The Lords of Blood and Honey (The Kingdom of Honey)

by David Gardner-Martin

  ‘Do not presume to lecture me,’ he whispered icily. ‘I am Lord Hardknot, Keeper of the Royal Honeybees, High Lord of the Hives, and the Oneness of All.’

  Westnaine’s resolve wavered for a moment, but then he continued.

  ‘Your Oneness, I do not wish to press you further. But,’ he looked back to the body of the King once more, ‘for the future of the Kingdom, it is imperative that...’

  ‘All that needs to be at hand, is at hand,’ said Hardknot cutting him short. ‘For such that the day bringeth, the day also leaveth behind,’ he added, quoting St. Butterbean.

  ‘But Your Oneness,’ pressed Westnaine, the sight of Lord Chillhide entering the room with several senior nobles clearly bolstering his nerve. ‘Our Kingdom needs a rightful King, a King drawn from the Purethic line and worthy of the rightful Queen. In this great matter, if such a Nomination were found, might they count upon your support?’

  Hardknot followed Westnaine’s eyes and saw Lord Chillhide. Through his network of spies, he had long known that a small group of powerful nobles had prepared the young man as a Nominee for the Crown. He also knew that Chillhide would indeed make a worthy King, and far more so than the odious Baron Pencille the Church planned to Nominate. But greater treasures were at stake than just the future of the Crown.

  What puzzled Hardknot, however, was a growing feeling that something else lay hidden within Westnaine’s words. Something in the manner of their delivery, that seemed to imply a threat. But if that were so, in what form and from what direction could that threat possibly come? He logged their conversation into his vast memory for later consideration.

  ‘When all is ready, Your Grace,’ he replied, to Westnaine at last, ‘all shall be given.’

  Hardknot bowed to indicate the end of the conversation and waited for Westnaine to return the full formality, his expression making it clear that the time for procedural shortcuts had passed. Westnaine stared for a moment, as if measuring some further words to say, but then executed a deep formal bow and walked away to join Lord Chillhide and his entourage, the blood that had drained from his face rushing back in anger as they shared an animated conversation.

  Hardknot returned to the King’s bed where Bishop Scrippler was still in high voice and working his way through the interminably long blessing.

  Let Him Grasp the Knuckle of Limitless Indulgence!

  Let Him Berate the Demons of The Golden Carpet!

  Baron Pencille, Cardinal Oblong’s weasel-like protégée, sauntered into the hall. Hardknot knew Pencille to be a foolish young sop possessing no noble qualities whatsoever, and little motivation for anything other than pleasure. When he spoke, he had a most pronounced lisp, a minor handicap further accentuated by his habit of throwing himself into fits of rage at the slightest excuse. Being such a person, therefore, Pencille was extremely malleable to one such as Cardinal Oblong, a man practiced beyond measure in the arts of selfish corruption. But despite these drawbacks, Pencille was a true Mascone, a son of King Samel born of a Queen’s femone, and one who was within the age range stipulated in the Books of Doings for Nomination. Hardknot had no doubt that if he should become King, Pencille would be quickly pressured by Oblong to overturn the right of the Hivedom to the Queen’s chambers. And once that deed was done, the last bastion of Her divinity could be replaced for evermore by a sterile Church icon; as Hardknot was sure it would be.

  Pencille made immediately for a young serving maid stood against a wall and began to fidget with the buttons on the front of her blouse. She blushed and looked around for help, but her discomfort was greeted only by Pencille’s selfish delight. ‘Twuely,’ he squealed, insensitive as always to time and place, ‘you are a pwetty tweat indeed!’

  The doors flew open, Hardknot’s hawk-like eyes snapping in their direction to see Cardinal Oblong sail into the room, his bright purple vestments billowing around his vast frame. He swept towards King Samel where he gave a restricted bow. He stared at the body for the briefest moment, then glared at Bishop Scrippler. Despite a look of surprise, Bishop Scrippler knew what was being demanded. He bowed obediently and ceased his blessing.

  ‘The King is dead!’ announced Oblong to the gathering. ‘May They bless and protect his soul in the Blessed Afterwards for evermore!’

  ‘Amen to all that,’ came the automatic reply from everyone gathered in the Daylight Hall; all save Lord Hardknot.

