East of Tours, the Cher runs swollen and limestone grey through the upper Loire Valley. Straddling it, one of the loveliest chateaux of the region, delicately poised across the water itself, both bridge and castle. Around it grows a forest thick and renewed. Private land once again turned toward the pleasures of riding and hunting.
The chateau itself is lit with a soft amber hue, the lights in the formal gardens playing against the limestone of its structure. It has rained again tonight, as it does nearly every day this time of year. The ground is soft and moist and clings with the scent of moss and water. The sound of the river is loud at night...
In the partial darkness, there is one who walks alone, slightly damp from the earlier misting, leading a large, white Andalusian toward the stables, up the gravel walk-road and to the left as one faces the village. The stables are lit, but there are no servants about this time of night. It is near midnight. But for some, the night is just beginning.
William drops the leather reins and the horse stops, standing at attention. A well-trained beast, with a knowledgable master. Breath hits the air as humid mist as he, gloved and jacketed against the chill of a Loire winter, goes about the business of untacking. Both he and the horse are a marvel. One white. The other dark. A stark, but beautiful contrast...
From the distance, there's the distinct sound of hoofbeats against the ground outside the walls. Quite a ways away, that, but yet, vaguely echoing in the still night air. It's a full gallop, approaching the wall.
A far ride that's begun before the sun set - a messenger's life is never easy, and gods forbid it should be. The rider bends forward over the red mare's neck - red for blood, red for murder. Even Isabel's opponents cannot deny that she was, in truth, murdered... and there will someday be an accounting for that death. But not, it seems, tonight.
The hooves seem to pause in their incessant beat against the earth, and then the steed leaps, clearing the wall with an ease that no mortal horse could manage. Tonight, for as long as it takes, the messengers dispersed use not mortal steeds of convenience, but the faerie horses, bringing them and themselves through the gates to the mortal world. For one night, it is as though the centuries are rolled back...
The figure on horseback is garbed in sober black riding gear - polished boots, crisp uniform with a high collar, and flowing charcoal black and grey cloak fastened with a silver pin, hood drawn up. Gloved hands on the reins, he approaches the stables, cantering to a halt.
Hooves were heard certainly by the gate. The gate within view of the chateau itself. And indigo eyes narrowed. The saddle dropped. The stallion alert and calling out. Does it know? Offspring of the horse he rode in every campaign, even his last. And those since, in all those centuries since Arsuf and the Third Crusade. Where William Plantagenet was, a white Andalusian was to follow. Years ago, that great sire met an unfortunate end, and this, the last of those he sired, hand-raised. Now he and his sire's master are of one mind. And one blood.
How like a Norman to make revenants of horses...
A gloved hand has hold of the most modern gun in his inner jacket pocket. William inclines his head, horse at his shoulder, gun concealed for now. And the air is heavy with majesty. Perhaps that is what happens when you come unexpected to the property of an Almost King.
Was I not speaking earlier about being rusty? Lord, you have an odd way of answering questions...
Power is backlit by the stable's spotlight, and in that hue William raises an eyebrow. State your business, says the look. Do it quickly, hums the air.
There's the suggestion almost of a smile beneath the heavy hood, and one gloved and gauntleted hand lifts to pull the fabric back from his face. Oak-white tresses that have been bound back carefully with a leather thong, locks of hair having been braided here, tied into knots there, fall round an angular face with shrewd gaze, currently weighted down by darkness. He manages a smile nonetheless, though, and carefully dismounts before he speaks.
He's a small man, topping five feet only by perhaps four inches, and his storm-grey eyes crinkle as he regards the Norman. "It has been a few years, hasn't it, lord." He hadn't really expected to recognize the people he delivered to, but well, why not? He bows courteously, with a flourish. Memory may go two ways, or only one, but it is of little concern to him - Mad Peter hasn't spent this much time on earth in centuries.
"It seems I have one more charge to be delivered to you, then ... you can put your hand away from weapons, I mean you no harm. The Lady Isabel has sent me." He drops to one knee easily, letting the weight of majesty roll over his shoulders without demurral, but a casual grace which says, louder than words, You may be master here, but never mine...
A gloved hand stays right where it is for a moment, but then, even before you give a herald's oath, fingers were moving away, and the imminent use... postponed at the very least. It has been eight centuries? The mind is slow to recognize, it has to journey back some distance. But in the end it is the subtle that reminds him. The crinkle of your eyes. He remembers the dankness of a Welsh forest. Mud up to his eyebrows. A different white horse then, though who could tell it was so with so much of Wales worn on its hide. "A few," William murmurs. The guard is not down, but you are regarded with less hostility -- nothing personal -- and more reserved respect. Both hands are visible. "You'll pardon the reaction," he is sure. "What last charge brings you all this way..." Lady Isabel? Hmmm... where have I heard that name before? A hand motions. "No need to kneel -- I'm neither king nor pope."
Still an eyebrow is cocked up in curiosity. Still, the demeanor is one of a general prince, a dux bellorum. Majesty no longer directed toward you, and yet it hovers around him. Part of it, innate to his existence...
