This story is a work of fiction. It contains descriptions of, and expressions of, physical affection without regard for affectional orientation. If you find this type of story offensive, or if you are underage and it is illegal for you to read it, please exit now. All characters are fictional and in no way related to any persons living or deceased. Any such similarity is purely coincidental and uncanny.
This work is copyrighted by the author and may not be reproduced in any form without the specific written consent of the author. It is assigned to the Nifty Archives under the provisions of their submission guidelines but it may not be copied or archived on any other site without the direct consent of the author.
My thanks to Rob for his editing, his offerings, and his guidance.
I can be contacted at Bookwyrm6@yahoo.com
Copyright 2003 Kristopher R. Gibbons All rights reserved by the author.
33 Most Holy Fear
Guildenstern: Most holy and religious fear it is
To keep those many many bodies safe
That live and feed upon your majesty.
Hamlet Act 3, Scene 3, lines 8-10
"There is more to discuss. Can you forgive the late hour and tarry a trifle longer?" Evendal asked, looking from one friend to the other.
Metthendoenn nodded, and rasped a bitter reply. "So long as I know Ierwbae remains virtuously at post on the other side of that jamb."
Aldul's answer followed hard upon. "And any matter we discuss would be sweeter than my sleep has been. Say on."
"I cannot, while my friends live hourly in such distemper. Metthendoenn, has Ierwbae given you more cause for distress?"
The young man shook his head, unconvincingly.
"Your manner, the very tenor of your countenance, tells me otherwise. Or are you not certain?"
"If my whole body did not ache I would be at the pells with a waster, even now. No, I am not certain. How can I know? Four..." He swallowed hard. "Four years ago he acted little different than he does now, than he has over the last three years. I would not know if he were true, or if he were handing out markers for liaisons during his free time! He says he loves me. He's... he's a lot less impatient with me than he had been. And all I can think is, 'Whom else have you said that to?' But... but he could have anyone... And has! Yet he still tries to succour me, to woo me; so he must mean it, else he would be long gone and engaging others, not suffering under the scourge of my doubts and distrust."
Aldul watched in fascination as Metthendoenn's face and voice expressed an uncongenial sequence of reactions: From worry and anxiety, through petulance, into affectionate concern, a brief display of bitterness, only to end in self-deprecation and self-doubt. Clearly Metthendoenn had spoken to no one, confided his situation to nobody, resulting in this conflation of his pains and uncertainties.
The King was not so phlegmatic as Aldul. "I hear from you a distress at your own indignation. True or no?"
"I see the pain my wrath evokes, and doubt I'm just."
"That pain finds its like in your own heart, and makes you cringe. Offering empty solace that you do not truly feel will only grant him sanction to wrong you again. Unlike many, your love requires you to act as would a king. You must remain as cunning as a serpent, and stern against evil. True, patient, just, generous, and persuasive, affirming what is good in him. He has a lifetime of lies he has told himself -- and you. Your heart will never heal free of bitterness, nor will he learn new habits, if you place his comfort ahead of your truth.
"Does no one heed me?" He flung out his hand in a purposed excess of drama. "All my pithy sayings, and deep thoughts and chestnuts of wisdom... Do they fall on deaf ears?"
Aldul knew his duty. "We couldn't tell it for the dunnage and sewage, Your Majesty. How does one know the difference?"
"There is none."
Slightly scandalised, Metthendoenn smirked briefly.
"In truth, cousin," said Evendal m'Alismogh, "were he to fail his better self again, I would know of it, and then so would you. I pledge to your peace of mind that much. And I can affirm that he is and has been true since his profession to us."
"So often I wonder what I did, or failed to do... But he insists... He says I could have been the most insatiable rake and he would yet have... put horns on me. How do I help him secure his integrity? And ease my heart?"
