"The Lay of Sir Berkley of Fairdale (Part Two)"
By;fernand jiro
Feet appeared in the slits of his vision, stockinged in colorful silk, and draped over by a floor-length gown of expensive cut. Berkley struggled to rise to his feet; he first tried to raise himself on his arms, but his left arm seized in pain and gave out, and he was forced to rise with the aid of his right only. Finally, he gained his feet, despite the dragging weight of his armor; he had campaigned in the heavy mail before, but it was always especially burdensome after several near-fatal encounters.
The scent that he had noticed earlier—which had been faint, and quickly masked by the rising stench of sweat and blood—curled through the breathing holes of his helm and tickled his nose, sweet and intoxicating. It left him slightly hazy. With some difficulty, Berkley pried his greathelm from his head and let it fall to the ground with a clatter beside his shattered shield.
Arrayed before him was a woman of incomparable beauty. Dark locks hung in intricate plaits on either side of her face, and waves of the luxurious stuff rolled down her back. Large dark eyes peered from a round face to meet Berkley’s steely gaze. Her lips, red and contrasting sharply with the beautiful pallor of her face, were pursed together petulantly over a slightly pointed chin. Berkley bowed, and she spoke as he straightened.
“You killed my dragon and bested my champion,” she drawled, “after crossing a bridge of spell-born fire. Surely, you are a man of sternest heart.” An ironic smile tugged at her lips and creased the corners of her eyes, and she answered his bow with a formal curtsey.
The sweet aroma that hung around her was strong and heady, and Berkley’s tongue was thick in his mouth. “Lady, I have come for Nicholas. Only release him from your wiles and I shall return from whence I came. I do not wish that I should take such stern measures with you.” The steel in his voice caught the lady Genevieve by surprise. Her breath caught, and she laid a hand against her breast carefully.
“Sir, I could care less about Nicholas. . . . He is no fun.” The petulance returned to her lips, curving them into an attractive pout. She tossed her hair, showing off the carcanet around her throat. Its gems glittered in the soft lamplight, glancing in Berkley’s grey eyes. “But you . . . you defeated my elf—perhaps you could remain here, with me, champion of champions.” She laid a soft hand against his soiled breast, ignoring the blood and sweat as she leaned in close against him. Her face was tilted carefully so that the gleaming band at her white throat sparkled in the light.
But he brushed her away. “None of your wiles, witch. Nicholas—where is he?”
The lady Genevieve’s face grew pallid with ire. Her lips trembled, and her hands clenched bunches of the silk of her dress. Raising one slight arm, she thrust a finger against Berkley’s breast, causing him to wince as it tapped his wound. “You will bend to me!” she cried, anger-paled lips parting around paler teeth. “No man denies my will!”
Sir Berkley crossed his arms and shook his head so that his hair bounced. “I deny you, even as Nicholas surely did. Give him over to me now, and I will quit this place without inflicting further damages.” He looked significantly at the blood slicked sword still lying upon the plush carpets.
The enchantress’ fury fled at the mention of Nicholas, and a new light entered her eyes. Her demeanor shifted completely, and her new countenance was as a rose compared against the prior bitter nettle. “Nicholas . . . of course. I see it clearly anymore.” She laughed, color rising once more in her cheeks and lips, a soft and becoming pink. “Take up and sheathe your sword knight, you have no further occasion to use it. I offer you the hospitality of my household. I will take you to Nicholas now.”
Eying the sudden change in manner carefully, Berkley did as he was bidden, putting away his soiled brand after wiping it on the skirt of his surcoat. Setting greathelm against his hip, he thence followed the doppelganger across the room and to a heavy door of oak. Genevieve produced a key, though adorned by no pocket or purse. She pushed the polished brass instrument into the keyhole and twisted, and was answered by a click. The door swung open at gesture of one slim hand, revealing a richly furnished bedroom.
Plush carpets spilled across the floor, their colors muted in the darkened room. There were broad windows, half set with lead-lined, colored glass, and half empty to let in fresh breath. In the sun, the colored glass would surely glow with brilliant blues and riotous crimson; but the lead sky behind gave nothing to the variegated hues.