He rises to his feet easily, chin lifting, hands falling to his sides. The reins are allowed to dangle, and the red mare does not move, uncanny intelligence in her eyes. There is no gleam of madness to his eyes, but then, he earned his title through action and speech. Mad Peter allows one corner of his mouth to curve up in a slight smile, a familiarity to his mobile features for a moment before it lapses away into remoteness.
"You were, I believe, one of those priveleged at the last to hear her sing. Lady Isabel had not sung for many years... but for you, she sang." The messenger's regard is steady, not quite hostile, but probing. Why would she have sung for him, and not for her own kind? A riddle, to be sure... and one which may have political meaning that crosses all courts.
"At any rate, I come from her, to you, at her bidding - the Lady did ask it of me in particular, and so I am here. Will you receive what I have brought?"
Isabel. That Isabel. The one in the vineyards. The sometime self of the little slip of a girl he wanted, but then could not bring himself, to ruin. As it were. Once it was Isabel who came to Chinon. Once it was the girl with the same face but more regular speaking patterns. There is recognition, finally, in his eyes as he places her. He will think long and hard of the campaign in Wales, and of Davydd, tonight, now that he sees you and she were connected. Somehow.
"Of course," William says simply. Then his own mouth curves upward, slightly. That smile. Maybe it was for the smile that she sang for him. Women have done all sorts of things for it in the past. "I am still a man of honor, despite the length of my years." Maybe that's saying something. "The least I can do in thanks for that song is to listen to her again, through you."
Very formally, then, comes the response. "I thank you for your patience and countenance, and am sure that she would be pleased that you are willing to receive me. The Lady Isabel, sovereign White Queen over Nine Trees and Nine Knots..." The rider lifts his hand, pressing it lightly to the mare's flank. There is a symbiosis there, even on the ground, of horse and rider able to be one.
"It is my duty to bring to you the news of her death." Peter, the messenger, Peter, the Huntsman, speaks steadily, but a wave of grief so strong as to be alien and inhuman crashes through those storm-grey eyes as palpably as a wall of wind and water might smash into him. Whatever the death may mean to him, he does not expect the same reaction from anyone else, it seems. He pauses a moment, as though waiting for response, reaction, or even just the sign to continue.
That gets a blink. All of it does really. The whole thing. He never understood the 'personality' that met him one night, and the other with the same face dripping with Punk Manifesto. And she's dead? The queen or the girl?
He has a human complexion, ruddied and darkened still with his last mortal hours, spent in the desert of the Holy Land. Darkened by blood he contains and imbibes. It is possible for him to blush. It is also possible for him to go pale. Raven eyebrows knit together and both perplexion and mourning reign. Such a young creature, to have such ... lofty titles? And now, dead.
"I'm very sorry to hear of her passing," William says, finally. Not comprehending it on one hand. Sorry for it on the other. "She..." was very young, he almost says. ".. She was a good soul..." And he wonders what sort of soul...
To be called a queen...
To wear rock and roll t-shirts and torn and faded jeans...
No reincarnation of Joan of Arc would have an immortal rider on a blood-red unreal mare...
"The Lady was," Peter agrees, unsmiling. "She will be grieved and sorely missed. However, she bid me give you this." And he turns to the saddlebag, unfastening the shined buckles and lifting the strap, withdrawing a package wrapped in costly silk, the pale colour of primrose petals. Turning, he holds it out in offering.
"There is a letter," the Huntsman adds, "inside... please, take it. I have other people I must make delivery to, before my ride is finished." And then to return to my own kingdoms, and nevermore seek mortal lands... until the next time, that is, I am needed.
There's a part of his vampiric, and by that reptilian brain, that listens for a ticking sound...
But his hands are fearless. They take it easily as it's offered. Without question. William nods and half turns, holding the silk-wrapped thing in his hands. You have your leave, Peter...
Pivoting, the old duke looks to you. Questions in his eyes. Wondering, truly, what this is all about. And how you and he and Davydd are all on this earth at one time. And what did Drancy have to do with it all? The girl with the modern mouth and the timeless eyes.
Davydd has something to do with this...
"Go well then, Peter," William nods. "The way is clear and safe from Poitiers to Tours, Chenonceau to Chinon," his region, as it is.
One foot to a stirrup, and he hoists himself up into the saddle, and Peter nods, accepting the words. "My roads take me far from your lands tonight. I travel the old roads, this eve..." And there's something that tightens in his face for a moment, a feral savagery of anger that shows a distinct family resemblance, for a moment only, before it's smoothed away to remoteness once again. The hair, though not the eyes...
He turns his mare, and without so much as a nudge, the steed begins to pick up speed, hoofbeats moving silently and gracefully across the ground to the wall, and over it once again. Evidently the sound was a courtesy, upon his approach...
The silk contains two items, from the feel - a box, probably carved wood, and something that crinkles like folded parchment. Whether or not there are answers contained within, it is certain that it cannot be less informative than Peter, much of whose gay madness has fled him, has proven.
