The list...
By TenacityfluxI shall not be revealing what these ideas are yet, but I thought I would reveal my list - feel free to share your own!
If you are not sure what I mean, in this context the 'list' is the list of people with whom I am allowed to break the vows of matrimony without provoking the wrath of husband; he also has a list to make things fair.
The point of the list is that they are people it is unlikley to meet on a daily basis, this is not some swingers charter; they are to all intents and purposes, out of reach, and so perfect writing fodder! (And mostly fictional)
Anyway, my list follows below, with a short explanation as to why they have made the cut. Please feel free to publish your own list, it's just an interesting insite to how ones mind works.....not sure what mine says about me!
Dante - from the game series 'Devil May Cry.'
This is pretty unlikely as he is both fictional and two dimensional, if you are not aware of the genre he is a wise cracking, deamon hunting mercenary, well, a girl can dream.
Robert Downey Junior - especially in 'Sherlock Holmes.'
Both the man and the roles he plays on screen, a bad boy who has come out the other side, both smart and dangerous to know.
Wolverine - X men series
See, not really Hugh Jackman (Though he is pretty hot in Van Helsing), but Wolverine, all those muscles and angst, and a motorbike too!
Jake Sulley from Avatar -
More 2d action, and he's blue and he has a tail!
Ivan Vanko aka Whiplash aka Mickey Rourke Iron man 2
Yep, this is the weirdest one, but all those prison tats and air of the wounded lion facing his last hurrah....no one has ever agreed with me on this one, but there you go!
This is not the book I have just finished...
By TenacityfluxFeed back always welcome,
The Language of women
@font-face { font-family: "Times New Roman"; }@font-face { font-family: "Geneva"; }@font-face { font-family: "新細明體"; }@font-face { font-family: "Verdana"; }@font-face { font-family: "Lucida Grande"; }@font-face { font-family: "Goudy Old Style"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; line-height: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Helvetica; color: black; }h1 { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; line-height: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Helvetica; color: black; text-decoration: underline; font-weight: normal; }h2 { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: center; line-height: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Helvetica; color: black; text-decoration: underline; font-weight: normal; }h3 { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: center; line-height: 14pt; font-size: 14pt; font-family: Helvetica; color: blue; text-decoration: underline; font-weight: normal; }h4 { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: center; line-height: 14pt; font-size: 14pt; font-family: Helvetica; color: blue; font-weight: normal; }h5 { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify; line-height: 14pt; font-size: 14pt; font-family: Helvetica; color: red; text-decoration: underline; font-weight: normal; }h6 { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: center; line-height: 11pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Helvetica; color: blue; text-decoration: underline; font-weight: normal; }p.MsoHeading7, li.MsoHeading7, div.MsoHeading7 { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: center; line-height: 11pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Helvetica; color: fuchsia; text-decoration: underline; }p.MsoHeading8, li.MsoHeading8, div.MsoHeading8 { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: center; line-height: 11pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Helvetica; color: black; text-decoration: underline; }p.MsoHeader, li.MsoHeader, div.MsoHeader { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: center; line-height: 14pt; font-size: 14pt; font-family: Helvetica; color: black; font-weight: bold; }p.MsoFooter, li.MsoFooter, div.MsoFooter { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: center; line-height: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Helvetica; color: black; font-style: italic; }span.MsoPageNumber { font-size: 10pt; color: black; }p.MsoList, li.MsoList, div.MsoList { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 14.15pt; text-indent: -14.15pt; line-height: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Helvetica; color: black; }p.MsoTitle, li.MsoTitle, div.MsoTitle { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: center; line-height: 11pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Helvetica; color: blue; text-decoration: underline; }p.MsoClosing, li.MsoClosing, div.MsoClosing { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 212.6pt; line-height: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Helvetica; color: black; }p.MsoBodyText, li.MsoBodyText, div.MsoBodyText { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; line-height: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Helvetica; color: blue; }p.MsoBodyTextIndent, li.MsoBodyTextIndent, div.MsoBodyTextIndent { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; line-height: 14pt; font-size: 14pt; font-family: Helvetica; color: blue; }p.MsoSalutation, li.MsoSalutation, div.MsoSalutation { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; line-height: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Helvetica; color: black; }p.MsoBodyText3, li.MsoBodyText3, div.MsoBodyText3 { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify; line-height: 14pt; font-size: 14pt; font-family: Helvetica; color: blue; }table.MsoNormalTable { font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.Default, li.Default, div.Default { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; line-height: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Helvetica; color: black; }span.Hidden0 { font-size: 12pt; color: black; }span.DefaultSS { font-size: 9pt; color: black; }p.Body, li.Body, div.Body { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; line-height: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Helvetica; color: black; }p.Footnote, li.Footnote, div.Footnote { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; line-height: 12pt; font-size: 10pt; font-family: Helvetica; color: black; }span.FootnoteIndex { font-size: 12pt; color: black; vertical-align: super; }p.Hidden1, li.Hidden1, div.Hidden1 { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; line-height: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Helvetica; color: black; }span.Hidden2 { font-size: 12pt; color: black; }p.Word4095Null, li.Word4095Null, div.Word4095Null { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; line-height: 13pt; font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; color: black; }p.Style15, li.Style15, div.Style15 { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; line-height: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Helvetica; color: black; }span.Style16 { font-size: 9pt; color: black; }p.Style17, li.Style17, div.Style17 { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: center; line-height: 14pt; font-size: 14pt; font-family: Helvetica; color: black; font-weight: bold; }p.Style18, li.Style18, div.Style18 { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; line-height: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Helvetica; color: black; }p.Style19, li.Style19, div.Style19 { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: center; line-height: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Helvetica; color: black; font-style: italic; }p.Style20, li.Style20, div.Style20 { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; line-height: 12pt; font-size: 10pt; font-family: Helvetica; color: black; }span.Style21 { font-size: 10pt; color: black; }p.DefaultTB, li.DefaultTB, div.DefaultTB { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; line-height: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Helvetica; color: black; }p.Hidden3, li.Hidden3, div.Hidden3 { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; line-height: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Helvetica; color: black; }p.Hidden5, li.Hidden5, div.Hidden5 { margin: 0cm 18pt 0.0001pt 0cm; line-height: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Helvetica; color: black; }span.Hidden6 { font-size: 12pt; color: black; }span.Hidden7 { font-size: 12pt; color: black; }span.Hidden8 { font-size: 12pt; color: black; }span.Hidden10 { font-size: 12pt; color: black; }span.Hidden12 { font-size: 11pt; color: black; text-decoration: underline; }span.Hidden13 { font-size: 11pt; color: black; }span.Hidden15 { font-size: 11pt; color: black; }span.Hidden17 { font-size: 11pt; color: black; }span.Hidden21 { font-size: 11pt; color: black; }span.Hidden24 { font-size: 11pt; color: black; }span.Hidden25 { font-size: 11pt; color: black; }span.Hidden27 { font-size: 11pt; color: black; }span.Hidden33 { font-size: 12pt; color: black; text-decoration: underline; }span.Hidden34 { font-size: 12pt; color: black; text-decoration: underline; }span.Hidden35 { font-size: 12pt; color: black; }span.Hidden36 { font-size: 12pt; color: black; }span.Hidden37 { font-size: 13pt; color: black; }span.Hidden38 { font-size: 13pt; color: black; }span.Hidden39 { font-size: 12pt; color: black; }span.Hidden40 { font-size: 12pt; color: black; }span.Hidden41 { font-size: 12pt; color: black; }span.Hidden42 { font-size: 12pt; color: black; text-decoration: underline; }span.Hidden43 { font-size: 12pt; color: black; text-decoration: underline; }span.Hidden44 { font-size: 13pt; color: black; }span.Hidden45 { font-size: 12pt; color: black; text-decoration: underline; }span.Hidden46 { font-size: 12pt; color: black; text-decoration: underline; }span.Hidden47 { font-size: 12pt; color: black; font-style: italic; }span.Hidden48 { font-size: 12pt; color: black; text-decoration: underline; }span.Hidden49 { font-size: 12pt; color: black; text-decoration: underline; }span.Hidden50 { font-size: 12pt; color: black; }span.Hidden51 { font-size: 12pt; color: black; }span.Hidden52 { font-size: 13pt; color: black; }span.Hidden53 { font-size: 12pt; color: black; text-decoration: underline; }span.Hidden54 { font-size: 12pt; color: black; }span.Hidden55 { font-size: 12pt; color: black; }span.Hidden56 { font-size: 12pt; color: black; text-decoration: underline; }span.Hidden57 { font-size: 12pt; color: black; text-decoration: underline; }span.Hidden58 { font-size: 12pt; color: black; text-decoration: underline; }span.Hidden59 { font-size: 12pt; color: black; text-decoration: underline; }span.Hidden60 { font-size: 12pt; color: black; font-style: italic; }span.Hidden61 { font-size: 12pt; color: black; text-decoration: underline; }span.Hidden62 { font-size: 12pt; color: black; text-decoration: underline; }span.Hidden63 { font-size: 12pt; color: black; }span.Hidden64 { font-size: 12pt; color: black; }span.Hidden65 { font-size: 12pt; color: black; }span.Hidden66 { font-size: 12pt; color: black; }span.Hidden67 { font-size: 12pt; color: black; }p.InsideAddress, li.InsideAddress, div.InsideAddress { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; line-height: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Helvetica; color: black; }p.ReferenceLine, li.ReferenceLine, div.ReferenceLine { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; line-height: 12pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Helvetica; color: blue; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }
Prologue
‘Its warm in here, stuffy, does it bother you?’
