Wool at his heels...
The snow is brushed away from stone in his slow stride. A wandering from the rampart's opening hatch to as far as he may go. And lightly, large hands grasp rampart's stone. Soft wool that softens strength allows the feeling of the age that rests now beneath it.
Old earth and I...
Alire lifts his gaze from the crinillation at hand to the wood and the wild earth. A clear night. A stretch of stars and mist. A breath that clings to air, fills chest with icy reminders of how life used to be...
Painful...
Short...
The short years seemed long for all that was crammed into that tiny expanse...
Beautiful, though. Even then...
That is how I remember them. Jesu, the things that were done...
Grey wool, brushed soft and supple, bend as his fingers curl, fingertips pressed to the stone. A moment. A moment and then they leave, brushing away accumulated snow. The crystal and flakes fall, drifting from him as easily as years. Leaving no trace, but sparkling behind him as he turns...
...Another ... turning, a large dark form on a larger, burgundy covered bed, adjusts to the dark morning -- late nights until the sun rises, the sun setting early, he sleeps in. Warmth encouraged, sinking in comfort. Fingers curl upon a down-stuffed pillow, pressing into it like flesh. They do not move, lest Waking send Slumber scattering...
Like the snow that is falling, moved by the wind...
Already, he is awake. The one that shares your bed is not so far away, finishing his evening dressing. Something almost academic tonight -- high collar that flips over a worn sweater. Dark pants. Were it not for his youthful beauty, one might call him Professor.
He was to say something to you, until he realized you were not quite Awake. Ian smiles, having sent Stephen away a bit ago, and bends down to check his loafers. No, he has no plans on going out this evening, save upstairs where someone seems to walk.
And so, William, Ian takes a last look at you, grin slanting. The sleep of the living, you seem to enjoy. Maybe you will rise in an hour or so.
With that, he takes his leave. Ian walks quietly upon the floor of stone and furs, carpets and rugs, pushing the door closed quietly behind. He crosses the sitting room and makes his way to the hallway. There. Finally does he exhale, willing to make slight noises. His feet scuff along the exposed stone, and Ian disappears into the stairwell, winding his way upwards to the rampart.
Professor...
Bishop...
Chancellor...
They suit you, such titles. And were his eyes open, so Plantagenet could not help to concur. Knowledge. Study. These are words... ideas... that you wear as easily and as well as you wear the garments that would seem to fit them.
A fitting match. A perfect match for the Almost King and Lord who commands that bed. In a sprawl of legs. A tangle of bed coverings. Half-covered face. In this, the most True. The most Simple...
High above, the Apostle's hands leave the stone as he turns toward the view of the gardens and greenhouse. A smile. Is that not where you should be, Alire? Knight of Provence, who would expect you to loiter about in the cold when there was the promise of warmth?
The flesh does not feel the pricking of the skin with ice and snow as it once did. Only when it is breathed. Sucked it and held. Ice chiming against the blood like breaking glass, leaving crystals of itself behind. And this is why. It is easier to feel alive...
The vampire courts Life and Living as surely as any mortal is destined to court Death...
Golden lashes drift and blue eyes waver from the orderly and arranged garden below, its plants covered, its fountain silent, at the sound of approaching steps. The feel of arriving Age and Beauty. Lips find themselves curving. Upward, winding. Expectation becomes a kind of anxious desire.
Did you know that if the Anticipation of Majesty could be bottled, it could become one of the most potent drugs mankind has ever known?
Alire lifts blue eyes to the garden again, closing them finally as he feels Power near...
...I remember my first meeting with a pope... when I first knelt before Christ's Chosen, Peter on Earth...
Before I knew he was only a weak man...
First, there was Glory...
The creaking hatch does not give Ian away. That was done long before the sixth floor of the keep. But as he knows you must expect him, Ian arrives with a grin already upon his face. Yellow collar perches high around his neck, tips falling upon russet brown sweater. "Good eve, chevalier," Ian offers brightly, pricked by the first shards of ice. Those are barely felt. He climbs the stairs, appearing fully, and twists to drop the hatch closed.
"Not too cold, I see..." Ian smiles, coming up behind you and then to the side. "Certainment, it can be cold in France, but like this?" he doubts it. But then again, weather of late has not been sometimes as he expects...
