tumbling with the roar of giants. Water splashed his face.

“Sindri,” Ash said as Wolf blinked, looking about to see what were, plainly, dwarves working in a great smithy, “this is the boy Osric, Eoga’s son, and this is Sir Ralph Curakin, my old friend.”

“Then I’m sure I’m pleased,” the dwarf called Sindri said in a voice that said he had no time to take his eye from his work.

Ralph handed Ash the bag and Ash said, “I have brought these to you that they might be restored and… enchanted.”

Sindri lifted up a glowing sword and then plunged it into water that bubbled and hissed and he came forward on his squat legs to open the bag. Wolf gasped at the same time as the dwarf.

“Are these the Wulfstan crowns?”

“What’s left of them,” Ash said.

Sindri lifted a dinted half circle and said, “This was the work of Svig?”

“Yes, according to his word about the reign of the King and Queen of the Three Kingdoms.”

“It will be easy enough to reforge. But surely not for that bastard Edmund.”

“What do the Dwarves know of Edmund?” Ralph began.

Sindri looked up at the tall knight, his eyes glinting.

“Enough, warrior,” Sindri said.

“It is not for him,” Ash said. “It is for the grandson of Edward Ironside who will in time be King, who is born of a half Royan woman.”

“Ah,” Sindri nodded. “I see. The ancient crowns of Locrys were bound in enchantment, but never those in the north. You want crowns that bound the lord and the lady to the land.”

“And the land to the lord and lady.”

Sindri nodded.

“Why not you?” he said to Ash.

“I am no smith,” Ash said, “and Hale is not my land.”

Now he veered from this with the force of an eagle, out of the past, into the present, he raced to Saint Clew, found himself passing it, at another abbey, stood before a woman and a man. Though he had never seen one both only once, he knew the woman to be Hermudis Queen of Sussail, and the man was Rufus of Daumany. Their words were hidden from the, but it seemed it was the Queen who triumphed as the two parted.

He moved now to a white castle, the very Castle Whitestone, and fair haired women were running down the stairs to the great hall, followed by that Queen Edith, looking terrified, and they found the awful Allyn Baldwin, beaten and bloodied.

“My husband? The King is safe?”

“Lady no. Your brother.”

“Praise God!” the Queen clasped her hands and then reached for her heavy black beads, and they left her rooms, and then set down the corridors to the great hall.

“Cousin Edith!” Lingelde was crying. “Cousin, he’s found.”

“He’s found!” Ardith crief, pushing her hair out of her face as the fair haired women, on either side of her brother, supported her brother covered in soot, with one black eye and a bruise on his cheek. His clothes were ripped and his armor gone

“Brother,” she pulled Allyn to her, weeping.

As blackness went past Wolf, he was carried up the stairs and now he saw Queen Edith sitting across from her brother. Some time had passed.

“Well,” Edith said, running long finger around the pewter mouth of her wine cup, “You certainly did lay it on a bit thick, didn’t you?”

“Had to make it convincing, sister.”

“The black eye… The cuts.”

“I had Roderick do it.”

“And he did it? He did it so well. One should wonder about a friend like that.”

“Damn you,” Allyn said, lightly. “He was light with it first, but I told them this was serious and I would do him almost as rough.”

“And you did.”

“And now we are the…”  Allyn waved a long hand about languidly, “the sole survivor of Osric Wulfstan’s ambush.”

Edith frowned, looking down at herself, then said, “But did you have to ruin my gown?”

“Convincing sister, convincing.”

“Yes,” she said. “And you killed Rufus’s soldiers.”

“A shame that was, but necessary,” Allyn said.

“But what of ours?”

“Guarding your rat bastard of a husband.”

“Good,” Edith said. “Soon they’ll be killing him.”

“Well,” Edith rose, brushing her gown, “we had better go back to bed. We’ve a long day tomorrow, many long days, actually. We have a kingdom to take back and Hale be damned for now.”

“And Rufus’s troops gone? Thank God for that.”

“Well,” Edith said, “you can thank God all you want, but you’d do better thanking Morgellyn.”

“Queen Morgellyn? In Essail?”

