by R A Browell
‘All of you? Here?’ replied Lily, glancing once again at Valens. ‘That’s great, but why didn’t anybody say anything before now? And Mareena with us in lessons day and night?’
Ziggy smiled. ‘It’s the right thing to do Lily, we need all the help we can get, and the fact that she was allowed through the gateway means it keeps the gatekeepers are happy.’
‘You don’t sound very pleased?’ replied a crestfallen Mareena.
‘I am Mareena, I’m delighted, but all of you, here?’ she said, bracing herself as she stole another glance at Valens and felt her stomach somersault for the second time that evening. ‘How did you get here tonight?’ she asked, looking directly at Ziggy.
‘Downstairs. Hallington’s gateway,’ he explained in a whisper, ‘the one we’ll use to get to the archives. I’m looking forward to it but I’m not sure about this human dress,’ he said pulling a face. ‘It seems very stiff to me Hari, far too tight around the neck. I think our Farisian gowns are much better.’
‘Now I understand,’ exclaimed Lily, looking accusingly at Hari. ‘That’s why you needed such a large suit bag. You knew all along! Are you guys ever going to let me in on what’s happening?’ she asked, standing with her hands on her hips as she looked at each one of them in turn; all except one.
‘Definitely not!’ replied Valens. ‘Come on, Lil, you can’t avoid me forever. Remember, I saved your life!’ he said smiling, as he grabbed Lily’s hand and dragged her towards the packed dance floor. The music had slowed. ‘And now it’s time for you to teach me a thing or two,’ he whispered, moving his lips close.
Lily looked up at him, hardly daring to breathe, never mind to ask what was on his mind.
‘About this human dancing!’ he added with a grin, as he took her in his arms and squeezed her close.
She couldn’t hear the music, just his heart as she felt a hundred pairs of eyes watching them move slowly around the dance floor. She didn’t care who was watching, all she cared about was the thousand butterflies chasing around and around in her stomach as she looked up into his eyes.
‘And remember,’ he whispered, ‘you might be a sanguin and be fast and strong but you still need to breathe.’ He smiled as she felt herself relax, completely unaware of the little featherstone pendant as it nestled, radiating happily, between their two, super-naturally, slow-beating hearts.
To be continued…..
Follow the teenagers, on their next adventure in
PrelatorS
Continue reading for the first chapter of
Prelators: Part Three of The Carfax Chronicles
The Carfax Chronicles
Part Three
Prelators
Chapter One: Fraternal Love
Thorko Castle
January 1347
‘Brother,’ called Mortragon, stepping out from behind the heavy oak door into the cold air, ‘you are most welcome this night. You received my letter?’
Morwick nodded easily, threw his long leg over the hind quarter of his sweating mare and dismounted in one swift movement before crossing the cobbled courtyard of Thorko Castle to meet his twin. Away in the distance a dog fox called to his mate, the high-pitched bark cutting through the misty night.
‘Your man follows,’ Morwick explained, ‘I left him to rest and change horses. He is only a day or so behind, but come, tell me, what is this great matter that I should return so urgently?’ He pulled the thick travelling cloak from his shoulders.
‘I am glad that you have come so quickly, Brother. You’re a difficult man to track down. It was only because of your last communication with Father that I even knew you were back in the North.’
Morwick observed his brother closely, listening to the slow, steady beat of his heart. There was something about the way in which he’d addressed him, something about the intonation in his voice that sounded at once both familiar and strange. ‘Does it concern Vebbia?’ he asked uneasily. ‘There has been no news from Carfax Castle, nor from Bleedstone since I have been away. Is she unwell?’ Morwick looked into his brother’s eyes; they were warm, the colour of light caramel but with occasional flecks of darkness. So much had changed since he had left his father’s house to live at Carfax Castle but despite what had happened to him, and the changes he had experienced, this was still his brother, and he smelled like kin.
Mortragon shook his head and reached out to embrace his twin, clasping the younger boy’s shoulder. ‘As far as I know, Vebbia is well and with her kinfolk,’ he smiled. ‘She no doubt awaits your return. Too many of our ladies, seem to be awaiting the return of their lords from the battlefields.’
Morwick motioned to a young stable boy, who ran out from the kitchens. He caught the boy’s eye and nodded across at the sweating mare. ‘Rub her down well with straw,’ he instructed, ‘keep her covered and make sure her oats and water are warm, otherwise you’ll be answerable to my father.’ He looked absently over the grey castle walls towards the far distant moors.
It was less than two years since he and Vebbia had been unsure who they could trust with their new-found secret. Neither of them had known of others when they’d started to become stronger and faster and hungrier than normal humans, but from the first, he’d felt certain that they couldn’t be alone. He had kept these thoughts to himself, but had guessed that others like them would be found where there was a plentiful supply of easy food – the bloody battlefields with their recently dead and fatally wounded. This was a time of bloody conflicts and, like many other nobles, Morwick had left his young wife at home to lead the Carfax men to battle, but his primary intention had always been to gather intelligence and to try and find others who were like them. He had wanted to return home much earlier and now that he was so near to her, he was impatient to get back to Carfax Castle. He wondered if he had been gone too long.
