“Ho! You are not a petty officer, Captain Koon,” Meredith called out.
“Nor am I,” returned a gruff, old voice.
“Demons and devils!” the monk stepped backwards, “Admiral Stuart!”
“Whom did you expect? The devil has come, as you say, and my demons with me. But come aboard, for Gylain is on the move and we must join him in that.”
As he spoke, Cybele closed her eyes and pressed her lips together.
“Do not fear him,” Celestine whispered, “For he is father.”
“Yet as he says, he is also the devil!”
Chapter 73
“Meredith!” called the Admiral as he stuck his head over the rail to see and be seen. “Meredith, why does the commander leave his post?”
“To see the Fardy brothers returning gallantly on their water castles!”
“That is well in times of peace,” the Admiral spoke slowly, “But in war it is weakness, and weakness is rewarded only with defeat. Remember this.”
“I had not forgotten.”
“Very good, then. Yet the Fardys have loosed the lion. Gylain is on the hunt. If your Marins cannot break fifteen knots down the coastal stretch, we will tow them.”
“They cannot,” the black Fardy answered.
“There, Barnes!” and the Admiral turned shipward, “Attach this Marin to The Hare and The Tortoise , and the other to The Merry Forester and The Sheathed Sword . The King’s Arm will stay unharnessed, to maneuver in case of an ambush.”
“Yes, sir!” though the young man could not be seen on the towering deck.
The Admiral returned his face to the Marin. “Celestine, why are you here? You should be with Alfonzo, for he needs you in his endless toil.”
“Yet my sister is here.”
“Your sister by blood but not in it; she serves another. I do not know her as a daughter, but as the Queen of Saxony; and the queen of Saxony does not dwell within my heart.” He paused. “She has come in war, and meant to attack Thunder Bay alongside Gylain – so my spies have said. Do you even deny it?” His voice was a glacier.
“Not in the least,” and she returned his cold glance without emotion.
The Admiral grabbed onto the rail of the ship – fifteen feet above the Marin’s dock – and swung himself over and onto the platform below. He landed in front of Cybele, raising himself to his full stature and locking her into a melee of the eyes. To Meredith, “Bring forward the chains, Commodore. She is an enemy commander and not to be treated with leniency.”
“Father!” Celestine cried, and she stepped back to separate herself from the act which she abhorred. “Have you no heart? No love for your own daughter?”
“I am a soldier.”
“But a soldier still has a heart, for he is a man before a soldier.”
“Silence, fool!” Cybele hissed, “I am a soldier, as well. To be captured is weakness and for a soldier weakness is death. I was gloried in strength. Thus I must be mocked in weakness. Let it be!”
“Meredith, chain her,” the Admiral said, ignoring the conversation between his daughters.
Meredith did not do it, partly from wonder and partly because he had no chains.
“Forgiveness, father!” Celestine continued. “Are not the ways of God above the ways of man?”
“I am not God!” the Admiral turned and looked her over. “What has happened? For your face is marked with the whip.” His voice became involuntarily tender. He held her chin in a fatherly embrace.
“The toils of the journey,” she whispered.
“She lies,” Cybele said, her voice broken. “She is indeed marked by the whip, and by my orders. I faced her as it was done, even as our mother faced you!”
The Admiral struck her across the face with an open palm. “The devil in a woman’s skin! Has your mother been reincarnated, in beauty and in sin?” To his ship, “Barnes! Prepare the galley for a rowing slave!”
“Sir,” a voice returned, “A single oar will break our current, and there are no other prisoners.”
Celestine did not leave time for the Admiral to speak, “Barnes, I will join her.”
“Sir?” and Barnes Griffith’s face appeared over the rail.
“If she is a fool, let her be foolish.”
“Yes, sir!” and the lieutenant disappeared.