  Oblong forced his heavy eyelids to open to their fullest extent, his deep aquamarine eyes roaming from face to face searching for weakness. When they fell upon him, Hardknot met the stare and held it as if in a vice. Infuriated, Cardinal Oblong almost spat the words that flew from his mouth.

  ‘The Kingdom needs a King!’ he cried. ‘A King blessed and protected by They that look over us all! Thereby the Holy Church has fulfilled its rightful role!’ He paused to reach into a pocket buried deep within his layered garments to retrieve a large roll of heavy paper neatly tied with a purple ribbon. ‘This very morning, the Council of Yesses!’ he continued brandishing the roll in the air, ‘blessed by the very highest authority, have Nominated the Baron Pencille to the vacant Crown! Here within my hand, signed and sealed, is their Pronouncement!’

  Baron Pencille’s attention was summoned by his name and he stopped tormenting the maid and skipped to his benefactor. ‘Your Mostfull,’ he trilled, giving a theatrical bow, ‘I am weady to serve you as a most wighteous King.’

  Hardknot moved a few steps forward to face Cardinal Oblong. The Queen’s messenger had still not arrived; he needed to gain just a little more time. ‘As usual, Your Mostfull,’ he said, ‘you are as expedient when matters suit, as you are laborious when they do not.’

  ‘Dare you challenge the will of the Council of Yesses?’ Oblong retorted, his face deepening to crimson, but before another word could be spoken a figure rushed into the room.

  ‘The Queen has been stung!’ the Queen’s messenger cried.

  Hardknot smiled, the timing even more perfect than he could possibly have wished for.

  ‘Your Mostfull,’ he said coldly. ‘It would appear that the Council has just lost any such authority. The King is dead, and now the Queen is to be Cast. In such a rare circumstance, the precedent is clear. She will be recognised, and He will be chosen.’ And then in a single movement that took Oblong by complete surprise, Hardknot plucked the document from his hand as if taking a candy from a child, let it fall to the floor, and trod upon it.

  This was too much for Oblong to bear and he exploded in rage, plumes of spittle stabbing the air as he vented his frustration into the face of that which he hated more than death itself. ‘In the name of the Holy Church,’ he screamed, ‘I shall endure your blasphemy no longer!’

  But Hardknot had finished with the game and turning his back, he strode from the hall, a pathway through the ranks of clergy and nobles opening swiftly before him. The Kingdom was bereft of title at last, he thought, as he marched away. What chance now for those that are served by Words, against they that are served by Honey.

  Hardknot went directly to Queen’s Wing of the Palace, the entrance, true to General Forgewell’s word, now heavily guarded. Femones rushed in every direction in the yellow light, as if in a beehive at the very height of anxiety. He approached Queen Camellia, who lay resting upon a raised bed. Just below her right elbow he saw a red pinprick surrounded by a circular area of yellow inflammation. The mark was unmistakable.

  ‘Your Lightness,’ he said gently.

  Camellia opened her eyes and smiled, but her face was filled with sadness. The honeybee sting had betrayed her lack of scent; she was no longer with title and must now be Cast.

  ‘Your Oneness,’ she said gently. ‘Must it be tomorrow?’

  ‘It is written, Your Lightness,’ Hardknot replied.

  ‘Indeed, I know it well. And yet I feel that something terrible has happened. I feel that I still belong, that I am required to remain, and that my title is secure. It is a strange feeling, not one of loss, but rather of having
something taken away.’

  ‘In truth, Your Lightness, this is always so,’ said Hardknot. ‘We are all but prisoners to a higher cause.’

  Queen Camellia smiled again. ‘As always, Your Oneness, your simple words comfort me. I know that it must be so. And I hear that the Castell Florret is a beautiful place, and with the most varied displays of flowers and trees that can be seen anywhere outside of the Hivedom. There are mongbee hives there too, I believe, though they make only a little honey. At least, I have heard it is so.’

  ‘I have no knowledge of this, Your Lightness,’ Hardknot replied, not wishing to engage with his former Queen on such a desperate situation.