A hand rests on the stone of the nearest crinellation as Alire turns, fingertips lingering on some form of Scotland. And the smile that started remains. Though it is mild upon the mouth, tempered there to something slight but true, in the eyes it is more fully realized. They are neither sky nor sea, but some combination of them both together. "Not at all. Over the course of all my winters, this... is not so bad," he offers. A quiet laugh, a last look to the gardens and then to you. "I find... I am fond of the cold. The air on the blood, in the lungs. The surest way to living. But I will have to return in the spring," Alire continues, "...to see what that garden is like when it is uncovered. Gardens," he begins, his voice softening to something of solemnity, "... where one least expects to find them...like treasures...they are a love of mine..."
He who would seem to have no love and yet all love. He whose loves are secreted, just like the gardens he mentions...
And he feels the weight of his confession, and in the darkness blushes at it...
Blue eyes shift just slightly, and golden hair is... as the wind wills it. He, in layers of greys and blacks. No adornment in spectacular color, he... all the more so because of it. It is subtlety that makes him handsome. In understatement, there is beauty...
Alire settles within the covering of the thick woolen overcoat, within his layers of grey and black. Turning toward you and also to the garden. He... suspended so suddenly between you. "It has been a good evening, I thank you. I am never at so much peace as when standing on a battlement in the weather." Ah, old knights. They have strange desires...
There is no embarrassment from Ian. He smiles as you blush, taking the moment to look out across the frozen moor. "I think that I will never be able to leave Scotland for a long while," Ian ruminates. "I may visit Chinon, but I do not think I will be travelling much further than either place." My other home. "And I too am fond of the cold. Sometimes, I think it fits Scotland best." His silver eyes gaze upon you again and Ian smirks, "Though, then spring comes and I think otherwise," he chuckles.
But what of love? I hear that you have had such. Lost such, it seems. And now? How do you spend your times, Alire? Bah -- there is too much sentiment in that, Dunross. He is not you. He is not Plantagenet. His life has been different. Do not project...
"So, you like gardens. That means you must return during a Spring," Ian grins, lapels flapping in the icy breeze. "Do you have other pasttimes, Alire?"
He is not you...
He is not Plantagenet...
He had loved -- have we all not loved someone?
He had lost that love -- have we all not lost something, someone...
Look at any man's face and you may see such a story etched there. Or if you do not, wait. You have but to wait...
The blush lifted and lowered, moved over and past him, like wind and snow. "Scotland and Chinon. What reason have you to venture further, you have... the best of both seasons. The cold and the warm." Alire cocks a smile, half worn and half couched. "I will visit in the spring.. this or the next or the next. What may you grow here..."
But he stops himself there at pasttimes. Pasttimes. And he has to think.
...that's the problem...
"When I am not tending to Poitiers and Tours, I..."
What do you do, Alire...
"I ... read..."
And then he laughs. "A simple pleasure for a simple man, Ian. It is... as this," a hand lifts, a hand gestures. It is not grand, but it is true. "I read," he echoes, voice quiet. "Study... knowledge. I ... hung up my sword years ago. This chevalier, he likes to sit with a book in a garden..."
It's not sexy, as they say. It is not bold. But it is true...
All Ian has for you, Alire, are smiles. He shall not poke or pry. He understands. Too well. "We all put away our swords, I think. Myself, you. Plantagenet. Vigny. Muerelle. Maybe even Villon," he laughs. "How do we make ourselves functional in this age?" Rhetorical questions, all. Ian seems not to look for answers immediately, but such questions are on his mind.
"You have not said what's brought you to Scotland, Alire," Ian notes, finally turning his direct attention to you. "Might I have a preview?" Before William rises.
You and I. Villon -- his pen was always more mighty...
But Muerelle? Plantagenet?
"I read... so that I might know. I know... so that I may understand," he quotes and completes the saying with a warm smile. I spent too many years in the company of clerics not to have gleaned something of worth. Though clerics and knights both are faulty by their very nature. Bloody swords and bloody pens...
Some of us at least grew tired of blood years ago...
"Of course, Ian," he murmurs. "The packet is in my borrowed chamber," at your leisure, "and ... oui... to treasure the cold, perhaps, warmth would be good for it..." A hand comes out, the soft grey glove speckled with snow.
There is much going on in the world...