No.’
‘Do you mind if I smoke?’
‘No.’ The Scribe replied undoing the top button on her collar.
‘What’s it like outside?’ The Lady asked.
‘Its hot,’ but that was not what she had meant, the Scribe paused and added, ‘And quiet.’ The airless room was not helping her to stay alert.
‘How long do I have you?’ The Lady asked,
‘As long as it takes,’
‘Good. That is good. You will write it down, as I want it?’
‘Of course, yes, that’s…’
‘As I want it? As I say it?’ The Lady interrupted,
‘Of course.’
‘Good.’ A smile flashed across the Lady’s face, so sudden as to be shocking. ‘It begins with smoking, it begins now – that’s where you start writing. It starts with smoke, with cold. It starts with my father, standing on the edge of the front veranda, smoking his first pipe of the day. It’s freezing, but that never discouraged him - Can you read back what I’ve said so far.’
‘It starts with smoke, with cold. It starts with my father, standing on the edge of the front veranda, smoking his first pipe of the day. Its freezing, but that doesn’t discouraged him’
‘Never.’
‘I’m sorry?
‘That never discouraged him, It never did, the cold, the rain, nothing ever discouraged him. Never.’
‘’I’m sorry,’
‘It does matter, really it does,’
‘I’m sorry, please continue.’
Part one
The man on horseback.
My father watched him as he came along the raised road, a dark smudge against a landscape bleached and bright with snow. He stands on the front steps of the temple, and smokes, tall, motionless with his back to the Flood lands.
He turns his back on the grand dragon doors, the pillars of Wisdom and the great, gold disk of the temple gong; on the fluttering pennants red against the dark grey stone; and behind them the patchwork of fields edged with raised paths and rows of trees; animals huddled in the shelter of shallow walls. He smokes and turns his back on the houses of the farmers and servants; on the faithful and fearful; on the barracks of the sword brothers; on the smithy, the mill, the barns and the hissing, sighing steam pump which keeps the waters of the Flood land at bay.
He sees none of it; my fathers’ back was turned on all his bucolic cares as he smokes and watches a different world. A larger world where on a clear day you can see past where the soft hills can are drawn up into soft blue mountains. When it rains, which is does most of the time; the mountains sink back into grey sky and then the fog rolls in and folds down the sky. A world we have chosen to have little to do with, a world we have turned our backs on as simply and easily as he turns his on his Temple.
My father would have drawn his patterned robe about his shoulders, hunched his shoulders but not moved. He had a pipe to finish and there was nowhere else for the horseman to go but the Temple, why move? There is one road out and one road in, unless you know the path across the Flood lands.
There were beads of frost forming on the fur trim of his collar and boots by the time the man was close enough to slow his horse and slip from the saddle; to dip out of sight as he approached the stockade gate on foot; then the sound of the horn at the gate as the mechanism rolled and clunked into place and the bronze dragon head slowly, grudgingly juddered up to point at the sky and give forth it’s trumpet blast. Then My Father reluctantly shifted his weight back onto both feet, knocked the pipe out against the rail, and waited for the sword brothers to assemble.