  A confused babble of heated argument disturbed the room. Two femones faced each other, both red-faced over an unbridled disagreement. Seeing Lord Hardknot’s eyes upon them, they both fell silent and moved away. He understood their fears well, for femones who had come of age eighteen could not remain in service to a new Queen, the threat to the scent being too strong. Only femones under the age of eighteen, or those who had achieved the status of harmone by delivering a child by the King, could be safely trusted with such close access to a new Queen and the Royal Honeybees. For those young women who found themselves unable to qualify on either count, they must be cast with the Queen and leave the City forever.

  A young femone caught Camellia’s eye. ‘There has been something strange about the way Lasivia has been behaving,’ she whispered to Hardknot. ‘This morning her smile was over anxious, her hands trembled as she had dried my hair, and when the honeybee stung me, her expression did not display the genuine shock of her companions. To anyone else the subtleties would have been missed, but as a Queen, such things are carried to me from beyond understanding. Is there a hint of a scent? Could it be that this young girl is the vessel to be raised as the next Queen? There is certainly a presence about her.’

  Camellia beckoned Lasivia to approach them, and as she glided across the floor, Hardknot marveled once more at her natural beauty. She had already served him well that day, and would serve him well in the future, but now she would do better if their eyes never met.

  ‘You look tired, Lasivia,’ Camellia said, as the young girl bowed before her.

  ‘I have not been sleeping well, Your Lightness,’ Lasivia said, her face averted from the tall figure standing beside her Queen. ‘I… am almost of age.’

  ‘In but two days’ time you will become eighteen,’ replied Camellia. ‘Is it this that upsets you so? The narrowness of your salvation?’

  ‘I know not, Your Lightness,’ said Lasivia, a subtle hint of indignation flashing in her deep violet eyes.

  ‘You are very beautiful,’ Camellia said, ‘but I sense a sadness within you.’ She reached forward and stroked Lasivia’s hair before kissing her softly on the cheek, and as she did so, Hardknot saw a dark veil fall over the young girl’s face. Camellia dismissed Lasivia to her duties once more, and then turned her face towards him, tears beginning to fill her eyes.

  ‘She must leave my presence at once,’ she said.

  ‘I will remove her to the Hivedom, Your Lightness,’ said Hardknot bowing.

  It was coming to pass more simply than he had ever dared to dream.

  When Lord Hardknot finally left the Queen’s Wing, the imposing figure of Lord-Marshall Highgate, Commander of the King’s Army, was waiting for him just outside the entrance.

  Highgate removed his buzzerback helmet with a huge hand as Hardknot approached, and then he stared defiantly into Hardknot’s eyes. He said not a word, but as was usual, his face betrayed his emotions only too well. His disdain for the Hivedom, the Royal Honeybees, even Drollup procreation, were all well-known in Palace circles, as was his seething personal dislike for the current Keeper of the Royal Honeybees.

  ‘My Lord,’ said Hardknot, with dismissive politeness. ‘These are uncertain times, with much to be done. Is there some matter of urgency that demands the Commander of the King’s Army to stand around in a corridor?’

  ‘Uncertain indeed!’ exclaimed Highgate, taking the bait at once. ‘His Lightness dead, from as yet an unknown cause! His nursekeeper found murdered in her bed! And now Her Lightness stung, and, no doubt, soon to follow the King beyond the City walls! I see no uncertainty at all!’

  ‘And your conclusion is, My Lord?’

  ‘Treachery, sir! Damned if I be not certain of it!’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Hardknot, allowing the trace of a smile to play across his lips. ‘A most interesting observation. But you have always had the wit to see such things, as no one else can perceive.’

  ‘I need not wit for this matter, sir. Oh, I know the fear that stalks every other heart at the sound of your voice or the snap of your footfall. But I speak plain, and I speak what I know in my heart to be true. And one day, sir, your dark conniving shall be outed!’

  ‘Until then, My Lord, I, at least, have work to do,’ said Hardknot, tiring quickly of such a fruitless confrontation. ‘Have you not buckles to polish, backsides to admonish? Pray do not allow me to delay you any further from fulfilling your duties.’

  ‘Damn you, sir! Damn your soul – and damn your eyes too!’

  ‘Good day to you,’ said Hardknot, moving swiftly by.

  Highgate did not say another word, but quivered with pent up rage as he watched the equally tall figure striding away.