It makes one long for the quiet of a garden...
A glass of wine...
A lap full of a book...
And someone... with whom to speak softly...
The hatch is opened for you. Shall you ever tire of the courtesy of knights, Ian?
"Ah," Ian smiles, brows arching in curved delight. "Thank you." He moves around to traipse down the stairs, an act done a million times.
And no. He never tires of knights. Not true ones. Impossible.
"We should have visitors more often," Ian grins, looking back over his shoulder to you. "I forget what it is like to have such enjoyable visitors," the hallway warmer than upstairs, certainly, "...ones with whom there is much to discuss." Mortal or Kindred.
He did not traipse -- the steps are yet unknown to him -- but he took them in two's, ending with the pulling of the hatch and the sudden end to winter. Within, his complexion more easily shows the touch of the elements, reddening, even as he warms. A flush.. and then a fall back to the paler sort of olive...
Alire is not half so dark as your immortal partner, though he counts as his land of birth a land further to the south of Guillaume's Poitou...
Hands remove his gloves as he follows you. First folding the wool, then tucking them into a pocket. There, to dry until they are needed again. A chuckle and his eyes drift downward to the floor, to his hands, to some space ahead as he walks behind and beside. "It is easy to be a good guest," he says lightly, "...when one has the best of hosts." Alire smirks at his own diplomacy. "That is to say," he continues more warmly, "I am happy to be here...and talking... apart from reading. Well... it suits an Apostle, at least one of this fashion."
Meaning, of course, himself...
Blue eyes lift to the stone and mortar. "Such a grand old estate," Alire murmurs. "So much work over the years, ne c'est pas? It is amazing... how some of our buildings have fared better than entire civilizations..." Too heavy. Alire seems bemused... quietly, inwardly amused at himself. Golden eyebrows lifting. Mon Dieu, such a man. It is no wonder, Alire of Provence, that you find yourself ... well... you find yourself...as you are...
"Well, thank you," Ian grins, taking the statement with a wry wink over his shoulder. "Strathfayr has prospered only because I have...which is more than I can say for the Bourbons or the Hapsburgs," just to name a few. Ian pushes the stairwell door open, moving down the steps rather quickly, but no less effusive or conversational.
"The keep is original, but certainly, the rest dates from the eighteenth. After the revolution, when I had reason to be at home," Ian observes. Lapels bounce as he quickly navigates the stairs. "And yours? You are in Tours these days? How fares your own architecture?"
William would like that opening. I slay me.
William would applaud you. Those eyes of his, they would ignite. That enviable mouth would upturn. And laughter would be everywhere evident, even if his voice did not sound. And for a time, I am not sure how to answer. Is it an opening about my home or something more subtle? And so...
"I wish I could have ... slept in and missed that one," the Revolution, that is. Of all the revolutions and civil wars I have seen, that was the most horrific. And it takes a great deal to beat out Venice in the 15th Century...
"...I find I am in Poitiers more often," Alire continues quietly, his form issuing swiftly after your own. A step or two behind. From ramparts, to sixth floor, down hall, down stairs to the fifth floor landing, "...as is part of my story, actually, and my reason for being here. I do not have so much architecture as this, but the villa has been restored. Next, the villa in Aix-en-Provence... when time permits," he finishes off, a short laugh following. "Even now, Time runs narrow. Between Tours and Poitiers, I fear my old keep will be rubble when I see it next. Such is the way of things... ah, is this the one?"
A sudden break in conversation, an alteration of the course of discourse. A change, mais oui, of topic. The satchel. "Where would you like to adjourn to hear this news-in-preview..."
Ian stops. "Oh, well," his brows lift in consideration, "...in your sitting room, or we may go downstairs to the other rooms. Perhaps the first floor sitting lounge? It is casual, but private." As opposed to the main floor. He nods and comes to a stop near your door, hands coming behind his back. "I shall wait here," he smiles, keen to keep you as a walking companion.
"Un moment..."
A hand comes up, ungloved showing both qualities of strength and gentleness. A motion, and Alire opens the door with a grin, leaving it open as he passes into the chamber. First the sitting chamber -- with evidence of him dwelling within. A book. Fresh glasses left by the servants in the place of the used glasses found at daybreak. There is a small notepad, a fountain pen. Notes made on something read perhaps. On the paper, rather than in the margins of a borrowed book...
