'Ware the Dark-Haired Man

by Robert Reginald

  She stopped him then, grabbed him by the elbows, and looked him straight in the face.

  “What difference does one more life make?” she asked. “He’s mad, Athy. He’ll lead this nation into an orgy of self-destruction if he continues down this path. Someone has to stop him. Someone has got to speak out.”

  “And do you really think that he’ll change his mind because you want him to?” Athanasios asked.

  Then the priest caught himself, ashamed of his harshness.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, “that’s not a fair question. I admire the courage in others that I can’t seem to find in myself. But now we have to get you out of here. If you’re caught loitering in this area, where women are forbidden, it will only be worse for you.”

  He locked her in a closet off the corridor, and then went to a small vestment room used by some of the acolytes. He quietly grabbed a clean robe and hood and sandals off the shelf. Everyone was far too busy com­menting about the turn of events to pay much attention to him. He flattened himself to the wall as a guard rushed by.

  Athanasios went back to the closet, and thrust the garments inside, saying: “Take off your dress and shoes, and put these on instead.”

  When she was ready, he joined her inside the con­fined space, lit a ring-flame, and carefully looked her over.

  “You’re still too pretty,” he commented, wiping off some of the color from her face with a corner of her dress. The close presence of an attractive woman threatened to overwhelm his control.

  “You like me, don’t you, little priest?” she noted. “You’re very sweet,” she added, kissing him lightly on the cheek.

  When he jumped back, she giggled.

  “Don’t worry,” she said, “I’m not going to spoil your vows. But thank you, father, for having the courage—yes, courage!—to risk your life for me.”

  He didn’t respond, afraid of what he might say, but looked her up and down again quite carefully, trying to avoid those parts that might inflame his blood.

  “Keep your head down and your hood up,” he or­dered. “Say nothing. You’re Brother Trayán. You’re mute and submissive. Follow my lead in all things.”

  Then he took the dress, balled it up in his hand, and flung it to the ceiling of the closet, sticking it there with his power. The shoes he disguised temporarily as chamber pots. They would revert back to their original shape in a day or two, long after Arizélla had left the place.

  He ordered her to “Stay put!” for a moment, and went off to the abbey to locate the new patriarch. He found him surrounded by well-wishers.

  “May I see you for a moment, holiness?” he inter­jected.

  Timotheos made his excuses, and Athanasios pulled him over to a private corner.

  “I request permission to take a day’s leave from the Scholê,” the priest said.

  “Indeed. And should I inquire why?” the patriarch asked, raising one bushy gray eyebrow. There was a suspi­cious smudge of color on Athy’s cheek.

  “Probably not,” Athanasios replied.

  Timotheos smiled slightly.

  “You have my leave,” he responded. “Just be care­ful, Athy. I wouldn’t want you to suffer an untimely acci­dent.”

  “Nor would I,” his friend noted. “I’ll be back on Tuesday. Please give me your blessing before I go, Arik.”

  The archpriest knelt before the new patriarch, who placed one hand on the younger man’s head, and made the sign of the cross with the other.

  “Thank you, holiness,” Athanasios said, kissing his mentor’s nomen-ring with respect. He then headed back to Arizélla.

  Very carefully and quietly, the pair made their way to a little-used alcove near the kitchen of the abbey, which directly adjoined the cathedral. Although they saw several other monks, no one paid them much attention or even spoke a word to them.

  “Where do you want to go?” the priest asked.

  “Home!” said Arizélla, and twisted the leys to carry them back to her dacha in Dnéprov.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “IT NIPPED ME”

  “I probably have a day before they’ll think to send someone out here from Dnepróvgorod,” she continued, “so I’ll pack what I can and leave the rest. If there are any of these pieces you particularly want to keep, by all means take them, Athy.”

  She changed into a plain striped shift over her undergarments, and began gathering her clothes together into bags.

  “Where will you go?” he inquired.