  You will pay for those words, Lord-Marshall Highgate, Hardknot thought a short time later as he was carried away from the Palace in his carriage. But he also knew that he needed to tread very carefully. Despite his bluff manner, Highgate commanded the loyalty of the most powerful military force in the Kingdom, a force that would doubtless follow him even into the very heart of the Hivedom. Was that the hidden threat in the words of the Duke of Westnaine? Had the noble conspirators drawn the Commander of the King’s Army into their employ? He felt it unlikely, for Highgate’s dislike of Palace intrigue was as clear as his hatred of the Hivedom, but it was not impossible that some common ground had been found. But whatever the truth of the matter, the time was fast approaching when Highgate’s posturing would come to an end.

  Hardknot sat back and listened to the metronomic thud of horses’ hooves upon the City streets, reflecting yet again on all the strategies, mapped out over many years, for securing the future to the Honeyist cause. The names of Oblong and Pencille, Westnaine and Chillhide, and now even Lord-Marshall Highgate, were not to be found within them.

  Chapter 9

  The short distance from St. Vacant’s Cathedral to St Butterbean’s Tower could be accomplished in two ways, the most direct of these being via a network of underground passages that ran into the City from the Cathedral, like spokes from a wheel. In normal circumstances, Cardinal Oblong would have called for the Silver Carriage and taken the open-air route, but his impatience was now at breaking point. Besides, he did not want the Redhoods that accompanied him to be seen.

  The King was dead and the Queen to be cast, a conjugation unheard of since Ancient times. Events were moving quickly, and in ways that he had not foreseen. Anger surged through him like lightning through storm clouds, flashing every few minutes with seething brilliance and then subsiding once more to gather itself into a new tide of rage. He saw an image of Lord Hardknot before him, the single point of focus for all his frustration. Yet again the nagging doubt welled up within him. Had he been but a pawn, his actions orchestrated by the overpowering intellect of His Oneness? The thought was more than he could bear.

  He reflected once more on the information Bishop Henceforth had given to him in St. Pristina’s Chapel. Relical Bartolamy’s contravention of his celibate vows did not particularly concern him; the temptations of the flesh provided the Church with much benefit in the way of guilt, punishment, and most of all, revenue. But Bartolamy was one of his closest and most trusted relicals. If he were capable of concealing unholy carnal habits, what other deviant beliefs might have gained sway behind those bold green eyes? But even more than this, the strange bee that
had stung Bishop Henceforth in the Cathedral had thrown Oblong’s mind into turmoil. Bodybees were mystical beings, born of a spiritual union between man and honeybee. They could sharpen knives, bring on the rain, heal the sick, see into the future, even speak with the dead. Being neither wholly man nor wholly bee, they existed in a twilight world between the living and the dead, between evil and good, between the present and the past, even bridging the gap between Life and the Blessed Afterwards. But had anybody ever seen a bodybee? Oblong had never heard of such a witness. And yet Bishop Henceforth, a man of unimpeachable character, had clearly seen a bodybee sting his finger. But worse still, a bodybee that bore the face of Lord Hardknot, the 967th Keeper of the Royal Honeybees.

  That Oblong remembered the legend at all was merely by chance. Whilst still but an ambitious novicical he had seen an aged painting in a tiny church where he had been taken to participate in Evening Retributions. The work had showed a large swarm of bodybees in the shape of the Bull of Life, their spiritual sweetness made flesh, and their countless human faces lost in the oneness of the whole. For some reason the powerful image had always stayed with him. He remembered once again Lord Hardknot’s words. ‘She will be recognised, and He will be chosen.’ Had he missed something that Hardknot had discovered? He punched the wall as he puffed his way through the gloom, his legs marching as fast as they could and the redhoods walking easily behind, their heads bowed and their mouths reciting endless blessings on those that spread the gospel of suffering. At length, he turned the last corner in the dark passageway, the entrance that led up to St. Butterbean’s Tower indicated by a tiny pinprick of white light.

  Oblong found Relical Bartolamy hard at work on the sixth floor, the large circular room awash with the books, charts and implements that accompanied any Mesharist search for truth. As Oblong entered the room Bartolamy was discussing a passage of text with a junior relical, their polished heads bowed together over the page as they spoke softly to each other. As if sensing a presence, Bartolamy lifted his head and saw his Primate.