The Admiral was silent, flying up the rope ladder that had been dropped from the side of The King’s Arm. His daughters followed, each with vigors of a different origin. Celestine was passionate for her sister, Cybele for evil. Meredith and the Fardy brothers followed as well and the very moment the blond Fardy threw his legs over the rail the Admiral ordered, “Heave away!”
The sailors were a strangely efficient force. The Admiral had set the sails against each other as they came about, and while they stood at the Marins, the ship did not move. But as he called out, a group of sailors jumped off their perch on the cross-trees of the main mast and launched themselves toward the mizzenmast. They landed firmly on its ropes. The force of their impact caused the mast to rotate in its base – at that time unfastened. The masts were set in brass cauldrons and could be rotated in a complete circle. It was a unique characteristic of Atiltian ships, one that was lost with its inventors. Several notches were crafted into the mast and when these notches aligned within the cauldron the mast was as sturdy as a static mast; yet, when unlatched, they could be rotated to optimally catch the wind. As the mizzenmast reached the correct position, two men standing at its base dropped the brass fastener, which brought it to a stop in the desired notch. An ordinary sailor, perhaps, could not have executed such a dangerous operation as using the force of a leap between the masts to swing one about. But these sailors had been born into the canopy and the air was better known to them than the ground.
“The ropes are prepared?” Barnes was asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Very good. Take these women below and treat them as you would any other prisoner. Mercy, for a man of arms, is cowardice.” His eyes were no longer cold, since even that much emotion had left them.
Barnes hesitated, but Cybele and Celestine went below without him. Seeing this, he hastened to escort them.
“Come to me,” the Admiral said after a pinch of silence. He stood at the starboard bow, watching over the ocean with a father’s eye. The wind beat against his face, but to him it was a soft linen nestled against him. He was speaking to Meredith and the Fardy brothers. They came, albeit in silence: awed by his determination, but not surprised. He was a fierce sailor whose only fault was his blind and unwavering loyalty to his country – to the trees and the foliage and the mountains, rather than to the nation – above man or beast. To him, the forest was god.
“Do not think me incapable of feeling,” he said, still staring into the ocean’s abyss. “Do not think that I have no love, that I am not human. For I am, and that is my failing.” He hesitated. “The ways of men are a narrow thread that keeps the world from ending. Yet the same thread, if made too strong, hangs those we would help. If we are conquered, Atilta will lose its claim to freedom, as will the Three Kingdoms. The mainland will not be long in following. The torch passed from Rome will be swallowed by the sea. Yet even if we are victorious, danger still lurks underfoot, waiting to destroy us. For a beloved king can be as harmful as a tyrant. But I meander. You have come through safely, friends, but what of old Clifford?”
“He is safe,” the black Fardy said, “Though not as patient as me and my brothers: he could not wait for our arrival in Thunder Bay before making his escape. At the moment, he naps in the Timber,” and he pointed to the Timber that had hauled the second Marin.
“Ah, the old man!” William Stuart laughed out loud. “And he will need the rest, ere this battle has played out.”
Meanwhile, Celestine and Cybele were chained to their oars on either side of the otherwise empty galley. It was the bottom of the ship – but for the two foot deep water tank beneath – and stretched the length of the ship, curved at the sides
along the hull’s contour. Barnes Griffith had stayed with them for a time, pressured by his good nature to comfort them and by his orders to discomfort them. But Cybele had mixed thoughts for the man she had known as a young girl as her father’s servant, and at last bellowed at him to begone. He raised his eyebrows, muttered something inaudible, and limped away with a cluttered countenance. The two sisters were alone in the room.
They rowed vigorously. Though supremely beautiful, neither was weak, but inured to hardships. Celestine had been for fifteen years a prisoner of the man who lusted after her, and who had done the same to her mother. Every day she held her love for her husband and endured the suffering by looking over the forest canopy, in which her beloved Alfonzo labored endlessly to free her and the people of Atilta.