Against the wall sprawled a four poster bed, covered over with satin sheets and the pelts of bears and lions. On this cushioned mattress lay a body, very still; and as his eyes adjusted to the unlit room, Berkley saw the familiar features of Nicholas, composed in peaceful rest.
The knight looked to Genevieve, grey eyes hovering on hers as he towered over her. The crown of her luxurious head barely reached his chest, and standing so close in the doorway accentuated the difference. She looked back, face tilted up, a queer smile quirking the corners of her mouth. “He slumbers under a spell, awaiting my proclamation of his doom.”
“Then waken him,” said Berkley tensely, eyes flitting back to Nicholas’ inert form. His hand strayed to the hilt of his sword, and he took a hesitating step into the room.
Snapping her fingers, Genevieve called, “Nicholas!” Immediately, the nobleman sat up from among the furs, turning his head to the doorway. For a moment he sat very still, as if his eyes were adjusting; then his face broke into a broad grin and he leapt from the bed to canter over before Berkley and Genevieve.
“Berkley!” he cried as he sauntered across the carpet in bright stockings. “How I’ve longed to see your face.” Casting wary eyes on the enchantress, he asked her, “Am I free, then, lady? By my friend’s sure hand?” She only nodded in answer.
The two men clasped each other in a fierce embrace, then, and the lady looked on with her peculiar grin. Finally, Berkley turned to her. “We must away—”
“You won’t stay a while?” Genevieve asked, pouting. Nicholas caught Berkley’s eye and shook his head decisively, while the enchantress continued enticingly. “I can conjure great banquets and delectable sweetmeats. My halls are warm, and my maids well trained.” Turning away from the chamber in which Nicholas had been captivated, Genevieve strode back into the parlor, gown rustling over the thick carpets. She avoided looking at the immobile body of her bronze man, stepping over him to stand behind one of the cushioned couches. Berkley and Nicholas followed as the enchantress laid her hands across the back of the sofa. They were like white spiders perched on a velvet wall.
“Lady, we must away,” Berkley replied. “I would not grant you the chance for two prisoners. Now, prove your hospitality. Grant us essence of salamander, that we might cross the bridge unharmed.” The knight wrapped one hand around his sword’s hilt, wordlessly threatening the consequence otherwise.
Glaring, Genevieve clapped her hands. As they stood for moments in silence, waiting, the rustle of dresses was heard from the stairwell. It mixed with the patter of rain on the walls outside, echoing ephemerally through the few windows, accompanied by coils of frigid air. Presently, a pair of young women emerged from the stairs. They were panting, and their dresses were wrinkled with the run. They curtseyed deeply to Genevieve, and then stood, hands behind their backs, trying to stare at Berkley without actually looking.
“Take him to his chamber,” Genevieve huffed, gesturing to the vanquished bronze man. “I will deal with him later.” Curtseying again, the pair of servant girls rustled quickly over to the inert heap of flesh and steel. They bent over him and wrapped slim hands and arms around his limp legs. Before they could exert themselves, Berkley stepped forward, and Nicholas behind him.
“Do not strain yourselves; I’ll carry him. Just show me the way.” Amid the wide eyed stares of the dark-haired girls, he bent to put his arms around the bronze elf; but Genevieve slapped his mailed limbs away.
“You’ve done enough. This is their task.” Waving for them to continue, the enchantress proceeded to a cabinet standing beside the fireplace. Berkley hesitated uncertainly beside the two girls. Nicholas gave him a warning look, and finally the knight tore himself from his courtesies and followed the lady of the castle to her cabinet of elixirs and retorts.
The woman was rummaging through a collection of leather skins and crystal vials within, clucking to herself as she looked each over carefully. Behind them, the men could hear the maids grunting as they sought to carry the elfin knight to the stairs. As they got him to the edge of the stairs, where the carpeting ended and the stone floor was laid bare, the warrior’s bronze skin scraped noisily against it.
Producing two small flasks, Genevieve held one each out to Berkley and Nicholas. “Drink these before facing the flames and they will turn from you like oil and water.” Both nodded, tucking the small containers behind their belts. Nicholas turned to go, but Berkley remained standing before the lady, staring down at her from his great vantage. The enchantress and her former prisoner peered at the knight in consternation.