"This is turning out to be a very strange night," William murmurs to the horse. The stallion, who in his own boredom earlier turned his nose to the nearby sodded ground, moves his ears toward the sound of William's voice and grunts. But otherwise does not stop eating. A solid pat of a gloved Plantagenet paw lands squarely on the horse's hindend -- he does the same thing to Ian, actually -- getting the animal's attention. "Go on," and a hand gestures to the open stall.
As the white horse heads into its stall, and to the better provisions of waiting oats and hay, gloved hands gently pull away the silk wrappings, unfolding it like the primrose it seems.
His mind is awake and moving in overdrive, if silently. But there is One who can hear it. Feel it as palpably as if it were happening between his own ears...
William's expression is placid as his face is downturned to the box in his hands...
There is no ticking, and apparently, no trickery. A wooden box is carved with twining vines and herbs and flowers along the seams, with an easily lifted latch. Normal enough, in essence. A piece of oiled parchment is tucked in, latch closing loosely over it, as if a tongue being stuck out, a red wax seal holding the missive closed.
The seal is not one which has often been seen on this plane, an elegant creation of knotwork around a single drop of water. The wax has had plenty of time to harden, by now, but hasn't cracked in the least, waiting to be opened.
As ever, he opens the note before the rest of the gift is even cracked. William steps a pace or two back, toward the lights of the stables, and a finger cracks the seal. Both hands joining to unfold the parchment as his arm holds the box tucked against his side.
The mind is stilled... hushed for a moment out of curiosity...
And for whatever reason, he has the feeling that this is more a beginning... than an end...
Immaculate calligraphy, forest green ink set to creamy parchment, the words are not in English - perhaps out of deference for the one to whom the note has been written. An older form of French, this, flavoured with both formality and intimacy. There is no opening salutation - and really, what would be appropriate?
'By now, the news of my passing will have reached you. I know there was little between us for you to mourn, but I could not allow a debt to lie between us unanswered, and though you are perhaps unaware of it, that does not mean that it ought go unpaid.
In my dotage, you were kind to me, and gave me hospitality where you need not have done, knowing me not at all save as the youngest of my children, who to this day remains unaware of my presence and my having taken her to your lovely home for that brief visit. It is often difficult to resist the right and power of blood, droit du seigneur, and that you left her untouched and unharmed was a noble thing.
I cannot repay you in ways which you would perhaps find meaningful, so all I ultimately may do is give to you a token of mine, and of my people, in thanks for your kindnesses both to me and to Fiona. I do not know if you will see her again, but I pass now from this life, and whatever hopes or regrets I may have shall go with me into the world beyond.
All that I ask is that if you think of me, think of me kindly, and do not judge Fiona too harshly - my light and hers are very different, and fire and water are two very different elements. In death as in life, I remain,
Isabel
The note is signed with a flourish, but left bare of titles and addresses. Perhaps she felt it would be too ostentatious - or more probably, felt that they would be more confusing than necessary.
It is as much Guillaume XI of Poitou who reads this note, as it is the William Plantagenet that others have come to know. One, a most competent general and good-hearted man. The other, long-lived Ventrue, general and artist. There is open relief, and perhaps a strange relief, that Fiona.. Drancy... Joan... The Girl is still alive. But the mortal ... lack of comprehension now settles more heavily than before. For all his complexion and his Seeming, he is that young duke, full five-and-twenty but no more, who has just been shown, in a way, that the world is larger than he thought it.
Eight centuries of immortality or no...
And how long has it been, Guillaume, since you were called... noble...
Hands slowly fold the note and with a blink and a shake of his head, he opens the box. More to put the note in it than to really look at the bauble.
Of course, one desire will lead to the other...
The box is easily opened - a flip of the clasp, and it's open, revealing its contents to the world underneath the sky.
Resting on a bed of pale green velvet is a rose, petals tightly furled shut. It looks real, soft and delicate, as though a breath would stir its leaves - but the light shines off of it just slightly wrong, and draws closer scrutiny.
It proves to be made of countless miniscule gems - dark emeralds for stem and thorns, touches of onyx and amber on the thorns, rubies and chrysoprase joined together for each petal. And when lifted ...
The petals slowly furl open, blossoming outwards to reveal a tiny drop of gold with a diamond at its edge, a teardrop of dew sliding down towards the flower's heart. Softly, almost inaudibly, Isabel's voice can be heard, singing in some strange language, before it trails off into the unbroken silence.
And for the fifth or sixth time in this single night, William simply blinks. Blinks out of the natural rhythm where blinks occur. Blinks in shock. And then in something of amazement. Against black gloves and in such a night, the gemmed rose stands out.
Without a word, the rose is set back in its box, with its note, wrapped in the silk. As if he had never opened it...
The rose falls closed again as it is placed down, petals furling tightly shut. It doesn't go anywhere, though, and the note remains intact - no sudden disappearances, nothing to indicate that this is a dream and nothing more than a dream. Indeed, hoofprints scar the earth where the blood-red mare's progress has tracked up the ground - silenced hooves, perhaps, but not immaterial.
Posted by rowan at June 21, 2003 10:37 PM