Cybele had been raised from youth to be a powerful queen. Her mother was bitter, though she only warred against herself: her love had soured and with it her whole person. Cybele was thus in daily communication with manifested misery. She was still young when her mother’s death placed her on the throne, but she was not ruled by the legions of officials who thought to govern in her stead. Rather, she burned even from the womb with a passion for power that had not smoldered with age. By this time, she was twenty and her rule as uncontested as her beauty. The latter was that of youth, of newness, of spring. Yet the whiteness of her hair and the strange determination of her spirit gave her the beauty of old age, of life, of wisdom, of winter. These two sources of beauty were married in her and she was left a goddess. She was in every sense a woman.
As they rowed, the two did not speak, nor did their faces express their thoughts. Their countenances were as silent as their tongues.
Chapter 74
A man stood in front of the window and another was motionless on the bed several yards to the left. Twilight came through the window. A lamp hung by the door. The room was made of stone, though the walls were covered with tapestries and the floor with a rug. Outside the windows was a castle, beyond that a small town; beyond the town lived an expansive meadow, stretching for a mile in every direction until it struck the edge of the forest. To the north was Thunder Bay, upon which busy men could be seen.
“Alfonzo,” said the man on the bed. He spoke weakly, on the verge of sleep or death. “Tell me, in my final hours, what is passing in my world.”
“Milada!” Alfonzo entreated, “You will not be killed so easily, will you? Why are you so eager to quit the battle?”
“Because, friend, I am not fooled by your supposed optimism. Look,” he gestured to his stomach, “The wound eats my strength.” He paused. “As I said, give me the last glimpse I will have of Atilta.”
“We are building defenses around the castle. The rebels are gathering here in constant streams. The king is in France, but we have heard nothing of him.”
“Perhaps we were wrong,” Milada said slowly. “If he had stayed, his presence would have strengthened our ranks. Instead he searches for a cure for an useless old man!”
“Do not say such things, Milada. We cannot change what has been set in motion. We can only commit our fate to God.”
“You are as lightheaded about such things as my daughter.”
“We will see.”
“You will, at least,” Milada moaned, “For I will not live. Go, and leave me to my fate.”
Alfonzo looked over the dying man, then left the room, leaving the plans he had drawn sitting on the table. No one greeted him in the armory and the guards below were not at their posts. He passed through the room without seeing anything, absorbed in the deluge which surrounded him. It was not until he reached the door that the spell was broken by a windy voice.
“I am a patient man,” it said, “But what is this? Can you pass by your friends without even an acknowledgment? By the patent sobriety of my kin, I am outraged, Alfonzo of Melborough: outraged and incensed!” The speech could only have been more fervent if the speaker had not broken into a laugh at the end, leapt from his chair, and charged toward Alfonzo with open arms – a strange appearance, for he was an oddly shaped man.
“The Fardys!” Alfonzo cried, grasping the blond brother by the hand.
“And they are not alone,” Meredith said, advancing to his old friend. The two embraced.
Behind Meredith stood the Admiral. He shook Alfonzo’s hand stoically; both held themselves tightly. Throughout all the greetings, Alfonzo did not betray his ardor, keeping his stature mature and his air commanding. But that changed in an instant. He looked beyond and saw Celestine standing sweetly in the rear, waiting for the others to present themselves. Their love was not a painting in public, only to be seen and never felt; nor was it a sculpture in private, rigid and unmoving.
“My love!” and he could not disguise his rapture. He ran to her and she to him, and together they became lovers. “All is well,” he said, “For I am whole once more, not to be overtaken.”
“Not by men, in any regard,” Celestine smiled.
“And if by God, then I am willing,” Alfonzo returned. Then, looking her over, “You look pale and worn. What has overtaken you?”
“I was scourged, then rowed in the galley.”
“In the galley!” Alfonzo turned to the Admiral. “I will have a word with you, in a moment.”
“She chose it herself. She is a woman. Who am I to tell her as if a child?”