That’s how I imagine it was. Just two men, one at the centre of his world, one on the edge of his, my father and the horseman. That’s were I’m starting it.
I was working, in the stables, mucking out when I heard the dragon claxon sound. I piled the final fork full of muck into the barrow and took it to the spoil heap; sending a little avalanche of straw and shit down the side. It steamed in the cold, bright air but I don’t mind the smell of animals.
I put the barrow down, stretched, arching backwards, hands in my sides above my hips, when I saw one of the maids run out of the kitchen door along the covered back way and disappear inside again. The Temple compound has been shaken by the noise, I sense a quickening in the air; I turn my barrow away from the house, fill it with clean straw and go back up to the stable.
Reed was one of the steward’s horses, rather a bully, but I loved him, he put his long, grey face over the half door as I got closer and breathed a huff of white breath at me, his deliciously soft nose flaring. He turned his head to watch me with one baleful golden eye.
I cannot resist him so stop and give him a good ear scratching; he stoops a little towards me, leans his great head against my neck and makes a grumbling, munching noise. His eyelids flicker in delight.
Telock comes round the corner, leading Ostan back in from a trot; a piebald, brown and white, Reed straightens up at once and bares a little tooth at him; It wouldn’t do for him to be caught in such a kittenish pose.
‘You heard?’ Telock asked as I was picking up the barrow again, ‘Some Paladins here.’
‘Some who?’
‘Some man, form the Empire, a stranger. Some sort of official, I think.’
‘Oh.’
‘Your fathers seein’ him, now in the big hall, terrible fuss going up.’
‘I’m surprised he hasn’t turned him out already.’
‘Seems he’s giving him tea.’
‘My fathers giving him hospitality?’
‘Apparently, have an idea why?’ I turned away from him, pick up the empty barrow and wheeled it out of the way.
‘Now, whatever makes you think I would know that?’ I say, grinning at him. He forgets, or rather he remembers who I am sometimes.
‘I was just wondering.’ He smiles back. Telock never minded me making my self-useful.
Tia, my youngest sister, suddenly burst round the corner, bundled up in her bedspread against the cold, all red and gold and loose hair,
‘Messian, Messian, You’ve got to come.’ She shouts an reaches out and grabs hold of my arm ‘Messian!’
‘What? I’ve not finished here!’ She’s as tall as me but plumper, her thighs and legs deliciously curvaceous and bosom full. Her hastily bundled bedspread made her look bigger, a great bulk of woolen cloth and tassels and beads. Then she sees Telock and surreptitiously pulls a piece of the bedspread over her eyes.
‘A man has come, a paladin, an Imperial man, in a red coat; we have to be ready, father wants us all to meet him.’
‘Not me,’
‘Yes you, you too, you as well, he said all of us and I said did he mean you and he shouted at me yes, all of us had to come.’
‘Where’s Cora?’
‘She’s fine, mother has given her to Lucia, they’re making bread or something, she won’t need to be there.’
‘His daughters, but not mine then?’
‘Messian!’ Tia stamps on her foot at me.
‘He needs more winter root!’ I say to Telock, as Tia dragged across the yard.
We all sit round the big, formal table - my family and I and this man, this Paladin. My sisters are dressed in elegant stuff; little short fur jackets decorated with beads; long dresses with sashes wrapped under their breasts and trailing on the ground. I have put on a clean shirt after much nagging and a red ridding waistcoat; it’s quite long and has skirts back and front, it is nearly a dress. They made sure I was quite far away from him, and I can hardly see him now we’re all sitting down.
I had seen him briefly as we trooped in, sitting on one of the crouching stools, legs crossed in the same attitude as my Father, drinking tea; a shock of white hair, sallow skin with hardly any flush of colour in it, riding clothes of unfamiliar cut. My father must have been persuaded by something he said, he would never have allowed a Paladin through his door otherwise.
They tried to make me wear one of their eye masks, not one of their good ones, a plain, silver thing hung with tiny gold beads.
‘I don’t wear one.’
‘It expected.’
‘Not for me.’
‘You’re not married, you must!’ In the end my Mother told them it would be all right, they would tell him I was a widow.
