by Jon Jacks
As Meissa flowed through the crowds swifter than she herself could manage, Helen wondered if, like Fausta, she too could literally become as one with her guardian: she still knew too little about all the powers now at her disposal.
‘Here, she’s here!’
Through Meissa’s eyes, Helen saw the wolf once more, a creature keeping its head low, keeping itself almost invisible as it slipped virtually unseen through the thronging men.
Fausta had a purpose to her actions: she knew where she was heading – towards the carriage, which now lay partially broken open.
‘Magnus? Where’s Magnus?’ Helen asked Meissa, wishing she knew a way to make her horse move faster, more deftly, up the frustratingly slippery incline. ‘He was in the carriage, with his nursemaid–’
The nursemaid was clutching the baby to her chest, having swaddled him in numerous shawls to keep him warm. Helen could see the maid and the babe, once again through Meissa’s eyes.
The nursemaid’s eyes suddenly widened in fright. She clutched the baby Magnus tighter to her chest, began to turn around.
But it was all too late.
There was a rush of darkness, leaping up from the snowy ground, rising into the air – a dark, lupine rush, swiftly curling through the swirling snow, looping towards the retreating nursemaid and her innocent charge.
*
Chapter 56
Even as she sailed through the air, Fausta underwent a partial transformation.
Legs became arms and hands.
They snatched at the child: they wrenched it from the much weaker arms of the nursemaid.
The nursemaid was sent tumbling to the ground, bowling through the snow.
Fausta lithely curved in the air.
She landed expertly upon her feet, perfectly upright, as if she had just simply appeared there. In her arms, she held Magus.
She looked about her, smiled as she saw Meissa silently approaching her.
‘So, you learned of some of your capabilities,’ she said brightly. ‘But not enough; and too late!’
*
This was the first time Helen had ever seen the Empress Fausta.
She was more beautiful than Helen had expected her to be.
More caring, too, going by the way she was protectively holding the baby Magnus to her breast.
Helen slewed her mount to an abrupt halt right before Fausta, slipping down from her saddle in the same easy, flowing manner.
Fausta smirked as she looked from the angel to Helen.
‘Ah, there you are!’ she pouted, frowning in mock disappointment. ‘And I’d thought you’d mastered how to become your own guardian!’
As she spoke, Gremir and half a dozen of the other men slewed their own horses to a halt around Fausta, leaping down with swords and bows and arrows already in their hands. Their lions, even a centaur, arrived with them too, all together forming a tight cordon around the young empress.
Fausta smiled again, this time with an amused twist to her lips. She clung on tighter to the baby, as if she were the one determined to save its life.
‘You’re surrounded,’ Helen pointed out unnecessarily, exchanging a fleeting yet thankful glance with Gremir: he must have realised she needed help when he’d seen her urgently spurring her horse up the hill.
‘Where’s the old empress?’ Fausta asked, craning her neck as she looked everywhere about her, her grimace theatrically scornful. ‘I’d prefer her to be here to witness my moment of glory.’
‘Didn’t you hear, my lady?’ Gremir growled, drawing Fausta’s attention to the arrow he was aiming directly at her head. ‘You’re surrounded.’
Fausta dismissed his impertinence with an airily waved hand, her dress rippling about her as if formed from silken waters.
‘Oh, fortunately there’s a humbled scribe who lives only to ensure that certain truths prevail in the recalling of our histories.’
Sensing that he had an opportunity to kill the young empress without endangering the baby, Gremir grimly released his arrow, let it fly urgently towards its target.
The arrow rushed through Fausta’s head as if there was nothing really there. With a dulled thud, it embedded itself harmlessly in the wood of the carriage.
Fausta chuckled richly.
‘Fool!’ she sneeringly laughed at Gremir. ‘Do you really think I’d be out here on a freezing hillside?’
Helen sensed that even Meissa was at a loss to know how to handle Fausta.
‘Empress Fausta,’ Helen began placatingly, unsure what she would have to say, inwardly sighing with relief when Fausta responded with a delighted grin, ‘I’m sure that–’
Helen stopped, uncertain as to what was suddenly happening.
Fausta’s eyes were wide, even bulging fearfully.
She tossed her head back, raising a hand up close towards her neck as if desperately attempting to wrench aside an invisible shawl.
Her mouth hung wide; she was gasping for air, choking.
As Fausta’s knees buckled and she began to collapse towards the floor, Helen swept forward, intending to wrench the baby Magnus from her arms.
But what had falsely appeared to be Fausta rippled in the swirling of the snow – and vanished.
And the baby Magnus vanished with her.
*
Chapter 57
Fausta had been luxuriating in her heated bath, a bath that any less fortunate person would call a small, marbled pool.
As the steam swirled about her, she hadn’t noticed, of course, that the streaming air was taking shape, transforming, solidifying.
The serpent curled about her neck, drawing itself around that soft, pliable flesh tighter and tighter, refusing to let go until Fausta’s very last breath trickled from her gawping mouth.
‘Fool!’ the old empress harshly chuckled. ‘Do you really think I’d only be out on a freezing hillside?’
As Fausta’s lifeless form slipped beneath the hot, silken waters, the serpent briefly became the old empress once more.
She was standing in the waters, weeping.
She reached down for Magnus.
She picked him up, cradled him miserably in her arms.
She had been too late.
Fausta had already drowned him beneath her bath waters.