“What fools and heathens!” mocked a voice to the left. Cybele came forward. “While others deny their actions, I embrace mine, I flout them proudly. What fools, that evil is a thing to be abhorred. For evil is considered such only by the power of God and God has no power that I have seen.”
Alfonzo faced her. “If it is sin to boast about good deeds, how much more about evil ones. What you say to anger me only drives me to compassion, that one could be so proud to cast away her sister. Do you think debts are not to be repaid? Mercy is not eternal.”
“Nor is it here, for there is no such thing. Where there is forgiveness, there is a pride that dictates it. What mercy is there when the strong are respected for their mere strength and the weak destroyed for their mere weakness? What mercy is there from God, whose purpose is only to glorify himself? As is God so is man, I say: given to their own glory. And you are also a man.”
“If there were no mercy, where would you be? And what has Celestine gained in her dealings with you? Good will lead to good, and evil to evil.”
Cybele drew her beauty from its sheath and smote them with a poignant smile. “Then let it be: she has forgiven me without selfish motives. But what will her forgiveness lead to if I make my escape? Will I not return to evil deeds and to persecuting your rebellion? It will not lead to good, and the evil will be your own reward.”
Celestine advanced toward her sister. “You see only what you look for. Life is more than cause and effect, for there are infinite causes and infinite effects.”
“Yet if God is merciful, why would he inflict evil on all only to give reprieve to some? If we are known by our actions and the fruit of our labor, then who is God?”
“ Quos vult perdere – dementat ,” Celestine whispered.
“Perhaps,” Cybele returned, “But, insanus medio flumine quaerit aquam .”
“Then open your eyes and see, for you are mad! If you seek God, do not look to the circles of the godless. You will find the contrast, but not the vision; the darkness, not the light. God will show himself if you look.”
“Will he? Then let Lord Milada, who lays dying not far from us, be healed. Give me a sign and I will believe.”
“What of the sign on the Marin? There you asked and it was given.”
“That was coincidence. A sign must be something entirely impossible. Lord Milada must walk to me – upright and full of vigor – and kiss me upon the lips. Then I will believe.”
“That is not such a terrible prospect,” laughed a voice from behind them.
“My God!” cried the Admiral, “How can you be walking, Milada?”
“How? William, do you not r
emember that I have a Godly daughter – praise be to God. Not two minutes ago, I was overcome with warmth and healed. I do not know how, but I do know why.”
He jigged and jibed his way to Cybele, giving her a gentle kiss on the lips.
“The proof is given,” he laughed. Then, winking, “Unless you require more?”
She was silent for a moment, then whispered to herself, “Still, I will not believe!”
Chapter 75
De Casanova sat alone at the top of Castle Plantagenet, in the same room in which Celestine had been imprisoned. The only addition was a writing table before the window and a stool before the table. It was there that he sat, his back perfectly straight and his arms resting on the table before him. His head was extended toward the window, but even this he did with a controlled bearing. Only his countenance was not so well-mannered. His hair changed to the light, cut short but not combed, and sat high on his forehead. His thick side-burns remained trimmed, the rest of his face clean.
With de Casanova, method was the arm of madness. His plots were achieved systematically, rather than with daring or rash courage. Once an objective formed in his mind it could not be finished but with success. He was a bureaucratic warrior, a terror to those either passionate or pedantic. To commit evil in a desperate passion is an abomination, but to make it an institution of one’s person beyond the mere animal nature is something far worse. Generally, the righteous work assiduously to keep themselves from sin and the evil lazily allow themselves to fall into their own sinful natures. But de Casanova was an assiduous worker of evil, going beyond the lust or pride that drives a man to a self-sacrifice that denies himself.
“What is this pressure which attacks my chest?” he moaned to himself. “What is this throbbing which fills my body and this tingling which oppresses my veins? Can it be?” and he fell silent as he gazed out the window. “Lydia!”
Gylain had come in during the pause and heard the final word.
“What is this?” he asked.
De Casanova turned, saw it was Gylain, and returned his face to the window.
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