‘But she should be wearing purple then,’ someone had piped up, but had been ignored. As if a stranger he would know.
Through the smoke from the fire, I squinted at him. He was further away, now we were sitting I could only see he was pale and talking to my father, who was gesturing expansively as if they were old friends. His hand traced invisible sweeps of land; delineated mountains, the great lake. It would have be the speech about how wide his lands are, how far they reach; how an eagle cannot fly from one side to the other in a day, I had heard it before. Once I would have sat there, next to my Father.
It will be followed by his declaration of the holey, the simple word and the sword brothers; his dedication to the Gods of Steel and the purity of the blade; it will be his declaration of his right and that of his kin to hear the Gods of Steel and the Goods of blood; how his blood was of their blood. Once he would have meant my blood too, once I was his kin.
Serena is listening, wearing her finest copper mask. You can see my Mother leaning in as she makes moves to introduce her into the conversation when appropriate, Serena the model of modesty and grace. The other sisters come next, then the head priests, their wives and the sword brothers lining the hall each eating off his shield. Down at my end of the table, there is only Tia, far too young for marriage yet despite her wearing her veil; and Aunt Carusa, swathed in purple, who has never let any of us ever forget that her husband was killed.
‘This is your fault.’ She leans across the table to whisper at me and I ignore her, ‘your sister, having to turn her eyes to a stranger; its your fault.’
‘Enjoying your meal, Auntie?’ I lick my knife blade, which I know infuriates her. She is not going to slap my hand at the table now, but she wants to.
‘You think you’re clever,’ she hisses. ‘But you’ll get what you deserve, in time my girl.’
‘As will you.’ I stabbed my knife into the bread by my plate; only I stabbed it harder than I meant and the noise traveled up the table, some of them look back at me. Oranne looks, frowns at me, and looks away to check the stranger cannot see. I curled my lip at her, not caring if he can see or not and broke up my bread.
I do not hear what my Father is talking about now as the noise level has risen now his speeches are over, it had nothing to do with me, I don’t care. Occasionally I hear the strangers speak, not what he says but his deep, slurring voice; words like ours but changed, distorted. What did I care how he speaks?
The food is good, I wonder if Cora has been given anything. I move to get up, a terrible insult to a guest but Tia puts her hand on my knee,
‘Please! M!’ and looks so desperate for everything to be perfect, that I give in.
‘I want to know Cora is alright,’
‘She is, I saw her eating before we went in.’
‘Would you say different if not?’
‘She told you.’ Carusa says, crossing her knife over her plate and sitting back on her stool. Her neck hangs in skinny folds like a birds wattle; her black eyes bead me with distain.
‘Chook chook.’ I muttered, but that was the extent of my bravery.
It went on - I am leaning my head on my hand staring off into the other end of the hall; trying to see if I might be able to make good my escape, the maid has leans over me to collect my plate.
My father stands; I can see from the slight sway that he has been drinking. He will dismiss us now, I think, and then we can all go and get back on with things.
‘My Family, my brothers and the Gods of steel and blood, we have eaten and eaten well, let us have a moment with the Gods of the water and the Gods of the earth, to thank them for their care of us,’ Everyone does the thing where they place their left hand on their fore head, fingers up towards the hair line and shut their eyes. I don’t because I know that if I time it right, I can just move my hand down from my face and they will think I did.
The stranger doesn’t close his eyes either he sits and waits for them to finish and he looks down the table straight at me. I am flustered for a moment, and go to put my hand up so that he will think I meant to do it but I don’t. He closed one eye at me, rather quickly and opens it again nothing else on his face changing.
‘Gods be at peace,’ My Father intoned in his portentous voice and they all look up, I look away.
We stand; turn to go but Carusa’s boney fingers close over my shoulder.
‘Not you.’ And there was a smile on her face a paddy snake blush at.
I stand with my back to my Father as the rest ebbed away; none of them look at me.
‘Messian, come here to me.’ I take a moment to turn round; my father looks not at me but at his guest watching how the man studies me.
It was the avarice on my Fathers face that made a hard knot of fear tightens inside my stomach, not the gaze of the stranger as his brown eyes cast me up and down.