Befuddled, Evendal looked in vain to Aldul. When the Kwo-edan merely shrugged, the King tentatively replied. "You cannot. But he has made himself vulnerable, reassured you where he could have kept silence, and tarred himself instead. Ierwbae stays honest, and has only one cause for it; he loves you."
Exasperated, Metthendoenn shot back, "His love I do not now question; it is his steadfastness and trustworthiness that he has marred and imperilled."
Evendal could think of no answer that he had not already given. "And?"
"Of late, I do not know how to have common speech with him."
After a quicksilver pulse of annoyance, Evendal responded, "If you cannot think of what to say, say nothing. Do you truly want to share your life with him as your heart's haven and equal? When you look at him or think on him, is he someone you ascribe such worth to?"
"Yes," Metthendoenn replied, looking surprised at the question. "He is... He is Ierwbae. Large-hearted, earnest, passionate..."
"I need no list of his qualities, cousin. I would depend on him for much, and do. Accept that, for a time, every joy you shared will feel tainted with uncertainty and a tincture of melancholy, and so must be reclaimed. Then do so! And if your silences together are burdensome, perhaps you or he needs to unburden."
After looking down as his child laboured to stay awake, Evendal added, "It is not just that you have to struggle so much to refashion a bond you yourself did not imperil, but love and equity seldom meet amicably, if at all."
"I do not want to add to the turmoil he feels, but I have my own," Metthendoenn choked out.
"When what you have to tell him sounds accusatory, preface your charge with just such a profession. When you fear indeed that he might see attack where there is none, preface your words with just that reassurance. Do not hide from him the wreckage he has caused, lest his worser impulses use your silence for ill. But ask of him, after, the sharing of some intimacy; thusways you two confirm your mutual purpose in a manner that words cannot confuse." Evendal's tone had turned thoughtful, slow, and reflective, almost dreamlike.
"My thanks, Your Majesty," Metthendoenn said, signalling his wish to cease the dissection of his painful unveilings.
Evendal frowned. Metthendoenn's use of the honorific pushed him away, creating a distance that stung him. "Stop that, Metthendoenn!" he snapped, his eyes flaring.
"Have I displeased...?"
"Your emphasising the difference in our estates is a gesture of mere pride. I have none, and yours will only guarantee you a comfortless solitude."
"You deny me my dignity?"
"Think but a moment and you will see how absurd is that idea. Dignity is not invoked or evoked. It either emerges from one's sincerity and courage or it is a sham. Do not adorn yourself wilfully with the colours(127) of a victim seeking a victim's wages. I am your friend and brother; I ken no diminishing in either you or Ierwbae. Do not fear my eye or sense, brother, I beg of you."
"It feels so strange to know you my King and call you beloved friend, brother."
"No more strange than for me, after being so long isolate, to say 'brother' to anyone. Take now my hand, and Kri-estaul's, and see we are no different flesh."
Metthendoenn complied, and smiled with less strain than had been seen on his face in over a sennight.
"See, now, Aldul, what you have crafted?"
"How so... Evendal?"
The King grinned. "'Twas you that rescued my form from the Wastes, and you that safeguarded my heart and mind after Abduram's death. You that again shielded the throne of my sense when I learned of my true parentage, and when I ignored my better instincts toward Kri-estaul's amputation. I suspect I would have been a ravening of rage, fear, and deadly glamour but for your intercession."
"I happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time." The smirk on Aldul's face eased Evendal's yet unvoiced worries but did not erase them. "It's a knack."
"Having been my shield, the lancet for the sore of my fears, and the support to my faltering progress, let me be whatever you might need here and now."
"I know not what that might be, my friend."
"Your sleep?"
"Has been indifferent, that is true. The cold, I deem."
M'Alismogh shook his head. "The night after Tothi's death passed peacefully enough for you. Pray, report for me what night since have you slept without remembered pain or terror?"
"None."
"Aldul," Evendal besought gently, "I know you find succour in silence, in keeping your joys and troubles locked behind the walls of the only safe place you have. Refute your custom for a time; talk to me."