“Lady, there is a tree at the bridge’s egress—I see by your face you know it well. I swore that I would wrest a countercharm from you to break the curse.” Genevieve balled her fists, lips trembling once more in livid disgust.
“That wench! I should have turned her hair to snakes, or . . .” Her words trailed into a wrathful hiss.
“The countercharm, witch.” Leaning in close so that his face was high above her, Berkley spoke with a firm quietude that compelled compliance. For several moments, the two stared into each other’s eyes with great animus, and Nicholas looked on, chewing his bottom lip in agitation. Finally, the enchantress broke.
Crossing arms under her breasts, she looked away. “Thus: [the countercharm].” Her bottom lip pushed out. Retrieving a stray carcanet from the cabinet behind her, she pressed it into Berkley’s hand. “Take this and give it to her, as a token of my forgiveness.” Then she turned her back on the pair. Slowly, they also turned away, heading for the stairs. Nicholas looked upon Berkley with a haze of bewilderment while the other man strode dutifully forward. They headed down the stairs, spiraling lazily around the central pillar. No words yet passed between them.
Momentarily, they were in the great hall, ceiling arching high above them in grand vaults of stone. The doors opened as they approached, unbidden, and a rush of cold air blew in. With the air came the noise of the rain, pelting down upon the ground with greater force than before. Every drop splashed as it struck the ground and puddles were forming and rippling all across the cobblestones. Berkley and Nicholas exchanged a smile, and then they stepped out into the grey rain.
The aspens shuddered in their rows. Their leaves were slapped by the falling rain, and tossed by the quavering breezes. Water splashed and ran off of the slain wyrm’s contorted corpse, great coils slick with water. The tarn was overflowing, and stained even blacker with the dragon’s thick blood. Wind whipped its surface now, along with the pelting by the rain.
Nicholas stood looking at the great carcass of the beast, half submerged in the tarn’s dark depths. Its cracked talons were still hooked into the cobblestones, and its neck lay in a great circle, pale underbelly exposed to the elements. One half of the hood was still extended, its eye drab and unspectacular alone and in the rain. The hole Berkley had made of the eye had filled with rain, and water now dribbled down the horned cheeks in an intricate path, spilling from the tips of bone and to the ground.
Out of the pale underbelly still emerged the jagged haft of Berkley’s lance. Blood had ceased to ooze from the wound, but the stuff had congealed around it like thick black mud. Nicholas shut his mouth as Berkley strode unconcernedly toward the bridge, hurrying to catch up.
In moments, the pair stood looking across the narrow span. Far to the left, south of them, Berkley could just make out the form of his dwarf and the pony and sumpter, huddled under the canopy. Directly ahead, the bridge stretched innocuously, a structure of cold stone. It beckoned innocently, the shining path, slick with rain, that led to freedom from the ensorcelling depths of the enchantress’ castle. Gouts of water poured from the runnels into the gargoyles, streaming out their mouths in falls of glistening pearls.
Reaching to their belts, the two men each retrieved the flask given him by Genevieve. As one they unstopped the mouths. Sharing a long gaze, they could see distrust in the lady’s promise mirrored in each other’s eyes. Berkley nodded, and together they tossed back head and flask and swallowed the contents of the retorts. It was foul stuff, bitter and oily, but it slid down their throats easily enough. There seemed no change between one moment and the next, other than a rank aftertaste.
Blood pulsing, the two put their feet out onto the bridge. Flames shot up from the bare stone, wreathing their questing legs. Steam rose from the bridge with a mighty hiss, lifting their hair and tugging at their garb. Heat surrounded them, brilliant and uncomfortable, but not damaging. The cloth of their garments refused to catch, embraced in fire as it was. Shielding eyes against the blaze, the knight and his charge cross the bridge, unscathed by wildly dancing flames.
As they stepped off the other side, the flames died down behind them. Uncovering pained eyes, Berkley found his dwarf already before him, seated on the pony’s back. At that height, his eyes were barely level with Berkley’s, but he looked up into the man’s face with a sort of admiration. He was wrapped in Berkley’s white mantle, which spilt the rain to the ground about him in crystalline sheets. The sumpter stood behind the dwarf, still attached to the lead. Its head was bent as it looked for anything to graze amid the dead branches.
