by Jon Jacks
The fish and the network of interlocking, chequered lace sheets vanished as the empress glanced once more towards the board.
‘If it helps, think of how you would move the board, not the pieces: but ultimately you need to think outside of the game entirely, for it is the world you wish to manipulate.’
She pulled aside the netting on one side of the bed, without explaining the meaning behind her actions.
‘A veil?’ Helen asked unsurely. ‘Is it a veil in my mind I must draw aside to access these powers?’
The empress looked at her curiously.
‘To access it, my dear, you must practice all night: while an old woman like me, well, I think it’s time I retired to bed, don’t you?’
*
The pieces, of course, wouldn’t move.
No matter how much Helen stared at them, willing them to move, they remained perfectly motionless.
Naturally, as the old empress had advised, she attempted to move them through strenuous efforts to bend and manipulate the board: but that struck her as being even more impossible to achieve.
The only sounds in the tent were those of the empress lazily shifting beneath her bedsheets, or Magnus whimpering or snorting as he suffered what was possibly a bad dream.
He always seemed so remarkably quiet for a baby, it suddenly dawned on Helen: she had never seen him require his wet nurse through the night either, allowing her to sleep – indeed, to spend most of her time – within one of the other tents.
Was this down to the empress’s magical abilities? Or was Magnus simply drugged with some of the potions she knew could be concocted from certain flowers?
As Helen looked towards the crib, the air around it became a little hazy, as if affected by smoke or maybe even heat from the candles in the lanterns. Yet the shivering of the air became even more pronounced, even apparently flaking, as ice begins to first form then fall from a cold shield.
Was she doing this?
Was she making the air ripple, as the lace sheets had rippled under the empress’s touch?
She was excited, thrilled: then, almost instantly, petrified.
She didn’t want to be creating any magical effect around Magnus!
He might come to harm!
The rippling of the air flowed, twirled in and out of itself, as if forming knots: and then abruptly solidified into a woman crouching by the crib and staring tenderly down at the child.
Helen would have cried out to the empress for help – but no, she recognised this woman.
Recognised her from the illuminations in the great books she had seen, from the icons brought here from other countries.
It was Mary: Mother of God.
*
Chapter 7
Had…had she called her up?
Had she brought the sweet Mary, Mother of God, down to Earth from her place in Heaven?
Surely no, surely she wasn’t capable of such a truly miraculous thing!
Mary looked up from her adoration of the child, looked Helen’s way: and smiled.
‘My child, you really shouldn’t be delving into the spiritual darkness.’
Helen fell to her knees, bowed her head, crossed her chest a number of times – and apologised, tearfully and fearfully, for daring to summon the Queen of Heaven.
Mary laughed kindly.
‘You didn’t summon me: I came to help you, to warn you. For yes, of course, I sensed your attempts to utilise forces best left alone by man.’
She stood up, her cloak of a silken blue glittering like a starry night. She flowed across the floor, as if angelically hovering rather than simply walking.
She drew closer towards the trembling Helen.
‘You know who I am?’ Mary asked.
‘Mary…you’re Mary, Mother of God!’ Helen answered nervously.
‘I’m Mary the Elder: the Sorrowful Myrrhbearer, who wept at the base of the cross as my son died.’
Mary gently placed a hand on top of the crown of the still kneeling Helen.
‘Did he sacrifice himself like this, Helen, so that you can profit from accessing the darkness he refused to accept?’
Helen shook her head. Even so, she attempted to absolve herself of any blame.
‘But…but the empress…’
‘The empress may act like she has your wellbeing at heart, but I assure you this is sadly not the case.’
‘My father–’
‘Yes, your father thinks a great deal of her: he named you after her.’
Helen had not been aware of this, although she had suspected it.
‘He falsely believes her to be the daughter of Coel Hen Guotepauc: that, like him, she has the blood of both Brutus and Aeneas – and thereby, also of the heroes of Troy – running through her. Yet if you’re ever fortunate enough to visit the glory that is Byzantium, you’ll hear it said she’s really nothing but an innkeeper’s daughter from Dalmatia!’
‘Then if the old empress is lying to my father, does that mean Fausta–’
‘Fausta, too, delves into things she should leave well alone. It’s too late for her, however, just as it is now too late for your old empress: she has not warned you, has she, that the darkness gradually envelops you? That you start off believing it’s yours to control, when all the time – as insidiously as a serpent – it’s weaving its way into your very being: until it dominates you!’
‘I…don’t wish to be dominated by the darkness!’
‘Good; for that is how it should be. But tell me, child: I realise that you are close to the old empress, that she has cunningly wormed her way into your goodly, innocent heart – do you believe me when I tell you to beware her?’
Helen nodded her head beneath Mary’s consoling touch.
‘Nevertheless, I fear the old empress’s scheming could be the undoing of you: and so I must unveil to you the secret of the contents of her carriage.’