“Yes, she sent me Richard’s signet ring, and that bit of international diplomacy is going to cost. Unlike God, Morgellyn Aethelyn never does anything from sheer goodwill.”

Wolf gasped, blinking, and he turned to see Myrne. Her head was bowed and Abbot Cuthbert was crowning her his Queen and she was his King.

“Amen,” Cuthbert murmured, clasping his hands. “Amen.”

As the people rose to applaud and he kissed his wife, he whispered, “Did you—?”

“Yes, Wolf,” she returned, “the moment it was placed on my head.”

As they turned to face their people, hands clasped, and they raised them to the people of Hale, and deafening applause filling the abbey, shaking its walls, Myrne said, her eyes never leaving her people, “We will discuss all of it tonight.”

The shawns whirred and the bells jangled as the music played on in the Great Hall of Herreboro. Eryk Waverly pulled more meat from the great boar in the center of the table.

Cedric was singing as the men clapped their thighs.

 

Vnwigt ho sede awei thu flome is

 the wurs that ich the soIwis for thine

 vule letewel oft ich mine song

 forletemin horte atflith

 ana falt mi tongewonne thu art

 to me ithrunge

 

Me luste bet speten thane

 singeof thine fule

 gogelinge

 

At one of the cousin tables, Hillary, veiled in white, was watching him.

“She loves him,” Myrne realized, and she looked to Wolf and saw that he knew it as well.

“I must rise and put Blake to bed.”

“I will go with you.”

“Myrne!” Lady Ashley said, “Tonight you are Queen. Ayla can put Blake away. Or I will.”

Myrne looked to Cauda and the red haired woman said, “Ashley, Myrne is Queen every night, and every night a boy needs his mother. And his father,” she added.

Ashley seemed unconvinced, but Cauda said, “The people will understand.”

As they left the great hall, they saw Hillary rising, followed by Ingrid, Cynric’s daughter, to bring Cynric his great harp, and the thatch haired mintrel pushed back his patterned cloak and began to sing:

 

Her pæron reðe forebecna

cumene ofer norðhymbra land .  

thæt folc earmlic bre?

don þætpæron

ormete thodenas i?

rescas fyrenne dracan æron ese?

 

“It was as if I was gone a long stretch of time,” Wolf was saying, “and taken all over the land.”

“Yes,” Myrne said. “I was in Ambridge. I saw Allyn Baldwin making plans to kill Edmund, and then I saw Allyn in the forest murdering men and imprisoning him.”

“But when did it all happen?” Wolf said as they ascended the stair together. “Did it happen yet and…. How do we use these crowns? I knew they were enchanted, but how do we use them?”

“Isn’t there a tale,” Myrne said, “Of Vadan Allfather, and how when he sat on his throne in High Heaven, and placed his helm upon his head he could see what he wished? What if this is how the crowns work?”

“Do you know what I wonder?” Wolf said. “I wonder if they only work when we use them together?”

“How so?”

“Because most times the King is the true ruler and his wife is Queen because she is his wife, but with us you are Queen because you are Queen and I am King because I am King. We rule together and equally. It seems very like Ohean to make it so that I would not be able to use this crown without you. In fact, somehow, I know that’s exactly how he designed it.”

“But how?” Myrne said as they came down the corridor to their apartments. “He always knew you would be King. He did not know about me.”

“I’ve given up on knowing what Master Ash—for he will always be that to me—knows and what he does not. And….” Suddenly Wolf looked very sad.

“If only we could see them,” he said. “If only we knew where they were, or could be with them again.”

“Wolf, what if with the crowns, somehow, we can?”

Wolf looked very sober, very sad actually. He said, “You don’t know how sad I become sometimes thinking of them, wishing they could see our boy and what we’ve done.”

“I do know,” Myrne said, her voice soft. “And yet, before we attempt that we need to know if what we saw is going to happen or if it has happened already. After all, what we are learning is that Edith Baldwin and her brother have schemed against Edmund King and framed us, and somehow, that witch, Morgellyn Aethelyn has helped her.”

“Well, then that knowledge is power.”

Myrne looked unconvinced.

She said, “It is limited power.”