Nicholas began to laugh, and was joined by Berkley, and then the dwarf. They stood together, sharing a long moment of mutual satisfaction. Then Berkley was off, followed by his dwarf and Nicholas. They walked along the edge of the canyon, back through the littered deadwood, accompanied by the rain. The dwarf brought up the rear, with the sumpter right behind.
A short hike brought them to the cursed tree. Berkley halted before it, and it shuddered in the wind—a real breeze. Rain dripped through its foliage and tapped on the trunk. “Sir knight . . . you’ve returned.” she said, awe evident in the voice.
“And with the countercharm, as I promised.” Berkley spoke the words that would turn back the spell that entrapped her. As he finished the phrase, the tree shivered with a new fervor. The leaves, so green, and slicked with rain, withered. Turning brown with the suddenness of a shadow across the sun, they curled upon themselves and dropped from the shivering limbs. Bark began to peel away in strips, curling away from the ends of the branches and sloughing like a snakeskin being shed. As the bark fell away, so did the likeness of a tree, and finally only a maiden remained standing before them, naked in the wild rain, her feet lost in a heap of rotted wood.
She wrapped her arms around herself and turned, hiding from the men’s vision. Berkley and Nicholas dropped their eyes, and the dwarf followed their example after a reproachful glare from Berkley. The knight held his hand out toward the dwarf, who reluctantly gave up the heavy white mantle he’d wrapped himself in. Stepping forward with the rain soaked garment, his head turned to one side, Berkley handed off the white cloak. The young woman received it gratefully, and swept it quickly around her narrow shoulders, its long folds held up around her in modesty.
A smile beamed on her face, even as her hair was plastered to the alabaster skin by the heavy rainfall. She began to laugh and cry at once, kicking away the decayed remains of what had been her prison for so long. Nicholas raised his eyebrows and glanced questioningly at Berkley, who shrugged by way of reply. Turning back to the girl, he asked her, “Where would you go?”
“Wherever you go!” she cried, laughing. “I’ll follow you anywhere, sir knight.”
“Can you ride?” Berkley asked.
She nodded, pulling aside soaked strands of hair. Lifted by the knight’s sturdy muscles, she was quickly set upon the sumpter, her weight adding little to the baggage already slung across its back. “Oh. Your mistress commended this to you—a token of her forgiveness.” Berkley held up the carcanet, which flashed even in the dull light of the rain-drowned afternoon. The girl lifted both hands to receive the gift in wonderment, forgetting modesty for a moment as the cloak opened and revealed her breasts. Berkley turned his eyes, letting the jeweled band drop into her hands and glaring at the dwarf. “Davin!” he admonished, and the dwarf looked away quickly. Then the girl had collected herself, and they set off.
While Berkley and Nicholas walked, keeping their own company some paces to the fore, the dwarf led the sumpter by its lead, with the servant girl in tow. They plunged into the forest, seeking its relative protection from the rain. The servants chatted. The girl’s name was Mary. She wondered if a certain knight of the realm might take a fancy to her and claim her as a wife—she could become a lady. Davin shook his head.
They made camp in the evening. Berkley searched his baggage for fresh clothes, both for himself and the servant girl. Presently she found herself wearing a tabard that hung to her shins, almost like an open-sided dress. It was cinched in the middle by one of Berkley’s belts, so that her waist was clearly defined. She kept the knight’s cloak, for the tabard had no sides, and if she was not careful it could slip and reveal more of her legs or body than was decent.
The rain continued through the night, preventing fire. All slept fitfully in the constant deluge, protected by a stretch of canvas spread between tree branches. Berkley let Nicholas take his padded aketon, and slept on the ground like the servants. He laid his soiled surcoat beneath himself so that he wouldn’t muck the new one.
When they awoke, the rain had slackened, but not yet ceased. The sky remained a dreary grey; but it was only visible through occasional breaks in the branches that cross-hatched over their heads. With the faltering of the weather, there were moments when it seemed, despite the mud and dripping of water from above, that perhaps the deluge had ceased altogether. But then a glade would appear, with slanted lines of rain pelting the wretched grass, or sometimes a woodland creek swollen beyond its tiny banks to rush headlong through tangles of roots and rock.