  “Pommerelia,” she said, turning to face him. Her face was grim. “I wasn’t just blowing air out of my mouth back there. I must do something to redress what my family has done to the people of that country. I’ll go to the new king, and beg his leave to establish a charity to aid the homeless refugees. Or anything else that might help.”

  “He might well kill you,” the monk replied.

  “Every day we spend on earth involves risk,” she noted, pursing her lips into a slight frown. “Every day, Athy. Why did the Lord take my daughter from me, my dear little Tamára? Why? She was just an innocent child, and I loved her so very much. I would gladly have gone in her place, father. But I wasn’t given that choice, and I can’t ever replace her. She was my only girl.

  “No. My previous life of self-distraction is over, father. Even if I hadn’t said what I said, I still couldn’t re­turn here. I must do something to restore the balance. Maybe God will eventually understand. I certainly don’t.”

  “God always understands,” the priest stated, “and so do I, Lady Élla. Do whatever you must to save your spirit, with all of my blessing.”

  Then Athanasios took a moment to walk about her cottage for one last time. He spotted what was obviously a small self-portrait done in color ten or fifteen years earlier, and held it up to the light.

  “If you don’t mind terribly, I’d like this,” he stated.

  She smiled, transforming her entire face into a vi­sion of loveliness, the lines around her eyes and mouth briefly wiped away.

  “I’m touched that you think it worthy of your con­sideration. But what will your superiors say?” she asked.

  “Well,” he noted, “I won’t tell them. I’ll have it framed like the icon of a well-known saint, and put down a candle or two in front of it, and they won’t give it another thought.”

  She laughed out loud, and smiled broadly, grasping his right hand.

  “If I’d known you ten years ago, father, you wouldn’t have escaped so easily,” she said.

  He blushed and ducked his head in embarrassment. Although he would never experience a traditional male-fe­male relationship, he thought he understood a little better now just what he could have had if he hadn’t been sent to Saint Svyatosláv’s as a child. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted several small paintings on a bottom shelf of the main room.

  “Did you also do these?” he asked.

  She bent down to look.

  “No,” she indicated, “someone gave them to me years ago.”

  “I recognize King Makáry,” the priest stated. “Who are the other two?”

  “The bearded one on the left’s Hereditary Prince Néstor, and the other’s his mustachioed brother, King Karlomán. Both were killed in the last war.”

  She idly picked them up and handed them to Athanasios.

  “Take these, too,” she ordered. “I don’t want them.”

  “But, I....”

  Not wanting to offend her, he reluctantly agreed.

  Finally, she finished putting together the few pos­sessions she thought necessary. Then she fixed them a lun­cheon of fruit and cheese. They went out on the terrace behind her house to eat.

  “How I shall miss this view,” she said, sighing. “Oh dear Athy, I’ve danced a pavane with candor once too often this time, haven’t I? I don’t think they’ll ever let me return.”

  They watched the boats sailing back and forth on Dnepróvsky Sound for half an hour, before she finally broke the spell.

  “Ther
e’s something else I must do,” she noted.

  She went back into the dacha, and some moments later came back with a sheaf of papers tied together into a bundle and wrapped in hard leather.

  “Give the top sheet to your patriarch,” she re­quested. “It’s a deed signing all of my possessions over to the church. I doubt that even King ‘Crabian’ will be able to challenge it. I’ve dated it last Friday, when I was still legally acknowledged as queen.

  “This second document is a letter to my sister. Please see that she gets it, not that she’ll really want to read the thing.

  “The third paper is a letter to Queen Brisquayne. Please give her my love.

  “And this fourth letter is my official abdication as Queen of Pommerelia and Countess of Bolémia, in favor of my only surviving sister, Princess Ezzölla. I’ve had this prepared for over a week.

  “I just wish I could give you something else in re­turn for your friendship.” She sighed. “If wishes were horses....”

  Then she saw a movement out of the side of one eye.

  “There is this, Athy,” she said. “Please take care of my kitties, Sybélla and Buténky. They’re good little mousers, and no trouble at all, really. Especially Bella. There’s something of me in her, I think.”