*
Chapter 58
Exactly where Fausta had fallen, had vanished, the old empress appeared.
Her dark clothes were steaming, drenched with hot water.
Cold tears fell from her eyes, ran down her cheeks.
For in her arms she held a babe who also dripped water, who slumped lifelessly in her warm embrace.
Helen was close by, having been so close to snatching the babe away before he had vanished.
She took the lifeless Magnus in her arms. Like the old empress, she wept, her salty tears falling amongst the hot soapy bubbles adorning his flesh.
‘Too late,’ the empress explained sadly. ‘I was too late.’
Helen held the lifeless child close to her chest.
She glanced towards the nearby Meissa: yes, yes – this is what we must do!
Without a second thought, Helen bent her head down towards the lifeless babe, kissed him, her mouth locking over her betrothed.
‘No, no Helen!’ the old empress protested, recognising what Helen was about to do, fruitlessly reaching out to wrest the child back: for Helen spun around, taking the baby Magnus farther away from her.
‘You don’t understand,’ the old empress insisted tearfully, seeing that she was once again too late; too late this time to stop Helen whispering the breath of life back into the babe.
‘There’s always a payment, Helen: and I should have been one who paid!’
When Helen drew back her lips from those of Magus, he was breathing gain: wailing, like a new-born babe.
Helen handed Magnus back to the old empress, smiling wanly, knowingly.
‘I do understand,’ she said, her smile weakening: her whole body weakening.
She reached out, took the hand of Meissa.
There wasn’t long.
She had given up her own breath of life for Magnus.
Magnus who now lay crying in the embrace of a tearful old empress.
As Helen slipped gently to the floor, Meissa slipped inside her, a swirl of matter, of energy, of life, as they were finally becoming one.
Still warmly clutching the pitifully wailing Magnus, the old empress crouched down beside the lifeless Helen.
Tenderly, slowly, she closed Helen’s eyes.
‘Yes, yes, my child,’ the old empress said with a satisfied smile, ‘I think you do understand.’
*
Chapter 59
She would stare out into that unceasingly swirling snow, out into an area otherwise set aside for goblins, fairies, and other ne’er-do-wells.
She lived, then, in the village of Constantinople, but on the dark edges of the forest.
The king had renamed a number of areas after the raising of the True Cross in his kingdom.
The mount where it had first been raised, of course, was now the Mountain of Angels.
It had been raised a second time in what was now called Nanhyfer: Sanctuary.
And the nearby river was now the Afon Nyfer, or Holy River.
Naturally the old empress’s grandchild, Magnus, had been raised in the king’s court. It had been agreed between the families that he would be betrothed as soon as a new royal daughter was born, a daughter who would also be called Helen.
And now, at last, as she stared out into the swirling snow, the old empress saw what she had been waiting all this time to see: the queen was with child.
A daughter, too!
It might be a daughter, some might say.
But no, not the old empress: she knew – she saw – that it was a daughter.
Her tasks here were at an end. The empire had its future emperor, and now, also, its future empress.
The empress opened the door to her small cottage, walking out into the ferocious squalls of snow.
She stepped out into those enveloping white sheets, naked: letting the flakes clothe her, letting the snow embrace her.
The swirling of the snow, the wailing of the winds; they all enticed her.
They called her.
He’s here, the voices said.
He’s here, the swirling flakes promised her, granting her glimpses of his return.
They weaved between each other, those flakes, those strands of frozen streams, of icy lakes, of crystallised seas; they made the man divest himself of the funeral garb of darkness – made him accept instead the angelic glow of wraith-like moonbeams, of sparkling stars, of purest, spiritualised matter.
She ran, ran from her house, her house of logs, of wood and earth.
For he would envelope her in his warmth, his love.
He would wrap his loving embrace about her, and clothe her in his longing.
*
When the queen’s daughter came into the world, her eyes were immediately alert to everything going on around her.
‘Oh, just look at those eyes,’ the nursemaid proclaimed elatedly. ‘She’s been in this world before!’
Helen smiled.
Everything is connected, she thought.
Everything is me.
End
If you enjoyed reading this book, you might also enjoy (or you may know someone else who might enjoy) these other books by Jon Jacks.
The Caught – The Rules – Chapter One – The Changes – Sleeping Ugly
The Barking Detective Agency – The Healing – The Lost Fairy Tale
A Horse for a Kingdom – Charity – The Most Beautiful Things (Now includes The Last Train)
The Dream Swallowers – Nyx; Granddaughter of the Night – Jonah and the Alligator
Glastonbury Sirens – Dr Jekyll’s Maid – The 500-Year Circus – The Desire: Class of 666
P – The Endless Game – DoriaN A – Wyrd Girl – The Wicker Slippers
Heartache High (Vol I) – Heartache High: The Primer (Vol II) – Heartache High: The Wakening (Vol III)
Miss Terry Charm, Merry Kris Mouse & The Silver Egg – The Last Angel – Eve of the Serpent
Seecrets – The Cull – Dragonsapien – The Boy in White Linen – Porcelain Princess – Freaking Freak
Died Blondes – Queen of all the Knowing World – The Truth About Fairies – Lowlife
Elm of False Dreams – God of the 4th Sun – A Guide for Young Wytches – Lady of the Wasteland
The Wendygo House – Americarnie Trash – An Incomparable Pearl – Gorgesque