Helen fleeting glanced up towards the face of the blessed Mary.
Yes, she wanted to know this secret: she had wanted to know it since she had first seen the heavily guarded carriage, first witnessed the care that the old empress insisted must be taken with it, especially whenever they travelled over rocky, uneven ground.
‘Having stolen it from its true home in Jerusalem, the old empress has now brought it all the way to the other end of the empire: it is the cross of my son that she holds in her carriage.’
*
Helen realised that Mary had vanished when she felt the already light pressure of the hand upon her head disappear.
She stood up, glanced the way of the old empress in her bed, fearing that she might have heard, might be awake. But thankfully, she still seemed to be soundly asleep.
Magnus was also still asleep, but she was less surprised by that.
She wanted to rush outside, to order the legionnaires guarding the carriage to open it up: but she knew all this wasn’t possible.
They wouldn’t obey her, not over something as important as opening up the empress’s special carriage. Besides, it was freezing cold out there: previously she’d gone outside with the empress who, somehow, had managed to use her magical powers to keep them both warm, despite their flimsily garments, her bared feet.
She could get dressed, of course; but the more movement she made, the higher the likelihood that she would wake the empress. Even then, there was the not inconsiderable matter of the guards to deal with, the opening of the locked carriage…
No, it wasn’t possible.
If only she could somehow–
And, suddenly, she was standing outside, looking over towards the heavily guarded carriage.
*
Chapter 8
Snow swirled around her, yet she didn’t feel the bite of its cold.
She could have still been safely confined within the warmth of the tent, with its carefully tended braziers.
As before, the snow also whirled frantically around the armoured men, whipping a cloak half up into the air every now and again a
s it tore it away from the securing hands of a soldier.
And standing within that falling snow, there were also angels: gloriously glowing angels, with wings as white and soft and vast as the purest snowdrift.
She gasped with elation.
Then: she sighed with disappointment.
What chance would she have of seeing inside the carriage when it was guarded not only by the Roman soldiers but also by angels?
The locked carriage, unnoticed by everyone but her, unnoticed even by the watchful angels, opened up for her.
She found herself walking through the snow towards the waiting carriage, unseen it seemed by the men, by the angels.
She climbed up the short flight of steps leading towards the open door, making no sound, no creaking of wood.
The carriage was long, slim, low: useless for carrying people.
And yet for carrying two long and ancient beams, carefully packed into a cushioning of wool and silk, it was perfect.
*
She couldn’t feel the heat, naturally, but she could definitely sense it.
Everywhere she looked, the scorching sun seemed to have bleached everything of its colour.
The buildings – a great many of them, more than she had ever seen clustered together before – were mainly a blinding white. What few trees there were were small, stunted, with hardly any leaves.
Apart from the procession of legionnaires, the people were dressed in an unrecognisable style, with long, draping gowns. There were no horses that she could see, but quite a number of donkeys, all of which toiled exhaustedly under the pounding heat.
The long, thin procession of soldiers was winding its way through narrow streets, gradually heading upwards towards a magnificent temple gracing the very top of a hill. It wasn’t just a column of legionnaires, however, for they were escorting an elaborately draped litter being carried by around a dozen yoked men.
Through the thin lace that fell down the litter’s sides, she could see its imperiously seated occupant: the empress, as old here as she was in real life.
The closer the regal procession drew towards the looming temple, the more she could see of the imposing statues surrounding it, images of pagan gods she failed to recognise. In the haze of heat rising up from the ground, they shimmered, appeared to move, to be alive: then one actually swayed, rocked and toppled to the ground, where it splintered into hundreds of indefinable pieces.
A nearby column supporting part of the extended roof was next to crumble, to come crashing to the ground, bringing with it a section of the portico it had held in place. A slice of wall gave way, also shattering into nothing but irregular blocks.
The temple was being demolished, men sweating in the sun as they carefully undermined the building’s foundations. A large area that the temple had obviously once occupied had either been almost completely cleared or was still untidily strewn with the rubble it had been reduced to.
Surprisingly, it was the cleared section of the ground where most activity was now taking place, for here the excavations hadn’t stopped but, rather, seemed to have progressed far beyond the original aims, such that they were digging ever deeper into the earth. It was here that the procession at last came to a halt, the empress’s litter drawing up directly alongside this huge trench.
Even as the empress stepped out of her carefully lowered litter, a well-attired man who must have been in charge of the excavations excitedly rushed over to her, bearing a silken bundle he’d hurriedly picked up off a nearby table. He unfurled the bundle before her, revealing a mangled piece of iron, perhaps a hand’s length long, and as slender as a finger.
‘Another nail!’ the empress breathed elatedly.
‘Now there’s more, far more!’ the man gushed between submissive bows.
The empress rushed towards the edges of the deep pit as if she had been suddenly granted the return of her youth.