I didn’t let my gaze fall and for once my Father didn’t curse at me. They had moved from the table to the hearth on the crouching stools, I cross the rug and approached the fireside. I watch the stranger watching me, taking in my height, the trousers and boots; the thick, black mass of my hair tugged out of it’s braids, I watched him appraise me with hardly a flicker of emotion on his face.
‘Sit, daughter,’ I was no longer accustomed to sitting by his side.
‘This man wishes to marry you. Give him your hand.’ The words make no sense as they lurk in my ears.
His face was strange and yellow white, it made a cold stale taste in the back of my throat and drummed in my head, I shot a glance to my Father, not anger but disbelief.
The Paladin held his hand out to me; I look at it as if it was something separate from him.
‘I understand this is strange and sudden thing,’ he said his voice was thick and slurred ‘But I am in need of a wife and I know of your Father and his standing. I cannot offer a settled life, but I feel that you will not perhaps mind too much.’ He nearly smiles.
‘What about my daughter?’ I hear my self saying, ‘I have a daughter,’ I will have to lie next to his skinny bones and have his sallow face pressed over mine. He can’t know, my father can’t have told him; this will stop it before it even starts. My Father sucked his teeth in annoyance; the stranger glanced at him then back at me. ‘My daughter?’ My Fathers face blackened but I didn’t care if he beat me green.
‘He knows of her.’ Father growled at me, ‘He knows already.’ I get up, my face burning,
‘I’ll not go without her,’ the Paladin stands and speaks to my Father
‘Perhaps I might talk to your daughter, make good my word to her?’
‘I will talk to her.’ My father says because the Paladin did not realize that we couldn’t be alone together, tears prick hot at the back of my eyes but they don’t come; they never come. What were this charade, this meal, and my sisters around me in their dresses, what was all that for, to make sure I didn’t run?
My Father dragged me as if I were a child to his study or he would have had I not jerked my shoulder out of his grip and walked to his there. His bad daughter, disrespecting him in public again; the Paladin left standing with his yellow white hand extended.
Alone with my father in his room the sickness lay like a lead weight in my guts. I looked at the things of the room: its chair, its low hearth and high windows, it’s scribbled mess of bows and strings, hunting trophies, bits of skull, bits of skins; the brown air smelling of leather and tobacco and the automatic scribe, it’s quill pen poised over an empty space where the wax tablet would have been, had this conversation been for recording.
‘You think that you will disobey me, even here?’ His voice is calm, which makes me more afraid.
‘This is a Paladin,’ I try to appeal to his pride, ‘An Imperial spy, one of the unknowing, would you give a, a spy anything of yours?’
‘Of mine?’ And he laughs, ‘I gave up that claim when you ran away, I don’t care who he is, he can take you if he wants you. What other man would have you?’
‘I thought Imperial Law was nothing to you.’
‘He’s not here for Law, stupid girl, he’s here for a bride, a noble bride, he has no money but plenty of breeding, he thinks you will not mind. I suppose all his women have all turned him down, so he comes here.’
‘You’ll be rid of me then.’ I manage as much of a sneer out of habit.
‘And?’ He looks away from his bow and his hides and his trophies, ‘you think I would turn down way of having you gone, after five years of your shame? The Gods have finally heard my prayer!’ he makes the sign out of habit rather than with enthusiasm.
‘I have said I would go, would leave here again!’ I protest, ‘You won’t let me, you forbid me!’
‘Let you go? Give you freedom like you were a man? I gave you your life; your sisters could have killed you. You didn’t have the decency to die; you just crawled back with a bastard in your belly, for what? Did you think I wanted you back?’
‘I had no choice!’ This riles him, like it always riled him; he lunges as if to hit me, shouts instead,
‘You still hold to this delusion even now, this lie that you have no memory of your own child’s father! You still hide behind that, even now?’
‘Its not a lie!’ I felt I might cry with frustration, ‘I don’t remember, the Divinator, told you, he said he saw the curse on me, that I had no way of remembering!’ My father laughed at this, throws him self into his chair like a younger man,
‘Him,’ the word spits from his mouth like old tobacco, ‘He told me you would be a boy.’
I knew what follows, so I sit down and look at the floor so that he may say it. Once, I would have looked him in the face.