  She picked the coal black cat off the floor, and handed her to him. He’d never had a pet before, but when it started to purr, he was immediately captivated.

  She laughed again.

  “See, she likes priests too,” she said.

  Athanasios fumbled in his robes, and produced a cu­rious green stone that had been part of his possessions since before he could remember. It was mounted in an electrum ringband.

  “I’d like you to have this,” he stated, handing it over. “I don’t know what it means, or why it’s important, only that it is somehow. Perhaps you can do more with it than I’ve ever been able to.”

  “Why, Athy!” she exclaimed, clearly pleased.

  She held the milky emerald up to the light, watching the colors swirl and eddy within. There was a glow ema­nating from the interior, as if the stone itself were alive.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said. “I’ll wear it hanging next to my heart.

  “Now we must go,” she emphasized, “before the gendarmes arrive. Come with me, and I’ll show you a place that you can use as a refuge if you ever need one. But first, memorize the details of my albaurum in case you ever want to come here. You’ll be the only other person who knows about the thing, and it’s very different from the usual kind. I’ll set a trap so that only you and I can ever employ it.”

  “Albaurum?” Athanasios inquired. “I’ve heard of them, of course, but I didn’t realize what it was when we originally transited through. Your alcove is sufficiently re­cessed to keep it dark most of the time, and you led me into the leys yourself.”

  “It’s a very rare and unusual artifact,” she noted, “dating back, I think, even before the days of the great Ju­lian i, to a period when the empire ruled the civilized world. I’ve never seen or heard of another exactly like it, although perhaps the Holy Roman Cæsar has one locked away in his vaults in Ravenna.”

  “Even if he has,” the monk replied, chuckling, “I doubt very much whether old Marcus Ætherius iii has any idea of what it might do for him. The few albaura that I’ve encountered have all been much smaller implements, and usually round in shape.”

  “As is this one, although I’ve disguised the fact,” she said.

  Élla took him by the hand and dragged him across the room to the recess where the mirror lived, placing his palm right over the shiny metal at its heart.

  “Feel it!” she commanded. “Subsume it. Remem­ber the beat within. Allow it to accept your spirit.”

  “It has a warmth to it unlike a viridaurum,” he mused.

  Then he jumped and abruptly pulled back.

  “It, it nipped me,” Athanasios said, looking at the red circle of dots embedded on his open palm.

  “Had it rejected you,” the princess replied, “you would not be standing there so complacently, I think. An albaurum has a mind of its own.

  “Now, give me your hand again,” she continued, clasping his stained palm. He jumped a second time. “We’re going to a hermitage once used by the Nathanites in Axium. And don’t give me that look. You have to trust me, little priest. I came across it years and years ago, when an old friend of mine....”

  She twisted the leys and they vanished, just like that. The king’s agents didn’t arrive for two more days, and then they found nothing to indicate where the Princess Arizélla had gone. When one of them tried to employ the albaurum, he never returned from wherever it was he was sent, although somehow they could still hear his cries for help, if they listened carefully. Then they sealed and posted the dwelling with a sigillum of power, forbid­ding entry or exit to all, on pain of death.

  After they had departed, however, the albaurum reached out and adjusted the working so that it only oper­ated in one direction. Buténky checked the implement’s re­shaping for its taste and structure, and then turned and walked straight through the great whitegold mirror, looking neither to the left nor the right. It was time for him to move on.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “THEY MUST PAY!”

  The evening that Arizélla left home, Mösza called together the first session of the Covenant of Christian Mages in almost six months. Just five of the members, in­cluding herself, appeared in the great domed chamber. Count Zhertán and Prince Arkády did not attend, because they had not been invited, although the other four attendees did not know this.

  Finally, Mösza rapped the meeting to order.

  “It appears that the war still divides us,” she said, “so perhaps it is time to consider appointing replacements for our long-missing members.”