Berkley had allowed the pace of travel to relax, having acquired the object of his quest. No great haste pressed upon them any longer, and with the loss of a horse, and the addition of two new members to the party, there was little option but to slow down. The lazy pace allowed more time for conversation.
“Such a small party, my friend,” Nicholas admonished. “No retainers but poor Davin.” He shook his head. “You were reckless.”
Nodding, Berkley nevertheless defended himself. “Many of the Peers were errant already, questing in all corners of the realm—for the [Grail], some say. And I wanted the glory here to myself.” A many clawed branch lay in the path before them, and he bent to clear it. Grasping its reaching limbs, he heaved the dead wood to the side of the path, into the gloom of the forest. It crashed there, and the party continued on. Behind them, the dwarf and the servant girl murmured to one another intermittently.
“You just wanted me alone,” Nicholas muttered under his breath, and Berkley only shrugged in reply.
The rain ceased that evening, though the forest floor remained a morass of mud and roots. As the wood remained waterlogged, another night was spent in the absence of fire, but Berkley anticipated at the next camp. A bivouac was set up again, out of caution, and they slept in the relative peace that settled with the dearth of pattering rain. When morning arrived, pieces of the leaden sky had been transmuted to clearest lapis lazuli. As the day wore on, and they continued through the forest, the blue gemstone came to predominate over the sky, and the lead was banished. Only clouds of cotton remained hanging in the heavens.
That evening, Berkley retrieved his longbow from the sumpter, and a quiver of broadhead arrows. Stringing the stave into the classic D, he set off into the woods to seek fresh meat while the dwarf bent to the task of gathering wood that had managed to dry since the surcease. He returned with a modest pile, dumping the lot before Mary and Nicholas, who sat a pace apart on an ant-ridden log.
While the dwarf set about building a fire with his humble materials, Berkley returned with a brace of coneys, bleeding from their arrow wounds. He was lauded as he skinned them with his knife, and set them over his dwarf’s small fire on sharpened stakes. The smell of roasting meat filled the air as evening wore on, and juices dribbled from the meat to run down the spits. Ants collected at the bases of the stakes, relishing the savory stuff.
They dined in high spirits that night. The rays of the fading sun slanted through the trees, illuminating their feast of rabbits in the final minutes of the day. Grease ran down chins as meat was shorn by grasping teeth and lips. All that remained in the end were well picked bones, tossed to the ants, who would clean away the last remaining bits of flesh.
All sat in contented silence beneath the shade of the forest. As the sun set, darkness quickly descended, staved off only by the dancing flames at their feet. The fire crackled using up the last of the wood the dwarf had managed to collect. It would be larger the next night, as more wood dried, weather permitting. But its size was perfect for that night.
The servant and the dwarf laid themselves to rest soon after completing their meal. Sprawled on the forest floor, spread over by cloaks to keep them warm when the fire died, they slumbered easily. Berkley and Nicholas stared at each other. A ray of light shone through the thick trees, weaving through just so that it fell upon the carcanet at the servant girl’s white throat. The gem gleamed in the golden light, a glittering diamond worth the whole of Berkley’s estates.
Nicholas moved directly to Berkley’s side as soon as the breasts of the sleeping two rose and fell with the unbroken rhythm of true sleep. He touched Berkley’s hand with a smile. “We may never receive another chance like this.” The knight nodded, his grey eyes meeting Nicholas’ green gaze. They kissed in the failing light, as the first star emerged in the darkening heavens above.
In the morning, they continued their trek home. Berkley and Nicholas were perhaps more cheerful than they had been before. They strode through the forest with new buoyancy. The dwarf and the servant girl shared in as much as they could, following behind on the backs of their mounts.
Where before, the journey into the forest had taken nigh two weeks, and the fields beyond had lasted three, their trek now continued for many fortnights. The hunting posts scattered through the forest remained the same; but the men who manned them were transient, moving from hovel to hovel as the deer carried them. Thus, those with whom they shared fires with were unfamiliar to all, though just as hospitable. They respected any man of the Peers, and tugged their forelocks at Nicholas’ apparent veins; he was surely a nobleman.