He has passed into the bedroom, the door left open. You see evidence of his dwelling there as well. A hanging suitcase against a bureau, its contents since moved to the wardrobe. A pack of cigarettes by the bedstand. Another gathering of books. Such a cleric...
And the brown satchel. A fine, antiqued leather -- or perhaps it is very old but very well tended. It is slung over the Templar's broad shoulder, as he quietly approaches...
"Would it be possible to have a late tea," he wonders, "I do not want to keep your servants," it is not as late as all that, the sun sets here very early, and yet, it is after high tea and heading toward supper. Alire closes the door behind him, joining you once more...
"Absolutely," Ian chimes, largesse shown in that you should never have to ask such a question. He nods and motions again to the stairs, turning in expectation that you might be at his shoulder. "The staff," he decides to explain in the walk, "...should be able to fulfill whatever request you make." Any. And now you know.
Once more, Ian pushes at the stairwell door, continuing downward.
The old turret stairs. These, he can traverse with speed. Used to the narrowness of the steps -- one turret is very like any other, in some respects. There are echoes of the Pope's palace. The Doge's. Chinon. The ghosts of Mirabeau. Of Poitiers and Rouen. Were one talented -- or brave -- enough to go with eyes closed, one might imagine oneself in any or all of those places...
Alire adjusts the satchel but moves with it easily. The long woolen coat. The layers of clothing. Though styles have changed, little else has about this knight it seems. "Merci, Ian," he murmurs, but there is nothing said of tea, or blood, or wishes or desires -- just simple thanks for the allowance.
"My news," Alire begins, his voice soft among stalwart stones and flickering light, "...it is... not to pun, but I cannot help it... a mixed bag." He smirks. "Good and bad. Interesting and tedious. I will... do my best to make short of the tedious..."
Down the stairs, he follows. Gold after gold. Like twin sons, the pair of you. Age and Beauty. Strength and Resilience...
That's interesting. Ian glances back, but does not rush to get into it. "Someone unhappy," he chuckles, making a guess at it. Too bad. But I do want to know if I must face something later.
"Here," he motions, arriving at the first floor door. He opens it for you, seeing that your hands might be occupied. About the same time, the ground floor door opens, certainly a servant about to wend his way upwards in the turret.
"Isn't someone always..." The dry return, the wry pull of humor. A quick smile follows and with a bow of his golden head, Alire heads within. A series of interlocking chambers, separated only by archways. A sitting room... a library more like... a gaming room -- ah, that must be Plantagenet's, a place for his billiards and his cigarettes. A music room...more, salon -- that must be Dunross. He...who becomes Elegance.
So few are so refined. So learned. So elegant as to seem to define it, rather than be comprised of it. The room... this is how you are...
The satchel is set upon a comfortable chair, and Alire removes his coat. Any semblance of leaving or wandering out in the cold. And the long grey cashmere scarf that lay beneath it, unseen until it was removed. A shake and a fold and both are set, quite neatly, to the side. He, so fastidious...
There is an exhale, "Oui... but in this case, the someone is a city." He finishes more soberly. "Poitiers..."
William's capital city...
"... I am glad," Alire whispers, "that I am giving you a preview. Perhaps," golden eyebrows knit together, "...you can help me formulate the gentlest but the truest way to tell Plantagenet..."
Poitiers is upset? Now that's strange. Ian's brow frowns, but he is aware of the servant now coming visible at the rooms. Having just entered, he stops and turns around, "Full tea for two," he notes dryly, wanting them out of the way, "...with a bit of supper." Something for the guest who might wish something substantive.
The servant, one of the many young men, nods and heads off, disappearing down the hallway.
Blonde hair waves as Ian motions for you to have a seat as he does the same. "I would...hate to think that I need to break anything to Plantagenet," his own pale brow arches. Surprise. The first bit of concern. Ian's legs cross as he takes perhaps his comfortable chair, hands coming to rest along the arms of the seat.
"But you need not worry on Plantagenet, in some ways. If it is distressing news, he will accept it from you. He thinks highly of you, chevalier."