‘So why the urgent call for me to come directly to Thorko rather than Bleedstone?’ he asked. ‘I must send word to Vebbia so that she knows why I am delayed. Is it our father? Or our mother? Your letter was silent.’
‘Brother, it has been too long and there is much to be discussed. Come, you have travelled hard and are in need of refreshment and perhaps a hot bath,’ he suggested as he opened the great oak door. ‘I wrote you home,’ he continued, lowering his voice so that it was little more than a whisper, ‘because I have discovered a danger that lies hidden within these four walls; within this very household.’
‘This household?’ repeated Morwick in the same whispered tone. ‘Mortragon, I have not lived under the protection of this roof for near on six years. You are the firstborn, the natural and proper heir to our father. I am his second son. My household is that of the Carfaxes, they are my kin through marriage. Brother, you must know I have no place in this household.’
‘Except that you are my heir, Morwick. If anything should happen to me, then all this will be yours.’
Mortragon led Morwick through a corridor into a large hall and took hold of a lighted taper from the wall.
‘Come, you will have your old rooms,’ he said as he led his brother further into the heavy stone-built Norman castle that smelt of dry straw and smoking embers
‘And my lord and lady? Where are they this night?’ Morwick looked around the Great Hall and the many rich tapestries that lined the walls. Nothing had changed in the years since he had left.
‘Away at present but expected back later,’ Mortragon replied. ‘You know this place Morwick, the walls have ears… and eyes too,’ he added in a whisper. ‘Things have changed since we were boys. You have changed. I can see that now, just by looking at you. I can see it in your eyes.’
Morwick was silent. He followed Mortragon down the dimly lit corridor towards their old rooms. There was something about his brother, something familiar and comforting that Morwick had missed more than he’d realised. As boys they’d been as one. Able to predict each other’s movements; each knowing the other so well that games of strategy, like chess had gone on and on for weeks wit
hout victory. Youthful skirmishes, playful battles training them for adult life, had never been won outright by either boy.
‘But why all this secrecy and moving about as though you were a thief in your own house?’ asked Morwick, still keeping his voice low.
‘One moment,’ replied Mortragon, holding his forefinger to his lips as he led the way up the tower steps. He paused, looking each way, before opening a narrow wooden door. Morwick followed, counting the small iron studs on the familiar oak as he stooped to pass under the low threshold.
‘Mortragon, what is all this? What is the danger of which you speak?’ asked Morwick, closing the oak door behind them with a heavy thud. The room smelt of fresh soap, as though it had recently been scrubbed and made ready. Mortragon sat down on one of the primitive wooden chairs by the fireside and started pouring from a flask of wine, filling two cattle horns that had been fashioned into drinking vessels. He motioned for Morwick to sit.
‘Did you find that for which you were searching in the battlefields, Brother?’ he asked, deliberately holding his brother’s gaze as his own lips grazed the rim of the drinking horn.
Morwick narrowed his eyes as he sat on the chair opposite his brother. He was staring back at his own reflection, peering into the windows of his twin’s soul. They had been identical from the time of their conception when they’d fought for room to grow in their mother’s womb and those eyes were still the exact duplicate of his own.
‘You must now understand that you had no need to go looking for those who are like-minded,’ continued Mortragon. He paused before simply adding. ‘You must realise that you are as me, and I am as you.’
Morwick fixed his gaze on his brother and furrowed his brow, shaking his head in happy disbelief.
‘You too?’ he exclaimed, ‘but I hardly dare to believe it can be so!’
Mortragon smiled shrewdly.
‘Why do you suppose it to be so impossible? You need only look in the mirror. Every time you see yourself, you see me. There is no difference between us, Brother. We are as one.’
Morwick once again shook his head.
‘Brother!’ he exclaimed, as both men stood and Morwick clasped Mortragon to him, slapping him on the back with true affection. ‘Then it is true, we are indeed brothers, alike in all ways,’ he smiled. ‘Except for one, you understand,’ he said and laughed heartily, ‘for my heart is reserved for another!’
Mortragon pulled away and stared at his brother.
‘You have this degree of unity with a girl who is not of our blood?’ he asked.
‘Mortragon, my only true brother, he said as both returned to their seats beside the dying fire. ‘You misunderstand. Vebbia is not only my wife, but she is of our blood. She is as you and I…’
‘She has our strengths and appetite?’
Morwick nodded happily. ‘You should take a wife yourself and then you will understand,’ he said beaming proudly. ‘But I cannot tell you how pleased I am to have found you and I, so alike. So changed and yet so unchanged.’ He paused. ‘I am intrigued by my failing. How long have you known and how can I have been so blind not to have seen what was right in front of me?’