Finally, the forest thinned, and the Greatwood was left behind, and the old road appeared under their feet. Fewer travelers walked the roads anymore, as the summer waned and autumn swelled. Hints of brown appeared in the leaves of the trees as they walked, and the fall harvests drew nigh. Most people now remained at home, preparing for the harvests and their accompanying festivals. Scythes were sharpened for the reaping. Traveling men were settling in to a chosen locale to hibernate the winter away, and perhaps move on when the snows melted and the spring rains arrived.
The party relied often on the hospitality of local people for supplies to break their fasts or dine. Barns of hay sufficed now as sleeping quarters for the dwarf, the servant, and the knight; and people gave their beds away to the nobleman and slept instead on the dirt floors of their hovels.
Finally, as the midday brilliance of summer faded into autumn’s evening gold, the towers of Cayr Carron rose in the distance, perched on their high hill with colored pennants snapping in the high breezes. The High King’s standard was held aloft at the highest point, rolling in the wind above the inner keep’s pointed minaret. Their pace quickened with this sight in their eyes, and they made the curtain walls as the sun began to wane in the sky.
A line of stern men with quarterstaves, dressed in the High King’s livery, greeted the travelers within the walls of Cayr Carron. Several cut off egress by positioning themselves before the gate, while the others moved in around Berkley and Nicholas. They ignored the dwarf and the servant girl. One, distinguished from his fellows by the sword hanging at his waist, stepped up to the leading pair.
“Sir Berkley of Fairdale and Lord Nicholas the Younger, you are hereby arrested for crimes against nature.” He stood, arms crossed, looking into each man’s eyes in turn, then indicated that they should follow him. “Come with me,” he said. “And bring her as well.” He pointed out the servant girl, and then turned and headed for the keep.
Exchanging frightened looks, Nicholas and Berkley strode after the quickly retreating figure of the captain of the guard, ringed by men with hard eyes and iron-tipped staves. The girl came too, lifted from her perch on the sumpter and set on the ground to walk, cloak flaring behind her and revealing her thighs through the tabard slits. Surreptitious leers followed her as she walked, but she had eyes only for Berkley striding ahead of her and was oblivious.
Left behind, Davin could only stare on, and then proceed to the business of unloading the sumpter and patting down both horse and pony.
Nicholas and Berkley, and Genevieve’s maid, were escorted through the baileys of the castle; the booted march of the watchmen echoed off the walls surrounding, and people about their business in the courtyards halted momentarily to watch the procession. Curiosity filled their eyes as a nobleman and knight were guided to the inner keep by a group of liveried watchmen.
Golden light tinged with red slanted over the castle walls, illuminating all in the lazy yellow haze of late afternoon. The warmth of the sun beat down on them as it prepared itself for slumber beneath the horizon. Before the company rose Cayr Carron’s famous keep, the greatest structure of the realm, formed in part by the works of the king’s pet wizard. From its base, the tower seemed immeasurable, reaching ever up into the heavens as if to scrape the seat of God Himself. So far above, the High King’s standard was little more than a scrap of silk tugged by the wind.
Throwing open the heavy doors, the watchmen ushered the trio within, beneath the high, vaulted great hall. The enchantress’ hall, with its high arching ceilings, was as nothing compared to this architecture. Beneath the stone arches and raised domes, which were adorned with the frescoes of a host of master painters, mortals were as nothing. Into these vast halls were the three commended, to stand before the seat of the High King.
A dais was raised from the floor at the far end of the chamber. In times of feast, on holy days or celebrations, the wide floors would be set with lengthy trestle tables heaped with all manner of dishes. During important ceremonies, such as the knighting of young men, the Peers would stand in rows with courtiers and dignitaries throughout the great chamber, in honor of the skills of the Peers-to-be; and the hall would be hung with flags and filled with incense from swinging thuribles.
At the moment, the hall was empty, save the High King on his high throne, seated with chin on fist; and two figures behind him, shrouded by the great length of the hall. The golden band of office gleamed on the sovereign's head in the light cast from the dying sun through high windows. It illuminated also the various tapestries hanging from the walls to add color to the drab stone of the architecture. The Great Hunt hung opposite the Battle of Bell’s Ford, though only the unicorn’s alabaster form and its wild hunters were lighted by the falling glow. And, beside the Great Hunt, to the High King’s right, hung the tapestry spun for his coronation: a celebration of the legends of Jamus the Just, his namesake.