‘The Divinator, my first born son, what a fool he made of me, If I had not listened to him, I am cursed with bloody females, useless the lot of you.’ He jabs his finger at me, ‘ it was his word forced me to bring you up as a boy and now you hide under them!’
‘Please, I do not lie to you, Father, please,’
‘Then, Messian, tell me what happened when you were away, tell me what you did when you ran from my Temple and our Gods, from your brothers, tell me and I will send this man away, send him to the slag heap, to the charnel house with the rubbish, convince me that you still have some honor and I’ll not hear another word of you marrying him.’
The floor is well scrubbed wooden boards, polished by the passage of generations of feet. I would tell him, I would plunge deep into my heart and pour out the story of my time away from the Floodlands, I would lay it all before him. If I could only remember it.
‘No? Still alludes you?’ His chair creaks a little as he rocks back in it, ‘Can’t remember the father of your child still?’
‘Please,’
‘Was it Teshnel?’I look up; the name makes me unconsciously shiver.
‘You always ask this, but I,’
‘He left as you did!’ My Father returns to the story he had tried to make me believe before, ‘He left when you did, he must have left with you, he has not returned, was it for fear of me he did not return?’
‘I don’t know!’ I am exasperated, but I keep my temper, it would be worse if he saw my anger, ‘He was my brother, sir, as a brother to me; it would not be possible for me to have seen him other wise, I cannot conceive...’
‘If only that had been so.’ He nearly laughs at himself.
‘I do not know what happened, ‘ My teeth clamp together so tightly they hurt, the words get stuck in them, ‘I do not remember.’
‘Then tell me why you left, if you can remember that.’ The coldness in his voice makes me look at him he is watching me with narrowed eyes. The barn is around me again, the floor dusty and dry and warm under foot. ‘Tell me that.’
The barn is cold and dark, it is night and the light from the lamp throws broken shadows against the walls. The air smells of cold, clean stone, of horses and straw. Teshnel breathes in my ear
‘Come on then, little brother, your turn - Oh, but you can’t, can you little brother, you’re not man enough for this game,’
I am not looking my Father; my hands are clutching my face over my eyes. The memory of straw is under my fingernails.
‘You can’t even give me that, can you? You treacherous child,’
‘Come on little brother, you best us at every other sport, is this one too strong for your taste?’
‘I gave you such a life, then you turn and run from me, leaving like a thief in the night, like I meant nothing to you, like your name meant nothing to you. Marry you, to this man? I should sooner give you to him for his horse!’ He leans back against his chair, folding his himself away behind his priests face. His eyes narrow, he has another idea: ‘Is it that it, is he her father?’
The memory of straw is harsh under my feet; I swallow the dry dust in my throat.
‘Is that why he is here for you?’
‘How can he be?’ and I try and suppress a ridiculous smile that forces itself onto my mouth. My Father shrugs,
‘You ask why he would chose you, what if this is why?’
‘But how can he be,’ I repeat, ‘Cora is as dark as I, darker, would she not be bleached to his colour if he had been her father?’
‘Who knows? His kind has not de-spoiled my blood line before.’
‘Have you asked him this? What does he say?’
‘He says not,’
‘You asked him!’ Having suggested it I am outraged, ‘You asked him if he knew me?’
‘It is my place to ask.’ He retorts.
‘And what did he say?’
‘He said not, he said he would rather the child remained here, with her people.’
‘Then does that not strike you as being the truth, that he is not her father?
‘I do not know the workings of a white mans mind. He is other to me.’ My Father sat back again.
‘I will not go without her.’ I say and level my gaze at him although he does not meet it at first.
‘Still this delay,’ He looked at me then, ‘What, for you to further shame me?’
There was silence between us and the world moved past the window of the study and the sky stretched and cracked under the weight of the stars and the clouds were dragged under its belly by the wind.
‘Let me talk with him.’ I say at last in a voice dragged from the soles of my feet.
‘Messian,’ His voice is softer now, ‘Do this, and it will,’ he pauses, wary now of promising too much, ‘ It may even go some way to,’ and he touches me. His dry, firm hand rests for a moment on my arm, then is gone leaving its sensation as if it were a brand on my skin, ‘You might come back a daughter to me, if you decide he is a father to yours.’ And he turns away from me and does not watch me leave.
Subscribe
Visitor counter
Blog Roll Centre
Blog Hints