"He is a generous lord. And aged Poitiers knows this," a wave of his hand, a slight motion even as he pauses, watching you and then the servant and then looking to you again. He wears a sigh upon his expression. This must be the tedious news. "But Poitiers is altogether filled with errant children cresting their first century -- and weary of heeding the words of a prince who... is only with them in name. I know... it is on his list. Poitiers is never off of his list," of things he tends to, of work he does, this is not to cast doubt upon Plantagenet, this you know. "He is very conscientious, Guillaume. The 20th Century brood is... merely..." His lips fashion a curl. You know. They are all like this -- selfish, brutish, unmannerly, disrespectful of the past. "...short-minded. Self-centered. It is my recommendation that ... Prince Plantagenet reaquaint them with his... love for them."
A prince's love. It is how it should be. "I have petitions, letters," he unpacks bundles from the satchel, "...perfumed and not. If Poitiers were made to feel... first on the list..." Alire pauses. "I do not mean to over-emphasize. It is not brewing rebellion. But it... needs his attention. I have done my best for the last century. I think they weary of seeing Alire of Provence wearing the mask of William Plantagenet."
Ian looks a little surprised. Dismayed. But there is understanding. He looks down to his lap, fingers coming to steeple at his lips.
Not for long, however. He is not given to such posturing.
"That is serious," Ian says softly, cocking his silver gaze at you. "I am sure you have done an excellent job, chevalier, but you...are correct. At the same time," Ian exhales, "well..." he changes his mind, "...nevermind. I am sure William will accept and heed your words."
"I will admit," Alire continues, "...the job of a prince is not one that comes naturally to me, Ian. I am content with the job I have performed, but it is not as he would have done it." A pause. "Or you, Prince. I am... surprised you have not taken the leadership of another city. It has... been a while since Edinburgh now, oui?"
Alire exhales and nods once. "What were you to say? It is in part for your counsel that I fought my way through the snow..." He smiles. And so you know...
No, this business of politics, I have never liked it. I did not like it then, when the jail gates shut on me and the fires were lit. Some were spared...
Some were not...
Upon the whims of those who played a game. I cannot play these games. I can be discreet. I can guard. Protect. Serve. Counsel. Hear confession. I can do many things...
But I cannot do that...
Mention of Edinburgh brings Ian from some reverie. His brows arch and he comes to attention, silver gaze stopping at your face instead of looking beyond it. "Hmm," he shrugs, "...what would any city need of me, Alire?" your name said softly, with a smile. "I am not interested in...marshalling youth. I am not interested in building something new." All things used to compel one into service. "I have no need to go into some area that needs support against our enemies and provide such stability." Not anymore. In short, I have no idea what interests me.
"I may be politic, but even that does not provide such intrigue anymore. There are no secrets about which I care to learn. No ladders for me to climb," and princedoms provide that. Hands come out, palms up. Tell me, Alire, what should I do?
"As for you," Ian grins, "...you have played the Prince for better part of a century. In fact," Ian grins, sitting back again, swallowed up by his chair, "...you have done more than play the part. You have been a Prince." So stop thinking that you are not fit for such. "Granted, a Prince playing from someone else's music, but you have been the Law in Poitiers. And you still are."
Chew on the implications of that for a moment.
A soft, "By His leave," was spoken after. But whether Alire was speaking of God or of Plantagenet, only Alire and God would know. And perhaps then... only God. For Alire most likely means both simultaneously. He settles in the chair, he is quiet through all you say...
And after...
In the end, his eyes lift from his intertwined hands. Soft blue, neither sky nor ocean, but the meeting between the two -- Mediterannean blue. "Any city benefits by having at least one voice of sense and wisdom," he begins, and the somber expression he has worn since Poitiers was mentioned dissolves into the warmth of a smile. "Though, the benefits are seldom reciprocal. You have... much to give, I believe. But... It," such a position, "... does not have much to give you. This, I see," a hand lifting to counter your own motion, and your statements.
But as for Poitiers...
There is a slight frown. "An accidental usurper?" Golden brows arch upward, and even though the implications -- or some of the implications -- of what you say trouble him, there is a kind of helpless smile. A lifting of the corners of his mouth, very slight. "Now, we know he would not see it this way, but we also know how he is about Poitiers. The seat of his birthright. You know him," his Plantagenet ego, "I cannot imagine him relinquishing it, Ian, even if only in name... I do not want this..."