Jamus III lifted his head from his chin as the tetrad approached him, guided now only by the captain of the guard. The other watchmen elected to remain behind, standing in a cluster around the doorway. The two figures behind the king resolved themselves into the forms of the court magician, Horus, and the enchantress Genevieve. Lacing his fingers in his lap, Jamus III watched Berkley and Nicholas with shrewd eyes. The two stood with heads bowed.
Approaching to within several paces of the dais, all four who stood upon the lower floor bowed deeply to their sovereign. Upon straightening, the Captain of the Guard began, “Here are the sodomites, sovereign.” Jamus III nodded, and indicated that the Captain should repair to his fellows at the back of the chamber.
The High King regarded his remaining subjects with masked emotion as the watchman retreated across the broad floor of the great hall. He heaved a deep sigh, settling back into the hard depths of his massive throne. A hand, fingers bedecked with rings, reached up to scratch his beard. By virtue of the light, half of his face was thrown into darkness, and one eye was shadowed; it presented the image of the two-faced god.
Finally, he spoke, his voice deep and reverberating even in the vast space of his hall. “Would that I were ignorant of your abominations,” he began. “Fain would I stand inert and let unfounded accusations fall by the wayside, if I could only retain you men in my service. But the lady Genevieve has brought undeniable charges against the pair of you; and I can see it in your eyes that you know them true.”
Berkley stared coldly at the woman standing to the side of the High King’s throne. She stood quietly, with the same queer smile dancing on her lips that she had worn when she released Nicholas to him.
“What accusations, sire?” Nicholas wondered aloud. Though his face had paled at first, he was quickly regaining his composure. “She is a witch—she held me under her spell! Surely you cannot trust such a cozener.”
The gravelly voice of the court magician, so rarely heard, broke into words then. “Her magics do not lie.” He stepped forward from behind Jamus’ throne, putting off the cowl of his dark robes so that his thin white hair was revealed. Looking to the servant girl, he put forth a gnarled hand. “The gewgaw, girl—give it to me.” The girl, whose eyes shied from Genevieve as if avoiding a Gorgon's gruesome mien, indicated the carcanet around her neck questioningly, and tore it off at a nod from the wizard. She commended it to him with eyes wide open.
“Your magic, witch. Show them, and they will understand.” At the wizard’s behest, Genevieve retrieved a looking glass from nowhere; it appeared suddenly in her hand, clasped about the silver-chased haft. She spoke a word, and the quicksilver surface, which had been reflecting the high windows, shifted its focus to the trio before the throne, without being moved. The woman turned it so that all three, but especially Berkley and Nicholas, could see the surface clearly. Meanwhile, Horus turned the diamond of the carcanet in his hand all about the hall, directing its focus from tapestry to tapestry. The mirror’s view followed the aim of the gewgaw, even when a reflection was impossible from the mirror’s facing.
Berkley and Nicholas looked on in horror, and the servant girl’s lips quivered. The High King spoke again. “I have seen your sins. I cannot in good conscience let this abomination go unpunished. Though I thought you good men, I have seen the vices of your hearts, and through your weakness you are damned.” Taking up his scepter, Jamus III stood. “I sentence you, Berkley of Fairdale, to burning at the stake for the perversion of nature; and you, Nicholas the Younger, will also burn. It grieves me greatly to commend this fate--but the strictures of the Threefold King are iron-bound.” He bowed his head, and the golden circlet around his brows flashed in the last sun.
When he raised it again, he called to the Captain of the Guard and his men, and that company strode forward to collect their damned charges. Genevieve watched them go, a smirk hovering over her red lips. Nicholas' head was low, but Sir Berkley never faltered in his step, nor let his face dip--he walked with a straight back and uncowed spirit. The servant girl collapsed upon the hard stone floor, legs buckling so that the skirt flounced around her in a circle over her crossed legs. She stared around uncertainly.
As Berkley and Nicholas were escorted away, Jamus III spoke again. “Young woman, there is no animus with you. Thus, you may remain as a member of my household if it pleases-—or return to the services of Genevieve.” She looked up, still avoiding the enchantress’ visage with her eyes.
With tears glistening on her cheeks, she finally managed to get force the words out. “I would like very much to serve in the High King’s house, your majesty.”
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