For the first time in Evendal's experience, Aldul's skin darkened significantly in a deep blush. "What would you have me say?"
"No!" the King barked, alarmed. "I would not have you say anything. I do not command or coerce. I only ask. You felt free enough to mention your travail but a moment ago. Elucidate or not, solely at your will."
Aldul sat still, considering at length. Here, if nowhere else, he felt none of the tension that had imbued his life in Kwo-eda. Initially, he did not know what the difference was, but from the moment he first saw Bruddbana pale at Evendal's tears over Onkira, he felt... focused, engaged, and unencumbered by the pains that still clamoured for attention. People needed him for what he knew, what he felt, and not what he represented -- an unmated generative male. Blithely, he had befriended the most puissant man of his time, and that man asked for his confidences. Evendal had not needed to reinforce what Aldul had presumed: If he did not feel free to speak his heart, Evendal would not take umbrage; the King would only assume Aldul felt too vulnerable, too endangered still, and would seek some other way of easing his friend's cares.
Kri-estaul, despite heroic effort, had succumbed to the demands of the late bell, and slept as he had trained himself -- with mouth closed.
At first, Aldul squinted slightly against the glow from Evendal's eyes. Even as he looked, some change commenced and the glare transmuted, or his perception did. The Kwo-edan looked away, and then back again; what had been a radiant glare of orb-aching light now shone to him as a nimbus, like a burnished sundog around Evendal's head. Aldul held himself willing, open to any proving the King might need to gauge his uberrima fides(128_ even as he answered, "The Temples have disciplines, pathways of consideration, and arts of memory. Should I exhaust those and yet need, I would turn to you, my friend." Less certainly, he added, "What I need for the nonce is what you wordlessly offer every day."
"You have it, 'til the horizon rolls the landscape back over us.(129)
Aldul scowled. "Do not make such a promise so recklessly."
The King shook his head, his attention seemingly on his somnolent son. "To live as a good ruler I must exercise memory, intelligence, and foresight(130). This makes it easier to be neither fearful nor rash,(131) though it is no guarantee. I know what it is you do not name, and I cherish it as well. My door, as my heart, is always open to you.
"To return to the second concern for which I have kept you from your slumbers. Kri-estaul disturbed the progression of a dream. I lay in a ship's cabin -- one well-appointed -- and was not alone. One other person was beside me: long sable locks, dimples, high cheekbones, with eyes more black than grey. This one and I exchanged..." Here he paused, discommoded. "We offered each other... tenders of deep affection." Evendal reckoned that he sounded moonstruck, the one bespelled rather than the one spelling.
"And what does this bode? What does it signify?" Metthendoenn asked, confused at the consequence given to dreams this night.
"The personality is one that I have encountered before. The circumstance and manner of converse were all familiar, comfortable, and comforting. The measure of my sensate clarity, responsiveness, and mental acuity was duplicate to this moment. 'Twas either a memory or direct communion."
"What did you see? Did any element draw your eyes more than any other?" Metthendoenn asked.
Evendal pondered. "A huge arc of ivory, with a haft whittled out of it. The inner curve was embattled by nature, a rayonny pattern.(132) It hung like an ornament on a wall of the cabin."
"So someone had fashioned a grip on this bit of bone?"
The King nodded, ashiver at the memory.
Aldul piped up, "Any other notables? Sounds? Smells?"
"Wet wood, tar, salt brine, and betony smoke. The winelike sweet scent of sophisticated beer on the other's breath. Our breaths misted too, as they do now because of this season's weather here. The only sounds I recall were a deep voice and the creaking of the ship."
"Not a memory, then," Aldul decided, on hearing of the fogging.
"The person had dimples," Evendal blurted in sudden recollection.
Metthendoenn smirked. "Nor a phantasm, I warrant," he remarked, impressed by the amassing of detail.