  “I am not sure of this, beautiful lady,” Nur ad-Din replied. “I think that perhaps we should consult these indi­viduals first, before making some attempt to remove them.”

  “I don’t,” said Kulmann Graf von Einschlag, who had been slightly wounded at the Kleine, while acting as an observer for the King of Franconia. “Let’s get on with it.”

  “I nominate Widdekin, Hereditary Count of Körvö, to replace his father,” said Aurora Lady Estavaye, a native of that place.

  “Seconded!” Count Kulmann agreed.

  “Any objections?” Mösza asked. “Hearing none, he is elected. Who else?”

  “I don’t want another Kórynthi taking Prince Arkády’s place,” Kulmann insisted.

  “Then I propose Arslan Tash, a native of Ras ash-Shamra,” Mösza stated.

  “Does anyone else here know him?” Aurora in­quired.

  “I’ll vouch for him,” interjected Prince Philodème of Neustria.

  “Any objections?” asked Mösza. “Very well then, hearing none, I’ll consider him enrolled. I will now accept nominations for a new chair.”

  “I nominate Mösza, Countess of Rábassy,” offered Philodème.

  “Any others?” Mösza asked of the group. “Hearing no objection, I declare myself duly elected. I will notify the nominees, and also those missing from our soirée to­day. I’ll call another meeting as soon as we’re ready to seat the new members. Thank you, all.”

  When the rest had transited home, the old countess walked back into the council chamber, and looked around at the great windows.

  “Oh, you fools!” Mösza screamed, laughing and crying all at the same time. She climbed onto the great round table and twirled about in a grotesque parody of a dance. Outside the window an owl hooted at her.

  “Oh, I’m so looking forward to playing with you,” she added.

  Suddenly she saw a movement near the door, and fell backwards onto the center of the table.

  “Who the Hadês are you!?” she demanded, propping herself up on her elbows.

  She peered over her nose, trying to make out the dim figure standing there. It appeared to be a woman wearing a peasant’s robe.

&nbs
p; “I said, who are you?” she yelled.

  “Just a friend to those in need,” came a soft voice in response.

  “I have no friends!” Mösza replied. “I have no needs.”

  “How very sad for you,” the shadow commisser­ated. “Have you nothing worth living for?”

  “My pain,” the countess blurted out, putting her hand to her mouth when she realized what she had said.

  “And your hate,” the stranger noted. “Yes, I can see that. Why do you hate?”

  “I was wronged,” Mösza responded, unable to stop herself.

  “So you were,” the visitor agreed, “but is that any reason to chastise the innocent?”

  “They must pay!” she emphasized.

  “They are all dead,” the figure said. “They have al­ready been judged by Almighty God for what they did or did not do, just as you will be. Come along with me now. Let me show you another way, the way of light and peace. It’s still not too late.”

  “No!” came the retort. “They must pay! They must all pay!”

  “And so they shall, dear Mösza,” said the fading voice. “But you shall pay the most of all.”

  And then she was gone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “MADNESS”

  Several days later, on the Feast of the Seven Broth­ers of Kybolla, the first full council meeting was held since the king’s return to Kórynthia. Princess Arizélla’s abdica­tion was pre­sented, read into the record, and accepted by the king. He added several choice remarks about the woman, grinning knowingly at the councilmen.

  “The throne of Pommerelia being vacant,” he con­tinued, “we hereby declare that the Princess Ezzölla, sec­ond daughter of Kazimir late Hereditary Prince of Pom­merelia, has succeeded to the Crown of Pommerelia and County of Bolémia under the title Ezzölla i, effective this date. Gorázd, prepare the proclamation.”

  The king’s face suddently flushed red when he re­called the humiliation visited upon him at the church.

  “Further,” he continued, “we do declare the Princess Arizélla, late Queen of Pommerelia and Countess of Bolémia, as outlaw and renegade, she having fled our juris­diction without our authorization, and banish her from our realm for life, under pain of death. Record this, Gorázd,” he ordered, pointing down at the register, and hitting it several times with his index finger. “Do it now.”