Staring down into the excavated earth, she smiled blissfully.
They had found it!
It was the True Cross.
*
Helen snorted in disbelief.
It caused her to wake up with a start, much as someone does when they dream they are toppling over the edge of even the smallest drop.
Of course, she wasn’t in Jerusalem.
But neither was she in the long carriage containing the True Cross.
She was back at the edge of the game, having fallen asleep in her chair.
She felt dazed, confused: had everything been nothing more than dream?
And if not everything, then which parts had been real, which nothing more than her wild imaginings?
She glanced over the board.
One of her pieces had moved, having changed into a wraith-like being.
*
Chapter 9
Seeing that the piece had both moved and changed, yet possessing no memory of how it had happened, Helen wasn’t sure whether she should be overjoyed or horrified.
Reaching out for the piece, she tried to lift it up from the board: but it refused to move, even when she attempted to twist it with the aim of freeing the interlocking notches.
She took a closer look at the new figure it had been transformed into. It did indeed possess all the fluid, anguished qualities of a wraith, yet she gained the impression from closely studying it that it seemed to be a spectral manifestation of a moonbeam, if such a thing were truly possible: for a bright silver orb, glittering as if with its own inherent glow, hovered above the figure, suspended there by nothing more than the slim sliver of a shaft of light.
None of her other pieces had changed or moved in any way. They remained where she had originally placed them, their forms those of a regular chess set.
Wait!
If she had really been visited by Mary, Mother of God, then these pieces represented the manipulation of the darkness!
In fact, even the empress had spoken of dark matter.
She was delving into the spiritual darkness!
She had used it for her own ends!
She wasn’t overjoyed.
She was horrified!
And then she heard the board whisper:
I shall help you access powers beyond your wildest imaginings!
*
Helen stared, wide-eyed, at the board.
She had used the darkness.
She had moved the piece.
She had transformed it: transformed it into a spectral being!
Yet she hadn’t done it intentionally.
Did that excuse what she had done?
Did it mean she didn’t have to succumb any further to its power?
For isn’t that what would happen if she continued to use it? It would suck her in. Take her over.
Make her its slave!
Isn’t that what Mary had said, had warned her about?
‘Well done…well done indeed, my dear!’
She had been so terrified by what she had done that she hadn’t heard the empress rise from her bed and walk over towards the board.
The empress was smiling blissfully.
She was staring down at the board, at the transformed piece.
‘The power of the moon!’ she declared, her expression one of deepest pleasure, of the greatest admiration.
‘Truly,’ she added, ‘you will make a wonderful empress!’
Helen shrugged, grateful for an excuse to briefly forget the board and its pieces.
‘I won’t even be queen: not if my father has a son.’
‘He won’t,’ the empress declared with suspicious confidence.
‘Then…without an heir…’
She didn’t wish to even contemplate the horrors of the future that such a situation would bring about. Her father already had problems enough with rebellious lords who flattered themselves they had more right to the throne than he did.
‘His heir is there: sound asleep, and completely innocent of his destiny!’
The empress indicated the sleeping Magnus with a casual w
ave of an arm.
‘Heir to the empire, perhaps,’ Helen declared arrogantly, ‘but we have been a separate kingdom for a long time now!’
The empress raised an eyebrow in amused surprise.
‘Helen, I take it your father hasn’t yet informed you of our agreement?’
‘Agreement?’
‘Why, that you’re already betrothed to Magnus, of course!’
*
Chapter 10
She had opened the box of darkness, and it was already reaching out everywhere with its slithering, unavoidable tentacles!
‘I…I love Magnus: but not in a way that means I could marry him!’
‘Helen! Don’t be such a child! How many times have we discussed the foolishness of love? Marriage is for forging empires, for begetting the child that will rule it! Only in this way is security assure–’
The empress abruptly paused, her eyes curiously wide as she once again took in the pieces on the board.
‘How long has that been there?’ she demanded anxiously, pointing towards the edge of the board where the young empress would be seated if she were present.
Helen looked towards the set of bestial, naturalistic pieces.
Another piece had advanced into another section of the board.
Before Helen could make any reply to the empress’s question, or study the board and its pieces further, the flap of the tent’s opening was thrown back as Serverus entered.
‘The column is almost prepared to make way, my lady,’ he announced grandly, gently caressing the large and unusual cross he wore suspended around his neck. ‘Although everyone wishes to know if you world prefer to break your fast before we strike camp, or as we journey?’
The cross Serverus wore lacked an upper part, its place taken by a circularly formed piece of the bone it was made from, as if it were the head of the Saviour: yet Helen recognised its shape, having seen it in the severed vertebrae of the fallen on the battlefield. Another, even stranger cross was engraved upon it, one with four cross beams and topped by a glowing orb nestling between equally white horns – a shape that once again couldn’t fail to remind Helen of the ghoulishly revealed spines of badly mauled men.