Alire is quiet for a moment. "But I have been the Law, I have exercised the Law. Perhaps Poitiers would be contented," he continues after a moment more, "... were I to seem more than I have wished to seem..."
"Not accidental or a usurper," Ian clarifies, not wishing his words misunderstood. "A man trusted when a path took another elsewhere. A man so trusted, that if something should have happened, the Prince could sit well with the notion that the second might succeed him. That is not accidental. That is a plan." He grins then, elbow bending so that his chin might sit on his curled fingers.
"I do not know you want, Alire, and I will not begin to tell you such," counter to what I have done in the past, Ian thinks. "But, as you may realize, I will suggest to Guillaume that if it agreeable to you both, that you two should consider....new arrangements." However you two choose. "It is between you."
"But do not sell yourself short, Chevalier," Ian offers firmly, eyes focused on you. "Never do that."
"I went to Prague to think..." Alire laughs quietly at this. A strange place, Alire, to go think. That church. The old fortress of the Knights of Malta. Templar brothers. "How many men do this, I wonder? But in its somber weather, its gravity of purpose and sacred longing, I thought it fitting... but..." an exhale clears through him, "you are right. Your counsel... what I needed to hear. I will speak with him about it... tomorrow." Decidedly tomorrow. And what William asks of him, Alire shall give. He would not think of it another way. But this, too, is reciprocal. You speak of Trust and you know he knows it.
What is it I want...
It is the essential question. Too much. I want too much. I want Simplicity...
The simple... is there a thing more complicated to achieve?
Alire nods to the last. Blue eyes fixed upon you and the smile begins to resurface. "That... is the end of the tedious news... now, would you like to hear of the perfumed letters," eyes drift to a bundle tied with a satin ribbon -- there must be thirty envelopes at least. "... court gossip from Paris... or the whispers about certain business in Spain..."
His expression goes from watching you placidly, to a wicked grin beneath startling silver eyes and a wash of blonde hair. Ah, so you know. Mischievious thing, aren't I?
"Well," Ian licks his bottom lip, then bites his tongue, "...I can't imagine that those two topics are not intertwined in some way? The last," he tickles his chin, "I think I am familiar with. So," Ian smirks, "...let us have with the exploits of the gay Parisiens..." yes, those especially.
... Burgundy folded back and in layers...
Fox and ermine parted for his feet and softened his steps...
And when the water fell, steam rose...
The tell-tale signs of him...
Your prince...
The Almost King rising late from a winter bed...
A ring, a cross left by the bed -- protected from the deluge of heated water. An open gate, the sound of the shower. Clothes laid, displayed at the foot of the bed. Tonight it will be lambskin and suede...
And a rise of heat...
And a swelling of cinnamon...
William closes his eyes, esconced in the great shower and sauna. Enveloped by steam like a Scottish secret -- held in mist. A hand upon the stone, another on himself. And he listens...
And he waits...
To feel where you are...
The more you spoke, the more quiet and deep his voice became, until you and he were sharing secrets with every word you spoke. Cloistered in a parlor fit for a king, the Apostle sits in attendance. More at comfort and as such more subtly exuberant. Interest in everything said between you, no matter how trivial. You have spoken of Poitiers for the past half hour...
Alire is not watching the time...
How quickly time passes. And not. Between delights, there were moments filled with flushing. Moments of reverie where apologies were given for seeming distraction. Quiet words of encouragement spilled from him, and his smile sparkled of yellow and silver.
"...you can do this..."
"And why not? You are a chevalier with much experience..."
"We are not worried and you should not be either...you have done an excellent job.."
He could not be more effusive with his praise, his gentle words of comraderie and friendship.
And he knew it. Each time he spoke, he thought himself revealed for what he was. A man with an ulterior motive. Dishonest. Enraptured.
If you did not know it, he was sure someone else shared his own awareness.
Your host engaged you with joy and watched you with fascination, Alire, until he could no longer. And polite excuses were made that he must see about the other lord of the manor, and would see you later in the evening.
He enjoyed the visit, however. He hoped to do it more. He lamented...that the time you shared now was not enough.
And the blonde youth took his leave, expecting to see you next with the darker one in tow.
And all he could think of, as he slowly departed, was how perfect you were. How handsome. How so engaging.
How you were much like another, so close to his own heart.
Posted by Criseyde at May 29, 2003 07:01 PM