"My thanks to you both. I but wanted some confirmation of my own abstracts. Cudgelling my mind for answers serves no purpose, so I am no closer to a name or history for this person. I only know that the one I beheld is dear to me. And still lives."
"The tides of your life will give up such pearls when they are ready to, and not before," Metthendoenn assured, and stifled a yawn.
"Then I hope it is soon," Evendal muttered in disgust. "I am tired of the mystery. Touching on 'mystery'... Our discussion reminds me that our cuckoo's fool(133) needs to be aspersed, and soon."
"The Lady Onkira? How, in this weather?" Aldul asked.
"Earlier I admonished Kri-estaul not to revive the past. I suspect I might manage to do just that for long enough to accomplish my purpose. Let me consider further and we will speak more on this after the sun has risen.
"Is there aught else either of you would share in this moment of privacy?" Both men shook their heads. "Then I bid you find what rest the last of this night can offer you."
Metthendoenn stood, bowed and walked out. Aldul tarried.
"Your Majesty..."
Evendal had begun covering Kri-estaul in the bedclothes, but stopped at the tone of uncertainty and straightened. "What is toward, my friend? Would you sleep better in our company?"
Aldul shook his head more vigorously. "Quite the opposite, Your... Evendal. I would ask, is the room next to be mine for the length of my tenure?"
"Only if that is agreeable to you. You know that, surely."
"Yes. Then I would ask that the curtains, though traditional to your Palace, be removed from that apartment's entry, and a solid door be placed in their stead. Birch, but if birch is not feasible, then oak."
The King had never heard of such as a furnishing aboveground employed for personal use. "Of course. I did not think. There must be other customs that discomfort you as well, peculiar to the Thronelands."
The Kwo-edan hesitated, clearly uncomfortable with the very moment. "I would not leave you so deceived. From long ago Kwo-eda adopted Osedys's practise of curtaining doorways; we simply hang them with sheerer silks, like sendal(134), and claim to be the originators of the fashion entire. No, my request is peculiar to me. I ask this for myself."
"Work shall begin on it tomorrow," Evendal vowed.
"I don't... I sleep better knowing no one can surprise me..."
Evendal raised a hand, eschewing explanations. "It promises some measure of peace for you. That is the matter. It is done. You do realise that people are going to speculate what mysteries you hide in so secured a room."
Aldul opened his mouth to protest, and then saw the smirk on his friend's face. He responded with an answering grin of his own, abetted by relief. "Let them!"
(127) I.e., household colours.
(128) The most apt correspondence I have found, though its current semantic arena is legal not interpersonal:
http://www.theiob.org.uk/digest/u/utmost_good_faith.html "A contract uberrimae fidei... is not just a matter of ordinary commercial good faith but one of the utmost good faith. The principle works both ways... The picture conjured up by the expression is that of two men of equal standing -- though not necessarily of equal commercial power -- sitting in a quiet corner of a busy market place and settling the details of a contract which is intended to benefit both. An essential part of the bargain is an understanding that each has taken the other entirely into his confidence. If there were to be any question of one withholding from the other what he needs to know, the entire transaction would be void."
(129) From a common marchen in which the participants' world is a scroll.
(130) The three components of the fundamental virtue of Prudence (memoria, intelligentia, providentia): To order present matters, to foresee future ones, to record past ones.
(131) 'Nec timidum esse hominem nec audacem'... from the Formula Honestae Vitae of Martin of Braga (6th cen.). Sobrietas; Temperance.
(132) Evendal is employing heraldic terms for the apparently natural serration on this object.
(133) The cuckoo is a bird that lays an egg and then leaves it in the nest of another bird species. The egg is incubated and hatched by the other bird, which may even feed the resulting chick in preference to its own.
(134)A thin light silk used in the Middle Ages for fine garments, church vestments, and banners.
Short, I know, but it seemed to both Rob & I as complete even in its brevity.