‘Don’t beat your breast too heavily, my brother,’ laughed Mortragon, ‘for even I did not know for certain, at least not until you rode into the courtyard tonight. It is true that I’ve wondered for some time, harboured suspicions that we could be the same. Hoped that we might have shared tastes in every respect.’ He beamed at Morwick. ‘But one look, as you dismounted this night, and I knew. Your eyes betrayed your secret. I can see that soon you will need to feed.’
Morwick watched his brother as he took the flask and refilled his drinking horn. Mortragon’s hand could have been his own.
‘And clearly you don’t,’ he replied.
‘No,’ Mortragon replied succinctly, ‘there is enough food to be found in these parts. There is no need to go the battlefields and feast on filthy carrion.’ He took another sip of his wine. ‘So what was it?’ he asked. ‘Why your extended absence? Why flee your adopted kin and abandon your pretty young wife? Or perhaps you were looking for easy prey. I’m amazed you didn’t think to come back to Thorko,’ he said looking bemused.
Morwick shook his head. ‘There was no fleeing or abandonment, Mortragon. It seems so obvious now and I feel so foolish, not to have thought that you would be as me,’ he said choking a whisper. He hesitated, pausing to take another sip of wine and then tore off a thick chunk of bread. ‘It is true that I wanted to find others like us,’ he continued, ‘but I also had a duty. There were good men from the Carfax estates who had been conscripted into battle and it was my duty to lead them.’
‘Lead them and feed your appetite at the same time?’ Mortragon added with a sneer.
‘If you like,’ replied Morwick, slightly disconcerted by his brother’s attitude. ‘There were a number of reasons but I was primarily driven by my duty; the desire to find others like us was secondary.’
‘If you say so,’ smiled Mortragon. ‘And did you find them?’
Morwick nodded slowly.
‘Yes, or rather, they found me. On the continent, many in France,’ he said. ‘I learned much from them between battles, they were generous, and then it was time for me to return to my own country. I have not been away so long. Many have been away from their estates much longer on the battle campaigns in foreign lands, and besides, it is my understanding that time is something of which we are not short!’
‘And your pretty bride?’ Mortragon asked carefully. ‘What of her?’
Morwick pulled his chair closer to his brother.
‘As I said, Vebbia is of our understanding,’ he replied. Morwick watched his brother and sensed him shift slightly. ‘You did grasp my meaning before?’ he asked ‘This is something you did not expect?’ he added. ‘Does this make you feel uneasy?’
‘No, but it isn’t often that I am surprised,’ admitted Mortragon, ‘yet I don’t understand. If she is as we are, then why leave her alone. Why go without her?’
Morwick looked down into his wine.
‘You know how it is out there and I thought the battlefield no place for a lady. I thought she would be safer with those who had known her all her life. Finding food for one without exciting suspicion is hard enough, but believe me, for two it is almost impossible. Before I left I had tried, but Vebbia is a gentle girl and despite what we are, she has no stomach for the struggle, she does not want to feed from her fellow man. I have been looking for others, for some measure of understanding and to find a place of sanctuary for us both. I didn’t want to raise her expectations. Already, there is much talk and suspicion across Europe and into our own country that spreads with each passing week like the plague. You must have heard the stories?’ He lowered his voice. ‘There are now organised searches for cadaver sanguisugus,’ he said, ‘the bloodsucking corpses and revenants of myth and legend… Brother, understand that there are many out there who are all too willing to blame such creatures for the current reign of disease and death that is now visiting towns and cities across Europe. There are armed men, who as we speak, are searching out and destroying those whom they believe to be such unnatural creatures who carry the plague. Tell me, how can a natural born sanguin survive against this tide of suspicion? One slip, one lapse in judgement and it is certain death. There can be no negotiation with fear. It is imperative that I find a place of safety for Vebbia.’ He paused. ‘I have learned that we must be eternal optimists in the face of adversity!’ he said and forced a weary smile.
Mortragon listened. ‘What you say about fear lends weight to my own suspicions,’ he said in a low voice, ‘and the danger that lies here, in the very midst of this household.’
‘In this household, you say?’
Mortragon nodded. ‘It is for this reason that I sent for you as soon as I heard that you were back in England. Mortragon leaned in closer. ‘You should also know that you need not leave these lands to find others. They are scattered, but I too h
ave gleaned knowledge from those who have centuries of experience in this way of living.’
‘But you believe there to be an enemy within these walls?’ asked Morwick.
Mortragon stood, refilled his drinking horn and took a slice of the slow-roasted venison haunch which had been left out for them.
‘Enemies,’ corrected Mortragon, chewing on his meat. ‘But first you must eat and bathe and anoint yourself with oil from the Holy Lands and then I will show you exactly what I have discovered...’