Kingsboro
Something more than the remains of forest and field fires was in the air. Something was going to happen tonight; he could feel it. So Teryn was not surprised when there was a knock on his door. He was surprised, though, when it was not the Princess Isobel, but Anthony Pembroke.
“Teryn, come with me,” Anthony said.
There was no command in his voice, but asking, and Teryn nodded.
“Do I need anything?”
The fair haired man looked on him and smiled.
“No lad. Only bring yourself.”
Teryn nodded and closed the door behind him.
The lights in the halls were out now, for it was late, and as they passed through the gallery he had traveled with Isobel that morning, the white moon shone on the floors and pillars. But they did not come to the King’s chamber where they had been before. Now they went down the hall to the right, and headed up a new stair.
“These are the royal apartments, are they not?”
“Some of them,” Anthony answered.
Here, the corridors were lit by gold light from wall lanterns shining on rich tapestries, and now, arriving at a heavy oaken door, Anthony tapped softly with the back of his hand before pressing it open.
“Oh my!” Teryn began.
This office was larger and more grand that the office Teryn had seen before, and the mullioned windows looked down onto the moonlit main bailey. But they passed this now, and Teryn was in a rich, high ceilinged room, centered by a grand bed with marvelous high posts, and on the edge of a bed almost wide as Teryn’s own room sat the King.
“Teryn,” he said.
“Your Majesty,” Teryn said.
But now Anthony took Teryn by the hand, and he led him to the bed to seat him between himself and Cedd.
Cedd looked at him tenderly, a little nervously. And Teryn felt Anthony’s kiss.
“You do not have to,” Cedd said, taking his hand, “if you do not want to.”
Teryn was disarmed because the King, of whom he had been jealous when he knew Anthony loved him, whom he had been in awe of upon meeting, looked on him so sweetly and with so much uncertainty, and now Teryn found himself stroking the cheek, stroking the thin beard, marveling at the softness of it, touching the king’s red mouth, his half open lips and, at last, kissing him, feeling the softness of those lips, the tenderness of his tongue.
Now they were holding each other’s faces and now Anthony was reaching around undressing him. Now Teryn was lying down between the two older men who were looking on him with so much sweetness, and on each other, taking turns to kiss him while they kissed each other, undressing him and leading him in undressing them. Now they moved kiss to kiss, mouth to mouth, and the kisses that began on the lips went to their throats, to their breasts and stomachs and further still.
“Anthony,” Cedd looked up from kissing Teryn, still running his hands over the boy’s stomach, and over his breastbone, “Turn down the lamps, would you?”
Naked, Anthony rose, and a few moments later, in the darkness he returned, pressing himself against the new lovers, who unfolded, Teryn’s fingers pulling at Anthony’s, for him to join them.
The Rootless Isle
The moon rose high, and it was one of the first nights the sky was clear of smoke from the fires up north. Nimerly came out of the Small House beside the temple. There was a bare table and she had taken the clay cup from the table to Lady Well, where she had dipped it and drunk of the water, then left the cup on the ledge.
She was not the first to go out into the fields, to walk down from the hills where the high houses were built and descend to the long grasses. She had washed her hair in rosewater and combed it nearly straight. Young looking she was, and in the same white gown any girl going out into the fields would wear. But she had cast the last spell, the final fith fath to make her indistinguishable.
Now she was in the tall grasses, and walking through them she heard the sounds and the sighs, heard staggered cries and now, walking through a natural path, to a clear walkway she entered the woods and saw the revelries. In the midst of them was a young man. He blinked at her, eager. She beckoned to him.
It had been more years than were worth counting, that first time she had gone out to the fields. She did not think of herself as beautiful then. She was sixteen and ungainly, and though she had been through the training, still she was hung up on love and sex. Her mother had said, “For some it is a love match, but for us, we are the Goddess, giving ourselves to the God. This is a holy act.”
She’d paid no attention to Messanyn, or rather she had heard her, then refused her, taking the love of her life out into the fields. Her whole being had been enfolded in that love and in that lovemaking and when, some time later, he had left her and left her heart crushed, then Nimerly began to understand what her mother meant. In those first days it was impossible to function as a priestess, overcome by how she felt as a jilted woman, and it was some time before she had gone to the fields or gone anywhere with another man.
Tonight, when she came up from the fields, she went into the Silent House and sat cross legged and quiet, burning the sage and sweeping the smoke all over her body. She could, she knew, still bear children, though that time was coming to an end, and so it was part of her duty to allow time for that boy’s seed in her body before she went to the bath.
She poured into the warm water cold water from the Goddess Well, and basil and thyme and ewe milk. She undressed and scrubbed every part of her body before rising to recite the prayers which would make her virgin again and priestess again, she who, having lain down in the grasses with many men, belonged to no man.
The pleasure did not go away, no not at all. She still rejoiced in the desire of that young man, eager, unsure, a little afraid. And there had been others with far too much bravado and some who were, Nimerly was sure, awful men. But they all became the same man in the Rite.
It was nearly a decade after the first time she had gone out into the grasses that she went out again. This was the first time she had felt the magic of it, more sensing than seeing dim bodies folding together, drawn to each other, and him. Little speech passed between then. It was a work of hands and mouths and sighs, and she had returned to her house not wanting to bathe, but only to savor what had taken place in the dark. The next morning, as she bathed and rose from the waters purified, she already knew what she had suspected then, that she was pregnant.
“That is how it is,” Messanyn had said. “I had thought not to see a grandchild, but at last I see two. Now and again we are commissioned to find a particular man of a particular line, and then again there are love matches. But often it is in the fields, in the dark, that we gain our children. So did I gain you. So have you gained this one.”
And so Meredith was born. Nimerly knew that by the reckoning of the Rootless Isle her heritage was strong, daughter of a Lady who was daughter of a Lady who was first niece and granddaughter to Ladies previous and so forth and so forth. She knew that the question of who her father was would have been met by a silence both reverent and offended, but a part of her thought this could not be right. After all, where was the land where a boy who asked who his mother was met by only silence? Ohean was her kin. He had been raised by his father. Senaye, his mother, had not always been present but he knew her as well. When Nimerly gave birth to Meredith, she could not help but think her daughter was a little impoverished for her virgin born status.
Now, several years later, when Meredith had been followed by Viviane, and several others, Nimerly sat at her desk and thought, there is possibly one more. And certainly, hadn’t Mother been the same way, giving birth to Essily when everyone had thought she was far too old.
But now her thoughts were distracted for, from the southeast she saw a trail of torches, people making their way to the Isle. Briefly through her mind passed tales of the Burning Time, and then she stood and made her way to the great hall to strike the bell.
By the time she was there, met by her daughters and three guards, Meredith said. “We have visitors.”
Her tone left open what manner of visitors they might be, and Nimerly took the old wand, her first wand, light and almost hollow with the years, and drawing it to her like a dagger she said, “Let us go out to meet them.”
The journey down from the compound of temples and houses, through the fields to the borders was not as quick as merely looking, and by the time they were there, the visitors were already approaching. Winding toward her were men and women, mostly women, with children and carts, some old women with brimmed hats hiding their faces.
“I know you,” Nimerly said, lowering her torch as she saw the woman at their head.
“You are the goodwife Dissenbark Layton.”
“Lady,” Dissenbark sketched the sign of the elements across her chest and over her shoulders, “We have come here as refugees. Receive us.”
